Saturday, February 1, 2020

peev2c13


PEEv2c13
Peak Oil
Twelve chapters ago, I started rewriting this book ( as blog articles ). On the first article, you were told I was going to write on this subject. You WERE warned. Now, here it is. If you hear nothing else, I want to make this point. “They have been saying we would run out of oil for 100 years” is no excuse for dismissing Peak Oil. Because Peak ONLY means that is the point production starts to fall. It does NOT mean we have run out of oil. You mix apples and oranges to deny reality, that infinite growth isn't possible on a finite planet.
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I actually understand your reluctance to give up the good life. I certainly don't wish to live in deprivation and despair, and that is on a GOOD day, after the oil. Oil is so ingrained in our lives we cannot imagine another reality. It allowed a LOT of scientific research that was a complete waste of time, just so that a few nuggets of helpful knowledge was gained. All that waste was just surplus energy. It allowed hundreds of millions of people to do nothing but cruise around for no other purpose than to be cruising around.
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Wasting oil was FUN, dammit! The problem of course is that all the fun we had growing up is no longer possible. Because we don't have as much oil to waste, per capita and BTU's in toto. The per capita part screwed the pooch when the powers that be needed more consumers to pick up from depressed earnings and profit, and the BTU part came from substituting real oil with lesser quality fuels once conventional oil decreased in volumes discovered and produced. We certainly have NOT run out of oil!
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We ran out of enough oil per person, to continue our standard of living, and then we started using fake fuel that delivered far less energy and which also was far more resource intense to produce ( I do NOT say “more expensive to produce” because fracking oil almost always lost money. The bankers giving away the soon to be defaulted loans didn't care because without some kind, any kind, of energy, their racket would have ended. And hell, lost loans are just entries in the ledger, not real money. Just inflation, which doesn't hurt the rich ).
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These last fifty ( plus ) years of economic decline ( we are still waiting for the economic collapse ) were all caused by the decline in oil. Energy in general, as all the high grade coal was used, as there were no more rivers to dam, after we passed Peak Plutonium and after the US saw the peak of its oil production in the lower 48 states. If you take away Alaskan oil and the Gulf Of Mexico oil ( both in severe decline. We weren't deep sea drilling because it was easy or profitable, but because that is what is mostly left ), we would be far below half our Peak 1971 production.
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No, I do NOT call fracking oil “energy independence” and I would NEVER call it “surpassing 1971 production”. Let me try to make this clear. Stick a pipe in the ground and out comes conventional oil. All it needs is 1880's levels of technology to distill ( yes, it is more complex and expensive now, because of centralization and economics of scale. But fundamentally the level of technology isn't much advanced. I know you want to argue. Look up “fundamentally” ). Nothing besides a well needs to be shipped in to start the drilling.
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With fracking oil, you need to ship in, besides the drilling rig, butt tons of water and chemicals. That is an added energy cost, which lowers your NET energy. The wells must be deeper. And a lot of times, you get a VERY poor grade of oil. Sometimes so poor you need to add in a thicker petroleum product to get anything other than lower energy gasoline ( you remember that you need diesel for trucks and trains, yes? ). But the biggest sin of fracking oil is that instead of a minimum of forty years of well production, you usually only get four years MAXIMUM. Fracking spots are in essence the sludge left over from conventional oil drilling or which were NEVER economically viable in the first place.
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Now, yes, indeed, we can run an economy on fracking oil. We have been doing it, the last five years fracking alone producing one third of all of our liquid fuel needs. But, you have noticed the economy during that same time, haven't you? If it wasn't for printed money never to be paid back, the majority of companies publicly traded would have already closed their doors. If it wasn't for the new housing bubble artificially injecting money into the banks vaults, Douche Bank ( and its illegitimate inbreed cousins across the globe such as HSBC ) would have probably actually already touched off the derivatives implosion.
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It was the lack of affordable oil at a sufficient net energy that collapsed the world manufacturing economy ( okay, “declined too far to remain viable” rather than “collapsed” ). If too much energy is going to produce more energy, what is left for the real economy? It is bad enough the financial sector is a parasite that drains too much economic activity, now we are also working with an energy sector that is producing too little to maintain the infrastructure of the planet. I know I've lost some of you, so let me elaborate. It takes oil to drill for oil.
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You see a statement perhaps to the effect of “we were pumping 70 million barrels of oil a day in 1970, and now we are pumping out 90 million a day. Hooza!” But, one, there are a crap ton more people wanting calories today that fifty years ago ( which you will of course dismiss as “starving Black babies in Africa-screw them”, ignoring the THREE friggin BILLION people in India and China working towards a middle class lifestyle ) and two, volume of production means dingus all compared to NET energy.
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If you use more oil to get oil out of the ground and to its end user, the volume doesn't matter. A fracking well can lose up to 80% of its volume in ONE year. That means you need more wells. Every time you set up a rig and run pipe down into the ground, it takes away from the net energy delivered. You need at least ten times the drilling for fracking as conventional, and then after all that, you get a lesser grade of oil. With these kinds of inefficiencies, NET energy is really reduced. And I beg you to remember, we are trying to run a 1930 infrastructure with 2010 energy.
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Every year, less NET energy means that old timey infrastructure sees less energy devoted to its maintenance. Every ill in our economy is attributed to less energy inputs. Less energy to dredge out the lakes behind dams, less energy for the consumer, less energy for a business that caters to a consumer, or employs a consumer. Retailers failing is NOT economic, and it was NEVER about Amazon, it is energy contraction. 35% unemployment is energy contraction. Chinese overproduction from lack of employed consumers is all about energy contraction.
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None of this is because we ran OUT of oil, it is because we are getting a constant decline in net energy. THAT is Peak Oil. You have been living it for fifty years. The only reason it matters is because what is in constant decline eventually means it runs out. You've been living Peak most of your life. Isn't it time to think perhaps you should accept the proof before your eyes?
( .Y. )
( today's related Amazon link click HERE )
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note: January earnings report.  $212 donations.  $162 Amazon commission.  $5 Kindle books.  $379 total.  Most excellent.  A hearty thanks to any and all who filled the begging bowl.
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note: Gary North on the historical context of Brexit HERE or as he puts it, and to tie in somewhat with today's article, if only in a snarky manner, Peak Globalism
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23 comments:

  1. Good one Jim. You drove this article points well, just like a motivated Private manning a crew served belt fed against human wave enemy assaults.

    I am of the post boomer age group that raced anything that burned gas and happy motored it the whole life. I concur the bottom WILL/MUST fall out soon enough. I still use guzzling trucks as a tactical transport and independance contribution factor for the here and now living. The financial costs and dependance on that transport are balanced out in calculations to be a net nuetral necessity for providing me mobility options now. (Employment, transport prep gear, reconnitor remote locales, administrative uses) all instead of riding buses or cabs or uber-lyft with pails of wheat and long guns as baggage.

    Like depending upon electricity always, then as in "One Second After", you flick that familiar habitual switch and nothing responds back at your ass. Drats. I'll just adjust my ass accordingly as spicy season begins. Already have bicycles, sturdy boots, and know about humping a pack. Easy peasy.

    Be able to remain frosty.

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    1. Back up boots and bike parts? Made with petrol-just the price hikes and shortages will be problematic enough. "Humping a pack". Really, the pack humps you. Max weight that bitch accordingly

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  2. A couple free books:

    ECONOMICS OF DISCONTENT by John-Michel Paul, linked near the bottom of today's Bison linked book.

    A new one by freedom author Phil M. Williams... 2050 PSYCHO ISLAND.

    (As far as I can tell, neither use much oil in their e-printing.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Econ of Dis:
      https://amzn.to/2GMlYSS
      2050:
      https://amzn.to/37JRRrb
      Thank you, LM. Looks delicious

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    2. His offer to read "Against The Grain" is bullshit, as always. It's behind a paywall.

      Delete
  3. Hanging on to an existence like every other prole. Going to have to continue using cars and slurp surplus from the last of the spritzing oil age for the interim as a means to an end.

    At least minions are already in practice or by being red pilled already are half transitioned for post apoc, no oil, road warrior spicy times. The adaptability and fast on your feet attributes will help more so. Be well rounded as in horsemanship, motorcycling, bicycling, heavy foot march hiking, teamster pack animal management, etc. There will need to be mobility and commerce transport considerations to plan for.

    Mobility is flexibility.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And caching. Mobility and buried pirate treasure. Mobility WILL end of course, eventually. Be ready for that also. We'll return to violent screaming chimps killing over territorial rights and everyone bunkers in place unless attacking

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    1. I can only imagine the oil companies pumping like crazy to meet the bankers interest payments. Even as it depresses the price more. Enjoy the windfall. The last time I had such fortune was the casino tip money, living like a bare assed savage so I could put it all in preps. Actually, I probably am still living like that. Baby Jesus must be laughing. But I know he approves

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    2. Demented Guy,
      I'm requesting your opinion on this guy's humanure composting plan because I intend to adopt this plan if there's no big cons. Basically he takes a 55 gallon drum, cuts the bottom out, and permanently places it next to a fruit tree. He dumps fresh humanure and kitchen scraps in there and it automatically composts and the trees love it.
      7-minute video, the first couple minutes are just fluff.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cPmUovDkEc
      Romans 14:11

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    3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    4. Anonymous 5:17,

      Too much nitrogen can damage or kill a fruit tree.

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    5. DM-I thought the standard was 10 water to 1 pee? Of course, mine is just book knowledge, so I defer to you
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      3:52-this isn't straight fertilizer though, right?

      Delete
    6. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    7. My main source was the book "liquid gold", usually advertised with the "humanure" book. Of course, I disagree with some things in Humanure, so there is that also.

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  5. Living Peak Oil for 50 years may be just about right. That would mean things really started going to shit when I was 8 years old, when to my perception it was more like when I was 12 years old.

    I have a personal theory I've held dear for a long time: That if you added up all the energy put into it, nuclear power doesn't even break even.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe you are correct on nuclear. Same with wind and solar. It works on a household level, but it is still a energy lose. You can break even on money, but not BTU's

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  6. Lord Bison, you too, like doomster preacher Hal Lindsey will be right someday...maybe. Let's see....his best seller "The Late Great Planet Earth" was published in 1970. You still have a ways to go.
    Maybe this ChiCom virus will usher in 'The End' (snarc).

    Fellow doom preacher Jack van Impe passed away 2 weeks ago at age 88. Hang in there Jim!

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    Replies
    1. Now you sound like Druid Dude. Since other prophets were wrong, ALL of them are wrong. Really? And I'm not even using the bible.

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  7. Lots of fracking still to be done in foreign oil fields. And there will be little or no environmental regs in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, etc.

    You're a few decades early on the prediction of the end of affordable oil. It will surely come, but not yet.

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    Replies
    1. And yet, in Mexico where the rate of production is so low they are now importing oil, they do not frack. Exactly because it loses money and has a VERY low EROI. The US has unlimited money creation to fund fracking-other countries do not, lacking a global currency they can export debt with

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    2. Only in last decade or so has Mexico allowed foreign oil firms opportunity to drill but terms so onerous all(?) said no thanks. Better opportunities, rule of law and no morbita ('the bite' AKA bribery) in other places. Oil prices have been in an acceptable trading range and supplies uninterrupted for a decade. Why the hell risk money on Mexico?

      PEMEX, is the traditional source of looted treasure by the political elite. The entirety of PEMEX from drilling concessions to gas out of the nozzle is looted. No way the elites are going to give that up. Besides US feds can't sieze those funds and extradite like they can drug money.
      Second, Mexican "pride" couldn't withstand the inevitable shame if foreign firms went in and wiped the slate from PEMEX. Too much "puro" sh*t thinking.
      Smart people don't drill in Mexico the same way smart people don't vacation in Mexico. Just don't!

      I repeat, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Few foreign drillers in Mexico is not because of poor EROI it's
      because.....Mexico.
      Texas based frack gas powered electric generating plants are increasing their share of mkt in Mexico.
      Mexico even sends their crude up here for refining as they are so f'd. Mexico's largest port, in terms of $value, is HOUSTON for God's sake!
      The country is a hair's breadth from being a failed state. Automatic weapons fire is heard with regularity across the border from Laredo and points south to Brownsville as cartels shoot it out with Mexican military/police. Sh*t is rolling over the border in alarming frequency
      and lethality and impacting directly as far as Metroplex and Houston.
      EROI ain't the problem...

      Your critical thinking is being overshadowed by your unwillingness to follow science and glaring truths. Tens of thousands of scientists, engineers and REALLY smart people just might know more from experience and data than you do from reading some no experience goof over at Srsrocco (or whatever). You don't think a guy pulling in $150K a year might actually know a thing or two about the industry? The oil patch is loaded with guys who can recite well log data, reservoir flow info and write super dooper advanced computer programs (they know how to code, for Pete's sake!).
      If O&G was in such perilous straits don't you think thousands of these scientists & engineers (AKA "smart guys) would be fleeing that sinking ship and going over to work for, I don't know...Elon Musk?

      Yep, oil age will eventually diminish due to economics but not until you, I and everyone over 30 is dead and gone. In the meantime, I'm making decisions based on hard numbers, science and human creativity.

      Frack on and build that wall! The Spice will flow.

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    3. Well, I shan't refute all your points one by one. You won't agree with anything I say, anyway. You want to believe Fracking Forever. I do not. Enough said. We've been over it all already. We both believe we are casting pearls before swine LOL Seriously, at this point, why not just grin and bear it, yes? :)

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