The big oil price crash is a question that seems to be front and center on the mind of financial markets these past few months, but, not to worry, it’ll come back up, it always does! So goes the reasoning of oil analysts and investors, but what if something other than supply temporarily overriding demand is at work on a longer-term basis, then what?
Sure, American fracking has upped the competitive stakes by producing fossil fuels from tight shale formations that were previously too difficult, too expensive. Thereby, effectively constricting import demand by one of the Middle East’s biggest customers, the United States, whilst adding a whole new source of supply on top of the excesses produced by the sheiks. As follows, supply outstrips demand and prices fall (reference material: trading commodities, 101.)
Notwithstanding, there may be something much more profound at work behind oil’s slippery slope, beyond the supply and demand equation. The “market” in all of its purported wisdom may be recognizing a disruptive future for hydrocarbons, a quasi-carbon-free world. Then, what of oil prices and what of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom built on sand dunes?
A narrow answer to that provocative question is found by following in the footsteps of those who know fossil fuels well. For example, John D. Rockefeller built an enormous fortune on oil, but today his heirs are selling their fossil fuel investments: “The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is joining a coalition of philanthropists pledging to rid themselves of more than $50bn in fossil fuel assets,” Rockefellers to Switch Investments to ‘Clean Energy,’” BBC News, Sept. 22, 2014.
So, how about that $50bn in assets?
According to Stephen Heintz, director of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund: “We are quite convinced that if he [John D. Rockefeller] were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy,” Ibid.
Furthermore, and potentially adding considerable fuel to the fire of falling oil prices, as of a week ago, Elon Musk inadvertently stepped into the cascading oil price scenario while holding a conference call with Wall Street analysts following release of earnings for his electric car company, Tesla. During the interview, and “merely in passing,” Mr. Musk announced his intention to start producing a “stationary battery” for powering homes within the next few months. Yes, this year!
Respectively, whether oil futures ticked down the moment Musk dropped that “game changer” is not known, frankly unlikely, but, as far as it goes for long-term investors, concern about oil pricing should be paramount. Musk’s stationary battery concept is the “the game changer of all game changers,” similar to the impact cell phones have/had on landlines, and that game changer happened well within a short decade.
Musk’s stationary battery to store solar energy is categorically disruptive for large portions of America’s traditional industries, for example, the utility industry, and the oil & gas industry. In fact, Musk’s stationary battery is the kind of stuff economic revolutions are built upon, thus, making oil & gas production look more than ever like an old prizefighter beyond his prime.
Not only that, but according to Mr. Musk’s analysis, solar energy combined with stand-alone battery systems will supply power at lower costs than natural gas. Indubitably, that upsets the apple cart for all things labeled fossil fuel, pretty much across the board.
Along those lines, Elon Musk is currently building a gigafactory in Nevada; it’s a $5 billion partnership with Panasonic Corporation to manufacture batteries for cars and for homes. The factory will be primarily powered by wind and solar.
Meanwhile, Tesla will soon hit the market with stand alone battery systems for smart energy consumers, whether mom & pop at home or big commercial enterprises. In fact, the company has already begun installing Tesla batteries on commercial buildings, like Wal-Mart stores, saving Wal-Mart stores 20-30% off energy bills. What responsible business wouldn’t do that?
As well, 500 homes in California are part of a pilot project, using the Tesla battery 10-kilowatt battery packs, when required, to power their homes for up to two days w/o sunlight.
Along those lines, as far back as 2013, the Edison Electric Institute issued a warning to utilities: “One can imagine a day when battery storage technology or micro turbines could allow customers to be electric grid independent,” Josh Dzieza, Why Tesla’s Battery for Your Home Should Terrify Utilities, The Verge, Feb. 13, 2015.
As for fossil fuels, one of the biggest consumers of coal, oil, and gas is the utility industry, powering homes and businesses all across the land with electricity. Just imagine the challenge, the trepidation, the abomination for fossil fuel users, producers, and all those involved in the fossil fuel industry should Mr. Musk’s stand alone batteries become really, really, really popular. It may be reason enough to avoid long-term oil futures.
What, then, happens to the well-oiled, outspoken climate change/global warming denial camp on Capitol Hill?
As for the future, the repercussions of Mr. Musk’s “stand alone battery” are far and wide, including new political maneuvers, maybe a new party, certainly new political faces in Congress, massive losses of campaign contributions abetting fossil fuels, huge campaign war chests with nowhere to go, crumbling fossil fuel infrastructure like the ‘proposed’ XL pipeline, becoming white elephants rusting on the plains, thousands of rail tanker cars setting idle, rusting away, refinery closures, more rusting steel, North Dakota engulfed in a maddening mass of spewing, rusting derelict oil rigs, and chaos throughout the Middle East as kingdoms fail, bereft nomadic masses trudging, wandering across hot sand.
On the other hand, as stated by Sir Nelson M. Lubao, “every negative has a positive side,” the transition from a fossil fuel dependent world to a renewable energy world, while serving as the final nail in the coffin for the 200-year-old smokey industrial revolution, will merge into the current trendsetting technological revolution, bringing in its wake a whole new set of job skills, full employment, massive infrastructure development, on the order of the Marshall Plan rebuild of Europe, and importantly, new politics, a high tech brand of smart politics that favors eco-economics, as emphasized by Apple, Inc., or economics alongside nature rather than the callousness behind today’s neoliberal emphasis on profits, and only profits, which is joined at the hip to today’s old-fashioned energy industry.
Go Speed Racer on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 8:26 am
This is why pot is legal now. The author of this article is smoking a joint the size of a toilet paper roll, but he can’t get arrested.
What a load of krap can’t somebody post a real article?
eugene on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 8:29 am
I don’t think this site is into real articles. I come here looking for the occasional one they do publish. Miss the Oil Drum.
Makati1 on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 8:51 am
Go Speed, you are so right! But I think he is shooting up, not inhaling. I tried the green stuff and it was only a mild buzz. Not enough to cause such crap to be spilled into the internet on purpose.
JuanP on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 8:54 am
Racer,
As a former pothead, I resent the implication that the writer is doing stupid things because he/she is on pot. This guy/girl is just a typical human being, IOW, an ignorant fool. People don’t need to smoke pot to get stupid because they are born stupid, and can’t help being stupid from the moment they are born till the moment they die because that is what they are.
Your comment above is a classic example of ignorant stupidity in action!
JuanP on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 8:56 am
Skip this one! I couldn’t get past the third paragraph, it is a waste of time.
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 9:18 am
Juan, I agree. I have found some of the most intelligent people are pot heads. They need something to cool their minds and keep them from overheating. All the thinking and organizing they do needs to be cooled down.
I enjoyed pot for several years until I decided 10 years ago to stop all drug and alcohol intake. Nothing wrong with the mild drugs but I do have issues with the hard drugs and especially the cocaine on Wall Street. They are playing with our livelihood and all cranked up. Sounds dangerous to me.
Revi on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 9:45 am
It’s about time to change our energy system. As always there are going to be a lot of people wailing, but what else is there? We need to change in response to peak oil, but also in order to keep ourselves warm, fed and clothed. As Sheik Yamani said, the stone age didn’t end because of lack of stones, and the oil age won’t end because of a lack of oil. We are going to move on. Some won’t, and that’s too bad.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 10:02 am
It isn’t so much oil that is becoming obsolete as it is that the global financial system is becoming obsolete.
Correction: HAS BECOME obsolete.
Reason why, is because that global financial system and the capitalists who drive it have scoured and scraped and thoroughly exploited every available resource on planet earth to the point of depletion, including oil.
We’ve burned, cut, bulldozed or extracted it all and there is very little left that a drop of profit can be squeezed from.
When the entire reason for a system’s existence has been exhausted, as is the case with our global financial system, then we can say that “the system” has become obsolete.
We’re now in that brief twilight period during which the current financial system is choking and wheezing on its last few breaths of life. Whatever it is that comes next, you’re going to wish you had a little pot to get you through it. Just remember what Fat Freddy of the Furry Freak Brothers once said: Pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no pot. Wiser words were never spoken… 🙂
Plantagenet on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 10:12 am
The world consumption of oil is at all time record high levels. Rather then being obsolete, oil is more in use then ever.
Lawfish on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 10:37 am
This article is pure corn-porn BS. However, the idea that there is a future in DC-powered homes is not entirely idiotic. I am in the process of building an off-grid cabin on some forest property I own and looking into solar power. DC is clearly the way to go (no waste in converting to AC). However, the big surprise one gets when looking to convert to pure solar is how much power we use from the grid. I determined if I used a 4 panel array, I could power a small DC fridge, all my lights and a pump to pump water from the rain barrels to a water tower. I looked into AC and it pretty much requires its own 4 panel array just to run the AC (the smallest DC unit I found available was 11,000 BTU, enough to cool 700 sq. feet of well-insulated home. Way more than I need, but I may consider it eventually.
I realize solar panels require oil for manufacture and distribution, but they can be had cheap now, so I figure I’ll stock up and hope I can power my little cabin past the point where I’ll need it. Perhaps buying some panels and storing them in a dark dry place might allow me to break them out in 30 years and extend the cabin a bit longer.
My point is there may be an alternate energy future, but it will be using a fraction of the power we’re all used to in BAU and it will be local, not grid.
bobinget on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 11:06 am
Call us when there’s a substitute for oil.
Conservation, planet’s last hope, just got a kick in the balls by Russia and Saudi Arabia. WTF do they care?
Dated Feb.3, 2015 USA Today
Sales of new cars and trucks roared off to a fast start in January, towed by Americans’ renewed love affair with trucks and SUVs as low fuel prices mean the gas-thirsty models aren’t so expensive to fill up.
Trucks — a category that consists of pickups, vans and SUVs — were 54% of January sales; cars were the remainder, according to sales tracker Autodata.
Automakers sold 1.51 million new vehicles last month, up 13.7% from sales the year before.
The seasonally adjusted annual sales rate was 16.66 million — a bit undershooting the widespread optimistic forecasts of 16..7 million to 17 million. But it was well ahead of the January pace of 15.29 million in 2014, and was the highest January annual rate since 2006, according to Autodata.
Ford Motor said its sales jumped 15.3% to 178,351, powered mainly by truck sales as its new-design F-150 jumped 16.8% to its best January since the truck set a sales record in 2004. That, despite the fact that the second of two F-150 factories wasn’t building showroom-ready trucks in January.
“It’s a fast start to the 2015 sales year,” said Erich Merkle, Ford U.S. sales analyst, with weather less of an impact compared with a year ago.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/02/03/january-auto-sales/22765369
Since 2/3/15 Weather has had a significant effect on housing and auto sales. Climate eventually, ‘changes’ everything.
If interested in oil obsolesce, check out.. not the ‘rate’ of growth but actual, real, consumption, domestically (up 4% over last year) and World Wide,
(pushing 95 Million BB p/d– CIVILLIAN consumption.
(add one additional million B’s for military)
Remember there are at minimum, six hot oil wars progress where fuel consumption numbers are
classified. “If we can’t have wars without oil,
what’s the point?”
https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 11:34 am
Liberal crisis cult dreaming. Apple and Tesla are supposed to be the alternative to “neoliberal emphasis on profits, and only profits” Holy fuck are people ever blinded by their ideologies. Apple and Musk,-the lefts Koch Bros –
ghung on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 11:48 am
@Lawfish regarding DC powered homes:
Modern inverters are quite efficient and DC infrastructure (larger wiring required; high-amp relays, breakers, appliances, etc.) are more expensive and/or harder to obtain.
My home is powered by a combination of AC and DC. I use DC for loads that are lower wattage and are natively DC (e.g.: this computer). Another item I’m hoping for is DC-direct refrigeration, but comparing costs, it may not be worth it. I could add another kW of PV for the difference in cost between a DC freezer and a comparable AC-powered unit. Other viable options for DC are brushless fans, motors and water pumping. Beyond that, I haven’t found going DC direct to be an advantage. As I mentioned above, computers may be the exception since DC-direct power supplies are readily available. I use them for my PCs that are data logging my solar and weather systems; on 24/7/365; and are low low wattage. Most of my solar/wood heating pumps are AC because comparable DC hot water pumps cost about 2.5X more. Our primary well pump is DC since it is PV-direct (standalone system) and the SunPump we use is very reliable and field repairable. Wasn’t cheap though ($600+).
On top of that, code enforcement makes wiring a home for DC (only) very problematic, if not impossible. Easier/cheaper to wire for code-compliant AC and add DC circuits after the inspectors sign off (I ran the wiring separately as I built; said it was for low-voltage lighting). Of course, if you aren’t getting inspected and aren’t going to use any AC appliances, go for it. Be careful about wire sizing though. Lower voltage DC needs big wires, and higher voltage DC is tricky stuff.
BTW: Square-D QO series breakers are suitable for DC at or below 48 volts. I use a Square-D QO panel for my DC distribution, very well marked as such.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 11:51 am
“The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or a partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.”
Stephen Hawking
Like I’ve mused before on this forum, the sociopaths and psychopaths had their “survival of the fittest” roles to play throughout human history. We needed them, I suppose. But their aggressiveness, their need to dominate, their winner-take-all mentality and the long list of dirty deeds done dirt cheap that they employed to win — and so much more — have lead us down a one-way path to DOOM.
Talk about obsolete!
But who knows. Post-collapse when competition for resources and food is intense between local tribes trying to scratch a living from a barren earth, the sociopaths and psychopaths may once again find that they are “needed”. If so, then we haven’t learned a damn thing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/23/stephen-hawking-aggression_n_6733584.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 11:58 am
LAW, Great news. Welcome to the doom tribe.
I have a 6 panel system. This runs one of my barns that was too expensive to grid connect. I want to connect to my 40’x12′ cabin 800 ft away or I will just purchase a smaller unit to run lighting and small appliances. I am looking into a very small highly efficient freezer to store meat from the cattle I raise. I will put that up in the barn with the 6 panel system. Honestly the barn AltE power is underutilized. I wish I knew more about all this. I guess I will pay someone to come and get me set up.
I second your point about grid and AltE. I am recommending a change in lifestyles and attitudes for AltE applications. We need to consider low power, low complexity, low cost, high reliability dispersed end user AltE. We need to work towards seasonal and variable when applicable. For example farming communities. I know urban areas can’t convert lifestyles, attitudes, and activities much. Yet, there are so many rural applications to pursue.
The grid will be there for the other high HP items so use it while it works and is cheap. Folks, when the grid is gone so is civilization so don’t be fooled about going off grid. The end of grid electricity is the end of BAUtopia. That doesn’t mean your AltE system will not work but the whole environment of living will change. Good luck after a few years with replacement parts.
A good strategy is utilize the old ways and natural heating and cooling as a short list of a longish one.. Anyway LAW, go for it man but remember the grid is a anthropocene resource. Utilize the grid while you can.
J-Gav on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:10 pm
Musk Schmusk …
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/tesla-bonfire-of-the-money-printers-vanities/
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:18 pm
G-man, the sunpump you mentioned is on my list to have as a way to pump water out of a good size lake I have for a cattle waterer back up if the well goes down from an unstable grid. I always eat up your equipment advice. It is so expensive to get an electrician to come out.
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:35 pm
it’s all so bizarre.
Living in Bizzaro World
http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2015/02/22/living-in-bizzaro-world/#comments
Mike989 on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:41 pm
I want the AGE of the first 5 commenters.
You’re clearly Over the HILL.
You’re the same guys that said Tesla would fail.
Well Tesla sold 35,000 cars at about $100,000+ a piece.
Citigroup has committed to investing 10 Billion a year into clean energy for the next 10 Years.
They’ve just replaced Exxon size investments.
Lesson: Old Geezers Are No Longer Capable of Learning.
Mike989 on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:43 pm
Tesla Model S is the BEST CAR Consumer Reports Ever Tested. Not, the best “electric” car, the Best Car.
If you can’t wrap that around your head, you need to retire from presenting your opinions to the public.
If you’re wrong 90% of the time let’s average that out to you being wrong ALL the Time. The world has passed you by.
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:49 pm
Mike the other day a hottie blew away from me at a stop light in a Tesla. It was a pretty site!! I was in the big shitty getting supplies.
Mike989 on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 12:55 pm
Here’s a Business Rule Apple KNOWS, and Exxon doesn’t follow:
If you don’t build the product that replaces your current product, SOMEONE ELSE WILL.
Apple was in the computer business, it didn’t laugh at the tablet business, it took it as a threat and dominated the business. So too with the phone.
Exxon, on the other hand has Ignored Solar and Wind, and is continuing to do so. Result a low P/E ratio for it’s stock, and clearly with Fossil Free Index funds starting up, No Upside Potential, because we already have enough carbon reserves to burn the planet up with a 3 degree centigrade increase in temperature. Those reserves will Never Be Used.
So, If you’re in oil stocks, or work for the company you should be putting MASSIVE PRESSURE on the CEO to Competitively Respond to the New World, Or sell you stock and let Exxon die.
It’s up to you.
Make Exxon compete or let it die.
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 1:19 pm
Apple and Tesla, both by products of the American government/tax payer subsidy system. Going away real soon along with a bunch of other shit…enjoy it while you can.
GregT on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 1:54 pm
“because we already have enough carbon reserves to burn the planet up with a 3 degree centigrade increase in temperature.”
3 degrees doesn’t burn the planet up. A runaway greenhouse event with a 50/50 chance of occurring at 2 degrees C does. At the moment we are headed for between 4 and 6 degrees Celsius, without factoring in a multitude of positive feedback mechanisms.
The problems we face are not only limited to CC. Every single ecosystem on the planet is in a steady state of decline, right now. Fossil fuels are one problem. BAU and modern industrial society are an entirely different set of terminal problems. Technology is the biggest threat to future human survival on this planet.
Lawfish on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 2:09 pm
Ghung, and Davy, thanks. Good points. I read about the Square D QO load centers being compatible with 48 V DC. But I also saw that AC rated switches and outlets aren’t rated for DC. My cabin will be 16′ x 16′ to start, mostly as a hunting camp. But my plan is to have the cabin as a permanent living place if and when the grid goes down. I have a big stream running through the property, so ever-abundant water. 30 acres currently planted in mature hardwood, so I will have a sustainable source of fuel wood. The tricky part is I want to clear some areas for growing crops. I can use them to attract deer in now, but with the idea of using it to grow people food later (wild game will be hunted to extinction within weeks of a fast collapse IMHO).
At some point, I’ll have to keep some kind of livestock. I currently have a pig who provides all the fertilizer I need for my small urban garden. Just got 4 chickens for eggs, so that will be my first taste of animal husbandry. Eventually, I’d like to have a herd of goats, as well as chickens for both eggs and meat. I figure I can’t butcher anything bigger than a goat and expect to be able to keep the meat for long.
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 2:15 pm
GregT, it might be closer to 1 degree
[Part 1] Exposé | The 2º Death Dance – The 1º Cover-up
https://thebiggestlieevertold.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/part-1-expose-the-2%C2%BA-death-dance-%E2%80%93-the-1%C2%BA-cover-up/
Part II – Exposé | The 2º Death Dance – The 1º Cover-up
https://canadianclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/part-ii-expose-the-2%C2%BA-death-dance-%E2%80%93-the-1%C2%BA-cover-up/
ghung on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 2:30 pm
Mike989 – Yeah, great car (it better be, considering…). I would love to have a Tesla, especially the P85D version (AWD, 600+HPE) with the freakin’ “insane mode”. McClaren owners watch and weep. Then again, McClaren didn’t get the giant subsidies Musk got.
Dredd on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 2:53 pm
Very interesting discourse today.
Lots of hopium, doomium, and nopeium.
I expect that, from time to time, each of us have had to get rid of some of our past cultural trances at fire sales.
As always, all the best (Choose Your Trances Carefully – 3).
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 2:54 pm
Law, goats and cattle are a great mix. They eat different plant matter. Try a small orchard and grapes as an alternative to crops if crops become problematic. Sounds like a cool place!
GregT on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 4:04 pm
Davy,
Photos?
Perk Earl on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 4:40 pm
So Tesla cars are going to be our salvation. Depletion of oil replaced by EV’s. Of course one has to be young and naïve enough to think the energy will just come from somewhere, anywhere I suppose. That the depletion of what is now 1/3 of the world economy’s energy source will not have dire consequences because of what, positive attitudes.
So youthful, optimistic, hopeful, positive thinking can overcome physics. This I’ve got to see.
Plantagenet on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 4:45 pm
Sounds like a good plan, Lawfish. Good luck on getting the cabin built. You are lucky you can plan everything from the start—retrofittinig an old cabin is a lot of work, take it from me.
You got any fish in the stream on your property? You’re right that hunting pressure will be heavy on wildlife after the collapse, but for plan “B” I’ve got a nice salmon stream running alongside my property up here in Alaska, and I figure they’ll keep coming year after year.
Perk Earl on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 4:51 pm
“Whatever it is that comes next, you’re going to wish you had a little pot to get you through it. Just remember what Fat Freddy of the Furry Freak Brothers once said: Pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no pot. Wiser words were never spoken…”
I remember those magazines. I got one in which Fat Freddy gets the munchies, goes berserk in a store eating just about all the junkie stuff. It was hilarious. Of course I had some H from Paskistan at the time which incidentally was quite good, making the humor that much better.
Preparing for post collapse will include a wide array of seeds.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 5:07 pm
Perk — Yeah, Fat Freddy was always getting the munchies, wasn’t he? And didn’t he have a cat that was always leaving “gifts” in special places (shoes, headphones, pillows) to show what he thought of the situation? I got a million laughs out of reading those comic books. Now all I really remember is that one profound quote by Fat Freddy.
James Tipper on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 5:09 pm
Electric cars will not replace the current infrastructure for many reasons, mainly their prohibitive price as well as their complete reliance on rare Earth minerals. It is simply replacing our addiction of oil on something else. Not to mention China might not be so kind as to keep selling them to us one day.
Davy, people who don’t understand resource limits and physics are so delusional that it should be cute and funny. Unfortunately these ignorant people choose to elect politicians who also similarly display their ignorance. They have their heads in the clouds and until food disappears from the grocery store, water fails to come out of the tap, gas stations are empty, and prices double for basic necessities do these people wake up.
Apneaman says, “Liberal crisis cult dreaming. Apple and Tesla are supposed to be the alternative to “neoliberal emphasis on profits, and only profits” Holy fuck are people ever blinded by their ideologies. Apple and Musk,-the lefts Koch Bros”
Probably one of the funniest and most accurate sentences to sum up how I feel about these leftist, feel-good, “ethical” large corporations.
Overall I really want shortonoil to make an appearance and get his opinion on this article. Conservation efforts are a drop in the bucket but a billion people dying would have a noticeable carbon impact!
ghung on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 5:16 pm
Funny that, Perk. I figured you for a Mr. Natural kind of guy. Robert Crumb was one of my favorites (Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat….), but the Freak Brothers were great. Greer always reminds me of Mr. Natural for some reason. I love the play on deep time in the link, above.
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 6:02 pm
Yea, Greg, I have to get the fiancee on the photo-bucket deal. I am not sure how to do it. NR, where can I find a good software guy?
Jim on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 6:04 pm
Speaking of self reliance,I think I’ll try my hand at using the Jean Pain method of composting.Really cool having your own bio-energy and hot water from a compost pile!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVCaczil4W4
Jim
Davy on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 6:14 pm
Jimmy, you have a great point on a significant die off to factor into shorts formula. Personally, I feel a large die-off will destroy BAU. Death is expensive for BAUtopia. She can’t take the systematic disruption that death causes. Think of all the critical people that are essential to local BAUs. I once read that there is a 10% factor to a population of specialists that keep that society going. Think about all the families torn apart. I still remember the horror of seeing a Ebola effected family end up with all dead. The last family member being one 7yr old who died alone. I just can’t fathom a little kid like that lose everything and then end up dyeing alone. That horror is ahead and yes Jimmy that is the shit that will shake the BAUtopians out of their sugar high.
GregT on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 7:48 pm
“Yeah, Fat Freddy was always getting the munchies, wasn’t he?”
Just what I always suspected, you guys down south are a bunch of dopers. Actually, come to think of it, pot IS legal in the States now.
We never had those societal vices up here in Canada. Us Canucks were always circumspect. 🙂
Perk Earl on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 7:53 pm
“Funny that, Perk. I figured you for a Mr. Natural kind of guy.”
Interesting how we form opinions of one another via blogs, Ghung. Would be fun to get everyone together for an ‘At Peak or post peak, that is the question’ party in which we actually get to know each other over some beer and buffet.
NR, yeah, the quote from fat freddy is some profound philosophy, and will especially be so post collapse.
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 8:40 pm
Tech behemoths are blowing billions on an epic scale and achieving little in return
http://business.financialpost.com/2015/02/20/tech-behemoths-are-blowing-billions-on-an-epic-scale-and-achieving-little-in-return/?__lsa=null
ghung on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 9:27 pm
Apneaman – Seems the laws of diminishing returns are driving the tech giants crazy, and there’s a lot of non-productive money out there looking for something to do, just as we’ll have a lot of people looking for something to do. Under-employed money? Says a lot about our economy. The peak consumption/diminishing returns nexus….
Apneaman on Mon, 23rd Feb 2015 10:49 pm
Good eye ghung.
We need another 50 year cold war, so the tax payer can fund another round of new R&D leading to all the wonderful technology. What? The techno worshipping kids all thought guys like Steve, Sergi and Elon actually did the leg work. Sorry kids it was grandpas tax dollars and a work force that was scientifically literate and numerate. I don’t think it will happen in a dumb downed minimum wage economy on a planet with all the low hung fruit plucked. Were just gonna have to settle for more APP’s.
Northwest Resident on Tue, 24th Feb 2015 1:28 am
Hey Davy, you don’t need a software guy to post photos on photobucket. Just google photobucket and click the link, sign up, then post your pictures. Can’t wait to see your Italian gal. Hopefully she doesn’t hold a grudge for the “Italian” poem I tricked you into giving her. 🙂
On another note, getting back to one of my points made earlier on this article about the financial system becoming obsolete. When you have to cheat and lie and resort to subterfuge to keep a “system” going, then that is pretty strong evidence that the system is obsolete, or at the very least, broken and unable to stand on its own. Check out this link and see for yourself. The stock market is totally manipulated, as if we didn’t already know. Keeping the stock market jacked up is a critical part of keeping the illusion of BAU alive. How long can they keep it going? Like I’ve speculated before, someday there will be riot in the streets and cities around the world, the just in time delivery system will have completely broken down, starvation, rebellion, doomers hunkered down waiting for it all to blow over — but the stock market will be SOARING to ever greater heights!!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/ex-plunge-protection-team-whistleblower-governments-control-markets-there-no-price-d
Makati1 on Tue, 24th Feb 2015 3:37 am
Apneaman, you are correct. I cannot think of any NEW tech in the last 20 years or so. Just tweaking stuff discovered in the 40s, 50,s and 60s.
Perk Earl on Tue, 24th Feb 2015 3:49 am
NR, I’m convinced of manipulation of the stock market too. It seems like when news should drive it down, it remains steady or gets charged back up to cover any declines, then when news of yet another Greece bailout occurs or some other good news, the market without manipulation goes up. In other words they cover the losses on bad days, so on good days it goes even higher.
What’s also being manipulated is precious metals. The article below is about a new investigation by the US, because the European investigation conveniently found no wrong doing. But in a world of central banks debasing their currencies, the only logical way to do that without metals going skyward, which would lead to too much devaluation of currencies, is to manipulate metal prices.
The news is carefully crafted, the stock and precious metal markets are manipulated because when civilization is this far into overshoot, with the depletion of oil having knock on economic effects, everything must be orchestrated or things will go south fast! Now, the question is for how long can this charade go on for until shtf?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/big-banks-face-scrutiny-over-pricing-of-metals-1424744801
‘Big Banks Face Scrutiny Over Pricing of Metals’
U.S. Justice Department investigates price-setting process for gold, silver, platinum and palladium
U.S. officials are investigating at least 10 major banks for possible rigging of precious-metals markets, even though European regulators dropped a similar probe after finding no evidence of wrongdoing, according to people close to the inquiries.
The precious-metals probes are the latest example of regulatory scrutiny into how the world’s biggest financial institutions influence widely used benchmarks. Until last year, prices for gold, silver, platinum and palladium were set using a decades-old practice of once- or twice-a-day conference calls between a small group of banks. The process for setting each of the price “fixes” has since been overhauled.
Davy on Tue, 24th Feb 2015 5:29 am
Perk/NR, the system has reached a terminal point. It is broken because of the end of growth and limits. It is now a shrinking pie. The top where the real wealth is really is not that wealthy because much of that notional digital wealth is not real. In the meantime the plutocrats and lesser 1%ers will continue wealth transfer and cannibalization of the real and physical that normal people produce in. These top level feeders have little productive use except at a significantly lower percentage of the economy as managers of labor and capital. Parasitic wealth transfer is the result of a top heavy class structure.
It is these folks that are robbing and pillaging the social fabric of the many for the few. You can get pissed off about this but it is a typical human civilization phenomenon. The upper class strips the lower classes when the end days near. Today we have a repressed market with a digital bubble. The top has become a revolving door of moral hazards. Politicians, industry moguls, and administrators in an unholy arrangement of wealth and power preservation. Corruption, manipulation, and disregard for the spirit of the law is rampant.
These conditions are precisely what Ben franklin spoke of when asked how long these new United States would last. He thought roughly 200 years then corruption would destroy the US. This is a systematic dynamic so the blame games and resentment demonstrates a lower level of spiritual and intellectual advancement.
I am also guilty of this but I strive to get closer to the truth. The truth is objective, fair, and balanced. Reality can give a rat’s ass about human agendas. Reality is and we are. Forget your fantasy agenda’s and embrace reality. Good guys, bad guys, hopium, and progress are human dualistic inventions that have no reality in nature. Not pointing at NR/Perk but others in the wider world with agendas and resentments.
Davy on Tue, 24th Feb 2015 5:35 am
NR/Greg, I am a little leery about posting my doomstead online because of the shit bum’s on-line. I will think about what can be posted without giving away too much anonymity. I am far too honest for my own good. I am honest and open because I want to give my shirt off my back to those here who want to doom and prep. I feel we are in the end days so prep is absolutely essential to survival. There are still dangers with openness here. I am sure the spooks have me pegged. I am just hoping when the grid destabilizes that digital file they have on me disperses into the ether. To the shit bums here thinking about hosts to pillage. I have taken steps to protect any prep efforts. I am also well-armed and an excellent shot.
Lawfish on Tue, 24th Feb 2015 1:48 pm
Plant and Davy, I have no fish in the stream on my property. But it runs another mile across a friendly neighbor’s property where it then joins the Ochlockonee River. Plenty of fresh water species there. Follow the river to its mouth and you end up about 5 miles from a place I own with my sister. I get fish and shrimp by the ton down there. I have a legal seine net that always gets the job done and pour my own lead weights and jigs for line fishing. I’m thinking a sailing vessel that could make the trip upstream would enable me to bridge the gap between the two properties if push came to shove. It’s a long paddle in a canoe, that’s for sure.