Page added on August 21, 2017
We’ve been hearing for years now that oil supplies are on the verge of running out.
Actually, let’s be a bit more specific: we’ve been hearing for years now that US oil supplies are on the verge of running out, along with those of several other key global economies in the West (including the UK). But how much of the bigger picture are these dire predictions really giving us, and why are they seldom any more specific?
Well, in any brief overview, the first point of note should be this: it’s nigh-on impossible to predict with any degree of certainty how long our planet’s oil reserves will last us.
That’s basically why we’re used to hearing so many conflicting reports across news media, academic studies, industry PR and environmental campaigns. Case in point: despite widespread agreement among the scientific community that our appetite for oil will eventually exhaust the reserves we can viably access, BP announced that global production actually in 2016. Go figure.
Ten years? Fifty years?
Recent numbers bandied about with regards to the remaining US and UK reserves have argued that, under current production rates, we could have as little as left, or as much as . It could easily be far longer than that, too. There are still relatively vast proven resources left in several other nations, many of which utterly dwarf what’s known to be directly available to the US and UK at present. (Quite what that could mean for the future of international diplomacy, of course, is another issue altogether.)
Either way, a key problem with trying to work out precisely when we’ll reach ‘peak oil’ – the last happy moment right before existing production levels become genuinely unsustainable – is that we’re not talking about the Earth, or even individual nations, being empty per se.
Far from it, in fact: geologists the world over are certain that our planet contains a heck of a lot more oil than we can currently access.
Part of the trouble with putting a more precise figure on things is that, while we’re busy devising and conducting ever-more-accurate research methods, discoveries of previously unknown reserves continue to be a relatively common occurrence (albeit ). To complicate matters still further, regular progress in drilling technology keeps granting us access to previously untappable sources, fudging the calculations even more.
Economies of shale
If all of that wasn’t already headache-inducing enough, the basic economics of that progress introduce a third major variable. Oil’s status as a finite resource that will eventually ‘run out’ – literally or figuratively, for better or worse – plays a role in helping to keep prices buoyant, and bottom-line profitability is ultimately what drives oil companies to keep digging deeper.
Yes, we know there’s a lot more oil stored in the Earth than we’re currently able to get at, never mind exhaust. Yes, in future we may well develop drilling capabilities that make it profitable to go and exploit some of it. But, as any undergrad economist will tell you, profitability in the simplest terms is a question of supply and demand, and that brings us to yet another twist – one that the US is experiencing right now.
When oil demand is high, as it has been for much of the last decade, prices increase to reflect that. This in turn makes it worthwhile for companies to plough vast funds into ever-more-complex drilling and extraction methods. The US domestic oil industry is a perfect example of this in action: it’s heavily reliant on the extraction of shale oil trapped in rock, which is much more difficult and expensive to tap than traditional liquid reserves.
The fact that worldwide production shot up in real terms over the last year or two – thanks largely to oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia rejecting a proposed cap – resulted in a net price drop per barrel, and the American shale oil industry slowed dramatically.
Crucially though, it didn’t entirely collapse; instead, it cut back on overheads and dug its heels in. Eventually prices recovered, prompting US market experts to earmark 2017 as a after a tricky period of decline that many had feared could be fatal. Again, go figure.
Incidentally, it’s still not entirely clear how much of an impact a healthy domestic industry will ever really have on prices for consumers. Back in 2009, the Natural Resources Defense Council claimed in its paper on Building the Clean Energy Economy that “It won’t make any significant difference in what we pay at the pump – not now and not ever. And it won’t make our country any less dependent on foreign fuel. Our thirst for oil is bad for national security, bad for our economy and bad for the environment.”
The race is on
Controversial new processes involved in fracking and shale oil production have been making headlines around the globe for the past couple of years. Indeed, the amount of coverage fracking has received is testament to how quickly the landscape can change (pun semi-intended) in the oil game.
And, at the same time as that scandal was unfolding, we were also making major leaps forward in harnessing and delivering renewable energy sources. Solar power, for instance, is becoming more affordable and widely available – not to mention more socially, environmentally and politically popular – by the day.
Major advances in cutting-edge drilling capacity are happening right now, seemingly on an almost weekly basis, but they’ll all count for little as soon as they’re officially deemed to be less cost-effective than a stable, accessible source of alternative renewable power. In effect, there’s something of a race unfolding, and the simple economics of it all could plausibly render fossil fuels obsolete decades before we even get close to pumping them all out.
In short, the problem for anyone trying to predict a ‘peak oil’ date right now isn’t just that most of the numbers are educated guesswork; it’s that even the numbers we do know won’t keep still long enough to tell us anything definitive.
100 Comments on "Why we still don’t know when ‘peak oil’ will hit"
Plantagenet on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 12:59 pm
We’ve got a pretty good idea now how much shale oil there is the US, but we still don’t know how large the global shale oil resource is—therefore we can’t predict the date of peak oil.
Peak Oil demand might create something like “peak oil” but without concerted government action to institute carbon taxes and drastically reduce FF use, we also don’t know when peak oil demand will occur.
Cheers!
MASTERMIND on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 1:24 pm
Why didn’t Makati1 take his ugly twin brother the “Asian Carp” back to the P’s with him?
MASTERMIND on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 1:27 pm
Peak oil is passed you nitwits. All that matters is conventional oil because it makes up almost 90 percent of the supplies. And for every one percent it declines shale would have to ramp up 20 percent to cover the difference. So once the plateau starts to decline that is the ball game. And since the IEA and Saudis are warning now about oil shortages by 2020. It would appear that peak total is happening right now.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 1:52 pm
We have an eclipse happening in America that is causing a totality. And we have a President who is causing totalitarianism. LOL
Sissyfuss on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 2:21 pm
Isn’t the more salient question when do we hit peak CO2? Oh wait,we already have.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 2:28 pm
Here fishy, fishy, fishy, Makati1. The Asian carp. prepping is futile because you will be robbed, raped, murdered, and eaten.
Plantagenet on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 2:30 pm
According to the Paris climate accords, CO2 can go on increasing. All you have to to is sign an agreement setting a 2°C limit on T increases, and then fly home first class or in a private jet, and proclaim success.
Some people believe it, anyway!
Cheers!
Antius on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 2:52 pm
Interesting technology:
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/molten-silicon-used-for-thermal-energy-storage/
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/1414-degrees-says-it-will-make-lithium-ion-totally-uneconomic
1 cubic metre of molten silicon at 1400C contains ~1500kWh of heat. At these these temperatures, an s-co2 power cycle could convert heat into electricity at up to 60% efficiency. If an electric heating element is used to melt the silicon, then round trip storage efficiency could be 50%. That is twice as efficient as liquid hydrogen.
One solution to long distance travel as oil begins to get scarce, would be to build cruise ships with silicon thermal energy stores along their keel. The mass of the silicon would also function as ballast. In port, the ship would charge up from the electric grid, possibly using intermittent electricity.
The great thing about this is that it could be much cheaper than a lithium ion battery, with comparative energy density. The downside is that thermal energy storage has minimum practical size, because heat loss is a function of surface area.
Not a solution to everything, but an interesting aside, if somewhat off topic.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 3:05 pm
Is it a partial eclipse everyday for Asian carp people Like Makati1?
Boat on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 3:30 pm
antius,
“One solution to long distance travel as oil begins to get scarce”
There will always be plenty of oil. Market share for oil will be dropping in less than 20 years. They call that peak oil.
MASTERMIND on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 4:22 pm
Shale oil fracking and tar sands mining is evidence that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel
Cloggie on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 4:39 pm
@Antius
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7huVnCnK8s
http://amadeus-project.eu/
Antius on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 5:08 pm
”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7huVnCnK8s
http://amadeus-project.eu/”
Interesting links. I think thermal storage will eventually become the preferred option for large scale grid energy storage. Simply because it is energy dense, relatively efficient and cheap.
I am more sceptical about the thermoelectric power conversion system they talk about. Solid state generators rarely exceed 10% efficiency. More likely some sort of heat engine is needed.
One thing I have learned from my energy studies is that energy conversion from one form to another is costly, both in terms of capital and efficiency. Hence, if energy is stored as high temperature heat, it is most efficient to use it in that form.
Cloggie on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 5:24 pm
Thanks for your original links, added them to “my repertoire”:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/amadeus-1414-degrees-energy-storage/
Was always fascinated with the potential of phase change, in particular applied in heat pipes based solar collectors, that were invented around 1984 at the Philips laboratory in Eindhoven:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-6508-9_100
I still have 10 of those tubes lying around in my basement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnMOxwfpRbk
Now the Chinese are mass producing it.
GregT on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 5:39 pm
All of the alternate energy production the world, isn’t going to solve any of mankind’s predicaments caused entirely by surplus energy production.
We either learn to live within the confines of current solar energy in the form of photosynthesis. Stop raping the earth of finite ‘resources’, consume naturally occurring renewable resources at a rate equal to or less than the rate that they can be naturally replenished, or the path that we are on will continue to be unsustainable.
It isn’t exactly rocket science Cloggie.
Cloggie on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 5:45 pm
So what is your workable solution Greg?
Let me guess, there is none, there first need to die off a couple of billion?
And please tell me how you personally live off “photosynthesis”, high up north, with your truck parked before the house and typing your posts away on an iMac, fueled by the grid an/or panels+batteries.
That is not living photo-synthetically either. Not in a long shot.
We will simply proceed as announced and we will have a renewable energy base in a decade of 2-3.
sunweb on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 5:57 pm
How do we get these high temperatures via Amadeus project? How many wind turbines or solar electric panels or focused parabolic do we need? Here is some possible answers. Note this is data for only 7 of the various materials that require 1000°C temperatures or more. There are many more.
HEAT FOR TOMORROW
Many materials used in our industrial world require energy from mining to manufacturing for processing and transportation. The energy for some of these products is in the form of high temperatures – 2000° F (nearly 1100°C).
There are proposals that solar and wind energy collecting devices can provide the energy to maintain the industrial world. To look at this possibility, solar electric panels, wind turbines and concentrated solar installations in the form of parabolic trough collectors (PTC) have been assessed.
The energy requirements in 2010 for the following essential components of our industrial world are provided: steel, aluminum, chromium, copper, manganese, cement and glass. This energy would be mining, processing and transporting to name some. Other important components of the industrialized world such as nickel and cobalt are not considered because they are part of the high temperature processing of other ore metals.
The kWh output and area required for installations of solar electric panels, wind turbines and PTC has been researched. This then is divided into the energy (exajoules converted to kWh) required for global production of each material in 2010.
NEEDED
121,214.45 Square Miles of Solar Electric Collectors
257,472 square miles and 2,807,276 Wind Turbines
77183.4 square miles of PTCs
There are many other critical components of our global industrialized world that require industrial heat (lead, silver, tin, food processing) that are right at the top heating limit of solar devices. They must also be included in an all “renewable” future. If only half of important materials were provided, what would our world be like?
See maps, images and calculations at:
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2017/08/heat-for-tomorrow-many-materials-used.html
Cloggie on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 6:05 pm
So what do you propose, sunweb? Collectively roll over and die?
Cloggie on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 6:09 pm
How do we get these high temperatures via Amadeus project?
Electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace
Industrial electric arc furnace temperatures can be up to 1,800 °C (3,272 °F), while laboratory units can exceed 3,000 °C (5,432 °F).
sunweb on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 6:22 pm
No, I expect we will work our ass off to maintain and expand the business as usual. Cloggie, probably for longer than you have been alive (almost 50 years) I have thought about this issue and looked for answers as well as real information. The Industrial electric arc furnace must get its power from somewhere. That is what my research looks at. If you have real research including area and devices needed, I am very interested. I do not want to see (with my health I might not) nor contemplate the trauma and pain for humans, other lifeforms and the earth.
Apneaman on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 6:24 pm
clog, propose? You are still under the illusion that the humans get to choose – they don’t.
The humans evolved into the most incredible reward seeker this planet has ever seen. Cancers do not roll over and die, it consumes and reproduces and infects until it can’t which will be within a decade. If you can manage to stave off your pending death, you’ll get to see it and be it. Even if your fantasy alt energy dreams came to pass it would make no difference. Inertia is a bitch and it’s going to bitch slap the humans. It’s in the pipe. Can’t be avoided. Get it?
Real Global Temperature Trend, p16 – Climate System Thermal Inertia: Trend Line = 0.6C higher than observed temperatures show
http://www.bitsofscience.org/real-global-temperature-trend-climate-system-thermal-inertia-7086/
Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html
It’s called physics clog. Nothing can stop the inertia. This is why all the plans are for not – short term band aids, but don’t worry the humans are unable to stop or even slow their growth, so all the little alt energy tumors will keep spreading for now, so you can keep playing.
GregT on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 6:25 pm
I have already identified the only workable long term option Cloggie. Predicaments do not have solutions. The longer that mankind continues to live in an unsustainable manner, the bigger the die off will be.
I grew up without computers and cell phones Cloggie, just like you. I don’t remember missing them. My father grew up on a farm in the praries, with no running water, no electricity, no automobile, no TV, and no telephone. He still managed to live a happy, healthy and productive life. To this very day there are hundreds of millions of people on this planet that have little access to any of the above, if they have any access at all.
Modern industrial society has only been around for a few hundred years. Mankind has survived for at least 199,800 years without it. We have done so much damage to the Earth’s natural ecosystems within that extremely short timeframe, that is now questionable as to whether we will live out this century, or the next.
We either stop, or we will be stopped, permanently.
sunweb on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 6:33 pm
I have spoken with those younger – 50, 40, 30, 20 years younger than I. They cannot hear, nor do they want to hear. Nor do I blame them in my heart though my mind says ‘know the truth’.
The declining ERoEI of fossil fuels and the degrading of mineral resources is converging with all the population, environmental and climatic pressures to put us right at the edge. The social upheaval from many directions – war, draught, economic disparity, famine – is pushing the edge to the cliff. Biological, geological and environmental realities of the situation dictate against continuity of the fossil fuel fired industrial world.
My belief says let it work itself out. This of course would include techno-solutions as this is our way. All of which from my point of view are part of the problem if not the root of the problems. Because of our mental manipulation of time and space, we create technological solutions that are only a small piece in the natural flow of things, hence rife with unintended consequences.
Unfortunately, there is no Dante’s Inferno in the nether world. For those who have no conscience, there is no hell. For those wrapped in beliefs that separate their life from other life, from our home and from certain other humans, there is no hell. We are creating it on earth.
Makati1 on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 7:23 pm
Well said, Ap, GregT and sunweb. We will likely see the demise of humans before we pass. Or, at least, the decline to the small numbers that will predict the extinction event not long after. Certainly by 2100. I do not see ANYTHING that can save us now. Can the guy who jumped off the top a 50 story building change his mind in the way down? Nope! Gravity will see to it that he continues to the splat. Physics/Mother Nature is no respecter of human wants or needs. We, as a species, jumped decades ago. Now all we can do is to try to ease the pain and experience the event.
Wolfie52 on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 7:33 pm
Same idiots, same arguments.
Cheers!
rockman on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 7:47 pm
“When oil demand is high, as it has been for much of the last decade, prices increase to reflect that.” Easy to challenge that statement: according to the IEA the worldwide average demand in 2016 was nearly 96 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels per day. Production breached 97 million barrels per day in late 2015. Given the oil price in 2015 and 2016 was half of the level several years earlier it appears to prove that relationship is false.
OTOH the peak in developing new reserves may not coincide with peak production. High oil prices encourages exploration of previous undeveloped reserves. But low oil prices also motivates maximising production of existing reserves to increase revenue. Thus the lag time can imply significant exploration of new reserves despite low oil prices.
Which brings us to the question that continues to be difficult to answer: at any point in time how much oil is the world capable of producing compared to how much it is actually producing. IOW what is the excess capacity VOLUNTARIALLY not being produced?
dave thompson on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 7:52 pm
Dear Cloggie, Here is another fine example of the non-existent transition that you tout. http://www.thedrive.com/news/13564/hyundai-ditches-hydrogen-fuel-cell-technology-for-now-pivots-to-electric-vehicles
asg70 on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 7:54 pm
“Peak oil is passed you nitwits.”
That kind of useless declaration is pretty much all what’s left of the peak-oil movement has to offer.
Davy on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 7:58 pm
“One thing I have learned from my energy studies is that energy conversion from one form to another is costly, both in terms of capital and efficiency. Hence, if energy is stored as high temperature heat, it is most efficient to use it in that form.”
Right, Antius, in more ways than energy. We know there are no free lunches. We know diminishing returns strikes. We know ecosystems at their apex are brittle and prone to threshold crossing shocks. This is the problem with us moderns. We are in multiple states of near conversion from the human, to energy, to systems like finance. But these conversions are now costly and in an environment of overshoot and planetary decline. We are a late term civilization. If our problems were only energy we could probably manage some kind of transition but the way we are I doubt it.
Davy on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 8:13 pm
“So what do you propose, sunweb? Collectively roll over and die?”
Cloggie, man up and realize that for many death may be what is in the cards. You can’t walk away from bad decisions. Your techno delusions are stretching the envelope of this reality. Your fantasy answer to this earth size predicament is a Euroland oasis and a 3rd world of death and destruction walled off by grand Euro armies. You want the US destroyed and then have your Euro armies pick up the remaining pieces of precious white Euros. I assume the rest you intend a final solution.
In the real world there will be a price to be paid and part of that will be death. Part of that price will be poverty. Part of that price is a disrupted and damaged planetary system. You can’t walk away from that with a get out of jail free card. Don’t think you can tell people “so what do you propose” with your implied motive that pessimism is something horrible. This does not make sense in the real world of tradeoffs. Like it is going to go away by sheer will of optimism. Pessimism is accepting reality when you have done to the earth what we have done. Renewables are only part of the problem. Your racism is a joke. Your CC denial is laughable. Get real. You are right to call out extremism but not with extremism.
Anonymous on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 8:18 pm
Oil is found in the minds of men.
http://foundation.aapg.org/documents/wallace_pratt-bio.pdf
GregT on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 8:51 pm
“Which brings us to the question that continues to be difficult to answer::at any point in time how much oil is the world capable of producing compared to how much it is actually producing.”
Which brings us to the question that is even more difficult to answer, or to perhaps comprehend, considering the warning from the world’s scientific community for well over 40 years now, why can’t the humans get their shit together?
Considering the warnings from the world’s scientific community, for over 40 years, why do the humans continue to
Anonymous on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 9:49 pm
Greg:
You are really not a peak oiler. You are an environmentalist. There is an essload of oil. The danger is not too little, it is too much.
GregT on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 10:26 pm
Nony,
We’ve been down this road multiple times before. There is more than enough oily stuff left to render the planet, for all intents and purposes, dead.
Peak ‘conventional’ oil already happened , just as Hubbert predicted that it would, somewhere around the beginning of this century. All of the tricks in the eCONomist’s books have not, and will not, put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
It is not the number of barrels that matter, but rather the cost to produce those barrels, and the net energy available to our overall economies. Something that will become very apparent to even you, in the not so distant future.
Bloomer on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 10:52 pm
The oil barons are pumping down their reserves as fast as they can. Get as many barrels of oil out the ground before the climate socialist hordes shut them down.
GregT on Mon, 21st Aug 2017 11:03 pm
As long as the oily barons continue to control the banks, governments, eCONomists, and the media, they have absolutely nothing to fear from the ‘climate socialist hoards’.
Their biggest concern right now, would be to keep the capitalist hoards from understanding why they are currently in the largest redistribution of wealth in mankind’s history. It is after all, nothing personal, just business.
Antius on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 1:10 am
“I have already identified the only workable long term option Cloggie. Predicaments do not have solutions. The longer that mankind continues to live in an unsustainable manner, the bigger the die off will be.”
Greg et al, you are of course correct. A die-off (population decline) due to falling food and water supply and a decline in living standards, is inevitable at this point.
That does not make it a waste of time to look at non-fossil (or low-fossil) energy solutions. If it is a waste of time trying to preserve some segment of human civilisation then we might as well all head for that 50 storey building right now. But I don’t think it is. There is no hope of preserving Business as Usual. But developing a more sustainable course for a reduced human population should not be beyond us.
Cloggie on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 2:43 am
Dear Cloggie, Here is another fine example of the non-existent transition that you tout. http://www.thedrive.com/news/13564/hyundai-ditches-hydrogen-fuel-cell-technology-for-now-pivots-to-electric-vehicles
dave, do you even read the links you are posting? Hyundai has chosen batteries over hydrogen. Big deal. That Hyundai will continue to invest in e-vehicles is not a matter of debate.
In other words Hyundai embraces the transition.
Cloggie on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 3:09 am
Cloggie, man up and realize that for many death may be what is in the cards. You can’t walk away from bad decisions.
It is you who is walking away from bad decisions and refuse to acknowledge what the consequences will be of opening your borders for the masses of the third world. Who is in denial here? Instead you keep repeating the “racism” mantras of your overlords, who want to wipe your kind out. How smart is that?
Your techno delusions are stretching the envelope of this reality.
No it isn’t, it’s working fine. We lost 23% CO2 since 1990 and we will lose the remaining 77% before 2050.
Your fantasy answer to this earth size predicament is a Euroland oasis and a 3rd world of death and destruction walled off by grand Euro armies.
You are right about the oasis and grand Euro armies. You are wrong about that we are going to let Africa die. Africa needs to be recolonized (or “adopted”), this time by Greater Europe and China and have a birth control program imposed. And those countries who refuse to be helped, they may rot in hell.
You want the US destroyed
It is completely irrelevant what I want, I just observe that the US is in self-destruction mode. The tensions between the left and right are currently at boiling point. The famous melting pot has changed into a pressure cooker, with the thermostat broke.
and then have your Euro armies pick up the remaining pieces of precious white Euros.
Indeed, if you are lucky enough the we in Europe will come to your aid. If not, its USSR 2.0 on North-American soil. We in Europe will play the Russia-card instead.
I assume the rest you intend a final solution.
Nasty sneer without foundation, borrowed from your masters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2Ae8T0FmFg
In the real world there will be a price to be paid and part of that will be death. Part of that price will be poverty. Part of that price is a disrupted and damaged planetary system.
– The acid rain problem could be solved and the European forests are in good condition again.
– Nobody talks any more about (vanishing) ozon layer
– Rivers in Europe are more or less clean now, at least much better than in the seventies.
A renewable energy base will halt further temperature increase.
You can’t walk away from that with a get out of jail free card. Don’t think you can tell people “so what do you propose” with your implied motive that pessimism is something horrible.
It is not horrible, it is just lame.
This does not make sense in the real world of trade-offs. Like it is going to go away by sheer will of optimism.
It is not going away through sheer optimism, it is going away through sheer concentrated, dedicated work.
Pessimism is accepting reality when you have done to the earth what we have done.
Identifying the problem is not enough. You need to solve it.
Your racism is a joke.
You are a good communist, Davy. But your country will crash as a result of your communist beliefs. Nothing to be proud of. The 19th century European “white man’s burden”, a combination of white self-preservation and trying to lift the level of the “darkies”, is still nobeler than this suicidal “fraternization”, the US (and their vassals) is preaching. The worst thing that can happen to the non-whites, is that whitey will disappear from the planet. They will go with him.
Your CC denial is laughable.
I do not deny global warming. I deny that there can’t be done anything against it.
Makati1 on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 3:20 am
” The tensions between the left and right are currently at boiling point. The famous melting pot has changed into a pressure cooker, with the thermostat broke.”
Well put, Cloggie.
Cloggie on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 4:41 am
Peak oil is passed you nitwits.
I would use the term “nitwit” sparingly if I were you, *** “MASTERMIND” ***.
Backfire thingy.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/A-World1.jpg
Davy on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 5:08 am
“You are a good communist, Davy.”
Geeze, cloggie, quit being a dork. Talking commie talk is so 20th century and backwards these days. You sound old and dated. I am something not status quo. I am a mix. You are 20th century carrying an anchor of failed ism mixed with revised histories. You think you understand the world from this vision so you know the future like an oracle. Where you do embrace the 21st century is with techno solutions you are sci-fi or an idealist. You discount systematic turbulence ahead economically. Energy problems are solved for you. Climate change is not that bad and your energy solutions solve the worst. As far as your grand vision of a new Paris Berlin Moscow 1000 year Reich, that is pure fantasy. It is coalescing in your mind not in reality. Your breakup of the United States is pure fantasy. Your life is one big fantasy of revisions, embellishments, sci-fi predictions. Cloggie, embrace reality somewhere please.
Antius on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 5:57 am
“As far as your grand vision of a new Paris Berlin Moscow 1000 year Reich, that is pure fantasy. It is coalescing in your mind not in reality.”
Yes. Bottom line is that the people that actually run the EU are not interested in building the sort of Euro nationalist empire that Cloggie envisages. They are far-left extremists who want more immigration in order to make the EU as ‘diverse’ as possible. Right now they are trying to punish Eastern Europe for not putting out before the Islamic invaders. These people are sick perverts and they have brought western Europe to its knees and now want Eastern Europe to join in. It was exactly this kind of nonsense that finally resulted in the UK voting to leave. Unfortunately, our own politicians are the same kind of people.
“Your breakup of the United States is pure fantasy. Your life is one big fantasy of revisions, embellishments, sci-fi predictions. Cloggie, embrace reality somewhere please.”
Sadly this actually seems to be happening. So long as the US was a European colony and the majority of its population were white, its people had enough in common (ethnically and in terms of a common vision) to build a common nation. The idea of uniting diverse peoples in a common American dream, can clearly only stretch so far.
It will be difficult for renewable energy (or nuclear for that matter) to replace fossil fuels. Renewable energy can stretch the benefits of those fuels.
Cloggie on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 6:10 am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCO6G30BcoA
Well, well, well, former chieftain of Homeland Security, who just returned from a no doubt well-deserved sunny vacation, declares removing of Confederate symbols “a matter of internal security”.
On a positive note, he opines that capital Washington can keep its name. Now that’s a relief!
Yes. Bottom line is that the people that actually run the EU are not interested in building the sort of Euro nationalist empire that Cloggie envisages.
Correct. But I must remind you though that history is dynamic, not static. Europe is since 1945 a US colony, like Eastern Europe became a colony of the USSR since 1945.
I don’t need to remind any of you that the Soviet empire no longer exists. Things do change in geopolitics. Once a major conflict breaks out in the US, the empire will break apart and the Merkel and May vassal regimes will fall and both ending up in, say, Santiago de Chile, just like Erich Honecker of the GDR ended up in after 1989.
The European Right is explicitly pro-Russia.
And Russia returns the favor provided the swastika’s are left at home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahEq3_1gf18
Putin has openly declared that his aim is a Euro-Siberian Confederation.
General de Gaulle has declared the same.
The first thing Macron did was inviting Putin with all honors and grandeur, in line with the Gaullist anti-Anglo tradition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h8nY16Oj5I
Paris-Berlin-Moscow, it is going to happen.
Davy on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 6:37 am
“Bill Blain: There Is A “Last Days Of Rome” Feel To The News These Days…”
http://tinyurl.com/y7d7qlfm
“There is a “last days of Rome” feel to the news these days…”
“Can you imagine how global market sentiment would react if a phalanx of Central Bankers were suddenly to admit.. “Er.. we’ve just figured out we’ve profoundly broken the global economy through unforeseen financial asset price inflation, while negative interest rates have killed capitalism and destroyed the underlying processes of market based economies?”
“I’ve long argued it’s the unintended consequences of QE, aka: massive financial asset price inflation, that are storing up enormous trouble for the future – including breaking the current financial system. Mr Paul points out the value of “investible assets” (broadly parallel, I suppose, to what I call “financial assets”, ie bonds and listed stocks) has grown by 40% from $350 trillion to $500 trillion since 2008. He notes the real assets behind these numbers have barely changed… meaning we don’t have $150 bln of new airports, planes, roads, ports, factories, etc actually visible. But that cash has to be somewhere…”
“Paul notes in his comment that financial asset inflation is killing the processes that drive Capitalism. We see that in the end of “creative destruction” and the number of Zombie Companies held together solely on low rates. A massive Credit Bubble – what? You never spotted it? Massive Financial Asset Price inflation has not been matched by consumption – in fact low rates have made us all poorer at a time when inflation could be set to jump from the unreal financial asset world into the real world of real assets! Prices are going up and people can afford less – That is what you might call a sell signal!”
“I suspect we’re into completely uncharted waters here. The central bankers know we need to normalize and rebuild the broken structures of capitalism and market based economies, without it becoming too apparent they are so broken – which would cause financial panic… On the other hand the cure might prove as painful as the self-inflicted injury of QE – analysts who assume a gradual slow steady normalization of real interest rates will not prove impossibly painful may be kidding themselves…”
Davy on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 6:38 am
Just like overpopulation is to any social or environmental issues so is financial system decline is to techno solutions and vital economic growth is as solution sources for all other issues. What we have is a broken system that is the current new normal status quo and there is no going back without significant dislocation of prosperity.
It takes prosperity to build out a new energy transition or fix climate issues. It takes growing growth to ensure people are fed, systems maintained, and energy supplied. When this growing growth ends these efforts against entropy will end also. At least as we know it in status quo prosperity. It may not be a crash but it may be the end of any new world energy order as an example. It will be the beginning of the end of modernism a process that may or may not happen quickly.
We cannot do all the things we need to do with a modern globalism that is not experiencing growing growth. There must be free markets and capitalistic impulses to make productive investments that bring returns. What we have now is a hybrid of the old that was free market pricing. It was not perfect but it is light years ahead of what we have today which is anything goes that you can get away with. The new is an extend and pretend of a Ponzi bubble that is yield seeking in a moral hazard of whatever it takes. We are inflating financial assets to keep liquidity going and the consequences are wealth transfer to a few who are connected. This is not producing real productive growth at the base because it is financial and parasitic in nature. Inflating financial assets does not equate 1 to 1 to productive finished products. Huge amount of malinvestment is sitting out there from years of rate distortions. A huge amount of European and Chinese companies would be insolvent if rates normalized. If rates normalized the US government could not afford to service its debt. Global unfunded liabilities are being ignored.
Like capitalism or not does not matter in regards to solutions. It is either growing growth or decline and decay. We are likely on an undulating plateau of growth and decline. Our globalism must have a minimum of a consistent average growth “aggregate” of this growth/decline tension. We are so far extended into systematic extremes that potential threshold crossing shocks are near. Many blame and complain about capitalism and globalism but their solutions are tied to it. Unless your solutions are suicide based and collapse based your solutions are tied to the status quo continuance.
The status quo is now a climax ecosystem. It is brittle to change with all niches filled. This complex ecosystem is within a declining planetary system with already localized failures called extinction and vanished micro ecosystems. It is suffering foundational energy decline and broad based resource decline. It is all this but also in population overshoot to a reasonable carrying capacity per less complexity.
So yes, friends, this does come down to recognizing and accepting the destructive change to the systematics of financialization and economics. It should not be considered a constant as techno optimist believe and more respected by collapseniks. Our other predicaments and dangers are there. These may be longer term duration with less degree of risk. Their effects are not imminent in the sense of a predictable quantity. Economic collapse is something we can wake up to one morning and go into a whole new world of destructive change.
The Key to understanding this predicament in relation to the others is unpredictability. It is not only the unknown of this systematic predicament it is the randomness of its onset and the uncertainty of its severity once onset. All our other predicaments are slowly unfolding train wrecks. Many are still highly undefined but it is likely they are less random and unknown then the systematics of our human economic system. We are sitting on a time bomb of wealth destruction fiddling as Rome burns.
Antius on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 6:52 am
“Unless your solutions are suicide based and collapse based your solutions are tied to the status quo continuance.”
Here is the best long-term solution. If we can find a way to pull it off on a big scale, it subverts the whole thermodynamic and ecological collapse issue.
https://www.amazon.com/The-High-Frontier-ebook/dp/B00CB3SIAI/
http://ssi.org/
I don’t think it can be made to work in exactly the way O’Neill suggested – his giant space colonies are many decades away. But space manufacturing and space colonisation could get us out of this mess (as a species). Unfortunately, this probably won’t work for more than a small portion of humanity.
Davy on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 7:05 am
Antius, that is only a solution for a few. In the meantime those without that possibility will have to make arrangements for a collapse. Space colonies seem far fetch to me and you will not see me in space. I will make my last stand here and they will plant me in Mother Earth
Davy on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 7:37 am
“An Unexpected Problem Emerges: Chinese Banks Exhaust 80% Of Loan Quotas In First Half Of 2017”
http://tinyurl.com/y7uzs82z
“Reuters reports that following 7 months of blistering credit creation in terms of both new Loans and Total Social Financing, Chinese banks are set to see a slowdown in lending growth in the second half of the year, having exhausted most of their annual credit quota, in the process raising the spectre of corporate defaults as financing costs climb further in the world’s second-largest economy. The math is disturbing: only six months into 2017, banks have already used 80% of their yearly credit quota over January to June, versus the usual 60%, amid the abovementioned regulatory push to bring shadow financing activities to the main loan book, and Beijing’s crackdown on riskier lending.”
“Adverse impact on the economy aside, the sharp contraction in bank loans in Q3 and Q4 means that “corporate defaults will rise if the availability of finance is further restricted. This could become a threat to economic growth … especially if defaults are concentrated in labor-intensive segments like steel and coal,” Moody’s said.”
“As a reminder, China’s economic growth has already been showed signs of fading in July when key economic indicators from retail sales, to industrial production to capital spending all declined while lending costs rose, but a hard landing is unlikely with Beijing keen to ensure stability ahead of a once-in-five-years Communist Party leadership reshuffle later this year. What happens after, however, is very much an open question. Meanwhile, if Chinese banks only have 20% of their annual loan issuance quota left for the entire second half of the year, and if Beijing refuses to boost these quotas, the next global economic shock may be just several months ahead.”
Davy on Tue, 22nd Aug 2017 7:45 am
This was my thoughts when I heard about the second collision.
“Is someone hacking our 7th Fleet? Navy to investigate after USS John S McCain collision”
http://tinyurl.com/yd3qu7ww
Adm. John Richardson ordered an operational pause in all the fleets around the world while the Navy works to determine the factors behind the collision. Richardson tweeted that the Navy will conduct a wide investigation, including a review into the possibility of “cyber intrusion or sabotage.”
“When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can’t tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn’t have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar,” he said.”
“Itay Glick, the founder of a cyber security firm called Votiro, told News.com.au that his initial reaction to news of the USS McCain collision was that it may have been hacked. Glick worked in the cyber-warfare unit of the Israeli intelligence agency and pointed to the possibility of involvement from Russia and China. “I don’t believe in coincidence,” Glick said. “Both USS McCain and USS Fitzgerald were part of the 7th Fleet, there is a relationship between these two events and there may be a connection.”