[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('coffeeguyzz', '
')He displayed near total ignorance about anything, yet vociferously defended his "running out real soon" position.
Curious how anyone could take him seriously.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donstewart', '@')all you guys criticizing Patzek
It can be proven that a baseball player cannot physically catch a baseball unless their brain engages in very rapid and unconscious error detection and correction. So when you dredge up statements from the past, and then try to damn the person for having changed their mind or refined their position, you are only revealing your own ignorance about how humans survive in the world.

[donstewart]

@Adam B
I have no obligation to prove anything to you. And I have zero interest in trying.
Don Stewart

[donstewart]

@asg70

Couple of tidbits to shore up the concepts laid out in Barrett’s Emotions book.

First, Michael Moore looks at Finland’s highly successful schools. Note the Default Network in action. Nose-to-the-grindstone is counter productive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVCTqgrFIPs

Second, Barrett demonstrates that what we think we are doing is clearly impossible. We THINK we see something and react to it. But we actually react to what we expected to see. Sometimes we will error correct for the next moments in time, and sometimes we ignore reality.

Page 60:
'If your brain were merely reactive, it would be too inefficient to keep you alive. You are always being bombarded by sensory input. One human retina transmits as much visual data as a fully loaded computer network connection in every waking moment; now multiply that by every sensory pathway you have. A reactive brain would bog down like your Internet connection does when too many of your neighbors are streaming movies from Netflix. A reactive brain would also be too expensive, metabolically speaking, because it would require more interconnections that it could maintain.

Evolution literally wired your brain for efficient prediction.’

So we are perceiving the world through models which compress raw data into feelings, including emotions. Which is one reason that eye-witness testimony is frequently wrong. Or that memories in general are not very accurate in terms of detailed facts. Our brain and mind are not at all like digital computers, which is one of Nora Bateson’s points.

Which leads us back to the question of what we do with complex systems. Are they hopelessly out of our control? Or can we build models which are good enough to give us some influence? And can we summon the sapience to influence them in positive ways rather than disastrous ways?

Don Stewart

[ROCKMAN]

Don - OK, let's try one more time. You can cherry pick gasoline yields if you like to support your position. I can do likewise and make your position look like do-do. LOL. But neither approach changes the FACT:

"Light, sweet crudes have a higher proportion of the light molecules used to make premium fuels like gasoline, naphtha, and – to some extent – diesel. Heavy crudes have a higher proportion of molecules that can only be used to make diesel fuel or residual fuels oils that are sold at a discount to ships or power producers."

That's from this "primer" on the refinery industrty:

http://canaryusa.com/crude-oil-refinery-primer/

But as explained many times: the US refinery industry does not process heavy conventional oil, light condensate oil or even 39° API WTI. It refines blended oils whose gravity has been rather constant at 32° API for many decades. Neither the heavy oil nor WTI can be refined to deliver the gasoline yields the refineries INSIST on producing. Both such "conventional oils" (as you classify them) MUST BE BLENDED with the "lite-tite oils (again as you classify them).

So let's look at the makeup of US oils. Again from the EIA:

"API gravity: In 2016, the majority (51%) of the 8.4 million bopd of crude oil produced in the Lower 48 states was light oil, or less dense oil with an API gravity of 40.1 or above. Light oil also made up more than half of the oil produced in 2015."

"State-level data show the difference in crude oil API gravity in different parts of the country. For example, oil produced in Texas has a relatively broad distribution of API gravities, with most production ranging from 30–50 degrees API. Oil produced in North Dakota tends to be light (less dense). About 90% of North Dakota’s oil production has an API gravity of 40.1–50.0 degrees. California’s oil is mostly heavy (more dense), and more than 90% has an API gravity of less than 30 degrees."

Got that: neither the light Texas/ND oils nor the abundant heavy "conventional oils" from CA provide the product yields the refineries INSIST UPON. Which is why before the boom in light oil production from the shales our refineries were FORCED TO IMPORT LIGHT OIL to blend with our "conventional oil".

From the EIA: Prior to the "lite oil" boom from the shales about 9% of the oil imported by our refineries was 40°+ API. Now, again thanks to the shales, the import of those NECESSARY lite oils HAS DECLINED 70%:

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafH ... 000452&f=A

IOW the refineries are processing the same blended oils today as they have been for decades. The only difference is that the most lite oil component is being produced domestically instead of being imported.

So the bottom line: US gasoline yields have not changed because the US is producing more of the lite oil needed to blend with the heavier "conventional oils" since the composition of the blended oil the refineries HAVE PROCESSED FOR DECADES HAS NOT CHANGED. And how do we know the gasoline yield hasn't changed as a result of the increase in US "lite-tite oil" (again, as you classify it)? Because our friends at the EIA keep track US refinery gasoline yields. US REFINERY GASOLINE YIELDS THAT HAVE HELD UNIFORMLY AROUND 45% FOR AT LEAST THE LAST 25 YEARS.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafH ... FRYUS3&f=M

Don, these are the FACTS as presented from an independent source, the EIA. Either you understand now or you don't. If folks want to continue to try to educate you that's their choice. For me, I resign. LOL.

[ROCKMAN]

BTW trying to support a position by using an analogy is a very poor way of trying to achieve a goal IMHO. Much like trying to pound a nail in with a wrench instead of a hammer.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donstewart', '
')So we are perceiving the world through models which compress raw data into feelings, including emotions. Which is one reason that eye-witness testimony is frequently wrong. Or that memories in general are not very accurate in terms of detailed facts. Our brain and mind are not at all like digital computers, which is one of Nora Bateson’s points.

[donstewart]

@Rockman
Analogies are useful, and maybe essential, for thinking. So if the current situation is not satisfactory to you, and you are trying to think about how you might change things, then analogies may be very useful. Does the use of an analogy comprise 'proof'? Of course not. Lots of analogies fail the test in the laboratory. But it may also be true that if you don't use analogies to suggest new paths, you will never get anywhere. I'm from Missouri, and our mules were famously resistant to analogies.

Don Stewart

[donstewart]

@asg70
I have on several occasions pointed to the work of Adrian Bejan at Duke, The Constructal Law, which states that anything which flows will evolve in the direction of easier flow. This is in the opposite direction of the Second Law, as that Second Law might be naively applied.

Now let's take seriously the work of the neuroscientists which is summarized in Barrett's book. Assume for the sake of argument that having pleasant emotions is a reasonable goal in life. Is it NECESSARY to have a boatload of fossil fuels to have pleasant emotions? We have no evidence that it is necessary. Marshall Sahlins called the hunter- gatherers 'the original leisure society', and I believe the evidence is still on his side.

But we can also say with some assurance that a boatload of fossil fuels are NECESSARY to keep the current financialized consumer society afloat.

Can society come to grips with the notion that the debts are never going to be repaid and that people are going to have to try to find pleasant emotions in much less energy and material intensive ways? The experience in Greece does not breed optimism. The steely eyed bankers in Frankfurt don't really care about the emotions of Greek people...they want their money. Where they are actually getting it is from the taxpayers in the EU, since the Greeks simply don't have it.

IF there really are solutions, they will have to come out of the bubbling cauldron of the Default Network. Which is one of the things that is interesting about the schools in Finland.

Don Stewart

[ROCKMAN]

Don - "But it may also be true that if you don't use analogies to suggest new paths, you will never get anywhere.". In the past 40 years in the oil patch I've found that DOCUMENTED FACTS (such as those in my long post above which you have yet to respond to) are a much more powerful approach then analogies to lead to new useful paths. LOL.

BTW I'm still waiting for anyone to point out that I used an analogy to disparage the use of analogies. HELLO!!! HELLO!!! WAKE UP OUT THERE!!! LOL.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donstewart', '
')We have no evidence that it is necessary. Marshall Sahlins called the hunter- gatherers 'the original leisure society', and I believe the evidence is still on his side.

[donstewart]

@asg70
Daniel Quinn asks some very fundamental, Default Network, kind of questions.
Don Stewart

[donstewart]

@Rockman
I used to analyze certain sets of data for a living. Refinery inputs and outputs was not one of them.

My experience taught me that amateurs should tread lightly when analyzing data. Therefore, I have tried to stay out of the food fight about what the EIA data says or doesn't say. The data I quoted was from a company selling catalysts to the refining industry. Their point was that LTO oil was not like middle-weight crudes (which are also not like bitumen or Orinoco Heavy).

The very light crudes don't produce much Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO)...at least according to the way I was reading the catalyst company charts. The VGO is not initially either gasoline or diesel, but can be processed into gasoline and/or diesel. The middle weight oils produce a lot more VGO than LTO oils.

The LTO oils will produce more naphtha, but naphtha doesn't have the market value per gallon that gasoline or diesel have.

And remember what I said about not wanting to get involved in the food fight. Take the above for whatever it may be worth.
Don Stewart

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donstewart', '@')asg70
Daniel Quinn asks some very fundamental, Default Network, kind of questions.

[donstewart]

@asg70
I was participating in something several years ago, and Quinn was supposed to appear. He didn't show. He called to say he wasn't feeling well. (I think he is quite old now.) Then about 6 months ago he did an interview with Chris Martenson. Martenson would ask some convoluted question and Quinn would say 'I haven't given that any thought.' Then there would be an awkward pause while Martenson tried to decide what to do next.

I wouldn't want to be on the interviewer side of a discussion with Quinn. But at the time, it struck me as refreshing that if someone has no answer for a question, they just say so.

Don Stewart

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('donstewart', '@')Adam B
I have no obligation to prove anything to you. And I have zero interest in trying.
Don Stewart

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'B')TW trying to support a position by using an analogy is a very poor way of trying to achieve a goal IMHO. Much like trying to pound a nail in with a wrench instead of a hammer.

[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AdamB', '
')http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... oomer.html

[donstewart]

@Adam B
see the above response to Rockman. I found some charts. They seem to suggest something. So far, nobody has explained to me why my understanding of the charts is wrong, nor how the charts are somehow 'fake'.

If you want me to dig into the EIA and other data, you have got the wrong guy. As I told Rockman, I used to analyze certain types of data which mostly had nothing to do with refineries. I know how slippery statistics can be. It would take me a long time to develop expertise in refinery statistics. I don't intend to devote the time and energy to it.

I will content myself with pointing at stuff which 'seems to indicate' something.

Don Stewart

[Cog]

Don't let it bother you Don. Most doomers don't take the time to understand the particular doom they are pushing. They are content with the mantra "We are all doomed because of this graph" sort of thinking and let it go from there.