[yesplease]

Ehm... World energy production alone isn't an indicator, it's world energy production combined with efficiency that matters. We could pull a quadrillion bpd out of the crust, but if that's all we do (no use, farming, etc) , we gonna diez!

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'W')e won't get bloggers from those countries who can't buy any more fuel. Blogging would take a satt phone internet connection and those are few in the best of times in the 3rd world, in a country that's about to enter serious dieoff, anyone with that kind of setup would have gotten out of there.

countries like that will simply drop out of the info-sphere, like lights winking out.

[keehah]

Its happening now, just not to all of u.s. Yet.

Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution
· Colombian farmers driven out as armed groups profit
Guardian UK
As authors have said the last few weeks:
Imagine the end of the world in moderation.
Because collapse will not be televised, you will not know that it has happened. You will only know that it has happened to you.
[url=http://carolynbaker.org/archives/unprepared-uncompensated-and-clueless-prophets-have-become-historians-by-carolyn-baker]Collapse is happening, and it’s happening NOW.
[/url]

[Dan1195]

While I agree we are likely in for serious problems, I think the decline he shows is simply too fast. I am optimistic we can get by (as least in the developed world) for another 2 years without significant fuel shortages in the U.S. barring another Major gulf hurricane strike or other "discontinuity". Sure it may be 4-5 dollars a gallon. But we will have it.

My reasoning: 2008 is the last hurrah as far as meaningful new production coming online. I expect oil production to be flat or even a slight increase if Nigerian shut in comes back online. There are still other countries we can price out of the market at that higher cost, mostly is S. America and Southeast Asia.

Coal and NG production can still be ramped up on a worldwide basis also, so I dont see any kind of "cliff" for energy production as a whole at least until oil starts to make real declines, then all bets are off, but I would assume fuel would be set aside to allow access to coal and other resources.

I think a lot of Duncan's "cliff" predictions are dependent on permanent grid collapse in industrialized countries. I have had trouble believing this will happen. Yes the infrastructure is old and some countries may have more issues then others depending on their main fuel sources for that energy. But you will simply have rolling blackouts for peak periods. Even if they Grid shuts down like in August 2003, you just restart it up. Why you wouldnt be able to reboot it has been my biggest problem with the Olduvai Theory.

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'W')e won't get bloggers from those countries who can't buy any more fuel. Blogging would take a satt phone internet connection and those are few in the best of times in the 3rd world, in a country that's about to enter serious dieoff, anyone with that kind of setup would have gotten out of there.

countries like that will simply drop out of the info-sphere, like lights winking out.

[Twilight]

There are other ways of getting the word out, but all are cut off by the very thing you are trying to observe:

- Tourists: Collapse will be accompanied by sharp declines in the tourist trade, and/or by natural restriction of travel to ever-shrinking and ever more unrepresentative areas of the country, dictated by economic or civil order considerations.

- Business travellers: Some like to share their insights, but obviously a collapsed economy justifies few expensive air fares.

- Civil servants: I came up with this partly in jest; gone are the days when representatives of Empire were free to record their contemplation of local conditions.

The few people who remain with the means to chronicle collapse, by definition will be insulated from it.

[Twilight]

A couple of observations:

The first, from Argentina, mirrors the agricultural diesel situation in Kansas.

(For comparison)

Note the available recourse is... fines. Compared to the downside, being a bad harvest.

The second is another country, South Africa, trapped between the 1st and 3rd world, gradually slipping towards the latter.

It's these kinds of places that are worth watching.

[shortonoil]

from Twilight’s source:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ccording to media reports, farmers and truckers say fuel distributors don't want to import diesel to meet local demand, because they would have to sell it at a loss under Argentine government price controls.

[keehah]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e could probably survive Peak Oil, whether we can overcome the millions years of evolution it took to create a specific organ; one with very specific capabilities geared for the survival of the organism in a highly specific environment

[shortonoil]

keehah said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')aleontologists have long puzzled over the mass extinction at the end of the Permian. There is no evidence for a large asteroid impact, but sharp changes in carbon isotope ratios indicate something triggered massive releases of frozen methane hydrates from under the sea floor and in permafrost.

[eXpat]

Solaris from TOD has compiled a good list of countries where the effects of demand destruction is starting to hit hard, link here

[Roccland]

Ok - so I got this post from Jay Hanson's group killer_ape_peak_oil and was confused by what the email preceeding the Oil and Gas Journal article (by Sam Fletcher) said (in bold below)...

My questions ...is Richard Duncan agreeing with "Walter" or is "Walter" saying that 2030 is a more realistic window to Duncan or both.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rom: Richard Duncan Subject: OPEC "diminished"
Background: Previously we’d discussed that world oil production had declined by 0.3 percent from January-April 2007 compared to January-April 2006 (O&GJ, July 2, 2007, page 21). Then yesterday Walter called my attention to the following article by Sam Fletcher (O&GJ, July 16, 2007, page 76: copied below).

After explaining its importance and relevance, he added: “It appears that Matt is correct about Saudi oil. Moreover, 100 years seems about right for Industrial Civilization.”
Rich

OPEC spare productive capacity ‘diminished’--Increasing global demand for crude and natural production declines have diminished the excess productive capacity of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its power to manipulate oil prices, said analysts J. Marshall Adkins and Collin Gerry in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest oil producer, plans to raise its production capacity to 12.5 million b/d by 2012 from 10.5 million b/d currently. “For the record, we don’t think the magnitude of this increase is attainable,” said Adkins and Gerry in a July 9 report. “The more relevant issue is that declining productivity and political instability of other OPEC member nations are likely to mute any success that Saudi Arabia has with increasing OPEC’s productive capacity,” they said.

Potential OPEC production increases are offset by five member countries that are facing either permanent production declines or structural constraints, they said. “Over the past 40 years, OPEC has historically had a cushion of anywhere between 4-16 million b/d, excluding certain geopolitical events (which occurred mainly in the 1970s),” Raymond James reported. That gave the cartel its control of oil markets. “Today, OPEC’s excess capacity has all but disappeared,” the analysts said.

In October 2006, when domestic and international oil inventories were at relatively high levels and increasing, OPEC announced a two-part production cut that would take some 1.7 million b/d of crude off the market. In aggregate, the cartel successfully implemented more than half of the proposed cuts, between 1-1.2 million b/d with roughly half of that attributed to Saudi Arabia. “However, this may be somewhat misleading. Looking at the production trends over the past year, it appears that at least a third of the decline in OPEC production has been involuntary in nature,” said Adkins and Gerry.

OPEC production now is 1.9 million b/d below its peak in October 2005. “It appears that nearly half of this decline is attributable to involuntary cuts” by Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, and Venezuela, said the Raymond James analysts. The aggregate production of these four countries, “which constitutes 30% of total OPEC production, was declining well before the cartel initiated its official cuts,” analysts said.

National breakdowns: Oil prices surged to 10-month highs July 6 as militants in Nigeria ended a month-long truce with an attack on a well site and the kidnapping of a 3-year-old British girl. The child was grabbed by gunmen July 5 as she was being dropped off at school in Port Harcourt by her father, an employee in the petroleum industry. She was released apparently unharmed July 8, but three foreign workers were abducted. More than 200 foreigners, mostly oil workers or members of their families, have been kidnapped in Nigeria since January 2006. Nearly all were subsequently released or freed by government soldiers.

“Because of these internal problems, Nigeria has been forced to shut in as much as 800,000-1 million b/d of production, and it now produces about 2 million b/d. We don’t expect peace to break out in this country anytime soon. In fact, the recent escalation of kidnappings (particularly from offshore operations) is likely to drive more operators and service companies away from the region,” said Adkins and Gerry.

Venezuela’s access to foreign capital and technology has diminished rapidly in the last few years because of President Hugo Chavez’s drive to again nationalize the country’s petroleum resources. “Since early 2005, Venezuela’s production has gradually and consistently declined from the 2.8 million b/d range to closer to 2.3 million b/d, which is a decline of 15% in just over 2 years. Without outside investment or know-how, that decline is likely to get worse before it gets better,” the analysts said.

The political climate in Iraq and Iran is not conducive for foreign investment. Politics and sabotage have prevented Iraq from obtaining its pre-war production levels. US companies are prohibited from doing business in Iran, and many Europeans are afraid to make major investments. “Iran’s production has been stagnating near the 3.9 million b/d level for 2½ years now. Without access to foreign capital, and more importantly, foreign technology and infrastructure, the prospect of increasing production meaningfully higher remains unlikely,” analysts said.

“Indonesia’s production stagnated for most of the 1990s until it began a permanent decline in 2000 from the 1.7 million b/d level to the current level of approximately 800,000 b/d. In fact, Indonesia is struggling to maintain its status as a net exporter of oil, as it now imports almost as much or more than it produces,” Adkins and Gerry said. (Online July 9, 2007; author’s e-mail: samf@ogjonline.com)

Oil & Gas Journal July 16, 2007 vol 105, issue 27 Author: Sam Fletcher
To access this article, go to: link Copyright © 2007: PennWell Corporation, Tulsa, OK; All Rights Reserved.

[Roccland]

Richard Duncan just sent this message to me offline:



$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ll of my studies define the duration of Industrial Civilization by Ackerman’s (“White’s”) Law: The ratio of world energy production and world population (abbreviated as ‘e’). IC ends when e decreases to about 3.44 boe/c/year (the same value it had in 1930). Read (with care) my latest essay in The Social Contract Quarterly, Spring 2007 where IC ends in 2030 (Figure 2, exactly as I’ve shown for the past 14 years).

Regards,
RCD


PS: The US EIA is now publishing ‘e’ from its own database, in precise agreement with mine: see www.eia.doe.gov. Then select ‘International’ and scroll down.

[jato]

link to image

Yes, it was originally 2030. I think he moved it up to 2025 a couple of years ago (IIRC).

The trolls here like to point to the beginning of the cliff (2012, or the recent update 2008). They say the lights should be going out next year or Duncan is wrong. They miss the point. The process, according to Duncan, will take several decades.

I tend to agree with Duncan's original time frame (2012-2030). Have the nay-sayers check back with me in 2030 and see where modern industrial civilization stands.

[I_Like_Plants]

Yes it was 1930-2030 then he moved it up a couple-few years, but 2030 was always the end date originally.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Who cares, is it 2030 or 2040?
Who cares, is the beginning of cliff at 2008 or 2012 (or 2015)?
If correct, Duncan's theory will prove to be most spectacular one dealing with prospects of civilized humankind.

If by 2050 most of electricity is gone, Duncan is still right.

[NeoPeasant]

Iraq Power Grid Near Collapse

<i>"We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having,"</i> said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.

Is this a preview of what Richard Duncan believes is in store for us?

[PraiseDoom]

[quote="NeoPeasant

Is this a preview of what Richard Duncan believes is in store for us?[/quote]

Nah, just the natural consequence of bad management and incompetent aboriginies.

Prophet Duncans Gorge is to be a seminal event the likes of which mankind has never seen. Apparently it started back in 99 or thereabouts, and even though the non believers have a tough time seeing the signs, us faithful will dutifully wait a long time before actually admitting the error within the Prophets predictions.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')Many southern provinces such as Basra, Diwaniyah, Nassiriyah, Babil have disconnected their power plants from the national grid. Northern provinces, including Kurdistan, are doing the same," al-Shimari said. "We have absolutely no control over some areas in the south," he added.

[oiless]

AFAIK they didn't have power or fuel problems before they were liberated.
However resource wars are a symptom of the gorge as I recall, so their liberation might be a symptom, so I guess all chaos following from their liberation could also be a symptom.