Early Warning

Crusade, Collapse, 'n' Stuff...

2006-12-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

Our feerlez leedor had the unsurprising lack of intellect to brush the American response to the struggles in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Crusade. This puts an artificial superstructural excuse on a much more fundamental and dire grab for resources - much like painting lipstick on a pig.

Crusade is irrelevant.

What matters are resources and the control and production of them.

The vagaries of culture are simply accidents of history. If Mohammed had convinced millions of people of atheism, or if the Xians hadn't completely mangled the golden rule from a double negative that encourages passivity to a double positive that recommends interference, I am sure the events would have played out differently, but the fundamentals would still have been the same.

What we are facing is something quite different.

If one insists on using the lens of Crusade, then one can see that the west seeks hegemony over the oil that the Islamic locals now enjoy.

As I said, I don't think it's relevant. Also, I am uncertain as to whether it is actual or reasonable to think of a Western Roman "collapse", as much as it was a strategic withdrawal by the elite to more profitable places. Constantine could see, from his heinously expensive wars in Gaul, that Western Europe was a dud - a money pit, a black hole where wealth gets poured and little else comes back. In energistic terms, it had a negative ER/EI - Energy Return divided by Energy Invested. He went broke chasing the barbarian army around France, and converted to Christianity to loosen up the funds in a dominantly Christian run Treasury. This insight ran a hundred years earlier than Constantine - to Emperor Diocletian who initiated the divided between eastern and western Roman Empires.

And every rich family in Rome with any sense at all invested in the east. West of Roman Power? Celts. Illiterate pagan "savages". To the north? Picts. Nutty people from Scotland who painted themselves blue, which gets them all hopped up and crazy. And the Northeast was populated by Huns and Goths and other unsavoury groups. To the South? The Sea, and beyond the sea? Excellent farms hard up against the largest desert on the planet. To the East? All The Money In The World. Big Rivers, and the ancient civilisations of what is now Palestine, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Iran, India, China, and the Silk Road through Afghanistan... Let's see, Celts vs. Greeks. Picts vs. India. Goths vs. Persians. Hmmmm. Not a hard choice to make there!

Within 200 years, Rome was done, but the Empire lived on: a few hundred years later it was still enough of a potent social notion that Charlemagne crowned himself the Holy Roman Emperor....

From a post in a Bay Area Energy group, by Dave Fridley, primary author of the SF City Council Depletion Protocol Study Proclamation (who deserves a medal, IMHO):

"In Roman times, 85-90% of the population were the energy producers--that is, the farmers--whose surplus energy supported the 10-15% of the population (including the emperor, army, musicians, artists, vagabonds, merchants and so forth) who were not directly involved in energy production. In the US today, 3% of the population (and vast amounts of fossil fuels) provides the surplus to support the 97% of the population not directly involved in energy production. In that regard, only the "elite" of the empire would have even noticed a material change with "collapse"."

Today, North Americans and Europeans are the elites. Again: Fridley writes:

"Although some Roman historians lamented the passing of the Republic (which lasted for about 400 years--longer than ours--til about 40 BC), I've never read anything of a self-aware group that looked at the material conditions of the empire and predicted collapse over some centuries in the future. That, I think,would be pretty much unlikely at the time, since in Western civilizations, at least, it wasn't until the publication of Thomas More's Utopia in 1516 that we ever viewed the future as a better place than the past, and thus see decline as something odd. Before then, the "Golden Age" of man--what civilizations aspired to, were always those of the past, and history was considered a process of degeneration. With this kind of world view, what exactly would "collapse" mean to one of the elite Romans and how exactly would it have mattered to the 90% of the population who lived in stasis?"

It's also important to remember why the Romans would even bother invading England and Wales... Why? Tin. the Phoenicians were in Wales 1500bce. At the time, there was so much tin in Wales, it came up out of the ground in extremely rich ores of black, almost purely metallic, material. It was harvested and sent back to Phoenicia to make bronze. The Romans were Iron Age people, but bronze was still a vital metal, and tin had many other purposes. The production of tin peaked during Roman times and went into depletion. England became worth less to the Romans, and yet another reason to abandon Western Europe.

So, to talk of a "collapse" of the Roman empire, as Fridley notes, is an act of 20/20 hindsight. After Constantine gave up on it, it took centuries for Rome to be sacked and leveled by the people it had violently oppressed. The Romans had no sense of a "utopian future", so calamity was always the word of the day.

Again Fridley:

"Compare this as well to the worldview of the Chinese, who developed a sophisticated view of rise and fall that came from thousands of years of dynasties rising then collapsing. To a Chinese, this was a natural phenomenon, and they created a whole phenomenology around it, including the concept of "mandate of heaven" (tianming) that gave the emperor his right to rule, and the withdrawal of the mandate that led to the collapse of the dynasty, usually indicated by natural disasters. It survived to the 20th century even...the massive Tangshan earthquake of July 1976 was commonly seen as the event that withdrew the mandate of heaven from Chairman Mao, and indeed, he died 2 months later and his regime overthrown."

And a few years later the post-punk music combo The Gang of Four would sing:

Out on the street: assassinate all of them
look so desperate declare blood war
on the bourgeois state too!
Watch new blood on the 18 inch screen
The corpse is a new personality
Ionic charge brings immortality
Guerrilla war struggle is the new entertainment!!!
Guerrilla war struggle is the new entertainment!!!
Guerrilla war struggle is the new entertainment!!!
Guerrilla war struggle is the new entertainment!!!

Fridley continues:

"...Kunstler (I believe) had a good insight into this as well. He remarked on the phenomenon of "temporal amnesia"--the fact that we forget how things were after a period of change, such as living in the same place for a long time. This building is replaced. Those trees are planted. Social security benefits are reduced. Copays go up. Food prices creep up. After 10 years, things are materially different, but do you really remember how it used to be? Over several hundred years of collapse, who in Rome or Mesopotamia or any of the other major civilizations that collapsed have had the historical context to talk about "collapse"?"

What we have, and the romans didn't have, are the basic laws of physics that govern all energetic systems. One big rule is: you can't get more energy out of a system than what is already there. There is no energy fairy. When most work is done by hand, your farmers are the energy producers. When most work is done by hand, most work is in energy production.

Another big rule is: In a closed system, energy is never lost, it simply degrades in quality (thermodynamics - entropy).

These facts speak far beyond any localised temporal curiosities of "culture" or "religion" or any quibbling about that. It's all really very simple: look at yeast in a sugar/water solution. Do the math. The earth's carrying capacity for humans has been exceeded (youngquist: Geodestinies). the remaining conflicts of civilisation will be over the remaining energy stores and metal deposits (Klare: Resource Wars) The total energy content of society will retreat. Per capita energy and resource consumption peaked in the early 1980s (per Colin Campbell). The west has been innovating to do more with less. however, this cannot continue indefinitely (see first big rule). The non-west (the so-called South) has been bearing the brunt of it all and if resources reduce too quickly, many of those nations will go into a Malthusian die off. Some (east Africa) already have: declining rainfall and increased population have produced a “Malthusian” situation where pressures on a less-productive resource base have exploded into conflict per understandingsudan.org), and some are quickly descending (Nigeria - New Yorker Article by George Packer - Lagos as the model of the city of the 21st century).

Without natural gas, there will be no miracleGro and the productivity of the planet's farms will drop dramatically. Richer nations will have older populations and more resources to feed their people. The rest won't and will die off. Nations with especially abundant food resources (such as N. America) will be using substantial amounts of food for fuel to power their heavy transport systems (trucks, trains, aircraft, mining equipment). Eventually that will be abandoned, due to population pressures.

Nations of the middle east, predominantly Islamic, will face an even tougher time - similar to those presently faced in Africa.

Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (former Prime minister of UAE):
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel."

Crusade models don't really work: they presume the primacy of the superstructural cultural machine as guides for substructural resource exploitation. In fact, the superstructural issues (crusade, war against terror, jihad, "somebody's got a bad case of the Mondays", rock and roll, hip hop TV whatever...) is actually just the excuses proffered by the elites to motivate the workers to act against their own self interests and murder other members of the working/peasant class, in order that resources may be acquired in order to maintain the facade of civilisation that maintains socio-political hierarchies as linguistic amplifications of the social dominance patterns common to primates.

87 and the election

2006-11-08T00:24:00.000-08:00

So, for those who were opposed to 87, it seems you have won.

I voted for it, although I do agree that it was flawed. I felt that in this case, flawed is better than none, and that if it raised the price of gas, all for the better.

Well, it seems many other Californians did the same analysis, came to the same conclusion, and determined that it was a Bad Thing.

Oh well.

What this tells the rest of America is that even CA, the nominal leader in ecological legislation, is unwilling to bite the bullet.

And so it goes.

At this writing, (closing in on midnight) it seems that the Democrats have taken over the House of Representatives, and the Senate is very closely divided, with two races still too close to call.

What has happened is this: American democracy stopped bleeding profusely. It is still deeply and horribly wounded - the madness of the parasitic neocons thugs of the Bush junta has done an immense amount of damage. The parasites may yet kill the host - the junta has another two years to destroy the country before another election cycle.

The craziness may start very soon - even though the Dems have won, they don't take office immediately. In the meantime, the Bush junta could easily do something completely retarded - like bomb Iran - and throw the entire Middle East into a complete maelstrom, which would only serve to dramatically scuttle any number of points of progressive legislation. Not from any lack of interest, but simply in terms of priority. Such an insane action would completely suck all the air out of the congressional chambers and they would have their hands full just trying to keep Western Civilisation (such as it is) from flying apart and preventing the rest of the planet from ganging up on the USA. Issues of health care, minimum wage, the environoment, energy independence, global warming, all of that would get punted to the back burner.

However, such a knuckleheaded action as bombing Iran could easily set the mainstream Republicans against the Bush Junta and set up not just an impeachment process, but a conviction in the Senate as well. Unfortunately, the delusional freaks who run the Junta are suffiently disconnected from reality that they may very well do something like bombing, or supporting a bombing, in Iran as they are answering not to the calculus of the realpolitik of international relations, but have their ears turned to the creepy voices in their heads that are urging them to kill, Kill, KILL, KILL!!!

If Bush is going to do something insane he will do it soon. Once the new Democratic Congress is sworn in, they will act quickly to stifle his abilities in that and other regards (such as restoring habeus corpus and posse comtatus). So, dramatic, poorly planned, rapid military action (a dunderheaded practice the junta excels at) if it is to happen, will happen soon.

American Democracy has stopped bleeding profusely. The maggots that were draining it have been partly defeated. But the patient is far from healed, and there is a very long way to go before America can say it is a leading republic. America dodged a bullet, but the assassin has cocked his pistol to take another shot. America should feel a little better for having gotten some sense in its head, but judging by the returns, it isn't much, and is certainly nowhere near where it needs to be if the USA has any hope of transitioning to a sustainable future without something resembling utter calamity and disaster as it tumbles willy nilly over the cliff of Hubberts Peak.

Tonight was a small step in a vaguely better direction. There is far to go and much to do.

Professor Dumbledore warns Harry Potter:

“Soon we must face the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

Let us hope that we soon find the strength to do what is right.

-Stuart Studebaker

Interesting mileage data

2006-11-05T12:35:00.002-08:00

On an energy list I subscribe to (sf-bay-oil) an fellown named Earl Killian did a bunch of research on the actual mpg of various forms of transportation. The data follows. Basically, trains, as they are presently implemented, are not as efficient as one might think.

From his post:

The good news is that I dug up yet more efficiency data, which shows that some mass transit can be pretty efficient. I found a reference which claims they measured BART energy use and passenger miles for two weeks and computed 136 MPG, which is pretty good (a fair bit better than a Prius, and a lot better than the Amtrak commuter rail numbers). Better numbers were claimed for BART rush hour use, but for the same reason as above, I think you need to look at the global picture. BART is of course electric, like the RAV4-EV (176 MPG at 1.57 load factor). Even better is SBB, the Swiss Rail system: 279 MPG. (It is also electric, and their electricity is primarily hydro, so little greenhouse gas emissions there.)


Transportation          MPG, single     Load    MPG at
                        passenger       Factor  Load    Electric?

Automobiles (ICE)        22.2            1.57    35
Personal trucks          17.9            1.72    31
Motorcycles              45.1            1.22    55
Transit buses                            9.1     30
Airlines                                95.8     34
Intercity trains                        14.0     26
Commuter trains                         33.5     46
Prius HEV (2006)         55              1.57    86     Partial
TGV                                             128     Yes
BART                                            136     Yes
Hypercar                 90              1.57   141     Yes
RAV4-EV                 112              1.57   176     Yes
Tesla                   135              1.22   165     Yes
Walking                 235              1      235
SBB (Swiss Rail)                                279     Yes
Bicycling               653              1      653

I am wondering where an ebike fits into all of this. when I find out I'll post that. What is startling is how lousy the trains fair. It could be that they do poorly because they are so underutilised and have a great deal of embedded energy, but I could be wrong... More soon.

how we get around...

2006-10-29T18:40:00.000-08:00

A gentleman on the ROE3 list wrote about the 30mph solution, where the speed limit would be limited to 30mph, and infractions would be dealt with severely. He is correct in one sense: faster vehicles eat more energy, so drastically reducing the limit would certainly reduce demand for gas.

What he failed to realise is that many cars are tuned for optimal mileage at a much higher speed - as one cruises the highway at a steady 2000rpm, it is easier for the electronic fuel distribution to optimise. At lower speeds, one speeds up, slows down, speeds up, slows down, etc. This results in suboptimal mileage, even though you are technically going slower.

The Toyota Prius purports to fix this a bit by shutting the gas engine off when stopped or otherwise not needed. This helps.

The biggest obstacle to such an idea is not technical, but social, and it has to do with the fact that most people are stupid and lazy, and are not going to give up the Ford Excursion until the keys are pried out of their fat dead cold fingers, because, well, they're lazy and stupid.

I replied to the gentleman, and this is my reply:

The 30MPH Solution (30ms) is right but incorrect.

Earlier someone posted that they get better mileage at higher speeds. This was also true of my recently deceased Audi A4. But - that's really not the point, oddly enough.

We have to look to what we use transportation devices for, and that's a variable. I have to go visit a friend for breakfast. I have to go to work. I have to collect gorceries. I have to take my daughter to school. I have to move some furniture.

Visit a friend? I can ride a bike. Because I live almost 180 m above sea level, and only a few km from the beach, getting home is a climb, so I find an electric assist bike is extremely efficient.

According to Heinberg, an electric bike uses less energy than actually pedalling, due to the embodied energy in the food - but that is also a digression, albeit an interesting one...

So, I roll down to the Haight, stumble into All You Knead, and chat up the lovely blonde bespectacled waitress, Sarah, until my friend Jerry shows up with a copy of the Guardian. After a big breakfast that's damn hard to beat for the dollar, I can climb back on the ebike and make my way up the hill. All told? just a fraction of the 24v 500w battery was used - VASTLY more efficient than the A4, which had to not only haul my giant frame up the hill, but also the 1500 kg of its own glass, steel, and plastic.

The ebike is extremely efficient and does the job.

I also have to go to work. that is also handlily accomplished with the ebike, as it is only a few miles away.

But: on the way - I have to take Avanti to School. So, the eBike isn't going to cut it. I *could* do it, but she finds riding on the back of it too scary... So, Mrs S. drives us both in the Fambly Car, once, an Audi A4, now a Toyota Prius, and I take the subway home to face a long nasty uphill trudge, which is what passes for exercise around here.

And moving furniture? If it doesn't fit in the Prius, we rent a truck.

Now, most of America doesn't have the dubious blessing of the San Francisco Municipal Railway System or the Bay Area Rapid Transit. And a large portion of America has a double digit IQ. And so, when they work their pointless job they want the comforts of "home", they want "comfort", they want to suckle on the breast of the motherland and rather than think about an appropriate vehicle, they will think "Fuck that shit - I'll just drive an SUV and be done with it."

And they will have barbecues and tailgate parties, and all the other princes and princesses will come and feed from the mad largesse of a planet depoiled and with fatty stained tongues say, "oh my, how delicious, how delicious, oh how boring..." and their children will move to the city, just like they did, where they meet their mates, and dance the dance, and collect a career and a mortgage, and a car payment and a divorce, and an endless monotonous slogging excuse of a life where they will wonder where the time went, and why it's all coming apart, and they will blame the faceless empty OTHER for their problems and deficiencies, not seeing how it all made sense; because to them, the notion of a "level of abstraction" is something they forgot about in junior high school math, and they don't, can't, and won't understand.

So, they will feel threatened and destroy anyone who will remove their conveniences, and they will leave their pointless little lives behind, thinking they will go to heaven, never understanding that heaven's just a metaphor by which one can measure one's suffering in the here and now.

We will use it all up.

Sometimes I think it's all downhill from here.

"Hey dad - Look! No hands!"

War With Iran

2006-10-08T00:33:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems that the psychopathic retards in the White House are at it again, and are setting up a war with Iran.

The USA is alrady conducting ground operations in Iran:

Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) said, “We are conducting military operations inside Iran right now."

And several Carrier groups are going to the Persian gulf and Eastern Mediterannean - and several other countries are involved (including the UK, Israel, Canada, and Greece).

Click HERE for a A VERY detailed report on the Armada

The article also mentions that the 1st Armor has been informed that it is not being rotated out back to bases in Germany, but to Central Asia.

America is living in a dark cloud of its own making - a poisonous fog of paranoia, superstition, greed, and wilful ignorance of such staggering stupidity that America has literally become "the single greatest betrayal of the human spirit in recorded history".

I was born in the United States of America. I was raised to believe that America, while flawed, was basically good. But all I see America doing now is of such pure and hateful evil, my heart is heavy and sad. The USA is guzzling the worlds resources at an insane rate - this endless shopping spree is not gong to last. The USA is making war all over the planet - this murderous rampage cannot continue. The USA once meant something better than the ancient monarcies of Europe, the depostisms of the East, and the irrationalities of traditionalist systems from the neolithic to medieval to the modern primitive that has so beset humanity for so long. The USA once pointed the way to democracy, and while saddled with a capitalist system, it still had enough fundamental truth in it that its promise of equality and opportunity was a beacon to the world.

But sadly, the operative term is "was", for now the USA is a beaten Empire, exulting in the flames of its own destruction as it seeks ever greater glory in battle so it might control more resources for its own wasteful ends. It's a very sad thing to watch.

I walk down the street and I wonder - do these people even KNOW what is going on? I get the impression they don't. It's sad... deeply and horribly sad.

Klare on Gas Prices

2006-09-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

I have read Prof. Michael Klare's book, Resource Wars, and found it to be a brilliant examination of exactly why we see the kinds of wars and conflicts today. If you haven't read it, you can order it at abebooks.com here:

Resource Wars at abebooks.com.

The following article was written by Klare - it was emailed to me on a list to which I subscribe, so I am uncertain of its original sourcing. This article describes why we are seeing the low gasoline prices and the landscape of the immediate future of petroleum production. I agree with most of what is in the article. I disagree with his final point, "it will never get truly better until we develop an entirely new energy system based on petroleum alternatives and renewable fuels." I don't know what he means by "better", so I am uncertain as to whether I can agree with that statement. but otherwise this is a smart and incisive article. enjoy.

What Do Falling Oil Prices Tell Us about War with Iran, the Elections, and Peak-Oil Theory

By Michael T. Klare

What the hell is going on here? Just six weeks ago, gasoline prices at the pump were hovering at the $3 per gallon mark; today, they're inching down toward $2 -- and some analysts predict even lower numbers before the November elections. The sharp drop in gas prices has been good news for consumers, who now have more money in their pockets to spend on food and other necessities -- and for President Bush, who has witnessed a sudden lift in his approval ratings.

Is this the result of some hidden conspiracy between the White House and Big Oil to help the Republican cause in the elections, as some are already suggesting? How does a possible war with Iran fit into the gas-price equation? And what do falling gasoline prices tell us about "peak-oil" theory, which predicts that we have reached our energy limits on the planet?

Since gasoline prices began their sharp decline in mid-August, many pundits have attempted to account for the drop, but none have offered a completely convincing explanation, lending some plausibility to claims that the Bush administration and its long-term allies in the oil industry are manipulating prices behind the scenes. In my view, however, the most significant factor in the downturn in prices has simply been a sharp easing of the "fear factor" -- the worry that crude oil prices would rise to $100 or more a barrel due to spreading war in the Middle East, a Bush administration strike at Iranian nuclear facilities, and possible Katrina-scale hurricanes blowing through the Gulf of Mexico, severely damaging offshore oil rigs.

As the summer commenced and oil prices began a steep upward climb, many industry analysts were predicting a late summer or early fall clash between the United States and Iran (roughly coinciding with a predicted intense hurricane season). This led oil merchants and refiners to fill their storage facilities to capacity with $70-80 per barrel oil. They expected to have a considerable backlog to sell at a substantial profit if supplies from the Middle East were cut off and/or storms wracked the Gulf of Mexico.

Then came the war in Lebanon. At first, the fighting seemed to confirm such predictions, only increasing fears of a region-wide conflict, possibly involving Iran. The price of crude oil approached record heights. In the early days of the war, the Bush administration tacitly seconded Israeli actions in Lebanon, which, it was widely assumed, would lay the groundwork for a similar campaign against military targets in Iran. But Hezbollah's success in holding off the Israeli military combined with horrific television images of civilian casualties forced leaders in the United States and Europe to intercede and bring the fighting to a halt.

We may never know exactly what led the White House to shift course on Lebanon, but high oil prices -- and expectations of worse to come -- were surely a factor in administration calculations. When it became clear that the Israelis were facing far stiffer resistance than expected, and that the Iranians were capable of fomenting all manner of mischief (including, potentially, total havoc in the global oil market), wiser heads in the corporate wing of the Republican Party undoubtedly concluded that any further escalation or regionalization of the war would immediately push crude prices over $100 per barrel. Prices at the gas pump would then have been driven into the $4-5 per gallon range, virtually ensuring a Republican defeat in the mid-term elections. This was still early in the summer, of course, well before peak hurricane season; mix just one Katrina-strength storm in the Gulf of Mexico into this already unfolding nightmare scenario and the fate of the Republicans would have been sealed.

In any case, President Bush did allow Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to work with the Europeans to stop the Lebanon fighting and has since refrained from any overt talk about a possible assault on Iran. Careful never explicitly to rule out the military option when it comes to Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities, since June he has nonetheless steadfastly insisted that diplomacy must be given a chance to work. Meanwhile, we have made it most of the way through this year's hurricane season without a single catastrophic storm hitting the U.S.

For all these reasons, immediate fears about a clash with Iran, a possible spreading of war to other oil regions in the Middle East, and Gulf of Mexico hurricanes have dissipated, and the price of crude has plummeted. On top of this, there appears to be a perceptible slowing of the world economy -- precipitated, in part, by the rising prices of raw materials -- leading to a drop in oil demand. The result? Retailers have abundant supplies of gasoline on hand and the laws of supply and demand dictate a decline in prices.

Finding Energy in Difficult Places

How long will this combination of factors prevail?

Best guess: The slowdown in global economic growth will continue for a time, further lowering prices at the pump. This is likely to help retailers in time for the Christmas shopping season, projected to be marginally better this year than last precisely because of those lower gas prices.

Once the election season is past, however, President Bush will have less incentive to muzzle his rhetoric on Iran and we may experience a sharp increase in Ahmadinejad- bashing. If no progress has been made by year's end on the diplomatic front, expect an acceleration of the preparations for war already underway in the Persian Gulf area (similar to the military buildup witnessed in late 2002 and early 2003 prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq). This will naturally lead to an intensification of fears and a reversal of the downward spiral of gas prices, though from a level that, by then, may be well below $2 per gallon.

Now that we've come this far, does the recent drop in gasoline prices and the seemingly sudden abundance of petroleum reveal a flaw in the argument for this as a peak-oil moment? Peak-oil theory, which had been getting ever more attention until the price at the pump began to fall, contends that the amount of oil in the world is finite; that once we've used up about half of the original global supply, production will attain a maximum or "peak" level, after which daily output will fall, no matter how much more is spent on exploration and enhanced extraction technology.

Most industry analysts now agree that global oil output will eventually reach a peak level, but there is considerable debate as to exactly when that moment will arise. Recently, a growing number of specialists -- many joined under the banner of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil -- are claiming that we have already consumed approximately half the world's original inheritance of 2 trillion barrels of conventional (i.e., liquid) petroleum, and so are at, or very near, the peak-oil moment and can expect an imminent contraction in supplies.

In the fall of 2005, as if in confirmation of this assessment, the CEO of Chevron, David O'Reilly, blanketed U.S. newspapers and magazines with an advertisement stating, "One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over... Demand is soaring like never before... At the same time, many of the world's oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically, and even politically. When growing demand meets tighter supplies, the result is more competition for the same resources."

But this is not, of course, what we are now seeing. Petroleum supplies are more abundant than they were six months ago. There have even been some promising discoveries of new oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico, while -- modestly adding to global stockpiles -- several foreign fields and pipelines have come on line in the last few months, including the $4 billion Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey's Mediterranean coast, which will bring new supplies to world markets. Does this indicate that peak-oil theory is headed for the dustbin of history or, at least, that the peak moment is still safely in our future?

As it happens, nothing in the current situation should lead us to conclude that peak-oil theory is wrong. Far from it. As suggested by Chevron's O'Reilly, remaining energy supplies on the planet are mainly to be found "in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically, and even politically." This is exactly what we are seeing today.

For example, the much-heralded new discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, Chevron's Jack No. 2 Well, lies beneath five miles of water and rock some 175 miles south of New Orleans in an area where, in recent years, hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, and Rita have attained their maximum strength and inflicted their greatest damage on offshore oil facilities. It is naive to assume that, however promising Jack No. 2 may seem in oil-industry publicity releases, it will not be exposed to Category 5 hurricanes in the years ahead, especially as global warming heats the Gulf and generates ever more potent storms. Obviously, Chevron would not be investing billions of dollars in costly technology to develop such a precarious energy resource if there were better opportunities on land or closer to shore -- but so many of those easy-to-get- at places have now been exhausted, leaving the company little choice in the matter.

Or take the equally ballyhooed BTC pipeline, which shipped its first oil in July, with top U.S. officials in attendance. This conduit stretches 1,040 miles from Baku in Azerbaijan to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, passing no less than six active or potential war zones along the way: the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan; Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia; the Muslim separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia; and the Kurdish regions of Turkey. Is this where anyone in their right mind would build a pipeline? Not unless you were desperate for oil, and safer locations had already been used up.

In fact, virtually all of the other new fields being developed or considered by U.S. and foreign energy firms -- ANWR in Alaska, the jungles of Colombia, northern Siberia, Uganda, Chad, Sakhalin Island in Russia's Far East -- are located in areas that are hard to reach, environmentally sensitive, or just plain dangerous. Most of these fields will be developed, and they will yield additional supplies of oil, but the fact that we are being forced to rely on them suggests that the peak-oil moment has indeed arrived and that the general direction of the price of oil, despite period drops, will tend to be upwards as the cost of production in these out-of-the-way and dangerous places continues to climb.

Living on the Peak-Oil Plateau

Some peak-oil theorists have, however, done us all a disservice by suggesting, for rhetorical purposes, that the peak-oil moment is… well, a sharp peak. They paint a picture of a simple, steep, upward production slope leading to a pinnacle, followed by a similarly neat and steep decline. Perhaps looking back from 500 years hence, this moment will have that appearance on global oil production charts. But for those of us living now, the "peak" is more likely to feel like a plateau -- lasting for perhaps a decade or more -- in which global oil production will experience occasional ups and downs without rising substantially (as predicted by those who dismiss peak-oil theory), nor falling precipitously (as predicted by its most ardent proponents).

During this interim period, particular events -- a hurricane, an outbreak of conflict in an oil region -- will temporarily tighten supplies, raising gasoline prices, while the opening of a new field or pipeline, or simply (as now) the alleviation of immediate fears and a temporary boost in supplies will lower prices. Eventually, of course, we will reach the plateau's end and the decline predicted by the theory will commence in earnest.

In the meantime, for better or worse, we live on that plateau today. If this year's hurricane season ends with no major storms, and we get through the next few months without a major blowup in the Middle East, we are likely to start 2007 with lower gasoline prices than we've seen in a while. This is not, however, evidence of a major trend. Because global oil supplies are never likely to be truly abundant again, it would only take one major storm or one major crisis in the Middle East to push crude prices back up near or over $80 a barrel. This is the world we now inhabit, and it will never get truly better until we develop an entirely new energy system based on petroleum alternatives and renewable fuels.

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts and the author of "Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum", and "Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict".

Copyright 2006 Michael T. Klare

Peak Oil at SF LAFCo

2006-07-29T23:01:00.001-07:00

Such excitement!

A few days ago, the fine folks in the SF Energy Community

(Offnote: I am disabusing myself of the notion of Peak Oil. From what I can gather, it's either upon us or will happen soon enough that the notion is absurd. It's like "Modernism" or its stumpy halfwit encore, "PostModernism". They are not the answers to the problem of contemporary history, and Peak Oil is not the correct understanding of the problem of contemporary civilisation. The problem is energy production and resource consumption combined with massive overpopulation and a rapacious political economy and attendant false consciousness. But - I digress. Suffice to say, Stuart Studebaker has had it up to his eyeballs with Peak Oil which now has become more of a gloomy subculture with pseudo-religious overtones - and that creeps me out. So, from here on, you may consider me an Energy Activist. Attach my name to peak oil, and expect to arrive home to a house with your garbage missing and the pets all pregnant. Or something really bad like that. I digress...)

were able to set up a meeting in front of the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission. This was held beforecity Supervisors Mirkarimi, McGoldrick, and government employees Schmeltzer and Sullivan. Mr Mirkarimi was Chair. First, there was a Media Advisory on the steps of City Hall.

1. 2.
3. 4.

I was starved, and went down the block to get a small sandwich, and arrived as the speeches were already in swing. first up at the podium was Mr Richard Heinberg. (Picture #1)

He gave a very nice verbal outline of the Obvious Situation, and was well recieved. I would estimate that there were at least 40 people standing and listening.

After Mr H, was was David Room (picture #2) who shared a few words as well. He was followed by Supervisor Mirkarimi, (picture #3) who was forceful in his views which seemed quite sympathetic with the audience at hand. He was followed by someone in a beige suit whose names escapes me (picture #4)

(off note: if anyone can fill in the names I forget - and I forget often - please leave a comment and I'll fix the post itself. I make no pretense to journalism - this is a blog of my bad attitudes and observations.)

Then we all filed into the meeting room. It quickly filled up to standing room only.

5.

Another room was opened and a video feed was sent in and projected so people could at least see the proceedings. I sat up front so I could take pictures. The Supervisors McGoldrick, Mirkarimi and gov't apparatchiks Schmeltzer and Sullivan filed in and took their seats.

6.

After some pro forma agenda stuff regarding the minutes of the previous meeting and such like - all performed under Robot's Rule's of Order and other similar parliamentary hocus pocus - the first to present was Richard Heinberg.

7.

It was a classic Heinberg tour de force of facts and figures that paint a very ugly picture for the 21st Century. If you've read Powerdown or The Party's Over, you're pretty much up on what he has to say. The benefit was that he had several pieces of recent data to support his ideas. Excellent presentation, in his classic low key demeanor.

The Next speaker was David Room.

David's presentation was interesting but was about twice as long as it needed to be. I thought he had a number of good ideas, but didn't seem to have any concrete proposals. The supervisors had to ask him to cut it short, so perhaps he would have gotten to more concrete policy suggestions and strategic proposals, but we didn't get to find out.

The third person was a clear and articulate woman from the San Francisco Department of the Environment. (her name escapes me - anyone?)

Being the natural born clumsy doofball that I am, I accidentally stabbed myself in the hand with a ball point pen at that moment, and was in some pain and didn't really get to concentrate on what she had to say. I do remember it was interesting when I wasn't wincing in pain.

After she spoke, the citizens were allowed to come up and talk to the Supervisors. Most of the speeches were passionate and articulate. A few were off the point, but not absurdly so. One gentleman started railing on about how we don't have a democracy, and seemed completely oblivious to the irony of his statement... But even he had good points about energy and politics. I even spoke - I said who I was and what I do, and that I knew politicians liked specific and useful ideas, so I chimed in with three.

1. Disallow the Registration of SUVs as private passenger vehicles in San Francisco.

2. Subsidise electric bikes.

3. The city should invest in a kind of polysilicate bank, and use these cheap rates of PV to develop its own electrical generation for City Government buildings and public housing. This would do two things - it would permit the City to get into the business of renewable electricity generation, and act as a first step int opublic ownership of city based wind and tide power generation. The localisation angle on this is obvious, as is the direct connection to Public Power, but leapfrogging the gooey disaster that is PG&E - rather than "get control" of PG&E, the city could get into renewable power generation directly, and bypass the whole mess - let PG&E die on the vine as the oil runs out...

Supervisor Mirkarimi was impressed and asked me to email him with my ideas - he's a well known advocate of public power, so I am not surprised that he'd find my idea #3 to be interesting...

More people spoke, and with some more Parliamentary hocus pocus, the meeting was over. At that point I got to take a nice picture of Mr Heinberg.

At that point a bunch of us all wandered down to a vegetarian restaurant run by devotees of Sri Chimnoy. The food was very very good, and the conversation was great.

Mr Heinberg liked me bringing up electric bikes. He said that he thinks electric bikes were likely more efficient than regular bikes. Each calorie you burn pedaling represents 10x as many calories that you don't get to expend, because it takes so much energy just to make food. From a total energy view, the electric bike is much more efficient. Personally, I'm not sure that's all true, but I do find the idea rather exciting. I'd have to do some crazy Odum-like analysis to figure it out, but I wouldn't be surprised if Heinberg is correct.

I made some points to the assembled dinner crowd that we need to get culture workers hip to and working to promote energy awareness - even if they are celebrities and make their living on the commodity culture, they are in positions of great value in our society, as people trust their culture heroes more than politicians. Celebrities sell soap and life insurance, cars and medication - why not energy awareness?

I pointed out Al Gore's movie went ahead because of the entertainment industry, and that culture, as a lens AND mirror of society, will always be out ahead of the politicians. Whether its writers, filmmakers, musicians, actors, DJs - whatever - we need all hands on deck, and the biggest gains to be realised in the slackening of the depletion curve will come culturally.

After dinner, myself and two companions, Dennis and Chuck, wandered over to the Noc Noc club and hoisted a few foaming frosties to our health and did a post-mortem of the meeting. After much convivial and interesting conversation, I found my way to a bus and after a long walk up a hill, I went to bed.

Today, I sent some dead computer gear to be properly recycled, and then Beth, Elizabeth and I had lunch at Kan Zaman middle eastern restaurant. Then it was off to Amoeba, where I purchased some used CDs and then home to a yummy salad dinner.

Monday is my birthday. Yay.

Ford: they lost money because they build gas guzzling death monsters.

2006-07-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

What I find amusing about Ford and all the other hapless American car makers is this:

Even with "hybrid technology" the stupid Ford Escape still only gets (on a good day) about 25 mpg. My neighbour's Toyota Prius regularly gets twice that much, and often more.

When my wife and I bought our car, an Audi A4, back in 1997, we bought it as a highway cruiser, because she had to drive all the way to Santa Clara for work (She's been telecommuting since 2000 - so thank Bog those days are gone) Once it was paid off in 2002, we figured - heck - we don't drive that much anymore, and the car is in perfect condition. To this day it still gets 32 mpg on the highway, and 24 in the city. When we bought it, high test was about $1.50 a gallon. Now it is $3.50 a gallon. about 2.3 x as much, Which means our car's mileage per dollar of gas is 42% of what it used to be.

So, our 32 mpg car, for the dollar spent, now gets 13.4 mpg per dollar.

This means that an SUV that once got 12 mpg is effectively getting 5 mpg per dollar. So - doubling your mileage from 12 to 24 is really only getting you back to 10 mpg, which is less than where you were...

That is the razor of PeakOil - "we've doubled the mileage on our SUVs" isn't going to wash because the mileage they're starting from is so absurdly low and isn't keeping pace with the increase in expense.

America IS ready for hyper-efficient vehicles. I also believe that America IS ready to let go of the SUV. It will start with commuters and city dwellers, and eventually sink into the brains of the suburbanites who still labour under the illusion that they NEED an SUV to get their spawn to soccer practice, or that driving an SUV three blocks to the liquor store to get some beer and a pack of smokes is any more effective tan driving a Prius three blocks to the liquor store to get some beer and a pack of smokes.

The Middle East Muddle

2006-07-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

Obviously the most valuable thing in the Middle East is the Oil, and I think it is fair to say that we are now in the Age of Resource Wars (per Prof. Klare). So: the second largest exporter of oil is Iran, Saudi Arabia is #1. Most Saudi Oil goes through the narrow Straights of Hormuz, which is nearly surrounded by Iran. Iran's Supreme Poobah Khamenei has said that if we fuck with Iran, they'll close down the straights of Hormuz. which would effectively cut off about 60% of the world's oil, striaght up.

That's why the USA et al are so freaked - it's like the Pusher Man saying "no dope for YOU mofo!" Keep an eye on the G8 meeting this weekend. Dollars for donuts, the diuscussion will NOT be:

America's insane trade deficit
China's insane trade surplus
china's wildly undervalued currency
America's insane budget deficit
The impending global oil peak

It will be Iran.

The neocons are desperate to keep the foot to the floor on American overconsumption of oil, and that foot will increasingly rest on the neck of Iran.

Note: The USA basically intimated "bad things" would happen on July 12 if Iran didn't come to the table with something the USA considers worthwhile.

What happened on July 12?

Israel invaded Lebanon.

What does that do? It takes ALL THE HEAT AND LIGHT off of Iran. Iran is STILL the big target - if people keep their hats on and chill, Israel will eventually leave Lebanon and things there will be a mess, but a suitable distraction from the real target: Iran.

How? The Hezbollah are trained and supported by the Iranian Military, and (IIRC) specifically a weird bunch of Green Beret Types called Al Qud. So, what we have in Lebanon is a Proxy War between the USA and Iran:

USA -> Israel -> (LEBANON) <- Hezbollah <- Iran

Which JUST HAPPENED to erupt the very DAY when the USA was about to do something against Iran. The USA will continue to do that, but the war in Lebanon has sucked all the air out of the room, and now the G8 can sit and plan out "what is to be done with Iran" without the spotlight being "what is the G8 going to do with Iran".

This is NOT to say that the invasion of Lebanon was timed, conspiracy theory is boring - as the evidence indicates that everyone's shooting in the dark, however: it came at a VERY convenient time, and on a *very convenient day*.

So, my guess is this:

Israel's invasion Lebanon is one of those fortuitous terrible events and will provide suitable cover for the major powers to convene and deal with notions of Iran while the rest of the planet freaks out over Lebanon. The Bush Junta will push for military force against Iran, or something that will lead to force. After their total fuck up in Iraq, they're scraping the barrel on international support, but Iran has everyone (except Russia) by the short and curlies with one crucial ingredient: Oil.

Thus, it makes it easier to get the rest of the G8 (sans Russia) exercised over Iran. China's not in the G8, and is not big on action against Iran, because a big chunk of Iranian oil goes to China, and while action against Iran would screw everyone up, it would mostly screw China.

I would figure the G8 would fracture along those lines. Russia has europe by the short hairs (natural gas) so the europeans can't pull too far from orbit, but there is a lot of room for movement on side issues that appease the 900lb gorilla (USA), like IRAN.

Hence, Europe will tend to fall against Iran, Russia doesn't care (oil at $100 a barrel works for them!) so China would be the most agrieved. Hence: Bush making nice nice with Putin lately so grinding the Chinese won't seem so bad.

These aren't the end times, by a long stretch, but for the first time in 80 years, we're really looking down the throat of True Disaster. Which wouldn't be so bad if True Disaster would bother brushing a little more often.

Late at Night

2006-07-10T01:21:00.000-07:00

It's very late - 1.30 AM, and I am here futzing with my computer and electronic gizmos. The light above me is a compact flourescent - not very bright, but it doesn't have to be - my laptop's monitor is plenty bright, and as the rest of the room is cluttered with the detritus of years of accumulation - dead computers, broken monitors, keyboards that use a legacy bus that stopped running years ago - there isn't much else to look at.

I make electronic music, and I give it away, for free. I make art and I give it away, for free. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. I give you my words, my ideas, here - for free. Free as in speech, free as in beer.

I'm up late every night because I snore. I have always snored. As I have aged, it has gotten worse, and my wife can barely sleep because of it. I've tried a number of remedies, and none work. So, I stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning, so she can get 4 or five hours of good solid sleep. I crawl to bed and within half an hour I'm out, and usually, she is so deeply asleep, that my snoring doesn't wake her. At least, that is what I hope - it's what I tell myself.

In the meantime, I have time to work with my machines - type blog posts, type email, do some web design. On my little G4 iBook. It's slow, by today's standards, but it works and it's cute. I bought it used, for very little money, and it's very good on electricity - a battery charge can last 3 or even 4 hours, as long as I'm not doing something insane like rendering video clips.

What is interesting about my music system here is that it actually uses a fraction of the amount of electricity it used 20 years ago to do so much less.

In 1986, I got a credit card and maxxed it out and bought a pile of gear. I bought a Korg DSS1 sampler, a Yamaha TX81z synthesizer, an Atari 1040ST computer and monitor, MidiSoft Studio MIDI recording software, Minstrel compsing software, a dot matrix printer, a keyboard stand, a Yamaha SPX90 processor, a MIDIverb reverb unit, a Yamaha mixer, a crown power amp, a Yamaha MIDI merger, and a pair of TOA speakers and stands. Several months later, I bought another sampler, a Sequential Circuits Prophet 2002 and a Yamaha DX11. I had quite a rig.

All that gear sucked down huge amounts of electricity.

Now, my entire electronic music system consists of my laptop, a USB powered Oxygen8 keyboard, two Firewire drives, an Edirol UR80 MIDI USB recording system, Ableton Live software, Propellorheads Reason software, Audacity audio editing software, a Mackie Mixer, and a pair of Event PS8 speakers.

I also have a USB powered WACOM tablet for graphics, but it's usually not hooked up.

All that gear I had back in '86 is now just a small part of a drop down menu in Reason.

I often wonder about that - all that electricity to make music - where did it go? I was more productive back then, but I had more time back then - I wasn't living with a daughter... I was able to get more done then. I have more ideas now, but less time to do them. And now I have compeeting interests with video and imaging. It seems endless...

But now I have these late evenings under the cool glow of the CF lamp, music quietly oozing from the speakers as iTunes spews my CD collection back at me in random fashion.

Sometimes I think iTunes is psychic. At random it pulled "All the Things We've Made" by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark up for my listening enjoyment.

The lyrics go:

To want this.
Of everything we've made.
The times it's worked before.

Of all the things we've said.
Times that worked before today.

To want this.
Of everything we've made.
The times it's worked before.

Of all the things we've said.
They've always worked before today.

Will that be the theme song of the transition?

S2

ER/EI

2006-06-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Over the past several weeks I have been rather focussed on ideas regarding Energy Return On Energy Invested, aka EROEI. I prefer the math version, ER/EI, as it is more to the point - it's a ratio created by a simple division - Take your energy return and divide it by the energy invested. ER divided by EI.

My posts have been sporadic lately as I have moved back across the country, and between the jetlag and exhaustion of re-fitting myself into a more domestic existence, I've been keeping a lower profile than usual.

In my thinking, I am wondering if the entire ER/EI question is itself something of a red herring, and that perhaps there needs to be a better understanding of how we use energy in total.

Example: Nuclear power. A limited analysis would say that nuclear power is an extremely energetic system, far in excess per pound of fuel than any other, as (X) tons of plutonium or uranium fuel = (P) watts of power, and that this ratio P/X is rather astounding, hence: Nuclear power is a good value from the understanding of that ratio.

However, as many are quick to point out, there's a lot more to nuclear power than (X) tons of fuel making (P) watts of energy, as there is the mining and processing of uranium and plutonium - an extremely energetic process. Then there is the building of a nuclear power plant; again, an energetic process. Then there is the amount of energy needed to keep the plant itself running, and the amount of energy needed to remove the fuel and dispose of it, and then, eventually dismantle the radioactive bits of plant itself. This significantly pulls a lot of value out of the X side of the X/P equation...

Then, there is what I've been looking at, which significantly impacts that X value as well, and it is what I call "secondary energy costs". What are these? In the case of Nuclear Power, there's a bunch of them. Let's look at a nuke plant in terms of: Construction, Fuel, Maintenance, Fuel Disposal, and Decomissioning. Each of these are fraught with secondary costs.

Construction
The concrete doesn't appear from nowhere. It has to be mined. The mining equipment requires energy. There are people who need to do the mining, and they have homes and families and these also require energy. The school where the kids go requires energy. The clothing the miners wear is made in factories thatrun on energy, and are shipped to stores in trucks thatuse energy, and the truck itself is made from metals that are mined by other miners who also have energy requirements. And the mining machines are made in factories that use energy and by people who also have energy needs and schools and hospitals and TV sets. And then there is the construction itself - exotic metals, concrete, rebar, all of these things require energy in their mining, processing, and construction, and each step of the way is a factory using energy, and people using energy to go to work in and live near those factories.

Fuel
The development of nuclear fuels is a hazardous and toxic process, and one that is highly energetic. It takes thousands of tons of unranium, and thousands of centrifuges running flat out for days, and huge factories full of raw and waste materials to make, process, and form the fuel for a nuclear power plant. These factories have thousands of workers, and each of them has families and homes and towns and cars and TV sets all needing energy. Then there is the fuel needed to transport the fuel to the plant, and the energy needed to build the machines that
transport and store the fuel.

Maintenance
The nuclear power plant has a crew of people - people who are engineers that keep the place running, grounds keepers keeping it nice looking, management personnel to keep things organised and running, and of course, Mr Burns who owns the plant must be kept in the lifestyle to which he has become eminently accustomed, a cleaning crew that takes out the trash and sweeps up, security personnel, and at least one guy named Homer to nap on the job as the core goes critical...

Still, all these people have homes - Homer has Marge, Lisa, Bart, and Maggie. Homer has to drive to work, and that takes energy. He sucks down a foaming frosty mug of Duff Beer at Moe's Bar and the beer is transported to the bar, the bar requires energy to be built and maintained and power the neon lights, and Homer needs energy to get to Moe's, wash his clothes, get his kids to school, perm Marge's hair, etc.

This is all just part of Homer's life as a worker at the nuke plant, and each plant has many many Homers, and they all need energy as do all of Homer's friend's and acquaintances.

Fuel Disposal
Once the fuel is used up, it must be removed and disposed of, requiring no small amount of energy and effort by Homers who are hired to do this sort of thing, and who also have families and homes and cars.

Decomissioning
When the plant is done, it needs to be dismantled and disposed of, and that is also a highly energetic effort...

This deeper analysis points to an odd conclusion - that ER/EI is a relevant equation, but in a mixed fuel economy, it is functionally impossible to tease out accurate numbers, and even when these numbers are teased out, they may be of limited use. Hence ER/EI may not be the important question.

No matter what we do, we use all the energy we've got.

(Just as I typed that line, "Corsair" by Boards of Canada came on the random choice of iTunes... man is that creepy...)

I am not certain, but I am fairly well convinced that true ER/EI is not as crazy as an NP-hard problem, but due to the total inter-relatedness and dynamics of society and energy, I am fairly well convinced that an accurate ER/EI analysis is not practically possible.

This is a BIG problem. Pimentel et al have staked their authority on such analysis, and while my extension of the ER/EI analysis only serves their points that alternative energy systems sch as ethanol have very low ER/EI (and my view punches it well below 1:1) it also points out the deep and impenetrable fog at the edges of such analysis, which can be used by all sorts of people to both credit and discredit any given technology.

While symbolic system can be developed to represent these analyses (Odum et al) even these symbolic systems cave under the complexity of dynamic energy allocations and sourcings.

Example: let's say Homer drives a 1988 Chrysler Imperial to work, and it gets 15 mpg. Sure, his energy source for driving doesn't require energy from the nuclear plant, and so that energy input is not counted against X, but the pumping of the gas is, as is the electricity the gas station uses. The food may be delivered to the Springfield Safeway by truck, but the Safeway runs on electricity, and Marge's time spent shopping there uses some portion of that, and that does count against X, as the food she bys there mostly goes into Homer's gut. And the Dunkin Donuts cooks its donuts using natgas, but the rest of it operates on electricity, and Homer's donut consumption is some part of that, and that also counts against X. And then, one day, Homer replaces his gas guzzling Imperial with a plug in Hybrid, and now THAT cuts into X.

I don't see how these dynamic fluctuations can be properly accounted for in any symbolic quantitative system, especially as these dynamic systems influence each other's behaviour and output. So, Homer and a jillion other Homers get plug in hybrids. These hybrids are more efficient per watt per mile than a gas engine, so it uses fewer watts per mile travelled. Then one day, Homer figures out that he can lose some weight by riding a bike, but he's too old and fat to get over some of the hills, so he opts for an electric assist bike, which is even MORE efficient with watts per mile travelled, but is slower.

One plug-in Prius equals dozens, if not hundreds, of electric bikes, so the energy embodied and used by one plug-in Prius is radically less than the energy and material that went into building a 1986 Imperial, and the electric bikes (or even trikes) are even more radically efficient, and embody and use even less than a Prius. However, if Homer sells his Imperial and buys a 1996 Geo Metro, he will double (if not triple) his fuel mileage and rather than demand more minerals from the earth to build a new Prius, he will be re-using the minerals someone else demanded from the earth ten years previously, and, in so doing, will be doubling the use of those materials, rather than have them go to the crusher and be recycled at some future date.

The Metro aside, all these electric bikes being pedalled by the Homers at the Burns Nuclear Power Plant and all the electric bikes pedalled by the friends of all the Homers, and all the electric bikes that get the service employees for all the Homers (Moe at the bar, Apu at the QuickieMart, etc.) are powered by the nuke plant, so it affects the ER/EI of the nuke plant, but certainly less than if they had plug-in Priuses.

You get the picture - calculating the ER/EI of a given energy technology is not an exact science, and that is why I wonder if it isn't something of a red herring.

Basically, I think the question of ER/EI is critical in a general sense, but I do not believe ER/EI can ever get beyond a general or vague number, due to the dynamism and vagaries of its component structures and subsystems.

I may be an artist, and I may be insane, but I am enough of a scientist to appreciate being wrong. Please prove me so.

A post to a post

2006-06-15T11:51:00.000-07:00

I found an interesting blog that I am going to add to my list at right. The writer discusses an article by Smil, and how he misses the point of Peak Oil awareness. Smil does have a point in that there are a number of people who approach this issue like a doomsday cult, but many people approach many valuable ideas in a less than optimal fashion. I posted the following as my response. To see the original post, go here:

http://www.energybrowser.com/

Hi!

Interesting blog, and interesting article. The continuing arguments between cornucopians like Smil, and nihilists like Hanson is, in my not so humble opinion, a significant problem for both sides of the argument.

Smil et al suggest that there will be some kind of an "energy fairy" that will save the day. Hanson et al suggest that not only will there be no "energy fairy", but we are actually looking at an imminent die-off of catastrophic proportions.

What I have been advocating is a more balanced, middle pillar approach, where neither side of the coin is ignored, but neither side is accepted in total. I do think that technology will provide significant innovations that will help pull the right hand side of the resource depletion curve out a bit. At the same time, I think it is disingenuous to think that we can continue this industrial process of massive over-consumption of resources at the demand of massive over-population indefinitely.

As a consequence, there is a distinctive ideological component to the peak-oil discussion, and these ideological conclusions have very real and far-reaching results in terms of energy policy development and socio-cultural evolution.

Example - a society that is completely dependent on a form of energy that is of a limited variety will die off if they don't shift to a renewable energy system coupled with social and cultural mores, ethics, values, and preferences that encourages the preservation of the resource base. A society that goes skipping down the lane of cornucopia disregarding the warnings will, eventually, run into a wall and fail. A society that looks at the resources available and then develops systems that can be used for millennia, and sets about developing the social and cultural preferences to enable such a permanent culture, will survive while the other dies off.

The problem is the loss of cheap petroleum energy is a global issue, and will require global solutions, as will the problems of resource depletion, climate change, and over-population in general. And this is where the likes of Smil are actually equally destructive to the likes of Hanson, et al., because following the lead of the nihilists results in paralysis, while the cornucopians advocate the unsustainable status quo.

I've also pointed out in my othher writings that both sides are necessary - we need the concerned cornucopians to develop the new technologies, just as we need the nihilists to goad society into continuous re-examination of our directions and practices. Good Cop, Bad Cop. The problem is the citizenry of the industrial nations, both older and the newly industrialised, are used to cheap and plentiful energy and have built their expectations and infrastructure around it. These expectations and infrastructure lead to the cultural and social decisions that reinforce those expectations and infrastructure, creating a feedback of reaction and brutality.

The other problem is this: Smil et al are focussed on too short a term, while the nihilists are demanding too short a term. The Cornucopians will come up with technologies to mask the problem, but the fundamentals of expectations and infrastructure will still become increasingly manifest. In the meantime, the cornucopians get to discredit the Nihilists, while the Nihilists become increasingly distressed at the blinkered vision of the Cornucopians. Eventually, it will come to a head, and given the fact that petroleum is a limited resource, and industrial civilisation is structured around it and the society and culture it has produced is also dependent on it, it is, again, disingenuous for the cornucopians to argue for continued expansion of the human project over the back of petroleum.

Therefore, from my perspective, the only rational position is a middle position, one wher ethe dire warnings of the Nihilists are heeded, but immense investment and work should be devoted to the necessary technologies to achieve a smooth transition to a post-carbon society.

It is the cultural and infrastructural character of that society that I believe will prove most critical to the future of civilisation. It is that "criticality" that gives the nihilist position its strength, but it is the optomistic resourcefulness of the technologists and thinkers often found among concerned cornucopians that will manage the transition, as a nihilist position is no better than an unconcerned cornucopian position.

I discuss a lot of these ideas (in fact, I'll be publishing this post there) on my blog, which is listed as my website. Let me know what you think.

best,

Stuart Studebaker

Latest posting...

2006-05-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

I posted the following as a comment to another blog:

http://entropyproduction.blogspot.com/2006/05/peak-oil-taxonomy-doombat.html

Where Mr McLeod has fun at the expense of Doomers, calling them Doombats.

My response to his post follows.

=================================================

I think it is appropriate that I should follow Mr. Mathews's comments. I would like to add another category, or subcategory, actually. I see myself (generally) in the traditionalist camp, but I am more than anything a realist and agnostic on most issues of metaphysics. Doomers are not: they are True Believers.

What the Doomers do have on their side is a correspondence between their vision and linear prognostication, i.e., IF nothing is done to ameliorate the situation, THEN we're all cooked.

Once you start introducing variables into the equation, such as the curmudgeonly nurtured technologies that you favour and then combine them with the social and cultural changes I tend to advocate, then the Doomer Argument fails to predict much of anything.

Mr Mathews (with whom I have been in a running argument for the past few years on the Energy Resources Yahoo List) is a dedicated Doomer. Still, a stopped watch is exactly correct at least once a day, and he can speak the truth, and I'll quote him:

"All species, including the Homo sapiens, will ultimately suffer extinction."

And right there is his prejudice laid out for all to see: all species must SUFFER extinction. What if there's no suffering to extinction? What if we evolve ourselves into smarter, incredibly elegant, creatures with superior social and ethical instincts, and it is all handled (at first) by in vitro fertilisation and genetics, so we will literally give birth to homo futuris? How is that (outside of the specious detail of childbirth itself) a SUFFERING extinction in any sense of the word? Not that I expect such a technological solution to human extinction, but what it does show is how in one simple stroke, the Doombat attitudes of the likes of Mr Mathews are simply and completely blown away. And: such a genetic solution actually *could* happen.

Hence, defeating the Doomer Mythos is like dynamiting fish in a barrel - it's too easy. I'll quote myself from the Energy Resources List:

"(They) want to spread the end times gospel, like some ecological Jim Joneses. (They) want the drug of (Their) misery to prevail, (They so deeply desire) the addictive and explosive rush of horror one garners from gazing into the abyss to dominate the vision of others who are less inclined to gaze so deeply into the dark.

I too have spent many years looking into the abyss, probably longer than (most of these doomers) have, and I no longer see an abyss. The future is not a black hole. It is transformation. Not to something "better" - it doesn't really work that way - just something more adapted to the environment that obtains. "

And to the Doomers themselves, I would pose the followling:

"Your moral and ethical charge (as a responsible human being) is to allieviate suffering wher eyou find it. If you find yourself drawn to the suffering itself, then go to the suffering. I urge you to sell your possessions and go to Darfur or Bangladesh or on a more local basis - New Orleans or East LA or Camden NJ. Work with suffering. Work with the horror, and find some meaning in your pampered whiny existence."

Sometimes I get tired of battling Doombats, but the stakes are far too high. The struggle for a dignified survival for our species is becoming more attenuated with each passing year, and while this seemingly gives more creedence to the Doombats, this attenuation will necessarily result in appropriate and reasonable decisions being made by caring and inventive people. We can do it, because we must, and with a combination of technologies (such as you would advocate) and shifts in social and cultural systems (that I would advocate) a reasonable and dignified future can be built.

I also keep a blog on this and related subjects here:

http://early-warning.blogspot. com

I'll definitely link to yours - kindly reciprocate!

best regards,

Stuart Studebaker

Karsner's Speech

2006-04-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

Assistant Secretary of Energy A. Karsner gave a speech that, in my humble estimation, shows just how lost the Bush Administration is - they're talking out both sides of their mouths and have no credibility. This fellow was sent to talk to Powergen about renewable energy, something (with the exception of wind power) the Bush Admin has repeated cut funding for.

Arghh.

So, I respond to his speech point by point.

Keynote Address by Hon. Alexander Karsner, Asst. Secretary of Energy to Powergen Renewables

[snip quip and warm fuzzies]

===================================
It's wonderful to be here with you in Las Vegas. My wife and I love Las Vegas, which is actually somewhat strange, because neither of us actually gamble, nor do we drink much. Still, it is unique in so many ways and uniquely American by birthright. Carved out of the waterless desert, it has evolved to become a neon, energy-intensive oasis tailored to leisure and whimsy and on-call, 24-7.
===================================

And it is one of the single least sustainable cities in the world. Las Vegas is a blight upon the planet.

===================================
(snip description of Death Valley and Las Vegas)

We are fortunate to have a very diverse group of friends who enjoy both environs. Yet, from time to time, we hear folks speak disdainfully of those who prefer the great outdoors to the urban nightlife or vice versa. Our view is that we cherish the very coexistence and diversity that this spectacular city and region represent--where some of the most creative works of man are married together with some of the grandest work of creation, because it is emblematic of Enjoying Life, thriving upon Liberty, and the opportunity to Pursue Happiness as one sees fit.
===================================

The problem is, Mr Karsner, the friends you know who enjoy the great outdoors and a night under the Milky Way aren't squandering the resources of the greater southwest region. I do not see replicas of New York and Paris as spectacular or as one of the most creative works of man except in the most depraved way imaginable such a vision of
Las Vegas As Public Art makes the charlatanism of Jeff Koons look like the genius of Leonardo Da Vinci.

===================================
I have only held this post for a couple of weeks, and so mercifully, I am happy to report that I have yet to become a bureaucrat!
===================================

You can't become what you already are.

===================================
Many of you know me and you know my background and my ambitions; it is similar to your own. My purpose today is to give voice to our mutual aspirations, to share some early perspective on the task ahead, and to explore how we might together make an impact on preserving for future generations those things we hold dearest; those things that are our birthright as Americans: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
===================================

Sorry - that's not in the constitution. The Constitution lists Life, Liberty, and Property. I learned that in 8th grade Civics. The pursuit of happiness is in the Declaration of Independence, which is not a legally binding document.

===================================
Perhaps we take these things for granted, perhaps we do not reflect on them enough.
===================================

I think about them daily, and I find them under assault NOT from without, but from within by the Bush Administration itself.

===================================
But as I parse the magnitude of our challenge, I am motivated by these principles and the bigger picture.

The facts are unpleasant realities:

We are a nation at war.
===================================

The war on terror is, by definition, bogus. It's like a war on Daylight Strategic Bombing. Terror is a method of practicing
aggression. You can't win a war on terror any more than you can win a war on kindergartners "hitting" each other, and, that said, the war on terror is one the Bush Administration has pretty much given up on prosecuting some time ago, Bush himself has said that he doesn't put that much energy into trying to find and bring to justice Osama Bin Laden. So, your entire angle on "security" rings false and has no credibility.

We ARE at war, but it is in Iraq, and it was a war of choice - the Bush Administration, of which you are a part, LIED to everyone about the reasons for going to war, and then had the unmitigated temerity to bungle the whole job. Therefore, no quarter is granted to the Bush Administration for this. And for you, as a representative of this administration, to bleat "We're at War", is inadmissable, and doesn't really carry any water any more. At all.

===================================
Our earth is warming.
===================================

Correct, for once. And that is a fact the Bush Administration has resisted coming around to facing FOR YEARS, wasting precious time. The Bush Administration continues to try to muzzle voices in the government who are trying to warn the public about this looming crisis. And it is also a fact that to end the human contribution to global warming, global agreements and co-ordination will be required, and it is precisely JUST SUCH agreements the Bush Junta has cheerfully ignored, defied, and circumvented since its installation by the Supreme Court in 2001. Again, the President and his circle of lackies, incompetents, cronies, and neocon fascists, have Zero Credibility in this regard, and you, as a representative of said Administration will have to do a LOT more than simply state the obvious to even hope to have a prayer of a chance of acquiring any credibility on the subject.

===================================
Carbon emissions and greenhouse gases are impacting air quality and the environment.
===================================

And AGAIN, the Bush Administration has continually resisted any legislation to up the mileage requirements on vehicles or reduce pollution at source. Again, you and the Administration you work for, have Zero Credibility.

===================================
America is addicted to oil.
===================================

And it is an addiction that the Bush Administration has continually exacerbated with idiotic regulations like subsidies for gas guzzling Hummers, and a continued antipathy toward extending and intensifying the CAFE standards.

===================================
And so, ironically, even as we find ourselves at the dawn of a new millennium, with numerous indicators of extraordinary economic growth,
===================================

Which is part of the problem, not the solution.

===================================
record low unemployment,
===================================

but with reduced income and wages for those Americans that are not part of the uppermost income brackets.

===================================
record homeownership,
===================================

combined with record debt and record low savings.

===================================
and record rates of productivity,
===================================

in a nation with no national health care, and with the least amount of vacation time in the industrialized world.

===================================
there remains a seething sense of anxiety in the land.
===================================

Geeee, I wonder WHY?

===================================
Personally, the unusually heightened sense of concern I felt when I watched those towers fall on that balmy day nearly five years ago has never fully gone away, and I see no sense in suppressing it now.
===================================

WTF does 9/11 have to do with any of this?

===================================
We are at war.
===================================

No, "We" are not. The Bush Administration invaded a comparatively defenceless dictatorship. This was a "war" of choice. The Bush Administration gave up hunting down Osama Bin Laden years ago, and he was the one who attacked us. There should have been a "war" against Al Qaeda, similar to the "war" against the Barbary Coast pirates. Instead, Bush et al invaded Afghanistan but failed to get bin Laden and then committed the USA to a bungled war in Iraq.

===================================
Fortunate though we are to live in a nation that can protect and insulate itself from the harshest realities of the battle,
it is not possible for me to grow up in a military family and not be constantly cognizant of our countrymen in harm's way.

This particular war has been a part of my life for a long time, and I was in its path long before it came to our shores. It was with me in the lawlessness of Karachi, where a dialogue with utility officials might be suspended to find a new counterpart to replace the manager riddled with bullets. It was with me in Casablanca, when female employees would arrive with inexplicable bruising, and explain how I would not understand "because of culture." And it is with me now, as I look
to my children nightly, and say to myself with determination that they shall inherit the American Dream that has touched us all, and that we owe them a plan for victory, a path to peace, and a better, healthier, and cleaner world.

The Moroccan and Pakistani and Muslim people I have known from all parts of the world are amongst the kindest and most hospitable people on earth. They too dream of peace and happiness for their families. But they live daily in apprehension and fear from well-funded, militant, and ignorant fundamentalism that dwells like a cancer in their midst.
===================================

WHAT? The Pakistani people labour under a fake republic that is run by a network of strongmen propped up by the government and security apparatus of the United States of America. Pakistan is the nation most responsible for the distribution of nuclear technology to countries least interested in using it in a responsible manner. In fact, A. Khan, the man RESPONSIBLE for selling nuclear technology was PARDONED by the very strongmen that the Bush Administration is backing.

Morroco? Morocco is a de jure constitutional monarchy, with a popularly-elected parliament. The King of Morocco, with vast executive powers, can dissolve government and deploy the military at will, among other amusing responsibilities. Opposition political parties are legal and several have arisen in recent years, but are largely ineffective against the rule of an autocratic KING. Illiteracy sits at 50% and among women it is closer to 90%. I hardly see Morocco as some paragon of democratic virtue or enlightened culture.

===================================
No one lives with these realities daily nor understands them more intimately than the President of the United States.
===================================

I sincerely doubt George Bush could find Morocco on a MAP with both hands, a flashlight, and a page full of hints and brightly coloured circles in North Africa, much less understand the realities of life as an illiterate testosterone poisoned meatheaded thug. On second thought, maybe he could...

===================================
It is of course a great personal honor for me and my family that he chose to select a renewable energy developer for this post, but have no doubt - it is a tribute to this great community of risk-takers, doers and dreamers, of which I am proud to be a member.
===================================

DUDE: face facts - you are windowdressing. You're a distraction - you're the waving hand of the prestidigitator keeping the air occupied while the other hand of the administration continues its insane and criminal behaviour of imperialism and kleptocracy.

===================================
Both the President and Secretary Bodman recognize that we cannot afford to divorce science from commerce; innovation from entrepreneurship.
===================================

But he has proven time and time again that he IS willing to divorce science from public policy, education, and common sense if it wins him political points with the delusional morons that constitute his base as "the religious right".

===================================
Neither carefully crafted mandates, regulatory inducements, nor research alone can deliver to us the goals for which the Department of Energy was originally established.
===================================

But carefully crafted mandates, regulatory inducements, AND research CAN deliver the following:

1. An automobile fleet that gets, AT A MINIMUM, 60 miles per gallon, with existing technology.
2. Vast subsidies for the adoption of solar panels on private homes and wind turbines on farms.
3. Decentralization of energy production (see #2)
4. Develop an American designed/based/manufactured sustainable energy industry
5. Deincentivise reproduction - i.e., make it expensive to have children
6. Develop IFR nuclear reactors to rid the planet of nuclear power and nuclear fuel while generating electricity.
7. Make it illegal to drive a gas guzzling tank as a private passenger vehicle - there is no excuse for the Hummer.
8. Subsidise the hyperinsulation of homes.
9. Incentivise local organic agriculture and permaculture.

The list of what carefully crafted mandates, regulatory inducements, and research can deliver is long and intense. This kind of "Government Can't Work" Attitude is typical of the Bush Administration who have done their very best to prove their point that government can't work, by making sure it doesn't. The depressing madness and disaster that surrounded the response to Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing fiasco in Iraq are just two of the more obvious proofs of my point.

===================================
As the legacy of great American energy pioneers like Franklin and Edison and Einstein would dictate, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention." Combining scientific inquiry with commercial creativity remains the most powerful force for transformational change available to address the substantial needs with which we are confronted.
===================================

Ummmm, Einstein did all his important work in Germany. Otherwise, the point is a Cliché, followed by a recognition of the obvious.

===================================
The brilliant people with whom I am privileged to work beside at the Department of Energy know these urgent needs inspire my rallying cry to unite folks inside Washington and around the country; inside America, and around the world.
===================================

More flag waving balderdash.

===================================
We must take our clean energy technologies and replicate, proliferate, and accelerate. There is no time to waste and no time for small thinking. We know where these train tracks are heading and we know the destination we must reach. The only question is the rate of speed we are moving and what will be the ultimate cost of the ticket?
===================================

No, the question is MONEY. Who's getting it, and how much.

According to here:

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=23074

The FY06 budget request for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) energy efficiency and renewable energy (EE/RE) programs envisions reductions totaling nearly $50 million - an overall cut of roughly 4 percent. This includes a 6 percent cut in Distributed Energy programs ($60,416 to $56,629); an 8 percent cut in the Geothermal Energy program ($25,270 to $23,299); an 18 percent cut in the Biomass/Biofuels program ($88,099 to $72,164); and a 90 percent cut in the Hydropower program ($4,862 to $500).

In fact, the Bush budget proposes to phase out DOE's hydropower program altogether and all support for the Advanced Hydropower Turbine, a joint program between DOE and the hydropower industry exploring fish-friendlier turbines, just at the time when full scale testing is about to begin at multiple locales.

Adding insult to injury for at least some of these programs, the cuts come on top of earlier reductions. The geothermal program, for example, had been funded at $28.4 million in FY03 and steadily reduced since then.

Less severely impacted is DOE's solar R&D budget which faces a reduction of only 1.3 percent, from $85.07 million in FY 05 to $83.95 million in FY 06. The solar industry has sought to put a positive spin on its reduction calling the budget request "essentially status quo funding" while applauding a "promising new initiative to advance the development of crystalline silicon solar power."

Overall, among DOE's core renewable energy programs, only wind energy is proposed for an increase - 3.4 million (from $40.8 million to $44.2 million), a relatively large expansion of nearly 9 percent.

Which only goes to prove that in point of fact, the only renewable sector that saw improved funding was Wind, and this only serves to further demonstrate just how antipathic and hostile the Bush Junta is to Renewable Energy.

===================================
The way I see it, the people in this Hall are the locomotives of change and the role of government is to clear the way, get the rocks off the rails, and ensure maximum velocity. We have an obligation to steward both hardware AND policy.
===================================

And you're NOT going to even be able to do THAT if you

A: continue to cut funding to renewable energy
B: spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a pointless war in Iraq
C: spend even more hundreds of billions of dollars propping up a global empire of military bases, CIA gulags, and client thug governments.
D: consistently and continuously reduce the tax burden of the wealthy.

===================================
Policy with predictability, transparency, longevity; policy conducive to capital formation that continuously cultivates market expansion of clean, green, domestic sources of power generation and fuels for transportation. All the while we must be relentless in attacking inefficiency and waste for its insidious and undermining impact on our national aspirations.
===================================

Inefficiency and WASTE? Coming from an administration that VOLUTARILY invaded Iraq and is now pissing away hundreds of billions of dollars on a nonsensical imperialist occupation? The Bush Administration is a complete disaster, and it has no credibility whatsoever. For the administration (and the Republican Party it runs) to prattle on about ineffiency and waste, all while building multimillion dollar bridges to nowhere and wasting billions of dollars a day on a foolish and horrible war in Iraq is the epitome of duplicitous double-dealing and hypocrisy.

===================================
We must do these things and more, at the fastest possible rate of market penetration, and government must be both realistic and relevant in it role. In short, we owe it to you, the leaders in the private markets, to update and redefine ourselves. We cannot perpetuate the delusion that government is leading the markets; nor should we distract ourselves with the unrealistic and ineffective ambitions of a command and control economy.
===================================

Government MUST lead the markets, because the markets are not structured to do the job. And while I am not a fan of Command/Control economy, during WW2 it DID propel the USA and the Soviet Unions into being the most powerful military nations ever seen. The USA abandoned direct command and control after WW2, and replaced it with a rapacious imperialist military/industrial complex, which was clearly such a vast improvement...

===================================
(snip rhetorical question)

It is our objective at the Department of Energy that we should increasingly become more agile, more attuned, more iterative and catalytic. In doing so, we can exert leadership that clearly seeks achievable goals, is unafraid to enter the fray, and continuously "moves the scrum" down the field.
===================================

Fine, then legalise and subsidise abortion everywhere for everyone. Subsidise birth control. Tax families with more than 2 children. Reduce or even ration consumption of energy and resources. Energy is't "just Energy". Energy consumption is part of the broader problem of overpopulation.

===================================
That is why I am proud to embrace Phase II, not merely as a milestone, but as a battle plan by which we can achieve great things together.
===================================

Again, not as long as the Bush Junta remains in power.

===================================
Maximizing energy efficiency and renewable energy IS the domestic epicenter in the War on Terror and it is imperative that we maximize the partnerships between the public and private sectors in new and creative ways with a sense of seriousness, national purpose and the urgency the situation merits.
===================================

Which means MONEY. Spending MONEY on the RIGHT STUFF. Spending money on an idiotic war in the middle east is spending money on the WRONG STUFF. Spending money on subsidizing rooftop solar panels and farm fields of wind turbines is spending money on the RIGHT STUFF.

The president and his cronies would rather line their pockets, and the pockets of their shareholders, by pissing away billions of borrowed dollars in Iraq. Your entire budget is a tiny fraction of what this war costs. In this world, importance is measured by dollars. Where the money goes is what is important. Your programs are not important to the Bush Administration. They do not feel you urgency, and never will.

===================================
(snip something not directed to me)

With 34 months to pursue the President's Advanced Energy Initiative and implement the Energy Policy Act and make ourselves relevant and supportive to the forces of free enterprise, there is no time for systemic "business as usual."

That is why last week, when I was in Detroit with the Secretary, he told the auto industry in no uncertain terms, "More needs to be done." We need to have more flex fuel vehicles on the market of ALL vehicle types and classes and we need to have them available from all manufacturers who serve the US market. "We must continue to encourage the exponential expansion in the supply of ethanol available."
===================================

Ethanol? WTF? How about 60 mpg diesel cars? How about an outright ban on private passenger vehicles over 4000lbs? Electric commuter vehicles? Expansion of telecommuting? Increased funding for public transport? Ethanol isn't going to save us, or the car industry. Eliminating the need to drive is more important than what you drive, and what you drive is more important (for now) than what fuel it uses.

===================================
When the President of the United States personally visits a solar manufacturing facility to announce millions of dollars in increased funding aimed at changing "the way we power homes and lead our lives" you can be assured he understands you.
===================================

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! See the quote above which shows that he actually has REDUCED funding for critical research, and has only increased funding for wind power. If it wasn't for the Danes and the Germans shaming him, he probably would have cut that too... And the energy that is produced in our petroleum society is being wasted on a pointless cycle of consumption - it's Cheney's "non-negotiable" American Lifestyle ITSELF that's destroying the planet. And no amount of handwaving is going to change that.

===================================
When the President personally takes interest in the development cycle of battery storage for plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles, he clearly seeks to inspire a bigger picture.
===================================

Then why does he CUT THE FUNDING for alternative energy research? HMMMM?

===================================
When President Bush declares that wind power could provide up to 20% of our national generation capacity, you can be certain his vision is both exciting and real.
===================================

We need it to do better than 20%. WAY better than 20%.

===================================
(snip blather and flag waving nonsense)
===================================

All this speech demonstrated is the delusional state of mind that inhabits the powers that be. NOTHING will get done in the USA until the Bush Junta is removed from office. Period.

We're in a scary holding pattern. Much of the rest of the world is far ahead of us on all of these points - from localized farming to high technology wind power. The Bush Administration continues to fund military adventures over everything else, and if continued unabated, will only serve to bankrupt the US Treasury and scuttle the hopes and dreams of a nation.

-S2

Chevy Tahoe Commercial - Culture Jamming Opportunity

2006-04-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

Those are cool, but why leave culture jamming to the professional agitators, when you can do it at the request of corporate giants?

Here's One I Made

that's a quick example of what I am talking about.

It seems the witless dinosaurs running the show over at Chevy haven't been able to come up with any good ideas to sell their gas guzzling Stupid Useless Vehicles. So they are enlisting the General Public to make ads for them. you can enter a contest. I have no idea what the prize is (probably one of those stupid Tahoes) but the fun part is this:

1. They supply a bunch of video clips and music
2. You can put any text you want over the images

When you're done, remember to email yourself the link to the movie, as if you're letting a friend know how cool your Tahoe Commercial Is. As If.

Then pass the link around (I put mine through tinyurl.com for the sake of clarity...)

They see it as advertising, but it's an open invitation to massive criticism, IMHO.

Make your own here:

Chevy puts a sign on its back saying "PLEASE KICK ME"

What a bunch of idiots.

S2

Cosmic

2006-03-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

Some have described the human race as little more than yeast who wear bow ties. While it does go a long way to describing the ramifications and boundaries of human behaviour, it does little to provide solutions. I see it as little more than a meagre rationalistion for fatalism.

Personally, I think consciousness is extremely rare in the universe - lord knows it's rare enough right here on earth. We have to remember that We Are Part Of The Universe. We are the part that thinks and knows it exists. This means *that the Universe itself is Conscious*. We are conscious and we are part of the universe: QED.

As we know that this consciousness is rare enough even among thinking humans, and is predicated on a vast variety of prerequisites of organic brain chemistry, we really do have a deep and abiding responsibility to keep this little light shining, as it is the one truly noble human function. The Universe lives and experiences itself through us and all sentient creatures. That the Universe will extinguish itself is not relevant: even flowers die. It's the FLOWERING that matters. As creatures who live in time and are self aware, we bring the universe along with us and are part of its flowering.

I am sure there are other blossoms - what is both amazing and disturbing is how ours has bloomed so quickly. It would be a tragedy for our stem to die and vanish from the great flowering universe.

Buddha knew this: he transmitted his dharma to his successor, Mahakasyapa, by pulling up a flower and twirling it between his fingers.

That's it: right there. Just like that.

Now, I twirl a flower between my fingers, and smile.

$9 trillion in debt

2006-03-17T19:56:00.000-08:00

The USA.gov just voted itself te ability to go to $9 trillion dollars in debt.

The factoid as to how much this debt is per capita is pretty awful, but I have also read that $9 trillion dollars would build 28 Eiffel Towers made of solid gold. That could be cool.

For what it's worth I figured something out that's kind of interesting - how long it will take to pay back the debt, assuming the USA.gov is somehow suddenly able to turn $1 million a day "profit". Now, the simple fact is that the Gov't has RARELY been able to "turn a profit", ever, but I won't go there... So, let's just pretend the USA.gov can actually pull a million dollars a day and use it to pay the debt.

First we take 9 trillion and we divide it by the million dollars.

that gives us 9 million days to pay it.

Then we divide the 9 million days by 365.25 (roughly the number of days in a year) and we get how many years it will take to pay back $9 trillion dollars in debt at the rate of $1 million dollars a day:

24,640.657 years.

Yes, 24,640.657 years.

Bascially, right around the next glaciation.

It ain't gettin paid back. Ever. I think we need to get that point out loud and clear:

Hello! China? Japan? South Korea? Great Britain? Hello? Guess what you guys: we're going to stiff you. You're not going to see a DIME of that money. Not now, not ever.

Sorry.

yours truly,

Stuart Studebaker

PO nihilism sux

2006-03-14T10:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I was in SF for Spring Break with the Missus and wee Avanti. We had a wonderful time - I miss them both so much. then I flew back to NJ this past Sunday to find my car inoperant. Which is something expected and prepared for with a jumper battery thing. Which worked. Then I put it in the trunk, and drove to work. That evening, the car didn't start. The battery jumper thing didn't have the spizzzz to crank the car, so I called AAA and got a jump. I am SICK of this nonsense, so I drove it to a repair shop, and Mr RepairMan will sort its electrical hash and I will no longer have to deal with this nonsense.

This evening I am having dinner with a fellow professor here at Urban University, so I have something pleasurable to look forward to. Gah.

Now, not to make my life more miserable, I am, as usual in constant battle with Peak Oil Nihilists. The odd thing is, frequently people complain that I'm too much of gloomer. I think people who believe that need to get out more often. That said, I do see the value in the nihilist argument, for if nothing is done to gracefully depopulate the planet of people to a sustainable level, nad if nothing is done to curb te production of greenhouse gases, the species will face a catastrophic die-off.

I do believe things are being done - not enough - but it's a start. I think that we're enough along the way that once we do understand ourselves to be in Peak, we won't see people running around like a pack of idiots in panic. But some people seem to think that "once we peak, all hell breaks loose, run for the hills, etc." And I am constantly finding myself at odds withh such people, as they share a similar mindset to a particular strand of American Apocalypticalism that rears up every few years. Not that ALL such notions of the Apocalyse are equally valid or invalid. The notion predicting that Jesus will come from the sky and judge the planet I find far less credible than the notion that we will all be incinerated in a nuclear war. The idea that the entire species will find itself in depraved daily battles over scraps of food the day after oil peaks I think is about as likely as Jesus coming down to judge the planet. This doesn't mean that I believe we will NEVER be in such a state, I just find it extremely unlikely.

Sadly, a number of people disagree with me, and one such fellow savaged another person on one of my energy lists. I defended said person and the results follow:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Satellite space stations in geosynchronous orbits beamed electrical energy that tells me (X) in NE (Y) did write:

==========================================
I have one question Fred, if you don't beleive in PO, why are you wasting your time in this group.
==========================================

I am one of the last to give creedence to "energy fairy" stories, but frankly your position is so wrong, it's not even wrong, and I see it as a kind of 21st century millennialism.

First off, I don't Believe In PO. Yep - you heard it here first. Stuart Studebaker Does Not Believe In Peak Oil. Why? Because I don't believe in facts. I UNDERSTAND FACTS. Belief has nothing to do with it, and when someone tells me "You gotta believe" I know I'm being decieved.

And this is the crux of the matter, and it is a continual theme here on ROE2 and ER and a bunch of other places:

Does the point where oil production peaks *necessarily* mean the instantaneous collapse of civilisation? Some people hole up in the hills and say "Yep. We're all gonna die." I humbly submit that you are completely incorrect.

This does NOT mean that everything is going to be George Jetson Peachy Keen. Far From It, actually.

What it does mean is that I think it is ***extremely unlikely*** that come 2012 we will have teeming hoards of violent assholes roaming the countryside shooting families for a box of Cheerios.

If you think that is true, then, That's Your Problem. Just get used to having me call you on it every time you pass it off as some kind of obvious truism, because -

a: it ain't
b: it shouldn't
c: it might, but ain't likely

Should people prepare? Yeah, you betcha. But prepare for WHAT? Madmax idiot infantile masturbatory fantasies of instant hell, or a century long decline to 1850?

Personally, I see the long decline in the cards, and the only thing that would stop it is something like fusion or CFR or some other equally powerful collection of technologies, in which case, we're looking at 1850 in 500 years or later.

To help create a long decline vs. the fast crash, is for people to continue Doing What We Are Doing : getting the word out, and helping sell and produce the sustainable society.

To mix some metaphors, you can't beat thermodynamics, but you can move the goal post... It's kind of like "Artificial Intelligence". The obvious truth is: Machines can't, won't, and will never think. Period. But: we can dumb down the notion of what constitutes "thought" to the point where we think "Machines Can Think." It's like the "interactive website". There is NOTHING interactive about it - it is simply a user accessing a logic tree. People are more interactive on antiquated "email lists" than any of us will ever be coaxing feeble data out of a Flash movie.

Same thing for the post-carbon society. Right now we (as a society) look at big McMansions and SUVs as the Ne Plus Ultra of comfort and utility. We come home, turn on all the incandescents in the house, crank the heat to 75, nuke some PeopleChow (tm) and plop in front of a giant CRT to watch "entertainment".

Well,

rather than promote a room for each pet, we could look to smaller homes and promote "cozy" and "home". The car could be an LEV (Like a Twike) and the home would be close to work, so public transport or walking would be best. And that would be seen as "the Ne Plus Ultra" luxury. And those clunky old incandescents? Feh! I've got the swanky LEDs! And for mood lighting, nothing sexier than a candle or two. And the heat? If thhe house is hyper-insulated, heating becomes much less of a problem. And giant TV? What for? I have a projector - bigger image, less power. But what about "my shows"? Only for idiots. The Cool Thing is to be entertained by the stuff coming over the fibre optic cable, which is made of sand, not metal...

The above description is not "Real" - it's more illustrational, so don't take it as a straw man. What I am pointing at as Real is to USE the system to Better Ends. With conservatives (like Roscoe Bartlett, Matt Simmons, et al) on one side and the tree huggers and liberals (Like Udall and Gore et al) on the other, this is definitely a do-able deal. Not easy, but do-able. So rather than sit and snipe sourness upon the world, work together to save it...

Stuart Studebaker

A Syriana Moment

2006-02-28T23:30:00.000-08:00

Last week Mrs Studebaker, our daughter, Avanti, and I went to visit the George Washington Museum in Morristown, NJ. The Museum itself was closed due to construction, but the mansion where he lived was open, and it was a very instructive and insightful display as to how people lived before petroleum. It was only a few generations after the Revolution that oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, and America was drop kicked directly front and centre into the Petroleum Age. I would argue that the age of the American Empire is almost directly coincidental to that resource. While it is true that the european invasion of North America was a rapacious disaster for the locals - starting with a mass death from smallpox, and culminating in death camps and forced migrations - that particular brand of murder and imperialism was largely limited to the North American continent, and the American Ruling Elite hadn't yet dreamt of the global hegemony it now enjoys.

The addition of oil to the mix is what made America's global empire possible, as it directly leapfrogged the coal powered weed of the British Empire. This leapfrogging was aided, in no small part, by the tiny brained tribal battles of Europe's idiotic fratricidal warfare. And before this oil fueled leapfrogging, the European immigrants lived rather dire lives in America, and the Morristown settlement was no exception. The houses were, for the most part, small hovels centered around a hearth. In Morristown, the largest house was the one that was Washington's HQ for the winter there. Even by today's standards, it was a large house, but we had driven through endless acres of McMansions that were larger. The winter Washington spent in Morristown made Valley Forge look like a picnic. Valley Forge had breaks in the cold - the winter in Morristown was one of the coldest ever on record.

The ground in Morristown is similar to much of that part of the country - thin soil on top of a hilly rocky base - not very good for farming. The winters are cold and snow is common. The Summers are hot and filled with mosquitos. Not an optimal location. Today, many thousands of people call it home, as they bask in their centrally heated and air-conditioned homes, many of which are much larger than the mansion Washington called home, and most of them much larger than the hovels the peasants lived in at the time of Washington.

During the winter, sometimes parts of the big house were left unused as they were too hard to heat. Note: this is how Washington, a member of the ruling class, lived. The servants who lived there were crowded into a few small rooms with low ceilings.

There was a book for children in the heated trailer next to the house. It talked about how different the life of a child was in the 18th century. At the age of 12, children were given adult responsibilities, and girls were often married off a few years later. Schooling was limited to the barest necessities of reading, writing, and simple arithmetic. Books were rare and expensive. The evening meal was the largest and it took much of the day to cook. People worked, all the time. Knitting was a continuous occupation, as was the carding and spinning of yarn. In fact, people would load up a spinning wheel on a horse just to go visit a friend. Women would often get together and spin thread as a social occassion.

Due to the local soil conditions, farming was hard and continuous. Because houses didn't have the luxury of fibreglas insulation, and houses were built without precision saws and tools, homes were often drafty affairs with low ceilings and small windows. Trees were cleared quickly, to make way for farms and to be used as wood. Thanks to replanting and the advent of petroleum, there are as many trees in New Jersey now than at any time since the arrival of Europeans - in fact, by 1900, much of NJ was clear-cut rolling hills of farm land. I walked back to the mansion and stood in the upper hallway looking out over the Museum grounds, and that's when I had a Syriana Moment.

I was thinking of the Matt Damon character talking to the prince of Syriana:

"You want to know what we think of you? We think that 100 years ago you people were living in tents and chopping each other's heads off, and we think that's exactly where you're going to be in another hundred years."

I looked out the window at the parking lot full of SUVs and minivans. I looked in the sky at the contrails of jets flying off to distant parts of the globe. I looked at the rocky eaten soil, and the spare grey trees. I thought that General Washington probably looked out that same window at similar trees - shivering thin midwinter sticks - and that he gazed at a similar broken land. Where the asphalt parking lot now sits filled with gas guzzling wagons of heated suburban comfort, was probably a collection of meagre frozen tents full of enlisted men and disease, huddled together against the cold.

And then I thought:

"You want to know what I think of you? I think 200 years ago you people were scratching out a miserable existence on this crappy rocky soil, and that's exactly where you're going to be in another 200 years."

Spreading the Word

2006-02-18T08:10:00.000-08:00

Friday was an interesting day. I teach an illustration design class (basically, Photoshop 101) on Fridays, and I prepared a packet for them to read. It consisted of Roscoe Bartlett's talk before Congress on the Peak Oil issue, Duncan's infamous "Olduvai Theory" paper, and a few other shorter works, including one by yours truly. The reading became increasingly less doomer/fatalistic, as I wanted the students to be left with a sense that hard times are ahead, but they need not end in catastrophe.

They were stunned. The reaction was "Why hasn't ANYONE TOLD US???", which I read as "Why isn't this on CNN, ALL THE TIME???" One girl looked like she was going to cry. I felt bad, but I did forewarn them: this is TOUGH STUFF. You Will Be Depressed.

Luckily one girl, who is several years older than the rest in the class and is Cuban, had some good things to say - she explained that when it all went to hell in a handbasket in the 1990s in Cuba, at first, life was VERY tough. But after a while people adjusted and learned how to live on less. One thing she said that I thought was really important was this:

"After a while - you think about other things. The situation stabilises, and you learn to cope and find a way to be happy. Life goes on."

She was able to emigrate to the USA, and she is in contact with her extended family back in Cuba. She has nothing good to say about the Castro regime itself, but she does miss having health care and free education. With what I showed her regarding Peak Oil, she feels she has already lived through a Peak Oil de-powering process, and she is sad that it seems she will have to go through another one.

She also said that many people in Havana (who could afford it) left the city and started small farms and ranches in the countryside. This opened up some room in the city, and almost instantly gardens began to flourish. However, she also said that if you dumped vegetables in the back yard, they'd sprout and grow due to the temperature and climate in Cuba. She has no idea how the Big City Near Us can possibly cope in a rapid depowering scenario.

That's where I piped in, saying that it is imperative that we - all of us - work together to prevent a rapid depowering, how it is important that we all work together to help the human race transition to the next phase in civilisation, and to get there with grace and dignity.

I also pointed out to them that the thing that cuts at contemporary Civilisation the most is not losing gasoline, but fertiliser and metals. The oil pissed away on transport is actually fairly elastic, and I showed them examples of electric cars, electric assist tricycles, and a variety of other transportation alternatives - and this is where we can make the most changes that would have the most immediate and beneficial effect.

We talked about population control, and the necessity of having children - just having FAR FEWER of them. That became rather complex and heated, so I stipulated that we would discuss it again another day, and went on to a different, if related, topic - food production. The Cuban girl had much to say on that (which makes sense if you know her. I really like her - she's very smart and very talented - but dang... she DOES talk an awful lot...) and soon class was almost over and the assignment was given:

Illustrate a post carbon society.
Doom and death? Clean and mean? Smaller and Sweeter? Wetter and Better? Whatever - JUST CONVINCE ME. DO NOT COMPROMISE. I gave them the physical parameters of the work.

They left looking like they had just been sentenced to life in prison. I went to lunch with some of them, and we had a long discussion on the subject. The general mood was "OK, well, let's get on with it." Which I found inspiring, and it makes me think that the Doomer Scenario may never come to pass - people can work together and we can make this happen.

"Yeah - it's brutal. you're gonna be really pissed and depressed for a while. But you'll get over it, and you'll have a better idea of what to do. You won't be sad forever. It's better to know this so you can work on it now, than to go skipping along with your fingers in your ear, pretending like it doesn't matter."

I hope to put some of the images they come up with on this blog.

S2

Another conversation

2006-02-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Greetings -

After my last post, I got REALLY sick. Last week SUCKED. I was in bed for three days straight. Now, I'm down to a miserable cough, but that's a dramatic improvement.

A few years ago, I, Stuart Studebaker, was posting on the Forums at newspeakdictionary.com under the name "Winston Smith". I quickly tired of the dominant ideology of the conversation which was often of a rightwing Libertarian bent, and of a pigheaded variety at that.

Every six months or so, I'd go back and check it out, and find nothing improved. Last week, I went and found someone had re-kindled the Peak Oil coversation there - something I had tried to do at least 6 months ago.

A recent exchange went down, where I thought some basic points were covered in a very polite and reasonable way, and I am re-posting that post here. I hope you find it useful. Feel free to comment.

S2

Hi Gold Rust.

I'll do my best to 'splain answers to your points and questions.

You asked:

I'm not an expert in this or anything, so tell me if I'm wrong - but whats wrong with using solar or geothermal energy to do all that stuff? And who says the ER/EI has to be positive?

OK - sure - this one's easy.

Let's say you get (x) units of energy from burning hydrogen (H). But: you need energy to MAKE the H, and that value (due to the laws of physics regarding hydrogen) is *always* greater than (x) units. So, if you are cracking petroleum to get the H (Petroleum is MUCH easier to crack than water, and provides a lot more H per kilo), you're better off just burning the petroleum. If you're cracking water, you need electricity. And the electricity you're using to crack the water comes from somewhere. If it is coming from petroleum, again: you're better off burning petroleum than using it to make H. However: if you're using solar power to crack the water to make the H, then you're technically getting most of the electricity for "Free". At that point, the ER/EI ratio gets much more favourable, and H makes sense as a kind of chemical battery. The problem is, Solar / Geothermal / Wind / etc. only accounts for a microscopic portion of the planet's energy production, and this doesn't account for another monstrous problem: H is extremely low density. To get it to a useful density for transport, it has to be reduced to liquid. The problem with that is it takes enormous amounts of power to liquify H, so we're back to the ER/EI problem. Also, H is reactive and tends to make containers very brittle, and due to is tiny molecular weight is prone to leak from ANY container. To fight these problems requires more energy, and you're back to an ugly ugly ER/EI.

ER/EI *must* be positive. Otherwise it's not a fuel. Think of it like food. If you have food that costs more energy to eat than you get from eating it, you'll starve. It's basic physics.

The way I see it happening is, as petro runs low, it will rise in price, forcing people to look into alternative methods, that may not be as effeicent at first but will be better than what they are using. It probably wont be hydrogen, or maybe it wont be any of the ones you mentioned as alternatives - maybe it will be a combination of several of them.

This explains the failure of "free market" solutions fairly well, from:

KURO5HIN

"We would like to believe that progress into new energy and more efficient use thereof is slow merely because not enough money is being put into it. As the price of oil rises, therefore, more money will go into such research, more progress will be made, and new technology will then be implemented and deployed to preserve our way of life. A common slogan is "the stone age didn't end for lack of stones, and the oil age won't end for lack of oil." This faith is utterly misplaced, and comes from a misunderstanding of the free market.

This institution predates the invention of bronze. Even stone age tribes know how to barter, and how to use durable goods of stable value as a medium of exchange. The mechanisms of the free market are in tune with our psyches, and that makes the free market a wonderful institution for providing people with the motivation to do what the rest of humanity wants them to do. The free market can drive people to try all sorts of things. But whether they succeed depends primarily on the laws of physics, which the free market cannot defeat. It cannot drive new discoveries of oil if there isn't any left to discover. It cannot get people to invent impossible technologies, but it can certainly get people to try. And people are already trying. Anyone who develops new solutions to our energy problems stands to gain such astonishing rewards, that it is ludicrous to think that if these rewards are increased by X amount, our savior will pop out of the woodwork. The rewards already go far beyond "fuck you money."

While facile solutions to our energy predicament may emerge, taking faith in that scenario is foolish. It implies that you believe in the All Too Convenient Anthropic Principle - the principle that the laws of nature are tuned not only to cause the emergence of life on our planet and its evolution to include the appearance of our species, but also that the laws of nature are conducive and will forever be conducive to our species enjoying a Western consumerist lifestyle from now to eternity. Don't count on it.

Gold Rust then says:

I agree that ethanol could not possibly be a single replacement for petro, but I have no hard time envisioning it in hybrid cars that run on it and solar, etc.

The problem is the production of ethanol requires industrial farming techniques that depend on pertoleum. Also, there is the ethical question re: using food to "bring Muffy to Soccer practice..." Especially as food costs skyrocket (I discuss that below).

I think your problem is that you dont look at the whole picture - the world isnt going to just wake up one day and say "Oh my gosh, theres no more fossil fuels!" - it will be gradual.

I agree - which is why I am not a "Fast Crash Nihilist" like many peak oil researchers.

As petro becomes less common in the ground, prices will rise - ever heard of supply and demand?

I dismantled that argument with the kuro5hin quote.

Why can't we just where sweaters in the winter? Thats what they do in Russia, and I still do it today - a sweater can keep you just as warm as a heater, at a fraction of the cost.

I do to. BUT: drive out to some suburb in say, Indiana, and go up to some McMansion - you know - one of those new big ugly houses with the SUVs in the parking lot, and all the lights on - and tell these people (often dupes of the Republican Party) that they

a: have to start wearing sweaters around the house
b: sell their SUV and buy a tiny toyota hybrid, or better yet, a used Toyota Echo, and ride their bicycles as much as they can - get a trailer for the bike and use it to buy things at the market
c: put timers on their lights
d: stop using the gas fireplace, and plant some trees in back for fuel in 15 years, and install a wood burning firebox/stove NOW.
e: stop using a gas range for cooking
f: forget the clothes dryer - set up clothes lines in the back and drying racks in the garage
g: buy a high efficiency front loading washer
h: learn to do the dishes by HAND
i: Abandon the TV set and read books to each other for entertainment, and learn a bunch of card and dice games
j: Install a solar PV panel set up for daytime electricity to power their new hyper efficient refrigerator
k: get used to Much Higher Indoor Temperatures in the summer, because their central AC is done for.
l: Open cans by hand
m: learn to chop food with a knife not a processor
n: learn to COOK food, from raw materials that do not require freezing or refrigeration
o: dedicate a corner of the basement as a root cellar for the winter storage of potatoes, parnsips, turnips, and rudabagas.
p: install a solar hot water heater on their roof
q: start a food garden.

Now, those are just SOME of the things people are going to have to get used to post peak oil. Sweaters in winter are just a tip of the iceberg. The suburbs (at least those that are not on a train line) are completely screwed. The loss of petroleum is going to effect every aspect of modern living, no exceptions, and no sympathy given. It's going to be, as the book title suggests: A Long Emergency.

Cooking requires so little energy it could easily be supplied to a whole neighborhood by a solar panel or a wind turbine down the street. This obviously wont be the most likely solution, but I don't think alot of trouble will be in this area.

Sure. Tell that to the restaurant industry. The shift in cooking and food production will prove to be the most difficult, as it directly impacts everyone - the rich and poor alike will face the same problem. The restaurant industry will shrivel up, but not disappear. See it return to more of a "cafe" system, with electrically heated water for beverages, and wood powered onsite baking. Haybox and sun box cooking will provide more efficient hot dinners but many hours of cooking will reduce capacity and increase expense.

Winston Smith said:

Materials: All our high tech materials are dependent on the long molecular chains so easily produced from Petroleum. Our mining machines are dependent on petroleum.

And Gold Rust asked:

Recycling?

Recycling isn't permanent. There is continuous loss in recycling due to oxidation of resources. Metals rust, plastics crumble, etc. We'll be able to mine our landfills for years, but eventually they will also give out. It is the loss of metal resources that threatens industrial civilisation the most in the long term.

If certain steps wil be taken, doesnt it follow that we will continue to take steps to supply people with fuel?

IF and only IF: there is fuel to supply. As we go down the back side of the peak, petroleum will accellerate in price, and the fuel that's left will be needed to develop more sustainable energy sources. None of the energy sources, outside of fusion, has nearly the power and none, including fusion, has the transportability and density of petroleum.

Basically, we're looking at the loss of a one time gift of dense, transportable energy, and with it, the certain end of our style of civilisation. Because we use 7 - 10 calories of petroleum for every calorie of food we eat (farm equipment, fertiliser, harvesting equipment, transport to the food processor, transport from food processor to market, energy to keep market open, transport of consumer to and from market) we're looking at a dramatic loss in the ability for society to feed itself. Example: Almonds. Almost all the almonds consumed in the USA are grown in Southern California (just drive around anywhere outside of Bakersfield - you'll see). These almonds get to places like MAINE by way of truck. Add a zero to the cost of fuel for the truck and watch almonds get scarce in Maine, quick. Now, do that to the entire food industry, AND combine that stress with ever more mouths to feed from over population. Results: starvation in poorer countries, and massive re-alignment and rationing of the farming system in richer countries to prevent food riots.

Once petroleum is so scarce and expensive, fertilisers will disappear and desertification will rise exponentially. Permaculture farming will be the only sustianable alternative, but the yields aren't high enough to feed the 10 billion people on the planet. Result? Malthus.

Winston Smith:
I would prefer a Die Down - where we depopulate peacefully and gracefully. But a depopulation is INEVITABLE. It's not a matter of IF - it's a question of HOW and WHEN.

and Gold Rust replied:

I quite agree - but HOW, most likely wont be from petro shortages, and WHEN will most likely be... erm, sometime between now and 500 years.

No, it has to be this coming century, and it has to be orderly, peaceful, and with dignity.

If we don't depopulate as described, the results will be:

Duncan's Olduvai Theory

I wish this peak oil issue was a point we could argue and make it go away. But it isn't. It's the real deal - a true crisis in Civilisation. I think we can manage it and make it a less bumpy road, but unless someone pulls fusion out of their butts in such a way that it is possible and practical, industrial civilisation is OVER.

Orwell's 1984 will be seen as a quick signpost on the way down as we die off into something more resembling ancient Rome. If we don't want to collapse back into a late iron age slave state system, we need to begin implementing post peak policies NOW, so we can pull the right hand side of the peak out - changing a crash into a slope.

S2

Eating, Pooping, Fighting and Fucking

2006-02-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago, I met some very nice people at an art opening, and we got to talking about energy, culture, etc. I wrote an email to a few of them, and I thought it was interesting and would make a good Early-Warning post.

So, I edited out the personal chunks and re-wrote other sections, and came up with the following. Lately I've been sick with the Devil Bug, and my head is full of snot. As a consequence, I've been sleeping a lot and taking it easy.

===============================================

First, I should point out there is a HUGE debate raging in the energy community between the Nihilists and the Cornicopians. The Nihilists are of the opinion that

"We're all fucking doomed - try what you will you foolish mortals!!! IT WILL BE FOR NAUGHT AND YOU WILL ALL DIE!!!!"

This is occassionally followed by the cynical chuckle of true despair that sounds something like "Muuuwahahahahaaaa..."

Then there are the Cornicopians. They are often referred to as "idiots". They actually aren't idiots - they just have greater levels of confidence in certain factors and data than the Nihilist think is rational and many of the rest of us think is justified.

Then there's the "rest of us". A diverse mix of people, of course, and rather than try to distill such a crowd into components, I'll describe my own position, which runs like this:

The Nihilists are correct in one sense. We are all completely doomed *IF WE DO NOTHING*. If we do a little, it will postpone the disaster, but won't avert it. If we do a lot we can cushion the downslope and evolve our society into a depopulated and sustainable system. If we do everything we can, we can not only evolve into that "good place" we can do it with relatively little loss of life.

The Cornicopians do have a few good points - mostly centered around technology. The Cornicopian technology fixes can certainly help avert a die off.

The problem boils down to one of population. If we don't reduce our birth rate immediately, we are looking at an uncontrolled and violent die off, and possible extinction. I'm not saying "No More Babies, period" but that they need to be fewer in number, and much better cared for when they appear. With reduced population, there will be reduced pressure on the planet's resources. Combined with sustainable practices (recycling technologies, permaculture farming, etc.) the future of the species is much brighter than the dark night envisioned by the Nihilists. But if we continue to crowd the planet with more and more people, the resources will give out, and result in massive warfare over the scraps. Not one, but several (small) nuclear wars would easily result.

Personally, I don't want to see the world go down the path of trading nuclear tipped insults, massive starvation, or freezing to death in the winter on a ruined deforested planet.

The long term key is demographic. The short term key is culture and technology.

We can do this, but it will take enormous effort. I have come to the conclusion that the people who will matter the most to the species will prove to be those people born between 1945 and 2010. It is up to the older boomers (1945 - 55) to set the course as they settle into positions of power. It is up to the younger boomers (1955 - 1965) to agitate and do the planning and innovating. They are young enough and smart enough to realise it, and have sufficent numbers to make movements in the markets - their children are older and can focus on these issues with the clarity bourne of experience. The generations of 1965 - 75 and 75 - 85 will end up doing the heavy lifting. They will get it in the neck, as they will be in the prime of their lives as the oil system peaks out in the 2010's. The children of the 1990s will be crucial as they will be the parents of the first post-petroleum generation. This is a position of such crucial importance, I can't emphasize it enough - their victories and failures will loom large on their children and grandchildren. Also, the children of the 1990s will have the greatest pressure on them to innovate and organise the new society. By their adulthood in the 2020s, the first wave of boomers will begin dying in great numbers, soon followed by the late boomers. The Children born in the 2000s (children of people born in the 70s and 80s) will be the last petroleum generation and will be pivotal in the transition. It is of extra-ordinary importance that they be raised with the knowledge and impetus to continue building the new sustainable civilisation.

People born after 2010 will simply have to cope with what I call the "Peak Generations" deal them. If the Peak Generations can come through and do the right thing, step up to the plate and set civilisation along a path of permacultural sustainability and graceful depopulation, then those born at and after the oil peak will willl not curse their memory for having squandered the world, but will revere the Peak Generations for having had the wisdom and intelligence to look forward and help rather than stand around, do nothing, and hinder the human project.

Many Nihilists feel we are slaves to our basest natures. They are probably right, but I would submit that we are not chattel slaves - we are wage slaves! And as wage slaves to our basest natures, we have the ability in our leisure time to do something other than eat, poop, fight and fuck. It is this time we spend not exercising our base instincts that allows us to plan and culturally blunt our base instincts.

There is distinct pleasures to be had from our base instincts and processes: food is a delight when well prepared and shared with love. And after a big meal, a good healthy crap is a distinct (if smelly) pleasure. Fighting can be good, especially when the fight is one of principle and wisdom against ignorance and stupidity, and is fought on the battlefield of ideas. Nothing can oppose the force of millions of people peacefully united behind the ideas of justice and freedom. And the extra-ordinary pleasures of good sex is not to be underestimated, especially, if not most of all, when it is in the context of a deep, loving, and caring relationship.

However: each of these pleasures comes with a series responsibilities. The food comes with the responsibility to not waste the food left over, and for food to be produced in a sustainable and healthy manner for not only the people eating it, but for the soil and environment that produced it.

And the good healthy crap that follows a good meal, we must realise that our bodily waste is a very valuable resource. Which is why we must reduce our consumption of hormones, chemicals, and medicines - it all comes out in our wastes to poison the earth and it endangers other creatures. We will need our ("clean") waste in order to fertilise our fields.

The fighting must continue as long as there is injustice and exploitation in this world, as long as people are denied the simplest freedoms, the fight must continue. However, the fight must be along the lines envisioned by Ghandi and Martin Luther King: it must be a fight of peaceful masses of people moving and demanding justice and freedom. This requires the same level of solidarity one would find in any military unit - the forces of hate and violence will seek to divide and conquer the forces of good and progress and provoke them into violent confrontation. The movements must maintain solidarity and peace, but must also not compromise either their ideals or integrity, even as their comrades are blown to bits or beaten to bloody pulps. It is from this solidarity that the communities of the sustainable future will evolve.

And the fucking must continue, for reasons too obvious to mention. However, as sex is the source of the demographic problem that is essential to our predicament, on the socio-political front, we need to greatly expand birth control and voluntary sterilisation programs. I would recommend that birth control methods be heavily subsidised by the .gov and sterilisation procedures (vasectomies and tubal ligations) be free of charge. This would reduce pregnancy and the transmission of diseases - a net gain in both directions. But beyond the policy wonkery: sex is a good thing, and I recommend it...

So, in each case, we can see how even our "basest instincts" can be routed into constructive and positive directions that will lead to the development of the civilisation we need: a non-petroleum based sustainable, permacultural depopulated world civilisation of 500 million souls living full, rich, and colourful lives slowly evolving into homo futuris - the human of the future.

S2

Petro-dollar, petro-euro, Iraq, China, and You

2006-01-25T06:12:00.000-08:00

On a list I write to, someone made a statement that the Iraq War was actuallly alll about the almight petro-dollar. Someone then retorted

PPLLEEAASSSEEE... ... don't try to make the totally absurd assertion
that the war in Iraq is not about oil. If Iraq had no oil we would not
be there. This IS a war about control of energy resources... plain and
simple.

Being of sound mind and body, I had to insert my two sense and I responded:

Actually, you are BOTH correct. It's not a zero-sum Boolean thing - it's a confluence of complex and inter-related actions, needs, desires, demands, and systems.

First, you are *not* completely correct in saying it is a war "about control of energy resources... plain and simple." There is nothing pure or simple about this conflict.

That is certainly a major part of the equation, but Ron's point about petro-dollars is equally important. Iraq was under our thumb and a virtual non-entity during the Clinton Administration, because he basically bombed the crap out of them. Iraq was in a nearly identical, if not somewhat worse, condition at the invasion than it was on the last day of the Clinton White House. What changed was S.Hussein's decision to move Iraqi oil off the dollar toward the euro. One of the first things to be implemented upon the invasion of Iraq was to put it back on the petro-dollar.

So, yes, Oil *is* fundamental to the war in Iraq, but not the only - the economic machine around it is of equal importance, as is the geo-political strategies of how to deal with a powerful China.

Example: Let's say ALL oil producers sell oil in a variety of currencies - pretend there is no "petro-dollar", making the market similar to pre-1945. Then the invasion of Iraq would be seen as an absolute grab for the resources, as the only way a given resource would be salable would be in the prevailing currency of the invading party, in this case, the USA.

We had vast control over the inputs and outputs of Iraq throughout the 1990s, Iraqi oil was in petrodollars, and there was no invasion. Once Hussein started grumbling about dumping the dollar, things got interesting, and when he made moves to pull out of the dollar and go to the euro - bingo: the hammer comes down and he's found hiding in a spider hole.

Another aspect of this is the geo-politics of China, especially their strategic vision of the USA and geopolitics in general. This report is getting a little dated (pre 9/11 and Bush) but the fundamentals it discusses are very much a part of the continuing picture.

CHINA DEBATES the FUTURE SECURITY ENVIRONMENT by Michael Pillsbury, January 2000, National Defense University Press

Both Clinton and China shared a similar long range outlook: a multi-polar vision of global security, where the USA gradually builds down into being a local power primarily dominating the Americas, China dominating east asia, and the EU in Europe. With this kind of an arrangement, the threat to China would be mostly economic, from India. China's military was not united in their analysis, and some felt that the USA would not go to a multi-polar system for at least another generation. The installation of the Bush Junta proved their skepticism.

So: combine these factors, and the contemporary situation makes a lot more sense - it's not just *merely* the oil resource itself, it is the economic and monetary structure that surrounds it that is of grave importance as well. With that in mind, we can see why Iran is such a threat to the Bush Junta's neocon plans of unipolar global dominance. A devalued petrodollar that is weak against the petro-euro makes it harder to finance the military adventures necesary to prop up the petrodollar and access to the resource that the petrodollar denominates: Oil.

Since the USA is bogged down in afghanistan and iraq, it is extremely unlikely that the USA can actually succeed in invading Iran. Therefore, proxies will be found to remove the Iranian nuclear capabilities, military or otherwise. This would, obviously, fall to Israel.

However, this wil not necessarily remove the Iranian petro-euro policy - and that becomes a significant stumbling block to the unipolar desires of the Bush Junta War Machine. It will serve to devalue the dollar, and gradually eat away the debt assets owned by the Chinese. However, the inflation created by this devaluation might not lead to a hyper-inflation, as the monetarist policies of the Fed will step in and raise interest rates to reduce the inflating money supply.

Depending on how high the interest rates go and the inflation rate rises, debt management becomes interesting - those with old debt will see their debts reduce in value with the lower dollar. Those with new debt or interest variable debt will get stuck if:

a: the interest rates wildly exceed the inflation rate
b: the interest rates don't drop as fast as decreases in inflation
c: an oddly contradictory position of finding money very hard to get, and not worth very much when you do get it... Stagflation on steroids.

To counter these problems, the US.gov will have to directly reduce the deficit to zero, ASAP, in order to reduce pressure on the interest rates and free up money. How it does that will be "very interesting..."

This makes for a complex and volatile situation - enemies of the unipolar American Empire working to undermine the currency, economic rivals competing for the declining resources, a deeply conflicted populace in the American Empire, and burgeoning populations - it's not a good situation, and it certainly demonstrates that the war in Iraq is not as straight-forward a "pure and simple" resource war as one might think.

best regards,

Stuart Studebaker

A debate

2006-01-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

I'm on the ROE2 email list, and Matt Savinar made some statements that I disagreed with.

My rant follows:

I think this needs some perspective and intelligence applied here.

Someone wrote:

>I'm just tired of this "if you understand PO and
> protest the war you're a hypocrite" schtick."

and Matt Savinar replied

>I guess it should be "if you understand Peak Oil, protest the war
>and fail to lower your energy consumption to the absolute bare-
>minimum, then yes you are a hypocrite."

And I have to pull out my "bullshit" card.

The simple fact is, the SIMPLEST interactions with our economy is directly dependent and involved with:

1. a wildly destructive industrial system of resource consumption and tool/commodity production.
2. a massively exploitative method of labour organisation that has far reaching effects in terms of energy and resource consumption.
3. an intricate web of social and material relations of interdependency between these massively destructive systems and citizens of the societies that engage in such practices.

If we use Mr Savinar's judgement "to lower your energy consumption to the absolute bare-minimum" we have no sense of what constitutes the "bare minimum", in fact we have no sense of what constitutes the bare maximum, but that's another issue.

This reductivist nonsensical position reminds me of National Lampoon's record "Lemmings" where a "Weatherman" takes the stage. I have it almost memorised (I've owned the record since I was 14) and the rant (performed by a young and long haired Chevy Chase) goes like this (Caps are on purpose, because he shouts the whole thing):

"YA KNOW - YA DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO TELL WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS! ALRIGHT! ALL OF US HERE, EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD -ALL OF US - WE'RE OPPRESSORS - PIGS! WE OWE IT TO THE THIRD WORLD TO OFF OURSELVES!!! IF YOU'RE NOT A BLACK HOMOSEXUAL WORKING CLASS WOMAN - YOU'RE AN OPPRESSOR - PIG!!! YOU DESERVE TO DIE!!!! EVERYTIME YOU SHIT OR PISS YOU DUMP URAEIC ACID ON THE MOTHER EARTH AND THEN YOU WIPE YOUR ASS WITH THE
GUTS OF A TREE! YOU'RE NOT WORTH THE LIFE OF THE COW THAT MADE YOUR BELT YOU RUNNING DOG JACKAL! ALRIGHT!!! NOW, AS WE ALL KNOW, THE CAPITALIST PIGS OWN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION FOR GUNS AND RAZOR BLADES AND ALL THE OTHER MEANS OF SELF EXTERMINATION. SO WE SUGGEST THAT IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL THAT YOU BEAT YOURSELF TO DEATH IN A FOUR FOOT DEEP PILE OF ORGANIC COMPOST! AND FOR THOSE WHO CAN'T DO THAT, WE HAVE TNT SUPPOSITORIES! POWER TO THE CORRECT PEOPLE! PEACE AND LOVE!"

Basically, to be quite simple, the ENTIRE system is completely rotten to the core, and it will have to disappear. However, I can assure you it will not be replaced by some benign and gentle wonderment of enlighted self-rule. Such notions are bourgeois/industrialist mythology and false consciousness. IT ain't gonna happen. It will be replaced by a system of repression and brutality, just as nasty and vicious as anything that has preceded it. It might be "nicer" than the previous system, and "cleaner" than the previous system, but it will still exist by standing on the necks of the working poor, just like this one, and
the manorial feudalism that preceded us, and the imperial slave states that preceded that, and the theocractic slave states that preceded them, and so on and so forth.

There was no golden past, and there is no golden future. There is only this struggle - forever.

There is no possible reduction to purity or innocence, and Mr Savinar's claims require such like as prerequisites of understanding. Without that there is no liminal value of "bare minimum" as a possible judgement.

Rather than engage in such histrionic nonsense, I think it is much more useful to say "this is where we are - it's complex, and messy. We need to get to some close approximation of (here), and how we do that is of utmost importance to the continuance of the human project."

What (here) is, often devolves into metaphysical thumb twiddling by the self satified or finger-pointing by the self-righteous. What needs to happen is organisation and co-operation around a common goal: the de-carbonisation of society.

This may *or may not* result in the complete collapse of industrialism itself - I don't think any of us will live long enough to find out. However: it *is* up to us to *consciously* set into motion the social, political, and material practise of the rudiments of the society that will follow ours. I have stated before and I will say it again: everyone born between 1945 and 2010 has a special mission: we *must* do our dead level best to again "set into motion the social, political, and material practise of the rudiments of the society that will follow ours." If we don't, then it's game over for humanity.

Matt Continued:

"If I may be so bold, I'm tired of this "I can have my cake and eat it too" schtick which maintains that a person can make individual and regular use of the most "death-dealing device every devised" while still saying (with a straight face) that they opposse the death-dealing necessary to get the energy to run the device."

I'm not, because every breath you take, every move you make, every step you take, every bond you break, has far reaching and devastating effects on the entire system of life on this planet. Except for the energy from the sun, and the crap that falls from the sky, the earth is a closed system. "Everytime you shit or piss, you dump ureic acid on the mother earth and you wipe your ass with the guts of a tree". So kindly dispense with the rhetoric, and get on with the real problem: how we use energy to accomplish how we live.

Matt then writes:

"Thing is, without giving up individual use of the car at a minimum, your individual energy use is still going to be "collosal." Giving up individual use of a car does not, in of itself, lower your consumption to sustainable levels but it is at least a big jump in that direction. "

That depends. Let's say I DON'T own a car. But I live in a single family suburban home, and I'm afraid of the dark so I leave all the lights on, and I hate the cold so I pump the heat, and I spend an hour every day in my hot tub. And how do I get to sell my labour? By riding a diesel bus to work every day.

Now, one might own a USED car, and live in a cave eating roots and berries.

Cars are only one part of the puzzle: it's the puzzle itself that is the problem. So rather than whinge about who is more destructive than the other, I think a far better use of time (which is geting shorter by the day) and energy (which is running lower by the day) would be to organise and develop social and political systems to transition to a new resource practice.

It WILL be slow, and it WILL be complicated. Tough. That's life. There won't be an apocalypse. Sorry. We don't deserve one - it would be too simple.

THAT all said, I MUST say that Mr Savinar's website is a truly wonderful thing, and I support and applaud his efforts in raising
consciousness regarding energy consumption. That is the critical first step. The next step (and it is several orders of magnitude more complex and difficult) is to organise - we need to spend time with our neighbours and develop the society we want to live in.

Nihilism will not get us out of this fix, anymore than terminal starvation is a successful method of losing weight. We "ate/reproduced" our way into this mess, we will have to "eat/reproduce" our way out of it.

best,

Stuart Studebaker

Back from the Shadows, again.

2006-01-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

Well, dear friends, I'm back, and I'm just as pissed off as usual.

A friend of mine who is a consumer of the corporate propaganda machine was skeptical of the news regarding the collapsing dollar and Wall Street's recent dive, etc.

So I sent her the following links and excerpts from articles all stating the obvious:

That the Iraq War has as much to do with defending the economy of Empire, as it does with the oil under its ground.

Here are the links and snippets of Real News.

Article #1: Kuwait lied about its reserves - news as of Friday, 20 JAN 06.

LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - OPEC producer Kuwait's oil reserves are only half those officially stated, according to internal Kuwaiti records seen by industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW).

"PIW learns from sources that Kuwait's actual oil reserves, which are officially stated at around 99 billion barrels, or close to 10 percent of the global total, are a good deal lower, according to internal Kuwaiti records," the weekly PIW reported on Friday.

It said that according to data circulated in Kuwait Oil Co

(KOC), the upstream arm of state Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Kuwait's remaining proven and non-proven oil reserves are about 48 billion barrels.

Officials from KOC were not immediately available for comment to Reuters.

PIW said the official public Kuwaiti figures do not distinguish between proven, probable and possible reserves.

But it said the data it had seen show that of the current remaining 48 billion barrels of proven and non-proven reserves, only about 24 billion barrels are so far fully proven -- 15 billion in its biggest oilfield Burgan.

Kuwait has been adding up to 500 million barrels a year at Burgan which means the remaining non-proven reserves of some 5.3 billion barrels will likely be upgraded to proven, according to PIW.

Three consortia led by BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and ExxonMobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) are in the race for Project Kuwait, a 20-year operating service contract to raise crude capacity at four oilfields in the north of Kuwait.

Article #2: Kuwait's largest field has peaked and is in decline, 12 NOV 05

Kuwait's biggest field starts to run out of oil
Kuwait: Saturday, November 12 - 2005 at 08:46

It was an incredible revelation last week that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field. The peak output of the Burgan oil field will now be around 1.7 million barrels per day, and not the two million barrels per day forecast for the rest of the field's 30 to 40 years of life, Chairman Farouk Al Zanki told Bloomberg.

He said that engineers had tried to maintain 1.9 million barrels per day but that 1.7 million is the optimum rate. Kuwait will now spend some $3 billion a year for the next year to boost output and exports from other fields.

However, it is surely a landmark moment when the world's second largest oil field begins to run dry. For Burgan has been pumping oil for almost 60 years and accounts for more than half of Kuwait's proven oil reserves. This is also not what forecasters are currently assuming.

Forecasts wrong
Last week the International Energy Agency's report said output from the Greater Burgan area will be 1.64 million barrels a day in 2020 and 1.53 million barrels per day in 2030. Is this now a realistic scenario?

The news about the Burgan oil field also lends credence to the controversial opinions of investment banker and geologist Matthew Simmons. His book 'Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy' claims that the ageing Saudi oil filed also face serious production falls.

The implications for the global economy are indeed serious. If the world oil supply begins to run dry then the upward pressure on oil prices will be inexorable. For the oil producers this will come as a compensation for declining output, and cushion them against an economic collapse.

However, the oil consumers then face a major energy crisis. Industrialized economies are still far too dependent on oil. And the pricing mechanism of declining oil reserves will press them into further diversification of energy supplies, particularly nuclear, wind and solar power.

Article #3: The implications of Iran switching away from dollars and only sell oil in euros.

"Until now oil is solely priced, traded and paid for in the greenback on both markets in London and New York. The Treasury Inflow Capital data from mid-2005 show that OPEC members have parked only a skimpy $120 billion in direct dollar holdings which are almost equally split between equities and debt paper. This is a clear indication that oil producers are investing their windfalls elsewhere. The yield spread between US and EU debt papers in favor of the EU is clearly another hint where the petrodollars might flow after conversion.

The Iranian Oil Bourse (IOB) will become a factor that could further unsettle the dollar's dominant position.

Especially in the case of Iran it does not make sense to accept dollars only for its much desired commodity. Being seen as a hostile country by the USA for the intention to build its own nuclear reactors one wonders whether the new IOB will not try to attract other buyers than Americans who are particularly unwelcome in that corner of the globe. Iran has recently announced that the new oil exchange will start up its computers in early 2006.

Steering away from the almighty commodity, currency and commodity currency - the US dollar - can have a deeper impact on the US economy than a direct nuclear attack by Iran. The permanent demand for dollar denominated paper stems to a good part from the fact that until now almost all resources of the world are quoted in it."

Article #4. The Iranians are coverting their oil currency to euros, which will weaken the dollar

"In 2005-2006, The Tehran government has a developed a plan to begin competing with New York's NYMEX and London's IPE with respect to international oil trades - using a euro-denominated international oil-trading mechanism. This means that without some form of US intervention, the euro is going to establish a firm foothold in the international oil trade. Given U.S. debt levels and the stated neoconservative project for U.S. global domination, Tehran's objective constitutes an obvious encroachment on U.S. dollar supremacy in the international oil market."

Article # 5. The Iraq war as seen as an oil currency war.

"Although completely unreported by the U.S. media and government, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is in large part an oil currency war. One of the core reasons for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. The second coalescing factor that is driving the Iraq war is the quiet acknowledgement by respected oil geologists and possibly this administration is the impending phenomenon known as Global "Peak Oil."

This is projected to occur around 2010, with Iraq and Saudi Arabia being the final two nations to reach peak oil production. The issue of Peak Oil has been added to the scope of this essay, along with the macroeconomics of `petrodollar recycling' and the unpublicized but genuine challenge to U.S. dollar hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. The author advocates graduated reform of the global monetary system including a dollar/euro currency `trading band' with reserve status parity, a dual OPEC oil transaction standard, and multilateral treaties via the UN regarding energy reform. Such reforms could potentially reduce future oil currency and oil warfare. "

Articles #6 : China has announced that it is going to diversify its portfolio (i.e., reduce its investment in our debt) 6 JAN 06

" The latest comments from China should warrant more focus than today’s non-farm payrolls. Coming back to haunt dollar bulls was talk of Chinese reserve diversification. China announced yesterday that they plan on diversifying their reserves away from the US dollar and US treasuries. China is the world’s second largest holder of US Treasuries, which means that any diversification away from dollar denominated assets, could have grand ramifications.

Although they are not expected to make any quick or massive shifts, even gradual moves in an environment that is already becoming less and less favorable to the dollar, could certainly give dollar bulls another reason to jump ship. "

So, that's the news while I've been away: basically, the oil situation is a bit more dire than previously understood, and the Empire not only must defend itself from terrorist attack (as there is no credible national military threat, with the exception of Russian Nukes) but must also defend itself economically against a run on its currency which is tied to the production of oil.

The Empire has spent itself into oblivion, and needs to either wildly increase taxes on the rich (something the rich and their idiot minions are loathe to do) or simply monetise the debt through inflation.

A move in that direction is witnessed here:

The Fed is discontinuing the publishing of the M3

Once the public is in the dark about eurodollar transfers, the money supply can be expanded at will. The devaluation of the dollar can be seen as an "attack from the outside" when it is actually a strategic decision from the inside to monetise the debt. IF (and it seems fairly logical to me) that is what the pigfuckers running this show are up to, then the questions become: will they also raise interest rates to try and "stifle" the inflation? If so, then get locked in interest rates NOW, and pay off your debts with ever cheapening dollars, or sell off your house, move someplace cheap, and pay cash from your equity. If they DON'T boot interest rates, or boot them fast enough, we could get into a hyperinflation, in which case being in debt is a Really Good Thing, because you can borrow money that is soon worthless.

My guess is the Fed won't let that happen

(although it should be noted that while bread and other goods were insanely expensive, unemployment dropped to nearly zero during the Weimar hyperinflation, people paid off their houses in an afternoon, and the investment in industrial capital and infrastructure was astronomical. That the following crash led directly to the rise of Adolf Hitler is not lost on many...)

and will try to "manage" the inflation, so we have an inflation to defray the destruction of the debt, but not so much inflation that it runs away with the economy.

My next post will outline the Stuart Studebaker policy.

S2

Home Again Home Again Jiggety Jig

2006-01-02T08:34:00.000-08:00

I arrived home to find a huge stack of mail. I did a quick analysis of what I need to do to improve the Home Energy Picture, and it looks like I will spend most of this summer labouring to increase the efficiency of this house.

What needs to be done in the first round:

1. We need a set of stairs from the kitchen to the back yard.
2. We need to insulate the garage (it is under the main living spance and is not insulated at all.)
3. We need to change the cooking range top from gas to electric.
4. We need to get better laundry machines - frontloading hyperefficient electric systems.
5. We have a pretty good refrigerator, so we don't need a new one yet.
6. I would like to solarise the hot water system. Right now we have a classic NG water heater. That will be an interesting problem - we don't have really good sun - our house is on the north side of a hill. That will take some arranging and planning. I was thinking that we really only need hot water for bathing, so we might get one of those miniature hot water heaters that are common in Europe.

Those are a few of the immediate concerns. I am *extremely* busy for the next two weeks- preparing for the next semester for my day job as Professor Studebaker. I'm teaching 3 classes, 2 of which have no syllabi, bibliographies, or assignments developed. Uff da!

more later.

S2

Greenwood, IN

2005-12-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

Early Warning has been off line- I've been cavorting about the country, gamboling about the USA. I had a lot of final grades to submit on 18 DEC 05, and I left for holiday on the 19th, arriving in Greenwood, IN. I hate to say this - naaaah - I'll say it: Greenwood Indiana is the posterchild of all that is completely fucked up with America. This place is screwed. Everything is only accessible by automobile. The winters are cold and damp. The summers are hot and muggy. These people are completely and utterly dependent on petroleum. All of their consumption is accomplished by way of giant national chain stores and regional franchises.

I write this from a Panera Bread Cafe. Easily half of the people sitting around me at this moment are obese. Not a little fat, not somewhat overweight. Obese. Full disclosure: I could stand to lose a few pounds (30 to be exact) but I *know* that I need to lose it and I have a plan I am implementing to do so. These people have no plans on doing so. These people are pigs at the trough, gulping down coffee and carbs.

I will now look out the window at the parking lot, and report the vehicles in the lot:

13 SUVs
8 minivans
6 full sized cars (Cadillacs, Buicks, a mid 90's Oldsmobile, etc.)
14 midsized cars (Chevys, Pontiacs, mostly, some few Toyotas)
9 compact cars, one Toyota, one VW, the rest Chevy or Ford.
1 sub compact - a Mini Cooper.

NO Priuses. No Honda Insights.

Clueless clueless clueless.

The Panera Cafe uses natural gas to cook the food. The place has (I glanced into the kitchen and guess-timated) a total of approximately 150 sixty watt bulbs. Some of them are spots, so they're a bit "brighter" because their light is more directed. The Panera Cafe, as it is presently configured, will likely cease to exist in my lifetime. I suspect they will be able to heat water for coffee in the future, but the coffee will be much more expensive. People will savour a single cup, instead of guzzle 20 oz. buckets of the stuff.

A young couple sat down next to me. She complained that one of her professors demanded that she write a paper about the environment. She said she really doesn't care about the environment. She's a psychology major. She and her boyfriend prayed before eating. I must remember that I am in the Bible Belt. If I takes a copernican stance, then I would conclude they are typical of the environment, and given that the fellow across from me is researching the book of Romans, I consider my observation reasonable.

The young couple next to me prepared to leave. she had ordered a loaf of soup: a small loaf of hard crusted bread filled with soup. she ate the soup and threw out the bread. Then they prepared to leave.

I told her "I heard you say that you don't care about the environment. Well, it doesn't care much about you, either. And frankly, in the greater scheme of things, the environment always wins. Just a bit of advice..."

They walked away. The look on her face was of utter cluelessness. She even had a faint smile on her face.

They will graduate from college, with their useless degrees in psychology and marketing. They will live on to become part of the problem, and drive their Stupid Useless Vehicles to the Mall to buy their food and consumer items. I find them all so depressing. The irony is this: if there is some nuclear conflict, the cities will be destroyed, but the cities consume (per capita) fewer resources than backwater exurbs like Greenwood, which would be largely spared in such a conflagration. It's places like Greenwood that are the problem, and their destruction will be part of the solution. The funny thing is: it won't take a nuclear war to rid the planet of dumps like this - the lifestyle is so unsustainable they will simply destroy themselves... unfortunately, they are so self-absorbed and greedy, they will want to take the rest of us with them as they careen over their cliff of wasteful narcissism.

This blog can be read by most anyone in the world with computer access and a knowledge of the English language. The rest of the world must understand that some of us: even as we sit in an energy wasting cafe full of idiots - are not idiots. We are working to change things. It will take active reform from within, but it will also take active resistance from without in order to avoid catastrophe. I can only hope the catastrophe starts in places like Greenwood with their endless miles of cavernous Targets, Kohls, Menards, Home Depots, Bed-Bath-And-Beyonds, Megaplex Movie Theatres, and the endless cavalcade of McDonalds, Burger Kings, Subway and Quiznos Sandwich Shops, KFCs, Paneras, Starbucks, highways, SUVs, McMansions on treeless lots, the never ending Horror that is the exurban nightmare of early 21st century middle America. Gads, these people disgust me. I'm not here in Greenwood because I want to be here - my in-laws, by weird twists of fate, live here, and I'm visiting them for Xmas.

I've told "Grandma" what's going down. She doesn't believe it, but she doesn't have to - she'll be dead before it all hits. And grandpa is way too old to be concerned. My sister and brother in law? They just bought a 3200 sq. ft. house on a treeless lot, amid an enormous field of other 3200 sq. ft. homes on treeless lots. Even if they planted some fast growing pine NOW, they won't have enough wood in 15 years to keep themselves warm in any sustainable way. They don't want to get it - they are too heavily invested in the Horror. Luckily, there is a train line that goes through Greenwood. There is no train station, but building a platform is a fairly simple task. These fools might not completely starve. But I have NO idea how they will transition to a sustainable lifestyle.

I will return to a more regular posting schedule in the new year. The next few weeks are going to be spent packing and flying and flying and flying and flying...

S2

My Next Car - probably not...

2005-12-15T11:22:00.000-08:00

So I did some digging and found some rather discouraging information. Clearly, in the process of reducing energy consumption and going to a lighter, slower vehicle fleet, regulations are going to have to change, a lot, as they are clearly antiquated and exclusive of anything but heavy gas-guzzling death monsters if you want a powered vehicle that runs on more than 2 wheels.

For example, in my lovely home state of CA -

===================================================
CA VC Section 407. A "motorized quadricycle" is a four-wheeled device, and a "motorized tricycle" is a three-wheeled device, designed to carry not more than two persons, including the driver, and having either an electric motor or a motor with an automatic transmission developing less than two gross brake horsepower and capable of propelling the device at a maximum speed of not more than 30 miles per hour on level ground. The device shall be utilized only by a person who by reason of physical disability is otherwise unable to move about as a pedestrian or by a senior citizen as defined in Section 13000.

Amended Ch. 1292, Stats. 1993. Effective January 1, 1994.
===================================================

Basically, the law defines a motorised quadricycle as one of those motorised wheelchair thingies you see advertised on daytime TV and AARP magazines.

However, if the vehicle has 2 or 3 wheels it falls under:

================================================
Definition of a Motorized Bicycle

CA VC Section 406.
(a) A "motorized bicycle" or "moped" is any two-wheeled or three-wheeled device having fully operative pedals for propulsion by human power, or having no pedals if powered solely by electrical energy, and an automatic transmission and a motor which produces less than 2 gross brake horsepower and is capable of propelling the device
at a maximum speed of not more than 30 miles per hour on level ground.

(b) A "motorized bicycle" is also a device that has fully operative pedals for propulsion by human power and has an electric motor that meets all of the following requirements:

(1) Has a power output of not more than 1,000 watts.

(2) Is incapable of propelling the device at a speed of more than 20
miles per hour on ground level.

(3) Is incapable of further increasing the speed of the device when
human power is used to propel the motorized bicycle faster than 20
miles per hour.
================================================

To thoroughly complicate things, at the same time there is this little bit of joy:

================================================
HR727 is the House bill that was enacted as Public Law 107-319.

The law simply amends the Consumer Product Safety Act, authorizing the Consumer Product Safety Commission to promulgate regulations for electric bicycles. The law does not get into any specifics about electric bicycles.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission duly added a definition of "electric bicycle" to the regs that bicycles have to comply with.

The definition reads as follows:

A two- or three-wheeled vehicle with fully operable pedals and an electric motor of less than 750 watts (1 h.p.), whose maximum speed on a paved level surface, when powered solely by such a motor while ridden by an operator who weighs 170 pounds, is less than 20 mph.
================================================

Apparently the full text of bicycle regs appear in the Code of Federal Regulations at Title 16, Section 1512. You can access the CFR at the Government Printing Office website www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr. Type in 16cfr1512 to go straight to the bicycle regs.

Which makes all this rather complex.

What I think it really DOES do is kick quadricycles out of the mix of easily assimilable vehicle forms, while permitting tricycles.

My guess is this was on purpose - if you could build an electric assist quadricycle that had a range of 60 miles, there would be no reason for people to spend countless sums of money on automobiles.

Especially if that quad had a body fairing to keep the rain and cold out. As I noted earlier, delta trikes are scary, and tadpole trikes are low to the ground and get a little "wiggly" under power in a curve, unless they can camber (lean) into the curve. In anycase, trikes with a fairing are fast as hell in the flats due to their aerodynamics. The power assist is mostly for getting them up hills, where the recumbent position is less efficient.

What I thought was simple and straight-forward seems to be much more nuanced than I thought....

The idea of a slow lightweight quadricycle cuts directly to the essence of the automobile in contemporary society as a technological practice in transportation.

According to This Webpage filled with this kind of info from a motorcycle advocacy point of view, "The average United States driver travels 29 miles per day and is driving a total of 55 minutes per day. (This is an average vehicle speed of 32 mph.)"

So, if one halved the average speed to 16, and doubled the amount of time one travelled, people would naturally seek to live closer to work. This would tend to rejuvenate cities like Newark and Jersey City NJ, Oakland CA, Camden NJ, South Central LA and other ruined close in cities and neighbourhoods, as employed and somewhat less dysfunctional people will seek to reduce their commute and living expenses. At the same time, the expense of owning such a vehicle (which would weigh around 70 kg instead of 1500 kg and use no direct fossil fuels. Such vehicles would be most useful in the south and west parts of the USA, which have better weather.

And such gas free vehicles, as they enabled this shift to higher density, would help blunt the edge of the Long Emergency and help form a more peaceful and orderly transition and die-down of the species, instead of a rapid and violent die-off. However, the automotive companies will have to start building these things en masse, ASAP, and the legislation that makes them difficult to implement and the highway speeds that make them impossible and dangerous on said roads will have to change.

(I want to thank Doug from Utah for challenging me to look into this.)

S2

My Next Car

2005-12-13T06:57:00.000-08:00

RHOADES CAR

Seats two, top speed 18 mph.
Weight of vehicle: 135 lbs.
motor: 24 volt 750 watt Powerdrive motor assist
Range: without electric assist? as far as you can pedal in a day.
With ONLY electric assist? 30 - 60 miles, depending on weather, load, and terrain. Which is about as far as I would want to pedal one of these in a day, anyway...

I figure all I need a car for is to schlep a few miles to work, pick up groceries, liquor & drugs, clothes, etc. and occassionally go downtown so I can dance to the boogie (get down!) with my sweeeeeetie pie, and "the next morning", take the weeee child to school. This thing would more than suffice.

It's open, so winters would truly *suck ASS*, but you just do what motorcyclists do: dress appropriately, or move someplace warm.

(In that regard, I was thinking this vehicle could benefit from an actual "body" perhaps made of doped canvas and safety glass. I'm uncertain as to how it would effect the range and speed - it would certainly have less drag than an open vehicle, and be more comfortable in the cold, but it would increase the weight, and could be kind of stifling in the heat of summer... perhaps a removeable canvas body?)

In any case I think ultra-light electric assist vehicles are the bee's knees. If anyone who commutes less than 5 or 10 miles to work owned something like this, the world would be a much better and cleaner place - we would see a dramatic reduction in fuel consumption, and people might actually lose some weight. What a notion...

S2

Interesting Things Are Afoot...

2005-12-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

In the U.S. House of Representatives, hearings were held in the Energy and Commerce committee, and two of the participants were Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM). They basically laid out the Peak Oil position for Congress. Their testimony was recorded and can be viewed HERE. You'll need the evil Evil EVIL Real Player to view it.

It's nice to see SOMEONE in the government finally getting a clue.

It snowed here today, preventing me from getting to work. I got sleep a little more than usual...

Hilary Clinton Pisses Me Off

2005-12-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

This is what's going on: Democrats HATE the Bush Junta, for obvious and good reasons. An awful lot of Republicans don't trust the Bush Junta, and this also runs true with Independents. So: the triangulation, at present, going into the 2008 election is this - the dittohead retard Republicans will vote party line. The Democrats will vote for a Democrat, and it would likely be most ANY Democrat tossed their way, as the Bush Junta has made such a mess, my cat, Eric, would be a better leader.

So the question is not winning the hearts and minds of the bible thumping retards - they're a lost cause. And it's not like it's going to be hard to rally the Democratic troops to come out. So, the question is over the so-called "middle". Frankly, there is no middle - there are only various axes of interest - but the "perception" of the "middle" has created this illusion, and it has political weight in the American Political System.

Hilary pretty much has a lock on the Democratic nomination. So, now she feels she needs to disarm the right by acting like she's "in the middle". And the most recent example of this is her Support For a Law That Bans Flag Burning.

So, she voted for the war (REALLY STUPID), she supported continued presence in Iraq (REALLY DUMB) and now this flag burning thing.

She is exceeding my patience. I'm afraid that if she goes up against McCain, she'll lose. And McCain is just a tool for the Neocons. He might be opposed to torture, but he supports the neocon militarist agenda. He's useless.

Recent News and Events

2005-12-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

I've been rather busy with my day job lately, so posting has been difficult.

I have some interesting news, though.

First, it seems the Iranians are looking to sell their oil in euros, not dollars. If I recall correctly, the last country to try that was Iraq, and if I'm not mistaken, I think the USA started bombing the crap out of them shortly thereafter. I don't think the USA will invade Iran - as the incompetent fascist boobs in the Pentagon's North Annex (aka the White House) haven't got the brains, money, or manpower to invade Iran. Nope nope nope - I think what will happen is the American Spooks will figure out where the Iranian nuke development sites are, and then sick the Israelis on it. Given that Iraq and Jordan are between Iran and Istrael, I seriously doubt Iran would engage in a direct military response. But dollars for donuts some suicide bombers would probably show up in Tel Aviv.... It would be a big mess, but Iraq would still be grabbing the headlines.

People have asked me, "Geeee Mister Studebaker, what do you think we should do in Iraq?"

I think we should get the hell out of there as fast as possible - but the real key is Iran, and the USA should stop jerking Iran around and sit down and make some real peace happen. If George Bush had even a nano-fraction of the balls that his bluster implies, he'd pull a Nixon and secretly fly his stupid smirking ass to Tehran and Make A Special Peace. Both the USA and Iran have common interests, and we owe Iran a lot of political favours given the miserable history the two have shared. Sure, they took hostages, and killed a bunch of people, and that was pretty freakin' evil, but in the greater scheme of things, the USA has done vastly more damage to Iran over the years than Iran has done to the USA.

Even a dedicated imperialist like Thomas P M Barnett knows that the key to peace in the middle east lies in Iran...

But, no, Georgie Peorgie hasn't the sense to do that - he'd rather hunker down and get mean... Why? Because he and his junta are too stupid for words and can't understand how their fixations work against their own best interests. Which is oddly coincidental with their powerbase who are less well educated than the opposition, and consistently vote against their own best interests and sign up for a Republican Junta who not only doesn't give a rat's ass about them, but considers them to be a bunch of gullible wackos.

Russia has been increasingly less interest in coddling American interests - not like they had that much to begin with - but now the Russians are saying they would be very happy to refine nuclear fuel for Iran.

Also, there is big buzz that Lieberman might be tapped to become U.S. SECDEF. Great. That's just all we need....

Nihilism part 02

2005-12-01T21:12:00.000-08:00

One of my esteemed listmates on Energy Resources responded to my note on Nihilism, and had some good points. I responded to his post as follows.

Mr C wrote:

>You have more than a good point.

Thanks for noticing! I get so much grief so often, it's nice to hear a positive voice.

>So lets be constructive.
>Let me start by modifying your proposition
>into an If-then-else.

OK.

>IF (conditions are met)
>THEN {we will migrate into a sustainable future }
>ELSE {we will have severe economic depression;
>a final obliteration of the biosphere;
>and ultimately a crash of the human population due to
>overshoot exhausting essential resources};
>We may want to make some modifications to the THEN and ELSE
>statements. But this is easy. Defining the conditions to be
>met is where all the work is at. Believe me, this is the way
> hardest part, and probably the reason so many intellectuals on
>this subject come to rest in the doomer category, myself
>included.

I agree, it is a daunting task.

>So lets make it easy for the first step. Lets only name the
>conditions that need to be met without getting hung up just
>yet on "how" that condition is to be met, or ever could be
>met. This way at least we can say we defined the problem just
>a little better by reducing it into its components.

I agree. Also, to mis-use/apply an old Marxist term, the "prevailing conditions" at the time of will have their own dynamic and set of contradictions, which are largely unpredictable in specific, even though the substructural political economy is essentially unchanged since the 19th century. Which is a coplicated way to say: we don't know what it will be like then, although the economic fundamentals will probably be similar to today.

>Here are just a couple of the conditions that need to be met
>to bring us into the THEN clause and out of the ELSE clause.

(I've snipped a bit for clarity's sake:)

>A: present energy consumption is within the sun's annual
>budget for Earth
>B: non-renewable petroleum is reserved for use as a mineral
>and not a fuel
>AND solar, hydro, wind and biomass at sustainable levels
>are the only fuel sources used for all human activities.
>AND ??...
>As you hopefully can see, the lists will be long and decompose
> ever more into further lists of conditions if you attempt to
>properly deconstruct the problem.

>I'll jump way ahead and bubble it all back up and say stupid >things like "the people in the Los Angeles basin can no longer
> drive fossil fuel powered vehicles to carry out their daily
>lives". It is near impossible to impose such a conclusion,
>and yet it is impossible to avoid external reality imposing
>the same conclusion over time given our draw down and exhaustion
>of stored fossil energy.

OK: try this: how to double the effective mileage of a given fleet? Even/Odd driving restrictions. Forces people to buddy up.

How to get old clunkers off the road? CA's plan is fairly ingenious. Up the smog restrictions preventing older cars from passing. If it fails, the state will buy the car for $1000 and send it to the crusher for recycling. My 1991 Toyota Corolla has a weak oil ring in one of the cylinders, causing it to just *barely* fail. I could have leaned out the injectors and have it shake and shudder through the test, but the car is only worth $1200, and has some nasty dents thanks to a certain clueless asshole who lives down the street... But anyway - I'll be getting a cheque for $1000 in January.

You see- there are lots of ways - each one plays a small role, but in agregate, they amount to something. The problem is, right now, they don't amount to enough. THAT has to change, and that's why we have to work on making it happen. The alternative is not acceptable.

>I'll shift back to doomer now and just say that I find the
>scale and complexity of our problems so intractable when
>confronted with the reality of politics that it does indeed
>seem hopeless. Yet I agree with you that nihilism is not any
>answer at all. This is probably why so many people are on the
>ROE2 list, in my words, "trying to figure out how best to survive
>the coming dark ages". Homesteading, communities and forming
>other kinds of safety bubbles is the repeating theme. Plus the
>occassional side themes of "guns, and how best to defend your >family from roaming dog packs and the occassional looter".

Could you send me a URL so I can get on that list? thanks.

>Like you, I refuse to say it is hopeless. But I'm quite
>stymied on how to create a positive future for the big
>picture pre-collapse. There is some amount of hope to be
>found in constructing small pictures that form refuge from
>this very large catastrophe in the making.

I belive it is to be done one step at a time, with more and more people making one step at a time. Eventually you have an entire flood of people doing the right thing.

The first thing to do is to Get The Message Across, and even though I despise them, I must say that the TV ads for BP are a step in the right direction. I don't believe BP is *actually* doing all it can to help avert catastrophe, but at least in the past few months with all the money they made after Katrina, they do seem to have bought a clue or two and are doing what they can to inform people that Things Are Going To Change.

The next thing to do is to MARKET the change. It's kind of like dieting. You don't lose weight by not eating. Yes, you will lose weight that way, but you eventually DIE. The way you lose weight is by eating LESS, eating BETTER, and EXERCISING. If you pigged out and slothed your way into obesity, then you have to eat properly and exercise your way into svelteness. Same goes for the first world. We pigged our way into this, so now we have to manage our intake to get out of it.

Eating less: Consume fewer items, consume less energy.
Eating right: acquire things that are built to last and are functional and integral. Acquire energy from green sources.
Exercising: develop local sources for the acquisition of food, clothing, and shelter. Have this process even atomised into household production systems (growing gardens, beer, cheese, etc.) and then into neighbourhood/town exchange systems.

Also, the solar diet isn't the only energy source - there is wind, geothermal, tides, etc. Technically, wind is solar, and tides are lunar, but you get the idea.

As I said before: it's not going to be easy, and the longer all this gets put off, the more dire the transition is *guaranteed* to be. I'm not discounting the "doomer" scenario - I'm simply giving it some perspective and USEFULNESS contexted in the IF/THEN or (by your angle, which is a good one) IF/THEN/ELSE. WiI *thin that context, it has a great deal of meaning. Outside that context, it's an invitation to paralysis.

I *really* appreciate your take on this. Yes, it is *HARD*. But if we don't figure it out, it won't get figured, and then we're screwed.

That's why I've been hammering away at issues of Victory/Crash conditions. It's kind of like classical software testing. You have to test the boundary conditions, load, race conditions, input/output, usability, design, etc. It's all part of making a proper piece of software work.

WE, and I mean WE, as in everyone born since 1945, has a responsibility to Help Figure It Out. Now. Not later. And that's why I'm bringing up these "meta-issues" of Victory/Crash conditions and definitions. Once we have a grip on what we need to have happen, we can set about inventing our way to that conclusion. Otherwise, we're just wasting our time.

I'm going to post this to my blog - it's a good discussion.

http://early-warning.blogspot.com

Again, thanks for the feedback. This weekend I will be looking at these parameters in greater detail, and I hope I can arrive at some suggestions or ideas for directions and policies and other points of debate and action.

best,

Stuart Studebaker

Nihilism

2005-11-30T11:51:00.000-08:00

I've been having a discussion with a fellow on the Energy Resources List. He is of an extremely nihilistic bend in terms of the peak oil issue. Some of our discussion follows, as I think it is of some broader and more general interest:

>On the other hand one could favor business as usual.

No. It's not binary. It's not black and white - it's not like that. The next few paragraphs run according to your straw man argument, but I'll comment on a few points:

> The population is still increasing, the rain forest is still being destroyed,
> lakes and rivers are still being polluted, topsoil is still being blown
> away and animal species are still going extinct. We are literally
> destroying the biosphere.

And even if we were all teletransported instantly to some Star Trek Fantasy land never to return to the earth, these species would continue dying off and the biosphere would still be a sinking wreck. It would return to an equilibrium faster without us, but we're still talking many thousands of years.

>We could hope to delay the peak, and the collapse until around 2040 or 2050.

Well, if Deffeyes is correct, the peak is already here. I don't think delaying the peak is interesting. I don't find the binary logic behind the argument useful. What IS interesting is how we are going to manage the transition to other fuels and gracefully depopulate the planet.

I think we can all agree that Peak Oil is a fact, and an inevitability. However: imagine something totally extra-ordinary happens: they come up with something like cold-fusion that's cheap and easy to do. Then oil could peak and no one would really notice...

It's not the transition itself that's in question or doubt - it's more the character of said transition. While I am usually loathe to agree with the likes of Lomborg on anything, he does have a specific insight when he says "You don't buy gasoline, you buy transportation". If cars no longer ran on gas, you would still have to buy traonsportation, but gas wouldn't be part of the equation.

This doesn't solve te ecological problem, but that's another issue. I'm simply demonstrating that the reduction in oil production doesn't *by necessity* require a die off. It CAN, and if things don't change, and quickly, probability reduces to certainty, but presuming certainty I feel is illegitimate as I discuss below.

>Peak oil in this decade would be terrible.

I tink it's already here - we're just cruising on the glutted plateau.

>But peak oil forty years from now would be far, far worse.

I see - I see - you're conflating the demand/production curve crossings in the economics of petroleum production with some kind of instant die-off.

Well: it looks like you now have a test case. If we are around in 30 years, you're wrong. If we're not, you're right, but it doesn't matter. Now how is that a useful position?

>I find hoping for a much-delayed peak absolutely morally and ethically repugnant.

I think it's a non-issue. The peak is upon us - it's just a question of how it is managed, and the character of the transition to other energy sources takes on.

>And anyone who thinks the earth can support such a population indefinite for half
>a century without destroying what little flora and fauna is left upon this earth simply
>has not a clue as to what is happening to the earth.

I agree - it looks bleak. But not impossible.

>If we had a choice, now or later, it would not be a choice between
>good and evil. It would be a choice between evil and a much greater
>evil.

So we should all vote CHTHULU for president? After all, why settle for the lesser evil?

I'm too cynical to believe in nihilism, and I find the doomsaying in the peak oil debate has its uses as a goad when it is understood in an if/then context. But if it is presented as a certainty, then there is:

a: no point in discussing the issue
b: there is no point to this forum, except as a form of black humour
c: no point in even trying to survive the catastrophe, as those who do will be living lives of a Hobbesian sort, and who wants to live like that?

As a consequence, the nihilist position can be seen as a parasitic middle class luxury. If there are things needing change, the proper thing to do is to change them and to form communities of people to help change them. What needs to be done can be scaled according to need at point. In the USA getting people out of their cars and getting them to turn the damn lights off when they go to bed would be a good "start." Getting people to grow food instead of lawns would be a really good idea as well. Developing neighbourhood windmill energy projects would also help. But, most of all: GETTING PEOPLE TO STOP HAVING SO MANY DAMN KIDS would be the best thing of all.

The list is long, and there is much to be done. I find the nihilist position disuseful and unconvincing outside of an if/then context. Within such a context, it is EXTREMELY useful and actually, necessary. But outside of such a context, *at this present time* it has no value. Given the stakes involved, the extreme nihilist position outside of the if/then context, is therefore immoral. Russia had nihilists first, in the 1880s, 1890s. Once the nihilists were discredited/jailed/killed off, they had a proper revolution. That the revolution resulted in a disaster of an empire is not relevent - the point is nihilism goes nowhere, and is just as much of a detriment to free and creative thinking as the cornicopian neocon fascists presently running the show.

The only thing that results from nihilism is a cult. Nihilism won't keep the hospitals open, won't make the discoveries we need, or even reduce the population - after all - if it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter- have a jillion kids - their lives are their problem, not yours, and besides - it doesn't matter.

You can't forge a new society from doom. People need someplace to go and have fun. If it's dancing in some over lit discotheque in Las Vegas with a buffet of meatballs and oysters, or dancing in front of a camp fire by some rawhide tents cooking up a chunk of buffalo - it's still fun. People are social primates. As such they need to be led. Pointing a direction into an abyss is not leading. Pointing a direction into a foggy area that seems to go down around the abyss will have to do- travelling down that foggy bottom is all we really have.

So, hold hands, stay close, keep walking, and sing!

How to Avert Catastrophe: Community

2005-11-29T09:23:00.000-08:00

There's been a great deal of discussion about Peak Oil, and much of it has taken on a kind of narcissistic schadenfreude - where there is a kind of cruel laughter "Muuuaahahahahahahaaa" that seems to permeate the discussion and defines The Real Peak Oilers from the noobs and the cornicopians. Why it is narcissistic is that we're talking about Ourselves in such a dismissive and gloating manner. That is not the way to win friends and influence people. You can't build a community of concerned citizens by telling them "Most of you are going to die". All you get out of that is a nihilistic cult.

This does not invalidate their position: there is a non-zero probability that we could see a massive die-off in the next 30 years. How? If nations do nothing to prepare for a post-petroleum world, and are then hit with avian flu and regional nuclear resource wars - that would pretty much insure the elimination of about 80% of the human race, right off the bat. Between the starvation, the disease, and the radiation, there wouldn't be much left to work with.

However, I don't see that as a genuine likelyhood - more as a possibility that becomes increasingly probable if specific conditions aren't met. One of the factors that will most greatly mitigate against such a massive and immediate die off is Community. People working with people to the collective good. One development toward said community is this blog. I know this is not the first blog regarding this issue, nor will it be the last. But it's the one you're reading now, and so, in this immediate sense, we share an attention and can form a community, however temporary it is as you read this, of two.

You, my dear reader, and I are now linked together - from the words I type at 9.30 in the morning on a cool grey Tuesday to whenever and where ever you read them - we can communicate - you can leave a comment below, and we can discuss ideas. There are other blogs and I will be collecting links to them.

The first one you will see to your right, under the "Blogs" heading, is to the New York City Oil Drum blog - run by PeakGuy. He writes well and with precision about energy issues related to New York City - eevrything from Bike Lanes on Second Ave to more philosophical and insightful issues regarding the social integration of Peak Oil theory. Check him out!

In order to avert true catastrophe, we will all need to "pull together". To quote Ben Franklin - "We must hang together or surely we will all hang separately." Local groups need to take action to get their neighbours aware of the problem and working to immediate mitigation solutions. This can be on very small scales: just getting the old geezer across the street to use CFL bulbs and to turn off his porch light at night is a good first step. Things scale from there. If each city works at that level, we can see significant mitigation efforts come to fruition - everything from community food banks and backyard farm associations to neighbourhood energy management via windmills.

The facts are plain to see - we're quickly approaching or have actually arrived at Peak Oil. The time to act is now, before it all hits the fan. If we wait for it to hit the fan, it will be too late. Community organising at a neighbourhood level is easier than organising at a state or national level. This is especially true if such organisations are helped and/or guided by local government. Officials in local government need to be educated on the facts of the issue, and need to understand what is at stake for their constituencies, including the mayor or the county supervisor. If approached properly, they can be brought on to help in the process, and could actually be a source of funding to get these programs going and co-ordinated.

Every community has its own priorities and complexities, so there can never be a top-down formula for success. That's why local organising is critical - each community will have its own set of skills and needs and if organised from the bottom up, and then co-ordinated across from larger city-wide/county/regional perspective, significant mitigation efforts can be brought to bear and all uniquely tailored and perfectly fitted to the local conditions.

In future entries I hope to feature more about such efforts. An immediate example that comes to mind is what is going on in Willets, California.

There is also this interesting article regarding Local Governments Role in the Transition to a Post-Petroleum Society.

If we organise ourselves now, we can more easily ride out the storm later - we can Transition to a Post-Petroleum World instead of Collapsing Into It. This is not to say such a transition will be painless - on the contrary - we are looking at some difficult times ahead. But difficult is better than the bleaker visions of the more extreme theories surrounding Peak Oil.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I've noticed that many blogs use Google Ads to support themselves. I am considering much the same - so over the next few weeks you might see a major adjustment to the appearance of Early Warning.

Victory Conditions

2005-11-28T08:36:00.000-08:00

Let's pretend that people were the size of mice and consumed the ratio of resources of a mouse to an average ethiopian, the earth could possibley sustain 100 billion or even more of us. But that's not how we're built - we're bigger and require more food and space. In order to procure the basics of food, clothing, and shelter, we need (X) resources and when said resources are divided among ever larger numbers of people, the amount per capita goes down. As it is presently structured, the USA/Canada, Japan, and Europe (.i.e. the First World and the now quickly ramping up China and India) consume way more resources than the earth can possibly provide and this is clearly going to come to a halt (not an end) fairly soon in an historical sense.

If we could reduce the resource consumption per capita by some crazy multiple, there wouldn't be a problem. So: the challenge is clear: how do we get from point A (here, today) to point B (there, later) with the least amount of catastrophic events? Continued research (combined with consciousness raising, appropriate energy policy decision making, grassroots mobilisation, consumption reduction, etc.) may lead to other innovations to help us get to point B.

I think an interesting problem is some thing I discussed several weeks ago, and got some, but not much response on:

What IS a CRASH?
What IS VICTORY?

I'll paraphrase/modify the previous discussion - if the end result of a Crash is defined as "living in tents and chasing buffalo" but it takes 200,000 years to get there, IS IT A "CRASH"? How about 100,000 years? Or 5,000 years? Or 1,000 years? Or 500 years? It seems the closer we get to present day, the more it is seen as a "Crash". Therefore: the "crash" does not exist, and will not exist except in the sense that it becomes an object of perception and experience.

What constitutes Victory over the Energy Crisis? Would a gradual transition to "living in tents and chasing buffalo" ever be considered a Victory? If so, and it takes 200,000 years to get there, then is the Crash ans the Victory the same thing? If so, then the nihilist wing of the Cassandran position comes to the fore: rather than wait to live in tents and chase buffalo in 200,000 years, make it happen by 2015.

However, this only has weight with the assumption that "living in tents and chasing buffalo" is a Victory. If it is not a victory condition, then other issues come to the fore, by necessity, depending on the choice of victory conditions. As a consequence, I see a lot of gloating on the part of the Cassandras and a lot of pigheadedness on the part of the cornicopians. As I have also noted, the Cassandras have a really good stick, and the cornicopians have a pretty weak looking carrot. However - if we are to prevent catastrophe, the Cassandran position must be maintained in order to goad the populace into action. However, the innovations by the Cornicopians shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as a "day late and a dollar short".

I think it is of paramount importance that we establish Victory Conditions. Once we figure out what is required, we can set about inventing our way to such targets. If we don't establish Victory Conditions, then we'll be on the same hamster cage roller as the capitalist system itself: not knowing where it's going, but getting there really fast.

It is also imperative that Crash Conditions be defined relative to Victory Conditions - as I noted above, it is a simple matter to define them as identical at some great distance in the future. Since such a scenario is of a remote probability, Crash conditions need to be defined in near term points, and the Cassandran position is very clear on this. The only problem is this: a near-term crash could create a logical condition of irrelevence.

Socrates is a man
All men are mortal
: Socrates must die

The problem is: in order to prove the middle you'd have to kill everyone including yourself, in which case, the point is moot. The same goes for the Cassandra position: if the worst fears are realised, then it simply doesn't matter. Therefore, the Cassandran position fails to persuade, and (worst of all) actually gives ammunition to the Cornicopians, only this time, it's live Ammo, because people will suffer because of it.

Therefore, the logic of the Cassandran position must always be a few years away - not next year - maybe five, 10, 25 years away - much like the cornicopian brags of plenty. (I'm thinking of Kurzweil's idiotic notions of the SIngularity occuring around 2030 - very convenient for it to happen AFTER HE'LL LIKELY BE DEAD.) These projections have to be in the future - if they were immediate and imminent, then there would be the loss of face and credibility should they not occur.

This brings me back to my point earlier about perception. If we define the crash as "no grid, all food locally and organically grown, a reduced self powering communications infrastructure, decentralised government and currency" and it takes 30 years to get there, IS IT A CRASH? If it happens so slowly that it takes two or three or five generations to complete, the perception of any given generation will be one of great hardship, but not "Crash".

That's why I think it is of critical importance that there be a debate about Crash and Victory Conditions. The sooner we get that out of the way, the sooner we can set about correcting or at least managing the situation.

Mister Studebaker

Down on the Farm

2005-11-27T09:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy T-day season for Mr. Studebaker.

Thursday was, of course, the day for feast-induced somnambulism. After eating enough turkey to induce a coma in a bengal tiger, we sat around and watched a documentary about Jeff Koons. He was extensively interviewed in the film, and I am more convinced than ever that Jeff Koons is a charlatan and anyone who invests in his crap is an utter fool. There was a segment where he demonstrated a model for a giant sculpture - It would be a HUGE structure from which a steam locomotive would be suspended, pointing down. Once a day it would run, emit a lot of steam, the wheels would turn, and the whistle would blow. Then it would slowly stop.

The kicker? He said it might end up in Los Angeles...

Perfect: the largest American city best known for having the lousiest public transportation system for a city of its size and having willfully dismantled one of the largest trolley systems in the world, housing this desecration of the iron horse. BRILLIANT! I can only think of one coupling as a better marriage: Jeff Koons and Las Vegas. The "sculpture" should adorn the parking lot at the Belagio...

The interviewer, the incomperable dumbass, Tom Ford, asked the camera "Is he for real, or is he just full of shit?"
The Answer from this audient: "He's simply full of shit." Tom Ford interviewing Jeff Koons... "Mr Pot? I'd like you to meet Mr Kettle."

After that we sat around, chatted about the movie where we came to a collective agreement about Jeff Koons, drank some coffee, ate sugary desserts, sobered up, and I made my way home.

Friday I slept the tryptophan coma off, and woke up in time to go to Arlo Guthrie's Fortieth anniversary of the Alice's Restaurant Massacree. Yes, 40 years to the day, Arlo and his compatriots were arrested for littering, and a few years after that, he wrote the song about it, and the rest, as is often said, was history.

Arlo was amusing, insightful and kind. I enjoyed the concert very much. His daughter and her husband opened the show. He, John Irion, was very good - a nice voice and a decent guitarist. She was less of a guitarist, but sang like an angel and is very beautiful in both form and countenance, i.e., she’s gorgeous. Then a band called the Mammals played. Some of there stuff was utter dreck, but much of it was very good. Their last song was a rousingly funny and pointed critique of the plutocratic bastards in the White House. Arlo was excellent. Arlo had an interesting insight that really inspired me, which I will get to later...

Saturday, I hopped into my tiny little car, fed the squirrels under the hood, and made my way out to the rural outer regions of Eastern Pennsylvania. I grew up in NJ, near New York. I know very little of this area beyond New Hope or Scranton. What I saw did not impress me.

The description was that we would be having a fabulous dinner in a farmhouse located on 170 acres of land. I was looking forward to seeing how a small farm operates, and what was going on with the area in general. What I learned was deeply valuable and instructive. We often read about the predations of suburbia sprawling into the hinterland, indeed, Darrell Clarke brought this article to my attention which discusses the idiotic psychology of the McMansion phenomenon, where people cheerfully buy gigantic homes they can't possibly use, just because they can. This phenomenon is in full swing in Eastern PA. I drove past acre after acre of houses, arranged in pseudo-communities with pretentious Anglophilic names on the order of "Buckingham Fox Run" or "Durham Mews" or some other drippy nonsense. Of course, each neighbourhood

(note: I use British spellings in general as I spent a lot of time overseas, and frequently correspond with people in Australia, the UK, NZ, and Canada - so my use of the spelling is out of respect and laziness, not pretense.)

has a sign attached to a cobblestone wall that has the name of the "community" carved into wood and adorned with fake gold paint or composition gold leaf. Both of which use brass as a colourant which is oddly and sadly symbolic.

The devastation of Eastern Pennsylvania by the blight of McMansioning is well documented in this webpage.

The farm house I was in wasn't directly surrounded by these monstrosities, but they weren't far off. They sat a few farms over, like giant hulking dinosaurs dressed in cheap poorly fitting barn suits sleeping in expensive shrubbery. One of the owners of the farm where I was to have dinner had sold most of the land to other farmers, and the land was presently being used for growing sod for these horrible McMansions. This left the house standing alone in a giant lawn. And we all know what kind of miracles ripping up sod does for the topsoil.

The old woman who lived in the house was very sweet, kind, and sharp as a shiny razor. She had been born in that house shortly after the First World War, and would likely die there. Her family had built the house in 1865. While it appeared to be in excellent condition, some of the other guests explained to me that its technology needed upgrading – the electrical system was antique, the plumbing was delicate, the water system was inconsistent, and the gas for the stove had been recently repaired. In the middle of the house was a giant hearth big enough to park a smartCar. The old stove had long since been removed, and it was now mostly for ornament. The house had been switched to oil heat back in the 1930s. In fact, she talked about how her school had shifted from a “potbellied stove” to oil heat in the early 1930s, and everyone was so amazed at the modern convenience of fast reliable heat.

The walls of the house were easily 18 inches thick, and at points more like 20 – 24 inches thick. The ceilings were low – most were barely 7.5 feet tall, often lower. The rooms were many and small with very few closets. Clearly a house built around the energy system at the time – wood – as produced by the giant hearth, which, in its day, undoubtedly heated the entire building. The kitchen was next to the hearth, and while it had the “modern conveniences” of a gas stove, a microwave oven and refrigerator, they seemed oddly, even comically, out of place - like Groucho Marx’s small narrow face adorned with his huge painted moustache and eyebrows.

We ate a massive Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn’t be beat, and had happy pleasant conversations. After dinner, we talked more over some sugary desserts, and my friend and I dazzled our dinner mates as we had our machines do something like the Vulcan Mind Meld Trick and exchange data over the Firewire cable. She now has a week’s worth of music for her listening pleasure…

After that, the sun set quickly in a dazzling orange blast over the trees behind the sod fields, and people left quietly in pairs. I left at the same time as my friend and her husband, and after hugs and photographs, I drove off alone into the night, thinking about this place – eastern Pennsylvania – and how it is an ecological failure thanks to the vanity and stupidity of these greedy dullwitted exurbanites. I saw it as a tragedy, and I was happy that it was dark out so I didn’t have to look at acre after acre of the hideous monstrosities these knuckleheads call home. I turned on the radio and listened to a variety of stations – finally settling on one that alternated between the theme songs of ancient TV shows and punk rock. “Hey Ho Silver - Away!” “Here we are now, entertain us!” “Caspar the Friendly Ghost” “Your future dream is a shopping spree!” “My Mother the Car. . .” “Kill kill kill kill kill the poor. . .” Eventually that faded out and there was little left to listen to except Classic Rock or Hip Hop stations, neither of which I find that interesting – there is something pathetic about being caught between the middle class suburban mystified bleatings of Fleetwood Mac and some abusive ghetto dwelling dumb ass shouting about being some kind of a tough thug, something that I find utterly depressing. And that it was all broadcast to my car, for my “entertainment”, indicates a deep moral depravity and absence of imagination, such that my mind reeled in anger and frustration. So I turned off the radio and sang to myself.

When I arrived where I am presently hanging my hat, my friends were watching “Gangs of New York”. Now there was a nasty bunch of corrupt and violent thugs – these people make the crack dealing rapper thugs of today look like the dimwitted amateurs they actually are. In the film, New York is portrayed as it was, a corrupt and violent hellhole and San Francisco is seen as a distant dreamtime. I look forward to leaving the New York area and returning to San Francisco to be with Mrs. Studebaker and little Avanti – but that’s a personal discussion not for the dear readers of Early Warning. . . What was interesting was the vision of New York City prior to petroleum. A dim and filthy place, filled with muddy streets of horse shit, the smoky air heavy with coal and wood fire, the clothing rough and in neutral shades of brown and black, and everyone’s hair flat and often greasy from a lack of shampoo and conditioner. Was it 150 years ago, or 150 years in the future?

Are we that far from it all? Half of my ancestors arrived after 1864 – they arrived in the New York City of the 1890s from boats arriving from St Petersburg Russia, Gdansk Poland, and Konigsberg, Prussia. They were leaving societies that were pre-petroleum and arriving in a nation that was just about to spin into the stratosphere of consumption and power. They would have been contemporaries of the parents and grandparents of the woman who lived in the farmhouse where I had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat.

It’s hard to blame them for having so many children – in the old country it was a survival strategy. So few children would live to adulthood, having children was a numbers game – out of five or six, two or three might survive, and it had been this way for the past 200,000 years. But in the 1890s and 1900s it all changed. Modern medicine and all the other luxuries permitted by petroleum came and re-arranged society. 30 some odd years the potbellied stove was gone from the rural schoolhouse, replaced by an oil-burning furnace. Soon, the population exploded and housing developments appeared where farms had stood and the schoolhouse, with it thick walls of stone, small wooden windows, and peaked wood roof, itself was replaced by a “modern” school with a flat roof, acres of metal encased glass, and oil furnaces.

Here we stand at the cusp of a new world – our petroleum crutch slowly withering beneath us as we speak and our bloated population of wage slaves stupefied by pointless entertainment and luxuries unimaginable by previous civilisations. Some of us are working to prevent a catastrophe that seems increasingly likely with every passing day that the world sits in its self-satisfied ignorance, but the message is not one people want to hear: that – barring some miracle or three - they will have to use less and less energy, forever.

There is room for hope – technologies continue to develop and come online every day. There is a possibility that catastrophe will be avoided – but every day the sheeple of this world continue to adhere to idiotic superstitious notions of an antiquated religious decree to procreate and dominate the planet, to obsequiously follow the whims of witless, corrupt, and incompetent imperialist leaders, and continually fatten themselves and their scatterbrained children on an ill-gotten bounty of ignorance and greed, the catastrophe inches that much closer. It cozies up, like the final stages of heroin addiction, where the joy and rush of the drug is gone, and all that is left is the scrounging and theft to feed the addiction, all motivated by a dread and paralysing fear of what lies ahead without the drug.

This is a catastrophe that can and must be avoided, but it will only be avoided if everyone gets with the program, and does so immediately. The call is now. We must heed it. The rising industrial nations of China and India haven’t as far to fall, nor do they consume as much as the USA and Europe – which is why the hardest, largest, and most necessary reductions in petroleum use must begin with the USA and Europe. Quitting the addiction now will serve us well later. Quitting cold turkey from a habit as intense as ours is not possible – it must be prefaced with reductions. But these reductions must begin immediately so we can use what remains of the petroleum gift to fuel the start of a post-petroleum future.

And this brings me back to Arlo - he had the audience singing along to his dad's song "This land is your land, this land is my land" when in the middle he stopped. The band stopped and looked at him and he went on a typically elliptical rant, that went something like-

"When a thought comes by, you jsut gotta grab it when it's there, and I was thinking about how powerless people feel - like they can't change anything, and I was thinking of Joseph, from the Bible, and how he had this really neat coat, and he wouldn't do anything, and his brothers got all pissed off and decided they'd kill him or sell him into slavery. So one day his brothers went off into the fields to work. His father came by and told him to get off his ass and help his brothers work. So Joseph got up and went out and couldn't find them, and this guy just happened to be there and said "They went that-a-way" and so Joseph went in that direction, found his borthers, was sold into slavery and had all kinds of terrible times. He ended up in a prison cell with all kinds of mean ugly nasty people - funny how that doesn't change - and the meanest nastiest ugliest one of all was having problems with bad dreams. And so Joseph fixed his dreams and the big mean dude said "I'll remember you for that" and was released soon afterward. He got a job with the pharoah, and the pharoah was having problems with dreams, so the big mean guy who was a slave for the Pharoah said "I know just the fellow" (and he told the rest of the story about Joseph getting in good with pharoah, etc.) and then he invited his family to live with him and after that there was Moses and Jesus and the whole religious thing that continues on today. And who have we got to thank for it all? Some anonymous guy in the desert who said "They went that-a-way" - because without him, none of the rest would have happened!"

And I think that's important to remember. We all contribute to the effort - the human world is big and complex, but it is closed and finite - everything affects everything else. The more each of us contributes and points "that-a-way" the more people will understand that it's the way to go.

Goin' out behind the barn

2005-11-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

Many years ago when I was about 12 years old (or 11? I don't remember...) a friend turned me on to a record called "LEMMINGS" by National Lampoon. It's a parody of the Woodstock Music Festival, which becomes the "Woodchuck Festival of Peace, Love, and Death" where the audience is exhorted to commit suicide by the end of the show. There are a variety of wonderful send-ups performed by John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest, Paul Jacobs, and Alice Playten. One of the songs is called "Positively Wall Street" - a hysterically funny parody of Bob Dylan by Christopher Guest. If I recall correctly, the chorus goes:

"goin' out behind the barn.
I'm chewin' on a piece of hay.
I'm up to my knees in cow shit.
I'm shovelin' my blues away...yeah..."

And, in the spirit of such rural concerns, I am going to be spending tomorrow on a farm. A friend of mine from graduate school has invited me to a Big Whompin' Monster Meal at her mother-in-law's farm (this way I get to finally meet her hubby as well - after 4 years, one would think, but - life is bizarre that way sometimes...) This should be *very* interesting. I'll be examining this area through the lens of peak oil concerns, and will report back what I find. The MomInLaw (who is pushing 80 years old) is a Quaker and grew up on this very farm. It will be interesting to see how she does things today, and compare them to how she did them when she was a child.

I'll be looking at a variety of aspects relative to the "Sustainability" of such places. It should be quite a learning experience.

S2

Early Warning

2005-11-24T21:50:00.000-08:00

I got the idea for Early Warning while sitting in my car listening to Godley and Creme's tune "Random Brainwave" and thinking about how I might be better at helping, in some small way, the human species not eradicate itself just yet.

The lyrics go like this:

Early warning
Stranger on the radar
Ripple in the wavelength
Leave it in the hands of fate.

Nobody noticed the difference in the readout
The sadness in the answer
A twist in the logic -

P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L.I.T.Y.
Why?

P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L.I.T.Y.
Why?

Low-key discussions
Rumble round the test-bed
Egg-heads in a huddle
A softening of the solid-state.

Static alphabet
Rigid stabbing monotone
There's positive or negative
But no inbetween!

ARE YOU BLIND?
Are you looking through a broken pair of eyes
Are you ill-equipped to hear me?
(Random brainwave groping for receivers)

ARE YOU DEAF?
Are you one of the cogs
Too busy probing the pleasure centres of dogs
To get near me? Get near me.

Nobody noticed
The difference in the readout
The sadness in the answer
A twist in the logic
- leave it in the hands of fate.

The song is a bit of a preamble for the following track - I Pity Inanimate Objects which is one of the greatest, if most peculiar, songs. But the lines that are shouted ARE YOU DEAF? ARE YOU BLIND? and the line "Are you one of the cogs..."

I dislike the idea of being any kind of a cog for anyone, and I was thinking, perhaps I should make a blog. I've made them before, but this would be more focussed. And I thought about the first line of the song I was listening to: "Early Warning". I tried out using Yahoo's 360, and found it totally inadequate, and moved everything over to Blogger. I selected a template, modified it so it conforms more to my liking, and here we are!

I'm exhausted from eating turkey all day, so I will turn in presently and post something useful later today or tomorrow.

S2

Happy Peak Oil Day (?)

2005-11-24T06:40:00.000-08:00

Today is Thanksgiving Day, where citizens of the United States give thanks for all the crap they've stolen from everyone else. First it was the Indians, then it was Mexico (France cashed out when the gettin' was good), then it was Spain, and ever since then, the world has been America's target. And how did America do it? Oil. Black Gold. Texas Tea. Well the first thing you know, Uncle Sam's a trillionaire, and his advisors said "Sam - fly away from here" They said "The Middle East is the place you oughta be!" So they loaded up the planes and bombed the Iraqis - for the oil that is... black gold... Texas Tea...

I suppose it is meet and right to give thanks, even if you are a lugubrious empire of plutocrats and prisoners, guards and soldiers, unwilling wage slaves and obsequious lackies.

And let us give thanks that the lights are still on, eh?

Acccording to Ken Deffeyes, Today (or sometime right around today) will prove to be Peak Oil Day - from here on out, it's all downhill.

Frankly, I don't think he's correct - from what I can gather, Peak Oil Day is probably another 5 years off - but I am willing to be wrong on that. In the greater scheme of things, it seems that 5 years doesn't amount to a whole lot of anything. Heck - it seems that Portishead goes that long between records... However - 5 years here, 5 years there - pretty soon, it adds up to something useful. But more on that later.

The interesting part of such a notion is: What Exactly Is Peak Oil? When the pumping of crude goes into irreversible decline? There are several alternatives to liquid crude oil - tar sands, vegetable oil, even shale oil and methane hydrates. Yes, they all have fairly miserable ER/EI ratios, but one can get oil (or at least fuel) out of those sources.

This, of course, dodges the question as to whether it is in our best interests to go down that path at all, and I think that is where the real debate lies. I tend to think it is not, and the reason is simple: climate change due to CO2. Of all the "oil sources" vegetable oil is the one that can be carbon neutral. However, the cultivation of vegetable oil requires huge swaths of land for "oil harvesting" at today's energy consumption rates. And given the arrival of India and China on the "Modern Lifestyle Scene" I don't see the consumption of high density liquid energy going down anytime soon - not to mention the morality of growing huge amounts of food (soybeans, etc.) to be burned up in some fat ass suburbanite's SUV so they can schlep their mewling Ritalin addled obese crotchfruit to and from Soccer Practice.

This, of course, brings us back to Peak Oil. What's it going to be?

Recently the libertarian dorks (Have you noticed I have a really bad attitude? Deal.) over at WIRED published an article that basically says "Technology Will Save Our Fat Asses". They are of course, only half right. Technology WILL change things, but it won't save the fat - it will save the thin...

Jebus said "A rich man can go to heaven as a camel may pass through the eye of a needle." The "Eye of the Needle" was one of the gates of Jerusalem. Back in those days, roving hordes of assholes would run rampant across the landscape - chopping, burning and killing each other and anyone in sight. If you liked the idea of indoor living and a peaceful life, you had to wall off your city. The gates in and out were often small - barely large enough for a person to go through. Often there was a single large main gate for horses and camels and other large things to pass, but most of the egress was done by way of the smaller gates - hence: The Eye of the Needle as a nickname for an especially minor gate, and the difficulty in getting a camel through one.

The world is facing just such a gate - an energy gate. And FAT countries, like the USA, are less equipped to get through it. Their citizens aren't trained in methods of restraint and preservation - all they know is excess and waste. The Kogi living in the hills of Peru will survive much better than the poor bastards living in the slums of the Bronx or East LA or Newark NJ or the rich slime moulds living in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills, or Short Hills NJ. What is "Rich" in this context is not money - you can't eat money or put it in your tank - what is "Rich" is one's energy diet...

This doesn't mean that we're (necessarily) facing some kind of a massive die-off. We ARE facing such a die off, if things don't change and change fast. But if we immediately instill some serious policies to curb the use of oil, we can extend the Peak Plateau for another five years, maybe ten. If we get really good at it, maybe fifteen. This will allow us the time to put into practice new lifestyles that are:

a: inherently lower in energy use
b: inherently richer in social content
c: able to get us through the "eye of the needle"

The important thing to remember is that in this particular case, once you're through the eye of the needle, you're not back in open space. You're in The City. It will be crowded and delicate, and require enormous ingenuity to keep from going into a die off. Which is why another part of the lifestyle change will have to be:

d: a voluntary die off.

Basically: a massive global population reduction program. The Third World (South) will tend to have higher death rates from disease and poverty than the First World (North), but because the North is gobbling up all the goodies, it is the North that needs to reduce its population the most and really get on the stick. Luckily, there are some few signs that such is actually happening - many European countries are going into population decline, and this is good. If I recall correctly, the same would be true of the USA if it wasn't for immigration (legal or otherwise).

By my calculations, the world needs to lose at least 100 million people more per year than it gains, and continue that number for about 100 years before we are at a sustainable population. At that point, the City will be smaller, cleaner, and much more capable of keeping the human project going.

I'm not a doomsayer - I'm not a total Cassandra. BUT: I'm not stupid and I can see the writing on the wall. We need to mobilise, and do it now.

Well, maybe not now. It is Thanksgiving. I'll chat this up at the dinner table, so we can get people thinking tomorrow. The bigger the boat, the slower it turns...

would you be so kind as to pass me the gravy? Thanks...

Stuart Studebaker

Some Real Info

2005-11-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

Today, I'd like to post some important information that tends to make the case for the Cassandras among us

Right Around Katrina this news broke - that OPEC announced the peaking of production of Light Sweet Crude.

and if that isn't enough to give you shivers,

The Kuwaitians (Kuwaitis? Kuwaitlanders? Whatever) have annoucned the peaking of production in their largest oil field.

So, it doesn't take Albert Freakin' Einstein to puzzle out that the Middle East Oil situation is Not A Good One. Obviously, the fields under Iraq are probably pretty good - they've been blown to flinders since 1991, and production there has been limited, making Iraq a kind of petrol laden piggy bank. But that's only going to hold for so long, and then bingo: right back to where we started.

If you have been living under a rock lately, you might not know that a Really Good Movie is released as of today, and will go nationwide as of 09 DEC 05. It's called SYRIANA and it stars George Clooney and Matt Damon and a bunch of other rich Hollywood stars who often get paid millions to tell the stories of ordinary working class Americans. Well, in this case, I think they play more affluent characters, but I can never resist misquoting Firesign Theatre, the closest thing the cultural sinkhole of the USA ever came to producing something even vaguely equal to Shakespeare. You are under STRICT instructions to go out and see this damn movie. NOW! Tell your parents to see it and THANK THEM for LEAVING US A RUINED PLANET AS THEIR LEGACY. I'm expecting little Avanti to give me a similar lecture in about 10 years...

Locally (right now I'm in New York City - just like I pictured it) the nimrods at the helm of Air America decided to pull the plug on Mark Maron on the Morning Sedition radio show. When I schlep my ass to work in the AM, I like listening to him - he's funny and often insightful. I learned a word from him - "Sheeple" as in "WAKE UP SHEEPLE! THESE PLUTOCRATS ARE OUT TO KILL YA!" If you also like Maron's work, you should sign the damn petition to keep him on the air and save the program. Why? Because he's funny. Not like these things ever work, but hey - it's worth a try...

Now. I MUST get to work now....

S2

An Introduction

2005-11-23T12:19:00.000-08:00

This is my second post to this new blog thing. Originally it was on an inferior product provided by Yahoo. Now it is here, in the biggest bloggingest place of all.

Some introduction is necessary - I am Mister Studebaker to you. If you insist on that informal California feigned intimacy way of doing things, you can call me Stuart, or S2 for super short-short.

Know this: our world is going to change more radically in the next 100 years than it has in the past 100 years. There is a non-zero probability that the whole fucking shithouse'll blow up. There's another non-zero probability that we'll be sitting on easy street sippin' 40s til we die. Frankly, I find that less likely than the probability of the whole fucking shithouse blowing up.

I've been subscribing to the Energy Resources List for a while, and have contributed to the discussion there. It's a Yahoo Group, and you can subscribe to it HERE to read my latest drooling rants there.

To be clear about the subject of this blog - the coming energy crisis and the disruptions to follow it:

I see two fundamental camps forming: the Cassandras and the Cornicopians. I used to call the Cornicopians the Panglossians, but I think Cornicopian is more appropriate.

My position is about 20% Cornicopian and 85% Cassandran. Yes, that adds up to more than 100%. That's because the Cassandran position is a lot stronger than the Cornicopian position, but the Cornicopians DO have some few points that are quite strong. As time goes on with this blog, these differences and points will become clear.

My position is largely Cassandran because:

a: It's a stronger argument that conforms more closely to the evidence at hand.
b: I like the name and the myth. I know a few women named Cassandra, and they are all sharp as a tacks, witty, totally gorgeous, kind, and good people. I guess it was a popular name about 25 years ago. Whatever.
c: The people who support the cornicopian position tend to be a bunch of clueless dupes of the conspiracy with really lame taste in art, music, clothes, and film.

I encourage people to respond to what I post here. A few ground rules:

1. I'm allowed to cuss - you can too, but not at me.
2. I will do my best to respond in a timely fashion, but I have 2 busy careers going at once, and this blog thing is kind of new to me.
3. If you're wondering who I am, I am "Stuart Studebaker". This is pulled from my profile:

I post to the internet as misterstudebaker because it allows me to write crazy freaky weird shit and not give a jolly gawd damn. I live in San Francisco most of the time. It's a nice place. Crappy pizza, but the weather is usually really great - cold, damp, and foggy. At least on my end of town. Otherwise I can be found haunting places like New York City, Washington DC, Paris France, Seattle, and Los Angeles. I detest flying - I consider it a total waste of time - but until we have terabit broadband wired into petaHz computers, I will have to fly my fat (but slowly unfattening) ass around in a titanium plated oil burning missile bus to get my work done. On a personal level, I am married (happily) to the most wonderful woman on the planet - someone who actually can put up with my insanity. As far as you are concerned her name is Susan Studebaker. We have spawned, and we have a sweet little girl you can call Avanti Studebaker. Why we spawned with such a dire world ahead will be explained in another post at another time.

I guess that will do for now. I have to schlep my crazy brain home now.

best regards,

Mister Studebaker

A Much Better Deal...

2005-11-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

This is the first post to this version of my blog. I first started using the beta of 360 on Yahoo, but it sucked so badly, I decided to go here to blogger. I'm going to transfer the posts I made on 360 over here as well.

more soon.

S2