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PeakOil is You

John Michael Greer: The Archdruid Blog

What's on your mind?
General interest discussions, not necessarily related to depletion.

Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 18 May 2015, 21:27:56

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')I read it. Useless.


It made some valid points, IMHO. You tend to like to casually dismiss things you don't agree with on a sort of mild conspiratorial tone of "this is what they want you to think!" rationale. I don't think the 60 minutes piece was propaganda. I think it genuinely tried to uncover factors leading to the oil spike. Bubbles happen, and oil is not immune from speculative bubbles.

Look what's happened with fracking since. A bubble of too much drilling followed by a glut followed by a "correction". This falls right in line with my reading of human nature, that we tend to follow a herd mentality.

Yet suddenly with oil, all price spikes have to reflect geological depletion? Just a straight linear correlation? Sorry. It isn't that simple. If it were, we'd be living Mad Max instead of sitting down to watch it at the theater.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 18 May 2015, 23:23:12

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')but it is not possible with tangible/fungible/necessary and especially LARGE oil.


The piece explained how speculation can occur with oil. You chose to reject this explanation, fine. It made sense to me.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 19 May 2015, 07:24:29

This has been a dead issue for over 6 years. If you'd like to argue it endlessly like the JFK assassination or 911, go ahead and bump this comment section. What the episode told me is that there is no 1:1 linear correlation between geological depletion and oil prices. And if you factor in the difference between CONVENTIONAL oil depletion and prices, the correlation is even weaker (which actually validates a lot of what Yergin would like to say, as much as I hate to admit.)

You can't just look at a price chart and derive the amount of total recoverable oil that's left in the ground, and the main thrust of peak oil doomerism hinged on the oil spike up through 2008. Hence when priced tanked, the credibility of doomers tanked with it, which is why The Oil Drum is gone and Matt Savinar is a new age astrologer.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby Pops » Tue 19 May 2015, 10:59:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')but it is not possible with tangible/fungible/necessary and especially LARGE oil.


The piece explained how speculation can occur with oil. You chose to reject this explanation, fine. It made sense to me.
It explained nothing. Future trades between two parties are settled at the expiration. One side of the contract loses and the other wins . . . based on the current terminal market price. The current market price marks the trade, not the other way around. All I saw was Morley Safer interviewing playa's.

Pretending that speculation only happens in futures markets and only by speculators ignores the fact that people who negotiate contracts for purchase of physical oil in the future (most oil is NOT bought on the spot market) are just as influenced by sentiment and speculation about the future as you were when, for example, you purchased your solar array.

They don't have perfect knowledge about the future, so they start with the current spot price and make a guess at which way the market is going. It is silly to think they ignore the futures market since it was originally created for actual buyers and sellers. Here is a good description of the scenario:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') NYMEX futures contract is a contract to deliver 1,000 barrels of light sweet crude oil in a certain month to the buyer at Cushing, Oklahoma. There is a direct link between futures prices and the cash price at Cushing. We will illustrate with an example. A producer of crude oil is offered $80 per barrel for 1,000 barrel of oil today. The same producer sees that the futures contract for delivery next month is trading at $85 dollars. Instead of selling at $80 to the refiner the producer could sell a futures contract for delivery next month at $85, store the 1,000 barrels for a month and be $5 better off less the cost of a months storage. The refiner needing the 1,000 barrels of crude today is then in the position that he must offer the producer something closer to the $85 NYMEX price to obtain the crude.
Read more at: http://snbchf.com/oil/futures-market-br ... ivergence/


No doubt spare capacity was low and China's growth was crazy

Image

Likewise no doubt non-commercial speculation increased when GoldSacks et al recieved exemptions to the the speculative trading rules.

But interestingly, actions to limit speculation coincided precisely with the top of the market.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')url=http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/rpt/2011-R-0290.htm]The London Loophole[/url]

The “London loophole” refers to differences in the oversight of regulated markets in different countries, particularly ICE Futures Europe, which is the United Kingdom's counterpart to America's NYMEX. In general, the CFTC requires foreign exchanges offering futures contracts to U.S. investors to register with it and comply with all applicable laws and regulations. Beginning in 1999, the CFTC began issuing a series of “no-action” letters to ICE Futures Europe which exempted it from CFTC requirements. By 2007, the ICE was trading significant volumes of contracts in WTI crude oil futures; contracts that presumably would have otherwise been traded on the U.S. regulated NYMEX, and subject to that market's speculative position limits.

Responding to concerns over volatile energy prices, in June 2008, the CFTC amended its no-action letter and required ICE Futures Europe to adopt U.S. position limits and accountability levels on its WTI crude oil contracts. In July 2008, the CFTC issued similar requirements for contracts on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange, which had previously received no-action regulatory waivers. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act further addressed the loophole by requiring foreign boards of trade registering in the U.S. to establish certain rules similar to those that apply to U.S. exchanges (Gensler, June 9, 2011 speech to the Sandler O'Neill Global Exchange and Brokerage Conference).
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby Pops » Tue 19 May 2015, 13:27:40

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '.')..The market price.

Again, the spot market is a small percentage of all oil sold, it is merely the starting point.
Most is by negotiated contract between principles, most for delivery sometime in the future.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '$')147 oil was overshoot . . . mass speculation.

Either speculation drives price or it doesn't.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby Pops » Tue 19 May 2015, 14:30:39

Come on, you never give up, Pete. LOL

mos says it has nothing to do with oil price, just financial shenanigans.
You say it is only about oil price and supply.

My point is isn't an either/or thing. For 10 years we've tried to hang PO on this simplistic hook or that but the problem is PO is a not one thing, not just flow or eri or price or whatever.

I posted the plot of spare capacity because supply was constrained — but there was also a butt load of longs in oil futures too that came crashing down in july 08

Gamblers in the market magnify the swings for no benefit to anyone but themselves.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 19 May 2015, 15:39:49

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'G')amblers in the market magnify the swings for no benefit to anyone but themselves.


Pstarr's strawman arguments paint me on the extreme corny side but I am actually with you 100%. Speculation magnified the price spike. The spike did have a geological basis but much less severe than doomers thought.

Of course, pstarr won't debate Pops. He'll just continue to try to portray me as a buffoonish idiot who can't think straight.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Tue 19 May 2015, 15:56:04

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', ' ')That is peak oil. Not speculation.


You have your own unique personal definition of peak oil that objective people won't recognize as such. It's ultimately a semantic argument where you clutch at the term for dear life and only wind up debasing it by applying it where it doesn't belong. But instead of acknowledging this, you attempt to enforce this definition and ram it down our throats. Sorry. I'm not taking that particular red pill.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorterto

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 29 May 2015, 09:22:34

Greer has a great new post on his Archdruid. It pertains to the different eras in the ongoing process of collapse. First two eras were the eras of pretense and impact which we have been navigating. Now according to Greer we are entering into the era of response. What is telling is how we have so long and firmly held onto to the first two eras. the whole 20th century was about not mentioning or acknowledging the possibility of future collapse or that we were engaged in practices which were not sustainable and could lead to collapse. Of course Limits to Growth warned about this but like so many at that time they were completely mocked or ignored. So now we still are trying to minimize and understate probable consequences. As Greer stated we are somewhat responding but not directly or robustly enough, we are in fact seeking band-aid approaches that do not deal with the primary challenges ahead. So we have the tepid Green movement under the moniker of Green growth which is a oxymoron. Also, the tepid Climate Summits which are proceeding at snails pace completely in contrast to the level of seriousness. Also, note by Greer is the gimmick of creating money. Basically it seems to me that we have done little to avoid or head off major collapse. So after the era of half-hearted responses will come the era of breakdown which because of our failure to prepare for we will be woefully unprepared for.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Fri 29 May 2015, 16:04:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')There are no new megafields waiting to be discovered, no exciting extraction technologies (lateral/fracting is 50 years old), no new wealth in the world that will allow us to wring substantial new reserves from the earth. But population and desire are exponentially increasing every day and less and less oil is around to propel the global economy. It is surely collapsing.


So where is the price spike? Peak oil as a serious concern is meaningless without a commensurate spike in prices and overall lifestyle pain. It isn't there.

Why?

Unconventional.

And we continue down the Who's On First circle of repeated talking points as you bring up the Arab Spring, etc... That is where I don't buy it. If oil prices are less than $100/bbl then I simply don't buy the correlation is causation of geopolitical strife being due to "peak oil".

Peakers rallied around Hubbert's curve as a way to say (just like KJ's talking points) that when conventional oil goes down, Mad Max doom arrives. It hasn't played out that way. The situation is more complex due to the better EROEI of unconventional than people anticipated.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 29 May 2015, 16:18:52

That good points Ennui. For now peak oil has been held at bay. But like many things now in the world, the era of consequences is fast approaching.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby Pops » Fri 29 May 2015, 19:06:29

The big inevitable price spike is the problem with the PO theory. Price can only go so high before people stop buying, at that moment surplus oil causes the price to fall.

That is if markets are functioning.

I'm more and more convinced the '08 price spike was caused more by the Clinton era abandonment of Glass Steagal limits on commercial banks and the loosening of speculative limits in futures markets than by fundamentals. No doubt publicized spare capacity was low but it has been just as low since and we've not had a repeat of the spike. I've not seen a better explanation of the spike and fall than the precise coinciding date of the closing of the London Loophole with the peak in prices in '08.

Which isn't to say I think PO is a figment of a GoldSack's wet dream, but I am fundamentally less confident of any one (or one thousand) analysts'/pundits'/economists' ability to keep track of all the balls. Even less so some anonymous poster on the internet (including this one).
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 29 May 2015, 19:14:47

Well, my impression is that mainly the 08 crash was the product of the real estate bubble bursting along with the peak of conventional sweet light crude. Other factors like the repeal of Glass could also of played a role.
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Re: Greer's Long Descent is getting Shorter

Unread postby ennui2 » Fri 29 May 2015, 19:40:06

BTW, this one just came in my FB feed.

http://www.sciencealert.com/world-hunge ... n-25-years

So this again cuts against the grain of Pstarr's broad picture of the 3rd world facing the immediate brunt of "peak oil" (meaning now) and we just don't see it because we are fat, spoiled, bigoted, and pricing them out of the market.

We'll get there, no doubt, but not...right...now.
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