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Page added on July 4, 2015

The End of the Oil Age

Norman Pagett (The End of More)

But how can we define an oil age? It has been about 150 years since the first deep oilwells were sunk, and just over 200 years since the viable steam engine was developed. The two are linked, because the steam engine made deep drilling of oilwells possible and gave us access to a hundred million years worth of fossilized sunlight. Perhaps we have not strictly had an oil age, but rather the first and only age where we enjoy vast amounts of surplus energy that we have extracted from hydrocarbon fuels, of which oil is the most energy dense. It has brought us material wealth, and the means to indulge in wholesale killing of each other and all other species. It gave excesses of food and a population that consumed that food and grew to five or six times the sustainable level of the planet. In the timespan of human existence, the ascendance of modern industrialised man has been a short flash of light and heat that has briefly lifted us out of the mire of the middle ages, but at a considerable cost to the environment.

Our mistake has been to think of that elevation as both divine and permanent. That certainty of permanence explains the mad scramble to come up with ‘alternatives’ and ‘renewables’ in the last decade or two. Something to keep current politicians in office and the masses pacified. It is important that we accept the seductive indoctrination that prayers will be answered and technology will continue to deliver all that can be imagined. The majority have come to believe in the economics of cornucopianism, where wishing for something will make it happen, while ignoring the reality that everything we have is derived from finite hydrocarbon fuels. If we spend enough money, alternatives will always be found to sustain our lifestyle. They won’t of course, and the conflicts that have been fought over oil are proof that they won’t. The pivot of world oil economy is Saudi Arabia, (the concept of ‘Saudi America’ is too ludicrous for discussion here), but that fantasy land of sand dunes and tall towers is being encircled by fanatics who know that when the jugular of global oil is cut, the industrial complexity of the developed west will die.

When (not if) that happens, we might be lucky to hold onto an existence akin to that of the 14th century, which is what the religious zealots want to inflict on all of us. If we’re unlucky, then we must expect something that will be much darker and as yet inadmissible to modern minds that do not have the scope to deal with its implications. That infers an unpleasant imagery of pre-history that we prefer to ignore. Understandably, most think the same way; this is why we cling to the comforting promise of ‘infinite growth’. The alternative is just too awful. Instead we have been encouraged to believe that we can do without oil and not only still run around on wheels, but have a purpose for doing so. And by some means yet to be invented, keep our wings as well.

Our oil age will not end through lack of it, but by fighting over what’s left. So choose your luck‐factor and take that thought where you will, you are on your own with it. Many reasons are given for starting wars, but ultimately there is only one: the pursuit of (energy) resources. Human greed drove improvements in weaponry, and the means of destruction and acquisition became more deadly over thousands of years even though there was more than enough for everyone. The input of oil was the game changer of warfare; history over the last century has shown that conflict was not diminished, but amplified, by the prosperity and technology created by oil. Since the 1860s when black gold gushed from the earth, the economic and political thinking of the pre‐oil era was seamlessly grafted onto the industrial potential of the 19th century, thereby enabling Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and many others to accumulate fabulous wealth. Their business acumen was undeniable, but none of it could have been brought into existence without energy-rich oil. The use of fossil fuels in our military machines industrialised our methods of killing while at the same time becoming synonymous with progress and commerce. War became a business, the purpose of which was the acquisition of more energy in the pursuit of profit. Battlefield deaths on an industrial scale were an unlisted debit on balance sheets.

WWI started with the muscle power of horses and ended with tanks, demonstrating the murderous scope of mechanized warfare. Recognizing the critical value of oil and its sources, leaders carved up the Middle East to ensure its supply. An exercise in map making in the 1920s by the English and French civil servants Sykes and Picot set the scene for carnage that has raged throughout the Middle East ever since. Arbitrary lines in the sand were drawn, artificial oil states in the Persian Gulf region were created without regard to tribal affiliations, and a quarrelsome orphan Israel was dumped into the lap of unwilling Bedouins. As the quantity of oil there became apparent, all the major nations were drawn into the race for it because those who controlled this key resource were certain to subjugate those who did not.

The critical nature of oil made WWII inevitable. To sustain their empires, the Germans and Japanese slaughtered their way across Europe and Asia in a grab for resources, primarily oil. They promised infinite prosperity and their peoples cheered them on while deaths elsewhere were being counted in millions. With most of the world’s known oil supplies in the hands of his enemies, Adolf Hitler knew he had to have the oilfields of southern Russia and the Middle East to sustain his war machine. He failed, and his dream of a ‘Greater Germany’ collapsed not because of inferior soldiers but because there was insufficient energy input to sustain his plan for world domination. Hitler’s perception of infinite growth in his ‘thousand year Reich’ mirrors our present-day view of ‘permanent affluence’: vast quantities of oil had to be burned to sustain his fantasy. In our desperate scramble for ever-diminishing energy resources, we are in the same mad race to perpetuate the delusion of infinite economic growth. The oil pendulum has swung the other way with roughly 85% of world oil now outside the borders of the USA and Canada in countries not always of a friendly disposition. And just like the Fuhrer, political leaders of today are promising that which is beyond their means to provide. To mask this reality, they have invaded oil-producing nations in the name of ‘freedom’, claiming ‘victories’ which have left only wreckage and simmering animosity behind. So too did Hitler spread a similar line of propaganda that he was liberating other nations from the threat of communism. The second world war that left Europe and Japan flattened in 1945 might be seen as history, but it was just the first of many oil wars, and the politics of it were a side issue. WWII serves as a grim reminder of how violent and destructive humans can be in their ruthless pursuit of energy resources. Hitler’s own ‘oil age’ lasted just twelve years, and it set the pattern for the world oil age that is now in terminal decline.

Don’t be deceived by the democratic righteousness that defeated Hitler’s fascism. 150 years earlier the American empire was created with the same kind of energy grab. The European immigrant peoples who forced their way across America from the 1700s onwards needed resources on which to survive and to sustain the prosperity of an expanding nation just as the Germans and the Japanese did in 1940. The native inhabitants of the American continent were in the way of civilization and progress; their subjugation was a precursor to what happened later in Europe and Asia. Expansive prairies had to be cleared to convert the energy locked in grain and meat to feed the invaders and provide negotiable currency. This self-perpetuating process went into overdrive with the discovery of oil, and the ultimate conversion of that oil into more food resources and hardware added to the wealth of the growing nation. An expanding population needed employment, and the raw energy from oil, coal, and gas supplied it. America and the rest of the industrialised world had the means to build bigger, better, faster machines in endless succession, and created the most powerful country on earth. Everybody was going to be rich, forever. The universal law of consumption was relentless: more demanded more.

Meat and grain grew with relatively little human intervention, but other crops needed to be worked with human muscle. So the slave trade came into being. Slavery might be given many unpleasant names, but essentially it is the acquisition of one energy form to convert it into another for profit. Buy and feed the slave, use slave labour to do work, sell the product of that work. By the time the slave is worn out, several more will have been produced. This was simple economics by 18th century standards but the human consequences were again horrific, costing more millions of lives. It also brought on the American civil war where the slave‐muscled South was overwhelmed by the industrialised muscle that drove the armies of the North.

All the European empires forged out of so-called ‘empty lands’ across the world followed a similar pattern of resource acquisition and an absolute disregard for weaker peoples. It is an unpleasantness that we choose to ignore, but it confirms the killing force that drives us to acquire and convert energy to our own use. The seemingly limitless amount of oil and its energy density appeared to be the answer to all our labour problems. Oil became our ultimate slave. Or so we thought.

We now have maybe 20 years worth of usable oil left. There are certainly no more than 30, perhaps as little as 10. If one of the crazy sects running loose in the Middle East managed to get hold of a nuclear device, setting it off on the Gharwar oilfield of Saudi Arabia, it would be endgame overnight. That is perhaps too bleak a prospect, but we should not discount that notion entirely.

Before our oil to food arrangement, the planet supported something over one billion people. We now have over seven billion, and the mothers of the next two billion are alive now and approaching the age of reproduction. Preachers, scientists and politicians will not stop the basic human function of eating and procreation, so if unchecked nine billion people will be here by 2040/50, and set to go on rising after that. Every new arrival expects to be fed, watered, clothed and housed, but by no stretch of the imagination will the global food system be able to feed that number let alone sustain them with what would be expected by way of the most basic material comfort. No one dares to stand up and make the rather obvious point that we are not going to reach 9 billion. Something has to give, and that giving is going to be very unpleasant.

In the first decade of the 21st century, numerous wars have been fought over oil, and are being fought now. Wars are fought over resources because on nature’s terms, gentle contentedness is not a good strategy for survival; we are collectively powerless against genetic forces that dictate our lives no matter how much we protest otherwise. Downsized to whatever level, nature will ultimately force the choice of survival or death, and the outcome will be of no consequence other than to you and yours. To expect humankind to change within a single generation is stretching credibility beyond breaking point. Those who look forward to a life of bucolic bliss in a downsized oil‐less world might do well to think about that. Whether killing and butchering an animal to eat it, or invading another nation to secure oil supplies, we must appropriate energy sources to facilitate survival. You may think there’s a choice about doing that, but there isn’t, other than in the matter of scale. Whether paying a butcher to cut and wrap your steak, or paying soldiers to invade Iraq, securing sufficient energy to live is what we have to do to survive.

For the moment, nature keeps us supplied with oil, and we’ve pulled off the neat trick of converting it directly into food. Not knowing when our oil is finished and our food supply will run out is the little teaser for the early 21st century. Right now, most people think that food comes from supermarket shelves and freezers, which is just as well. The food trucks moving around the country are basically mobile warehouses, delivering food just in time for it to be consumed. When the realization dawns that the food trucks have stopped, the food held in stock by retailers will be stripped bare in hours. The oil age for everyone will have come to an end.

But oil carries man’s destiny in far more subtle ways than food supplies. It holds nations together. The USA is a vast territory of disparate peoples and ideas, held together by a common bond of prosperity and a basic consensus that government and law generally works for the good of all. And the inhabitants of empires are always convinced that theirs is permanent and protected by gods. That definition would apply to many large nations to a greater or lesser degree. But the bonds that hold it together, godly or otherwise, are entirely subject to availability of affordable oil. Empires (and the USA is an empire) remain whole so long as the means exists to maintain them. Oil has become that means.

Without oil, the nation will begin its decline into disparate regions. Without interconnecting transport, the United States of America cannot remain united. The force necessary to prevent a breakup will not be there, so within a decade (probably far less) of oil supply failure, the USA will cease to exist. The cracks are already there along linguistic, economic, racial, political and geographic lines. Even now it would be possible to take a pretty good guess at where those regions will split off.

This will be denied and resisted of course, but armies and police forces have power only as long as their fuel lasts. They will be unable to prevent secession in whatever form it takes. It might just be that Washington will come to govern not much more than the original colonies. Given a suitably deranged political leader and prayers to the right god, fully armed groups are ready to believe that the ‘American Dream’ can be restored. Such demagoguery sets the stage for years of regional violence over the basics of life, particularly food and water. The horror of it will be justified by warped views of right and wrong, clinging to a denial mentality magnified beyond any imagining by the privation that an oil-less society will bring.

This scenario is not exclusive to the USA. The British Empire was built on coal. When the coal was gone the empire faded away. Then in the 80s and 90s the UK became awash with cheap oil from the North Sea, and everyone was reasonably prosperous, particularly Scotland. Now the oil surplus has gone, and the UK is in decline again as a net importer. The ‘oil prosperity’ is fading away. Scotland is losing its main source of income and wants to secede from the United Kingdom, convinced that independence will somehow restore their wealth. Things will get very unpleasant when they realize that an independent Scotland will eventually be reduced to the economic level of Greece. The link between oil and the ability to eat is clear. The UK has to import 40% of its food, and much of the rest depends on oil to produce it, which also has to be imported. It is the end of the UK’s oil age, but few admit to it being the end of a food age as well. The same problem is being revealed in the current fiasco of the European union, but a little more advanced than the USA and UK. Oil-fueled prosperity is falling dramatically in the poorer southern countries. Greece, Spain and Portugal and a swathe of smaller nations have to import all their oil which only worked when oil was cheap. Now it’s expensive, and they are facing bankruptcy. 50 years of ‘unity’ is dissolving like a mirage in the face of the difficulties that smaller states are suffering. Without cheap oil, their economies cannot function, and so are disintegrating. United Europe needs oil to stay united just as the USA does. Russia’s oil dependent economy is crumbling, and Putin is having to make threatening postures to divert attention from his problems. His oil age is ending in a different way and yet we cannot tell if his posturing is just that, but a shortage of resources in the past has invariably brought conflict.

Move to the Far East and the nations around the South China Sea are all threatening one another, again the focus of the argument being the oil and gas fields of the region. They all know that without oil they cannot survive, and are prepared to fight for every last drop of the stuff, no matter what the cost. As a measure of what the dispute is about, the volume of oil in question is 11 billion barrels. One billion barrels is less than a month of world consumption. They are preparing to fight over the last dregs in confirmation of man’s desperation over oil shortages. Eventually, this problem will hit every nation and individual on earth as our oil‐crutch is kicked away. And with the oil age fading into history for us all, there will be no shortage of violent resistance to this inconvenient truth.

Will technological innovation save us?…

Collapse of Civilization

38 Comments on "The End of the Oil Age"

Kenz300 on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 8:24 am

It is time to end the OIL monopoly on transportation fuels.

Bring on the electric, flex-fuel, hybrid, biodiesel, CNG, LNG and hydrogen fueled vehicles.

No more WARS for OIL.

shortonoil on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 8:31 am

“But how can we define an oil age?

An oil age is when a liquid hydrocarbon becomes generally available that can supply more energy per unit than is required to produce it. The rest of the article is a little hyperbole. Julius Caesar slaughter 1 million Franks, and enslaved another million. He didn’t have one drop of oil to help him; just old bronze swords. If there had been as many Franks as Hitler had Poles, and Russians he could have done just as good a job. Julius was obviously a man before his time.

When you take a substance with the potential of petroleum, and give to an animal that can be as nasty as Homo spapiens you can wind up with some pretty nasty results. The author does not need to blame oil for the problems of the Late Great Planet Earth. He just needs to look in a mirror!

freak on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 8:38 am

It is obvious that demise of the planet is baked into the cake and there are no real answers to stop its destruction.
Once realized by the masses there will be uncontrollable hoarding which will accelerate the destruction of the ecosystems in short order.

The Mind set of the worlds population will not change that has only known infinite growth, consumerism and politicians who are only interested in staying in power.

The Nuclear energy option is idiotic with much less future resources to deal with the waste that can not even be dealt with today.

Our time is running out – The Arctic sea ice is going!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xdOTyGQOso

Rodster on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 8:49 am

“It is obvious that demise of the planet is baked into the cake and there are no real answers to stop its destruction.”

But Rush Limbaugh says we can’t kill the oceans even if we tried. /sarc

sunweb on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 9:13 am

There is the assumption that humans will change their ways and conserve energy and not consume, consume, consume. This is akin to Jevons’ paradox (perhaps their is one more Germaine). If the energy is available, what will stop continued consumption of tools and toys? Who will go first with this restraint and restricting? Think of the uproar if legislated.

It is comforting to prefer the noise of delusional magical thinking and pretending that the system of perpetual growth can work forever; that some variant of business as usual can persist. There is just too much tied up with it and any unraveling would be far too chaotic and unpredictable. Wrapping our heads around the eventualities of global warming; of overshoot; of the desecration of world wildlife; of the acidification of the oceans; of the poisoning of pollinators stymies.

A world no longer powered by fossil fuels, no matter what incarnation, is almost inconceivable and for many terrifying. . It is indeed traumatic for what it might (probably) means not just for us but also for our love ones, children, grandchildren. Our hearts break. We want to fix it. So we do more technology and more ultimate harm.

It is like a person diagnosed with lung cancer saying he/she will just smoke these organic, non sprayed cigarettes for a little bit longer instead of facing the reality of the situation, quitting and having the operation.

We are slowly technogizing ourselves into extinction. Technology is seductive. Is it the power? Is it the comfort? Or is it some internal particularly human attribute that drives it? Technology surrounds us and becomes part of our story and myths. Technology tantalizes the human mind to make, combine, invent. There are always unintended consequences with technology. It effects how we experience the world in time and space. It affects how we feel the world. If all the externalities were included in the prices and cost to nature, we would be very, very wary of technology.

I think we have moved from technology in the service of religion (pyramids and gothic cathedrals) to religion and culture in the service of technology. It isn’t a deity that will save humanity but in the eyes of many – it will be technology.

We will do more of the same, business as usual until there are no more holes in the ground to dig, no more water above and below to contaminate, no humans to wage slave, no other lifeforms to eliminate. Yes, we are building Trojan horses in our hearts, minds and spirits. It will be elitist and entitlement and hubris – both a bang and a whimper.
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-bang-and-whimper.html

penury on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 10:09 am

Too much truthiness for an early Sat morning, I think I will go watch FOX for a while.

Boat on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 10:42 am

Only a doomer can take common sense advancements to technology, improve challenging situations, wrap it in religion and culture and sell improvements as bad. Lol, nice to get a Sat laugh.

joe on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 11:00 am

Arabs used to say my grandfather rode a camel, my father drives a car, I go in an airplane, my grandson will ride a camel.
Maybe his great grandson, but that saying will probobly come true.

Plantagenet on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 11:51 am

The end of the oil age will mark the birth of the natural gas age

sunweb on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 12:23 pm

Boat – what common sense advancement are you alluding to that don’t use the fossil fuel supply system and the global industrial infrastructure?

Boat on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 12:43 pm

Sun…We now have maybe 20 years worth of usable oil left. There are certainly no more than 30, perhaps as little as 10. Thats from the auther

There is just too much tied up with it and any unraveling would be far too chaotic and unpredictable. Wrapping our heads around the eventualities of global warming; of overshoot; of the desecration of world wildlife; of the acidification of the oceans; of the poisoning of pollinators stymies..Your words.

For 15 years I have been following the idea of not enough oil to run the world. There has never been enough and there never will be. While I don’t know the future of human events and their relation to oil There is reason to believe humans can overcome any obstacle if there is a dollar to be made from it.

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 1:29 pm

“The end of the oil age will mark the birth of the natural gas age”

How much do you think the new infrastructure build out will cost? And can the new and growing “burger flipper” tax base afford it?

BobInget on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 1:33 pm

Plantagenet Oversimplifies.
Natural gas has been ‘transitioning’ for decades. August 18, 2014
While electric vehicles have captured news headlines, a second revolution has been quietly gaining traction in the U.S. transportation sector.

Over the last five years, more than $450 million of private sector capital has been invested in natural gas fueling infrastructure.

http://www.supplychain247.com/article/natural_gas_fueling_the_silent_transportation_revolution/saddle_creek_logistics_services

Posted note:
We are to see NG used not only to directly power buses and trucks but used to refuel ‘power-cells’ that in turn, make electricity
to run a house or supplement power for an entire small village where solar is impractical.
http://cngeurope.com/

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 2:06 pm

Boat, putting aside our suicidal destruction of the biological systems we needed to survive who is it that is actually benefiting at tax payer expense? America and the rest of the west are not capitalists, but rather a form of selective socialism. Socialize the R&D and the risks and privatize the profits for a select few.

Is The Free Market a Hoax?

“One point often made is that much of the advanced technology that techno-utopians are touting are dependent not only on whether these things are technologically feasible but whether they are economically viable. That is, they not only have to be technologically feasible but they also need to be economically viable enterprises that justify their costs, otherwise they will not outlast the government subsidies that keep them going. The example often used by, for example, the Archdruid—is supersonic air travel. The Concorde was clearly technologically feasible – it flew for over twenty years, but it never paid for itself. It took a lot of money and fuel to push a plane at supersonic speeds across the Atlantic, and not a lot of people could afford to pay the price for that luxury (or even needed to-few people are in that much of a hurry). If a society collectively decides it no longer wants to continue subsidizing white elephant projects or does not even have the resources to subsidize them, they will go away even if we have the technology to do them, they argue. This is something ignored by techno-optimists who say that if something is technologically feasible then it will be done no matter what, and assume anyone who doubts them is somehow not intelligent enough to grasp what is possible or just too pessimistic concerning human inventiveness.

This got me thinking about the issue of subsidies in general. See, I happen to know that it’s not only the Concorde–the entire commercial airline industry has been unprofitable. When you average out all the ups-and-downs of the commercial air travel industry and subtract the bailouts and giveaways, air travel itself has never made a profit in the entire history of the industry! It turns out that in the 30 years since the airline industry was deregulated in 1978, it has lost nearly $60 billion on U.S. operations. Domestic passenger airline operations lost $10 billion from 1979 to 1989, made profits of $5 billion in the 1990s and lost $54 billion from 2000 to 2009. A similar case is true for just about any means of commercial passenger transportation (bus, rail, etc.)

This caused me to wonder if this were really true. Will any nonsubsidized entity cease to exist beyond subsidies? If so, we’re in a heap of trouble because, try as I might, I could not think of a single major industry that was not subsidized!”

http://hipcrime.blogspot.ca/2015/07/is-free-market-hoax.html

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 2:12 pm

Boat, do you ever listen to what some of the most knowledgeable and intelligent people whoever lived are saying about the consequences of our “common sense advancements”?

A group of Nobel Laureates have signed a declaration calling for urgent action on climate change

“The discoveries of these signatories have mostly improved the quality of life of people around the world, but they now stand horrified at the prospect of what unchecked use of natural resources could do to the future.”

http://qz.com/444787/a-group-of-nobel-laureates-have-signed-a-declaration-calling-for-urgent-action-on-climate-change/

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 2:38 pm

Boat, you ever hear of the late Dr Frank Fenner? He led the scientific team that eradicated (so far)small pox from humanity. Brilliant man who led the charge for what many consider to be one of science’s greatest achievements, since small pox was probably the biggest killer of human apes ever.

Humans will be extinct in 100 years says eminent scientist

“Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change.

http://phys.org/news/2010-06-humans-extinct-years-eminent-scientist.html

Of course he is not the only scientist to publicly state this conclusion. I wonder how many think the same, but are unwilling to say it publicly? Quite a few I would imagine.

Web of life unravelling, wildlife biologist says

“Wildlife biologist Neil Dawe says he wouldn’t be surprised if the generation after him witnesses the extinction of humanity.”

“Everything is worse and we’re still doing the same things,” he says. “Because ecosystems are so resilient, they don’t exact immediate punishment on the stupid.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20131003181237/http://www.oceansidestar.com/news/web-of-life-unravelling-wildlife-biologist-says-1.605499

Humans could be among the victims of sixth ‘mass extinction’, scientists warn

“The world is embarking on its sixth mass extinction with animals disappearing about 100 times faster than they used to, scientists warn, and humans could be among the first victims of the next extinction event.”

“If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-20/sixth-mass-extinction-impact-humans-study-says/6560700

So Boat, what do you say to these scientists and thousands of others who have given similar dire warnings? Like many of us they are not denying many of the benefits that modernity has brought naked apes, it’s just that unlike tunnel vision cheerleaders like you, they are pointing out the consequences. That we will be a fatal externality of our own making. We all known and use all the wonderful gizmos and gadgets, but that’s not what is actually being debated. What some (too few) are askig is, was it worth it? Cars, iphones, Mcmansions, and all the rest for a few generations and most of it for just 20% of the global population, VS destruction of the biosphere for millions of years leading to mass die back and possible human extinction. Are you happy arguing that trade Boat?

Plantagenet on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 3:19 pm

@Boat

Your suggestion that there is only 20 years of oil left isn’t true—perhapas you you confusing the peak of oil production with the end of oil production.

That fact is after the peak we will many decades of oil production left, albeit at declining levels.

AND Thats where NG will come into play. And President Obama has made it clear we have 100 years of additional energy supply from NG to look forward to.

Cheers!

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 3:39 pm

And who would know better than President Obama? I’m sure if the industry people privately told him that it would all be gone by 2030, he would surely pass it on to the public at the next SOTU address. Planty, you seem to have a habit of cherry picking what Obama says depending on how it makes you feel.

Plantagenet on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 3:52 pm

@apeman

Your fantasies about “industry people” privately meeting with Obama to secretly tell him how much NG there is is silly.

The federal government maintains several different agencies charged with determining how much oil, NG, and other mineral resources there are in the US, and other agencies charged with monitoring private industry, including the estimates they make of their reservers.

Cheers!

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 3:55 pm

Another gang of scientists saying we are fucked. But no one cares or know what to do – we only like the gimzmo by-products of science and the power rush weapons DARPA makes. 2 degrees has been locked in for some time now.
//////////////////////////////////

Twenty-two world-leading marine scientists warned that 2 degrees Celsius maximum temperature rise for climate change agreed by governments will not prevent the dramatic impacts of global warming in the ocean.

http://www.dailytimesgazette.com/co2-emissions-threatens-ocean-system-amid-global-efforts-against-climate-change/17432/

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 4:06 pm

Sure planty everyone knows there is an Iron Curtain between government and industry- they never talk or collude. You need to leave Alaska for awhile planty, I think inhaling all that burning tree and tundra fumes is only making your brain all the more addled.

Apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 4:10 pm

Revolving door (politics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In politics, the “revolving door” is a movement of personnel between roles as legislators and regulators and the industries affected by the legislation and regulation.[note 1]

In some cases the roles are performed in sequence but in certain circumstances may be performed at the same time. Political analysts claim that an unhealthy relationship can develop between the private sector and government, based on the granting of reciprocated privileges to the detriment of the nation and can lead to regulatory capture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_%28politics%29

Introducing “Natural Gas Exports: Washington’s Revolving Door Fuels Climate Threat”

http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/11/19/natural-gas-exports-washington-revolving-door-fuels-climate-threat

Three of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for federal government

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072106468.html

tahoe1780 on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 4:19 pm

About those 100 years – http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/future_tense/2011/12/is_there_really_100_years_worth_of_natural_gas_beneath_the_united_states_.html

Plantagenet on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 5:43 pm

@Tahoe

Your link says the “100 years of NG supply” claim comes from an obscure report no one has ever heard of.

In reality the claim of a “100 year supply of NG” comes from President Obama, who made it a nationally televised presidential address.

Try to keep up with reality.

Jimmy on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 5:43 pm

Last time I checked global agricultural production ran on a lot of deisel. The global market for agricultural machinery was about 61 billion just a few years ago. I don’t think they’ll be refitting that out with natural gas power very quickly at all. On the harvest depends everything. I don’t see natural gas or renewable doing much to bring the harvest in.

Makati1 on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 10:27 pm

Some on here do not understand what “systems” are or how they relate to their lives. NOTHING exists alone today. Nat gas cannot exist as we know it without oil, as it is not as energy dense or flexible. Planes cannot fly on Nat gas.

And even if there could be a refitting of the 100,000+ gas station in the US alone, it would take many years and trillions in investment. And, all that time, oil would be needed to do the switch. Huge quantities of it that are needed elsewhere.

The web we call the economy is reliant on oil and will be until it collapses sometime soon. Not decades. When the Age of Oil ends, there will be billions of barrels still in the ground and they will stay there. EROEI.

apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 11:00 pm

Plant, just because you have not heard of the report does not make it obscure. Doubly so since you treat anything that challenges the official narrative as wrong by default. How come when it comes to Obama’s claims of natgas you’re all warmNfuzzy with him, but on everything else he is a lying buffoon?

apneaman on Sat, 4th Jul 2015 11:20 pm

Planty, isn’t Obama getting all or much of his info from the EIA? And don’t we all know that they have made a number of errors in the past including a few whoppers? Grand Conspiracy? I doubt it for the most part, but like all organizations, especially the ones with a high degree of revolving door people, group think, peer and career pressure are very common phenomena. So is cherry picking to confirm one’s bias.

EIA Cuts Recoverable California Shale Estimates By 96%

DMyers on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 12:01 am

“In reality the claim of a “100 year supply of NG” comes from President Obama, who made it a nationally televised presidential address.”

So, this actually comes from Obama’s teleprompter. He probably pissed his pants when he said it because he was expecting to see “25 year” supply of NG pop up on the screen. But who’s gonna remember in a hundred years, anyway? Or even twenty five, for that matter?

The teleprompter mistakenly added a zero there, Plant. The real number is ten. We have about ten years of natural gas. Obama never corrected this mechanical error because the 100 year figure turned out to be very popular, preferred over the ten year prediction by an eight to one margin.

Northwest Resident on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 1:05 am

President Obama does what he has to do. He’s just a cog in the machine. The president’s job description these days includes staged events, pep talks, promoting the illusion of all is well, talking “tough”, rubber stamping lots and lots of documents, and a wide array of “figurehead” roles. The real powers behind the throne are the big money men, the international corporations and the energy kingpins. They write the scripts. When Obama said “100 year supply of NG”, you can bet he did NOT personally do the technical analysis on his own, and that he was merely reading a script that had been prepared for him. The fact that Obama said “100 year supply of NG” is TOTALLY irrelevant, except to morons and fools of course — and there are plenty of those.

shortonoil on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 7:52 am

“We now have maybe 20 years worth of usable oil left. There are certainly no more than 30, perhaps as little as 10.”

We will have oil as long as producers can make a profit producing oil. At $60/ barrel most producers can no longer maintain a positive cash flow, and also replace the reserves they are extracting. Even at $60 the industry is amassing mountains of debt to maintain a semblance of normalcy.

If our projections continue to be as accurate as they have been for the last 49 years, it is likely that the oil age will end sooner than most assume:

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm

M&As, bankruptcies, and shut-ins over the next few years should give most observers a pretty good indication of how rapidly the oil age is ending.

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/

Kenz300 on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 7:57 am

Wind and solar will continue to provide safe, clean energy long into the future………..

Makati1 on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 8:42 am

Dream on Kenz. Wind and solar takes oil to exist. You bot rants are meaningless.

tahoe1780 on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 10:28 am

@ Plant

Do you dispute that the number quoted is always “at the current consumption rate”? Just for you: http://www.cnbc.com/id/
http://energyskeptic.com/2015/economic-peak-natural-gas-and-oil-shale-a-scam/ http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=58&t=8 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/us/new-data-not-so-sunny-on-us-natural-gas-supply.html?_r=0

rockman on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 11:18 am

PThe end of the oil age will mark the birth of the natural gas age. How much do you think the new infrastructure build out will cost? And can the new and growing “burger flipper” tax base afford it?”

FYI the NG age began decades ago at least in the US and Europe. Of the total proved NG reserves of the 103 countries that have such resources only 10 contain 80% of the total. But as usual any number of proved reserve is meaningless. What’s critical is the amount of commercially recoverable reserves based upon AN ASSUMED PRICE. And that is rarely ever included.

A “hundred year supply” prediction is utterly meaningless since it isn’t qualified. 100 years…30 years…308 years: all meaningless. Since the method of the calculation is given one can offer any number they want.

tahoe1780 on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 12:38 pm

@ Plant Should be http://www.cnbc.com/id/47279959

@ Rock Agreed!

Northwest Resident on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 1:21 pm

From Tahoe’s link above:

“The 100-year supply is strictly a talking point, and scientists don’t use it, but it gives you a comfort factor that lets you know you’re on the right path,” says John Curtis, a geology professor at the Colorado School of Mines and director of the Potential Gas Committee.

Of course that fact and no other fact will interrupt Plant’s asinine repetitiveness in reminding us that “Obama said…”. Facts bounce off of pure stupid like rubber balls off a concrete wall.

Boat on Sun, 5th Jul 2015 2:47 pm

In the last decade fracking/enhanced tech for drilling Nat gas has unleashed a torrent of product. Most haven’t grasped what a huge difference this is making to the US economy and future economy. As oil becomes harder and more expensive to find, nat gas will certainly replace market share along with renewables

The End of the Oil Age

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