People who are interested in this issue should definitely visit your web site and read a bit. The page is well designed and the articles are well written.
We have one fundamental disagreement. While government survey consistantly underestimate the ultimate recovery of oil, the numbers being enthusiastically floated are irresponsibly high.
I like your points on EROEI and technology. I didn't read anything about transport costs and constraints; maybe I need to read more?
3) I'm not sure what you're other arguments are addressing. There is always demand for all things at a particular price, even simply as land fill, or land itself. And there is always unsatisfied demand for all goods and services. The world and people always want more than they can produce.
@zthustra I wasn't particularly suggesting this. But yes, in the medium run, low supply and high demand pushes up the price -> This gives incentives to increase current supply, improve oil technologies and use, search for more oil, start using alternatives to oil, AND push down demand. But I wasn't arguing this specifically. My point is that it's incorrect to see excess supply and a low price of oil as the major factor behind economic growth.
I'm not sure where you are going with the comments. Setting aside the artificial issues of money supply, economic growth is generally the result of the effective employment of labor, technology and materials.
I think we agree that demand is always there, it is just a matter of making sure that consumers have money in their pockets or accounts. The availability of money/credit, or the lack thereof, can have a heating or a chilling effect on economic growth.
So, if to much money is made available to an economy where there are limites supplies of any of the components of economic growth, be it labor, technology or materials, the price of the item in demand will go up and stimulate greater availability. If more of the item in demand cannot be produced we enter into what is called price inflation and the higher price destroys some of the demand, at least at that high price.
In August 2008, the high price of oil created a high demand for money/credit that almost broke the monetary system without increasing the production of crude oil The production of crude oil has been flat for six years and at every price, high and low.
Crude oil is an essential component of every aspect of the ecomony, money, labor and technology are all available in abundence. Crude oil seems to be the fly in the ointment.
2) BUT we can credit Bernanke for publishing a paper that dispells the causal link between oil shocks and economic slowdowns. tinyurl(dot)com/bernanke-oil
It's easy for someone seeing the causal link between housing and the financial crisis, and it was obivous to some people at the time (you're already a fan of Peter Schiff). One has to refute that the high oil price was a cause of the crisis, but it would have been an additional tax which would have increased the pain.
1) Never watched your previous video, but let me step in an put you straight. ;)
The theory that economic slowdowns are triggered by oil crises has been around for a long time. I have issue with Bernanke on many areas... including being guilty of inflating the oil price post the dot-com bubble. See Marc Faber tinyurl(dot)com/faber-mirror for that analysis.
On the video I said "fiscal crisis", what I meant was "monetary crisis". There are all kinds of bubbles, they all start in the same place - the bank. Access to cheap new credit (aka new money out of thin air) fuels speculation. Take away access to credit and the bubble bursts! All of the bubbles bursted in August of 2008. When that happens it is a crisis. The rapid increase in demand for new credit to pay for speculation on expensive oil was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Have made a skeptical analysis of your own belief that we will all just start driving electic cars? Try this thought expirament, list all of the reason why it won't work instead of just the reasons that it will; do a pros and cons chart or something like that; pretend you are arguing for the other side. Then, comment back. I will wait for your reply.
@zthustra Nissan Leaf 250 Whr/mile, Tesla 200-350 Whr/mile, thus if a gallon of gas drives you 30 miles, an electric car will use about 6-10 Kw-Hr including heating or AC per gallon equivalent. Electricity though most of USA is about $0.12 a KW-Hr. Thus the cost to charge an electric car is about $1.00 a gallon.
Now electricity can come from solar, wind, coal, nuclear but all in all it is much cleaner to drive an electric car both in carbon and emissions. The warranty on batteries is 8
@zthustra 8 years or 100,000 miles. You will need less brakes and possibly little or no maintenance. However, comparing electric to gas is like comparing apples to oranges. Many leaf owners in So Cal will power their car off their roof due to the low cost of photovoltaics.
@zthustra As for arguing for the other side? 1. You are just transferring energy from the gas pump to the coal power station? No problem overall there is plenty of electricity sources. Germany increased their total demand electrical of photovotaics (solarbuzz) to meet 10% of their electrical use in 8 years. 2. Range? Most people drive 30 miles a day. 3) AC/Heat? Only a small percentage of energy use. 4) Quick recharging? Recharge at home or station.
This is the problem with skeptical analysis, it is very difficult to actually try to defeat your own argument. I'm in love with the idea of clean solar energy from PV and wind. I also dream of advanced batteries in every home and every car. There isn't any downside for the futurist but the pragmatic skeptic sees some problems.
All of these technologies involve RARE earth metals. China is poisoning itself manufacturing them for us.
Current production levels are not sustainable because the metals are RARE and manufactuing is toxic. It isn't likely that this technology could be distributed worldwide to benefit everyone. It's economic usefulness is small scale.
The average age of a car or light truck is 7 years. It will take 14 years to replace our current fleet IF 100% of fute sales are electric. Of course moving to anything other than liquid fuel will be a slow trnsition, so figure more like 50 years.
We ae already past peak on worldwide crude oil production, the peak years was 2005 and the peak month was Aug 2008. We had to have started 20 years ago to transition to non-conventional vehicles.
One-for-one replacement is NOT an option, we must reduce consumption. This means we need mass transit. The US abandoned real mass transit ages ago. It will take 50 years to replace what we abandoned. We don't have that long!
The power grid is old ... really old! The plutocracy cannot imagine anything other than centralized production with distribution channels and has not invested anything in the next generation electric needs. Instead, they are lapping up the last of the profits from an obsolete power system.
Government cannot step in because it is caught up in the web of debt created by our privately own, for profit, issued as debt money scheme. Private people can either, they are broke!
Imagine how much additional electricity would be needed IF ALL of the cars and light trucks converect to electric and they ALL started charging up off the grid.
The principle fule for electric is still coal, but coal will be past peak in 15 years. Nuclear is the only plausible replacment, but we will need 100 new power plants and we haven't built a new one in 30 years!
I could go on, but I won't ... sorry for the buzz kill.
@zthustra I am not worried about the grid or its age. When I go to the wall, the electricity is always there. If not I can install photovoltaics cheaper than coal, and it would be even cheaper without union mandated electrical contractors. Less teacher unions, more teachers. Furthermore, electric cars are charged at night. If they ever need to install capacity, they will locally. rare earth are used in motors, but has that halted Japan from selling Priuses? All Ev parts are recyclable
I'll call it quits on my mental exercise in pros and cons analysis. I sure hope the grid stays up until I'm dead. And I hope that they get their butts in gear and get serious about electric vehicles. Seems like We the People bailed out the auto industry and now I see that Ford is making its next generation hybrids in Mexico.
Have you seen the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
@zthustra I have seen the movie. The leaf is the real deal. I really think electricity is the future, where everything will be powered via electricity and you won't have fuel near your house. If the grid goes down I see small community grids. Heat pumps have come so efficient it is as cheap to heat your house with electricity as propane or fuel oil. Ford was not really bailed out.
You may have already watched this. Once you have, think distributed production. There is no reaso why ectricity can't be produced at the location o fthe business, in our home, or within a block ot two of its use.
@zthustra I watched the link and researched the Bloom Box. It is a fuel cell. It requires the use of a fossil fuel most likely natural gas. Rather than burning it, this device will convert it to electricity directly. It is another option to get electricity to the home and avoid having multiple sources of energy to the house. The device can generate electricity at $0.08 to 0.10 per kwh.
If this technology is good, and it looks like it is, I am thinking that the power companies will buy them up and return to the practice of generating residental power locally for distribution on a community level. I am imagining that much business and industrial need for electric will be supplied by a unit installed on location either privately or by the power company.
I would like to see every home and apartment have its own 72-hour emergency backup battery power. This could serve to smooth out demand if coupled with intelligent grid technology.
The redundency of home batteries, on-site or local community generation and an interconnected grid, would make the whole thing more resilliant to disasters, mechanical failures, fuel supply issues, etc.
@zthustra When you install home solar, when you buy an grid-tie inverter they have an option to have a battery backup. Thus if the power or grid goes out, in 1/1000 millisec it will switch to battery power. You also have the option never to connect to the grid. I would like to see more 100 home community grids.
I once had the dream of starting a business that I called Future Home Energy & Environmental Systems (FHEES); I even set up a Yahoo! group for it with source links. Search for FHEES, the group is still there.
I thought it might be a good idea to do away with flushing toilets and saving rain water. I looked into the small wind generators too. It turns out that small wind might not be so cost effecive or welcome at all in urban areas.
@zthustra solar has really come down in price over that last 2 years. It is not hard to find panels for less than $3 per watt, I even saw unisolar rolled strips for about $1 a watt.
I did the math on this a couple years ago and I figured it would cost us $72k in materials to switch my family over to solar with batteries and all.
We use 28.5 - 34.7 KWH per month when the A/Cs are not in use. Usage pops up to 75.9 - 78.3 KWH in Jul and Aug. We paid $115.26 for electic last month, our level bill is about $200. If my math is right, the payoff on my home PV is about 30 yearfs for 20 year PV shingles.
I'm still struggling with this lighting. It's a big improvement over before, but not right yet. The lights are a bit to close to my face (3 1/2 feet) and a bit to far to the right and left (50-55 degrees). Also, one of the two front ligfhts should be low, but the computer dest is in the way. The back light is doing a good job of seperating me from my background and the greenscreen replacement works much better now. The lights are just a bit to soft (yellow) too.
I really hated the sound quality I got with the cheap, stand alone, mics and with the mics built into the first two webcams I had. The sound quality on my current webcam was barely tolerable.
I did a lot of research before I bought the microphone. I was down to the Blue Yeti, MXL1, or an Audio Technica. Almost go the Yeti, then I read a review on this Samson GTrack and jumped on it.
:) back again... enegy dot geothunder normal web page ending. Conventional crude is not going to matter.
benjaminlately 4 months ago
@benjaminlately
People who are interested in this issue should definitely visit your web site and read a bit. The page is well designed and the articles are well written.
We have one fundamental disagreement. While government survey consistantly underestimate the ultimate recovery of oil, the numbers being enthusiastically floated are irresponsibly high.
I like your points on EROEI and technology. I didn't read anything about transport costs and constraints; maybe I need to read more?
zthustra 4 months ago
5) Sorry for not being clear as to what I was addressing.
I was addressing your statement in the video : At 9.20
"The economy tanked as we ran out of credit.
We call this the financial crisis, but it really wasn't a financial crisis.
It was an oil crisis."
I read that statement to indicate that the oil was the primary cause of the economic collapse.
If it had an impact it was definitely secondary. Please see Bernanke's paper on the subject.
dmg46664 11 months ago
@dmg46664
Yes, that could be better stated. Sometimes when you are just talking into the camera without a script you say things that might be just a tad off.
It didn't have to be oil, it could have been almost anthing that called for more money/credit than was available. But, as it turns out, it was oil.
I prefer to NOT call it a fiscal or financial crisis ... it was a monetary crisis ... the math model fell apart as reserves were exhausted.
zthustra 11 months ago
3) I'm not sure what you're other arguments are addressing. There is always demand for all things at a particular price, even simply as land fill, or land itself. And there is always unsatisfied demand for all goods and services. The world and people always want more than they can produce.
dmg46664 11 months ago
@dmg46664
Are you suggesting that a high demand and a low supply will drive up the price and that the higher price will bring more product to market?
zthustra 11 months ago
@zthustra I wasn't particularly suggesting this. But yes, in the medium run, low supply and high demand pushes up the price -> This gives incentives to increase current supply, improve oil technologies and use, search for more oil, start using alternatives to oil, AND push down demand. But I wasn't arguing this specifically. My point is that it's incorrect to see excess supply and a low price of oil as the major factor behind economic growth.
dmg46664 11 months ago
@dmg46664
I'm not sure where you are going with the comments. Setting aside the artificial issues of money supply, economic growth is generally the result of the effective employment of labor, technology and materials.
I think we agree that demand is always there, it is just a matter of making sure that consumers have money in their pockets or accounts. The availability of money/credit, or the lack thereof, can have a heating or a chilling effect on economic growth.
zthustra 11 months ago
@dmg46664
So, if to much money is made available to an economy where there are limites supplies of any of the components of economic growth, be it labor, technology or materials, the price of the item in demand will go up and stimulate greater availability. If more of the item in demand cannot be produced we enter into what is called price inflation and the higher price destroys some of the demand, at least at that high price.
Am I missing anything here?
zthustra 11 months ago
@dmg46664
In August 2008, the high price of oil created a high demand for money/credit that almost broke the monetary system without increasing the production of crude oil The production of crude oil has been flat for six years and at every price, high and low.
Crude oil is an essential component of every aspect of the ecomony, money, labor and technology are all available in abundence. Crude oil seems to be the fly in the ointment.
zthustra 11 months ago
2) BUT we can credit Bernanke for publishing a paper that dispells the causal link between oil shocks and economic slowdowns. tinyurl(dot)com/bernanke-oil
It's easy for someone seeing the causal link between housing and the financial crisis, and it was obivous to some people at the time (you're already a fan of Peter Schiff). One has to refute that the high oil price was a cause of the crisis, but it would have been an additional tax which would have increased the pain.
dmg46664 11 months ago
1) Never watched your previous video, but let me step in an put you straight. ;)
The theory that economic slowdowns are triggered by oil crises has been around for a long time. I have issue with Bernanke on many areas... including being guilty of inflating the oil price post the dot-com bubble. See Marc Faber tinyurl(dot)com/faber-mirror for that analysis.
dmg46664 11 months ago
It was not a oil crisis it was a housing bubble. If gas goes to $10 a gallon we will just drive electric cars.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
On the video I said "fiscal crisis", what I meant was "monetary crisis". There are all kinds of bubbles, they all start in the same place - the bank. Access to cheap new credit (aka new money out of thin air) fuels speculation. Take away access to credit and the bubble bursts! All of the bubbles bursted in August of 2008. When that happens it is a crisis. The rapid increase in demand for new credit to pay for speculation on expensive oil was the straw that broke the camel's back.
zthustra 1 year ago
@pirucreek
Have made a skeptical analysis of your own belief that we will all just start driving electic cars? Try this thought expirament, list all of the reason why it won't work instead of just the reasons that it will; do a pros and cons chart or something like that; pretend you are arguing for the other side. Then, comment back. I will wait for your reply.
zthustra 1 year ago
@zthustra Nissan Leaf 250 Whr/mile, Tesla 200-350 Whr/mile, thus if a gallon of gas drives you 30 miles, an electric car will use about 6-10 Kw-Hr including heating or AC per gallon equivalent. Electricity though most of USA is about $0.12 a KW-Hr. Thus the cost to charge an electric car is about $1.00 a gallon.
Now electricity can come from solar, wind, coal, nuclear but all in all it is much cleaner to drive an electric car both in carbon and emissions. The warranty on batteries is 8
pirucreek 1 year ago
@zthustra 8 years or 100,000 miles. You will need less brakes and possibly little or no maintenance. However, comparing electric to gas is like comparing apples to oranges. Many leaf owners in So Cal will power their car off their roof due to the low cost of photovoltaics.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@zthustra As for arguing for the other side? 1. You are just transferring energy from the gas pump to the coal power station? No problem overall there is plenty of electricity sources. Germany increased their total demand electrical of photovotaics (solarbuzz) to meet 10% of their electrical use in 8 years. 2. Range? Most people drive 30 miles a day. 3) AC/Heat? Only a small percentage of energy use. 4) Quick recharging? Recharge at home or station.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
This is the problem with skeptical analysis, it is very difficult to actually try to defeat your own argument. I'm in love with the idea of clean solar energy from PV and wind. I also dream of advanced batteries in every home and every car. There isn't any downside for the futurist but the pragmatic skeptic sees some problems.
All of these technologies involve RARE earth metals. China is poisoning itself manufacturing them for us.
zthustra 1 year ago
@pirucreek
Current production levels are not sustainable because the metals are RARE and manufactuing is toxic. It isn't likely that this technology could be distributed worldwide to benefit everyone. It's economic usefulness is small scale.
The average age of a car or light truck is 7 years. It will take 14 years to replace our current fleet IF 100% of fute sales are electric. Of course moving to anything other than liquid fuel will be a slow trnsition, so figure more like 50 years.
zthustra 1 year ago
@pirucreek
We ae already past peak on worldwide crude oil production, the peak years was 2005 and the peak month was Aug 2008. We had to have started 20 years ago to transition to non-conventional vehicles.
One-for-one replacement is NOT an option, we must reduce consumption. This means we need mass transit. The US abandoned real mass transit ages ago. It will take 50 years to replace what we abandoned. We don't have that long!
zthustra 1 year ago
@pirucreek
The power grid is old ... really old! The plutocracy cannot imagine anything other than centralized production with distribution channels and has not invested anything in the next generation electric needs. Instead, they are lapping up the last of the profits from an obsolete power system.
Government cannot step in because it is caught up in the web of debt created by our privately own, for profit, issued as debt money scheme. Private people can either, they are broke!
zthustra 1 year ago
@pirucreek
Imagine how much additional electricity would be needed IF ALL of the cars and light trucks converect to electric and they ALL started charging up off the grid.
The principle fule for electric is still coal, but coal will be past peak in 15 years. Nuclear is the only plausible replacment, but we will need 100 new power plants and we haven't built a new one in 30 years!
I could go on, but I won't ... sorry for the buzz kill.
zthustra 1 year ago
@zthustra I am not worried about the grid or its age. When I go to the wall, the electricity is always there. If not I can install photovoltaics cheaper than coal, and it would be even cheaper without union mandated electrical contractors. Less teacher unions, more teachers. Furthermore, electric cars are charged at night. If they ever need to install capacity, they will locally. rare earth are used in motors, but has that halted Japan from selling Priuses? All Ev parts are recyclable
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
I'll call it quits on my mental exercise in pros and cons analysis. I sure hope the grid stays up until I'm dead. And I hope that they get their butts in gear and get serious about electric vehicles. Seems like We the People bailed out the auto industry and now I see that Ford is making its next generation hybrids in Mexico.
Have you seen the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
zthustra 1 year ago
@zthustra I have seen the movie. The leaf is the real deal. I really think electricity is the future, where everything will be powered via electricity and you won't have fuel near your house. If the grid goes down I see small community grids. Heat pumps have come so efficient it is as cheap to heat your house with electricity as propane or fuel oil. Ford was not really bailed out.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
You will like this:
A Peek Inside the Bloom Box
watch?v=A6DLyruTqHI
You may have already watched this. Once you have, think distributed production. There is no reaso why ectricity can't be produced at the location o fthe business, in our home, or within a block ot two of its use.
zthustra 1 year ago
@zthustra I watched the link and researched the Bloom Box. It is a fuel cell. It requires the use of a fossil fuel most likely natural gas. Rather than burning it, this device will convert it to electricity directly. It is another option to get electricity to the home and avoid having multiple sources of energy to the house. The device can generate electricity at $0.08 to 0.10 per kwh.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
If this technology is good, and it looks like it is, I am thinking that the power companies will buy them up and return to the practice of generating residental power locally for distribution on a community level. I am imagining that much business and industrial need for electric will be supplied by a unit installed on location either privately or by the power company.
zthustra 1 year ago
@pirucreek
I would like to see every home and apartment have its own 72-hour emergency backup battery power. This could serve to smooth out demand if coupled with intelligent grid technology.
The redundency of home batteries, on-site or local community generation and an interconnected grid, would make the whole thing more resilliant to disasters, mechanical failures, fuel supply issues, etc.
zthustra 1 year ago
@zthustra When you install home solar, when you buy an grid-tie inverter they have an option to have a battery backup. Thus if the power or grid goes out, in 1/1000 millisec it will switch to battery power. You also have the option never to connect to the grid. I would like to see more 100 home community grids.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
I once had the dream of starting a business that I called Future Home Energy & Environmental Systems (FHEES); I even set up a Yahoo! group for it with source links. Search for FHEES, the group is still there.
I thought it might be a good idea to do away with flushing toilets and saving rain water. I looked into the small wind generators too. It turns out that small wind might not be so cost effecive or welcome at all in urban areas.
I liked the UNI-SOLAR shingles too.
zthustra 1 year ago
@zthustra solar has really come down in price over that last 2 years. It is not hard to find panels for less than $3 per watt, I even saw unisolar rolled strips for about $1 a watt.
pirucreek 1 year ago
@pirucreek
I did the math on this a couple years ago and I figured it would cost us $72k in materials to switch my family over to solar with batteries and all.
We use 28.5 - 34.7 KWH per month when the A/Cs are not in use. Usage pops up to 75.9 - 78.3 KWH in Jul and Aug. We paid $115.26 for electic last month, our level bill is about $200. If my math is right, the payoff on my home PV is about 30 yearfs for 20 year PV shingles.
It's a moot point, I rent the house.
zthustra 1 year ago
theOilDrum is really great. Also you explained it very well.
kurtilein3 1 year ago
we need better lighting to bring out your features.
simonty1811 1 year ago
@simonty1811
I'm still struggling with this lighting. It's a big improvement over before, but not right yet. The lights are a bit to close to my face (3 1/2 feet) and a bit to far to the right and left (50-55 degrees). Also, one of the two front ligfhts should be low, but the computer dest is in the way. The back light is doing a good job of seperating me from my background and the greenscreen replacement works much better now. The lights are just a bit to soft (yellow) too.
zthustra 1 year ago
Dunning-Kruger effect spotted; I posit you really are above average in terms of the housework.
SeruQuik 1 year ago
Well done Sir!
aiyic 1 year ago
Wow, a studio quality microphone AND a pop shield, thanks for taking the trouble. I HATE windnoise on outdoor videos!!!!
arcanacelestia 1 year ago
@arcanacelestia
I really hated the sound quality I got with the cheap, stand alone, mics and with the mics built into the first two webcams I had. The sound quality on my current webcam was barely tolerable.
I did a lot of research before I bought the microphone. I was down to the Blue Yeti, MXL1, or an Audio Technica. Almost go the Yeti, then I read a review on this Samson GTrack and jumped on it.
There are lots of YouTube vids on USB mics.
zthustra 1 year ago