Hello from Washington DC

[Rajat Sen]

I have spent my entire career in clean energy technologies -- in academia, in the private sector and finally as an entrepreneur and a consultant to the US Department of Energy (DOE). I sold my consulting firm recently and find myself in an unique situation -- I am now free to speak my mind without worrying about impacts on my career or my business. I joined this group --to follow what's going on and to occasionally express my views and present facts as I see them. I am looking forward to a dialogue with other members that I am sure will help me clarify my thoughts.

[vtsnowedin]

Welcome

[Pops]

Hi Rajat, I see you've already met our official welcoming guy.
:^)

Glad you're here!

[vtsnowedin]

Hi Rajat, I see you've already met our official welcoming guy.
:^)

Glad you're here!

Hey Pops if no one other than you can answer a first post say so and the rest of us can move on to other things.

[Rajat Sen]

Thanks guys for the welcome

[vision-master]

I am now free to speak my mind without worrying about impacts on my career or my business.

Ok, tell us more...........

[pstarr]

okay rajat sen; why does the washington energy establishment not recognize peak oil (or peak anything for that matter)?

You obviously do, and so it must have been difficult remaining silent. do you intend on remaining silent forever?

can you name names?
---people who understand peak oil and refuse to talk about it for fear of retribution (political, social, career) or;
---people who should understand (folks you discussed it with, knowledgeable insiders, generally smart people)

what are you plans regarding peak oil?
---personal preps
---public announcments
---outreach to others in (out of) government

don't mean to put you in the spot. that is not my intent. I am just so facinated by the power of habit and denial, people's ability to talk and think their way around reality. what kind of education and social milieu allows folks to run, giggling/complaining (about the view, the cold wind, the running shoes, anything but the truth) toward a cliff and not even consider the coming fall?????

[ian807]

Hello Rajat, and welcome.

I would be interested in hearing what you have to say, and getting some hints as to where accurate information might be found.

To put my prejudices right up front, my worries about peak oil are largely economic in the short to medium term, but more socially oriented in the long term.

Having examined the liquid hydrocarbon depletion situation, I've come to some tentative conclusions. Forgive me if these seem obvious to you, I'm not an economist.

1) The two key factors in liquid hydrocarbon depletion are aggregate EROEI and production price. In other words, oil must be energetically and economically profitable enough to justify its use as an energy source.

2) It won't be oil scarcity, per se that causes economic issues, but oil scarcity's impact on the interdependent supply chain ecology that provides us all with the material benefits of civilization.

3) Feedback is critical to any meaningful analysis hydrocarbon depletion. To choose an extreme example, at a certain point, the supply chains needed to maintain a self-sustaining system of oil location, extraction, refining and distribution itself breaks down. This could be initiated by a political situation as well as scarcity. We might eventually recover, somewhat, from the former.

4) The critical dependence on oil-based fuels for transportation represents a major vulnerability to human civilization.

If the aforementioned points are valid, then it should be possible to assess risks and estimate timelines for depletion, if you had access to the following accurate information:

1) Aggregate EREOI for all of the worlds liquid hydrocarbon production.

2) An accurate picture of the quantity of liquid hydrocarbons left that are likely to be energetically and economically profitable.

3) An accurate aggregate estimate of the production costs for the world's remaining liquid hydrocarbons.

Unfortunately, the information on the internet regarding all of the aforementioned varies wildly and is very likely not reliable (e.g. KSA oil reserve estimates, natural gas estimates in the USA, EROEI estimates on Canadian oil sands, and so on.) So many economic and political agendas encourage the reporting of the most palatable possible figures that reality is hard to discern. Do you have any ideas about this at all?

[agate]

Welcome Rajat.