JHK says,
“I’m concerned that the American people will hate the new president if he tells them the truth: that an old way of life is over and a new one has to begin now. We’re about to find out how much ‘change’ the public can really stand.”
Last May, I suggested that this part of the world was going to prove to be really interesting. Sure enough, it’s heating up. I just wish it would heat up under a different President, or when we weren’t facing an energy and economic disaster.
Now here’s a fuel source we’re not likely to run out of.
Engadget covers a turbine that claims to be 1000x more efficient than a normal windmill. Neat.
Peak oil theories have been “debased,” but umm, they’re right, says WSJ.
“…plenty of energy experts expect sky-high prices to hasten the development of alternative fuels and improve energy efficiency. But evidence is mounting that crude oil production may plateau before those innovations arrive on a large scale. That could set the stage for a period marked by energy shortages, high prices and bare-knuckled competition for fuel.”
Oopsies! Open Mic Madness tonight from the OPEC conference. Here’s a choice excerpt of Saudi foreign minister Prince Al-Faisal speaking when he thought the world wasn’t listening:
“My feeling is that the mere mention that the OPEC countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an impact that endangers the interests of the countries .. there will be journalists who will seize on this point and we don’t want the dollar to collapse instead of doing something good for OPEC.”
Well, sir, the mere mention is one thing - but considering the mentioner, it is quite another.
Also, on that subject.
Assumptions and Peak Universe.
Report: oil production peaked in ‘06; will decline 3% annually. What we have is a major divergence of views; in a couple of years it should be clear who was right.
“As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented.”
- Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management, U.S. Department of Energy, February 2005
I’ve been squealing a great deal about our misadventure in Iraq. I realize I’ve spent a lot of time with a scolding, I-told-you-so kind of tone, rarely offering much in the way of solutions. I hope you forgive me for this, but I’ve been terribly frustrated with my fellow Americans, and it’s hard to not be a dick about it. I have been doing this in part because I warned, loudly, in the run-up to the war that we were marching into a colossal mistake. So, when many of my fellow citizens now have the nerve to act surprised that rolling our tanks into the heart of Arabia was an abject disaster, it’s a little hard to take. I also have been doing so because, frankly, I can’t offer much in the way of solutions. Ideally we’d find a multinational Arab force to take the mess off our hands, but they rightfully will tell us what we told them: to go screw. In the words of Powell: we broke it, we own it. This mistake will haunt us for generations.
Many have also said to me that looking backward won’t help us. I disagree because I think the past can teach us stuff, such as who was right and who was wrong - and it also informs us about future risks and who we should be listening to at present.
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Hey idiots, why not turn out nonessential lights anyway? Turning out lights you’re not using should not be a special occasion.
Gold and oil prices at record highs; Canadian dollar trading in parity with US dollar for the first time in over 30 years; riyal de-peg “inevitable.”
As suspected, the Kingdom is taking new steps to eliminate the dollar peg, and hasn’t moved its rates in lockstep for the first time. And, the dollar hits a record low against the Euro. This is a very, very serious situation.
Last week we talked, half-jokingly of course (wink-nod), about ARMageddon and Wall Street shenanigans. A short conversation ensued. One of my favorite doomsayers - James Howard Kunstler of Long Emergency and Clusterfuck Nation - takes it all a bit further.
Astronauts allegedly flew drunk - come on, as if they actually fly that thing.. I mean, how sober do you really need to be to buckle your harness and pray?
NYTimes: Just What The Founders Feared
Dollar at 20-year lows; crude oil headed for $100++; reality finally hitting overleveraged homeowners; a really bad spanking on Wall Street; and it’s going to get worse.
Don’t worry, dude. The huge petrol lines will be back soon enough.
I have a hunch that this lil’ island could make things verry interesting for Americans in the not-too-distant future.
My freaky spirituality piece of the other day sparked interesting discussion there and there and around these parts, where Fred asked, “what sin made you turn from God?” But before I could answer, Fred had figured out the answer for himself, hitting the Proverbial nail on the head with his first swing - yes, Fred, the “lust of the flesh” pointed me hellward. That, and I like shrimp.
The piece also sparked a couple of phone calls - one from a friend who said my writing was getting “too flowery” and another who told me she thought it was “beautiful.” Well shit, aren’t flowers supposed to be beautiful?
In a related coincidence, I happened upon a wonderful and very apropos Tom Robbins passage last night:
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This weekend, our so-called leaders finally began using words like “crisis” to describe the oil-powered shotgun we Americans have stuck in our mouths. Many indications are that we’ve crossed the point of “peak oil” worldwide, and production is now diminishing by a couple percent per year. (According to the IEA, oil production is now in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries.) Couple this with skyrocketing global demand, and whether you think we have ten years or one hundred years of supply remaining, it means one thing for prices: an upward trendline until it is gone.
And we Americans, while good at many things, are not so good at planning ahead. So, we are likely to keep doing what we’ve been doing: driving our SUVs, full of cases of cheap Chinese goods, along our sprawly commuter routes from our well-lit downtown workplaces to our ARM-financed suburban homes until the music stops. I am not an economist, so I don’t know quite when the model “breaks” - but my hunch is that it’s closer to $100 a barrel than $200, and no matter where the breaking point is, we stand closer to it than we ever have.
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Even if the estimates of the “major” oil discovery announced in Mexico today are correct (and they most certainly are not), the entire find represents just 100 days of global oil demand.
