THE COMING GLOBAL CRISIS...

What Happens If... When We Run Out Of Oil?

Envision a world where freezing, starving people burn everything combustible — everything from forests (releasing CO2; destroying topsoil and species); to garbage dumps (releasing dioxins, PCBs, and heavy metals); to people (by waging nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional war). This is a world where there is not enough renewable energy to create electricity that keeps us warm or medicines many of us depend on just to live, a world where there are no meat processing plants and cold storages to keep food frozen so that we don't go hungry, and a world where there is no deisel fuel to transport consumer goods to market. Did you know this is a very likely possibility of what the future holds for us and that scientists are debating these issues right now? Do you know how close we really are to this bleak contrast of our lives today? Can you see your future now?

Economic students are taught that banks "create" money every time they make a loan, and that the economy is powered by money instead of energy. The juxtaposition of these two data (the first is true, the second is false) leads even Nobel Prize-winning economists to conclude they have discovered a perpetual-motion machine! No person has had a greater influence on the thinking of experts who have become government regulators of the world's oil and gas industries than economist Morris Adelman: "There are plenty of fossil fuels and no limit to potential electrical capacity. It is all a matter of money".

But Adelman — and every government regulator he has ever influenced — is wrong. It is a matter of energy! (The only source of energy in money is the medium itself, and a $100 bill contains no more energy than a $10 bill.)

Although economists treat energy just like any other resource, it is not like any other resource. Available energy is the prerequisite for all other resources. Moreover, universal energy laws tell us that the economist's perpetual-motion machine is impossible. To lift 15 kg of oil 5 meters out of the ground requires 735 joules of energy just to overcome gravity — and the higher the lift, the greater the energy requirements. The most concentrated and most accessible oil is produced first; thereafter, more and more energy is required to find and produce oil. At some point, more energy is spent finding and producing oil than the energy recovered. Thus, Adelman is wrong: it is not all a matter of money.

Neither capital nor labor nor technology can "create" energy (the first law of thermodynamics). Instead, available energy must be spent to transform existing matter (e.g. oil), or to divert an existing energy flow (e.g., wind) into more available energy. The engines that actually do the work in our economy (so-called "heat engines"; e.g., diesel engines) waste 50 percent of the energy contained in their fuel (the second law). Thus, Adelman is wrong again: there is a physical limit to potential electrical capacity.

Nearly everyone in the world (all governments, and all but a handful of scientists, etc.) has accepted the economists' perpetual-motion machine. Even the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy has no idea how much energy is required to produce energy ("net energy"). Nor does the EIA have any idea how fast energy can be produced ("peak")! But even a child can understand that machines do not run on money — they run on energy (daddy's car needs gas) — and available energy is a prerequisite for producing more energy.

Published petroleum experts Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrère, Brian Fleay, and Roger Blanchard all expect production of conventional oil to peak around 2005 and fall thereafter. Moreover, the CEOs of Agip (Italian oil company) and Arco have both published estimates of peak in 2005. So it seems like a reliable estimate. Campbell and Blanchard say that Norwegian production (the second largest export) is at "peak" now and will soon begin a long-term decline. Colombia and Venezuela are apparently well past their peaks and now in long-term decline. Mexico will probably peak this year at the midpoint of depletion.

The latest estimates by country can be found here: HTML — PDF — XLS

Gas production is better described as a "plateau" followed by a "cliff" due to the high mobility and recovery of gas. Whereas oil declines slowly as it moves through the porespace of the rocks under declining pressure, the decline of gas is a cliff — not a slope. The gas market gives no warning of the cliff because it is no more expensive to produce the last cubic foot than the first.

US gas production is at or near its "cliff" now. Canada currently makes up about 13% of the U.S. gas supply — and Canada may already be past its cliff in natural gas production. Canadians export most gas to the US under short-term contracts. Moreover, a vague law allows them to rein in the petroleum trade whenever it appears to be in their interest (and making the US pay dearly was in their interest in the late 70s). http://www.qv3.com/policypete/policypete.htm

Campbell says that it is not practical to make up the US gas shortfall by shipping it in from the Middle East. However, the construction of a new gas line to Alaska and the Canadian arctic where there probably are large untapped deposits could temporarily mitigate the US gas cliff.

The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates that production from Canada's oil sands will be extremely slow (100 to 200 years for all of it). It is also worth noting that the processing of heavy oil and bitumen in Canada has used cheap, stranded gas. This gas is probably not going to be stranded or cheap much longer, which will reduce the economics of the heavy oil and bitumen extraction.

US coal is expected to become an energy "sink" — not worth digging out of the ground — by 2040.

Laherrère has provided a new paper that shows that there is no evidence from all the worldwide research and extensive coring for any massive hydrate deposits. http://dieoff.com/page192.htm

The rising energy costs (increasing extraction effort) and rising economic costs of oil set up a positive feedback loop: since oil is used directly or indirectly in everything, as the costs of oil increase, the costs of everything else increase too — including other forms of energy. For example, oil provides about 50% of the fuel used in coal extraction.

H.T. Odum's eMergy calculations show that the only other forms of energy that can survive the exhaustion of fossil fuel are biomass (burning wood, animal dung, or peat), hydroelectric, geothermal in volcanic areas, and some wind electrical generation. Nuclear power could be viable if one could overcome the shortage of fuel. No other alternatives (e.g., photovoltaics) produce a large enough net eMergy to be worth pursuing.

The sudden — and surprising — end of the fossil fuel age will stun almost everyone — and may kill billions. Once the majority of earth's people realize the truth about severe permanent reductions in the supply of gas and oil (it's just a matter of time), your life will change forever.

When American Citizens No Longer Hold To Their Core Beliefs And Values...

You Won’t See These Heart-Stopping Photos On The Front Page Of The NY Times Or As The Lead Story Of The Major News Networks. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upside down at Montebello High School in California

I predict this stunt will be the nail in the coffin of any guest-worker/amnesty plan on the table in Washington . The image of the American flag subsumed to another and turned upside down on American soil is already spreading on Internet forums and via e-mail.

Pass this along to every American citizen in your address books and to every representative in the state and federal government. If you choose to remain uninvolved, do not be amazed when you no longer have a nation to call your own nor anything you have worked for left since it will be "redistributed" to the activists while you are so peacefully staying out of the "fray".

Check history, it is full of nations/empires that disappeared when its citizens no longer held their core beliefs and values. One person CAN make a difference. One plus one plus one plus one plus one plus one........ The battle for our secure borders and immigration laws that actually mean something, however, hasn't even begun.

If this ticks YOU off...PASS IT ON!!

I am not a racist, I am a realist, and realisticly this is unacceptable behavior. This is our country. The Land they stand on is our sovereign soil. The school they attend is funded by our tax dollars and the teachers they are educated by (though I see noone teaching here) are all provided with, yep you guessed it, those same tax dollars.

Write your State Representatives and your Senators. Send them these pictures. Let them HEAR your Voice seperate itself from the snow. These children seem pretty happy with themselves, proud of their actions. Proud of the fact that they can come into your house and spit in your face America. If you do nothing then you might as well write these children's parents a letter and thank them for their show of gratitude in raising children with respect for the nation and people that gave them and education and the freedom to hold the very protest they are at. They'd be imprisoned or worse for a stunt like this in the land they wave their flags for.

Human Cattle

It seems there is a new marketplace in town for ideas called Free IQ. By joining the community as a registered member, you have the opportunity to participate with the interactive features on the site, such as reviewing and rating content, sharing content with friends, saving your favorites and uploading your own content. Oh, and did I mention that its FREE to join? You can also join to sell any of your own content through Free IQ. There is so much free information there already it is just unbelievable. And they are just in the Beta stages. Mark my words…This going to be the next platform for info sharing on the Internet. Check it out here, and remember you heard about it here first!

Wow!! A lot of things happened this morning...

While I was laying awake in bed last night, waiting to drift off I also caught a snippet of news that sat me straight up in bed. Seems the US Government now has the "official" authority, in a bill passed today, to tap your cell phone. I was so pissed off about this I couldn’t even go back to sleep. It seems one by one, our civil liberties are being taken away from us and we are all responsible for this. WAKE UP AMERICA!

Your technical jobs are being shipped overseas. Your labor markets are being flooded with unskilled laborers that are willing to do YOUR JOB for less. And there is no more social security. What do you think these people are going to retire on when it’s their time? Money they paid in, or money that you worked, sweated and bled for? Doesn’t that mean anything to you?

According to CNN's Lou Dobbs:

"The United States has sustained 31 consecutive years of trade deficits. Those debts have reached successively higher records in each of the past 5 years...Since the beginning of this new century, the United States has lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs, [and] 3 million more jobs have been lost to cheap overseas labor markets in the name of outsourcing, as Corporate America campaigns relentlessly for what it calls higher productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness."

I am outraged by this. I am insulted by this. Employers used to compensate their employees hard work and loyalty by taking care of them. We used to have pensions that were protected by our United States Congressmen and women. Companies are now being given the Authority to SPEND and borrow against those pensions that were set aside for you. We used to have health care because healthy workers meant higher productivity and less time loss off the job do to minor illness.

Now we can’t afford medical treatment which leads to more serious sicknesses and diseases. Now when we have given a lifetime of service and loyalty to a company we are thrown on the garbage pile. Even before then we put up with being slandered and insulted by the very corporations we work for and purchase our commodities from.

I watched my own father, who worked for one of the airlines at the Kansas City overhaul base for 35+ years, get pushed out of his job to make room for a younger, cheaper workforce. For his LOYALTY and years of service, he got a lousy $18,000 check to retire on.

And since we began this diatribe about individual political correctness, we seem to have forgotten that it never was about any one individual. This nation was forged on tolerance and a whole slew of different beliefs and nationalities. It's not about the American, but about the value of being an American Citizen in the United, I repeat, UNITED (no matter what our differences and beliefs are) States of America. Who cares if a corporation wants to put a Christmas tree up in their airport, who are you to tell them they have to tear it down in a show of equality for others.

A Corporation, by law, is a legal person, and like any other person in the United States, that Corporation has the right to their own beliefs, values, morals and pursuit of happiness under protection from the Constitution of the United States. What next will we ask; that we rewrite the Constitution because someone doesn't agree with their neighbor’s display of their Christmas tree in their own house? What happened to tolerance and humanity? It's ridiculous and out of control.

I believe there are two historical documents that should provide a frame of reference for every American: the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Have you ever really read them? They were both written with the principles our forefathers sought to forge our nation on. You should know and understand them.

When I read these two documents, and think of the immense obstacles in a nation we were fighting and the sacrifice of human lives these great men and women gave to arrive at this document, my stomach does flip-flops. I am filled with immense pride and gratitude to our Ancestors, and it makes me want to strive to be a better American in respect and remembrance of their sacrifices.

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political institutions on accident and force.

Wake up America, are we 90% of the citizens that make up this great nation or are we cattle for the other 10% to be led by a ring in our nose called taxes?

As I have said before I think we are having a Human Identity Crisis.

The Human Identity Crisis

I remember growing up. I remember I wanted to be so many things. I used to imagine those things, “daydreaming” we call it now. I used to imagine myself on these great adventures in the jungle out back in the woods behind the house. I used to imagine playing in the World Series during a game of Wiffleball. So many things…

Now, like so many others, I hardly have time to breathe let alone dream. God, I remember those days, so many dreams…we’ve all lived so many lives and pretended to be so many people that we’ve forgotten who we were when we started out. Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost our identities. Somewhere along the way we sold our moral compasses. It’s no longer for the better of mankind that we steer ourselves, but for the betterment of me. And sure I will, but what do I get out of it?

We don’t have time to dream anymore these days…at least not the kind of dreams we had as children…the innocent fantasies. Everything moves so fast. Kids don’t even want to go outside to play anymore. I remember not wanting to go home! Video games were such a blessing in the beginning, but I think they’ve become our children’s biggest curse.

Kids sit like zombies in front of the computer or the TV. Most of our children learn there social skills in front of that stupid box or from a video game. Children are social creatures, that's how they learn, but how will they learn if they cannot even safely congregate anymore. Children need to learn how to interact in society by developing those social skills early on through interaction with other children, outside a “structured” environment such as school.

These days our children need protecting from much more than physical harm - just as threatening to the fragile child are the dangers of the mind and the dangers of the heart...Let us hope that no technology will ever exist that can replace human warmth and compassion. For when such a technology does exist, will we cease to be human?