Theory of Everything- Part II
|
||||
Daily Rant Archive3/2/11, 3/3/11, 3/5/11, 3/7/11, 3/8/2011, 3/10/11, 3/12/11, 3/15/11, 3/17/11, 3/18/11,3/19/11, 3/20/2011, 3/24/11, 3/25/11, 3/27/11, 3/30/11, 4/9/11, 4/11/11, 4/14/11, 4/25/11 |
|
Top Links
|
||
Rant LiteToday’s rant looks at how we became ensnared in the Web of Debt as a means for creating money. |
Quote of the DayLuk 21:10Then He said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. |
|||
|
|
||||
A Tale of Two DepressionsAs the Great Depression progressed onward, the early collapse in RE prices made many Banks insolvent, which then precipitated the Stock Market Crash of 1929. |
|
Geological and Cosmological Event Watch ThreadNot sure if there is really a significant increase in geologic events right now, but at least reading the MSM over the last year it appears to me that there has been an increase in frequency and in amplitude.
|
Other Shoes and the Uselessness Premium“Creating fuel production in a failed- state Libya is beyond the grasp of the EU’s and United States’ unconventional ‘assets’. Blatant military intervention would be opposed by Russia, China and no doubt the other oil- producing autocracies.”
|
|
|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVK-PlfvGR0&feature=fvsr
Why is it that Sovereign Nations don’t issue their own non-Debt based money, instead of becoming a part of the massive International Banking system based on debt? This is another one of those very tough questions to answer which I believe has its roots back at the very beginning of international banking in the Medici Era.
I will start here with a hypothetical country completely disconnected from the rest of the world. Call it Hawaii before Cook arrived. As the first Polynesian Navigator to guide my Catamaran rigged Canoes to the Big Island, I get great Respect from my People who trusted me to Guide them on the Voyage from the Marquesa Islands, and I am unanimously accepted as King on arrival. All those years studying the Stars and memorizing the Constellations and watching Wave patterns really paid off for me. All of Hawaii is MINE! I am SOVEREIGN!
My first act after being declared King by Acclimation is to take on Nozomi Sazaki and Natalie Portman as Concubines, but AFTER that I have to figure out how to administer my new country and distribute out all the assets BESIDES Nozomi and Natalie.
So next thing I do is to hand off portions of the land to my best buddies to administer, and then after that I have to create some currency for people to use to trade with. There isn’t much Gold or Silver around, but there are a limited number of Macadamia Nuts. They are a good currency because they are small and portable and store well, and unlike Gold you CAN actually eat Macadamia Nuts. However their value is not in the Calorie Content, but rather in their scarcity relative to everything else being produced in Hawaii. They aren’t a debt based instrument, they are based on production already done. If at some point somebody found a way to grow a shitload of Macadamia Nuts the currency would be debased, but as long as the supply remains relatively limited they are a good currency.
Macadamia Nuts function as a great Currency for us in Hawaii until Cook arrives. At this point our Macadamia Nuts only will buy as much of the cool new Metal Knives the Traders on the Tall Ships will take for them. If we want all the STUFF being produced elsewhere, we have to fork over all our Macadamia Nuts for that stuff. Polynesians of the era actually called all the Stuff the traders brought “Cargo”, for obvious reasons. You could substitute Gold for the Macadamia Nuts, it does not matter what the commodity is here, the point is that in order to get access to the production of a more advanced society producing such things as Metal Knives, you have to give up your resources to do so. We actually are pretty fortunate to be using Macadamia Nuts which do have some intrinsic value and not be using Cowrie Shells, because the Traders could pick tons of them up off beaches elsewhere.
As we progress along here, in return for our Macadamia Nuts, Pineaapples and anything else we produce in Hawaii, the traders give us in return their Notes, which we can then use to buy Cargo from them. Since we are now exporting all our Macadamia Nuts we don’t have enough of them to use as currency anymore, so now our Goobermint creates its own Notes which are worth some fraction of the value of the Notes the traders give us in return for our produce. We have now become intrinsically CONNECTED to the Global banking system using Notes as our Currency rather than any other abstract item.
Now, if your country happens to be well gifted with Natural Resources to trade for Cargo, the tendency is to basically live off those resources and not Industrialize. A few people at the top of the Pyramid in Hawaii (my Heirs from Nozomi and Natalie) do very well, but the rest of the population mainly just gets a few Trinkets like Satellite Dishes to put up on their Grass Huts and otherwise lives dirt poor. Read this virtually every Oil Producing nation in the M.E.
Now, if you want to start Industrializing yourself so you can make your own trinkets and start exporting them, you need LOTS of the Notes the traders use to buy the big machines that make trinkets, and they generally cost so much that even years of Macadamia Nut sales are not enough to by them. However, if you have a large population of people willing to work for peanuts, Banksters with lots of Notes will loan them to you so you can build Trinket Factories. They will disassemble complete factories running in Amerika and ship them over to you so you now are the Trinket builder. You of course have to pay lots of Interest on those factories, so actually getting ahead in this game is pretty difficult, although it is accomplished briefly in some places. Of course Hawaii never had a big enough population to make this kind of thing worthwhile, but places like Japan, Korea and China did. This is why large population centers with few resources have evolved into manufacturing centers. Amazingly simple isn’t it? What seems to be a very complicated problem of trade laws and tariffs is not so complicated once you grasp the underlying forces of labor, resource and capital movement. Its not a lot different or more complicated than Water running Downhill actually. I only came to this epiphany very recently though, but to be sure it explains the general movement of Capital through the Capitalist era. If I had figured this out when I was in my teens instead of chasing pussy, smoking dope and doing blackboard contests in the basement of Havermeyer Hall, I’d probably be richer than Soros by now. Water under the bridge though of course, and I ended up rich enough anyhow here from Grandpa the High Steel Walker turned Bootlegger, for as long as the flotsam and jetsam he accumulated retains some value anyhow. LOL.
To return to the topic at hand, over time here the entire world got captured up into this system of Notes run centrally from a few big Banking Houses and Trading companies like the British East India Company, House of Rothschild, JP Morgan et al. Any Sovereign Nation wishing to participate in the Free Trade of Goods and Services had to have their Money tied into the system, valued at some relatively fixed rate against the major currencies the traders used, which after Bretton Woods was the Dollar. Your money can float some on a day to day basis, but it has to hang within a fairly restricted range to remain functional.
At this point it becomes impossible for you to issue Non-Debt based money and use it for international trade, because as soon as you issue it without debt attached, it devalues. So you also now start issuing Bonds at some rate of Interest in order to increase your currency supply, and if you offer a high enough Interest rate on those Bonds then you get George Soros, Jim Rogers, Bill Gross and the rest of the gang flocking to your doorstep to buy them with their Notes. Of course, you better be damn industrious little Beavers to be able to pay off on the interest on those Bonds.
Over time this Web of Debt in Ellen Brown’s terminology has grown ever larger, like a massive Cancer spreading across the face of the earth. In order to be part of the great global game of trading around the Trinkets and Raw Materials to make the Trinkets, you have to be using a Debt based currency the Illuminati can Invest in through your Bonds. You go into Indentured Servitude to the Bond Holders, which is of course why they are called Bonds to begin with.
The Bond Holders of all worldwide debt are the Top of the Ponzi, and in any crash these are the folks that expect to be paid off FIRST. If you have to sell off your Parks and Bridges, lay off all your Sanitation workers and Teachers whatever, you MUST pay the Bond Holders! If you don’t pay off the Bond Holders, its ARMAGEDDON!!!! The Fabulously Wealthy will be impoverished along with all the Pensioners invested with PIMPCO! So everything possible is done to try to keep paying off on the Bonds, or rolling them over into new Bonds, whatever just do not ADMIT that the production is not there to ever pay off on those Bonds!
Now the question is, WTF did the top of the Ponzi Bondholders actually GET the money to loan to you? At some point, it had to be Borrowed into existence with the Central Bank creating the currency. So if you are close enough connected to the center of this, you can Borrow money at very low interest directly from Da Fed to then go and loan at higher interest to somebody else and collect on the spread between those rates. This is bad enough, but the evolution of Derivatives made it even worse, because lots of Banking Houses could create financial instruments like CDS and CDO without ever actually borrowing money from Da Fed to do it. These instruments represent Trillions if not Quadrillions of Dollars of debt obligations that cannot be paid off unless Da Fed goes ahead on a Printing Spree that would make the current one look like a Sunday Picnic.
Needless to say, I don’t think the Political Will is there to do that kind of printing, it would totally destroy the currency and that is not in the interest of the people who hold all the Bonds. The trick here is to keep the House of Cards standing so these instruments do not trip. However, as the debt problem moves up the line to bigger and bigger Sovereigns (next up, Spain and CA), just the amounts necessary to make them nominally solvent is probably beyond the political will of the Banks, and most certainly against the political will of the populations that are forced into Austerity. So at some point here the Ponzi will collapse.
Jesse over on Café Americain makes the Hypothesis that Da Fed is sufficiently in control of all of this that they can manage a controlled Stagflation, but to me this begs the question of what is going on all around the World all tied to the Dollar as World Reserve Currency. While here in the FSofA we might be able to withstand a Slow Boiled Frog effect of say a 10% yearly Inflation of Prices while Wages Deflate at 10% and not run up into a Rock/Hard Place situation for 5 years, that is not the case for all the impoverished countries around the world where people live on $2/day and 90% of their income goes to just buying enough Rice to make it to tomorrow. As long as Da Fed is “managing” a steady inflation, these folks are going to be quickly (if they are not already there) in a position where they simply cannot afford to buy enough food to eat. If they are in a location where there is no Oil, it’s a Humanitarian Crisis but we don’t send in the Marines. If it is a location where there IS Oil, we clearly DO send in the Marines to try to secure the Oil Fields. We also have to send Food Aid to the faction that will line up with us for the moment, and arm them with AR-15s and RPGs at the very least to try to take back control.
The Financial House of Cards is clearly in a very delicate balance at the moment, and Da Fed has very little maneuvering room between the Hyperinflation/Deflation outcomes. Even small changes in the Interest rate or Money Supply can tip the balance now. That problem is difficult enough by itself to manage, but on top of that you have all these Wars breaking out in marginal countries, and you also have your Natural Disasters like Tsunamis messing up Production out of Japan and Cyclones turning part of Australia into an Inland Sea and now apparently non-stop Tornadoes taking out Airports like Lambert in St Louis.
How many of you noted the story in the Newz that Shillary Clinton was in Japan promoting a “Private/Public” Partnership to help the Japanese rebuild? She was joined by Chamber of Commerce Big Wigs from Nippon and the FSofA, basically BEGGING people not to Abandon Japan. You have to KNOW they are doing this because companies are EVACUATING Tokyo in droves. WTF is going to stay in Tokyo with an Office when they can move it over to Taiwan or Shanghai or Hong Kong or Singapore? The Nip Goobermint is now talking about a “6-9 Month” period to get some control over the reactors. No actual plan here for doing so, but this is the spin. Even if it was only 6-9 months, who would stay there while they figure it out? How long would it take to replace the electrical power generation of those nuke plants? Even a Coal fired plant takes years to build.
The issues Da Fed has to deal with in managing the currency are only a part of the Global issues here, and no matter what they do with the money supply, Da Fed cannot get more Oil flowing out of the M.E., nor can they repair Japanese Reactors and get BAU running in Japan either. They do not seem predisposed to handing out much Free Money to J6P, just enough to feed him and keep him from rioting, and that does not an economy make, at least not the kind of economy we were used to.
The real question is not IF we will slide down Richard Duncan’s curve of per capita available energy, but how fast it will actually occur. Because we are such profligate users of energy here in the FSofA, there is a lot of WASTE in the system that can be cut out before we completely power down, so I am at least hopeful that he is wrong and 2012 will not be the year the Lights Go Out. However I did watch another video of his where he made a good point about Mexico, which is pretty much already a failed state. Their electrical power grid is a joke, held together by duck tape and bailing wire. With their own Oil supply now dwindling, they are not going to be keeping that grid up and functional too much longer. He makes the point that when the lights go out in Mexico Shity, 20M people will start streaming across the border in a Tsunami of refugees. Exactly how we will try to stop that remains to be seen.
To get back to our monetary system, it is far past repair at this point and will have to be replaced by an entirely new one. Our New World Order Globalist Illuminati Masters of course want to run this show, but by no means is it clear they will be able to do so. Over in Finland the True Finn Party has taken power with a No Bailout Policy, and the Euro consortium which is the CENTER of the Globalist movement is coming apart at the seams. If they cannot hold Europe together, how could they hold the whole WORLD together under a single currency regime?
What is much more likely is a breakup Regionally here in the FSofA with first a Command Economy of Rationing and eventually some sort of Local Currencies evolving. Both Food and Fuel will be very scarce, forcing nearly every able bodied person into some aspect of food production and distribution. Regions will probably be governed by former units of the National Guard, the warehouses and silos will be put under guard and a replacement transportation system will develop. I could see 6 guys all on Bicycles hitched to a Wagon pulling grain to silos from the fields, and small Steam Powered Locomotives built from old Boilers utilizing whatever they have available to burn to move the grain around the region on the rail lines. At the other end of the line, more Teamsters on Bicycles pulling the grain into local communities. This until we breed up enough draft animals to pull the wagons.
Is this Extinction Level? No it is not, but it most certainly is Civilization Ending. It doesn’t even take a Thermonuclear War to occur either, all it really takes is for the energy we accessed through the industrial era to become less and less available. Which pretty much everyone here agrees is already occurring. The likelihood of being able to substitute for this lost energy either with Nukes or Renewables in the next 50 years is pretty small. The Energy necessary to build those things is going to disappear faster than we can build enough of them. Its not even clear after Fuk-U-Shima that anyone is going to WANT to build a Nuke, although in some areas I am sure some will be built. Not nearly enough though to substitute for the lost fossil fuel energy we have been accessing.
Accessing Nat Gas reserves and Conservation can and probably will draw this whole thing out some, so I don’t necessarily agree with Richard Duncan that by 2020 we will be Lights Out everywhere. I do think though by 2020 that Poor Nations like Mexico will be Lights Out by that time. It really is remarkable just how FAST almost all the world got Wired up for Electricity, even towns in Afghanistan have it, although likely it is pretty intermittent there. Problem being of course by wiring up EVERYWHERE, we used up the available energy to drive the system that much faster. When we ran out of enough of it here on our own shores to drive our power systems, we had to start importing it from elsewhere, and this should have clued everyone in at the time that the writing was on the wall, but it did not generally do that. Why? Because everyone was sold on the idea that coming down the pipe at some time in the future was a replacement for it created by Human Ingenuity. Fusion Power being the Holy Grail there, and BILLIONS were spent in pursuit of that technology, with the greatest Physicists and Engineers of the last 60 years all engaged in the project in one way or another. We built Super Conducting Super Colliders, and individuals in labs messed with their ideas for Cold Fusion. 60 solid years of research in Nuclear Physics since the Manhattan Project, and NOBODY has been able to make this idea work at positive EROEI.
You have to wrap your mind around the concept that the energy we accessed to run the Civilization of Homo Industrialis is going Extinct, even if some of the people manage to survive that extinction. We had a Century Long Party burning the candle very brightly in the Industrialized Nations, but now that Candle is running out of Wax. We are halfway down the candle, but in the intervening time we bred up 6 times as many people as when the game started, so Per Capita energy available is much less than at the beginning of the game. The fact it is skewed in distribution keeps the FSofA burning brightly right now, but once we cannot maintain sufficient military force to keep the Oil moving in this direction, we will quickly be in the same boat everyone else is in. Our standard of living will approach that of the current 3rd World. This is inevitable now, its just a question of how long it will take to slide down and how the society will adjust to the new reality.
To look at this whole post from a Fourth Turning perspective, how does this Turning differ from the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression? In each of those prior Turnings our Society was accessing Greater Wealth and Power. After the American Revolution, we were accessing the vast Wealth of the North American Continent and all its Resources. After the Civil War, we were accessing the thermodynamic energy of Coal and beginning the Industrial Revolution. After the Great Depression and WWII, we were accessing the thermodynamic energy of Oil and growing into the Information Age. What is there left for us now to grow into after THIS Fourth Turning. I put to you that we have nothing left to grow into now, and so we must as a species go into a period of shrinkage that we have not experienced since the Dark Ages and the Black Plaguei. Like the original Dark Ages, I think this period will last near a Millenia, and who we are and how we come out of this at the end is anybody’s guess. We may never come out of it and go the way of the Dinosaur, that remains a possibility, but one I hope does not come to pass.
For those of us who lived through the Age of Oil in the Industrialized Nations, even if you were relatively Poor you got quite a ride. It was however a One Time ride that only a select portion of Humanity got to really enjoy, and it is now passing into History. Those who follow us will curse us for our profligacy, at least for so long as they can remember it, which probably won’t be more than a couple of generations. After that, there will only be the Ruins of what once was, and a Planet gradually healing itself of the scars left by Industrialization. One can only hope that somewhere, somehow, some Tribe will make it through the Zero Point to rebuild a better society with better principles of existence. It will be a very long time from now before that comes to pass however.
See You on the Other Side
RE
So you’re talking Mad Max, basically, when the oil spigot gets turned off.
Actually, I agree with you. The next war will be a fight over remaining oil +/- those crazed 12th Imam guys.
Oil is the absolute lifeblood of global civilization. There is simply no substitute in terms of energy density and portability, and the plasticity of oil, none whatsoever, never, ever, ever. When I learned about PO about 4 years ago, my hair spontaneously ignited after the top of my head blew off.
Then I read some Joseph Tainter and Jared Diamond about the relationships between energy inputs and societal complexity, and how an environmental resources shape and sustain a culture.
That was it, My Big Doom Moment. I was never the same. I realized that 99% of what I had been taught, had believed, had lived, was enjoying and was looking forward to for me and my family was: #1) complete and utter BS, and 2) completely and utterly fragile and fleeting, soon to go the way of T. Rex.
That is why I am probably the only physician in the US with a huge garden, chickens and no plasma screen TV. And no debt. And I don’t wory about Obamacare no more, nope, more worried about the economic crash of the US and the crash of global civilization by PO. Everything else pales by comparison.
If you haven’t re-watched those Mad Max movies, you should. They are prophetic in what will happen, IMHO.
As for me, I’m getting my Aunty Entity outfit all ready. (hattip my gal Tina Turner)
[img[/img]
@HZK
I thought you were Blond? 😉
I think we may have a Mad Max period, but I don’t think it will last all that long. Keeping all those old cars running will become increasingly more difficult in most places, so I see it as more likely we revert over a generation or two at most to utilizing animal power. Also Mad Max had very cool guns and ammo, where were they being manufactured? Firearms will also gradually disappear from the scene, although this probably takes a Century or two.
Anyhow, the main thing here is to be living in a low population zone with good natural resources, and having a good community to work with. In the near term, we are likely to have a lot of political upheaval, so keep your head down.
RE
@HZK,
Maybe you should change your name to “NO Hope at Zero Kelvin”
I’m a firm believer in Peak Oil, but don’t accept the idea that we will slide all the way down the back side of the bell curve back to the stone age. I think we will slide our way down to some sustainable level in which the world will learn to live within a “pay as you go” framework of energy consumption based on the amount we can generate from renewable sources in a given year. There are some incredible innovations taking place in this regard. Check out the TED talk below – maybe it will bring you back from the dark side:
WW3, 1 billion dead. PO delayed for a generation.
@Watchdog
If we had a real fast population reduction through something like a global epidemic, I could see transitioning to renewables. I think however that the resource wars we will go through will consume what we need to build the rewable infrastructure.
Your main problem is Mining. Explosives are going to disappear over time here along with the engines, pumps and hydraulics. We may get by for a while by recycling scrap, but eventually that will peter out.
RE
hope, i got a question for you.
Who run BarterTown?
[img[/img]
(embargo lifted!)
@The Watchdog: (great moniker BTW). It is what will happen on the slide down and the pace of that slide occurs that keeps me up nights.
Yes, there will be lots of stuff lying around in warehouses and whatnot, and the knowledge won’t just evaporate. There will be small communities of prepper/doomers that will ratchet up, little islands of sanity that hopefully won’t be overrun by the Free Shit Army. But there are still probably 290 million people in the USA that have no freaking idea of what is coming. I work in the Houston Metroplex, home to 6 million people and can count on the fingers of one hand how many people in my circle “get it”. And we are Texans for the love of God!
Perhaps the demand side will ratchet down slowly enough that the effects of PO will not be that acute. Hence, the Japanese disaster may turn out to have a silver lining. However, China’s and India’s populations are surging and experiencing a Revolution of Rising Expectations. What is the big monkey wrench here is the US economy and its potential to crash, made more likely by the actions of Bernie and The Inkjets. If that event occurs, even a 50% devaluation of the dollar, then PO will not matter because there will be no capital, no economy left to use oil. You will be looking at a fast crash and that is where you could see, potentially, billions dead within a few years.
It is the economic unravelling, the Big Slide Down, if you will, that will unravel what is left of our civil society. Americans, of all political stripes, have become like big spoiled two-year olds, stomping their feet and screaming for their “entitlements”. Whether it is their SS check or their Happy Meal order, Americans often react violently when they don’t get their way. Just look at the recent news about the women beaten almost to death in a freaking McDonald’s for looking at someone’s “man”. And it isn’t just Americans, people in Greece/England wherever have not been too happy when the $$$ was shut off……
Look what happened at Katrina. Three, THREE, freaking days without supplies and a functioning gov and the place completely fell apart. Did anybody at the Superdome say, hey no one is coming for us, lets organize a search party for food and water, put the kiddies over there and we’ll all use this particular corner to crap in? No, they engaged in widespread looting, rape, assault – total Mad Max. That is what I fear will happen in any kind of fast crash scenario in the US.
As to transitioning to renewables, I fear that is a pipedream. The EROEI of those things are very poor, usually <2, require sophisticated manufacturing processes for them (windmills) or rare earths (solar panels) which are 100% controlled by the ChiComs. The US gets 6% of it's energy from wood, good Lord, and less than 3% from windmills/solar.
See, in Mad Max and The Thunderdome, they used PIGS and methane production to power Bartertown. The only guy who really knew how to do that was Little Man, backed up by MasterBlaster (who had Down's syndrome and was killed by Gibson). There was all kinds of machinery lying around but it took knowledge and skill to create energy. Perhaps that is the message of those movies – it isn't STUFF that will save you, although it helps, it is knowledge and skill.
And a guy with a big club watching your back.
@howard: You posted that while I was formulating my reply – Yikes I’ve been scooped!
But you make my point for me: He who controls your energy, or your food, controls you.
@RE: I think back to 1870s tech. That was the pre-oil age. People still had guns, ammo, trains, steel/iron fabrication, trains, and newspapers. Medicine was still in the dark ages and there was little communication outside of morse code. Again, if the knowledge base remains remotely intact, I expect the survivors to utilize whatever is left lying about and fabricate what they need.
Even in the Middle Ages, the knights managed some pretty awesome armor, swords, trebuchets, castles and folks sailed around the world in wooden boats. Hell, there were some pretty good world wars going on, ie, the Crusades. In fact, most of what we take for granted in our age was invented then. It is just fancier and manufactered en masse but very little is really new.
Once people are aware of something or imagine it, if the need is dire enough, it will get done.
@HZK
What I can’t figure out is that given you know what is coming down the pipe here, WTF would you stay around the Big Shity of Houston? Right acorss the border from the failed state of Mejico? This does not seem like a good plan to me.
RE
@RE: I work in the Houston Metroplex but actually live out in the relative boonies west of Lake Conroe. I regularly commute 50+ miles a day (and am seriously considering trading the beemer in for a Prious or getting a motocycle, lol).
Given that Houston is #1 for obesity, I don’t worry about people walking out to my place. Sheeit, I just watch people drive around the freaking parking lot for 20 minutes to park right next to my office rather than walk 1 stinking block! We don’t have a big FSA in Texas and our Mexicans are a higher class, IMHO, than the creepos you get in CA or AZ. Even in Hurricane Ike, where 99% of the Houston grid went down for 2 weeks, we didn’t have much trouble. Even in the botched evacuation of Hurricane Rita, nobody came down our road or camped in the fields.
I would love to move to a place like Alaska, I know the hubby would, but I simply cannot live in a place that requires an ice-scraper to live. Tried that once and almost froze to death – and that was Washington DC!
Yeah, it is a daily freakout to gaze out at the Houston sprawl from atop 12 story overpass and realize that 99.9% of these people have no freaking clue.
[img[/img]
Note to self: more ammo.
@HZK,
True, the Katrina experience paints a dire picture, but the EROEI numbers on renewables are really not that bad, and Rare Earth mining is ramping up quickly in Canada and Australia. I still cling to some hope for now. Nonetheless, I’ve given up saving fine wines for special occasions, prefering instead to enjoy them as soon as possible with good friends!
—
Energy Return on Energy Invested is explored by David Murphy of SUNY, who provides estimates of EROEI for many energy sources.
Carbon sources
Coal: 80
Oil: 11 to 18
Natural gas: 10
Shale oil: 5
Tar sands: 2 to 4
Non-carbon sources
Hydroelectric: >100
Wind: 18
Nuclear: 5 to 15
Solar PV: 6.8
Solar thermal: 1.6
Biomass
Cane ethanol: 0.8 to 10
Corn ethanol: 0.8 to 1.6
Biodiesel: 1.3
@NoHope@ZipK: I remember the first time I drove through the “mixmaster” NW of Dallas/FortWorth and thought I’d lost my way and gone to hell.
I agree with you on ice scrapers and will live and die where the climate won’t kill me – only the FSA from Orlando has a shot at it and That’s a long walk – so we only have to hold out until the gas runs out.
MA
@ HZK
50 miles is nothing to a Zombie. They make a mile a day, feasting on Human Flesh as they stop off at various McMansions feeding on other clueless Zombies. They’ll make it to your Doomstead in under 2 months from when TSHTF.
Cold isn’t bad when you dress properly for it. I like it better than Hot and Humid, which you cnnot dress for, even naked you feel gross all the time. Remember, no more HVAC. Heat Stroke will be a real killer down in FL and TX for Old Folks.
RE
“@RE: I think back to 1870s tech. That was the pre-oil age. People still had guns, ammo, trains, steel/iron fabrication, trains, and newspapers. Medicine was still in the dark ages and there was little communication outside of morse code.” -HZK
I agree that Coal Age Technology will run for a while longer after the Oil Age technology disappears. However, you do have to remember that thorugh the Age of Coal they ran things like Steam Locomotives on high energy Anthracite Coal, which is pretty played out now with mostly only reserves of Sub-bituminous coal and lignite in great supply. However, in cmpbination with Nat Gas some machines should be running into the next century, barring a complete social breakdown of course.
The main thing that will really change things is the disappearance of the Electric Grid. We will see how this affects other places first, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mejico Shity go dark by 2012. 20M Mexicans will go running for the TX Border. Invest in some .50 Cal BMG and a good scope.
RE
@RE: If you are expecting the population crash like you say, then the world’s supplies of coal etc should last quite a while. It’s a freaking planet we are talking about here.
Besides, they ran some of those locomotives with Egyptian mummies, hmmm, with the big die-off, we can make a ton of mummies! Mummy power!!!
Besides, I am still hopeful that that science thingey will really get going and give us vacations to the Moon and flying cars and Newman perpetual motion machines, **rolls eyes**.
Sigh, I am making light of the end of civilization as we know it, it’s my way to stave off complete and total depair.
And I will take the heat and humidity any day over snow and ice. Besides, we will be in good shape here in Texas with the global cooling…..
@Watchdog: It isn’t just the EROEI, although the figures you post are higher than what I have seen, can you send me your link?
It is the portability and plasticity of oil that makes it unique. You can move it around and store it. It can be converted into gizillion products. None of the renewables do that. Oil works in the nighttime, in the rain, in the calm, in the hot or cold.
And here’s the really depressing thing: every single “renewable” takes fossil fuels to produce!
Matt Savinar used to have a great write up on his website lifeaftertheoilcrash.net but he got into astrology and he took it down, sigh.
@HZK
While I do expect a massive Die Off, unless we get a Global Epidemic that knocks off a huge portion of the population in a year or two we’ll rapidly consume Coal and NG supplies that we do still have. The bigger proble though is keeping any mining operations for Coal going once we don’t have Oil to run the heavy equipment anymore.
Before the Age of Oil, the population mined the easily accessible stuff up first. In england for instance, a big driver for the invention of the Steam Engine was to run pumps to pump the water out of deeper mines Why didn’t they Strip Mine in those days and instead did so much Tunnelling? Because they didn’t have Caterpillar Back Hoes and Daiwoo Front End Loaders that could move all the dirt you do in a strip mining operation. Although there are still Coal Reserves around on thiis “Big” Planet, trying to access the ones left now without heavy equipment would be exceedingly difficult. They aren’t necessarily in very good locations either with rail lines already built to them.
Mining as we do it now once the Oil runs out will be impossible, so just about the time the last of the Oil runs out, what Coal and NG we can access will run out also. Growing Burnable material woon’t work either, if we start burning wood to run Locomotives, we’ll cut down all the trees inside aa couple of years. We’ll also run out of Mummies to burn, corpses to render for fat, etc. Basically, using thermodynamic energy this way, you burn it faster than the sun and the processes of the earth can proovide more of it. Its not Pay-as-you-Go.
So, I expect shortly after the Oil becomes too difficult to recover with low EROEI, it won’t be long before most places lose access to Coal and NG as well. Our main sources of power will be Wind Power, Hydro Power and Animal Labor. I don’t think the 1850s scenario lasts too long, but a 1750s one predating the Age of Coal can probably sustain for quite some time, perhaps indefinitielyfor a small population.
The main problem the 1750s paradigm has is with the Ag and the condition of the land and the aquifers. Its unclear just how much good land with good easily accesible water NOT pumped or diverted via large dams actually still exists, and how well even the best Permaculture farming techniques will work to keep said land producing. However, with a large die off it might be quite some time.
In the shorter term, the biggest problem is how the die off is managed or more likely not managed. Once we have a sufficient breakdown of the complex systems governing our society, the die off is likely to become quite chaotic. Maintaining any systems at all through that period will be quite a challenge. Its a cascade failure problem of course.
My guess is that when we lose the Electrical Grid, that will be the Tipping Point to send society into massive Chaos. Up until then, the Fascist state probably can maintain control, rationing fuel and food to the general population. Once the electrical Conduit goes dark, maintaining such control will be quite impossible.
How long can we keep the Grid up in the FSofA? Too many variables to make a good guess. If Tornadoes keep tearing up the power lines as fast as they have been lately, it could go down pretty quick. However, I’ll still venture a WAG that the grid stays up in the FSofA untill 2020. If it stays up in Mejico past 2012 though that would be a small miracle. When the grid goes down in Mejico, that whole population will be trying to migrate en masse to where the Lights are still ON.
Like I said, .50 Cal BMG and a good Scope down on the Border there if you expect to keep that Human Tsunami back. Start dropping them at 500 yards out until you run out of Ammo, then break out your Mace and Battle Axe to protect and defend your chickens.
RE
RE,
When the word “Cargo” was used, I knew where you were coming from. Jared Diamond’s book
started me thinking, but I quickie went back to business as usual. Since Bill Gates read Guns, Germs, and Steel too, didn’t seem to affect him much, other than it was a “good read”.
There has to be a huge population draw down even for the worst case sernario to remotely work.
I have not heard of ONE society that wants the short straw vote to go silently to your other side.
When the peak oil thing sunk in, my whole outlook changed, as the economic ramifications
are staggering. Enjoyed the rant and I am sure Hope with her stash of Macodamia nuts turned on the island empire.
Hope,
A CD wearing that outfit and call it, ‘Gardening with Dr. Hope”. I’m sure some of the gardening position would be very revealling. You could make a billion Macadamia nuts and buy RE’s island.
Our family is doing the same as yours, except smaller scale. We have a wonderful farmers market year around, wife is a Pharm D and pushes drugs at the local hospital. Only a 3 mile commute, and life is good so far.
WatchDog,
Watched TED and it was interesting, BUT while a few of these groups will be around, they will not evolve in a world with a population we have. Who is going to take care of the FSA and the old.
These enlighten groups will need a army of food /energy comsuming drones to protect what they have.
I will never forget New Orleans, we were watching the human wildlife during Katrina, and my wife turned to me and said we need guns. Here is a woman when handling a gun holds it like a dirty diapher. Our whole way of life changed in what we saw in New Orleans.
TBP,
Can anyone tell me why my comments break up????????????
“There has to be a huge population draw down even for the worst case sernario to remotely work.
I have not heard of ONE society that wants the short straw vote to go silently to your other side.”-Welsh
The reason for that is the problem of “Full Doom” versus “Doom Lite”. I began writing a rant on this topic last night. People tend to not want to believe that there are some problems that cannot be solved, and that Human Ingenuity will eventually always find a way toward “progress”. The idea that we could regress as a society is simply too filled with cognitive dissonance for most people to accept.
I read “Guns. Germs and Steel” on a plane flight a couple of years ago. It was interesting reading Jared’s views on this stuff as an anthropologist, since they pretty much matched up with my own ideas of civilization development. Kind of like when I first discovered Dmitri Orlov’s stuff, it was “Wow! He sees the same stuff I do! I’m not nuts!” LOL.
Anyhow, for any scenario to work under a power down, the population clearly has to drop by an order of magnitude, and that can’t happen without a whole lot of social dislocation. The intervening time of getting from here to there is not going to be pretty.
RE
Speaking of Power Grid issues with wild weather, does anybody here remember Tornadoes killing more than 200 people in one day? Ever?
RE
Dozens of tornadoes kill more than 240 in South
By Marty Roney, USA TODAYUpdated 5m ago |
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — As day broke Thursday, people throughout the South began to survey the wreckage left behind after dozens of tornadoes ripped through six states killing 248 people.
By Butch Dill, AP
Residents search through what is left of their homes Thursday after a tornado hit Pleasant Grove, just west of downtown Birmingham, Ala., a day earlier.
EnlargeCloseBy Butch Dill, AP
Residents search through what is left of their homes Thursday after a tornado hit Pleasant Grove, just west of downtown Birmingham, Ala., a day earlier.
Ads by GoogleNYTimes Paid Model
Get Digital Access To The New York
Times Today. 99c For First 4 Weeks
http://www.NYTimes.com
Demonic By Ann Coulter
Subscribe To Townhall Magazine And
Get Ann Coulter’s New Book For Free
Townhall.com/AnnCoulter
Sell College Textbooks
Get more cash for your textbooks.
Free Shipping. Fast Payment.
http://www.webuytextbooks.com
It was the deadliest outbreak of tornadoes in nearly 40 years. It leveled entire neighborhoods and left victims buried beneath mounds of rubble.
“It happened so fast it was unbelievable,” said Jerry Stewart, a 63-year-old retired firefighter who was picking through the remains of his son’s wrecked home in Pleasant Grove, a suburb of Birmingham, Ala. “They said the storm was in Tuscaloosa and it would be here in 15 minutes. And before I knew it, it was here.”
He and his wife, along with their daughter and two grandchildren, survived by hiding under their front porch. Friends down the street who did the same weren’t so lucky. Stewart said he pulled out the bodies of two neighbors whose home was ripped off its foundation.
PHOTO: Severe weather slams South
STORY: Dixie Alley storms may outnumber Tornado Alley
STORY: Heavy rains adding to woes
Alabama’s state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 162 deaths, while there were 32 in Mississippi, 32 in Tennessee, 13 in Georgia, eight in Virginia and one in Kentucky.
In Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 that saw some of the worst damage, residents began to sift through what little remained of their homes.
The whine of chainsaws filled the background along with a state trooper helicopter that clattered overhead.
The city is home to the University of Alabama, which largely escaped major damage.
T. Spivey, 22, a senior at the university from Rogersville, searched through his H3 Hummer that rested on the front porch of the home where he rode out the storm. Spivey survived with two buddies in the bathroom of the almost-destroyed wood-framed structure.
“I came over here because I live on the fourth-floor of a condominium,” he said. “I thought a one-story house would be safer.”
Spivey and his friends saw the massive tornado that barreled through late Wednesday afternoon from about 200 yards away and rushed into the bathroom.
“I really don’t remember what we were doing when it hit,” Spivey said. “I was holding onto the toilet and all I can remember is dirt and everything flying past us. It took maybe 20 or 30 seconds and it was over. It really did sound like a freight train.”
After it passed, the trio went outside.
“We began running up and down the street seeing if we could help people,” he said. “In another minute or two, people started popping out of the houses. There was a lot of screaming and police and fire got here real quick.”
About two blocks away, Anne Catheryn Allen, 20, a sophomore from Russellville, walked down 15th Street stunned by what she saw. She rode out the storm in her Midtown Village apartment complex, about two blocks from where the more serious damage occurred.
“We were watching it on our phone on the Internet and they said it was five minutes away,” she said. “We decided to get in the closet instead of the bathroom.”
Her apartment building was not damaged.
“I just don’t know how to describe what I see here,” Allen said. “You don’t really realize this can happen until it happens where you are and it destroys things you’re used to seeing every day.”
Many of the streets in the hardest hit areas of Tuscaloosa were open only to one-way traffic. Overturned, damaged and destroyed vehicles peppered a neighborhood near the intersection of McFarland Boulevard and 15th Street that abuts a business district full of fast-food restaurants, pawn shops and car repair shops.
Large trees that snapped or were stripped of most of their limbs littered the area. Occasionally, a wisp of pink insulation could be seen blowing through the area accompanied by the smell of natural gas.
“When I looked back, I just saw trees and stuff coming by,” said Mike Whitt, a resident at DCH Regional Medical Center who ran from the hospital’s parking deck when the wind started swirling and he heard a roar.
On Thursday morning, he walked through the neighborhood next to the hospital, home to a mix of students and townspeople, looking at dozens of homes without roofs. Household items were scattered on the ground — a drum, running shoes, insulation, towels and a shampoo bottle. Streets were impassable, the pavement strewn with trees, pieces of houses and cars with their windows blown out.
Dr. David Hinson was working at the hospital when the tornado hit. He and his wife had to walk several blocks to get to their house, which was destroyed. Several houses down, he helped pull three students from the rubble. One was dead and two were badly injured. He and others used pieces of debris as makeshift stretchers to carry them to an ambulance.
“We just did the best we could to get them out and get them stabilized and get them to help,” he said. “I don’t know what happened to them.”
University officials said there didn’t appear to be significant damage on campus, and dozens of students and locals were staying at a 125-bed shelter in the campus recreation center.
The governors of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.
In Alabama, where as many as a million people were without power, Gov. Robert Bentley said 2,000 national guard troops had been activated and were helping to search devastated areas for people still missing. He said the National Weather Service and forecasters did a good job of alerting people, but there is only so much that can be done to deal with powerful tornadoes a mile wide.
President Obama said he had spoken with Bentley and approved his request for emergency federal assistance. He will travel to Alabama on Friday to view storm damage and meet with the governor and families.
“Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster,” Obama said in a statement Thursday.
Back in Tuscaloosa, Rachel Sugart walked down 15th Street carrying a case of bottled water to give out to emergency responders. The 20-year-old nursing student from Fort Payne rode out the tornado in the closet of her 12th Street home.
“I just felt like I had to do something,” the University of Alabama sophomore said. “So I got all the water and the food I could find in the house and came down here. I just couldn’t sit by and do nothing. I had to help in some way.”
Sugart’s home was undamaged in the tornado.
“We had lost power, we had lost the Internet,” she said. “All we could do is sit there and pray.”
Mary Agnew, 22, drove out of Tuscaloosa to the sound of tornado warning sirens late Wednesday. Agnew, a recent University of Alabama graduate, drove through storms in nearby Walker County and elsewhere on her way home to Faulkville, less than two hours from Tuscaloosa.
She said the roads were strewn with trees, power lines and even a metal cow trough that had been blown onto Interstate 65.
“I’ve never seen so many snapped trees in all my life. All the interstate signs had been blown away,” she said. “We got really lucky.”
RE
Goos article. Your prognosis reminds of Kunstler’s “A World Made By Hand” where he posits a return to a pre-1870’s pace of life.
You mention it taking a generation to breed the draft animals. Wonder who will make the harnesses and tack?
What has my attention in the wake of fukushima is what happens to our existing nukes when the grid dies. You may well get multiples of the “7 million” casualties as a radioactive fog rolls across the land and Ann Coulter issues PSAs that radiation is Vitamin R.
Always wondered why the Gates and Rockefeller foundations funded that seed vault well above the Arctic Circle. The reasons may well be coming into focus.
“You mention it taking a generation to breed the draft animals. Wonder who will make the harnesses and tack?”-Surly
My guess would be anyone familiar either with dressing game, taxidermy or leather working. I know a fellow up here who made me a beautiful pair of Red Fox Fur Mittens when I first moved up here. I’m sure he could make harnesses and tack.
“What has my attention in the wake of fukushima is what happens to our existing nukes when the grid dies. You may well get multiples of the “7 million” casualties as a radioactive fog rolls across the land and Ann Coulter issues PSAs that radiation is Vitamin R.”
There is an issue I never though of before! All those plants have to have electricity running to keep the spent fuel pools circulating water and cooling. So yea, until we find a more permanent form of disposal for all the spent fuel which does not require any maintenance electricity, almost every Nuclear Power plant is a potential Fuk-U-Shima.
Did you read tht the speculation now is that some of the explosions in Reactor 3 were NOT Hydrogen explosions, but NUCLEAR BLASTS coming from some of the spent fuel. From Steve on Economic Undertow:
“Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Gunderson Speculation on Fukushima Number 3
The explosions @ the Japanese reactors have been subject to an increasing amount of analysis. Here’s Arnie Gunderson at Fairewinds Associates:
Gunderson suggests that a hydrogen explosion in the service area of unit 3 distorted fuel stored in the spent fuel pool to such a degree that a prompt criticality took place.
What is a prompt criticality, you ask?
I am glad you asked because here is an answer:
The SL-1, or Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, was a United States Army experimental nuclear power reactor which underwent a steam explosion and meltdown on January 3, 1961, killing its three operators. The direct cause was the improper withdrawal of the central control rod, responsible for absorbing neutrons in the poorly-designed reactor core. The event is the only known fatal reactor accident in the United States. The accident released about 80 curies (3.0 TBq) of I-131, which was not considered significant due to its location in a remote desert of Idaho. About 1,100 curies (41 TBq) of fission products were released into the atmosphere.
Fissioning Uranium 235 releases neutrons instantly when atoms divide, these ‘prompt’ neutrons cause knock-on reactions that are amplified by the accompanying increase in heat generated by the reactions. The positive feedback loop can cause an explosion.
When the central control rod in SL-1 was removed, fission reactions took place much faster than the heat generated by the fission could be removed by water boiling within the reactor core. The reactor ran away and the core blew up, scattering bits of itself everywhere and shutting down the reactions. All of this took place within a small fraction of a second.
The three operators were killed by the blast.
A similar criticality took place @ Chernobyl reactor unit 4. Both criticality incidents involved large steam explosions and fuel melting.
Did a criticality incident take place in the fuel pool (or in the core or below the core?) Nobody knows for sure but the release of more information regarding isotopes found on the reactor site will be revealing.”
RE
RE
I had not read about this criticality incident (one certainly wouldn’t HEAR about it), but the blanket of misinformation and bullshit around fukushima is all-pervading. Never heard about SL-1 either.
But yeah, every nuke plant is a Fukushima-in-waiting when the lights go out, and the generators run out of fuel. And since I Iive within 30 miles of one right here in SE VA, the issue has my attention.
“Never heard about SL-1 either.”-RE
This is why we need the Blogosphere. I never heard about this reactor accident either, and I have had a LOT of chats on the net about Nuke Power. Nor of course has the MSM reported that there is a good chance the explosions at Fuk-U-shima were not all chemical ones, but some nuclear ones.
We better start figuring out HTF to get rid of all the spent fuel PDQ, elsewise we are going to be in the deep doo doo.
RE
@HZK and Welshman,
You both make valid points as to why the challenges of the great power down will be enormous beyond comprehension. I’m going to accelerate my wine consumption to ensure my cellar is depleted before the SHTF 😉
Watchman–
Now THERE is a plan.
Hey, I know who runs Bartertown….
[img[/img]