freefall51

Oil: The Inconvenient Truth

Did I not say global warming by CO2 is a hoax? Anybody with the foggiest idea about statistical concepts would agree. The idea of statistical relevance is to compare a body of data (such as temperatures) subject to random fluctuations with another body of data of the same sort subject to random fluctuations, where just one parameter such as the CO2 concentration has changed. The conclusion the climatologists should be after is to say the one pile of data is different from the other one because of the increase of CO2 traces in the atmosphere. Take Salt Lake as an example where the temperature swing is -20 F/ 110 F in the extremes. Given those swings, how can anyone possibly prove a creeping average temperature increase of a minute fraction of a degree F year over year and relate it to an increase of a couple of ppm CO2 in the atmosphere with a reasonable confidence? Aint gonna happen, buddy. I challenge everybody to try that from a daily temperature histogram. If there was a case it could be statistically proven, but it cant. So the experts are taking refuge to complex models that sound important to impress the public. This is childish at best, self serving at worst.

Negative Trend for Oil Exploration and Production Stocks

I hate to admit this. But whenever I followed Zacks advice as a subscriber I lost money. Zacks is most mostly a momentum - go with the flow -service. Once the flows has been identified the market turns around on a dime. Better to buy conviction and keep the view on the horizon.

Houston to Obama: Smell the Oil

RIG is doing most of their business in foreign parts of the world, where they pay a chunk of their taxes. They still pay $ 700+ M taxes per year in the US. It could be more if the leading political minds in the US were not dumb enough to keep this fabulous company out of their country.

In the meantime I hope for the sake of my retirement account, that if the windfall tax materializes, RIG will move their headquarters from Houston to the tax heavens of the Caymans in a heartbeat, where they already have an office.

Sometimes it is better to be happy with what you got and not getting greedy. That freaking little former city organizer that promotes the wind fall tax on oil companies must be out of his mind.

The T. Boone Pickens Approach

Fitz,

All the arguments you bring forward could have an alternative explanation. Let me pick up some:

1.) Glaciers melting

Have you recently looked at one? Have you noticed how dirty they have become almost to the point of being hardly recognizable. (I was at the Grossglockner Glacier/ Austria just two weeks ago). There is a lot of dust and dirt from air pollution that precipitates on the ice and accumulates there ove time. Those dark particles absorb a lot of heat from light or IR radiation other than white reflecting snow or ice and this effect lets the surrounding ice melt.

No connection to CO2 though.



2.) Increase of storms and insurance claims

There may be undulating active and less active periods of storm activity. I am not sure if the record taking about storm activity was all that accurate in the past. Galveston went under in the 1900 hurricane because people were not even aware that something bad was coming. I claim the accurate history of storm activity is relatively short.

A spike in insurance claims has more to do with the increasing density of the population and the idiocy to let people build homes at the shore lines of the Gulf of Mexico and even worse below the water line such as in New Orleans.

Again no connection to CO2.



3.) Increased drought

I believe that during the Great Depression the Midwest was called the dustbowl. So what has changed ever since? Again an increased population density causes more publicity and media attention today if there was a drought.

Impact of CO2? Actually I have no good grasp on droughts.





4.) High summer temperatures in cities

High temperatures were already a subject of a song of the 70’s “Summer in the City”. So this is not a new theme. You are actually confirming the point that I was making. The cities have a microclimate that is impacted by reflective radiation of solid surfaces. Some of it is picked up by temperature meter stations.

Impact of CO2?

Only if you see the same temperature increase reported in the city in the cool woods surrounding the city. Talk about that.


5.) Ancient CO2 enclosed in ice cores

Again I repeat that the correlation of CO2 with warm periods is not proof that CO2 is the cause of a warm climate. It could be a byproduct of high activity of plant and animal life. You did not make an argument against that.


6.) Acknowledgement of global warming by vast majority

I don’t give a damn about that. I have been long enough in the scientific community to understand that the goal is always to get the next investigation project funded. So you got to assume there are a couple of people whose interest is to come up with results that fit their needs and keep the fire alive, while the rest of the population is just copying.

Ever heard of the king that was naked and every one of his cronies consented, that his clothes were really nice. Only the fool dissented…..



7.) The changed opinion of GW Bush on global warming

I think you are gravely mistaken, assuming that GW has changed his mind unless you have talked to him personally and he told you that. GW is not that way, that he is wavering that easy.

However he may have recognized that he will not get any more bonus points from the world community by holding on to his opinion. At this stage of his career he is more concerned what the lasting picture of him will be in the history books. So he gives in. There is no risk for him. What has he got to loose?


Your turn.
.

The T. Boone Pickens Approach

The Old Wizards Comment is a great reminder that only one thing should count in this discussion of global warming, namely facts and not opinions. There is no place for religion or ideology in particular if it leads to the suppression of observations that run squarely against the consensus of some self-proclaimed experts that all have an agenda.

There are obviously lots of ways to look and interprete observations. One of the problems in this discussion is that the change of the KPI ‘world temperature’ is very small compared to the daily fluctuations and its average changes only slowly if at all. This is stuff for endless investigation projects on taxpayer money.

Add ideology and you are in the middle of junk science.

It does not help the case if long terms statistics from the last 150 years of increasing temperatures are presented from stations that have been encroached by urbanization over time and a good deal of the measured temperature increase is due to reflection of heat radiation form surrounding solid surfaces.

It does not help the case if the fundamentals of heat adsorption by the ‘greenhouse gas’ CO2 are neglected. CO2 has only two discrete absorption lines in an infrared spectrum where the wave lengths range over three orders of magnitude. Meaning CO2 cannot have a meaningful effect on retaining the overall IR heat radiation from earth.

It is not enlightening to drill ice cores and correlate ancient CO2 with warm periods. We all know there were warm periods that spurred growth of plants and animals. A high activity of plant an animal life may as well be correlated with high CO2 content in the atmosphere. But was CO2 the cause of the warm period or just a byproduct?

If you believe in this or not, Al Gore and his ilk is becoming increasingly meaningless in the discussion on energy conservation. That issue has moved up the rank to a national security issue.

The T. Boone Pickens Approach

It has been stated earlier that a European person uses only half the energy that a US person consumes. Having lived in Germany most of my live I can tell that the standard of living because of that does not necessary feel inferior to what the Americans are used to.

So, the Germans are more happy because they spend less energy? Hell no!

Using less energy does not save money because it must be spent elsewhere. But at least it minimizes financing some of the not so well-meaning oil or gas exporting countries. (Think about this for a second. In what other sector of the economy do you find a supplier of anything that can afford to despise his own client?)

The charm of saving energy is that it can be done with means generally available to the public. Experience however shows, that the population needs to be forced by regulation to buy into it, because energy conservation is expensive to begin with. But energy conservation measures also provide jobs, inspire invention and technological advance and they have a lasting effect too.

One of the striking differences that I faced on my transition into the US ten years ago was the construction standards of the homes in this country. Just a few thoughts from what I remember from my former life.

Unlike in the US it is hard to find a house in Germany that has single window or door panes. Normal standard are tight closing windows and doors with two or three panes.

By far most of the houses are built in brick and mortar. The materials used have to comply with a certain standard to minimize heat losses. Bricks used in new built houses are 2.5 ft thick. There is another half foot of insulation on the outside of the walls plus a layer of a mineral cover. The inside of the roof is also insulated (plus a vapor barrier to prevent condensation of humidity under the shindles). A basement and insulation under the floor and basement walls helps to restrict heat losses to the ground.

Ventilated air may be heat exchanged so that warm air leaving the house warms up incoming cold fresh air.

Houses now let for rent need to have a thermographic certificate, that proves there are no heat leaks. Else, the renter is entitled to cut its rent.

Solar technology with collectors on the roof is often being used to make warm water.

Heat pumps (the reverse of air conditioning) are sometimes used to heat houses. Heating homes is in Germany more common than cooling. Cooling is more expensive than heating and an excellent heat insulation in those houses is all the more important.

The usage of heating oil is increasingly being replaced with NG, which burns cleaner anyway. NG frees up the place for an oil tank in the home but requires connection to a local gas line or a LNG tank in the garden. The heating furnaces must have minimum efficiencies dependent on their capacity. The efficiencies measured by stack temperatures, CO2 and CO emissions are mandatorily inspected every year and the furnaces have to be fixed if they don’t comply with the regulations.

Stacks have to be insulated or made of stainless steel, since the exhaust temperatures are generally low and condensation of humidity (corrosive due to SO2 traces in gas) must be prevented.

I owned an alternative place for wood fire, that was actually designed to leave the heat in the room other than pulling the heat out of the room like any open fire place, that can be found in US houses for show only. That worked wonderfully, but made a lot of work since logs had to be cut and split and the ash removed.

Because of those standards and the way houses are traditionally built, the substance of the buildings is about 2 -3 times as expensive as a rafter house of the same size in the US.

The Americans want to be like the Europeans? Welcome to the new world.

The T. Boone Pickens Approach

I am sure messiah O. will be able to left handedly override the first and second law of thermodynamics and make energy out of little more than nothing. We only have to wait until after election and everthing will be fine. So be patient!

In Light of Peak Oil, Financial Diversification Is a Bad Idea

mike fitz,

I am just curious about your picture. What peak are you on?