I think we are beginning to watch the slow motion decline of the American empire.
We’ve been watching the slow mo version for some time now. The question is whether we’re starting to get the 30 frames per second version.

Posted by: Billmon | Sep 19 2005 18:29 utc | 4

“One week before Christmas the food and fuel riots had spread to Washington DC. President Bush (43) declared a universal state of emergency and brought the few remaining National Guard troops onto the streets. But his Deficit-and-Spend Republican government offered no remedy for the economic crisis as oil prices soared over $100. Indeed, Bush’s dissolution of prevailing wages for tradespeople was seen as a slap in the face after twenty years of no real wage growth. Armies of protestors surged into the streets, the legions of hidden unemployed, joined by hordes of formerly “middle class” outsourced professionals – all taking part in a spontaneously organized strike. When millions of protestors congregated in National Mall & Memorial parks, banging pots and pans, the resignation of the Bush presidency, along with his economic chairman, secretary of state and the entire cabinet was almost immediate. Congress and SCOTUS soon fled the city.”
*****[From “Rise and Fall of Democracy,” Stewart and Urquhart, 2006]

Posted by: Pella Grino | Sep 19 2005 19:52 utc | 6

A fisherman on the beach in front of my hotel on Long Beach Island, NJ (Katrina evacuee) caught a pompano this morning; in nearly 50 years of fishing these waters, he’s never heard of anyone catching a pompano this far north. Global warming anyone?

Posted by: Brian Boru | Sep 19 2005 23:10 utc | 8

thanks malooga

Posted by: annie | Sep 20 2005 3:12 utc | 10

Malooga, good post. 2 thghts.
1) You misunderstand Peak Oil. We are only approaching in the coming yrs/decades the half-way point of oil that costs $1/barrel to bring to market. There is 17-20 times the amount of cheap oil, in stuff that costs $15/barrel to bring to market. So, we are not facing an oil shortage. We have at least another 20 centuries worth of the stuff. Canada has more oil than Saudi Arabia ever had – it just hasn’t been tapped ‘cuz it costs more. Canadians better prepare for the onslaught.
2). Our main problem is political. It’s not that hard to imagine ways out…I think we have to stop focusing on what elites are doing in DC, as it’s obvious the Financial & Political Elites just plan to let us starve, declare a police state & introduce viruses etc., to kill off a large chunk of humanity – substances for which they have antidotes that will keep them safe. (it’s not for nothing that the CFR recently made Laurie Garrett an offer she couldn’t refuse.) W/agribusiness driving people off the land, and our factories & inc. white collar jobs being destroyed we’re obviously superfluous if not antithetical to their prosperity.
I keep hoping the sustainability movement will get together w/those tossed out of jobs & hold regional planning conferences to start drawing up blueprints. What do we need. If we’re having conferences all over the country, to plan a future, and Demanding the Capital to carry it out, things will start to move. For starters, we need to slash budget for War Dept. & put that into mass transit systems & subsidies for people to get their homes off the grid. We need goal & timetables…looking at crucial things we all need & arrangements for it all to be produced/manufactured/grown regionally. Enough of this factories in China horseshit. If this doesn’t come from the ground up, we are well & truly fucked.

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2005 3:31 utc | 12

But remember, there’ll be plenty of time later to figure out what went wrong with FEMA. Doing it now would just be playing the blame game. It’s not like there was any urgent reason to do it right away…

Posted by: Redshift | Sep 20 2005 3:49 utc | 14

Malooga, jj, excellent stuff. Where did you get your figures, jj? If you are right, then we are truly fucked. Corporate interests will keep us addicted to oil as long as they can get away from jacking up the prices. Why would they give a care for alternative energy sources when there’s enough to keep selling us for another 200 hundred years? There was some scientist on the radio the other day saying that we are already past the point of no return, with the permafrost becoming slush just another (particulalry frightening) aspect of it. War in Iraq, US imperialism, etc, will be kids stuff if our cooling system really goes into reverse.

Posted by: theodor | Sep 20 2005 4:10 utc | 16

Billmon, if you want to do us all the favor of asking Dr. Kammen to write up a quick thread explaining peak oil – what it is and Is Not – I can provide his email addr. for you.
No, theodor, 20 centuries left @ rate of 20th cen usage…essentially infinite in other words. Also, it’s not Definitive that we are locked in what’s called a postive feedback loop on global warming. There’s merely concern – and fear mongering is big these days, so people are overstating things. There was exc. art. in Independent I linked to last wk. on this, but unfortunately, you can only read their stuff now for 3 days free. The scientists who did the latest work in the Artic were very clear about this – they do not know if it is irreversible or not, so pls. let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Another aspect of things that I don’t see mentioned, is that we get most of our oxygen from the ocean, or did. I haven’t read people talking about ramifications for our oxygen supply from the damage we’re doing to the seas by heating them up, apart from damage to coral reefs from acidification from inc. carbon dioxide etc.

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2005 4:39 utc | 18

Kammen does not in any way advocate that we continue w/this Petroleum Mad consumption. He advocates immediately diversifying into every alternative available & gets 180-200mpg on his car that he plugs into his solar system @home. Nevertheless it’s not availability that is the main limitation right now according to him.
DeA- Thanks for checking in. I hadn’t heard of Deffeyes. What do you think about writing up a piece from him if Bernhard (Jerome?) will post it as a thread. Then I’ll send it off to Kammen & ask him to respond on subsequent thread. (I emailed him a ? after hearing him speak & rec’d response in 1 hr.) It’s important to get this sorted out.

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2005 5:23 utc | 20

jj-
Some good postings. A reply:
1) You misunderstand Peak Oil. We are only approaching in the coming yrs/decades the half-way point of oil that costs $1/barrel to bring to market. There is 17-20 times the amount of cheap oil, in stuff that costs $15/barrel to bring to market. So, we are not facing an oil shortage. We have at least another 20 centuries worth of the stuff. Canada has more oil than Saudi Arabia ever had – it just hasn’t been tapped ‘cuz it costs more. Canadians better prepare for the onslaught.
Oddly enough, I was listening to a Michael Ruppert recording the other day and he misdefined Peak Oil as the point at which we have used up half of the oil (on the planet). The actual definition is the maximum rate of production of oil. So, what is important is not how long reserves might last, but at what rate we can extract oil. That is where supply and demand come into play and (minus financial shenanigans), the price of oil would rise if we cannot meet demand. We are already seeing so-called “third world” countries being forced into temporary blackouts.
A few quibbles with your figures. The cheapest oil in the world can be extracted for about $1-4/bl; there is not much of that, percentagewise. Bringing oil to market in the U.S. adds refining (~$4/bl), shipping, distribution, etc., so we are talking minimum of $10/bl. This is still dirt cheap– .25/gallon, before taxes and retail and wholesale profit (.30-50/gal). But again, there is not that much oil, relatively speaking, that cheap to produce. Which is why Saudi Arabia has made so much money.
West Texas oil averages $15-20/bl to extract. The price of gas must stay above about $1.50/gal. for that oil to be profitable. So the first price rise last year was for the “Friends of Arbusto.”
2). Our main problem is political.
Small quibble. Our main problem is educational. Knowledge is power. Educate the public and overcome our useless educational and powerful propagandizing systems. Politicians never lead; they follow. With an educated, politically active populace agitating constantly, even Chimpy would make a good president. The great secret of ruling is convincing the public that they have no power to effect change. NPR is a master of making people feel powerless. They might educate you, but they will never tell you how to organize or what to do to change things. Stasis radio.
3) I implied but did not explicitly state above that the problem is not availability of oil, which is limitless, but that we’ve exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet & nature is taking its revenge. Global warming is serious – the oil shortage stuff is fear mongering based on misunderstanding of what it peaking & what is not.
As far as carrying capacity, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The Club of Rome first elucidated the exponential curves of arable land, water, energy, pollution, and population we face as limits to unrestrained growth back in the ’70’s. They didn’t touch the systematic growth demanded by capitalism: way too hot a button. And right now, capitalism is profiting as it always has by increasing our own nation’s population past its carrying capacity with immigration. I’m not anti-immigrant; I’m pro sustainability. As we grow past carrying capacities, we are forced to implement increasingly riskier and alienating new technologies to catch up (Green Revolution, corporate farming, GE crops, etc.)
As far as Peak Oil itself is concerned, well, it’s a theory; no one is quite sure, and there is ample dissent. My own belief is that the Bush administration heedlessly pushed us into Peak by its incompetant invasion of Iraq. The oil companies are nervous at this point, but going along because of the inadvertent windfall profits they are currently earning. But everyone is looking for an eventual way to make Iraq stable enough to increase its production. Iraq probably has the largest reserves in the world. Increasing production in a stable Iraq would easily add 5M bl/day and push off peak by another five or more years without any other changes.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 20 2005 7:06 utc | 22

I keep hoping the sustainability movement will get together w/those tossed out of jobs & hold regional planning conferences to start drawing up blueprints. What do we need. If we’re having conferences all over the country, to plan a future, and Demanding the Capital to carry it out, things will start to move. For starters, we need to slash budget for War Dept. & put that into mass transit systems & subsidies for people to get their homes off the grid. We need goal & timetables…looking at crucial things we all need & arrangements for it all to be produced/manufactured/grown regionally. Enough of this factories in China horseshit. If this doesn’t come from the ground up, we are well & truly fucked.
Great stuff, JJ. Reading things like this helps cheer me up.
**************
No one is always right or always wrong–except Chimpy, who ONLY opens his mouth to lie–otherwise, why take the chance of speaking to the press, when he could be leading a “more balanced life.”
Yes, Ruppert does have a pompous, opportunistic, fear mongering style. But he works hard, has many followers, and much of what he says is correct. Kunstler has his Cassandra side, and perhaps almost longs for a simpler time he remembers from childhood to return, but he is an excellant and entertaining writer stylistically, IMHO. Read ’em all, and form your own opinion.
**************
As far as other energy sources:
While we might have a lot of coal, remember that coal plants spew far more radiation and heavy metals, including mercury, into the atmosphere than nuclear plants. Radiation is released is cumulative, it can’t be “taken back.”
****************
Climate change:
Global Warming is a certain and given our lifestyles, increasing. A positive feedback loop is only theorized at this point. Global warming could even, counterintuitively, trigger another ice age as the Gulf Stream weakens and fails. What is certain, is increased suffering and disruption for humans, and increasing extinctions for flora and fauna. No good way to spin it.
*****************
I heard Jesse Jackson today on Democracy Now. While I generally like him, he was demagoging for cheap gas, remarking that Venezuelans only pay .15/gal for gas. That’s all we need–cheaper gas then before! Sheesh….

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 20 2005 7:52 utc | 24

We have at least another 20 centuries worth of the stuff.
That’s an astonishing statement, jj. Is this the conclusion of Professor Kammen?
It would be a good idea indeed to get this sorted out. You might want to contact Kjell Aleklett or Collin Campball at ASPO (http://www.peakoil.net/) and try to arrange some kind of dialectic between one of them and Professor Kammen, especially if he is publically disseminating this theory.
Malooga, you wrote:
The actual definition is the maximum rate of production of oil. So, what is important is not how long reserves might last, but at what rate we can extract oil.
Peak oil is generally defined as our having extracted half of total reserves available. See Collin Campbell at site referenced above for a classic definition of peak oil. The trouble with this definition lies in trying to estimate the arrival of peak, as we cannot be sure what we have in the way of reserves. See Matt Simmons here for the latest on reserve estimates, as well as the work of Chris Skrebowski.
In any case, as relates to your definition of peak oil, you may find this link interesting:
http://www.peakoil.net/MSC.html

Posted by: Trilby | Sep 20 2005 16:54 utc | 26

All these questions are unanswerable in anything approaching certainty. Aside from the fact that institutions lie like rugs about their reserves & who knows what is yet to be discovered, which by definition is unknowable no matter what anyone says, there are many grades of oil. We may be hitting Peak in the top of the line stuff, but beyond that we don’t know. Kammen said there is 17-20 times the lower grade stuff – he said costs $15/barrel to bring to market v. $1/barrel for current stuff. DeA- said that costs more energy to extract than we get from it. That’s unknowable as technology advances & what’s energy intensive today, may be less so in 5 yrs.
It’s so politically convenient to crank up dire warnings on the Oil Is Running Out, that one has to be really careful. It’s a way of enlisting the middle class in the Elite’s War Against Them…

Posted by: jj | Sep 20 2005 18:22 utc | 28

jj-
I agree with your concerns about the political convenience of the ruling elite using peak oil as a control mechanism. The Bush junta seems to be going out of its way to throw us into this crisis. On the other hand, they are enriching the evil Hugo Chavez by their tactics. If they had been able to let the price of oil wallow at $20/bl for a couple of years, they could have ousted him easily. Now the socialist humanism he embodies is a major challenge to neo-liberal legitimacy. Geo-politcs is a complicated game, even for a gang who can’t shoot straight.
But all is not unknowable. I opine about this topic because I spent 5 years working at what was then the largest refinery in The Americas. At the time it was owned by Hess Oil in St. Croix USVI. It was on the market for 4 years or so, while oil was languishing at $20/bl and refining margins were down, losing up to a million dollars/day. No one wanted it; we paraded prospective buyers from Japan, Taiwan etc. around the place. The American Oil Companies wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. This was the early nineties and all the money was to be made in exploration. Exploration was sexy, lots of new equipment and techniques were coming on line, fortunes were being made, while refining was so…..yesterday, a mere value added commodity. The refiner and retailer, Hess had merged with the explorer, Amerada; John had taken over from his father, Leon, who owned the N.Y. Jets, and, like Chimpy, he was determined to make his own mark. He finally dumped the refinery after sprucing it up with a Billion dollar upgrade (Catalytic Cracker, MTBE, TAME) to the only ones who would take it: the Venezuelans. Chavez is laughing his way to the bank now. By my calculations, that place must be netting 3 million/day now, minimum. I know that’s chump change compared to the death and patronage rackets that Chimpy runs, but this is honest money, and its going a long way towards helping the people of Venezuela.
I personally made all of the jet fuel for the U.S. Navy for two years. Later, I worked as a trainer, and with FEMA writing emergency procedures. I finally left after becoming active in the union, discovering some really evil shit, and not having the personal strength to put my life on the line to fight it. So, I know a lot about the refining business, and enough about oil in general to smell a rat when its out there.
That’s why I get angry when people make stupid comments on blogs about how terrorists will blow up all of our refineries without knowing anything about what a refinery is. The one I worked at was as large as all of lower Manhattan, not just two buildings. How are they going to blow that up short of an atomic bomb? And if they had one, why not use it on D.C., not some dinky refinery that processes, at most, 2% of our gas needs?
A few other myths debunked:
1) Refineries are very dangerous places; accidents happen all the time. It is not terrorism.
2) The general public NEVER hears the truth about accidents, not because the government is covering anything up, but because the Dance of Blame takes place between the refinery, the contracted maintainence, the equipment manufacturers, and the insurance companies over who will be left footing the bill. The lawyers always win. But any operator who works in a plant will hear through the grapevine pretty fast what actually happened. Industrial accidents, like car accidents, are usually complicated, with several contributing factors, each of which cold be handled alone, eventually overwhelming an ability to cope-kinda like our foreign policy.
3)Public discussions about our refining capacity as a nation are, of course, filled with lies. It is all about trying to get something for nothing with this administration. Yes, no new refineries have been built in many years, but many refineries, such as the one I worked at, had massive upgrades in capacity. At the same time, many older, smaller refineries were shut down as unprofitable. There was NO concern, under Clinton, about a major oil resource being sold to a foreign country, like there recently was with China. It is good for refineries to be distributed al around the country, as we see with a disaster like Katrina.
4) There is no reason to suspend environmental regulations on refineries for more than a very short time (three months). Pollution remediation equipment is out there and it is a crime that government standards are not higher. No one profits in the long run except for the doctors and drug companies. With proper regulation, all of industry has to comply, keeping a level playing field (a strange concept for crony capitalism), companies who manufacture eqipment profit, and our health profits. There is a case to be made for rationalizing our differing regional gas regulations in order to add flexibilty to the grid in times of emergency, but only by upgrading lower standards.
5) There are basically two types of refineries, optimized for sweet or sour fuels, with the emphasis on the former here in America. We like our Wonder bread. But sweet can be converted over to sour for less than a billion dollars, sometimes only 50M; that is not a lot of money when we are talking heavy industry. Obviously, they would prefer the government pays for it. In a crisis the whole industry could convert in a year or two.
6) Without government performing its oversight mandate, gaming of an entire industry and commodity prices is easy. This is not conspiracy theory. Remember what happened in California in 2000? All the plants claimed they had to go on maintainence at the same time creating a manipulated crisis. They forced the Governor out and socked it to the residents to the tune of hundreds of billions in increased longterm rates for contracts essentially signed with a gun pointed at their heads. A good amount of the real truth leaked out much later, but only after the MSM spun lies for months on end, misleading the majority of the public. How do they do it? They put a cub reporter in who knows nothing about the industry and then direct them to industry sources. By the time the reporter has an inkling what is happening, they rotate them out and start again. I watched this happen at far closer range then I care to divulge here.
This was the Cheney coup. How quickly we forget. Probably thousands of employees at California power plants knew that the maintainence schedules had been manipulated, creating this crisis, but without a voice, particularly wall-to-wall coverage on TV, the public never finds out. This is the Big Lie in action. Thousands know, but it happens anyway.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 20 2005 20:09 utc | 30

Well put about peak oil, B. But for the “Gloom-n-Doomers” out there, I will say that baring the “Nut Behind the Wheel” invading Syria or Iran or Venezuela or Bolivia or North Korea or …..Well, maybe I should rephrase this: Until they go off and do something else crazy, I think that oil has probably hit an upside wall of about $70, and could even sink down into the high forties for a time. Don’t bet the farm on oil hitting $120. Futures markets don’t believe the crisis is that severe yet.
Two other points about oil:
1) As all the civilized folk here know, Europe and America have different standards for automotive fuel, with Europe relying more on diesel and the US on gasoline. Additionally, the environmental standards are different, with Europe more concerned with particulates and the U.S. with acid gases. One is not necesarily better than the other, it is a complex engineering tradeoff. And the systems are somewhat complementary, allowing Europe to help the U.S. dduring this crisis. I don’t know what the standards are for China, India, Japan, etc., but would like to know.
2) If I was a terrorist, the oil target that does sit exposed are the tank farms. These are the huge grids of oil storage tanks which refineries need to keep inventories for refining and before shipping. Additionally, many oil companies use all this storage capacity to play the spot market, in order to make another penny or two a gallon before market. The financial side of the oil business is small in terms of manpower, but large in terms of profit potential and influence. These tanks sit out there hanging on to the backside of a refinery, quite exposed, like big fat ducks. They are usually clustered two to an overflow berm that has been engineered to handle only one failure. It would be easy to figure out what is in each one, and with a bazooka or rpg you could do a lot of damage very quickly. But, of course, you will never hear about real threats….
I recall that at the time of Gulf War I, all the State Senators in the Virgin Islands (and a sorrier lot of ignorant, greedy, airbags you never did see), called hysterically for gas masks for every citizen, but no one mentioned the Tank Farm. I used to hike and go birding in a wetland preserve bordering the refinery. There were three ways in and out of that secluded fifty acres. You could climb to a little promontory, maybe 100 feet above the sea and the Tank Farm, and emerge from a clearing in the tropical growth. Below you stood endless rows of tanks: one or two square miles of these things, about a hundred of them. It would have been so easy……….. But, of course, you will never hear about real threats….
Just like we haven’t been hearing much about the oil spills Katrina caused. These are estimated to be 1/3 the size of the huge Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, and combined with the other chemicals from plants, and Superfund sites etc., may well be the worst environmental disaster to ever hit America. This is another sign of how much the press has lost its independence. Maybe it’s time to check in on Michael Jackson again, or the latest middle class blonde girl that got molested, or whatever.
By the way, B, I’ve lurked here and at the Bar, beforehand, for years, but never posted much. I spent a few years suffering with Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue and Brain Fog so bad that I couldn’t put a sentence together. I got all the mercury and metals removed from my mouth, detoxed, and am feeling much better. So now I’m finding it fun to write a bit, simply because I can, again. I’m quite content to be “below the fold”, but if you see something you like, feel free to put it up.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 20 2005 21:42 utc | 32

You could climb to a little promontory, maybe 100 feet above the sea and the Tank Farm, and emerge from a clearing in the tropical growth. Below you stood endless rows of tanks: one or two square miles of these things, about a hundred of them. It would have been so easy………..
Not RPG´s (max 300 yards), but mortars would be quite effective. Same situation in my country and city though they have overflow berms for each tank and quite some fire protection in place (I walked on those berms last Sunday and nobody came and asked why).
On oil prices – I agree we had a temporary top here unless Cheney orders bombs on Iran or Osama orders bombs on Saudi Arabia – so not financial short sale here. But look at nat-gas prices going from $8 to $13. Those will hit the consumers with some delay via the electricty bill, late but hard that punch will have some big effects.
Also, please, before you fire that RPG or mortar please leave me a note. The “funny” stuff about such “terrorist” action is in that you can make millions in going long oil or short air-line-stocks within minutes if you know beforehand.
I wonder how long it will take some concienceless profit takers to get their head around that concept and start some domestic action.

Posted by: b | Sep 20 2005 23:20 utc | 34

Or, of course, walk the berms, and paste a small unobtrusive patch of C4 and a remote controlled detonator on each one, one quiet night at 4 A.M…………..
Too bad I’m pretty much a pacifist.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 21 2005 0:38 utc | 36

@pee dee
How far into the Rabbit hole do you want to go?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 21 2005 2:36 utc | 38