Jrbarnes

Peak Oil: Caused by Geology, Politics or Infrastructure Issues?

It has been over 20 years since the world has found as much oil in a year as it has used in that year. Tat is not a sustainable situation. Much of the technological developments have enabled the oil to be drawn out of the ground faster, which has enabl us to barely keep up with demand. Another factor which Bruce Pile referred to above, is Net Energy. How much energy does it take to produce the energy providing substance. In the early days of the oil business, the energy in one barrrel of oil would enable the production of up to 100 barrels of oil. Now it runs about 1 to 3. The energy required to produce a gallon of ethanol is as much or more than gallon of ethanol produces. Subsidy or no, that is not a sustainable situation. The production of energy neeeds to be looked at as not just monetary ecnomics, but in terms of energy economics. What is the energy profit (or loss) from the method. Currently most of the alternative methods do not produce energy protfits, and some produce energy losses by the time they are at the end user.

Don't Believe Long-Term Oil Forecasts

Geometric progressions work both ways. Per the IEA, the worldwide depletion rate is 6.7%. That means that the world's current production will fall in half in 10.48 years, lessened only by that which is added. It has been over 20 years since we have found as much oil in a year as we have used. As the population expands, and as LDCs use more oil, and as OPEC countries continue to use more and more of their own oil each year, the demand for oil increases while the oil supply available outside of OPEC countries continue to decrease. Oil production capacity has been flat for 5 years.

Nintendo: The Wii Bubble Has Burst

The grandkid index is still, in my opinion, the best thing to follow. I set up a playroom for my grandkids with PC, Xbox360, Game Cube, Wii and numerous other things to play with. My grandkids range from 5 to 16. I had to buy a second Wii to keep them from fighting over the one Wii. They are still the ones they play on the most, and the ones that the parents are more prone to join in on.

Will Goldman Sachs 'Trade Places' with the Hunt Brothers?

The Wall Street Big Boys were caught in the Hunt's cornering of the market trap and could not acquire the silver to meet their sales commitments that the Hunt's had acquired, and were thus positioned to lose immense amounts of money. The CBOT and the CFTC again looked after their own, and changed the rules to let Wall Street out of the trap. Given the history, it is doubtful that the regulators will take any action that might be harmful to Goldman.

Information Is Stimulus

For an energy technology to be truly economic it must generate more energy than is required to produce the energy. Few "green" energy technologies accomplish that, or are at best marginal in that regard. Monies spent on negative energy actiivities are about as effective as putting the money in the trash, which the government is proving to be superb at. Government subsidies do not make something truly economic that is not positive energy. In essence, subsidizing "green" is a great way to go further into the red.

Will New Finds Mean the End of Peak Oil?

The new find in the Gulf at 25,000 feet may be reported as BOE, but it is extremely highly unlikely that any hydrocarbons at that depth will produce as oil. At that depth, the reserves are much more likely to be natural gas, of which there is a significant surplus due to the shale gas technology.

BP Strikes Black Gold: A Boon for Energy ETFs?

BP's find at 25k feet is hardly likely to be oil. At that depth, the termperature and pressure cook the hydocarbons into natural gas, not oil. BP carefull refer to BOE, or barrels of oil equivalent in their press release. Natural gas in in oversupply, and selling for $3 per mcf or less at the well head. It is hghly unlikely that wells like BP's can be affordably drilled and produced at these natural gas prices.

Why It's Crucial to Reduce Leverage in Oil

I am in the oil business, and when I hedge, I do not take possession of the oil that I do a futures contract on, nor do I ship my production to Cushing, Oklahoma where contracted oil is stored, nor do other oil companies that I know. If my oil does not sell for the price that I hedge it for, I sell it at market where it is, and make up the difference with the profit or loss from my hedge that month, with the net result being that I net the price that I hedged, thus keeping my bank happy. Similarly the buyer of oil who hedges, does not normally take possession of the oil in Cushing, but buys it in the normal course of his business, using the profit or loss on his hedge to end up with the net price hedged.

Cap-and-Trade Plan: Climate Change Reactions

Summarized below are some red flags about Global Warming that you will not find in any politicized “scientific” discussion, especially the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) 2001 Study widely quoted in the press and the basis for Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth. Environmental extremists no longer refer to “global warming” but increasingly to “climate change” - I suspect because the whole global warming argument does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. The earth’s climate has always been changing and will continue to do so. The cause of these changes however has never been proven to be “anthropogenic” – caused by humans.



The 2001 IPCC Study ignored two well-documented scientific climate periods:

The Medieval Warm Period when earth’s temperatures were well above todays and when only farm animals were emitting CO2. In 1991 it was included in IPCC’s published reports as accepted scientific fact, but eliminated in their 2001 report without explanation! The 2001 report demonstrated a hockey stick warming graph since 1900 through today to support their desired global warming crusade.
The Little Ice Age from 1400-1800…another well-documented and scientifically accepted fact. Since 1900, the earth has been warming up – a normal climatic fluctuation that is not caused by man’s industrialization of the planet. The planet has warmed 1o F over the last century, but most of that occurred prior to 1940, while 82% of anthropogenic CO2 entered the atmosphere after that date.






Despite the documented fact that the earth has actually cooled at a rate of 3.5 oF / century over the last seven years, the IPCC models forecast a 3.9 oF / century warming to 2100. The recent global cooling is confirmed by satellite data and is not disputed by any credible scientific body – but despite that, the IPCC computer models ignore the recent and long term historical data to conclude the earth is about to undergo an unprecedented warming period!









There are a number of other instances of inconsistencies, data manipulation, and outright fabrications included in the IPCC 2001 Study. A complete analysis was presented to the US Congress by Lord Monckton, the former Science Advisor to the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (scienceandpublicpolicy...). This is the same individual who Al Gore refuses to debate, and the Democratic Energy and Commerce Committee Members refused to allow to testify opposite Gore in March 2009. What does Lord Monckton know that Al Gore and our Democratic representatives not want the American public to know?



The effects of CO2 on the earth’s climate are vastly exaggerated.

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 0.035% and it is a very weak greenhouse gas. Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, accounting for 97-98% of the greenhouse gas effect. (Bet you didn’t know that – since governments can’t control water vapor, it is a fact you’re not likely to read in the press!) Water vapor (clouds) is principally ruled by the sun, which may be one reason why NASA has recently declared that the sun is most directly responsible for global warming (go figure!).
In the Paleozoic Era of prehistoric times, CO2 levels were 12 times higher than present. For those of you who don’t comprehend geologic-speak, you know this era as the Ice Age. So much for CO2‘s catastrophic warming effect on the earth!
Scientific evidence from ice cores in the Antarctic demonstrate over the millennium that increases in CO2 concentrations follow temperature increase – not the other way around.
Anthropogenic CO2 is an insignificant contributor to the earth’s climate.

Combining water vapor and nature’s production of CO2, 99.9% of greenhouse gas effect has nothing to do with human activity. Anthropogenic emissions of CO2 account for only 1% of the atmospheric reservoir of CO2. How can altering man’s miniscule 1% contribution to atmospheric CO2 levels over the last century have any discernible impact on the global processes of nature that have influenced earth’s climate for millions of years?
Termites, farm animals, volcanoes, and dissolved CO2 in the oceans emit much larger amounts of CO2 than mankind. In well-documented warming periods in 1860-1880 and 1910-1940, which occurred before any possible effect from mankind - is proof that there is absolutely no correlation between human activity, CO2 emissions, and global temperature.
There are a number of other fallacies propagandized by environmental extremists:

· Melting Glaciers – a number of well-documented glacier records indicate glaciers have been receding since 1750 and accelerated after 1820 (almost 100 years before the Model T). This is a natural phenomenon not related to human activity. Glaciers are still much larger than they were in the Medieval Warm Period.

· Polar Ice Melting – The West Antarctic Ice Sheet lost two-thirds of its ice mass since the last ice age but is now growing at more than 26 billion tons a year. How do you explain those well-publicized pictures of huge ice chunks breaking off and falling into the ocean? The natural process as the ice thickens inland, it pushes ice to the perimeter to the lower elevation where it breaks off. According to British meteorological stations in Antarctica, the continent is getting colder, not warmer. The Greenland ice mass has thickened by seven feet since it was first measured by laser altimetry in 1980, and continues to grow.

· Rising Sea Levels – Ocean levels have risen 400 feet over the last 18,000 years, a natural process that will continue without any influence from mankind. Current documented sea rise is 8-12 inches / century, much less than the mean centennial rise of 4 feet. The IPCC estimates 17-24 inch rise to 2100, slightly less than the 20 foot rise Al Gore prophesized in his film.

· Polar Bear Extinction – (related to polar ice) There are four times as many polar bears now than there were in the 1940’s….enough said.

· Increasing Hurricanes and Typhoons – According to the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index published by Florida State University, the Index is at it’s lowest in 33 years. While Hurricane Katrina was a major tragedy for New Orleans, the destruction from that Category 3 storm was principally due to the failure of man-made levees.



Why is there so much emphasis on CO2 when the human contribution of it is trivial and water vapor is so much more important in greenhouse effect? The simple answer is that governments can control only people, not nature. For millions of years, the sun and the clouds have been principally responsible for climate change. There is no indisputable scientific evidence anything mankind does can influence climate change. Governments cannot control the sun or the clouds, so they must find a cause that can be blamed on people. If people have no impact on climate change, there is no justification for all of the scientific grants and studies to validate government intervention. The environmental extremists will go to any lengths to prove mankind’s relevance on climate change, otherwise they have no seat at government’s trough.



There is no need for government to regulate and tax CO2 emissions, and to invade every aspect of American lives. The environmental extremists have manufactured a climate change crisis, based on fraudulent and manipulated scientific data, that has empowered liberal congressmen with a huge, new source of potential tax revenue they can redistribute to fund their liberal agenda. It’s not about climate change, it’s about tax revenue.



The US Weather Service cannot accurately predict weather more than about a week in advance…why would we dramatically change our entire economy and our way of life based on climate models forecasting 40, 50, or 100 years in the future?

Oil and Gas Prices Should Fall, For Now

Ouside of the eastern big cities, where much of their development was before the big boom in auto ownership, cities were contructed for the automobile, not mass transit. As a result, mass transit does not work for most of the population.

Bush:Oil:Obama:Wall Street?

Davis appointed a sweet young thing with no experience (at least at regulating) to head up his electrical regulatory board. They stupidly refused to let any of the CA utilities contract long term for power even though they and most of the rest of the industry could easily tell that gas prices wer on their way up, and the best way to hold costs down was to contract long term for one's base load needs.

A new study of the subsidy program implemented by Spain (which Obama cites as a good model) reveals that every new job created by the Spanish government in the alternative energy area destroyed an average of 2.2 other jobs. The study – prepared under the direction of Dr. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Juan Carlos University in Madrid – discovered that only one in 10 jobs created by the program in Spain were of a permanent nature (operations, maintenance, etc.), and two-thirds consisted of temporary jobs in construction, fabrication and installation. Spain has spent about $774,000 to create each “green job” since 2000, including subsidies of more than $1.3 million per wind industry job. However, about 113,000 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy were destroyed because of the subsidies, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every “green job” created.

'Regime Uncertainty' Further Delays Economic Growth

The last time the government changed the accouting rules, and, face it, the FASB changed the rules to keep the government from forcing it, they altered the rules under which the S&Ls wrote off their losses. The government dictated that the S&Ls could write them off over 20 years, without any corresponding restrictions on retained earnings. That let folks buy worthless S&Ls, obtain government guaranteed funds, and loan them out at high risk, while collecting big front end fees, which they paid out in dividends. The result - the S&L crisis and billions lost by the government.

Energy Secretary Chu's Wish List: Cap-and-Trade and Cheaper Solar

Why didn't he also list the repeal of the laws of physics and the repeal of the laws of supply and demand as well, since he is living in a fantasy world, and divorced from reality. To call Carbon dioxide a pollutant is an absurdity. It is like calling oxygen a pollutant. Both are essential to life on earth. Humans are carbon burning and CO2 emitting organisms, as are all other animals. For plant to live, Yhey need CO2. Wihtout plants, human do not live. The whole global warming hoax is just a plot to massively raise taxes.

Carbon Capping Debate - Will Results Favor Wall St.?

Humans are carbon burning organisms that emit CO2. The new rules will give the government authority to control our breathing. They have finally found a mechanism to take complete control over us. Yes, it is warming, on Earth and also Mars. I'm still trying to figure out how our fossil fuel burning on Earth is warming up Mars. Maybe is really is the result of solar variations, which interestingly show extremly high correlation with temperature variationsover thousands of years, without the fraudulent statistical manipulations that are required by the anthropogenic global warming researchers. Without the global warming effect of our atmosphere, the average temperature on Earth would be about that of the South Pole in winter now. Man made CO2 makes up less than 1% of the global warming effect. Without that CO2, we would have no plant life, since it is essential to the plant metabolism, and wihtout the plants, we would have no animal life either. When CO2 levels are higher we get more plant life, and can support more people. Higher CO2 levels may be needed to support the increasing numbers of people on Earth. Many thousands of highly respected scientists dispute the man caused global warming theory, but they can get no press, or research funding. The Governments are looking for new taxes, and Wall Street is looking for a new fraud to sell, so it seems likely that the global warming fraud will proceed forward.

Have We Turned All Economic Authority Over to Highly-Principled Accountants?

The savings and loan fiasco and related massive write offs occurred because Congress overruled accounting profession rules and passed a law that enabled S&Ls to write off their losses from the Carter high interest rates over 20 years, instead of when incurred. However, since they were mostly lawyers who were ignorant of accounting, they placed no restrictions on the retained earnings account, which was massively overstated due to the unrecorded losses. It was not very long until some unscrupulous operators acquired the S&Ls for their negligible value, made loans with big upfront fees, and paid out the fees in dividends. They made money whether the loans were ever paid back or not. That is the result of lawmakers overruling the accounting profession. Does anyone really think we would be better off if Wall Street was able to determine their own values based on the same kind of models that they used to create the finacial house of cards that just collapsed.