[Revi]

Check out this article from Zero Hedge

They get it.

[PrestonSturges]

Talking to someone in SW Pennsylvania, they regard fracking as a scam because the new wells are simply drilled close to older wells so they can "drink their milkshake." That is to say it's not an increase in reserves, it's just draining the reserves at a greatly accelerated rate.

[dolanbaker]

According to a good few articles on theoildrum, fracking produced most of the oil/gas in the first few months of production followed by a rapid drop in production, then a long "tail".

The trick is to sell on to investors while it's at full flow.

[Newfie]

Printed for later consumption. Thanks Revi.

[Revi]

I think this article is the best summation of our situation I have come across. It tells it like it is. We are buying big cars still. We are really clueless. Here's an exerpt. The graphs and charts in this article are really good too.:

The propaganda blared at the impressionable willfully ignorant American public has worked wonders. The vast majority of Americans have no clue they have entered a world of energy scarcity, a world where the average person is poorer and barely able to afford the basic necessities of life. This is borne out in the vehicles sales statistics reported every month. There have been 10.5 million passenger vehicles sold through the first 10 months of 2011. In addition to the fact they are “purchased” using 95% debt and financed over seven years, the vast majority are low mileage vehicles getting less than 20 mpg. Only 1.8 small energy efficient vehicles have been sold versus 6.1 million SUVs, pickup trucks and large luxury automobiles. Americans have the freedom to buy any vehicle they choose. They also have the freedom to not think and ignore the facts about the certainty of higher prices at the pump. By choosing a 20 mpg vehicle over a 40 mpg vehicle, they’ve sealed their fate. How could the average soccer mom get by without a Yukon or Excursion to shuttle Biff and Buffy to their games? Have you ever tried to navigate a soccer field parking lot in a hybrid? The horror!

[ColossalContrarian]

Another similar article from ZH today, along the same lines. Stuff a lot of us around here already know but good reinforcement for trolls...
Selling The Oil Illusion, American Style Zero Hedge
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')f course, no tour through the world of badly mangled energy data or energy optimism would be complete without noting the opinion of Dan Yergin. Interestingly, Yergin’s research group CERA has produced one of the best indexes of rampant cost inflation in the global oil and gas industry over the past decade. This is a key point that often eludes even the educated reader not familiar with the complexities of resource economics, and which was a ghosted irony in the New York Times article cited previously: The unconventional resources on which we now depend are complex and costly. Most important of all, they are slow. The tar sands are slow. Ultra-deepwater off the coast of Brazil is slow. However, this does not stop Mr. Yergin, who has been given free range once again to make vague, grand forecasts about future supply.

[Oakley]

Good article in general, but I would have put more emphasis on EROEI.

If you take into account the 3% to 3.5% rate of deterioration in EROEI since the hay days of the 1930's, you see it halving every 20 to 25 years. If we are now at 8 to 1 worldwide, meaning we lose 12 1/2% of each barrel as cost, then by around 2035 we will be at 4 to 1 worldwide, meaning we lose 25% of each barrel as cost. Just after mid century we come close to losing 50% of each barrel as cost. This is a devastating progression of increasing costs. Who cares what production will be; it is the relentless doubling of cost (halving of EROEI) that will destroy economic output and the lives of those hopelessly dependent upon it.

In the early days of oil production who even noticed the effect of doubling cost. When cost is 1% and doubles to 2% that is a miniscule change. But as we move along the progression, each doubling of cost becomes more significant (1%, 2%, 4%, 8%, 16%, 32%, 64%) so that in the late stages we seem to fall off a cliff.

I suppose the same principle is working when a human enters the latter stages of his life span and seemingly deteriorates quite rapidly. Oh, the wonders of the laws of nature.

[Revi]

I think you are right. We are deteriorating rapidly. Catton says that civilizations die because the energy needed to maintain their complexity isn't there any more. I think we're hitting that point now.

People here in Maine need $9000 just to keep a car going, $10,000 to buy, maintain and heat a house (or rent an apartment), $5000 for food at least and $1000 for everything else. That means that unless you are making $25,000 you are slipping backwards fast. I'm pretty sure it's the same everywhere else. People can't even afford the basics around here. We have to fall to a lower energy existence. If they drove a small electric car they could spend $2000 on a car. If they heat with wood and grow their own food they could live on the $10,000 that a lot of people make. Otherwise we'll see a lot of people starve and freeze around here. Liheap has been halved and the food assistance has been cut by 2/3rds by the USDA. This is going to be a very difficult winter, even if it doesn't get very cold.

We have already reached the end of complexity for a lot of people.

[PrestonSturges]

This is the first time in a long time that ZeroHedge has printed anything I don't immediately ridicule.

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'T')his is the first time in a long time that ZeroHedge has printed anything I don't immediately ridicule.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'T')his is the first time in a long time that ZeroHedge has printed anything I don't immediately ridicule.

[Newfie]

Read it on the train this am. It's got some good stuff, but too much rant, at least for me at the moment. The facts are stark enough.