Schadenfreude anyone?

The slick, touchy-feely, glossy PR face of BP bites it on the backside.

 - For those with teeny-weeny screens, the tee-shirt strap line reads:

"We're bringing oil to American Shores"

Hmmm - aren't they just?

Seriously though - If the western world is to maintain its existing "non-negotiable" lifestyle for another 10-15 years or so - let alone there being the remotest prospect of 'making poverty history' by having others aspire to similar profligacy - then deep water drilling such as has produced the still unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will have to be dramatically increased.

Consider the inevitable consequences and weep.

Whistling past the graveyard

The following is an Anglicised paraphrasing of parts of a recent post on Jim Kuntzler's US blog. With the US and UK practically joined at the hip on pretty well all areas of policy that really matter, it only required minor tweeking to make it an equally accurate description of our present condition and the stark realities we are faced with.

What's going on in the UK economy right now is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a very different economy.  The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction. Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behaviour, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.

The main "historic circumstance" mandating these changes goes under the heading of "Peak Oil."  We've come to the end of our ability to increase energy inputs to the global economy.  The routine "growth" in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible.  Offsetting this decline in oil energy "input" with "alt.energy" is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, etc - the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.

We are witnessing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of British life - in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviours of the pre peak oil era. All appear unwilling to face reality, and all are engaged in mutually supporting each other's dangerous fantasies.

If we don't start attending to the transformation of life in these islands soon, by downscaling our activities, changing the way they are carried out and re-localizing them, we will see society disintegrate - and I use the word "dis-integrate" with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart - our political arrangements, our households, our health and our well-being.

At the moment, banking is disintegrating.  It's happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in "Wile E. Coyote" suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of Britain is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.

We're now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first.  They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, the destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live.  Among the many elements of this is the fact that "globalisation," in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement - making the things we need here in the UK and Europe in other words.  "Globalisation" now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge.

But - as we approach the 2009 festive season, our entire political class, regardless of party, remains resolutely committed to GROWTH which, translated means 'sustaining the unsustainable'.  That is their 'for public consumption' refrain at least; whilst, under cover of the phoney manufactured GWOT, those who pull the strings forge ahead with building the Security State they know will be required to deal with the shit-storm we are faced with.

Iranian and Afghan elections: Compare and contrast

Iran's tenth presidential election was held on 12 June 2009.

Afghanistan's second presidential election under its Western-imposed Post-Taliban constitution was held on 20 August 2009.

Compare and contrast:

Iran - There was little by way of build up to the elections in the Western MSM and what there was did not have that unmistakable air of Establishment orchestration to it. Before the polls closed (pace Ukraine's Yushchenko and Georgia's Saakashvili), the principle Iranian challenger, Mir-Hossain Mousavi, claimed victory. The morning after the election, Iran's official news agency announced that, with 2/3 the votes counted, the incumbent Ahmadinejad had won with 63% of the votes cast. All hell broke loose in both the Western MSM and on the Steets of Tehran.

Throughout the following 6 weeks, during what had clearly been pre-planned and orchestrated to become yet another US-friendly 'colour revolution' to follow those of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan - The 'Twitter' tool having been polished and honed in the meantime - Western media were as one in sustained shrill condemnation of the elections. The parallels with those earlier events were uncanny, except that this time it failed. Three months later and all is quiet with not a shred of the evidence we were assured at the time was overwhelming having been produced - But never mind. The consolation prize is that 'FRAUDULENT ELECTIONS' is now firmly embedded in western public conciousness, thanks to our supine and ghastly MSM.

Afganistan - There was a big build up in the Western MSM. On the whole it's tone was grave and a little subdued, with the forebodings of Western officialdom palpable: it was to be "a laudable democratic process", "this embryonic democracy deserved our support and assistance" and similar - ad nauseam (The air of Establishment orchestration this time foetid and quite unmissable). Then the elections took place and MSM commentary very quickly subsided into embarrassed, self-concious silence. Two months later and still we have no definitive official result - though corrupt western-backed Karzai and his drug-trafficking war-lord henchmen have clearly stolen it again.

Then a couple of days ago, one Peter Galbraith, the man in charge of the UN election monitoring operation, courageously breaks ranks, declares the elections to have been grossly fraudulent and is - naturally and totally predictably - sacked for his honesty.

And all the while our mendacious 'leaders', in the fashion of squabbling parrots, STILL continue to insist that our military presence in that benighted country has a noble purpose, when anyone with half a brain can see the thoroughly sordid, self-serving nature of its true purpose staring them in the face.

We are being systematically lied to and, as with the naked emperor, the lie is so big, in your face and screamingly bloody obvious, that nobody will even admit to noticing it - let alone doing anything about it.

Four (futile) policies to kickstart the economy

Yet another post prompted by one of my comments on another blog. This time 'ConservativeHome'. It was in reply to a prospective parliamentary candidate's recipe for fixing our economic woes. Kid's stuff really but what else can you expect from wide-eyed eager to please youngsters with a juicy parliamentary career beckoning? It (my comment that is) went something like this:

Understanding the importance of staying 'on message' is pretty fundamental to the career prospects a PPC so a gold star to Kwasi Kwarteng for pushing all the right buttons in that regard. What I find so depressing though, is the apparent failure of politicians of ALL parties to recognise the real nature of the problem, let alone say anything sensible about addressing it. (I say 'apparent' because, at senior levels, it most certainly IS recognised and clearly understood too).

That 'real nature' is summed up by one stark fact: The 'perpetual' exponential growth on which our globalised economic system (or more accurately 'Ponzi Scheme') depends is NOT perpetual at all; it is in fact over, Finito, Kaput. As Ken Boulding so eloquently puts it:

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist"

The last decade has witnessed production peaks in many of the resources that fuel the global economy, particularly oil. It is the dawning realisation among those who control the worlds principle concentration of power and wealth that those peaks are never going to be exceeded that is the root cause of what we euphemistically insist on calling 'the economic slowdown' and similar anodyne absurdities. Cascading surreptitious actions - largely hidden from public view - to protect power and wealth as much as possible in a beggar-my-neighbour fashion are still proceeding apace and all our representatives can do is talk about printing money - sorry 'quantitative easing' - sounds better doesn't it?

At Privy Council level all this is known only too well. Can't admit as much to the lower orders and Joe Public though. Don't want to precipitate the civil unrest that is in any event nigh on inevitable. Best to keep talking the talk whilst beefing up the Surveillance/Security State the better to maintain law and order when the same realisation finally dawns on Jo P - and the S really does HTF

Living in La-La Land

The following paraphrases a letter from a UK Oil Industry insider to a widely read 'Peak Oil' commentator in the US - Jim Kunstler. I have paraphrased it for UK readers and interspersed it with a few comments of my own.

As someone who works in the UK oil industry, I thought you might be interested in a view of how prepared the UK is for future oil shortages.

[The short answer: It isn't. It's living in La-La Land - see below]

I have just finished a stint as an engineer on the Forties pipeline terminal. Prior to that I had spent some 30 years working in various parts of the oil and nuclear sectors as a chemical/process engineer.

The career outlined above has provided me with an acute insight into how the UK oil industry is preparing for the future. Essentially, it is abandoning the UK. BP has either sold-off or closed all its UK refineries (the last one to go was Grangemouth) and now only retains its Forties & Sullom Voe interests. Shell is planning to swap over to Middle-east crude around 2011 at its single remaining UK refinery and is busy selling off most of its European refineries. Any questions as to whether Middle-east crude will be available to the UK in 2011 are studiously ignored.

[Though such questions provide insight into just why Iraq, with the worlds largest undeveloped reserves of what remains of the worlds oil endowment together with the ME generally, warrants such vast military expenditure and war-fighting effort by both the UK and US. There is thus an assumption by the oil companies that the West's clear determination to effectively control ME oil distribution will be successful - That's one BIG BIG assumption given burgeoning demand from China and the bitter resentments being generated throughout the Arab/Muslim world]

The general attitude is one of, 'Since we will need the oil, it will be available'. All of the above points to the oil companies foreseeing a pretty bleak future for their UK and European refining operations.

[But we carry on with a road and airports building program that assumes both road and air traffic will expand by upwards of 25% over the next 15-20years. The oil industry knows that refined petroleum products to fuel this expansion will simply not be available. They brief politicians - but silence is the order of the day. Anything that casts doubt on the latter-day religion of constant Economic Growth and 'Progress' (to what I wonder?) is political heresy, to be dealt with in similar fashion to other taboo subjects like immigration and race issues for example - ignore, marginalize or otherwise kill the messenger]

Within BP, the message from senior management is that their Forties terminal will still be in operation 20 years from now. What they fail to mention, even to their own employees is just how little oil and gas will be coming out of the North sea by then. This is quite weird given that North Sea production dropped another 10% last year, despite Buzzard crude coming ashore.

[As did two other super-giant fields - Mexico's Cantarell and the US's Prudhoe Bay with the daddy of them all, Saudi Arabia's Ghawar teetering on the brink of decline]

While much of the thinking inside the UK oil industry is delusional, outside of it we are pretty much living in La-La land. Both the government and the media are obsessed with global warming. Barely an evening passes without a news item relating to icebergs melting, heat stroke in Polar bears or the sad absence of lichen for reindeer etc. Inside the oil industry it is well known that the UK government is regularly briefed by the oil companies. Evidently the government have made the decision to use global warming as a way of encouraging thrift in oil usage - but with absolutely no effect.

[Meanwhile the assumptions of massive increases in both air and road travel remain a given of political discourse]

What is never mentioned in the media is the crashing of North Sea oil production. A recent documentary about oil exploration in the Arctic managed to completely ignore why such desperate measures might be required.

In terms of politics, the Labour party evidently regard discussions about oil depletion as near treason, whilst the Tory party is still proud of the way they defeated the miners. Neither party is exactly in the right frame of mind to restart the nuclear industry or open up new coal mines.

Perhaps the worst aspect of the UK shitstorm in preparation, is the way the Labour party is allowing and even encouraging supermarkets to destroy farming in the UK. (Farmers generally hate the Labour party as being a bunch of clueless idiots - quite perceptive really). Agricultural production has dropped disastrously in recent years, with thousands of farmers being forced into bankruptcy by the monopolies enjoyed by the likes of Tesco (big and nasty) and Sainsbury (smaller and nasty). At least the USA still has a huge amount of good land available. In the UK, we are packed in like sardines in terms of population density, which spells disaster when the oil gets short.

[Ten calories of hydrocarbon energy is currently used by way of fertilisers, primary production, processing and transport, for every calorie of food that a UK citizen eats. Our food supply is organized on a 'just-in-time' basis with maybe 3 day's consumption on retail shelves at any one time and over 50% of it shipped in by sea or air. Lessons learned the hard way through WWII have not only been been forgotten but are now routinely derided as irrelevant - our best arable land is better put to urban theme park and house building uses init eh?. But, with the confluence of 'Peak-Oil', exponential worldwide population growth, and climate change, an overpopulated island nation that cannot feed itself is heading for very serious trouble.]

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors

I've been pre-occupied with 'Peak Oil' and its relationship to constant government sponsored scare-mongering about the so called (and to me clearly phony) 'war on terror' lately. Complex subjects both, but deeply intertwined and plagued with 'smoke and mirrors'.

So the title of this video caught my eye. It is a disturbingly convincing introduction to the issues.

Peak-Oil again

As always, the latest news-letter from ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak-Oil) is worthy of attention.
I'm baffled by the extent to which the phenomenon of 'man-made climate change' captures the attention of both politicians and the public generally, whilst the looming epoch-changing collision between peaking energy production and near exponential increasing global energy demand is ignored.

Aprops a brief survey of Norwegian energy policy in the newsletter, the following snippet caught my attention:

"Norway might learn from the unfortunate experience of Britain across the North Sea, which depleted its oil and gas at the maximum rate possible, now facing exhaustion within 10-15 years. Britain’s remaining resources are largely owned by foreign companies with the right to export to their home countries, despite the country’s own dire needs. But Norway has its fair share of flat-earth economists for whom money today is worth more than security tomorrow, so it is far from sure that sound national policies will be adopted."

So, just how often have you heard that UK North Sea Oil and Gas production peaked in 2001, is currently declining at around 8-10% per annum and that reserves are likely to be exhausted in 10-15 years?

Is it any wonder that His Toniness is so keen on nuclear power?

Energy & The G8 - or 'Cloud Cuckoo Land'

From The New York Times 17th July 2006

"World leaders at a Group of 8 summit meeting on Sunday issued a communique on energy policy that touched lightly on alternatives to fossil fuels, like biomass and wind power, but focused mostly on how to bring more oil to the market....

.... the Group of 8 leaders said they were addressing ''high and volatile'' prices, with oil soaring above $75 a barrel last week, by endorsing policies to encourage oil field investment and raise production. They said that demand for oil, natural gas and coal would rise more than! 50 percent above current levels by 2030, and that these fossil fuels would constitute 80 percent of the world's energy supply by then."

They might as well have said "we have decided to move en-mass to Cloud Cuckoo Land".

With a majority of oil industry insiders and expert opinion estimating the planet's peak oil production will occur somewhere between now and about 2015, there is not a snowballs chance in Hell that global production will EVER be increased to 50% above today's levels. The real conundrum is that they KNOW IT, yet still indulge in farcical statements for public consumption

Think about that. It explains all you need to know about the West's continued unwelcome presence in the Middle East.

Tags: Peak Oil, G8

Peak Oil & Dollar hegemony

Here's a piece on the Safehaven site site that caught my attention

If you are well read on 'Peak Oil', you need to persevere beyond the author's opening gambit about the strangeness of oil having being found/exploited overwhelmingly in the Northern hemisphere (about half the article actually). He proposes this as evidence that PO is a deliberate ploy to hike the oil price by TPTB, as part and parcel of the continued exponential expansion of the dollar monetary base that is required to prevent its collapse.

But his main point is not about PO at all. Get beyond that and it's worth it because the guy is an economist and it is a solid illustration of the overwhelming vulnerability of the present world fiat currency system based on the Dollar, and the 11th hour nature of its evolution to date. His PO proposal is in fact largely irrelevant to his main thesis that dramatic increases in fundamental resource (and other asset) prices are REQUIRED to prevent the present dollar fiat system from collapsing. It is therefore logical enough for an 'economist' to suspect TPTB of a PO conspiracy to raise the oil price.

To summarise; were it not for the clear (in my view) evidence of PO as an inescapable fact, TPTB would have to invent it to prevent the economic collapse that PO is likely to precipitate before too long anyway.

Oh the delicious irony of it all. We live in interesting times indeed.