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It IS the OIL stupid.

Started by K-Dog, Dec 19, 2023, 08:04 PM

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K-Dog

The roots of this place go back to the Oil Drum.  When Peak Oil was discussed.  Substitution by tight oil postponed our now immanent demise.

Peak Oil showed itself to be a thought stopper, so it has not been referred to directly here for a while.  But the 1984 bullshit I ran into searching for us on Google today puts me in a mood. 

* The medium link is planted by a government agency to lead people away from here.  Including a link to the original Diner which has moved HERE!  The original link being dead.  Look at it while you can.  Now that I have found it this link to a smoking gun of American Fascism Lite will soon vanish.

Civilization is three times as big as it was half a century ago.  The transition to Oil Shale will thus begin three times sooner.  As will the total Fascism needed to make the last exploitation work out being as so many will be left behind.


Volume
    volume    volume    Volume  and then none.

This is not 'the' peak.  Red is only the tight oil peak.  The second to last fossil fuel to play a substitution game with.  Now oil shale will put palm trees on Arctic shores.



Oil Shale will be the dirt on the grave.

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 19, 2023, 08:04 PM

So far they haven't announced shutting down the pipeline.

RE

TDoS

World peak oil happened in 2018.
https://energyskeptic.com/2022/failing-oil-and-gas-companies-a-sign-of-peak-oil/
Currently paying $1.80/gal for gasoline locally, if you use that stations app. Most people are paying more like $2.00 gal. Those EVs must have put quite a dent in demand for peak oil half decade ago not to have elicited higher prices. 


RE

Quote from: TDoS on Dec 20, 2023, 08:22 PMThose EVs must have put quite a dent in demand for peak oil half decade ago not to have elicited higher prices.

I don't think it's so much EVs as demand that never returned after the Covid Collapse in 2020.  That squashed a lot of the Chinese demand for oil for factories and construction.

RE

K-Dog

Quote from: RE on Dec 21, 2023, 02:36 PM
Quote from: TDoS on Dec 20, 2023, 08:22 PMThose EVs must have put quite a dent in demand for peak oil half decade ago not to have elicited higher prices.

I don't think it's so much EVs as demand that never returned after the Covid Collapse in 2020.  That squashed a lot of the Chinese demand for oil for factories and construction.

RE
Emissions of CO2 have never been higher.  Reality is in the numbers.  Covid was a bump on the road to ruin.

RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 21, 2023, 03:54 PM
Quote from: RE on Dec 21, 2023, 02:36 PM
Quote from: TDoS on Dec 20, 2023, 08:22 PMThose EVs must have put quite a dent in demand for peak oil half decade ago not to have elicited higher prices.

I don't think it's so much EVs as demand that never returned after the Covid Collapse in 2020.  That squashed a lot of the Chinese demand for oil for factories and construction.

RE
Emissions of CO2 have never been higher.  Reality is in the numbers.  Covid was a bump on the road to ruin.

CO2 mesured in the atmosphere lags the actual emissions by a few years because it takes a while for it to distribute out.  Plus Oil isn't the only contributor to this number, coal and NG contribute significant amounts for electricity generation.

All the production graph says is that Peak Oil PRODUCTION came in 2018, not how much carbon was burned from all sources and contributed to the current measurement.  Considering that global population has increased at the same time, that tells us per capita consumption of oil must have decreased as well, except for the amount in storage which is not that huge.

At least in the FSoA, this hasn't affected the price of gas at the pump that much, likely because total global demand is down and happy motorists here are driving fewer miles.  Unless there is some kind of economic miracle, demand will continue to drop.  It's called Demand Destruction, and I've written about it many times in the debates between Inflationists and Deflationists.

RE

K-Dog

#6
Gas Prices.



Twenty years ago if we were out of stock on something in the Bellevue store, suggesting the Seattle store (after checking the computer) would be a welcomed suggestion.  Now the thought of the drive is a turn off, and I'll ask how badly a customer 'needs it' before I say 'in the Seattle store'.  People are upset less when I put it that way.

The fact the 15 mile drive might now also take an hour has something to do with it.  It used to take about 15 minutes.  Interstates run between the stores.

But gas prices matter and once they did not.  I can remember gas so cheap a minimum wage worker could keep the tank full.  I never concerned myself with how much it cost to drive from A to B in the same city.  Now I think about it all the time.  Where I live I have to drive at least five miles to get to anyplace I want to get to.  That is an exaggeration, but I am in the middle of a 'bedroom' community.  Stores are at least five miles away with the exception of one strip mall that has groceries and a drug store.

So, it is a five dollar bill to get anywhere and back.  At my retail job that is 15 minutes of servitude.

* As I worked other jobs 'twenty years ago'. I only image what a customer would think about the suggestion of driving 15 miles to get something.  But I have lived in the Seattle area twice as long and I know the place well.  Twenty years ago fuel cost and time would not have been a big issue.  Now it is.

K-Dog

Quote from: RE on Dec 21, 2023, 09:40 PM
Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 21, 2023, 03:54 PM
Quote from: RE on Dec 21, 2023, 02:36 PM
Quote from: TDoS on Dec 20, 2023, 08:22 PMThose EVs must have put quite a dent in demand for peak oil half decade ago not to have elicited higher prices.

I don't think it's so much EVs as demand that never returned after the Covid Collapse in 2020.  That squashed a lot of the Chinese demand for oil for factories and construction.

RE
Emissions of CO2 have never been higher.  Reality is in the numbers.  Covid was a bump on the road to ruin.

CO2 mesured in the atmosphere lags the actual emissions by a few years because it takes a while for it to distribute out.  Plus Oil isn't the only contributor to this number, coal and NG contribute significant amounts for electricity generation.

All the production graph says is that Peak Oil PRODUCTION came in 2018, not how much carbon was burned from all sources and contributed to the current measurement.  Considering that global population has increased at the same time, that tells us per capita consumption of oil must have decreased as well, except for the amount in storage which is not that huge.

At least in the FSoA, this hasn't affected the price of gas at the pump that much, likely because total global demand is down and happy motorists here are driving fewer miles.  Unless there is some kind of economic miracle, demand will continue to drop.  It's called Demand Destruction, and I've written about it many times in the debates between Inflationists and Deflationists.

RE

Currently CO2 Emissions per Capita are 4.76 tons per person worldwide.  There has NOT been a decrease in per capita consumption.

It is an often repeated claim that it takes a few years for the effects of CO2 to manifest.  I take that often repeated claim as proof that humans are not actually a sentient species.

THERE IS NO SCIENCE BEHIND THAT CLAIM WHATEVER!

If it were a few years we could not see a seasonal variation which I account for by always comparing months a year apart.  If it were a few years we would never see the squiggles.  We do.



Mixing CO2 in the atmosphere only takes a few weeks, and emissions start out effectively being mixed already since there are millions of widely distributed sources.  The big adjustment is the northern hemisphere emits more CO2 and that excess has to be mixed in through the equator to reach the southern hemisphere.

The average doomer buys into the 'it will be worse later' bull because a doomer wants to say it is going to get worse.  The average denier also buys into the same bullshit because worse later feels better right now, and people become pacified sheep at the news.  Everybody likes to pontificate that it gets worse with time for their own reasons.  It is all emotion without any science.

It will get worse with time, but not because of the CO2 that is already there.  It will be from the new CO2 that we add.

Most people don't 'do science'.  If I sound like a pompous ass for saying that, I don't give a fuck.  It is true.

Existing CO2 molecules start gobbling up infrared radiation as soon as daylight breaks.

Per capita consumption increases not decreases.  Developing countries and JEVON'S PARADOX ensure that any reduction of carbon footprint by the average upper 10% (Americans and others) is offset by new consumers making per capita consumption go up.

Note:  Here is where the Doomstead has value.  Average perception of the resource/climate situation by the general public remains at a cave man level.  The Doomstead is a resource to show that incremental change to the status-quo will not manage collapse.  We are here to show that fundamental change in the structure of current social arrangements has to happen to manage collapse.  Only then will we save as many as we can, and can all dogs eat.

*******

When you see charts like this one below remember the bottom is like an iceberg hidden below the waves.  The bottom  of this graph is down by your feet so all we are seeing is small variation that looks big on the top.



Covid was a blip on the conservation radar.  But we have now passed 2016 consumption levels and are on the way up AS FAST AS EVER!  Consuming ourselves to death.

Peak oil was a more useful concept twenty years ago than it is now.  With tight oil coming along the concept of a single peak became antiquated.  The actual peak is bumpy with a blunderbuss of complex technologies, sources, and political arrangements making it so.

* We also made the mistake of thinking that a bell curve shaped curve is so simple an average person can understand it.  In that we are wrong.  Very wrong.

Conventional oil peaked but with so many kinds of oil the conventional peak is not as significant as we thought it would be.  We expected a sudden crisp change in economic conditions, but the momentum of new technologies and human interactions does not make for a distinct peak, and a sudden change.


RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 22, 2023, 10:44 AMCurrently CO2 Emissions per Capita are 4.76 tons per person worldwide.  There has NOT been a decrease in per capita consumption.

Not per capita energy consumption, that is up.  It's the per capita oil consumption that's down.  Oil isn't the only fossil fuel getting burned for energy.

Since less oil was pumped up, less oil was burned.  You can't burn what you didn't extract.  That is CFS.

RE

TDoS

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 22, 2023, 08:54 AMBut gas prices matter and once they did not.  I can remember gas so cheap a minimum wage worker could keep the tank full.  I never concerned myself with how much it cost to drive from A to B in the same city.  Now I think about it all the time.  Where I live I have to drive at least five miles to get to anyplace I want to get to.  That is an exaggeration, but I am in the middle of a 'bedroom' community.  Stores are at least five miles away with the exception of one strip mall that has groceries and a drug store.
So, it is a five dollar bill to get anywhere and back.  At my retail job that is 15 minutes of servitude.
In the early 70's when gas prices quadrupled I'll bet they mattered. When the rationing was taking place in some US states in the late 1970's, boy then it wasn't even about prices but just could you get the stuff.


Okay, 5 miles to get anywhere you want to. Call it 10 for fun. One way. 20 miles total. An EV gets about 4 miles per kwh, 5 kwh to get anywhere you like, call it $0.12/kwh locally....$0.12 X 6kwh (for less than 100% charging efficiency) = $0.72.

When it comes to fuel costs anyway, could a micro-economic effect this simple have an outsized macro-econmic oil produced effect? Certainly something is happening whereby an event predicted to crush the modern world within months has gone unnoticed for half a decade. The more suffering amongst the fossil fuelers just increases the momentum to the EVers?



RE

One thing to consider is the demographic change and Boomer retirement.  Retirees drive less than working people, and childless people less than ones with kids.  So FSoA Total Miles driven has been dropping.



As long as there is less driving, it keeps the price of gas from going up.

RE

TDoS

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 22, 2023, 10:44 AMPeak oil was a more useful concept twenty years ago than it is now.
It also had folks with scientific chops involved, and back then Hubbert's overall idea still had the US on his side. Few knew it was just going to be a head fake on the way to the US becoming the world's largest producer of oil. And natural gas. And largest exporter of LNG. And a net energy exporter, which at the end of the day was just killer to internet "experts".

Quote from: K-DogWith tight oil coming along the concept of a single peak became antiquated.
Turns out, tight oil was with us all along. But finding it in the history of literature wasn't what the internet wanted to push the idea, and as we all know, it can't be real if it isn't on the internet.

Quote from: K-Dog* We also made the mistake of thinking that a bell curve shaped curve is so simple an average person can understand it.  In that we are wrong.  Very wrong.
Matthew, 7:7
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:"

The perils of the internet echo chamber, when everyone around you is nodding and snapping up whatever is put in front of them....no one ever stops to make the most basic counter-interrogatory. "Prove it."

RE

#12
The main error with the focus on "Peak Oil" is that Oil isn't the only source of energy to run industrial civilization, and there is a decent amount of flexibility in where and how you get the energy and then apply it.  Second error is it doesn't account for the population size and distribution of the energy.  I was never in the game because of a focus on oil or on CO2 emissions and climate.  For me, collapse has always been about the economics, so once I made the connection between energy and money (my 4 part masterpiece that got attention from a couple of economists at the World Bank), it became a waiting game for when we turned the corner on PER CAPITA ENERGY CONSUMPTION.  This point has at last been reached, and it comes out as a fairly straightforward Bell Curve.



As you can see, we hit the top of that mountain in 2018, and now are skiing downhill on total energy consumption.  What will be interesting to see now is how the slope on this graph changes.  The second derivative, for you folks familiar with calculus.  Unless I miss my guess, this is where the effects on money supply will become more pronounced and less amenable to manipulation, and the slope should take a marked negative increase over the next 5 years.  It's running positive 2019-20, but probably not for long.  This graph doesn't show past 2020, so gotta wait for an update.

So mark 2018 on your calendar as the Year the Universe Changed.  Notably, this predates Covid.  Ihat should make your conspiracy radar blink.

RE

RE

Since we all live in the FSoA/GWN, our per capita energy consumption hit peak in the 70's, and it's been eroding ever since, from all sources.  This in large part is due to immigration and population expansion here.  Thus the stagnation in wages and standard of living.

Here's the story in a nutshell



https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/10/176801719/two-centuries-of-energy-in-america-in-four-graphs

Reason we have so many people wanting to immigrate is things are worse everywhere else, and now that the total global consumption is going down, it's going from bad to worse.  Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

RE

TDoS

Quote from: RE on Dec 23, 2023, 01:31 AMFor me, collapse has always been about the economics, so once I made the connection between energy and money (my 4 part masterpiece that got attention from a couple of economists at the World Bank), it became a waiting game for when we turned the corner on PER CAPITA ENERGY CONSUMPTION.

RE
So...it ISN'T about the oil..... ???

Duncan's claim of per capita energy production being the trigger for collapse was back in 2008, around the time the internet peak oil claimants were getting into full swing. He wasn't right either though. I've got no objection to collapse involving economics because...it always has? I just don't like the social sciences pretending they are the physical or natural sciences, and in particular this one where "rational actors" (whatever the hell they are) being required to make anyone's ideas work. No one has ever called geology or engineering "voodoo geology" or "voodoo engineering" but voodoo economics makes perfect sense and probably always will.