David Seaton's News Links
If you study the following two clippings from the UK's Guardian and from Germany's Der Spiegel you can why the Kochs, libertarians of every stripe, AIPAC and the neocons, have every reason to have (as the British would put it) their knickers in a twist.
Speculation that government ministers are far more concerned about a future supply crunch than they have admitted has been fueled by the revelation that they are canvassing views from industry and the scientific community about "peak oil".(...) Experts say they have received a letter from David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the DECC, asking for information and advice on peak oil amid a growing campaign from industrialists such as Sir Richard Branson for the government to put contingency plans in place to deal with any future crisis. Guardian
A study by a German military think tank has analyzed how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The internal draft document -- leaked on the Internet -- shows for the first time how carefully the German government has considered a potential energy crisis.(...) The scenarios outlined by the Bundeswehr Transformation Center are drastic. Even more explosive, politically, are recommendations to the government that the energy experts have put forward based on these scenarios. They argue that "states dependent on oil imports" will be forced to "show more pragmatism toward oil-producing states in their foreign policy." Political priorities will have to be somewhat subordinated, they claim, to the overriding concern of securing energy supplies. (Germany) would also have to show more restraint in its foreign policy toward Israel, to avoid alienating Arab oil-producing nations. Unconditional support for Israel and its right to exist is currently a cornerstone of German foreign policy. (...) "A readjustment of Germany's Middle East policy … in favor of more intensive relations with producer countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, which have the largest conventional oil reserves in the region, might put a strain on German-Israeli relations, depending on the intensity of the policy change," the authors write. Der Spiegel
I don't ever write about Peak Oil, because, among my many odd jobs, (some odder than others), for over ten years I have been doing news aggregation for a major Spanish energy futures portal and have had to read hundreds and hundreds of articles about oil during those years. I also have friends who are real industry experts on the subject (I just know what I read in the papers) and up till now "received" opinion is that Peak Oil is tinfoil-hatsville, and so I stay away from it. But, these two articles in publications that I respect have made me realize that the subject is now being discussed at (gasp) the highest levels.
OK, so the cat is out of the bag.
Let's look at what this might entail. As the first clipping from Der Spiegel points out, Peak Oil's effects touch the Zionist third rail of course, which explains some of the neocon's skittishness, but what about the Koch's end of the coalition of freedom loving Americans?
Der Spiegel with Teutonic thoroughness, spells out what The Guardian, with British understatement merely hints at. Check this list. I have taken the liberty of putting some emphasis here and there.
OK, so the cat is out of the bag.
Let's look at what this might entail. As the first clipping from Der Spiegel points out, Peak Oil's effects touch the Zionist third rail of course, which explains some of the neocon's skittishness, but what about the Koch's end of the coalition of freedom loving Americans?
Der Spiegel with Teutonic thoroughness, spells out what The Guardian, with British understatement merely hints at. Check this list. I have taken the liberty of putting some emphasis here and there.
- Market failures: The authors paint a bleak picture of the consequences resulting from a shortage of petroleum. As the transportation of goods depends on crude oil, international trade could be subject to colossal tax hikes. "Shortages in the supply of vital goods could arise" as a result, for example in food supplies. Oil is used directly or indirectly in the production of 95% of all industrial goods. Price shocks could therefore be seen in almost any industry and throughout all stages of the industrial supply chain. "In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse."
- Relapse into planned economy: Since virtually all economic sectors rely heavily on oil, peak oil could lead to a "partial or complete failure of markets," says the study. "A conceivable alternative would be government rationing and the allocation of important goods or the setting of production schedules and other short-term coercive measures to replace market-based mechanisms in times of crisis."(five year plans?)
- Crisis of political legitimacy: The Bundeswehr study also raises fears for the survival of democracy itself. Parts of the population could comprehend the upheaval trigged by peak oil "as a general systemic crisis." This would create "room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government." Fragmentation of the affected population is likely and could "in extreme cases lead to open conflict."
What does all this mean, really
Doomsters like James Kunstler and Dimitri Orlov, especially Kuntsler, paint the oil-less future as some sort of survivalist's Arcadia, where self-reliant citizens, grow vegetables, sew their own clothes and do a lot of carpentry without power tools. I think the post-Peak Oil world will look more like the following story:
A man is walking home from work, when he sees a long line forming in front of a government store, he asks the people what they are in line for and they tell him "lemons"... Frantically he runs home, arriving much earlier than normal, and finds his wife in bed with his next door neighbor, confronting them furiously he shouts:
Doomsters like James Kunstler and Dimitri Orlov, especially Kuntsler, paint the oil-less future as some sort of survivalist's Arcadia, where self-reliant citizens, grow vegetables, sew their own clothes and do a lot of carpentry without power tools. I think the post-Peak Oil world will look more like the following story:
A man is walking home from work, when he sees a long line forming in front of a government store, he asks the people what they are in line for and they tell him "lemons"... Frantically he runs home, arriving much earlier than normal, and finds his wife in bed with his next door neighbor, confronting them furiously he shouts:
What are you doing here, don't you know that today they are selling lemons?
This is a classic joke from the now defunct German Democratic Republic.
What brought the GDR down and the rest of Really Existing Socialism, including the USSR along with it, was not really people's chaffing under the repression of totalitarianism, but rather our system's miraculous ability to produce and distribute an infinite variety of affordable consumer goods, which their godless, planned economy couldn't. Free health care, social equality, guaranteed employment, good schools (Angela Merkel graduated from the University of Leipzig) and guaranteed housing couldn't compete with our cornucopia.
The essence of our system is a quite recent -- and never before in history achieved -- endless variety of things, many of them amazingly cheap, to choose from. Think about it, you wander into a shopping mall looking to buy some deodorant and you'll be forced to choose between dozens of different brands at many different prices until you find exactly the one that suits your pocketbook or your "unique lifestyle" and image. You can eat your favorite fruit at any time of the year, flown in from the other side of the planet. This is freedom! This cornucopic miracle is all about logistics and logistics depends on oil.
No oil means either starvation or what are you doing here, don't you know that today they are selling lemons?
If Peak Oil finally happens we will be looking at some stark choices: whether we serve the Koch's as slaves or serve the Kochs boiled, baked or fricasseed. I can easily imagine which outcome they would prefer we chose.
I'm sure the Kochs know more about oil than Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change or Germany's Bundeswehr combined and the Koch family's intervention in America's political life may be explained by that knowledge and by every good businessman's effort to produce predictable outcomes. DS
What brought the GDR down and the rest of Really Existing Socialism, including the USSR along with it, was not really people's chaffing under the repression of totalitarianism, but rather our system's miraculous ability to produce and distribute an infinite variety of affordable consumer goods, which their godless, planned economy couldn't. Free health care, social equality, guaranteed employment, good schools (Angela Merkel graduated from the University of Leipzig) and guaranteed housing couldn't compete with our cornucopia.
The essence of our system is a quite recent -- and never before in history achieved -- endless variety of things, many of them amazingly cheap, to choose from. Think about it, you wander into a shopping mall looking to buy some deodorant and you'll be forced to choose between dozens of different brands at many different prices until you find exactly the one that suits your pocketbook or your "unique lifestyle" and image. You can eat your favorite fruit at any time of the year, flown in from the other side of the planet. This is freedom! This cornucopic miracle is all about logistics and logistics depends on oil.
No oil means either starvation or what are you doing here, don't you know that today they are selling lemons?
If Peak Oil finally happens we will be looking at some stark choices: whether we serve the Koch's as slaves or serve the Kochs boiled, baked or fricasseed. I can easily imagine which outcome they would prefer we chose.
I'm sure the Kochs know more about oil than Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change or Germany's Bundeswehr combined and the Koch family's intervention in America's political life may be explained by that knowledge and by every good businessman's effort to produce predictable outcomes. DS
8 comments:
David, with all due respect I can not fathom how peak oil could be relegated to tinfoil hat territory. Either one believes that petroleum is a finite resource or an infinite one. Which is more likely?
Our "American Way" of life is completely unsustainable in any event for U.S. citizens much less for the population of the planet (in spite of Chinese delusions to the contrary).
I think everyone should be required to watch Professor Albert Bartlett's famous lecture on the facts of life (aka math): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Philip
I, too, was a little surprised that you had consigned peak oil theory to the tinfoil hat dustbin.
If oil is a finite resource, there is no doubt that one day we will reach the maximum level of petroleum production possible, then decline from there. That is a geological certainty.
When that will occur is up for debate. Also unknowable is the shape of the downward slope. But it will occur, determined ultimately by geologic factors more than economic or technological ones. What we as a world do to mitigate its effect is another discussion.
It's not surprising that governments do contingency planning even for low probability events. While peak oil is a 100% probability, up until recently it was thought to be something we would have to deal with far in the future. But I think $70 or $75 oil in the face of a global economic slowdown is suggestive that it's sooner rather than later. Also, the IEA just reported that non-OPEC sources of oil are in decline and we're going to be more dependent than ever on OPEC, and specifically three or four OPEC nations that still have spare production capacity. Most significantly, all the good cheap oil is gone. The second half of our oil supply will be of lower quality and much harder to pump. The energy returned on investment in oil has decreased by an order of magnitude in the last 100 years.
When supplies get constrained, I hope the rest of world is prepared for the US to take what we need regardless of where it is. I would assume that other countries are doing contingency planning for that, too.
I suspect and hope that the process will be gradual and we will have time to adjust. But the level of self delusion and pain avoidance characteristic of our species doesn't make me overly optimistic.
Industry people I've talked to say that oil is just another mining operation and that finding enough oil is simply investing enough in exploration and refining techniques. That is the "received" wisdom. That "Peak Oil" is being investigated by government panels is significant. My view is that if Peak Oil occurs we'll be lucky if we get something like the GDR without the Stasi. Most probably we'll get something like Nigeria.
Anonymous Anonymous and Anonymous Diane have this right (and I, too, am a little surprised at your insouciance Mr. Seaton – this really is a big deal). We have reached the point where “finding enough oil is simply investing enough in exploration and refining techniques” that results in an oil price that cripples the global economy. The price spike to $147/bbl in 2008 and the onset of the our current economic woes was no coincidence. The built economies of the developed nations need $25-30/bbl oil to function healthily and will only continue to shrivel at $75/bbl (or worse) oil.
Peak Oil likely occurred in 2005 or 2008 depending on how you measure it and the next round of our little multi-faceted crisis will occur in two or three years when the spare capacity cushion is gone. That, I believe, will knock the financial system on the head for once and for all. Peak oil and all its gory implications will be no black swan event except to those who have not bothered to consider it.
Dmitry Orlov’s latest piece (http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/) is a good primer on this topic and The Oil Drum is the definitive source for all things peak oil and energy (yes, I’m afraid the MSM has failed us once again).
The Great Depression V2 bit us first, Peak Oil is nibbling now and climate change will dine on us at its leisure.
I think the point of my post is that peak oil is now being studied by people in a position to take measures. This takes it way out of the tinfoil area and smack dab in the mainstream. THAT is the what I'm talking about. I thought I had made that clear, sorry if I didn't.
All rightee, then.
Just for fun, let's posit you may well have been right in the original. I can't imagine anyone who has spent the amount of time you write of on oil topics not being aware of the 'secret'reserves in the Beaufort Sea and of energy developments in the Dakotas, as evidenced by stock sales in development companies. That's before mentioning Russian ideas on oil as a continually produced substance emanating from processes deep in the Earth...like to scare the very devil out of people thinking an eruption of methane and oil could come at ridiculously high pressures from deepwater drilling. And that wouldn't be just because of the difference in density between rock and oil resulting in a compression factor equivalent to a water column the depth of the hole...but high pressure pockets !
'Conspiracy Theories'...LOL The PNAC is a Conspiracy Fact from a Think Tank dressed in disinformation after the fact! People believe all sorts of things...that aren't so.
A belated labor day post --
On why there is no labor party in America:
The dual party system has successfully kept out all others over the last two centuries. The parties have developed not as class based but based around ethinic, religious, regional, and of course racial groups. The democratic party was based on immigrants (German and Irish a century ago), cities as opposed to rural areas, the south, catholics, and of course white supremacists in the pre-civil rights era. Class cut across all of these.
Now the south has switched to Republican and white supremacists have switched to republican. Democrats represent new immigrants (latinos) and blacks. They still represent cities as opposed to suburbs, coasts as opposed to the interior. Wealthy and poor are found in all of these categories.
On the lack of liberation theology in political discourse:
American churches are fragmented. It is less true than it used to be but is still the case that the most segregated time of the week is Sunday morning. Churches are also segregated by class, income, ethnicity, ancestry and any other division you can think of.
Evangelicals until recently tended not to be involved in politics. I recently downloaded Kitty Wells, top 40 country music from the '50s singing a much older song:
You got to go to the lonesome valley
You got to go there by yourself
Nobody else can go for you
You got to go there by yourself
Oh, you got to ask the lords forgiveness
Nobody else can ask him for you
You got to go to the lonesome valley
You got to go there by yourself
Nobody else, nobody else can go for you
You got to go there by yourself
Charitable works means bringing the gospel to someone unsaved, it doesn't mean helping them materially.
(Country radio wouldn't play anything like that anymore, it has become far too homogenized.)
But what is surprising is the lack of religious knowledge of the political class and press. For all the overt religiosity of the politicians, there are very few who are actually regular church goers on either side of the aisle. George W was not, neither was Reagan. Obama attended church in Chicago, but I have not heard of him attending church in DC. Religious pronouncements tend to be generic.
It was thirty years ago when Jimmy Carter was running for presidency that he announced that he too had lusted in his heart. The press had a laugh with it, he was treated as some sort of wacky eccentric. I don't recall anyone discussing Matthew 5:28, which was what he was referring to.
So religous rhetoric is used to justify "American Exceptionalism" which seems to be used to justify the proposition that we have a God-given right to fire drone missles into countries that have no air defence.
The press in almost entirely religiously uneducated. The political class keeps it generic. And parishioners don't really seem to have a community of interest with anyone outside their affinity group.
You would think a bible based call to charity would be an obvious tack for a politician to take. No politician apparently either has the knowledge, or the faith to do this, or has been warned not to by his handlers. Bring back William Jennings Bryan.
*****
On peak oil -- I don't see oil running out. I see cheap oil running out, which amounts to about the same thing. The tar sands oil needs a tremendous amount of scarce water. The techniques of fracturing the oil shales have been shown to pollute ground water and poison wells. The arctic, while it may become ice free, is still remote and prone to violent storms. Etc, etc.
A belated labor day post --
On why there is no labor party in America:
The dual party system has successfully kept out all others over the last two centuries. The parties have developed not as class based but based around ethinic, religious, regional, and of course racial groups. The democratic party was based on immigrants (German and Irish a century ago), cities as opposed to rural areas, the south, catholics, and of course white supremacists in the pre-civil rights era. Class cut across all of these.
Now the south has switched to Republican and white supremacists have switched to republican. Democrats represent new immigrants (latinos) and blacks. They still represent cities as opposed to suburbs, coasts as opposed to the interior. Wealthy and poor are found in all of these categories.
On the lack of liberation theology in political discourse:
American churches are fragmented. It is less true than it used to be but is still the case that the most segregated time of the week is Sunday morning. Churches are also segregated by class, income, ethnicity, ancestry and any other division you can think of.
Evangelicals until recently tended not to be involved in politics. I recently downloaded Kitty Wells, top 40 country music from the '50s singing a much older song:
You got to go to the lonesome valley
You got to go there by yourself
Nobody else can go for you
You got to go there by yourself
Oh, you got to ask the lords forgiveness
Nobody else can ask him for you
You got to go to the lonesome valley
You got to go there by yourself
Nobody else, nobody else can go for you
You got to go there by yourself
Charitable works means bringing the gospel to someone unsaved, it doesn't mean helping them materially.
(Country radio wouldn't play anything like that anymore, it has become far too homogenized.)
But what is surprising is the lack of religious knowledge of the political class and press. For all the overt religiosity of the politicians, there are very few who are actually regular church goers on either side of the aisle. George W was not, neither was Reagan. Obama attended church in Chicago, but I have not heard of him attending church in DC. Religious pronouncements tend to be generic.
It was thirty years ago when Jimmy Carter was running for presidency that he announced that he too had lusted in his heart. The press had a laugh with it, he was treated as some sort of wacky eccentric. I don't recall anyone discussing Matthew 5:28, which was what he was referring to.
So religous rhetoric is used to justify "American Exceptionalism" which seems to be used to justify the proposition that we have a God-given right to fire drone missles into countries that have no air defence.
The press in almost entirely religiously uneducated. The political class keeps it generic. And parishioners don't really seem to have a community of interest with anyone outside their affinity group.
You would think a bible based call to charity would be an obvious tack for a politician to take. No politician apparently either has the knowledge, or the faith to do this, or has been warned not to by his handlers. Bring back William Jennings Bryan.
*****
On peak oil -- I don't see oil running out. I see cheap oil running out, which amounts to about the same thing. The tar sands oil needs a tremendous amount of scarce water. The techniques of fracturing the oil shales have been shown to pollute ground water and poison wells. The arctic, while it may become ice free, is still remote and prone to violent storms. Etc, etc.
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