[Soft_Landing]

Yamaha. Here it is, pure and simple. (and this is just ONE reason. I think it is the most simple and easy to understand)

Oil regimes in the middle east require increasing oil revenues to buy food for increasing populations. They have very little alternative sources of revenue, and they import a lot of food.

Although oil price rises in the short term may temporarily increase revenues for these countries, at some price threshhold, conservation and substitution will begin to halt the rise in revenue toward oil regimes.

If oil regimes are unable to increase oil output, their oil revenues (read: total revenues) will start to decline. This will result in enormous instability among these regimes.

Currently, the middle east supplies 41% of the worlds traded oil. This number is rising and will be even larger at the time when weakness in these middle eastern regimes is beginning to manifest itself.

Destabilisation of middle east regimes presents a risk of LARGE SCALE and MEDIUM TO LONG TERM disruption to world oil supplies. In other words, prices go up fast.

I conjecture that it is impossible for these countries to maintain stability through massive consistent losses in national revenue.

Sorry, Yamaha, but how can oil prices NOT go up fast. I just can't see any way for a gradual transition to another energy source. It just disrupts the middle east too much. Unfortunately, the world relies on a large flow of oil out of the middle east. Without this flow, prices DO rise... FAST.

The only solutions that I can see would be either:

• A fast transition to any other energy source, so fast, that the collapse of regimes that get most of their revenue from oil does not have an enormous effect upon the first world. I've yet to see any possible any source that we can adopt with enough speed.
  
• A massive aid program whereby governments pay the middle east countries lots of money above and beyond oil revenues, starting when their oil revenues begin to decline. Given that the high oil prices that will accompany the peak of middle east supply will surely push the world economy into recession, I don't see it feasible for international governments to band together to send massive amounts of financial aid to prop up failing oil exporting regimes.
  
• The US military (or someone else) captures oil fields and continues to produce from them whilst the countries in which those oil fields are located collapse around them. Given the Iraq experience, I don't consider this possibility the most likely.

[Yamaha_R6]

I like your style dave, that was a fun read even though it had nothing to do with what we are talking about. The amount of homework I have done is irrelevant. You people are supposed to be the experts in this issue. If the experts can't gain solid ground in arguing my very simple case on why you are all wrong then you have little or not argument to use.

I have done my fair share of researching and thinking, and I have a pretty good understanding of the way the economy works.

The thing with peak oil is that the money we will be spending on alternatives goes back into the United States instead of to foreign countries. If we invest 100 billion in alternative energy sources, the majority of that money goes into labor, research, development, construction of factories and into wages. Hence, 80 billion of that we be pumped back into the economy again.

Demand for more energy efficient consumer goods goes up, companies sell more new refrigerators to replace older ones. Mini coopers become increasingly popular. Whole industries emerge with niches in power saving devices.

You people ignore my arguments that I have stated above ^^^^^^ and responded with statements like Dave's. Its an easy way of dismissing me and ignoring me.

I am trying to have a debate but it doesn't work when you all respond like Dave. Just because many popular scientist and educated people support these ideas doesn't make them any truer.

When one of you occasionally makes an argument on why peak oil will cause oil prices to jump to such high levels, it is based on lies and mis-guided facts.

Such as:

We can't choose to use less oil we need as much as we need.
You all know why that argument is flawed as I have argued why this is false over and over and over again.

Alternative energy sources are energy carriers, not sources, thus they don't work, and in the long run even if they were energy sources they cant power cars.
Just about every method of power generation out there has at least 5 to 1 return on investment.
And electricity can be turned into hydrogen or oil.
Nuclear makes TONS of power.

Then you make down right lies, that it takes more energy to make and run nuclear power plants then they provide. This is just plain wrong. Contact any person who knows something about nuclear energy and they will tell you this is false.

Even people like Matt who are supposed to know what they are talking about make HUGE mistakes that are not justifiable. HE SAYS ON HIS SITE that solar panels don't work because it takes as much energy to create them as they return. A lie is a lie no matter how you look at it. If its not even close to being true, then its not true, and this is utter BS, yet you are all willing to accept it. Any person educated in energy would know that Matt is full of it just be reading that one line. He looses all credibility right there, and thats only one example. And you all believe it as the gospel truth.

Another example, Matt says Hydrogen is worthless because it takes oil to make it. He never once mentions that electricity can make hydrogen, or the fact that we in theory have almost unlimited amounts of electricity that could be captured from the enviroment.

And there are to many unknowns for anyone to try is argue in favor of society collapsing. Do we really know how cheaply we could mass produce wind mills or solar panels if we were making millions? Do we know how fast oil supply will drop? Do we know that cars wont get 80 miles to the gallon in the very near future, (they most likely will if gas gets expensive). Wouldn't it be more economical to use hydrogen powered trucks then cars, since hydrogen engines produce lots of torque and weight is less of an issue.

You all would love to mark fusion power is impossible, even though they are making an experimental fusion plant in Japan right now.

How long could the conversion of shale and tar sands hold us at or near 80 million barrels a day?

How much does gas have to go up to cause society to collapse? How much time do we have.

My point is you claim to know the future, yet you don't know the present. You talk out of your ass and then say, but WHAT IF?

Yeah, we could all die tomorrow from an asteroid or nuclear war. People really thought we were going to die back in the 60s-70s. People thought a war was unavoidable. We thought all the facts and possible scenarios would lead to nuclear war, but it didn't. This is exactly the same.
Since you already have this implanted image of the way things are going to turn out, all you can see are the signs that point to that direction.

When I leave this forum, all I see are things getting better and better. I come here and everything is getting worst and worst. The world is a better place today now then it was 5 years ago, yet you would have us believe we are going downhill.

Have you ever heard that the smarter one is, the easier it is to scam him.
This is a fact, and it is because smarter people are able to intelectualize how "this makes perfect sense" and are able to rationalize how it would work out. Whereas the stupid people just ignore it as a scam.

There are a lot of very smart people on this board. Your intelligence is also your weakness. Your ability to rationalize how things make sense will lead you to wrong conclusions, because a manipulator is selective with their facts and information. Just because something makes sense, doesn't mean it is right.

Example: When traveling at any speed above 15 miles per hour on a motorcycle, if you want to turn left, you turn the bars to the left. If you want to turn right, turn the bars to the right. The bike turns because the rear wheel is following the front one. A lean is applied to keep the bike from falling the other way. This is how a bike turns.

Makes sense doesn't it, it seems right. But that there ^^^ is totally wrong. Let me explain.

When you want to turn right, you turn the bars to the left. And when you want to turn left, you turn the bars to the right? What happens is that the gyroscopic motion of the engine and wheels keep the bike upright. When you turn the bars to the left, the bike wants to keep going straight, but the wheel is turned. This causes the bike to actually fall over to the opposite side. Depending on how far you turn the bars to the left, the farther the bike falls to the right. This falling is actually the lean. And the lean is what makes you turn.

See how things change when you add more information. All of a sudden what you thought made perfect sense doesn't seem right anymore. You need to figure a lot more stuff out before you go calling the end of the world.

[OilBurner]

I agree with the fundamentals of what Yam is saying.

There's a lot of negative thought and feelings here and a tendency to dismiss optimism out of hand.
I think it makes good sense to regularly challenge ones assumptions, no matter how core they are to ones beliefs.
I don't think either that it requires anyone to be an "expert" to reasonably come along and say "are you sure about this, it seems wrong to me".
Yes, many people have worked hard to try and prove various concepts: the fundamentals of peak oil, the irreplacabiity of oil, the impracticality of alternatives, etc.
It doesn't mean that it isn't worth doing again, and again and again.
However, Yam, I think you need more data and specific references to help back up what you're saying otherwise we'll end up in a "I'm right, you're wrong" loop that benefits no-one.

[Arraitz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here's a lot of negative thought and feelings here and a tendency to dismiss optimism out of hand.
I think it makes good sense to regularly challenge ones assumptions, no matter how core they are to ones beliefs.
I don't think either that it requires anyone to be an "expert" to reasonably come along and say "are you sure about this, it seems wrong to me".
Yes, many people have worked hard to try and prove various concepts: the fundamentals of peak oil, the irreplacabiity of oil, the impracticality of alternatives, etc.
It doesn't mean that it isn't worth doing again, and again and again.
However, Yam, I think you need more data and specific references to help back up what you're saying otherwise we'll end up in a "I'm right, you're wrong" loop that benefits no-one.

[goldfishbowl42]

Ok, I'm new to this forum and this topic. I have read the opening post and a selection of others along the way but there are too many to read them all so I may repeat some things people have already said. Here we go.

We have two possible routes it could go down.

For a soft landing we need :

This requires us to immediately now start changing to wind and solar and all other renewable forms of power now. This in turn requires a kind of manhatan project for renewable power, which requires the government to be honest with us or people will not want to pay the prices and just elect the party that says they will stop doing it and save money short term (very short term).

Honesty is the problem. To change in time it requires everyone to know whats happening and agree on one way to go. The government can't drag the people along without telling them or they become unelectable.

If they tell people the panic would be immense. The Stock market functions on people being able to keep promises, and on an ecconomy that can continually expand. Even zero growth for 1 year would make it all collapse as no-one wants to leave their money in stagnat stocks. One thing that would make them money would be to buy oil stocks (short term) but if everyone does that prices go up far too fast!!!

The country cannot function if you tell everyone before the crash, that it is going to happen as that effectively creates the crash anyway.



For a hard landing we need :

A point of realisation that oil in in depletion rather than increased production. Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia is the largest on the planet. Estimated total recovery is 60 billion barrels. So far it has produced 56 billion barrels, at 1.8 billion barrels per year. To continue getting the 4.5 million bpd out of it they pump in 7 million bpd of salt water to keep the pressure up. in past experience of this technique it damages the field and casues a sudden drop off like a cliff at the edge of a plateau rather than a gradual slope. One day, just as the deep water oil is depleting, 2 or 3 years from now, Ghawar will also shut down. That day it will be big News. Global production will only have dropped off a little, but significantly it will be visible to people unprepared for the fact.

For that to cause problems we will need stock market chaos. Oil prices will rise because of speculators looking to make profit. Lots of companies will suddenly become unviable and their stocks will go into free fall, more people will try to change their money into oil stocks, pushing the prices even higher.

People will become unemployed in vast numbers, defaulting on their morgage and credit card payments, car repayments, the ecconomy will be in free fall. People will loot shops for anything and everything as they cannot be controlled because of their numbers. In America in particular, lots of people will probably shoot each other in self deffence(or aggression). Eventually we will end up with dangerous city slums and heavily guarded communities trying to survive at subsistence level in the country side.

The government will simply fail to function as it collects no tax.

Food will become the currency, not small pieces of paper that nobody wants.



The question is not, can we have a soft landing. Yes we could if we weren't Human beings.

The question is, how do you really think people will act, now, and when the time comes.

[Aaron]

Yamaha,

Have you seen this?

http://128.42.10.107/media/Smalley_OEF_20031101_300k.wmv

[Mower]

This debate is precisely why I REFUSE to purchase the plethora of books about P.O. It may or may not be true. You haven't convinced me either way.

[Soft_Landing]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mower', 'T')his debate is precisely why I REFUSE to purchase the plethora of books about P.O. It may or may not be true. You haven't convinced me either way.

[Mower]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Soft_Landing', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mower', 'T')his debate is precisely why I REFUSE to purchase the plethora of books about P.O. It may or may not be true. You haven't convinced me either way.

[Leanan]

Yamaha, I suspect it isn't that people "can't refute" your points, it's that many of them are so silly most won't even bother.

Take, for example, your idea of building zillions of solar panels, and putting half of them on the other side of the world so we have power at night. There are so many things wrong with that idea I hardly know where to start. Where will we get the energy and materials to build so many solar panels? Why should people on the other side of the world allow us to take their share of solar energy, when they'll need it themselves? And how will it be transported here? Even if we could build cables, it's terribly inefficient to ship energy over distances that long.

You just don't seem to have put very much thought into your posts.

[Dvanharn]

When I read a professional's article or book, with lots of data, calculations, graphs and references, I have somethng to see and understand. When I read your speculations, you give me no reason to believe that they are sound, and I have seen many of them challenged and discredited.

Yamaha, if you are so sure of your ideas, why don't you either give us some data, or point us to someone you can. As an example, I doubt that you could lead a team to finance, plan, engineer and sell - for a profit - enough photovoltaic equipment to even occupy one manufacturing facility. I doubt that you even have the faintest clue about as to the economics and limitations of photovoltaic equipment production.

There are two types of dreamers - one makes his dreams come true, and the other is an idle speculator. Unless you can provide some data and references to justify your ideas, or convince someone with the desire and ability to turn those dreams into reality, you will convince few intelligent people that your ideas have merit.

This is my challenge to you: Give us a compiled list of all of your random technological dreams for the ultimate solution to the peak oil crisis, and I will work to refute them. Put your set of ideas into a coherent, logical order. However, be aware that such things take time, and it may be a few weeks before I get a chance to research everything in detail, but I will do it. If you get me the detailed list within a couple of days, I will give you credit for being serious, and be more convinced that you are not a game-player.

I don't think you will be able to take it on. You will probably rant and waffle and make excuses why you should not be rigorous and organized in your contributionto the peak oil debate, and either try to put me down or tell me to extract your ideas from the 6 pages of ramplings in this thread.

Sorry, if you are not coherent, organized, and willing to put in some effort, you will not get the answers you claim to be seeking.

I reserve the right to call you a weasel if you cannot rise to this challenge after all of the posting you have done here that shows little research.

It will take me far more time to critique your challenge than for you to write it. The ball is now in your court.

Dave van Harn

[OilBurner]

Wow, nuff respect Dave! What do you say Yam? I think the gauntlet has been and truly been thrown!

[Soft_Landing]

Nice post Dave. Well put.


Pidgeons Pidgeons Pidgeons
Pidgeons CAT Pidgeons
Pidgeons Pidgeons Pidgeons




And to Mower:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mower', 'I') think with an issue this significant, and the apparent fact that nothing will be done collectively in time anyhow, mean that debate should continue. I am not interested in accepting the doomsday scenario at face value, becuase, really, without the resources to survive it, myself and my family are proabaly destined to die. In that context I am prepared to listen to all sides.

[Falconoffury]

[/quote]HE SAYS ON HIS SITE that solar panels don't work because it takes as much energy to create them as they return. A lie is a lie no matter how you look at it.[/quote]

Solar panels aren't useful in that it takes years of operation for them to just pay back the energy that went into building them. After 30 years you probably made many times the energy input, but it comes in slowly. Oil starts giving you a massive return as soon as you burn it. Solar panels have low net energy compared to oil, so it would take millions of panels just to make a meaningful dent in the power grid. What company is going to take a big financial hit today making solar panels that won't be payed back for many years? Even then, the payback will be very slow. Oil field production starts paying back much more quickly after it starts to operate, and can pay for itself hundreds of times over after a few years of operation. Perhaps you misunderstood something on Matt's site.

The alternatives just produce less net energy, and we'll be headed into the stone ages without oil because of that fact. I'm not sure what you are asking here. A death is a death whether it's a slow of fast death.

[azreal60]

Guys, I have heard a bunch of peak oil issues refuted on the basis of its just to sell a book. Let me say once and for all, DO YOU PEOPLE NOT KNOW WHAT A LIBRARY IS !@#$@$.

I come from a family of librarians. Do you have any idea how hard they work to provide people with the books they want? If you want a copy of The parties over by Richard heinburg, there are 6 copys in my library system. They are pretty heavily reserved. (guess what, wisconsin is a hot spot for alternative energy awareness and awareness of peak oil) But if you want it and your library system does not have it, as the librarians to aquire a copy. Many times they will grant your request. It might take a bit of time, but its time well spent.

The reason that some of your arguments go unanswered is because you come to people who actually have spent the time and done the research. We are more than willing to answer intelligent debate with intelligent debate. But when it is more than obvious that you have not even read the most basic primer on the idea of peak oil, the ideals of economics, and physical realitity, lets face it yam, the people on this site are just to damn busy trying to figure out how to save the world to waste time on someone who consistantly refuses to learn. Everyone, every single point that you brought up that was even remotely close to being well thought out was refuted by more than one person often from completely different points of view.

You asked for experts without realizing that the point of a site like this is to Make all of us experts. No one here claimed to have done more than a mild amount of study other than some who have specialized area s of knowledge that are very advanced. We are all learning together, and it does you no credit to put in even a mild amount of effort in seeing what people who Have done huge amounts of study and are better authors than me might have put together.

The point is, get your behind to a library and stop saying this is to sell you something. You want to be unprepared for peak oil, go ahead and stop posting. It is definatly not something i would advise, but you are reaching the limits of peoples patience. I will take many things, but a man who refuses to learn is definatly not one of them.

[Falconoffury]

Azreal is right. You can't just lazily ask the experts to refute your arguments. You aren't even an expert in the points you make. We already went into discussion about the undersea power line. Let's talk about your electricity to hydrogen argument.

Hydrogen has many limitations, and I will list a few. While it can be stored, it can't be stored as efficiently and long as oil. A casing of platinum is the only efficient way to store hydrogen. Remember that hydrogen is the first element and is basically just a single proton. It escapes very easily, but luckily platinum is dense enough to hold most of it, but of course platinum is a rare and valuable metal. Also remember that hydrogen needs to be stored under pressure. A puncture of the storage casing could cause an explosion, much like popping a balloon. Oil needs neither pressure nor platinum to store. It's fine as long as you keep it away from fire.

Hydrogen vehicles are not widely produced because a single car costs about 1 million dollars to make. Last I checked, Honda and Toyota are each making about 1 car per month. Part of the great expense is securing the platinum. So, it doesn't look likely, even 10 years from now, to see hydrogen vehicles being widely used.

You also made a point that people will adapt because prices won't go up too fast. All that will do is make it a slow death. Fossil fuels are directly, and I'll repeat that, DIRECTLY responsible for the world being able to produce the amount of food that it produces. My proof is in this article:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... g_oil.html

Yamaha, you gave us some numbers of how many solar panels can be created with a certain amount of money. Why don't you tell us how much energy we will get for that many panels? There's a lot more to it than money, there's energy, resources, and time. Factor those numbers into your equation and get back to us.

Am I an expert? Not in the least. I'm just a nerd. I'm a nerdy software engineer and programmer who likes to surf the web and read nerdy stuff in his spare time. I like to learn, unlike most people. Everything I learned was for free just reading articles and message boards on the web. It doesn't take a college degree in a field to learn. It just takes a brain and desire to take advantage of the vast wealth of knowledge that the internet provides.

[Falconoffury]

One more thing, Yamaha. If Matt wanted to be make more money, he would be working as a lawyer right now. Nobody is trying to sell anything. The guy is selflessly devoting his life to informing people about this while barely scraping up a living.

I wouldn't call him obsessive at all. Obsessive is usually defined as an illogical fixation on something, but I feel like his reasoning is very sound on this subject. He is simply preparing for a world that is in for great changes very soon.

[Soft_Landing]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Falconoffury', 'H')ydrogen has many limitations, and I will list a few. While it can be stored, it can't be stored as efficiently and long as oil. A casing of platinum is the only efficient way to store hydrogen.

[Canuck]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mower', '
')I think with an issue this significant, and the apparent fact that nothing will be done collectively in time anyhow, mean that debate should continue.

[MattSavinar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mower', 'T')his debate is precisely why I REFUSE to purchase the plethora of books about P.O. It may or may not be true. You haven't convinced me either way.