Peak Oil debate...resolved?

[Milneman]

Posted by donk (here)
In the height of my peak oil fears in the middle of last decade, I had occasion to lunch with then president of US Chamber of Commerce...when I brought my fears of economic collapse (due to over-leveraging--aka fraud--of derivatives and the whole housing debacle) he said it was a non-issue thanks to the amount of existing liquidity. When I asked him if he was worried about peak oil, he was quick to respond he wasn't worried about oil at all, the resource scarcity that bothered him? Water.

Milneman: I agree, the issue I came to worry about more was it NOT peaking, and us poisoning the earth continually burning it up. And the whole issue that our food supply is pretty entirely petroleum-based (with the rare exception for y'all growing your own...)

The y'all growing your own is going to change. In our lifetimes.

Science is showing that as temperatures rise, the productivity of grains like wheat drops.

In other words, what we produce is not producing as much. The idea of peak food seems bizarre when you see how much food is thrown away because it's one minute past it's best, but the issue isn't what we're throwing away alone. It's what we're capable of producing on the planet now given climate, soil quality, and the ability of a plant to produce. As temperature and climate rise, those numbers drop.

We stop driving cars, we safeguard our wheat supply. Drive, or eat. Make your choice. And you must choose because we are running out of time.

[Cardillac]

look, folks, wake up; oil is neither a fossil fuel nor is it rare; so why is there a discussion about this?- I thought Avalonians were already of this but I guess not- am I in the wrong film?

please inform-

for those who are still in the dark about oil I'll break it down in the simplest of terms (hope you're ready)-

except for the sweet oil that comes bubbling to the top (very rare) one doesn't find/strike oil until ca.under 20k feet-

the most vast oil reserves are under 30k feet (still with me?)-

no fossil on this planet has been found under 16k feet (gosh!) so how could oil be a fossil fuel?-

it isn't-full stop-

beside that the vast oil reserves under 30k feet are "abiotic" (they replenish themselves just as our bodies replenish donated blood) so I think we can safely assume oil can deal with itself (gosh!)-

so why is this bogus topic an Avalon topic?- I thought we were more advanced/above it all-

Larry

[Ilie Pandia]

Hello,

Oil could sink (due to gravity and other processes) to way below the line of know fossils. Also not having found any fossils yet, does not imply that no fossils do not exist. (I am also assuming is easier to drill for liquid that it is to drill for fossils and this may be a wrong assumption).

Our body replenishes our blood by creating new blood cells via some processes that are fairly known and accepted to be true. Also blood is created by "consuming" resources that come from "food".

The process of how abiotic oil comes into existence is not that well explained, in my view. What resources are "used up" into making this a abiotic oil must be explained. For abiotic oil to be real, there would have to be an "oil cycle" that recreates it once it has been "used up". So I think that any explanation for the abiotic oil must address this cycle and how it works.

[Carmody]

The production process for making any of the alchemist stones takes place with a temperature that never exceeds ~155F, or 67C.

From it comes....... gasses and oils. Which is only a stage of the conversion.

This is the breakdown of elements into oils. it is done in a matter of months.

Due to this aspect, of molecular breakdown, and then..we have a major furnace aspect with deep earth, and then add in tremendous amounts of water were recently found..then we add in tremendous amounts of sulfur.

Well, in essence, abiotic oil production is a very real thing, IMO and IME. all the precursors and even the science of it is out there and real, so the earth doing it on a grand scale is not even a question, to me.

There is no peak oil.

However, I do agree that we need to stop using it the way we do. we need to stop having it be a control on us and we need to move into renewable energy systems,and over-unity energy systems.

If it takes gasoline being $20 a gallon to get that done, I'm on board with that.

[Ilie Pandia]

Read this article about why there is so much oil in the Middle East. It sheds some light on the oil creation process:

http://www.geoexpro.com/articles/201...he-middle-east

Finally this article on Wikipedia (not necessarily a reliable source) has some interesting information about fossil fuels:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel

So it appears that actually fossils are not required to be found near or in the fossil fuel.

[Ilie Pandia]

Posted by Carmody (here)
The production process for making any of the alchemist stones takes place with a temperature that never exceeds ~155F, or 67C.

From it comes....... gasses and oils. Which is only a stage of the conversion.

This is the breakdown of elements into oils. it is done in a matter of months.

Due to this aspect, of molecular breakdown, and then..we have a major furnace aspect with deep earth, and then add in tremendous amounts of water were recently found..then we add in tremendous amounts of sulfur.

Well, in essence, abiotic oil production is a very real thing, IMO and IME. all the precursors and even the science of it is out there and real, so the earth doing it on a grand scale is not even a question, to me.

There is no peak oil.

However, I do agree that we need to stop using it the way we do. we need to stop having it be a control on us and we need to move into renewable energy systems,and over-unity energy systems.

If it takes gasoline being $20 a gallon to get that done, I'm on board with that.

The problem that I see here is that in production of the alchemist stone there is someone putting everything together in the right conditions and proportions.

Oil, on the other hand has to rely on geological processes that take millions of years, to put everything into place. This is why I believe that oil is renewed, but it takes millions of years while we've burned most of the easily extractable oil in under a 100 years?

[Melinda]

Not to detract from the validity of questions in your original post donk, but your thread has prompted questions that reach beyond them, which address the bigger picture around them.

Post 10, by Milneman : “The problem, people, is not the resource, or the renewability of it. Here's the challenge I put forward to people who question climate change. Forget oil and climate change. Take a walk in downtown Beijing. Breathe deeply. Ask yourself: is this good for one's health?”

This is the first thing I think of when I witness people debating climate change and fuel supplies. Regardless of if, how and when it can be irrefutably proven that our current fuel usage creates or contributes to climate change, we know for a fact that it contributes to pollution and destruction of our environment. The same goes for if, how or when it could be proven that the sources of oil are being naturally replenished faster than previously thought.

The extraction of the fuels can be dangerous work. The processes involved in the recycling of products (in a culture that uses those fuels) can also be very dangerous work for the people involved. With truly abundant, clean, independent energy supplies you wouldn’t face those risks in the same way.

So whether or not oil can be replenished, it’s time for our culture to move on from it.

As we all know - there is huge intensity to the politics wrapped around the control of energy supplies. Even with solar-power the materials needed for the hardware are subject to market manipulation.
This report by Nicola Jones makes a few relevant points :

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_scarc...nologies/2711/

“A shortage of "rare earth" metals, used in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels to wind turbines, is hampering the growth of renewable energy technologies. Researchers are now working to find alternatives to these critical elements or better ways to recycle them...”

“...in 2011... the average price of "rare earths" — including terbium and europium, used in fluorescent bulbs; and neodymium, used in the powerful magnets that help to drive wind turbines and electric engines — shot up by as much as 750 percent in a year. The problem was that China, which controlled 97 percent of global rare earth production, had clamped down on trade.”

“In the Guiyu area of southern China, for example, more than 100,000 people work to take apart e-waste, boiling up circuit boards to remove the plastic and then leaching the metals with acid, at great risk to the environment and themselves. Uncontrolled burning leads to contaminated groundwater, and one study found elevated levels of lead in children living in Guiyu.”

Even without exotic Tesla-style energy technologies, we could have more efficient and safer recycling now – it’s just that our profit-driven marketplace, based on scarcity, doesn’t prioritise it. But truly clean and abundant energy supplies could take our recycling to a whole other level.

Additionally, as astronaut Brian O’Leary commented (I miss his voice) with free energy technologies we could navigate the stars, mining metals and minerals from asteroids.

Progressive energy technologies can facilitate laboratory production of certain materials, ones that are considered ‘rare’ in order to manipulate market profits. As one example... In a recent Project Camelot interview with nuclear engineer MT Keshe, he claimed that he and fellow scientists knew how to ‘make’ gold, but that it was not in his interest to destabilise markets and devalue commodities. This is also likely one (not the only) reason why he doesn’t currently advocate the energy from his new plasma reactors being financially free. To energy pioneers what is more useful, than publicly discussing gold production, is an educated populace that values using these new energy technologies to provide solutions for poverty, pollution and ill-health, in a peaceful infrastructure centred on peace – not the pursuit of profit. See 1:11:33 to 1:14:55 here : https://youtube.com/watch?v=jDFR9....be&t=1h11m33s

The more we focus our intent on new systems and a new way of seeing, from the heart and a deep sense of valuing one another and our planet, the more likely we are to overcome the energetic force that has dug its feet in with existing ‘market values.’


Post 7, Rocky_Shorz : “...when everyone is ready to turn away from oil and continue what Tesla started, the wars will end...”

In his 2013 Global BEM talk, Michael Riversong addressed some of the safety aspects around wireless electricity:

See 25:24 – 28:02 here : http://youtu.be/-vxr3kUwXzs?t=25m24s

“…The environmental profile of this is very positive, and the wireless transmission that Tesla developed is something that definitely we should be pursuing. We have not found heavy electromagnetic fields coming from these systems. That’s another source of environmental pollution... [...] ...naturally I get out some of the meters and I get out a short wave radio... [...] ...Brought one of those in to one of the demos at the conference in 2011 and we could not find a signal. I expected, when Nelson flipped the switch, we would get Nnnnn [makes signal-detection noise] all over the place. Nothing. Something is going on with that type of wireless transmission, where the field does not exist – it doesn’t seem to have any presence between the receiver and transmitter. Where the receiver is it picks up the resonant field and translates it back into electricity. In between we don’t know what we have, but we don’t seem to have health effects, and this again tracks with what Tesla was saying.”

At 39:37 -

“...Tesla specifically said that the frequencies we now associate with microwave, which essentially are above 1GHz (one gigahertz) up to what we call infrared. That range of frequencies is dangerous to health. Flat out. We shouldn’t be using them. And of course what are all those cell phones on our pockets running on, and all those wi-fi systems? It’s all microwave. We don’t know what the cumulative effects of those things are going to be. And so we would do best in developing our new technologies to just kind of stay away from that area for a while, until we can piece together what’s going on. I suspect a lot of what we’re going to find is that we have to operate on resonance.”

Riversong is keen on our rethinking how we look at energy, even down to our language - preferring to describe new energy solutions as ‘regenerative’ sources rather than ‘sustainable.’ It is about perceiving abundance, building a new culture based on that way of thinking. One in which we respect the earth and one another, rather than plundering the planet for resources.

As Delight remarked in post 10 : “...It will take people who think we can have what we never had before...”

A culture of artificial scarcity gives people an unconscious excuse to consider a lack of human and environmental safety an acceptable price for maintaining the status quo. I think the cognitive dissonance around that is growing, and more and more of us are seeing the price to be paid for relinquishing our sovereignty, scientific understanding, and despoiling the earth without a long term view. Educated and given a choice, who wouldn’t choose energy sources and technologies that resonate with a healthier body and spiritual intent?

I’d rather see us progress with our potential to travel, farm off planet and share educational information - than be relegated to lives of toiling in the mud. Much as I love feeling my feet in the earth, it is more of a pleasure when it’s done from love rather than due to a life of farming that’s imposed by scarcity. We can have a significantly higher standard of living than that > and peacefully.

I’d like to bump this entire post by araucaria >

Peace to all

Posted by araucaria (here)
Peak oil fits in with the scarcity paradigm. Some oilfields have dried up, while others, I gather, seem to keep on giving beyond expectations. And of course new supplies are being found in places like Greece. So we get squeezed both ways – price hikes because of the scarcity and no escape to alternative fuels because there is still more oil to be sold.

We don't really know what oil actually is. What if it was some kind of Gaian blood supply that is somehow replenished? There is a limit to the number of blood donations you can make because of the need for replenishment, just as you can log a forest or fish a sea only up to a point if you want to keep the forest or the fish supply. We may be getting more oil than anticipated, but we may be doing much more damage than we thought we were doing just by emptying areas underground, which itself is probably not as harmless as we think.

I don’t think there is a right and a wrong side to this debate. We should have been way past this discussion by now. The trouble is of course that free energy is something that would be a total disaster unless we get the psychopaths down to a manageable level. As the late Brian O’Leary used to say, we can’t have Dick Cheney running this show.

[cursichella1]

Posted by Milneman (here)

The problem, people, is not the resource, or the renewability of it...

Here's another concept I didn't think about until my professor brought it up in the last week of lectures. We were actually discussing the ethics of oil and climate change when this little nugget hit the surface.

What about peak food???

Peak food goes hand and hand with peak oil and just about everything else. it is all about energy exchange and value, whether it is fossil fuel, human labor, calories or dollars. think about how increased cost of fuel makes the price of food skyrocket, which effects on and on down the line. often, too, energy "savings" product have a larger carbon footprint in their manufacturing processes and transport than can ever be recouped in their actual use.

btw, for Michael Ruppert, R.I.P.

[Delight]

Posted by Melinda (here)
In his 2013 Global BEM talk, Michael Riversong addressed some of the safety aspects around wireless electricity:

See 25:24 – 28:02 here : http://youtu.be/-vxr3kUwXzs?t=25m24s

Quote “…The environmental profile of this is very positive, and the wireless transmission that Tesla developed is something that definitely we should be pursuing. We have not found heavy electromagnetic fields coming from these systems. That’s another source of environmental pollution... [...] ...naturally I get out some of the meters and I get out a short wave radio... [...] ...Brought one of those in to one of the demos at the conference in 2011 and we could not find a signal. I expected, when Nelson flipped the switch, we would get Nnnnn [makes signal-detection noise] all over the place. Nothing. Something is going on with that type of wireless transmission, where the field does not exist – it doesn’t seem to have any presence between the receiver and transmitter. Where the receiver is it picks up the resonant field and translates it back into electricity. In between we don’t know what we have, but we don’t seem to have health effects, and this again tracks with what Tesla was saying.”
At 39:37 -

Quote “...Tesla specifically said that the frequencies we now associate with microwave, which essentially are above 1GHz (one gigahertz) up to what we call infrared. That range of frequencies is dangerous to health. Flat out. We shouldn’t be using them. And of course what are all those cell phones on our pockets running on, and all those wi-fi systems? It’s all microwave. We don’t know what the cumulative effects of those things are going to be. And so we would do best in developing our new technologies to just kind of stay away from that area for a while, until we can piece together what’s going on. I suspect a lot of what we’re going to find is that we have to operate on resonance.”

Riversong is keen on our rethinking how we look at energy, even down to our language - preferring to describe new energy solutions as ‘regenerative’ sources rather than ‘sustainable.’ It is about perceiving abundance, building a new culture based on that way of thinking. One in which we respect the earth and one another, rather than plundering the planet for resources.

Your post was great!
I enjoyed the whole video....

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-vxr3kUwXzs

[cursichella1]

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by Snowflower (here)
When resources get used up, they are gone.

They are still here ... just in a different form.

Given enough energy, and the right technology, it can be converted back at useful rates.

Exactly. The energy is out there. And the goons are doing everything in their power to quash innovation towards making free energy available to all. Therein lies the problem (and solution).

[ghostrider]

I believe oil , in the earth is gone ... that's the reason for all the fracking ... in a sense , oil has peaked ... also the main reason for the oil piplines they want so desperately to build , cause we need oil from elsewhere , ours is gone ...

[araucaria]

Posted by Delight (here)
Apparently when Tesla came to Edison with his demonstration of a much better technology, Edison already was committed to the infrastructure he had invested in. He told Tesla to forget about seeing all the infrasturucture replaced just because the idea might work better.

There is way old infrastructure EVERYWHERE that is devoted to systems creating foul air, dirty water and denatured foods our daily lives run within: sewers, streets, machinery, services like community water filtration that leaves in pollutants, health care that is introducing even more consequences like antibiotic resistance. In every place, we can detail how the systems might be retrofitted, expanded or replaced for greater and better and more healthy reasons. The investment was already made and new cannot dovetail or old retrofit, expand or be replaced without drastic and inconvenient effort....
…
1."there SHOULD be no problem" .......I am sure from what I have read that there are enough now existing potentially integrated technologies so we can have beauty, clean air, clean water, abundant clean food, interesting work, sophistication AND the natural world.
…
People have other more pressing issues many days, and people cannot foresee how we "should have no problems" by the use of letting natural systems lead the way to comprehending our systems and change them JUST BECAUSE that is coordinated with nature.
…
The way I imagine it is that people would need to agree to orient around the systems. Society would almost have to change to a feeling that the fulcrum of importance is not individual desires and wants but community and system wide elegance. I have heard this slammed as some sort of evil socialism.

That’s me you were quoting, thank you.

Huge infrastructure is a major problem. France Telecom became a telecommunications giant because France had an extremely primitive telephone system into the 1970s and so they could start almost from scratch when other countries were beginning to think about overhauling theirs. Systems have gotten so huge that we are stuck with them. The only way forward is gradually, on a local, micro level. And as you say, this is already happening. It is only once we get to this community-based society that we will be able to think about global matters in other terms than monopolistic control over energy. It is all about flexibility and ultimately creativity. We are currently hidebound by the incredible rigidity of global gridlock that is the hallmark of mechanical archontic forces operating on the macro level.

[donk]

Posted by Cardillac (here)
look, folks, wake up; oil is neither a fossil fuel nor is it rare; so why is there a discussion about this?- I thought Avalonians were already of this but I guess not- am I in the wrong film?

please inform-

for those who are still in the dark about oil I'll break it down in the simplest of terms (hope you're ready)-

except for the sweet oil that comes bubbling to the top (very rare) one doesn't find/strike oil until ca.under 20k feet-

the most vast oil reserves are under 30k feet (still with me?)-

no fossil on this planet has been found under 16k feet (gosh!) so how could oil be a fossil fuel?-

it isn't-full stop-

beside that the vast oil reserves under 30k feet are "abiotic" (they replenish themselves just as our bodies replenish donated blood) so I think we can safely assume oil can deal with itself (gosh!)-

so why is this bogus topic an Avalon topic?- I thought we were more advanced/above it all-

Larry

I started this thread in reaction to someone mentioning being on the "the wrong side of the peak oil debate". I am interested the debate, which exists. Whatever your particular beliefs, whether you think oil is finite or not, whether you feel the information transmitted about the amount of oil or even the nature of oil is bogus, why would you participate in this thread?

If you know everything and think all of us are stupid for not knowing what you know...well, kindly tone your contempt of opposing views down please--I like hearing from folks who might feel intimidated by the "argument"...I don't think it needs to be an argument or debate, I hope to share experience.

I appreciate your views on it, thank you for sharing it. I am not emotionally attached to my ideas, which I will share when I get to read through all these posts I've only skimmed. You obviously feel you have the answers, perhaps there's a more productive way of transmitting them?

"Peak oil"-- as a meme at the very least, damn near a religion to me a decade ago, considered "solid science" or "facts" or "truth" to some, and completely non existent to others' awareness--does exist. It is a thing. I like hearing others views and ideas on it.

This thread is mostly (for me) to get perspectives of others, from direct experience. Which pieces of information they believe (and why). What they see other people believing (and maybe speculation on why), what information they see promoted, what insights or intuitions or connections they may have. What they feel about the "argument" itself. What they think the most important points are.

I appreciate all who participated so far. It doesn't have to be an "argument". And maybe we can discuss the "debate" angle without actually debating...in the traditional sense. I invite everyone to share their experience, and urge everyone who does to try not to bring the traditional "need to be right" that comes with topics where a lot of people seem to "know everything they need to know" about the subject.

I have my beliefs, they have evolved from openly absorbing a myriad of perspectives. I used to be the Mark Wahlberg character from "I <3 Huckabees", these days I'm more interested in the opposite view. And I'm even MORE interested in hearing any other view anyone would like to share. Thanks

[donk]

Posted by Snowflower (here)
It does not matter if oil is made from dead plants or if it is continually renewing itself from deep in the earth.

What matters is that the earth is floating in space and no ships are docking at the port to bring resources from some place else.

So what if oil is constantly generated? So what if it takes millions of years to make it from dead plants? When resources get used up, they are gone.

What do you suppose the earth uses as material to make anything? She doesn't pull in molecules from the vacuum of space, that's for sure. So, once the oil is burned, what will she use to make more?

That's really the only point worth making in the debate.

I've definitely come around to this point of view, which is an excellent segue to one of the important concepts of the "peak oil" mindset, one that I feel is crucial to hash out and determine the truth about, Jevons Paradox: it don't matter where it comes from, the more efficiently we produce the faster we consume it, which the data we're fed seems to indicate we're on an exponential curve...from Wikipedia:

In economics, the Jevons paradox (/ˈdʒɛvənz/; sometimes Jevons effect) is the proposition that as technology progresses, the increase in efficiency with which a resource is used tends to increase (rather than decrease) the rate of consumption of that resource.[1] In 1865, the English economist William Stanley Jevons observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal use led to increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, contrary to common intuition, technological improvements could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption.[2]

The issue has been re-examined by modern economists studying consumption rebound effects from improved energy efficiency. In addition to reducing the amount needed for a given use, improved efficiency lowers the relative cost of using a resource, which tends to increase the quantity of the resource demanded, potentially counteracting any savings from increased efficiency. Additionally, increased efficiency accelerates economic growth, further increasing the demand for resources. The Jevons paradox occurs when the effect from increased demand predominates, causing resource use to increase.[2]

The Jevons paradox has been used to argue that energy conservation may be futile, as increased efficiency may increase fuel use. Nevertheless, increased efficiency can improve material living standards. Further, fuel use declines if increased efficiency is coupled with a green tax or other conservation policies that keep the cost of use the same (or higher).[3] As the Jevons paradox applies only to technological improvements that increase fuel efficiency, policies that impose conservation standards and increase costs do not display the paradox.

[Snowflower]

Donk, we most likely agree because we have followed a similar path down the rabbit hole. I also was first awakened with "eating Fossil Fuels" an article on "From the Wilderness" back in 2001, went on to forums in yahoo groups, then really active in LATOC (moderator and sometime admin) then when that exploded, migrated into the webbot, then when that was ended for me by a psychopath, found my way here. Through it all, went from peak oil to food, disease, water, economy, wars, politics, PTB, holographic universe, expanding earth, magnetic pole shift, ice age, meaning of life, vibration of all that is - I have learned more about more important subjects in the past 13 years than I did in the previous 50 years.

Peak oil as a specific topic is something I don't think much about anymore, but when I do, it is to understand that the "slow camp" was right. They always said that the result of peak oil (actually reached in 2008) would be a long, slow decline of civilization - and it is in progress. I have no idea which ingredient will trigger the final tipping point over the edge of the cliff and have come to understand that it doesn't matter. I've also come to understand that I will know that the SHTF when I cannot find out what happened and live out the rest of my life focused in this very narrow world of mountains, goats, and grandchildren - and that it will be a wide enough world for me as we start creating a new civilization.

[STR]

[QUOTE=NancyV;822946]Not only is PEAK OIL most likely a myth but there is also a lot of evidence that oil is self renewing. I've read many articles over the years about both scenarios. The article below is from 2005 but still relevant. It talks about the peak oil myth and touches on self renewing oil. IF oil is self renewing then we would never run out of it. The controllers are not only handing us the peak oil myth to manipulate prices, control populations, have excuses for wars and make a shtload of money, they deliberately repress GOOD clean energy sources while promoting clean energy sources they know are not as viable or effective....just so we will THINK they are in favor of alternative energy.

The Myth Of Peak Oil
http://www.prisonplanet.com/archives/peak_oil/index.htm

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | October 12 2005

Peak oil is a scam designed to create artificial scarcity and jack up prices while giving the state an excuse to invade our lives and order us to sacrifice our hard-earned living standards.
QUOTE]

I live in Oklahoma surrounded by oil pumps both active and inactive. I remember thirty or so years back when we first moved into our neighborhood there was a pump going right here in the neighborhood. You can see the place where it was to this day all cleaned up tho and the pump removed. I can confirm that the oil companies periodically check these for how much they have refilled and recently in our area they had helicopters flying over late at night (told us in advance on the radio and paper it would be done by the way) for seismic or sound wave testing and it was all related to studies to see the condition of these wells all shut down some 25 or more years back. Guess what!? There is talk now of some pumps being put back in so to me this silent activity going on under our noses in one neighborhood probably reflects out to reflect a good idea of what is going on in Texas, Louisiana, Florida and other oil states as well. They know they fill back up. They don't really deny it cause they know there is always seep that seeps back after the well is capped. The curious thing is some fill more than others and rates vary I guess.

One guy on a Rense radio show said its known for the oil to refill in time but we use it too fast to count on that. It takes a lot less time to deplete it out than it does to seep back in to any amount worth taking unless you are fracking all around the area adjacent apparently. In this way the wells that were once active and are not now can get some oils squeezed in there quicker and I guess at times it is just as easy to get the oil out by activating the well again at least for a time.

[Snowflower]

The whole thing has to do with EROEI = energy returned on energy invested. Once upon a time, it took about a barrel of oil's worth of energy to get 50 barrels of oil out of the ground. Today they are lucky to spend one barrel and get 1.5 barrels out. That one fact is the basis of our collapsing economy. The world's equilibrium is based on cheap energy. Energy (from oil) is no longer cheap.

It does not matter if they reopen wells unless those wells suddenly started returning 50 barrels for one barrel spent. And that is not happening. It does not matter if they get oil from tar sands because (beyond destroying the planet) their net gain is around 1/4 barrel. It won't stop the collapsing economy.

The key is the collapsing economy because the economy is still rooted in cheap energy and energy is no longer cheap.

Besides, the world is doomed anyway because of the number of calories expended to create one calorie of food. Same principal as oil, but with food as the outcome. We are using 20 calories of energy for every calorie of food grown. Those calories are coming from what used to be cheap oil: electricity to pump water from deep aquifers; gas and oil to run (not to mention build) tractors and other farm equipment; transport to markets; packaging; storage in freezer or cans; transport to consumers, storage at consumers; power to prepare food. Call it "stored sunlight." We have been borrowing energy from stored sources without paying anything back for it.

20 calories out and 1 calorie in = NOT sustainable. When will it crash? Any day now.

[donk]

Posted by Delight (here)

There should be no problem with water: 70% of the planet is under sea water and the level is rising. Of course we still need to implement the technology, which as always means curbing greedy capitalists. Gerald Pollack's Fourth Phase of Water suggests how this could be done.

When "Peak Oil" was popularized it was a looming threat. Then as the "threatened" scene failed to appear, people were disenchanted. IMO the will to create a whole new way must come from incentives toward a positive direction people feel is for the good. The same with "Global Warming". Climate change was couched as being warming. It is probably global cooling and wild fluctuation. How could we "plan" for wild fluctuation?

Issues are not often presented so that people can appreciate the objectives being for even better and better experiences and that this is a value...long range and with the least interference with Biosystems.

Apparently when Tesla came to Edison with his demonstration of a much better technology, Edison already was committed to the infrastructure he had invested in. He told Tesla to forget about seeing all the infrasturucture replaced just because the idea might work better.

There is way old infrastructure EVERYWHERE that is devoted to systems creating foul air, dirty water and denatured foods our daily lives run within: sewers, streets, machinery, services like community water filtration that leaves in pollutants, health care that is introducing even more consequences like antibiotic resistance. In every place, we can detail how the systems might be retrofitted, expanded or replaced for greater and better and more healthy reasons. The investment was already made and new cannot dovetail or old retrofit, expand or be replaced without drastic and inconvenient effort....

Just because earth may well create oil like blood does not mean it is elegant and useful to crudely bleed her.
Just because we have running water does not mean we should pee our drugs and pour our wastes into central sewers.
Just because tractors can plow earth does not mean this is Good for earth or people REALLY.

1."there SHOULD be no problem" .......I am sure from what I have read that there are enough now existing potentially integrated technologies so we can have beauty, clean air, clean water, abundant clean food, interesting work, sophistication AND the natural world.

It will take people who think we can have what we never had before. It is like being a poor Dickinsonian street urchin agreeing my living conditions are what should be expected as I was born into them.

People have other more pressing issues many days, and people cannot foresee how we "should have no problems" by the use of letting natural systems lead the way to comprehending our systems and change them JUST BECAUSE that is coordinated with nature.

What is the NOT threatening (and emergency based) "plug in" that could bring the people, resources and knowledge together? The threats that fail to develop are used as excuses to keep the crude.

The way I imagine it is that people would need to agree to orient around the systems. Society would almost have to change to a feeling that the fulcrum of importance is not individual desires and wants but community and system wide elegance. I have heard this slammed as some sort of evil socialism. But it is Over Unity as a value to gauge from.

I recall one definition of progress: "From what we have we give and from we give, more is returned". A system making no greater return would be jettisoned and when it was found that something failed to provide the beauty for the community, out that goes also.

I see a world butterfly approach...least force and greatest freedom of movement so when changes are good, we don't have heavy and cumbersome undoings of infra-prisoning (the prison of the infrastructure).

That is my visioning beyond "Peak F-utility"

Well said, I agree and think you touched on so many great points, thanks!

[NancyV]

We could go back and forth posting various scientists opinions/theories/evidence that oil is either biotic or abiotic, limited or unlimited, available near the surface or is also abyssal (really fracking deep-*pun intended). I have posted a link and introduction to the abyssal, abiotic theory of a scientist, J.F. Kenney, below. He is more into the almost unlimited aspects of abyssal oil and not about the possible self renewing aspects of it. This is another aspect of what could be an interesting debate if we didn't have the tendency to promote our possible absolute conviction that ONE theory is definitely irrefutable. We humans are prone to wanting our own agendas or beliefs reinforced.

If you have been an environmentalist type for many years you may be inclined to disbelieve anything that would suggest that the earth is renewing itself constantly, that species constantly become extinct and it's a natural process, that earth can continually transform biological materials into oil, that there is an almost unlimited supply of abyssal oil. You may latch onto the anthromorphizing of "Mother Earth" which we romantic new age hippy type humans love to do and ascribe human emotions to the earth, thinking "she" is in pain, either mental or physical. (yes I indulged in the new age hippy game for a few years in my youth). Of course being a logical environmentalist who sees the folly of polluting where we live is very intelligent. Only an ignorant fool thinks it's okay to breathe and eat substances that are poisonous to us. (unless they are highly evolved and have transcended physical influences)

We choose to brainwash ourselves into beliefs we hold and want to reject anything that contradicts those beliefs. We don't like being wrong! LOL... Good thing I LOVE being wrong because then I know that I have fallen into another belief that I'll need to drop. It's a constant battle to remain aware and not accept any programming. Beliefs are not facts, they are choices and preferences subject to change. Even some of the most cherished so called factual scientific physics theories, like Einsteins E=MC2, have been disproved by quantum physicists. Then again if they replace E=MC2 with their own theory, THAT will likely be disproved.

With all the lying from governments, politicians and scientists bought and paid to support certain theories, it seems safer to not buy 100% into ANY theory or any so called "proof". I try to stay more detached and always like to look at the pros and cons presented by both sides. However I'm still human and subject to being swayed by certain arguments. I definitely have likes and dislikes. If I am absolutely SURE about something, which occasionally still happens, then that is usually disproved or at least cogent arguments are eventually put forth that show me I was again foolish to make a final decision about the veracity of a theory.

Just as a point of interest, which I don't expect or care if anyone believes, I have merged with the earth several times and felt all life (and everything is alive because it's all the same living energy). I have heard and felt trees, rocks and mountains communicating and understood the language of the wind. It's an incredible experience somewhat like merging with Source but on a "lower" or different level. In those experiences of merging with the earth I did not fear being depleted at all by any minuscule human endeavors, such as drilling for oil, coal mining, species becoming extinct. Earth feeling fear, compassion, love, etc. is our human propensity to make earth in our likeness, maybe so we can relate better. When I was merged with the earth I did feel the love energy, and that is NOT the human type love..... I felt NO fear, pain or any negative type emotions that we humans feel or think the earth would feel if "she" was like us. She isn't like us. WE aren't even like we think we are! (but that's a whole different story)

Ultimately energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only transformed (another Einstein theory). I tend to believe this because I have felt it, but I cannot even say that my own experiences PROVE anything! I'm always open to fooling myself. (Maybe that's why I love the FOOL card in the tarot deck! LOL)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT RECENT PREDICTIONS

OF IMPENDING SHORTAGES OF PETROLEUM

EVALUATED FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF

MODERN PETROLEUM SCIENCE.

continued here: http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Energy.html

J. F. Kenney

Joint Institute of the Physics of the Earth

Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow;

Gas Resources Corporation, Houston.

ABSTRACT: For almost a century, various predictions have been made that the human race was imminently going to run out of available petroleum. The passing of time has proven all those predictions to have been utterly wrong. It is pointed out here how all such predictions have depended fundamentally upon an archaic hypothesis from the 18th century that petroleum somehow (miraculously) evolved from biological detritus, and was accordingly limited in abundance. That hypothesis has been replaced during the past forty years by the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins which has established that petroleum is a primordial material erupted from great depth. Therefore, petroleum abundances are limited by little more than the quantities of its constituents as were incorporated into the Earth at the time of its formation; and its availability depends upon technological development and exploration competence.

[sirdipswitch]

So... why is there oil down there in the first place? It is Mother Natures', "Lubricant" and "Shock Absorber", to Her natural geologic processes. Remove it, and produce an increase in severity of those same geologic processes. An increase in both seisemic and volcanic, activity. And... Mother, is smarter than big oil. She made it "Self Renewing", in critical areas.

AND... ain't too brite... to "mess" with Mother Nature. ccc.

PLUS... She put "Ample" Renewable... free energy in our atmosphere, for us to use, and informs all, willing to do a little investigation, how to extract it for that purpose.

yep... bechersweetbippy she does.cc.