[Leanan]

So, if comenting on the news is pretty pointless, why do we have it?

Because the point of the news section isn't to generate comment. That's what the forums are for.

I'm guessing that some of the people that post up interesting news topics spend a fair amount of time finding interesting and/or controversial topics. Why bother if nobody responds? Must be discouraging...

Not at all. I don't expect comment.

The people who visit the front page probably are not the same as those who visit the forums. PeakOil.com is now the #1 hit on Google for oil news. Energy Bulletin sometimes takes stories from our front page. I suspect the front page, at least, is being visited by the MSM as well.

[ekaggata]

The (main) country where my genetic roots come from, only 30-40% of the population can afford to own a car.

Main City:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Manila

True, but I think it's places like the Philippines where the effect is going to really hit first (maybe now?). Do they have their prices set by the free market? (many Asian countries don't). Would fossil fuel prices affect their agriculture? (How agriculturally dependent are they?)

Also I heard Indonesia recently went from being an exporter to an importer and apparently there's a lot of trouble going on there recently. Thailand is another. Japan, although certainly not "3rd world", is an interesting case which gets little mention here.
And Africa is important and difficult to get info on. Zimbabwe is probably not a peak oil story overall, it's more a political one, although it does illustrate what happens when societies break down. Another point I've gleaned about Africa is it seems there's increasing violence in regions related to the production and transportation of oil.

[grillzilla]

Guys, I would like to offer you a word of encouragement. I can, of course, only speak for myself but I read just about all the front page news stories you put there. I don't have time to post comments usually, and sometimes there is just not much you can say about an article that is not just blatently obvious (so why bother). So please don't think that the stories go unnoticed. Some of us don't have a lot of time to search this stuff out and your efforts are appreciated.

[ekaggata]

I post stories about energy issues in the Third World, but they get very few clicks. People just aren't interested. Even the energy shortages in Europe didn't draw much attention. This is a very U.S.-centric site.

Same goes for me, as news editor. I try to keep track as best as I can of things happening outside the US and the EU, but it's especially stories from Africa and smaller Asian countries which clearly get much less attention. It's quite unnerving at times, I must admit, especially so, because (as Leanan is pointing out) there are things happening out there.
And let's face it: they are not just dire for the people involved, but they're also forebodings of what we might well be going to find on our plates one day. People might actually learn something.

I was quite stunned recently by some forum post, which reacted to a story about South East Asian fishermen who couldn't afford buying oil for their vessels any longer. It pointed out that this was small fry compared to what might happen as soon Wall Mart would get hit. The guy probably believes there's only about 500 people living in South East Asia.

But: I'm not going to flinch for the while. Peakoil.com <i>is</i> an internationally oriented community, as peak oil <i> is or will be</i> an international problem, that is, disaster. I just keep hoping more of you may start making a habit of reading stories from the dark hinterlands, also known as The World Out There.

thanks to both of you! I must admit I haven't been looking at the front page, but I will now

I also saw the post about the fishermen.

[lotrfan55345]

The (main) country where my genetic roots come from, only 30-40% of the population can afford to own a car.

Main City:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_Manila

True, but I think it's places like the Philippines where the effect is going to really hit first (maybe now?). Do they have their prices set by the free market? (many Asian countries don't). Would fossil fuel prices affect their agriculture? (How agriculturally dependent are they?)

The gasoline is completely free market, with no taxes nor subsidation from the government. And if you look at the pictures in the Metro Manila article, you can see it's just like an American suburb with the downtown core (atleast it's much larger than LA's) with rings of suburbs surrounding it with 10-lane wide freeways radiating from the downtown.

For farming, most poeple use water buffalos and dung, but many of the more commercial farms that produce a lot of the food most likely use mechanized methods, so that wold affect it. There are no gov't subsidation nor tarrifs for agriculture products except for a few of the more exotic filipino cuisines like some fruits, herbs and fish.

[ekaggata]

Actually wikipedia is blocked here in China (seriously..). I can get it via wikimirror, but it doesn't store a lot of pictures (or at least I can't see them?).

The only thing I know about Philipino transport is the "jeepney"

That is a model of transport I've seen in many places .. small vans/minibuses or something like that, often privately owned, carrying groups of people from A to B .. perhaps that's the future of transport in the West?

I remember in Russia they still have trams and buses servicing their smaller cities (many of them) and a very strong rail network for the huge intercity distances. They also have "marshrutki" which are the same idea of small buses privately run for short hops.

Btw this site (peakoil.com) also seemed to be blocked most of last year (tried from many different places..)

Anyway .. any evidence of fuel prices hitting Manila, for example?

[ekaggata]

A very interesting article here on the question of subsidies in South East Asia; however it is a year old. I wonder what has changed?
http://www.atimes.com/
atimes/Southeast_Asia/GC10Ae04.html

[waegari]

[Perhaps it is time to revist what is going on with the news posts! They are always interesting, but nobody seems to respond to them. Why? I have posted several responses in the past expecting some sort of dialog, and nothing. Nada! Then, I gave up.

Well, what I actually refered to was the reads number which for instance you can find in the stories archive pages.

I for one do feel that the forums are much better suited for commenting on news stories, so I have no problems there.

[waegari]

[

thanks to both of you! I must admit I haven't been looking at the front page, but I will now

You're most welcome, and don't feel shy in submiting news stories about those topics you feel get underexposed. We don't pretend we cover all the available news, though I wouldn't be surprised if we came quite close every now and then. All depends on search options. If we don't run a story, it does not mean it should be offhandedly dismissed as probably uninteresting.

[IslandCrow]

Perhaps it is time to revist what is going on with the news posts! They are always interesting, but nobody seems to respond to them. Why? I have posted several responses in the past expecting some sort of dialog, and nothing. Nada! Then, I gave up.

I don't think the problem is that the topics are 'uninteresting', its just that it seems to be outside the normal mode of communication at this site. I can't place my finger on it, but something is very abnormal about how the whole thing works....

I find the news from '3rd world countries' interesting, and having spent my early years in developing countries and 7 years as an adult in development work I am interested. BUT I am here looking for what I can do...life style changes that I can make as a response to PO...and while reading say about the situation in Zimbabwe sickens me (all the babies being killed because the family is too poor to feed them, or life expectancy dropping to the 30s) I find I have little to add in the way of constructive comment, and a light hearted response would just be cruel.

Please keep up with the news items.

[lateStarter]

I like the news section too. It is the first thing I check everyday. I guess what I did a poor job of expressing, was that it might just be better to eliminate the ability to post comments as part of the feature. I agree that the forums are much better suited for that purpose.

I guess the people who do post comments to a particular news item quickly learn that nobody responds and like me just stop responding. My general comment was that it seemed funny to offer a feature that nobody uses. I was not advocating getting rid of the news feature!

[Chaparral]

I usually check the main news page twice daily and the forums on average of once every two days, except when I'm trading and then I'll come to this site more frequently.

RE PO and the developing world, Many places like Ecuador for example could likely survive a drop better than the west. There is relatively little auto ownership and what major transportation needs there are could possibly be accomplished by rail.

Indonesia may be similar. Most of the roads are dirt. Draft animals reign supreme over most of the territory. The cities are not designed like suburban LA or Atlanta with 8 lane highways everywhere. I look at cities like Manado or Ujung Pandang or Balikpapan and see something that is readily serviceable by bicycle. Even Quito has a certain compactness to it.

[duke3522]

As I have stated before, PO is most likely going to be a bottom up event. Of course third world nations will be effected first as they are priced out of the market. As demand continues to grow and supply remains stagnant Chindia and the West will continue to bid up the price sucking up what little oil was available to the third world.

Take the ‘Great Depression’ here in the US as an example. The farmers and the poor of the US were in a depression long before the Dow crashed in October 1929. During most of the 1920’s, as the elites partied down, commodity prices were so low as not to cover the cost of production, and labor was so plentiful, due to the end of WWI, that wages for factory workers actually fell during the decade.

Although folks here in the US are doing a lot of bitching, the effects of PO have barely effected even the poorest among us. There is some demand destruction here, but that little bit of extra oil is almost immediately sucked up by the ever increasing demand of those who care little about the price of gas.

What it boils down to is this. When the long awaited decline in production begins we will see many more third world nations importing little if any oil. And those third world nations that are presently oil exporters will, short of military intervention, follow Chad’s example and stop oil exports.

These are the signs that there is real trouble in the world oil markets. But the folk here in the US will turn a blind eye to the warning signs as we collectively continue to bitch about having to plan errands in an efficient manner (poor soccer moms), or that granny may have to give up driving around alone in her SUV (oh the horrors of SUV pooling). And when PO really sinks its teeth into the US the folk here will wonder why TPTB didn’t see it coming.

Duke of Indiana

[galacticsurfer]

We got the following e-mail last week from a supplier factory in South China(shenzhen) where about half the world's manufacturing capacity is located. Is this serious? Does anyone know what is happening there really? If this sort of thing really blocks Chinese production you can kiss your western living style goodbye.

Quote

Dear Customer,

We got a notice from the government yesterday that it is gonna be power off every two days from April 28 to May 18.It is a big problem to operate the factory.
So we are so sorry to inform you that the delivery in next month must be delayed.
Hope you understand.

Unquote

[lorenzo]

So why isn't there a peakoil.cn website in Mandarin?

[ekaggata]

To duke3522: I agree, that's basically how I see it too.


Lorenzo: earlier in the thread I mentioned that here in China, this very website was blocked for some time last year.
Many websites are blocked, for example the BBC news website.

And I also said that peak oil awareness is dim to zero, although my interaction as a foreigner is a bit limited.

I also mentioned rolling blackouts in many Chinese cities. I experienced regular 8 hour blackouts in Harbin in the north last year.

It was stated somewhere in the Chinese press that over the next few years, the Guangdong province, principally Guangzhou, where I live (the 3rd biggest city in the country), and Shenzhen (the special economic zone adjacent to Hong Kong, which coincidentally I am visiting tomorrow) will be the worst affected by energy shortages. Energy usage is very, very high here and our supply has simply not kept pace.
China is trying to roll out the three gorges dam and 30 - 40 nuke plants as soon as possible, but it won't be soon enough of course.

[lotrfan55345]

Anyway .. any evidence of fuel prices hitting Manila, for example?

Oh yes, they've shot up 50% since 2002.
Unfortunatly, the traffic is not getting better.

Average commute time on car: 2 hours

[Russian_Cowboy]

# We have the largest rail network in the world for both passenger and goods transportation, which is largely electrified, so we are are not dependent on oil for transport of critical goods.

I heard it from a couple of other Indians. But this is not true. India is behind the US, Russia, and China in the total length of its railroads.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fac ... 1rank.html

# Also rural India(65% of the population) does not really live in the oil age, and uses little oil for transportion, and is largely self-sufficient. Ofcourse self-sufficiency can be a euphemism for absolute poverty. Ofcourse I'm sure fossil fuels are used in the huge agricultural sector following the green revolution.

#Proximity to the persian gulf and Central Asia, so barring a major conflict, relatively easy to have access to reserves.

# we have huge dollar reserves, so barring a collapse of the US dollar , I dont think India is going to be priced out of the market although prices above $100 might take their toll. However the the Indian economy is still expected to grow at 7.5% this fiscal year.

My understanding is that this growth is coming almost exclusively from the new economy, mostly from the outsourcing of services from the high-cost countries. This growth creates jobs for the excess population of India, but it is going to last only as long as the economies of the developed countries are expanding.