Thread: Some thoughts about Crude Oil..

I think that this guy has been thinking the same as me..

azcentral.com | Phoenix Arizona News - Arizona Local News

End of the world as we know it

You might feel fine, but high oil cost, scarcity mean American Empire is about to come crashing down

Guy R. McPherson
University of Arizona professor
Apr. 6, 2008 12:00 AM
Peak oil spells the end of civilization. And, if it's not already too late, perhaps it will prevent the extinction of our species.

M. King Hubbert, a petroleum geologist employed by Shell Oil Co., described peak oil in 1956. Production of crude oil, like the production of many non-renewable resources, follows a bell-shaped curve. The top of the curve is termed "peak oil," or "Hubbert's peak," and it represents the halfway point for production.

The bell-shaped curve applies at all levels, from field to country to planet. After discovery, production ramps up relatively quickly. But when the light, sweet crude on top of the field runs out, increased energy and expense are required to extract the underlying heavy, sour crude. At some point, the energy required to extract a barrel of oil exceeds the energy contained in barrel of oil, so the pumps shut down. advertisement

Most of the world's oil pumps are about to shut down.

We have sufficient supply to keep the world running for 30 years or so, at the current level of demand. But that's irrelevant because the days of inexpensive oil are behind us. And the American Empire absolutely demands cheap oil. Never mind the 3,000-mile Caesar salad to which we've become accustomed. Cheap oil forms the basis for the 12,000-mile supply chain underlying the "just-in-time" delivery of plastic toys from China.

There goes next year's iPod.

In 1956, Hubbert predicted the continental United States would peak in 1970. He was correct, and the 1970s gave us a small, temporary taste of the sociopolitical and economic consequences of expensive oil.

We passed the world oil peak in 2005, and we've been easing down the other side by acquiring oil at the point of a gun - actually, guns are the smallest of the many weapons we're using - paying more for oil and destroying one culture after another as the high price of crude oil forces supply disruptions and power outages in Third World countries.

The world peaked at 74.3 million barrels per day in May 2005. The two-year decline to 73.2 million barrels per day produced a doubling of the price of crude. Later this year, we fall off the oil-supply cliff, with global supply plummeting below 70 million barrels/day. Oil at merely $100 per barrel will seem like the good old days.

Within a decade, we'll be staring down the barrel of a crisis: Oil at $400 per barrel brings down the American Empire, the project of globalization and water coming through the taps. Never mind happy motoring through the never-ending suburbs in the Valley of the Sun. In a decade, unemployment will be approaching 100 percent, inflation will be running at 1,000 percent and central heating will be a pipe dream.

In short, this country will be well on its way to the post-industrial Stone Age.

After all, no alternative energy sources scale up to the level of a few million people, much less the 6.5 billion who currently occupy Earth. Oil is necessary to extract and deliver coal and natural gas. Oil is needed to produce solar panels and wind turbines, and to maintain the electrical grid.

Ninety percent of the oil consumed in this country is burned by airplanes, ships, trains and automobiles. You can kiss goodbye groceries at the local big-box grocery store: Our entire system of food production and delivery depends on cheap oil.

If you're alive in a decade, it will be because you've figured out how to forage locally.

The death and suffering will be unimaginable. We have come to depend on cheap oil for the delivery of food, water, shelter and medicine. Most of us are incapable of supplying these four key elements of personal survival, so trouble lies ahead when we are forced to develop means of acquiring them that don't involve a quick trip to Wal-Mart.

On the other hand, the forthcoming cessation of economic growth is truly good news for the world's species and cultures. In addition, the abrupt halt of fossil-fuel consumption may slow the warming of our planetary home, thereby preventing our extinction at our own hand.

Our individual survival, and our common future, depends on our ability to quickly make other arrangements. We can view this as a personal challenge, or we can take the Hemingway out. The choice is ours.

For individuals interested in making other arrangements, it's time to start acquiring myriad requisite skills. It is far too late to save civilization for 300 million Americans, much less the rest of the planet's citizens, but we can take joy in a purpose-filled, intimate life.

It's time to push away from the shore, to let the winds of change catch the sails of our leaky boat.

It's time to trust in ourselves, our neighbors and the Earth that sustains us all.

Painful though it might be, it's time to abandon the cruise ship of empire in exchange for a lifeboat.



Guy R. McPherson is a professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona.

jolly good

now, who wants to buy a nice pickup? or sell me a bicycle?

I suppose it's Mother Nature's way of cleansing herself if it comes true. I'd best git meself a gun.

no bullets Marmite, they are made of oil

Originally Posted by DrAndy

no bullets Marmite, they are made of oil

Luckily I'm English. A broken bottle should be fine (or are they made from oil too?).

yep, made of oil

A dead cat?

.... what if things go badly though?

e'll end up with fur in his mouf and scritches all over 'is back.

I agree with the fact that oil is on the way up and will never come back down. $400 a barrel? Thats cheap! However I don't think it will be the end of an empire/world etc. We will adapt.

^^ That's right MM. We've had negative vibe merchants telling us these sorts of things for decades. "The world's gonna run out of X in Y number of years" It's never happened. Alternative sources are found, new technology is made. If you throw enough money into researching the new tech, you'll get a solution. Right now the amount of outlay to solve the problem isn't worth it cause the solution would (initially) cost more than the current system and no one would use it.

There have been plenty of rumours about water engines, electric cars, air powered cars and other suppressed/shelved ideas. Salvation prolly exists already but won't get released until the powers that be have maximised their profits on the current oil tech.

One of the reasons I've willingly put up the place in Isaan is there are plenty of forests left locally (so far), and you can be self sufficient there between what you grow, raise, forage and hunt. Just in case.

Theres one ominous aspect the article doesn't broach. Sure, the oil grab by the US and UK has it's impact on other countries and cultures. But what about when you also bring China, Russia and maybe India into the equation? When the Big Boys are competing for dwindling resources, necessary to our lifestyle, things could get very ugly indeed.

Excellent, thought provoking article BG.

I just wish they find an alternative to corn for a fuel source. What's wrong with turnips? Can't afford to buy a cob anymore, and Washington State sweet corn is the best in the summer.
The local rant here is to buy from the "100-mile" zone. That is, only buy locally produced products. Sure, but most of these farmers want even more $ for their produce, especially the organic wanklettes, who sell shrivelled up produce. Ha! Mind you, the local blueberries are really yummy.

bio fuel from corn is starting to have huge repercussions with world fuel prices and it is only going to get worse.

BG, your Missus foreskinner will be the first thing to go tits up. Oh the shame of it

^^ True, and also with food prices.

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

^^ True, and also with food prices.

woops, thats what I meant to say.

Originally Posted by Spin

BG, your Missus foreskinner will be the first thing to go tits up. Oh the shame of it

Not really, Bio fuel or just burn straight Palm oil, or any thin veg oils. Gasoline will be first I would think, but we can always ride a buffalo.
And being a gun nut, and an outdoorsman/sportsman, I have fed many people meat at times past, so am capable of doing it again, maybe not here tho, but know where it can happen.

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

Can't afford to buy a cob anymore, and Washington State sweet corn is the best in the summer

Thats the truth, That Sugar Dot corn, the one with the yellow and white kernels is the best corn in the world and grown in the hundreds if not thousands of acres over at Moses Lake area, I welded pipe for an irrigation company over there for a couple of the last years I worked.

Actually, we've already seen the price of oil soar from $45/barrel to $100/barrel in just a year or so. Since the demand for oil is fairly inelastic, prices jump wildly when there is any reduction in supply. If these prices stay high, previously unprofitable sources of oil will start to be exploited. These previously unprofitable sources will include both conventional oil wells as well as oil shale (Oil shale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and oil or tar sand (Tar sands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). These sources are not currently being exploited because they are less profitable than conventional oil wells and the process of exploiting them is usually environmentally unfriendly. Furthermore, it would take a lead time of some years to develop these resources. Oil companies are not going to invest in these alternate sources of fuel until they feel sure that oil prices will still be high when they finally get their product on the market.

Curiously enough, the biggest supplies of these oil sources are found in the US, Canada and Russia.

The other effect of high oil prices will be accelerated investment in alternative sources of energy such as solar power, wind and nuclear power. Right now it's the high initial cost and the NIMBY factor that is really hampering the development of these other energy resources.

I do believe that Hubbert's Peak Oil has come, but I don't think that it will mean the sudden, catastrophic end of the world as we know it. The future probably won't be as comfortable, but it will be survivable. The real struggle to survive won't be in the developed world, where most of the countries have the natural and economic resources they will need to adapt, it will be in the developing world.

Ged Clampitt would be turning in their garves, if they knew how expensive Texas tea is nowadays.

I don't have much faith in that Oil Shale shit, the company I was working for on Bonneville Dam @nd Powerhouse project was big in mining and moved a bunch of heavy stuff to Wyoming in 79 or 80 and never did much with it as it was to damned expensive to extract the oil.
And it is not real crude anyway from what I hear, but if oil gets spendy enough they will give it another shot, just look at the oil sands in Canada, coarse it is fucking up the country, but oil is a bare necessity anymore.

People are stupid, believing that crap about peak oil, made of "fucked" statistics and fears, I love how all those issues re-surfaced when oil is getting more expensive,

The only reason production might be going down is for pure speculation purposes, a bit like the rice farmers storing more rice in the wake of rising rice price and contributing to the shortage,