United States
Found this on Netflix … I have heard of this guy before, read one of his books in college, but I have never seen this documentary. Must be new.
Note: I’m still betting that a combination of a financial crisis, global aging, changing racial demographics, and the crippling effects of Peak Oil will take out BRA in the end. The IEA has admitted that Peak Oil happened in 2006.
I also think we will know within five years how bad the energy situation is going to get. I’m betting it is going to be “The Boy Who Cried Wolf Scenario.” I think the wolf really will show up in the end. It is going to be interesting to watch.
The second video is pretty funny.
I heard an interesting theory recently in regards to the high oil prices. The proponent stated he believed the current high oil prices are a manifestation of an economic war between the US and China. His idea was that the extremely cheap cost of natural gas, which fuels most US industry, and the high cost of oil (which is imported at great cost to fuel Chinese industry) were the result of American and Saudi manipulation of the markets. According to him the same thing happened in the 80s, except in reverse, to take out America’s last great competitor, the USSR. Interesting theory, I hadn’t heard it before. I really haven’t done much investigation, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention.
Interesting video.
He’s right about the futility of debating the issue: it is time to sit back now, watch how things play out, see how the “Invisible Hand” responds. Just give it a few years. The die is cast.
There are 6.8 billion people on earth. There were 1 billion people on earth in 1800. There were 220 million in sub-Saharan Africa in 1960. There are about 850 million people there now.
Don’t worry. Black Africa is going to adapt to Peak Oil. They are going to invent superior technology to respond to the crisis. The people who live there will adapt to The Day The (Global) EBT Stops Working.
I’m pretty sure peak oil is bogus. It was supposed to hit when I was a kid, but guess what? We found more oil.
My ex in-laws in Texas have mineral (oil) rights leased out. Oil companies don’t pay you money to have 1st dibs on your dirt for nothing. And there is no shortage of folks with similar deals.
Also, I’ve been with nerds looking for oil in africa. They found it like crazy.
You don’t get a security clearance because of your old man’s job. Set’s up the rest of his story on a lie.
I empirically observed outrageous gas prices this evening.
The second video is well done and illustrates how the “infinite growth” world snaps and transitions to the “zero sum world.”
Both parties in Pennsylvania are bragging about the Marcellus shale natural gas reserves: “economic boom ahead” in Marcellus shale areas, gas development tax revenues saving the state from bankruptcy, etc. Locally they’ve just begun wasting more millions of tax dollars on the third bloated “study” of the feasibility of turning the same small recreational dam into a small hydroelectric source, which will either never happen or it does will never pay for the cost of the studies and management, but they advertise it as progress. These energy optimists care only for their careers and profit or they just don’t think ahead of the moment, lack science background or common sense. I’m convinced the peak is past, but expect the collapse to continue “controlled” and gradual at least through this year, and agree that “crying wolf” is not advisable now. Good post, Hunter, as always.
@stonelifter,
There is indeed oil here in the US, but it’s simply not enough to maintain a growing economy, and without a constantly growing economy, then there is catabolic collapse.
Economic growth is synonymous with energy use; the amount of oil we can extract is vast, but in the end, finite. We grew beyond our ability to extract at the rates necessary to continue growth. it’s as simple as that.
So yes, those oil wells will be tapped — IF there is enough social order to continue the infrastructure that allows it to happen. As far as the Marcellus shale oil and shale gas and other “plays” take a look at this:
http://petroleumtruthreport.blogspot.com/
Yes, I know he’s Jewish. I don’t think he’s lying to us about this though.
In short, the shale oil and gas plays are a Ponzi scheme that is drawing investment/retirement capital that is desperate for returns. When this source of capital runs out, it is likely that it will be discovered that these plays are not profitable. In other words, when the tide goes out, we see who’s been swimming naked.
Heck, oil is 105 a barrel despite a mild winter, and despite the fact that Americans are using a decreasing amount of fossil fuels. Our energy use is shrinking, while the price of oil continues to rise. Perhaps that is speculation, but what do the speculators know that we don’t?
One thing about collapse porn it is about a 100% white thing. Its humorous as heck for places like the oildrum which is a doctrinaire left sight run by the usual momma cows of the left and they preach collapse, and on the other hand you got the low IQ minority cargo cultists who in practice should ally with Rush Limbaugh and the Foxconned folk but instead vote with the oildrum collapsnicks. It is a strange world, thank god liberals can isolate themselves from other D voters.
Stonelifter is right. The oil companies all have salesmen who spend all of their time buying or leasing mineral rights on privately held land.
They aren’t just handing out free cash. They are well aware that political changes in the nations that we import oil from may someday make it worthwhile to start harvesting American oil on a major scale.
If you go to http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html you will see how many rigs are drilling in the U.S. There are more rigs drilling for oil on private land right now than there were last year, but this is a pittance. There are rigs stacked and idle all the way from southern Texas to the Canadian border which could be back in action in under two weeks.
And then there is the natural gas. Rig Count shows that at the present time there are under 700 rigs drilling for natural gas on U.S. soil. In 2005 there were 1000 rigs drilling for gas in Johnson County Texas on any given day. The drillers were also going balls to the wall in Tarrant, Dallas, Hood, Denton and a bunch of other counties near the Metroplex.
The rigs are well lighted and many of them were burning off methane, so at night you could see them from many miles away on the flatter parts of those counties. In some areas there were so many rigs that you got the impression that you were driving around on a very old giant’s birthday cake.
When I was running a machine shop that repairs drilling equipment a company man from Chesapeake Energy told me that the Barnett Shale formation alone could provide enough natural gas to supply the entire country for eighty years at present consumption levels. The Barnett Shale is only one of the many gas bearing shale formations in the lower 48.
The reason gas drilling has slowed is that all of the new production created a glut that cut the retail price in half and thereby made it unprofitable to drill more wells at the present time.
And let’s not forget the huge oil fields that were recently discovered in south Texas and eastern Colorado. They won’t be touched as long as we can buy cheaper crude from other countries.
Check this out: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/what_if_oil_and_natural_gas_are_renewable_resources.html
The oil people have been aware of this since the 1950’s. A man from Cleburne, TX developed a method for increasing the flow of new oil into played out wells which involved pumping a detergent solution down the hole under high pressure. The technique is similar to fracking except that the required pressure is much lower.
We have huge reserves of every kind of energy producing substances on federal lands which are presently off limits for drilling.
We also have capped off oil and gas wells all over Texas and Oklahoma. When the price goes up, the caps will come off.
Don’t buy in to the media blitz about that Keystone pipline. The gasoline faction of that sludge that will come through that line is negligible. It would provide a lot of other important petroleum products, but it will make no difference in gasoline supply.
Consider this: Light crude from Libya has an 80% gasoline faction. That means that for every ten gallons of Libyan crude that we refine we get eight gallons of gasoline.
Compare that to the one gallon of gasoline we get from refining ten gallons of the heavy, almost gelatinous crude we get from Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.
With those two types of crude as your reference, how much gasoline do you think we’ll get from that tarry Canook sand?
As a final point, what do you think the Puppet Masters will do when the wheels stop turning and their profits nose dive due to unrest among the dune coons? Will they just bury their faces in their Superman sheets for a good cry, or will they make their politician underlings send in the troops to take the shit?
We will not run out of energy anytime soon. We may have to suffer through a few inconvenient but temporary supply disruptions, but there are some very powerful shadow people who count on the flow of energy for their bottom line. They will not be denied.
Some days, when I’m granted the vision to see the full extent of the mess we are in, there’s nothing left to do but hope for a massive CME.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
What’s that about? Should I re-post without the links?
While it’s oil is my mind I would like to address the sound bite you all hear regularly about how long it takes for a well to come online from the time drilling commences: It’s not 5, 10 or 15 years.
For land rigs the wait can be as short as three months for wells that have on site collection tanks.
For land rigs that will be tied into pipelines, the wait is usually 6-12 months.
So, in the best case scenario, you can be pumping gasoline into your tank that was part of the oil under an empty field less than 4 months earlier.
This guy is an ex-cop with delusions of grandeur founded on his parent’s careers. He does not know what he is talking about.
Peak oil is nonsense. There will always be more oil, it will just be more expensive to extract, but not catastrophically so.
peak oil just means that we have passed the point on the graph where oil production was increasing, not that civilization will immediately come to an end. We have both options, and the time to do more.
“While it’s oil is my mind I would like to address the sound bite you all hear regularly about how long it takes for a well to come online from the time drilling commences: It’s not 5, 10 or 15 years.”
regardless of how long it takes to get the oil to market, the jobs/capital investment starts immediately. someone should remind the politicians of that.
I empirically observed outrageous gas prices this evening.
Noooo… for real? I guess that settles it then. HW personally witnessed outrageous gas prices, world’s gonna end, no two ways about it.
You’ve had a good run of posts the last few months, HW. Too bad for you if screw it all up by lapsing into kookery now.
By the way, I remember this Michael Ruppert from his “From the Wilderness” blog about a decade ago, just classic American conspiratorial kookery. Eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5MY3C86bk Look at all the nigs cheering him on there. They “just know” it was the CIA flooding their communities with drugs. Lol+Sigh.
Stonelifter is right. The oil companies all have salesmen who spend all of their time buying or leasing mineral rights on privately held land.
They aren’t just handing out free cash. They are well aware that political changes in the nations that we import oil from may someday make it worthwhile to start harvesting American oil on a major scale.
Google Rig Count: Rotary Rig Count and Workover Rig Count and you will see how many rigs are drilling in the U.S. There are more rigs drilling for oil on private land right now than there were last year, but this is a pittance. There are rigs stacked and idle all the way from southern Texas to the Canadian border which could be back in action in under two weeks. (I attempted to give you the link to Rig Count but it caused my comment to get held up awaiting moderation.)
And then there is the natural gas. Rig Count shows that at the present time there are under 700 rigs drilling for natural gas on U.S. soil. In 2005 there were 1000 rigs drilling for gas in Johnson County Texas alone on any given day. The drillers were also going balls to the wall in Tarrant, Dallas, Hood, Denton and a bunch of other counties near the Metroplex.
The rigs are well lighted and many of them were burning off methane, so at night you could see them from many miles away on the flatter parts of those counties. In some areas there were so many rigs that you got the impression that you were driving around on a very old giant’s birthday cake.
When I was running a machine shop that repairs drilling equipment a company man from Chesapeake Energy told me that the Barnett Shale formation alone could provide enough natural gas to supply the entire country for eighty years at present consumption levels. The Barnett Shale is only one of the many gas bearing shale formations in the lower 48.
The reason gas drilling has slowed is that all of the new production created a glut that cut the retail price in half and thereby made it unprofitable to drill more wells at the present time.
And let’s not forget the huge oil fields that were recently discovered in south Texas and eastern Colorado. They won’t be touched as long as we can buy cheaper crude from other countries.
Check this out: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/what_if_oil_and_natural_gas_are_renewable_resources.html
The oil people have been aware of this since the 1950?s. A man from Cleburne, TX even developed a method for increasing the flow of new oil into played out wells which involved pumping a detergent solution down the hole under high pressure. The technique is similar to fracking except that the required pressure is much lower.
We have huge reserves of every kind of energy producing substances on federal lands which are presently off limits for drilling.
We also have capped off oil and gas wells all over Texas and Oklahoma. When the price goes up, the caps will come off.
Don’t buy in to the media blitz about that Keystone pipline. The gasoline faction of that sludge that will come through that line is negligible. It would provide a lot of other important petroleum products, but it will make no difference in gasoline supply.
Consider this: Light crude from Libya has an 80% gasoline faction. That means that for every ten gallons of Libyan crude that we refine we get eight gallons of gasoline.
Compare that to the one gallon of gasoline we get from refining ten gallons of the heavy, almost gelatinous crude we get from Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.
With those two types of crude as your reference, how much gasoline do you think we’ll get from that tarry Canook sand?
As a final point, what do you think the Puppet Masters will do when the wheels stop turning and their profits nose dive due to unrest among the dune coons? Will they just bury their faces in their Superman sheets for a good cry, or will they make their politician underlings send in the troops to take the shit?
We will not run out of energy anytime soon. We may have to suffer through a few inconvenient but temporary supply disruptions, but there are some very powerful shadow people who count on the flow of energy for their bottom line. They will not be denied.
“I empirically observed outrageous gas prices this evening.”
We’re shoving carriers into the Persian gulf like supositories, Russia and China have chosen to side with Syria, everyone thinks war is imminent. When/if this settles down prices will fall a bit, and if interest rates are ever allowed to rise(which looks like it is happening) they will fall more. Geniune scarcity is a ways off though.
Anon: The price of corn flakes, tuna, cars, insurance, steel, carbide cutting tools, pet food, flowers, doctor visits and just about everything else that I pay for on regular basis have gone up, so why would anybody expect gasoline to stay at the same price it was last year or the year before?
Our national leaders have been printing fiat currency for over ten years. They have been downplaying inflation since the early eighties because the rate of inflation inadvertently affects GDP, which has somehow become the de facto report card for presidents.
Our dollars are worth less, so they buy less. That ugly truth is hard to cover up when it comes to internationally traded commodities, such as gasoline.
Silver,
That was a joke.
I was out doing my evening walk, walked past the BP gas station as I always do, noticed the price had gone up, and there was some guy bitching at the gas pump. Thought it was funny.
But seriously, I think Kunstler and Ruppert are basically right, although they are overly dramatic and prone to making short term predictions that turn out to be inaccurate.
The fact is, there was a lot of debate about Peak Oil in the 2000s, then the economy tanked in 2008 and has stagnanted ever since, and not too long ago it came out that Peak Oil had really happened in 2006.
I remember browsing the news. There was something about Peak Oil happening in 2006 and such a significant story was below a report about the lifestyle of Kim Kardashian.
I knew at that point we were fucked.
“Anon: The price of corn flakes, tuna, cars, insurance, steel, carbide cutting tools, pet food, flowers, doctor visits and just about everything else that I pay for on regular basis have gone up, so why would anybody expect gasoline to stay at the same price it was last year or the year before?
Our national leaders have been printing fiat currency for over ten years. They have been downplaying inflation since the early eighties because the rate of inflation inadvertently affects GDP, which has somehow become the de facto report card for presidents.
Our dollars are worth less, so they buy less. That ugly truth is hard to cover up when it comes to internationally traded commodities, such as gasoline.”
Absolutely, but it is zero % interest rates that have allowed the money supply to run wild. When those go up, the printing presses will slow and the value of the dollar will recover.
Watch this woman fail to solve world’s easiest math problem
2 days ago
?Check out this soon-to-be-famous (and/or divorced) couple as they debate how long it takes to drive 80 miles at 80 mph. Beautiful, blonde Chelsea devises a complex formula based on her running times, the estimated speed of a car relative to a minute, and a bizarre need to take said time and “cut it in half,” coming up with … 58 minutes! Hubby Travis insists that using “science and math” it would take — wait for it — one hour. “Chel” isn’t convinced, and is offended that he claims to know the answer. While Chelsea’s math “skills” have gone viral, a contrite Travis has promised her a “new shopping budget.”
Want to read more trends like this? Check out the msnNOW home page.
http://now.msn.com/entertainment/0319-funny-mph-video.aspx
Leaving aside Peak Oil for a moment … there is also debt bubble and the financial system with trillions of notional dollars worth of derivatives, there is also changing racial demographics, and most importantly, there is also the aging crisis in the developed world.
Does BRA make it through all four possibly terminal crises hitting simultaneously?
>>>What’s that about? Should I re-post without the links?
A post with more than one link may be delayed. If one wants quick posting, one can use a separate post for each link.
We’re about five steps into the zero sum world … we haven’t even got to mile marker one yet. We crossed the unmarked border a few years ago. Already you can start to tell there are differences on this side with the salvage economy becoming more noticeable.
Abiotic oil is still theoretical, isn’t it? Every now and then I get curious and search around to try to verify that. I’ve never bought into peak oil hysteria, but FOSSIL oil logically must continue to become more scarce, more expensive.
PRB, your response makes me want to research it yet again when time allows.
Your recommended recent unbiased scientific sources?
What I think you are all missing, is the DESIRE on the part of the Demoniacs and Deicides, to enact a Bolshevik GULAG nation, again.
It’s part of the whole picture folks. Yeah, we might have $8.00 a gallon gas. But who’s going to be able to buy it, and what will it mean when those who ‘can’ (the oligarchs of whatever race/ethnicity/religion) lord it over those who ‘can’t’?
http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-dharun-ravi-taylor-clementi-hate-crime-verdict-how-long-before-vdarecom-gets-shut-down
The Sodomites are working like mad (because they are- they all have AIDS of the brain) to demonize anyone who stands up to them, and the Deicides and other pervs will KILL those who disagree. This, too, is part of the Demonic nature of the Antichrist state- a complete reversal of all that is normal, and USING the monetary/usury model as a forge to make our chains.
Secession. It’s not a matter of ‘when.’ Secession. Now. Today. Forever.
If it were discovered that there is abiotic oil (in addition to fossil oil which certainly is just that with all the organic remains to prove its origin) and yet it’s too difficult to recover from the extreme depths or if it seeps upward into higher rock formations too slowly, it would still be expensive.
Isn’t there seas of hydrocarbons on Titan?
Peak Oil
Both videos are most likely wrong. Both assume that OIL, GAS and COAL are fossil fuels. Chances are that none of the three are fossil fuels. Abiogenic is the term to use when talking about the origin of the three. The late Thomas Gold’s book the Deep Hot Biosphere is still in print and worth a read to expose oneself to the theory.
Dan Kurt
Yes, it’s ubiquitous on planets, carbon from primordial supernovae. But some planets have relatively more methane and related hydrocarbons than others, gas giants and their satellites versus mostly “rocky” inner planets, and of course not all hydrocarbons are petroleum. What is coal? Fossilic or abiotic? Petroleum also seems to contain sufficient evidence of its origin.
“Yes, its ubiquitous on planets…” was to Hunter’s post. Dan, I’ve heard of, looked at Gold’s thesis and not convinced.
Mosin Nagant: Sorry, no unbiased sources. To research the matter you will have to move to Texas and work in a position that puts you in constant contact with oil and gas people from all levels. A lot of what goes on in the production end of the oil business never makes it online.
You’d be surprised what you can learn by having lunch with a Baker-Hughes fishing crew or an engineer who runs a directional drilling crew. The oil and gas extraction business isn’t nearly as compartmentalized as most industries. Everybody from every level rubs elbows with everybody else. A lot of the top guys started out on the deck and they never forgot it.
I once went to a drill rig to supervise the removal of the drum shaft of a draw works and the dirtiest guy on the platform turned out to be a vice president from the national headquarters of Chesapeake Energy.
Another time I found myself ass deep in filth with a guy who turned out to be the president of a drilling company. The next week the guy wiped his hands off long enough to write an 80 million dollar check to purchase 9 new rigs.
Everybody rubs elbows, and everybody loves to talk.
I ran into a swamp rig crew a few weeks ago when I was going across Louisiana. One guy asked me if I knew anything about TWIC cards because he wanted to work on an offshore rig. That prompted a response from a guy from a nearby table who worked on an offshore pump deck.
From him we all learned that each and every day 900,000 gallons of American gasoline are being pumped onto deep-water tankers bound for places like China and Brazil. You probably won’t find that online, and they sure as hell won’t mention it on the evening news.
Come on down and make the rounds. We are everywhere, and all of us know somebody who knows somebody else who will know the rest of the story. No secrets in this family.
I agree so far and believe it’s almost proven that there is life in rock at great depths (and probably so in other planets) and there are bio-products of their activity. But it does not seem to follow that our common fuels extracted from upper layers, and marked with remains of complex surface life somehow originated at those depths. I’m not convinced but open to more light on the issue however.
Interesting, PRB. Won’t be able to come down, but I hear you. Lots of farming knowledge never makes it into books or dissertations or other media either.
We will burn oil until it becomes too valuable to burn, then we will burn lignite coal for electricity. Coal is abundant, cheap, and filthy.
re: “With those two types of crude as your reference, how much gasoline do you think we’ll get from that tarry Canook sand?”Playing Roots Backwards
My undergrad degree was in Chemistry and I had two years of Engineering. In advanced organic chemistry I was exposed to the wonders of Cracking ( thermal and zeolite catalytic ) and techniques of synthesis. Alkane chemistry today is rather advanced. Lots of gasoline can be made from different grades of petroleum. Then there are different modes of the Fischer–Tropsch process to make fuel from even coal. Methane can also be synthesized into fuel. Chemistry and Chemical Engineering can use many feed stocks to generate gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel.
Dan Kurt
All hi-tech miracles aside American oil production is still less than half of what it once was, that means we consumers in this part of the world have to join the rest of the world in bidding for oil. As they call it in the oil bidness “reserve replacement” and today the slicks in the biz call it “BOE” which means shorthand for not crude oil but gas and gas liquids.
But it is what it is, and what I find interesting about it is the logical fallacy thinking we whites are subject to, from the collapsnicks of PO doom to the rig workers here who have found oil and have deduced from that the end of oil is an unthinkable.
Dan Kurt: “Possible” and “financially viable” are two entirely different things.
A clever chemist could probably work with food scientists and agricultural engineers to develop a process for making ice cream out of horse shit, but could you make ice cream out of shit cheaper than the method presently used to make it from cream?
No, of course not. That’s why nobody involved in gasoline production is interested in synthesizing. Refineries that extract gasoline from crude are often one trick ponies. They remove the factions that have a lower boiling point than the gasoline faction, then they isolate the faction that is very close to what will eventually end up in your gas tank. Most refineries then pipe or ship the sludge that’s left to other facilities for further processing.
The bottom line is that they can’t extract from tar sand any factions that aren’t there to begin with. My point in comparing the heavy and light crude was to point out that the lower the liquid content of the base material, the lower the gasoline faction. Turning tar SAND into tar MUD with solvents doesn’t increase the percentage of the material that can be used for gasoline.
During one of the many supply shortages that I endured in the middle of the greats sands of Libya, I PERSONALLY used light Libyan crude to run a gasoline-powered generator after merely vacuuming the crude through a Buchner funnel fitted with three layers of fine stainless steel screen. Give that a try with the sludge that will eventually flow through the Keystone pipeline.
Talk to a petroleum engineer and learn what the tar sand distillates and solids will actually provide to American petrochemical industries. Gasoline will not be high on the list.