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newman1979 wrote: 60 months of data is conclusive IMO

Sounds reasonable.

So we're 4 years post peak.

<yawn>

How many decades before it effects traffic jams, do ya think? All those cars should run out of gasoline SOMETIME soon, shouldn't they?

This is a split from here - http://peakoil.com/post937931.html#p937931

shortonsense wrote:

newman1979 wrote: 60 months of data is conclusive IMO

Sounds reasonable.

So we're 4 years post peak.

<yawn>

How many decades before it effects traffic jams, do ya think? All those cars should run out of gasoline SOMETIME soon, shouldn't they?

You expected a plateau of only twenty minutes, perhaps?

Think of this if you will: if we had 100% perfect foresight, and could see with clarity the million (or so) forces affecting the economy, the culture, the world situation -- including the situation that some of those forces are pulling things this way, and some of the forces are pulling things that way, and most of them are in various ways dependent on some of the other forces, so that the strength or effectiveness of any given force is dependent on more than just its surface assessment -- making a very complex situation where the result is that things often wax and wane, trend toward and then trend away and then trend towards yet again, and where the ultimate directions things move in can't be assessed by looking at the surface status quo only, because those subsurface forces are always at work getting ready to do their thing -- if we had perfect foresight to understand all those forces, don't you think we would not be at all surprised to see that most things take time to play out?

So, just because we don't have the perfect foresight to know what each of those million forces are, doesn't mean we are entirely ignorant to the existence of those forces. Which also means that we have the ability to understand that things take time to play out, even if we don't know each little piece of what is causing it to take however long it's taking.

Although this was awkward to write, it's not really a complicated concept and I'm quite sure you understand what I'm saying.

So why in the world would you expect to see instantaneous effects to a situation that may still have years of wavering or wobbling before it starts a fast move?

I think you just want to play devil's advocate and you're looking for something to support your pretend view that peak oil is a non-event, and this was the best you could find. If you truly believed that peak oil is a non-event, I think you would have something more compelling and authentic to say -- I've met some people who truly don't believe it, and while their arguments are naive, they're not disingenuous.

I'll assume the best for you and say "you can do better than this." If I'm wrong, then I'm truly sorry to hear that.

Auntie_Cipation wrote:

shortonsense wrote:

newman1979 wrote: 60 months of data is conclusive IMO

So we're 4 years post peak.

How many decades before it effects traffic jams, do ya think? All those cars should run out of gasoline SOMETIME soon, shouldn't they?

You expected a plateau of only twenty minutes, perhaps?

I expect no plateau at all. The instantaneous slope of Hubberts bell shaped curve reaches 0 at only a single, infinitesimally small period of time, as dictated by the mathematics of any equation used to simulate the shape. 20 minutes might very well be small enough.

Auntie_Cipation wrote:if we had perfect foresight to understand all those forces, don't you think we would not be at all surprised to see that most things take time to play out?

Of course. This is a comment which appears to be gaining in popularity, the moreso as the span of time between peak oil and the present, becomes larger. It certainly wasn't the common assumption at the time.

http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/ar ... -2005.html

Auntie_Cipation wrote:Although this was awkward to write, it's not really a complicated concept and I'm quite sure you understand what I'm saying.

Absolutely. The question is, to what extent is it revisionist history.

Auntie_Cipation wrote:So why in the world would you expect to see instantaneous effects to a situation that may still have years of wavering or wobbling before it starts a fast move?

Because it was expected at the time. And holding a prediction up to the reality of the situation, after the fact, is a reasonable way to determine whether or not the ideas which went into the prediction, in the past, have any validity.

You see, peakers disparaged economists and economic theory pretty heavily before peak oil arrived, often making ludicrous statements which completely ignored the expected results of demand destruction, as well as historical precedent of prior oil spikes and the recessions which often were in effect during the same time period. At the time, price could only go up, small drops in production ( 3-5%) would shut down food production, it was all starvation, all peak, all the time.

Now, peakers appear to be trying to say, "gee, well of COURSE demand destruction would mitigate against endless price increases"...when they gave no such credence to those who did put forward such basic economic concepts way back when. Go search on username "Spike", and read his posting history. Its Mike Lynch, and I don't believe he visits much any more, but he has a history which is available, and time stamped, right in this forum.

Auntie_Cipation wrote:If you truly believed that peak oil is a non-event, I think you would have something more compelling and authentic to say -- I've met some people who truly don't believe it, and while their arguments are naive, they're not disingenuous.

I'll assume the best for you and say "you can do better than this." If I'm wrong, then I'm truly sorry to hear that.

I truly believe that, as mentioned in this thread, peak oil is now 4 years old, and as best I can tell not a single tractor in America has stopped running for lack of fuel. Not a single plastics plant has shut down for lack of hydrocarbon feedstock. Not a single person has starved because Wal-Mart has not stocked their grocery shelves. Not a single NASCAR race has been postponed for lack of fuel, or inability to pay for it. Not a single airliner has fallen from the sky, no transpacific transport is adrift on the ocean for lack of fuel to get to port, no suburban zombies have taken over any American cities, there are no rolling permanent blackouts in North America, 90% of the worlds population hasn't died ( yes, I have the reference for Matts claim on this one right in front of me ) and on and on.

I am quite happy with the concept of a gradual transition towards the electrification of transport, and the availability of liquid transport fuels from other sources such as GTL because we have lots of natural gas on the planet, and I think these things are already happening, and quite obvious to anyone without blinders on.

pstarr wrote:

OilFinder2 wrote:

dukey wrote:pretty big news.

This from the weekly petroleum status report was also fairly big news ..

Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged about
9.2 million barrels per day, up by 0.5 percent from the same period last year.

especially considering the fact we are in a huge recession right now

That was last week's report. This week the rise was 0%. Or perhaps you haven't paid attention to this thread.

Ah. There you are. The point here I believe is that oil demand is somewhat inelastic and that in time of economic decline neither the market, nor conservation, nor efficiencies, nor replacements can stem the flow from declining reservoirs.

It's almost as if we are floating in a vast toilet of petroleum with our own hands on the flusher handle. Do we yank? Or do we just enjoy the float?

Yank, Baby, Yank!

I truly believe that, as mentioned in this thread, peak oil is now 4 years old, and as best I can tell not a single tractor in America has stopped running for lack of fuel.

May 2005, Ken Deffeyes, Jeff Brown place PO. Confirmed now with backdated data.

Summer 2005, Arkansas lumber mills shut down statewide.

So, just because we don't have the perfect foresight to know what each of those million forces are, doesn't mean we are entirely ignorant to the existence of those forces. Which also means that we have the ability to understand that things take time to play out, even if we don't know each little piece of what is causing it to take however long it's taking.

Although this was awkward to write, it's not really a complicated concept and I'm quite sure you understand what I'm saying.

And if we had perfect foresight the game would only be advanced,
in rapid/instantaneous nonlinear fashion to the point where we didn't.

But once over the asymptote/peak you automatically move into the "fat tail" which signifies as you stated above (in "twenty minutes") a non linear (sudden non tangential/bifurcation).

Worse a Leptokurtic distribution (oil production/human population
last one hundred years) indicates that the fat tail/nonlinear bifurcation will occur quickly after asymptote.

shortonsense wrote:I expect no plateau at all. The instantaneous slope of Hubberts bell shaped curve reaches 0 at only a single, infinitesimally small period of time, as dictated by the mathematics of any equation used to simulate the shape. 20 minutes might very well be small enough.

You appear to be conflating the instantaneous peak of oil production (which is expected to follow Hubbert's curve, yes -- although as far as I know the data available to the public comes in units no smaller than monthly production, so I doubt we'll ever know "which 20 minutes" was the peak)

with the resultant effects out in society (ie what's available at the pump for what price, not to mention all the indirect effects).

It's the societal effects you mentioned, and that I was responding to, talking about the plateau, not production per se. I believe this is obvious and your pretense otherwise is disingenuous.

As for the revisionist history, there is no point in lumping all peak oil-aware people together and saying "hey, what you're saying now doesn't match what he said five years ago!" If you want to know why someone has changed their prediction from five years ago, or whether they acknowledge that things didn't turn out as they predicted, ask them. Most people on both sides of this issue have changed their expectations over time as they learned more or calmed down from their initial overheated excitement. You cannot, just as with other aspects of the world, hold anyone responsible for X person's claims other than X person themselves.

"Container shipping was thrown into a full-scale panic."
Coming soon to a mall near you Short.

Want to see massive manipulation?

Compare DRYS with SEA (an ETF proxy for BDI.



http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=SEA#chart3:symbol=sea;range=1d;compare=drys;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

shortonsense wrote:
I truly believe that, as mentioned in this thread, peak oil is now 4 years old, and as best I can tell not a single tractor in America has stopped running for lack of fuel. Not a single plastics plant has shut down for lack of hydrocarbon feedstock. Not a single person has starved because Wal-Mart has not stocked their grocery shelves. Not a single NASCAR race has been postponed for lack of fuel, or inability to pay for it. Not a single airliner has fallen from the sky, no transpacific transport is adrift on the ocean for lack of fuel to get to port, no suburban zombies have taken over any American cities, there are no rolling permanent blackouts in North America, 90% of the worlds population hasn't died ( yes, I have the reference for Matts claim on this one right in front of me ) and on and on.I

Why dont you ask the folks over in Africa and the South East Asians countries how they are doing with energy ? I think there is plenty of global evidence that the trouble has begun. The US is at the top of the food chain right now and the time line for the long emergency is still down the road a piece. Patience is key. I dont think we have a long time to wait, but of course it depends on what you call a long time doesn't it.

I'd submit also that there are signs here of cracks around the edges but since they don't immediately affect your worldview, you're attempting (and failing i might add) to claim that it's BAU and the happy motoring American suburban dream will continue.

mcgowanjm wrote:

I truly believe that, as mentioned in this thread, peak oil is now 4 years old, and as best I can tell not a single tractor in America has stopped running for lack of fuel.

May 2005, Ken Deffeyes, Jeff Brown place PO. Confirmed now with backdated data.

Summer 2005, Arkansas lumber mills shut down statewide.\

OMG!!!! So....peak oil happened 4 years ago...and this caused....lumber mills to shut down in Arkansas!!!

THE HORROR!!!!

I don't quite recall, did Deffeyes or Brown decide that this would be the natural result of peak oil before it happened? I recall the tractor stuff, the big dieoff,etc etc, but I don't recall anyone predicting that lumber mill shutdowns in a particular state were the consequences of peak oil?

pstarr wrote:This fro today's news via eXpat over at "Shipping Industry Fights for Survival"

DER SPIEGEL wrote:For the first time in its history, the industry has stopped growing and, in fact, is shrinking. In the first six months of this year alone, the shipping industry declined by close to 16 percent. . . .

Goodness!! And in the middle of the greatest Depression the world has ever known, some economies aren't even depressing any more!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32442145/ns ... _business/

What will we do with the Depression ends in the US!!!

Lets take bets...when GDP turns positive in the US, how many people on this website will declare that its all a lie, and continue to claim a depression is going on, and for how long?

God this is so pathetic . . . *shakes head*

No, maybe it's funny.

A recession causes worldwide shipping to collapse, and some people insist on blaming it on peak oil!

Yeah, ships are grounded because they can't find enough oil. Not!





Maybe they can't find enough diesel to run their engines!

AirlinePilot wrote: Why dont you ask the folks over in Africa and the South East Asians countries how they are doing with energy ?

Why? Is the claim now that poor countries are still poor, and therefore more effected by the runup in crude prices since 1973 when crude stopped being cheap?

AirlinePilot wrote: I think there is plenty of global evidence that the trouble has begun.

I think there is plenty of global evidence that trouble began once WWII ended. Peak oil in 1980, or 2000, or 2005, or 2008 certainly wasn't a prerequistite for modern peakers to sudden NOTICE.

AirlinePilot wrote:I'd submit also that there are signs here of cracks around the edges but since they don't immediately affect your worldview, you're attempting (and failing i might add) to claim that it's BAU and the happy motoring American suburban dream will continue.

Attempting? I'm wondering, when you come gliding in for a smooth landing, or taking off while burning what, 1000 gal/ hour of fuel, over all those economy parking lots spanning acres at the airport, do you notice they are empty for lack of fuel to drive there, or full because people can't drive away? Or just full in general?

I was on a few flights recently, not your airline, and I was amazed by how full flights are, how packed Dulles parking lots are, and all 4 years after peak oil.

Cracks in the system? Sure...I can go for that....with the damage coming from the finance and real estate arena's for certain. So...a recession a year old has far more economic effect than peak oil 4 years ago. Is that a reasonable statement?

If you're looking for the system cracking at Dulles/DC
you're looking at the Imperial City.

Like Trantor/Asimov, when DC goes, Flyover Country will be well
into the New Foundation.

[quote="OilFinder2"]
A recession causes worldwide shipping to collapse, and some people insist on blaming it on peak oil!

That's correct. BDI leads crude like a mirror.

Yeah, ships are grounded because they can't find enough oil. Not!

Maybe they can't find enough diesel to run their engines!
for a price that they can run more than a charity shipping line.

See Hapag Lloyd for details.

Finance has disintegrated first. everything, including oil in the ground has been monetized. All credit has been brought forward. All debt put into the future.

Future's here. Debt can no longer be created. Supply will
always exceed demand. so demand will be crushed.

Our transition to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm is inevitable; our choice involves the process by which we effect our transition. We can transition voluntarily, thereby mitigating the associated lifestyle disruptions—population level reductions and material living standard degradation—or, we can refrain from taking meaningful action and allow Nature to orchestrate our transition, the results of which will be horrific.

mcgowanjm wrote:Our transition to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm is inevitable; our choice involves the process by which we effect our transition. We can transition voluntarily, thereby mitigating the associated lifestyle disruptions—population level reductions and material living standard degradation—or, we can refrain from taking meaningful action and allow Nature to orchestrate our transition, the results of which will be horrific.

This sounds all beautifully eco-looney in a nice, Montesque sort of way.

The solar system certainly isn't sustainable, so I never do understand the fascination with sustainability without some expression of the time frame people have in mind.

However, the assumption of horrific results has been the refrain for some time now...so unless you can be more specific about how many more years/decades/centuries you have in mind for YOUR particular dieoff, the entire paragraph comes across as just some general, stereotypically hysterical scenario which, while popular around here, doesn't make any more sense now than, say, when Ehrlich said the same thing. And was really, really wrong.

mcgowanjm wrote:

OilFinder2 wrote:A recession causes worldwide shipping to collapse, and some people insist on blaming it on peak oil!

That's correct. BDI leads crude like a mirror.

Yeah, ships are grounded because they can't find enough oil. Not!

Maybe they can't find enough diesel to run their engines!
for a price that they can run more than a charity shipping line.

See Hapag Lloyd for details.

Finance has disintegrated first. everything, including oil in the ground has been monetized. All credit has been brought forward. All debt put into the future.

Future's here. Debt can no longer be created. Supply will
always exceed demand. so demand will be crushed.

Our transition to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm is inevitable; our choice involves the process by which we effect our transition. We can transition voluntarily, thereby mitigating the associated lifestyle disruptions—population level reductions and material living standard degradation—or, we can refrain from taking meaningful action and allow Nature to orchestrate our transition, the results of which will be horrific.

The economy is like a car engine... energy is the gasoline that powers the engine and money is the oil that lubricates the engine.

The critical factor right now has been lack of credit (money). We'll get to the lack of energy soon enough.

The critical factor right now has been lack of credit (money). We'll get to the lack of energy soon enough.

What people are (slowly) finding out is that credit is not money.

And that afterwards they'll discover that money is energy.
And then that no debt can be created w/o energy growth.
Which we passed at May 2005.

The leptokurtic function of the oil production/humanpop
growth curve indicates that after passing asymptote fat tail risk
of a non linear dragon king event increases exponentially.

mcgowanjm wrote:

The critical factor right now has been lack of credit (money). We'll get to the lack of energy soon enough.

What people are (slowly) finding out is that credit is not money.

And that afterwards they'll discover that money is energy.
And then that no debt can be created w/o energy growth.
Which we passed at May 2005.

The leptokurtic function of the oil production/humanpop
growth curve indicates that after passing asymptote fat tail risk
of a non linear dragon king event increases exponentially.

Argggghhhh! More precisely credit is basically a placeholder or proxy for money, and money is money, but energy is definitely NOT money. Money serves as a medium of exchange and store of value (ie economic lubrication, like water in the body or oil in the engine)

The economists have focused too much on money rather than energy for the simple fact that the economy for so long has been like an engine with a huge gas tank... you have just needed to change the oil from time to time. Now we are coming up to where the gas tank or the fuel line become issues...

mcgowanjm wrote:The leptokurtic function of the oil production/humanpop
growth curve indicates that after passing asymptote fat tail risk
of a non linear dragon king event increases exponentially.

So is that supposed to mean anything beyond R. C. Duncan was probably right?