[Oe List ...] FW: There is no "Plan B"

Mon Oct 25 21:50:38 CDT 2010

I agree with Marianna that Martenson's proposals are not very good. For
further elaboration of his proposals, see
http://www.chrismartenson.com/martensonreport/oil-coming-supply-crunch-part-
i 

Herman

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Marianna Bailey
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 11:13 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] FW: There is no "Plan B"

I totally agree that we have a problem and I am very concerned with the
current political situation. The "tea party" has taken over the national
political discussion so we are not having discussions on real issues like
Peak Oil. I don't agree with the article's recommendation of "every person
for themselves".  We need  to change the conversation in this country to
solutions. "350" has done a good job of organizing people power. I would
welcome a discussion of what we (OE) can do in our own communities. 

Marianna

On Oct 17, 2010, at 11:23 PM, Herman Greene wrote:

This is an important statement, which I generally believe to be true.

Also, take a look at this link mentioned in the article for a more thorough
treatment as well as, apparently, some suggested measures to take:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/martensonreport/oil-coming-supply-crunch-part-
i

Herman

>From 

http://www.countercurrents.org/martenson151010.htm

The hard news is that there is no "Plan B." The future is likely to be more
chaotic than you probably think. This was the primary conclusion that I came
to after attending the most recent Association for the Study of Peak Oil &
Gas (ASPO) in Washington, DC in October, 2010.

The impact of Peak Oil on markets, lifestyles, and even national solvency
deserves our very highest attention - but, it turns out, some important
players seem to be paying no attention at all.

ASPO conferences tend to start early, end late, and be packed with more data
and information than should be consumed in one sitting. Despite all this, I
was riveted to my seat. This year's usual constellation of excellent
region-by-region analyses confirmed what past participants already knew:
Peak Conventional Oil arrived a few years ago, and new fields, enhanced
recovery techniques, and unconventional oil plays are barely going to keep
up with demand over the next few years. 

But there were two reports that really stood out for me. The first was given
by Rear Admiral Lawrence Rice, who presented the findings of the 2010 Joint
Operating Environment (a forward-looking document examining the trends,
contexts, and implications for future joint force commanders in the US
military), which spends 76 pages summarizing the key trends and threats of
the world. "Energy" occupies six of those pages, and Peak Oil dominates the
discussion. Among the conclusions (on page 29), we find this hidden gem,
which uses numbers and timing that are eerily similar to those that I put
forth in my April 2009 report,
<http://www.chrismartenson.com/martensonreport/oil-coming-supply-crunch-part
-i> Oil - The Coming Supply Crunch:

By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as
early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.
( <http://www.peakoil.net/files/JOE2010.pdf> Source)

While there are two "coulds" in that statement, the mere possibility that
such an imminent arrival and massive shortfall could be true should give
every prudent adult a few second thoughts about what the future may hold. If
surplus production capacity disappears in just a couple of years, there is
an entire world of planning that should take place beforehand at the
international, national, community, and personal levels. 

More on the JOE report in a minute. Next I want to turn to a presentation
given by Rick Munroe, who did his best to discover where within the civilian
governmental departments lie the plans for what to do in a
liquid-fuel-starved future. 

To cut to the chase, it turns out that virtually every department that he
contacted in both the US and Canada denied having any such reports. In one
humorous exchange by email, Natural Resources Canada stated two things in
the same email:

> "At this time the Department has no views on [Peak Oil]
> "There is no imminent Peak Oil challenge.."

It will be interesting to see how NRCan words their emails once they do
develop a point of view. 

The main conclusion from Rick's presentation was that Peak Oil is being
examined closely and taken seriously by military analysts, but not civilian
authorities. The few plans that do exist on the civilian side are decades
old.

The implications of this are that North America "remains highly vulnerable
to a liquid fuel emergency disruption" and, since because there are only a
few dusty plans lying around, there will be greater chaos than necessary.
Now back to the JOE report.

OPEC: To meet climbing global requirements, OPEC will have to increase its
output from 30 MBD to at least 50 MBD. Significantly, no OPEC nation, except
perhaps Saudi Arabia, is investing sufficient sums in new technologies and
recovery methods to achieve such growth. Some, like Venezuela and Russia,
are actually exhausting their fields to cash in on the bonanza created by
rapidly rising oil prices. (p. 26)

A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of
production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely
what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might
produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the
developing and developed worlds. (p. 28)

Well, the amounts needed from OPEC are quite, shall we say, 'ambitious,' as
they amount to an additional two Saudia Arabias coming on line in order to
make up the shortfall. A massive crunch is not otherwise avoidable. Let's be
honest; there are no more Saudia Arabias to be found. Perhaps we could
cobble one together out of thousands of smaller, less productive fields, but
the likelihood of a few massive fields waiting to be found 1,100 feet
underground is extremely remote. People in the business of actually
producing oil know that producing from smaller wells takes more time,
equipment, and manpower. 

Meanwhile, I also happen to agree with their assessment that the details of
the effects are difficult to predict but that the general theme will be one
of reduced growth, and that's under the best of circumstances. More likely
we'll have to figure out how to operate on zero or even negative growth.

So I came away from the ASPO conference pondering two completely polar
trends that combine to create lasting discomfort. On the one hand, we have
more and more private and military organizations coming to the conclusion
that Peak Oil is imminent and will change everything, possibly disruptively.
On the other hand, there appear to be no plans within the civilian
government to deal with a liquid fuels emergency.

While we can expect that such plans will be tossed together when necessary,
I would hope that Katrina taught us a few lessons about developing plans on
the fly after the disaster has already arrived. Sure, things got done, but
they were certainly suboptimal and led to more confusion and more chaos than
if they had been carefully developed, practiced, and debugged.

The way that I understand the lack of planning on the part of the civilian
side is that Peak Oil does not present any easy political wins, if any at
all. Given the two-year planning cycle in DC, it's never a good time to
bring up such an unpleasant subject. Politics trump necessity. 

What can be rather easily predicted here is that when the next fuel crisis
arrives, there will be more chaos than necessary. Some areas will get
completely stiffed on their fuel allotments, while other areas will be
reasonably well supplied. The reason that this can be easily predicted is
because it more or less already happened in Europe during a protest by
French fishermen inspired by high fuel prices. They blockaded ports in late
May of 2008, and by early June, the action had spread across Europe. Shelves
were quickly stripped bare of essential goods, tensions mounted, and petrol
stations ran dry in a hurry. 

And these were just the effects of a port blockade and tanker truck strike.
What would happen with a real and persistent shortage of fuel? Well, if it
were perceived to be due to a structural and permanent inability of the
global oil market to meet demand, prices would rise stratospherically until
demand was cut off. The only problem is, letting prices determine which
industries idle back may not be the best plan. 
Consider the case of agriculture. If full 'pass-through pricing' is the
mechanism of rationing, which it currently is, then less food will be grown.
With world grain stocks at historic lows, this is one area where we might
not want to let Mr. Market dictate the activities of farmers based on fuel
price. To do otherwise would require a plan of some sort, and none appear to
be in effect.

That's the source of my discomfort. It's not necessarily that large
organizations are beginning to share my sense of timing and impact of Peak
Oil, although that will hasten the tipping point of awareness. It's that
somehow I always thought that because Admiral Hyman Rickover knew well that
this day would come (in the 1950's!), 60 years would have been sufficient
lead time to assemble some credible plans.

No plans = unnecessary chaos.

The lack of planning also betrays a very common attitude, which might be
summarized as, "We'll deal with that when we get there." I detect this
attitude in a wide range of individuals and market participants, so it's not
at all uncommon. However, I think it's a mistake to hold this view. When
(not if, but when) full awareness of Peak Oil arrives on the international
stock, bond, and commodity markets we will discover just how narrow the
doorways really are. Only a few will manage to preserve their wealth by
squeezing through the doorway early; most will not make it through. As
mentioned frequently on this site, our
<http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/what-should-i-do> What Should I Do?
guide for developing personal resiliency against a Post-Peak future offers a
valuable resource for those just getting started in their preparations.

-- 
 "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it's
taken place."  George Bernard Shaw

Liane Salgado
GIS and Technical Writing
Permaculture Design
Chapel Hill, NC

http://www.chapelhillpermaculture.com/
www.transitioncch.org <http://www.transitioncch.org/> 

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it
works."

~ Steve Jobs

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Transition Carrboro - Chapel Hill" group.
To post to this group, send email to transition-carrboro at googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
transition-carrboro+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/transition-carrboro?hl=en.

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.862 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3203 - Release Date: 10/17/10
14:33:00

_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at wedgeblade.net
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net

  _____  

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1152 / Virus Database: 422/3218 - Release Date: 10/25/10

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20101025/c48716a4/attachment-0001.html>