March 11, 2009

It's just a matter of perspective. Here's a long term look at what oil production may end up looking like. Hmmmm....



Society will go on after the oil runs out. We'll be using nuclear, sun, wind, wave and a bunch of cool new things we probably haven't even thought of yet.

But 1000 years from now, they (if there is a they) will look back at the period humans used oil to power their world in amazement.

And disgust.

60 comments:

Mitesh Damania said...

If we factored in enternal costs, we would already be using solar and wind power and conserving more. I bet 70% of electricty and gas that's used by Americans is wasted.

Mitesh Damania said...

I mean I a large area of flames (natual gas being burned) at a Sea World restaurant. What a complete waste!

Anonymous said...

How about the 2,4 trillion barrels that are right here in the US Obbbaaaammmmyyyyy and the commies won't allow to be touched because of their religion (the green god).

Anonymous said...

Planes can't fly without very high energy density fuel.

Hydrogen beckons, and produces water when it burns.

Mr. Fribbles said...

I'd agree with the disgust part - unless we make the change to renewable energy sources for the majority of our needs before the oil wells run dry and the world plunges into chaos...

Anonymous said...

Someone said one time that when man discovered FIRE it was the begining of what we have today .

The fire discovery allowed man for the first time to be able to huddle by the fire and keep the
wild animals away ,while they developed social skills that produced a bigger brain . No longer was man just simply prey
because of the discovery and harnessing of fire .

It took humans a long time to discover fire .

It would be great to find a cheap engery source for the future of this World .

Anonymous said...

NIce 1 K.

Mitesh Damania said...

WAKE UP PEOPLE

By Catherine Austin Fitts on how the government screws an honest company, Hamilton Securities Group, using various government departments to swoop in. Corruption at it's finest.

Hhere is a good LONG article on how the government really operates. The government operates to make private company owners rich and to protect their illegal activities:

[url]http://www.dunwalke.com/14_Enforcement_Terrorism.htm[/url]

You can start from the first page here:
http://www.dunwalke.com/introduction.htm

Anonymous said...

We'll never find as cheep energy as oil ever again. Sure we'll find and develop other sources, but none will as cheap (energy-in-vs.-energy-out wise) as oil was.

And that's a good thing. Many of our problems today (financial and environmental) are symptoms of a spoiled energy policy. Learning to live with more restraint will be good for us.

Anonymous said...

Keith is a Doomer! Keith is a Doomer!

It is hard (but apparently not impossible) to argue with geology. Why so many have such a hard time with peak oil is beyond me -- oh, wait. Could it be that it challenges the status quo? That business as usual may not continue?

I'm doing my part by getting in a lifetime of driving immediately.

Anonymous said...

Keith, Did you even read the LATOC website? Matt Savinar is a survivalist - he thinks things are going to get ugly on the falling side of the production curve.

The second page of the LATOC website debunks the rosy (alternative and nuclear powered) future you depict in your blog post:

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

Anonymous said...

Yes, they'll look back in disgust.

Because they will say, "What disgusting fools those people were, why couldn't they simply have invented batteries and integrated circuits and regenerative motors in the year 1850. How disgusting. How foolish. What, were they f-ing retards? Didn't they read blogs back then?
SHeeeeesh!"

What is disgusting is your complete and total lack of perspective on the abilities technologies and resources available in accordance with the era.

You would probably begrudge the use of wood as has been used for the past 10,000 years. We should all be disgusted right?

Anonymous said...

Memo To Mitesh,
when you say "Wake up people" it makes you appear stupider than you might otherwise be.

You are not the smartest man in the room.

Mitesh Damania said...

Ah ha!!! Why we are where we are. (It's because of who we are)

http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/14098/US_leads_world_in_laundering_crime_profits/

Anonymous said...

The abortion curve will look similar, but we won't have to wait 1000 years to recognize it - more like fifty. My healthy eight year old daughter was born four months premature. In ten years it will be common for healthy babies to be saved five to six months premature. In fifty, it will be possible (but not preferrable) for a fetus to be grown entirely without the mother from just after conception. Belief in God will have nothing to do with the level of disgust "they" feel toward this era, except the time is so near that many of us will still be alive to face the disgrace. I couldn't help but point out the hypocrisy of the popular liberal point of view. In a thousand years one could probably burn as much oil as one wanted without expending any CO2 at all. The economy could be so horrible soon that people won't care what they are burning to keep warm.

Anonymous said...

Excellent post.

Have you looked in to the Kardashev scale?

Anonymous said...

Nuclear, solar and wind can't be scaled to the levels that oil can.

Otherwise, the free market and private sector would have made these forms of energy a viable alternative.

You want an electric car? You have to lug around an motor that weighs 5 times more than the equivalent gasoline engine to produce the same amount of power. And you have to replace the batteries every 5 years.

The electric car has never been viable and never will be. The best they could come up with is the hybrid-electric which is basically an additional $15,000 of engineering complexity to capture braking power to a battery. You still need to replace the batteries.

The best mode of transportation is a small manual transmission car that gets you 45 MPG. Learn to hypermile and stop wasting gas and brake pads racing yourself to red lights. Coasting is your best friend (when road conditions permit).

Wind? Unless you're a low-population country like Denmark located in the Baltic, you can never scale it to meet the needs of everyone living in first world countries. Nothing against wind, but even Hydro is only able to supply a fraction of what the world consumes.

Ethanol is a scam--why aren't the tractors that harvest the corn for this stuff running on ethanol themselves? It takes 1.2 gallons of real fuel to produce 1 gallon equivalent of ethanol (when you factor harvesting, transportation and fertilizer). The government is subsidizing an energy loser.

The sad truth is that the sweet black stuff is as good as it gets. When the oil runs out, the world population will level off to pre-oil levels (1 billion) and I doubt that this will be done peacefully or quietly.

One can argue that the current economic manure hitting the fan in the US is a symptom of energy production being unable to scale to the demands of 300 million Americans and US industry. Oil prices have only dropped because the main market for it (the US) has collapsed.

Anonymous said...

A thousands years . That cracks me up !!
People i think if we can limp on in history for another 25 years i will be impressed .
No my friends this next decade is the final hour . You can stick your head up your butt in denial you can place your hope in obama but that require sticking your head up your butt much further than even the first option (many have).
I pesonally have read revelations and place my faith in JESUS .
Good luck and hope you can find the peace that i have in the midst of what is comming.

Anonymous said...

Hi Keith,

I work high up at a prominent national lab, and I can tell you that there is ZERO interest right now in all the cool alternative energy stuff. We've been jerked around by politics for so long, nobodys gonna do nuttin until they see the money, and frankly, there is very little money for anything new. Its all 99% weapons still at the DOE/NNSA. Get a clue Keith, this guy (BO) still supports torture and rendition, spying on J6P, big bank bailouts and faith based initiatives.

I can further inform you that the scientific infrastructure at the national labs has been absolutely gutted. All the fluff you seen in press releases etc is just spin and hype. Supercomputers that don't work, and H1B visa holders that do nothing but make shit to get promoted. And, with the price of oil and current business environment, where is all the innovation going to come from, huh Keith?

Where is the Apollo mission on energy Keith? What is gonna save your sorry ass? We can't even spend on a decent rail infrastructure! Just more roads for more cars. Don't you think we have enough cars yet?

We are being absolutely looted folks. Get off your asses and demand accountability. 100 days is gonna be 100 days too long. DEMAND CHANGE NOW.

Anonymous said...

Hydrogen is the energy of the future.
And it always will be.
- Anon

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't count on wave. It's like a windmill (which is already sketchy) with barnacle and allge growth and massive corrosion issues. Further, servicemen need breathing apprartus to even see the stuff.

Not going to happen. But if it makes you feel good to believe it will then have a blast.

Anonymous said...

Mitesh, please understand that everything you read in the business magazines is total horse shit paid propaganda.

Solar works good for heating water. It is horrible for generating electricity, especially at high voltages, which is essential for transmission (for reasons I won't get into).

This worshiping of infeasable technologies is a cancer, and we're at a place where a few more fairytale decisions on the important stuff will kill us.

Anonymous said...

Oooobaaamy!

Gimme Cheese.

Anonymous said...

Keefer, Sashers..

If we only accomplish:

"Achieve energy independents with renewable sources"

It would be our generations contribution.

There is nothing, nothing nothing more urgent then this issue.

Mammoth said...

Hmmmm...looks like Richard's oil spike chart...

Anonymous said...

"It is not a dream ... It is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive... blind, faint-hearted, doubting world."

Anonymous said...

"Mitesh Damania said...
I mean I a large area of flames (natual gas being burned) at a Sea World restaurant. What a complete waste!

March 11, 2009 4:37 AM"

Speaking of complete wastes (see above).

Genius, PURE genius, I tell ya...

Anonymous said...

You guys can thank goldman sachs and the other brokerage houses for the 5 dollar gas you had to pay for.they were manipulating the markets big time.they bought huge amounts of oil and stockpiled it so they could take away supply from the markets.And where was your govt freinds. Taking big payouts of course.There is oil coming out the wazoo folks.

Anonymous said...

Anon said:
Planes can't fly without very high energy density fuel.

You mean yesteryears planes, right?

Tomorrow’s energy will not come from Fossil fuel

Keefer is right.

Anonymous said...

Nick2

Never say Never

Unknown said...

There is not 2.4 trillion barrels for the US to access. More right wing nonsense. And the point is to focus on clean energy anyway. Do right wingers even have the capacity for learning?

Mitesh Damania said...

Re: Looking back in disgust...

I am ashamed to be an American and a human being. Why, you may ask? Because at one time we thought we were the center of the universe. How stupid could we have all been?!?

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile Cramer is now pumping clean coal. And before that, he declared natural gas would go to the moon last year. (Actually it's tanking).

Also hilarious is the Stewart / Cramer war going on. Stewart replied to Cramers defense of 'you took my comments about Lehman out of contect'. Stewart absolutely NAILED Cramer, PROVING Cramer made a bunch of 'buy' comments on Lehman just weeks before it went BK.

Absolutely hilarious to watch Stewart TOTALLY nail Cramer. All Cramer had to say in response is "But, but, but ...Stewart is just a commedian".

Can't wait for these two guys to meet in live.

Anonymous said...

You're such a negative Nellie, Keith. Like that ever results in positive change! Maybe, in your enlightened view, it would have been preferable if we fueled the greatest advance in human progress by burning cow chips. Sorry Einstein, the disgusting part is NOT that we've used fossil fuels. That's market efficiency par excellence. The tragedy, as with most human tragedies and market inefficiencies, is allowing the benefactors of the discovery of oil to comingle their resource with political power. The market for innovation in non-oil based technologies consequently becomes heavily biased in favor of the politically popular technology and away from competing ones. This isn't a fault with oil, the free market or even oil based technology. The problem is DC evolving into the Mustang Ranch. So now, the solution becomes more difficult. But, "single term" limits is a start, along with severe penalties for those caught in bed with business. Next, shift ALL tax preferences away from oil, real estate, etc., and towards innovation/new technology, particularly those related to energy since it is so vital to national security. Quit your bitching Keith. Our dalliance with oil has been a boon, not a bane! However, the whack jobs who fortuitously ended up living in the right neighborhoods are not our friends. It's past time to end our dependence, particularly on imported oil, but really all oil and oil based technology, as quickly as possible. Think a bit before you impulsively throw your temper tantrums!

Anonymous said...

Hey Keith did you snap a picture of Alfalfa from the little rascals standing behind a fence?

Anonymous said...

"If You Think It's Bad Now"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29634200

Could also be called "building the next bubble - the inflation bubble".

Anonymous said...

I'm optimistic about the future of humankind.

I'm just not optimistic about how we're going to get to that future.

IMO a few billion of us will disappear before we reach this optimistic future.

Anonymous said...

It looks like technology is universally fatal. That explains why there aren't ETs all over the universe. We are living through another mass extinction for our planet.

Anonymous said...

We'll be using "cool new things that we haven't even *though-of* yet" . . . I doubt it.

We waited far too long to put an economical alternative for fuel efficient travel in place.

We're demoted to a lower-life form from this point forward.

Meanwhile, bank losses increase and AIG is getting ready to prostitute itself for further funds on the backs of tax payers.

Anonymous said...

BusinessWeek -- Mass. doctor accused of fabricating pain studies

A Massachusetts anesthesiologist has been accused of fabricating results in nearly two dozen published studies that claimed to show after-surgery benefits from painkillers including Vioxx and Celebrex.

"Dr. Reuben deeply regrets that this happened," his attorney, Ingrid Martin, said. "Dr. Reuben cooperated fully with the peer review committee.


And yet, low-IQ liberals believe in the alarmist studies about the Ponzi scheme, Global Warming. If crooked scientists and UN/World Bank thieves fake global warming studies to earn six-figure salaries through grants, in order to pay for their wives' McMansion and plastic surgery, it must be true, right?

I bet you global warming-cultists voted for the KING-AFRICANO-MOMBASA-THE MERCIFUL, since you love any cult, right?

Now go pay unnecessary rip-off carbon taxes to a central bank in Europe, on anything you use or buy, so the European elite and UN crooks can live a rich lifestyle off your backs, sheeple.

Anonymous said...

Barbaric Germans do it again

-->http://tinyurl.com/aogc2z

Tick, tick tick

Anonymous said...

Oil is going to $17 a barrel as the economy slows even more.

Anonymous said...

We miss the point if we assume oil will run out--it both will not (yet for a while) and cannot (just yet).

Why?

Oil is the factor that will bring Nation against Nation to evolve the final battle of the world. You can read this for yourself in the best selling book in the world.
What?? you think the Bible is a myth? Oh really?

Towards the end, oil becomes the "Gold Standard" of the world. Nations will war and kill zillions to get it. Yeah, it says that in the Book. Tells us that up front.
You cant find it? Get a good Bible concordance or ask a well studied Bible Scholar. You cant just know one or two things to find stuff in the Bible, you gotta sew it together in several books of the Bible. Yeah, its all in there if you hunt it down.
But if at all interested, and what ever you do, do your own homework. Under no circumstances take mine or any other "Bible Thumping Nutcase's" word for it. In fact dont take someone's word for anything--nothing at all---find out for yourself. You can. The last thing I would ever want is someone to think I was pushing it off on you against your will. We live in a free country. There you go, no need to respond back to me in anger. I have done it for you.

Signed: A stupid conservative Christian.
aka: Nutcase Wacko

Ross said...

Hydrogen Baby Hydrogen! Hydrogen Baby Hydrogen!

Anonymous said...

A new source of energy could always be just around the corner. Can you imagine how really f*cked up the middle east will be when we no longer need them for oil? The unrest over there would be unreal if such a thing were ever to occur.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a lot of government schooled brains are posting here.

Blue Collar

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 4:54 - I think you may have slipped a few 000's. Most credible estimates are that the earth's total endowment of conventional oil is approximately 2 trillion barrels. But you may be right - can you provide a source for your estimate?

Anonymous said...

"How about the 2,4 trillion barrels that are right here in the US Obbbaaaammmmyyyyy and the commies won't allow to be touched because of their religion (the green god)."
But of course the oil supply is infinte according to this tool.

Lost Cause said...

Rocket engines prefected burning hydrogen fuel forty years ago. The planes that crashed on 9/11 would not have caused the same damage, burning hydrogen. With the trillions spent since 9/11, we could have retrofitted every plane on earth by now.

Anonymous said...

You have a way with words. . .

Anonymous said...

A couple thousand people around the world may have thought about the concept of peak oil, including the dozens who read this blog.

In other words we are not making the fundamental changes now to our energy economy because no one cares. These improvements could have saved us much of the potential turmoil from declining oil output over the next decade.

I don't know for sure of course. I have a feeling we're in for some serious trouble though. The numbers just don't make sense, sum to zero, like they didn't for the whole housing debacle and financial disaster.

It will make this entire financial crisis look like the first inning of a 9 inning game of anarchy vs civilization.

Anonymous said...

Recycling of funds from Excess Global Liquidity from Yen Carry Trade replaced the function of the Federal Reserve during the monetary tightening period of 2004 to 2007.

Look at it this way the Federal Reserve is almost at zero interest rate today, and the housing bubble is not coming back.

http://www.portlandtribune.com
/us_world_news
/story.php?story_id=TRE52A1KR

Greenspan says Fed didn't cause the housing bubble

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said lower rates on long-term, fixed-rate mortgages and not the Federal Reserve's policies are to blame for the U.S. housing bubble.

"Between 2002 and 2005, home mortgage rates led U.S. home price change by 11 months. This correlation between home prices and mortgage rates was highly significant, and a far better indicator of rising home prices than the fed-funds rate," Greenspan wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

The Federal Reserve became aware of the disconnect between monetary policy and mortgage rates when the latter failed to respond as expected to the Fed tightening in mid-2004, said Greenspan, who was the Federal Reserve Chairman from 1987 to 2006.

Given the decoupling of monetary policy from long-term mortgage rates, accelerating the path of monetary tightening that the Fed pursued in 2004-2005 could not have prevented the housing bubble, he said.

jim said...

except i dont believe hydrogen is that dense, but what it is is very light.

Anonymous said...

I have to call b.s. Why is the little spike exactly centered on the year 2000. Too much of a coincidence.

Roccman said...

oh grasshopper...

Anonymous said...

Waste and short term greed are our saviour.

Imagine if we had used every drop to clear more forests.

Imagine if we had used every drop to grow more crops and feed more billions.

Imagine if we had used every drop to filter the sea of everything that swam (and cooked it tempura style)

Imagine if we had done this for one thousand years rather than just one hundred.

If we had been efficient we wouldnt be able to cut 70% of the consumption in the west to cushion the fall.

Plastic disposable crap and sitting in traffic jams saved our collective asses from something much worse.

Mitesh Damania said...

Genius, PURE genius, I tell ya...

Hey I made a funny.. Let me elaborate.

I saw a 6ft line of flame (natual gas) being burned at a Sea World restaurant for ambience. What a complete waste!

Mitesh Damania said...

Btw, there's an imposter using my profile id. I don't know how blogspot allows duplicate id's but he did it!

Anyways, the real me shows "blogger since April 2007" in the profile.

Anonymous said...

The leviathan that we should excoriate is the one thing that we do best in this world and that’s to reproduce in our own image billions of people more than are needed or necessary for anything less than showing-up and being here.

For that reason alone, there will never be enough energy in any form to bring a decent standard of living to most people on this earth. If you haven’t noticed, the huge and growing slums and shanties in the 3rd world aren’t too worried if there is enough oil to go around, they’re worried about something much more basic, like clean water and food.

If the liberals really want to save the world, I suggest you start there, I mean really GO there and tell them to stop fucking. I want you to actually DO something about it, instead of talking to your like-minded friends. I seriously doubt anything you say or do for them is going to save them from themselves. Just look at the way they live, do you truly think you can realistically change anything about that? They reproduce to the point of living - literally in their own shit and you think you can stop that with love and understanding? And the fact that you want to bring this here, to our country, is beyond my capacity for understanding, sorry.

Anytime you discuss the availability and cost of energy and it’s complimentary systems, you are talking about - The Limits of Growth. The carrying capacity of the world and its infrastructure can only be factored into the amount of service needed at any one time. If the system cannot keep-up with the pace of human reproduction, then no amount of socialism can suffice. And why you want to take from me (I’ve worked honestly for what little I have) and give to someone whom has proved to not be reliable or responsible is just plain idiotic, not to mention self-destructive in the long run.

The one fact of life that you need to grasp and understand as young as possible is that life is a very cruel and cold ordeal if you aren’t prepared for it or supported in some way, you know, nurtured into the nice person that you are. There are very desperate people that want what you have and will take it and ruin it, if they could. If you are one of the lucky ones, I do hope you’re thankful for what you have, for remember, tomorrow the good things may be gone.

Bukko_in_Australia said...

"Btw, there's an imposter using my profile id. I don't know how blogspot allows duplicate id's but he did it!"

Your name isn't your ID. Your e-mail address is your ID.

I thought we were all technically skilled and knowledgeable here...?

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