The IEA is not a credible source anymore. I don't know if it ever was. A Guardian story from November 2009 quotes IEA insiders:
"The 120m figure always was nonsense but even today's number is much higher than can be justified and the IEA knows this.
"Many inside the organisation believe that maintaining oil supplies at even 90m to 95m barrels a day would be impossible but there are fears that panic could spread on the financial markets if the figures were brought down further. And the Americans fear the end of oil supremacy because it would threaten their power over access to oil resources," he added.
A second senior IEA source, who has now left but was also unwilling to give his name, said a key rule at the organisation was that it was "imperative not to anger the Americans"
A peer-reviewed independent analysis of that same data, published in Energy Policy in 2010, confirmed the numbers were inflated by about 25%, and painted a picture of an "undulating and gentle descent to 75Mb/d by 2030", from 2006-2008's 80Mb/d. (p 26.)
Even published US government and oil industry estimates aren't as optimstic as the IEA outlook, but they do all agree that there is reason to for the US oil sector to feel optimstic. The cause of this sudden shift is "fracking", hydraulic fracturing, the most recent fad in petroleum extraction science. At a recent industry conference in China, Laura Atkins of Hart Energy, a Texas oil researcher/publisher, presented data predicting 3 Mb/d shale oil production by 2015, eventually plateauing at 4Mb/d through 2030. The US used 19.1 Mb/d in 2010, and imported 9.4 Mb/d of it. It's a big deal.
Fracking, for those of you who aren't up to date, is pretty straightforward. First you drill hundreds or thousands of individual wells distributed around an oilfield where the good stuff is trapped in porous rock deep underground, and then you pump in a few million gallons of water, acid, lubricant, and some special sauce (proprietary, undisclosed ingredients, of course) directly into the rock to fracture it, hence the name. Then you follow that with megatonnes of sand or ceramic powder (with more water and chemicals) so as to hold the cracks open.
After you've done that, then all you need to do is pump the earth full of your choice of heating materials. ExxonMobil has a patented process wherein they fill the fractures with a conductive material and use them as a heating element to further liquify the oil slurry and then extract it through other wells. Some processes use super-hot gas. After a while, you might need to refracture the rock, so head back up to the previous paragraph and start again.
As you might imagine, it's a little dirty. Those chemicals go somewhere. The water table falls. Many processes use radioactive tracers. Fracturing wastewater disposal near old, inactive faults cause earthquakes. On top of that, of course, we have the global carbon problem. The IEA report agrees with the wider consensus here. From their executive summary:
No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2 °C goal, unless carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is widely deployed. This finding is based on our assessment of global “carbon reserves”, measured as the potential CO2 emissions from proven fossil-fuel reserves. Almost two-thirds of these carbon reserves are related to coal, 22% to oil and 15% to gas. Geographically, two-thirds are held by North America, the Middle East, China and Russia.
I will leave the estimation of the chances of self-control on the part of the oil industry as an exercise for the reader.
- - -
While the specifics are up for debate, it seems very likely that the United States will have access to an energy windfall over the next decade or two which would have been an oil pipe dream just a few years ago. Redevelopment of capacity in Iraq is proceeding briskly as well. Complete security of the American energy supply chain, from domestic, Iraqi, Canadian and other sources, seems more and more possible in the medium term.
This changes a lot of things, for American oil producers, but will it have any real effect on the domestic economy? As a whole, certainly, GDP will go up. The country's corporations will be sending less money to the Middle East, but they will still be sending just as much money, or perhaps a little less, to oil multinationals. Unemployment, an anemic manufacturing base, and a Gordian knot of debt and credit problems will not be cured by black gold.
In the unlikely case that the US does become a net oil exporter, as the IEA dreams, it'll be due to suffocated domestic demand due to the state of the US economy, and they'll be exporting to China. Chinese national oil companies continue to push for acquisitions around the world. Would the oil multinationals succumb to the allure of huge piles of money for their newfound domestic assets? Will it even matter? Is capital finding a new home inside of the Chinese state apparatus, or will the evolving geopolitical situation pit those same multinationals against Chinese state capital?
This resource struggle will play out against a backdrop of environmental destruction, worsening quality of life, and continued radicalization. Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is the first sign of a coming wave of radical politics as people start looking for an alternative to the paralyzing crush of recent economic policies. Skyrocketing food prices were widely considered to be a major catalyst of the "Arab Spring" riots and revolutions, but if we blow past the 2°C minimum temperature rise goal, major food supply disruptions could become routine.
Interesting times.
but if we blow past the 2°C minimum temperature rise goal, major food supply disruptions could become routine
I mean yeah there will be food supply disruptions but that's very little to do with weather and ecology and everything to do with politics and economics
http://vimeo.com/52009124
First of all, I was a bit suprised until I realized I had confused energy security with energy independence (ie having all the energy you need come from domestic sources). The former does seem likely for the US, at least in the medium term, the latter is a pipe dream but who knows, maybe it's possible for the economy to crash and burn so hard that domestic demands just drops to such abysmal level that domestic production covers it, especially now that we have a SOCIALIST in the so-called "white" house.
My important question is basically this: what part do you think the abysmal EROEI of fracking will play into the trajectory of the US economy? I don't actually have the figures in front of me, but the big problem is that it's very capital intensive compared to drilling for light sweet crude, and that this results in very high monetary costs and a pretty low return on the energy spent (relatively speaking, that is, it's still better than solar or wind or wave or whaveter).
The way I see it, the big problem for the US isn't access to resources in the first instance but rather the fact that it's an imperial state which is already under considerable economic strain. The fact that it continues to try to fund its gigantic military (wholly reliant on what Greer terms 'gasoline warfare', with good reason) even as it loses its hegemony seems to mean to me that wheter the resources are actually there or not is NOT the big issue, but rather wheter they are affordable enough that the system as such doesn't break down from its internal contradictions.
If you add the gigantic externalities of fracking on top of the high innate cost, I'm not really sure wheter it can really be considered a "windfall" even in the medium term. It gives you a larger base of exploitable reserves, but is absolute supply really the thing that risks being the big bottleneck for the US, especially as the method can't but accelerate the severity of all the other bottlenecks that loom on the horizon?
Edited by Tinkzorg ()
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9190us3m.htm
It went from $4.27 in July 2011 to $1.94 in May 2012.
Tinkzorg posted:Thanks for this post.
The way I see it, the big problem for the US isn't access to resources in the first instance but rather the fact that it's an imperial state which is already under considerable economic strain. The fact that it continues to try to fund its gigantic military (wholly reliant on what Greer terms 'gasoline warfare', with good reason) even as it loses its hegemony seems to mean to me that wheter the resources are actually there or not is NOT the big issue, but rather wheter they are affordable enough that the system as such doesn't break down from its internal contradictions.
Simple, if it comes down to it they will prioritize the military and introduce gas rationing like in the past
It sure seems unlikely now when fat American suburbanites don’t seem like they would sacrifice a god damn thing for the country apart from words, but if push comes to shove the empire will maintain it’s war machine and they can take the bus.
Tinkzorg posted:First of all, I was a bit suprised until I realized I had confused energy security with energy independence (ie having all the energy you need come from domestic sources). The former does seem likely for the US, at least in the medium term, the latter is a pipe dream but who knows, maybe it's possible for the economy to crash and burn so hard that domestic demands just drops to such abysmal level that domestic production covers it--
the cool thing about americans talkin' 'bout energy independence by relying on local domestic supply is that they already tried it before. way back in the late 1950s, the Eisenhower administration realized that the damned commies could potentially threaten access to supply (after iran and the suez crisis, etc) and eventually implemented the Mandatory Oil Import Program. basically, the program instituted quotas on all foreign crude oil and petroleum products imports, excluding those from canada and mexico. By limiting the amount of foreign oil coming into the country, the Eisenhower administration enabled domestic oil production to be more economically competitive.
'course, this made oil 1) more expensive for the consumer, but more importantly, 2) it ramped up domestic oil production at home, making the united states even more vulnerable to more rapid depletion. turns out that energy security and "independence" =/= sustainability.
Tinkzorg posted:My important question is basically this: what part do you think the abysmal EROEI of fracking will play into the trajectory of the US economy? I don't actually have the figures in front of me, but the big problem is that it's very capital intensive compared to drilling for light sweet crude, and that this results in very high monetary costs and a pretty low return on the energy spent (relatively speaking, that is, it's still better than solar or wind or wave or whaveter)
lots of people, especially greer, have written on this.
what ya gotta realize on this one is that energy isn't just like any other commodity; its the ur-commodity,. it is the foundation for all economic activity. if you consider dr. hall's work (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2008-09-14/net-energy-cliff, for example) and what he has to say about upcoming declines in energy availability and quality, things start to look real bad: specifically, the costs of substitution to replace formerly present forms of concentrated energy through capital and human labour (which was once done for free by Nature)... and how much of society is required to produce that energy to make the rest function.
what does this all mean on a societal level? no one really knows for sure. i mean, history's probably our best indicator... (stagflation in the '70s, cuba's special period, etc.)
okay, nevermind, i'm just babbling at this point, 'cause this is all i really talked about back in lf so it is really weird to see these topics pop up now.
Edited by Hubbert ()
Hubbert posted:Tinkzorg posted:My important question is basically this: what part do you think the abysmal EROEI of fracking will play into the trajectory of the US economy? I don't actually have the figures in front of me, but the big problem is that it's very capital intensive compared to drilling for light sweet crude, and that this results in very high monetary costs and a pretty low return on the energy spent (relatively speaking, that is, it's still better than solar or wind or wave or whaveter)
lots of people, especially greer, have written on this.
what ya gotta realize on this one is that energy isn't just like any other commodity; its the ur-commodity,. it is the foundation for all economic activity. if you consider dr. hall's work (http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2008-09-14/net-energy-cliff, for example) and what he has to say about upcoming declines in energy availability and quality, things start to look real bad: specifically, the costs of substitution to replace formerly present forms of concentrated energy through capital and human labour (which was once done for free by Nature)... and how much of society is required to produce that energy to make the rest function.
i was going to say basically this, but less articulate and without the link, thanks. there are some really interesting numbers in there.
the only viable way forward is to use the energy we have now to work very hard at building the best alternatives. you might have read the occasional story about some high-budget state-sponsored alternate energy megaprojects in the middle east, like the Masdar City project in Abu Dhabi. that's the sort of thing that needs to be invested in, but resources in the West are obviously not being allocated in any similar volume.
instead the alternate, US approach seems to be "allocate all our resources to military supremacy".
taking the obvious truth that the military-industrial complex's primary MO is to continue itself, and surely they understand the energy situation just as well as any idiot on an internet forum, it seems to me that the most obvious steps to take would be to (a) ensure complete energy security, and then (b) use all of this military capital while energy exists in sufficiently cheap forms to effectively power it.
there are lots of terrible domestic economy effects that we could discuss, too, but a lot of the changes to quality of life could be marketed to the US citizenry as a noble effort for a scaled up war on terror/islam/whatever. then instead of an awful unraveling of society you just end up with total war, ww2 style.
i mean that's what i'd do if i was psychotically obsessed with ensuring long-term american dominance, at least. if they are less psychotic, perhaps it won't happen, perhaps we'll just have some lovely stable global trade in new energy technologies and electricity, and we can all put flowers each other's hair. tra la la
It's certainly not going to be china or russia. even discounting the nuclear arsenal of these countries, the problem here is that these countries can fight back. there's the chance of a major upset in a battle against an industrial nation with access to anti-ship missiles and decent air defenses. you're not gonna put boots on the ground in russia or china.
this leaves you with countries like north korea and iran as evil incarnate, but i mean here it's hard to see the enthusiasm and trust in government being revitalized by all the drum-banging going on right now. like i totally agree that "start a war" would be the #1 way for the US to solve some of its internal problems, but right now the issue that's becoming more and more plain is that it CAN'T start the kind of war needed.
In a way, the Iraq war was a last-ditch effort to sustain US global hegemony through the application of military force, and it failed miserably. The capacity of the US military to maintain stability and the hegemonic position to the US is simply not there, and any attempts to double down and just go hog wild would probably end up in a big ol catastrophe for the US itself. I think most policymakers know this.
Edited by Tinkzorg ()
On top of that, the majority of Americans still have memories of growing up during the cold war, having nuclear fallout drills in elementary school, living as though it was normal to be constantly reminded of the possibility of instant nuclear holocaust just seconds away at every moment.
I am pretty sure you could sell the people of the US on a war to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. I don't think Iraq is perceived as a failure at all. Afghanistan kind of is, but I think it's more of a shrug - they killed them bastards what flew the planes, so fuck em.
And hey, surely the Pentagon planners think they'd really nail it on the third try, boss.
Tinkzorg posted:i have a pretty hard time seeing how you could sell total war to the american population and have them rally around it. the big problem today is, who are you even going to make into the enemy?
It's certainly not going to be china or russia. even discounting the nuclear arsenal of these countries, the problem here is that these countries can fight back. there's the chance of a major upset in a battle against an industrial nation with access to anti-ship missiles and decent air defenses. you're not gonna put boots on the ground in russia or china.
this leaves you with countries like north korea and iran as evil incarnate, but i mean here it's hard to see the enthusiasm and trust in government being revitalized by all the drum-banging going on right now. like i totally agree that "start a war" would be the #1 way for the US to solve some of its internal problems, but right now the issue that's becoming more and more plain is that it CAN'T start the kind of war needed.
In a way, the Iraq war was a last-ditch effort to sustain US global hegemony through the application of military force, and it failed miserably. The capacity of the US military to maintain stability and the hegemonic position to the US is simply not there, and any attempts to double down and just go hog wild would probably end up in a big ol catastrophe for the US itself. I think most policymakers know this.
Easy: Home grown terrorist anarchists. Alternately, Mexico
gyrofry posted:every US military intervention from 1941 through the present has been carried out with the primary objective of undermining the geostrategic position of the soviet union/former soviet union
Somalia 93?
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are capable of resolving the internal contradictions that plague the US at home right now, and adding another war on top of this pile isn't going to change that. It's not that people can't rally around a Glorious War or whatever, but right now I really don't see the objective conditions being there for this strategy to be successful.
what else would they do. concentrate on domestic rebuilding? ha ha
Step two: start a big fucking war
Step three: employ all the unemployed proles
market it as job creation and tell them to sit down and stfu because they wouldn't have jobs without the war against the heathen muslims. continue to beat and gas occupy protestors
The shocking statement from a democratic government in power only after the U.S. and allies ousted murderous dictator Saddam Hussein in a costly and bloody war laid bare the Middle Eastern nation’s true allegiance.
"Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel," Qais al-Azzawy told reporters in Cairo on Friday.
"The economic weapon is the strongest one to be put into effect now, to assure of standing by the Palestinian people, in light of there being no military power that can stand in the face of Israel at the present time,” he added.
The U.S. ousted Hussein, ending his bloody, 30-year reign in 2003 in the midst of a controversial and costly war. Nearly 4,500 American service members were killed and more than 32,000 wounded in a war that has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $750 billion. That figure could top $1 trillion given future health costs incurred by veterans injured in the fighting.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/16/liberated-iraq-calls-on-arab-states-to-use-oil-as-weapon-against-us/#ixzz2CPToukqc
drwhat posted:i don't think it's a good idea. but i think it would be easy for them to see it as a critical - the only possible - step to long term dominance.
what else would they do. concentrate on domestic rebuilding? ha ha
The US military has internationally been a stabilizing force for the global economy. No doubt it will turn into a destabilizing force given a desperate enough US trying to hold onto the scraps of its slipping hegemony. But as it is right now the US military simply can't pull some rabbit out of a hat and resolve all the contradictions at home.
There are no good enemies that are both 1) threatening enough to make plausible points to rally around and 2) can be handily defeated by a US military that doesn't want to and can't commit to a lengthy ground war against a foe using 
assymetric warfare
The US is not omnipotent. It does not have limitless military power, it does not have a limitless ability to deal with internal dissent, it does not have a limitless industrial base and it does not have a limitless ability to win wars. From a strategic perspective both Afghanistan and Iraq have been disasters.
I'm not saying that it's impossible that the US will try yet another war (third time's the charm!). I am merely saying that this war will not be a success and that it's more or less impossible for it to actually resolve the internal contradictions in the US today. All this "step one: start a war, step two: ????, step three: PROFIT" kneejerk LF stuff is just silly and we ought to let it go.
ilmdge posted:A top Iraqi diplomat urged Arab states to “use the weapon of oil” against the United States because of its alliance with Israel, raising more questions about the Middle Eastern nation's allegiance to the nation that freed it from a ruthless dictatorship.
haha.
I sometimes wonder if this obvious impotence of the US military that Middle East states are pretty obviously noticing and have been for years now will push the American government to do something really awful and drastic in a desperate bid to deny it, something that would indeed be an bald-faced disaster that you can't even cover up with a slow withdrawal and "transition".
Though I do get the impression from various places over the years that a lot of US mil upper brass (maybe not the uppermost, but the second and third tiers) understand their weak position quite well. Perhaps they wouldn't stand for another Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Bush style top-down imposition of suicidal war.
To the every day US working class dude I suppose it doesn't matter either way, that Gini coefficient is gonna skyrocket and lives are gonna be shit war or no war.
Farmland values in the Great Plains jumped 24 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as higher commodity prices more than made up for drought losses, a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City showed.
Nebraska, the biggest U.S. corn grower after Iowa and Illinois, saw appreciations on non-irrigated land of 30 percent, the most among seven states in the region, according to the Fed’s survey of 241 banks released today. The gain in Missouri was 23 percent while Kansas had 22 percent. Oklahoma had the smallest increase at 13 percent. Irrigated land in the region gained 22 percent, and ranch land for cattle grazing rose 14 percent from a year earlier.
Drought hurt farm income during the quarter, especially for livestock producers, boosting demand for farm operating loans, according to the Kansas City Fed’s quarterly survey of agricultural credit conditions. Bankers surveyed expect high commodity prices and crop insurance to support incomes.
“The drought did not appear to have significant impact on farmland markets in the third quarter,” bank economists Jason Henderson and Nathan Kauffmann said in the report. “Bankers indicated that demand for quality farmland outpaced supply, even with more land being put up for sale.”
The report covered the Fed’s 10th District, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Missouri and parts of Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. Land values rose “nearly 3 percent” from the second quarter, and about 75 percent of the bankers surveyed anticipated farmland gains would slow as prices “stabilize at high levels heading into 2013,” the economists said in the report.
Surging Prices
The Midwest drought that cut output in the U.S. sent corn and soybean prices to records earlier this year and wheat to a four-year high. A government report tomorrow may show that high corn prices reduced the number of cattle in feedlots on Nov. 1 by 5.3 percent from a year earlier, a Bloomberg News survey showed.
Bankers surveyed expressed some concerns that the jump in feed costs may lead to a further reduction in livestock herds if grain inventories remain low and pastures remain dry, the Fed said.
Net-farm income nationwide will rise to a record $122.2 billion this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in August. Incomes fell during the quarter from a year earlier for the first time in two years as higher feed and fuel prices increased costs for livestock operations and drought wilted crops, boosting loan demand, according to the Fed report.
“Shrinking incomes curtailed farm spending on capital purchases,” the Fed economists said. “Bankers reported lower capital spending compared with year-ago levels for the first time since early 2010. Capital spending was expected to remain low in the fourth quarter.”
ilmdge posted:A top Iraqi diplomat urged Arab states to “use the weapon of oil” against the United States because of its alliance with Israel, raising more questions about the Middle Eastern nation's allegiance to the nation that freed it from a ruthless dictatorship.
The shocking statement from a democratic government in power only after the U.S. and allies ousted murderous dictator Saddam Hussein in a costly and bloody war laid bare the Middle Eastern nation’s true allegiance.
"Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel," Qais al-Azzawy told reporters in Cairo on Friday.
"The economic weapon is the strongest one to be put into effect now, to assure of standing by the Palestinian people, in light of there being no military power that can stand in the face of Israel at the present time,” he added.
The U.S. ousted Hussein, ending his bloody, 30-year reign in 2003 in the midst of a controversial and costly war. Nearly 4,500 American service members were killed and more than 32,000 wounded in a war that has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $750 billion. That figure could top $1 trillion given future health costs incurred by veterans injured in the fighting.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/16/liberated-iraq-calls-on-arab-states-to-use-oil-as-weapon-against-us/#ixzz2CPToukqc
lol that's actually a news article and not an op-ed? damn