San Francisco columnist Mark Morford has a round-up of doom and gloom on the energy front. After six paragraphs spent telling us that gas prices are high, staying high and might go higher– with enough links to build a good size fence– Morford finally gets down to the business of entertainment. Here's what the high energy future looks like to a man whose official bio proclaims that he writes about "politics, pop culture, sex, music, design, a wry and punch-drunk universe, vibrators, scotch, media, spirituality and small European cars. And sometimes, genital grooming." Got it? Right… "Carpooling will soar. People will walk, bike, scooter, take the bus, work shorter weeks, stroll and amble and hum a merry tune, reacquaint themselves with the neighborhood, telecommute, vacation locally, have more phone sex. They will shop locally to avoid skyrocketing shipping prices, buy less plastic, recycle. The era of cheap oil that enabled hideous urban sprawl will now quite possibly flip over and begin to enable the exact reverse … whatever that is." That's about it for the good bits. The rest is your boilerplate Big Oil Bush-bashing fear-mongering tripe. Still, was it as good for you as it was for me?
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Work a shorter week….so I can earn a smaller paycheck? Sorry, won’t fly for us blue collar employees who still get paid by the hour.
Crazy as it sounds, some folks move out of urban places because it’s actually a nicer place to live, with safer neighborhoods and better schools. A man can only take so much of the din and noise that’s right outside of his bedroom window.
In the end, it’s just more effective to track down an old Geo Metro than it is to pack up and shuffle back into the hell you just escaped from.
Morford is pretty much describing how Western Europe is now.
Yes, because phone sex is every bit as good as the real thing… I had to check the article to make sure TTAC wasn’t pulling my leg.
As long as amazon keeps their free shipping on orders more than 25 bucks, I won’t take any of this “change your life to fit gas prices” hype seriously.
Actually, I just saw a price drop in my area so maybe we’ll see a little relief here shortly.
The Hampton Roads area in Virginia just about always has lower gas prices than the national average, but just a couple days ago you couldn’t get any for less than $3.75 a gallon, give or take a cent or two.
Yesterday, though, I went to a BP that I thought was
$3.71 a gallon (for regular) and got a pleasant surprise when I saw they’d dropped ten cents from there. Down the street from them a Wilco Hess is now sporting $3.59. I need to take our fleet up there and fill up.
$3.59??? I’ve got to get out of Chicago.
We’ll learn to cope and 5 dollar gas will become the norm. I don’t think our lifestyles will change that much. We won’t go to Starbucks or eat out as much, but carpooling and moving BACK into the inner-city is out of the question!
Oh, and gas was 4.39 here earlier this week. Now it’s back to 4.29 for regular.
I paid $4.39 last night for 87 at the “cheap” station down the street from me in Los Angeles, CA. It was $45 to fill up a frikkin’ Mazda3, and the low fuel light wasn’t even on yet.
Anyhow, I’m a big believer in peak oil. All of the data is there, and once you assemble it a rather startling picture emerges. In my eyes, we’ve burned through roughly half of the world’s reserves and, just by the way geology works out, the second half is a really expensive proposition to extract.
At the same time, the countries that do most of the exporting are now flush with cash and are therefore using exponentially more energy at home, thereby decreasing their exports even faster than their fields are depleting. Google “Export Land Model.”
The economics for tar sands, oil shale, and ethanol/biodiesel just don’t pan out. All four are also heavily reliant on abundant and inexpensive natural gas and fresh water, so you can see where that goes.
I’ve adjusted my life accordingly, starting a few years ago, in a scramble to get out of debt, move within walking distance to work, and live well below my means, as I can only see our energy-intensive lifestyle getting more expensive in the coming years while, at the same time, my real income stays flat or decreases.
I think the last 100 years of a free workforce (dirt-cheap crude) is beginning to unionize, if you get my drift.
The “rotten at the core” aspect that drives people to the surburbs for a better life isn’t an inherent aspect of cities, but the result of poor urban planning and no social safety net.
You don’t see this in western Europe or Canada; in fact, you’ll often see the opposite: a lack of community and economic ghetto’ing in the suburbs, while the city centres are relatively gentrified.
If your downtown is poorly maintained, crime-ridden, under-serviced and/or noisy, that’s the fault of failed urban planning, not a feature of downtowns in general. It comes down to “if you make neighbourhoods so unpalatable that only destitute people will live there, guess what will happen?”.
Again, just want to mention even at $4.40 a gallong that is still better then the price in Canada. and I also want to mention that there is no shortage of trucks and SUVs on the roads here. A quick sampling of the parking lot out front and the lot is still 60-70% trucks, SUVs and mini vans. Very few cars and of those only 2 to 3 of the fuel effecient variety. PS. Average age of car at this place is less then 3 years.
Not so fast. Came across this on the www:
Oil Fields Are Refilling…
Naturally – Sometimes Rapidly
There Are More Oil Seeps Than All The Tankers On Earth
By Robert Cooke
Staff Writer – Newsday.com
4-10-5
Deep underwater, and deeper underground, scientists see surprising hints that gas and oil deposits can be replenished, filling up again, sometimes rapidly.
Although it sounds too good to be true, increasing evidence from the Gulf of Mexico suggests that some old oil fields are being refilled by petroleum surging up from deep below, scientists report. That may mean that current estimates of oil and gas abundance are far too low.
Recent measurements in a major oil field show “that the fluids were changing over time; that very light oil and gas were being injected from below, even as the producing [oil pumping] was going on,” said chemical oceanographer Mahlon “Chuck” Kennicutt. “They are refilling as we speak. But whether this is a worldwide phenomenon, we don’t know.”
Also not known, Kennicutt said, is whether the injection of new oil from deeper strata is of any economic significance, whether there will be enough to be exploitable. The discovery was unexpected, and it is still “somewhat controversial” within the oil industry. (article goes on into greater detail)
Then I found this:
Sustainable oil?
Posted: May 25, 2004
1:00 am Eastern
By Chris Bennett
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com
About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late ’60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.
By the late ’80s, the platform’s production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the ’70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the ’70s.
Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a “deep fault” at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.
Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil.
Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?
An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates. (again story goes into detail about the new theory of oil formation and related matters).
—
Now how cool would that be if it was true?
ethermal
That would make sense, but because they are upside down in their trucks and suvs and can’t get out of them to get into something more economical. Most people can’t afford to take the hit on trading in a 3 year old truck or SUV that the dealers know aren’t going to sell well.
@Orian
But why get rid of them is the question? Obviously the cost of gassing them is high but it’s also high in other countries yet people keep on driving them. I think there is a lot of knee jerk reaction happening more then anything real happening. For example a commenter above said it cost me $40 to fill a mazda 3. I drive a mazda 3 and it costs me close to $55 canadian smackers to fill it up. It’s just the cost of ownership. my buddies F150 costs over $150 to fill up he gets about 400 kilometers out of that tank (closer to 550 if only highway) and he still drives his F-150 matter of fact has a new one on order. I think the big problem is a whole lot of panicking is happening and it will just take some time and people will adjust. Both their lifestyles and their attitudes
The “Hideous Urban Sprawl” is caused by people escaping the human-hating thieving/murdering parasites – Like Mark Morford.
Actually, I just saw a price drop in my area so maybe we’ll see a little relief here shortly.
You should’ve filled up when you say the price drop. Oil went up $10 a gallon today. And price increases tend to get reflected immediately at the pump.
Yahoo News
Mostly I see upward price of oil/gas (peakoil?) as change. With change comes hardship both good and bad. The more rapid the change, the more difficulties will be experienced.
For the carcentric USA, it will be really bad.
I moved into the “inner” city last year, not because of the cost of fuel but because of the time cost of sitting on the highway for two hours a day. I wish that I’d done it years ago, I have a 15 minute walk to work and don’t waste two hours a day sitting in a car.
I am pro peace. For making love, hugging kittens, and smooching your kids. Pro creation, dreams and earned shovels for middle class to dig out of southwards spinning tango of economy.I would never endorse violence, riots of destruction and anarchy of revenge.
yet there comes a day, when the holy grail gets full of anger and I don`t sip from it the forgiveness, and pious gratitude for god-given sunlight. I smash it against the wall, and you can hear my curse to the greed. I look into your blunt eyes , mr. businessman of far east, I look into your billion dollar Burj Dubai tower, into 1 mile tower in Quatar proposals, into perversions of extravaganza of Palm Jazeirah, I slide above the gilded roofs of Sheikh`s properties , above oil refineries of gluttony destined for 200 bucks a gallon, right into trailer suburbs of North America, slightly scratching the top of Trump tower.My blood has carried metamorphosis, As 3rd world axis of evil enriches uranium, my blood vessels get enriched by incinderjell.I I send you armageddon, anihillation, category 5+ twister. Right to your gold-plated waterclosets of 7 star hotels of Dubai. Right to your heart of greed, where the word “enough`is withdrawn from dictionaries.As if oil prices were increased to make both ends meet for Arabian oil families, as if 100 bucks a barrel would make their portfolios bleed and Ferraris dwindle.
You deserve the star wars, the aliens, and a Viet Kong nightmare. You deserve, mr Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and oman the curse of hellfire, and sting of patriots. Your greed deserves JDAMs, and ASRAAMS.You deserve pure blood rivers, and shrieks of despair from exercizing B2 bombers, F-22 raptors and death spitting Abrams. There is no cure against greed. No siringe. Pure fire. Only.
I am pro life….
I’ve been walking to work for the last two years. I have noticed absolutely no change in the number of other people walking (zero) or the number of people waiting at the bus stop (between zero and two). I have noticed a big change in the sign in front of the gas station: today it said $4.35, $4.47, $4.61; $5.08 for diesel. I will still take more time for people to adjust their lifestyles.
so what else is new?
so what else is new?
Bob Cooke is a highly reputable journalist (see windswords). That theory was most prominently promulgated by the late Thomas Gold of Cornell, and I bet someone has written about it here before. It wouild be great if that were happening if it weren’t for global climate disruption. I would really like to be able to floor my accord without guilt.
I don’t trust anything that comes from the SF Chronicle. Their entire auto section is composed of the Motor Matters bullshit. (See: The Truth About Newspaper Car Reviews)
Peak Oil is serious. Jeffrey Brown’s Export Land Model is serious to the point of shocking. Check it out.
I have found no one who can refute Peak Oil and the Export Land Model. I have been Peak Oil aware for 4 years now and follow it daily at theoildrum. The predictions made when I first found out about PO and the ELM have come true in spades.
Peak Oil is the most import idea of the 21st century. It will wreck the auto industry. It changes your whole view of the world and once you understand it’s implications, you can’t look at cars or the world the same again.
PETROLEUM ($/bbl)
PRICE* CHANGE % CHANGE TIME
Nymex Crude Future 137.89 10.10 7.90 17:08
Dated Brent Spot 134.86 7.98 6.29 13:19
WTI Cushing Spot 138.54 10.75 8.41 15:31
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/
Yikes.
quasi: The idea is to work 10 hours a day for four days. No loss in income, and, having worked it for a couple of years, it’s nice having a three day weekend every week.
octothorpe :
I moved into the “inner” city last year, not because of the cost of fuel but because of the time cost of sitting on the highway for two hours a day. I wish that I’d done it years ago, I have a 15 minute walk to work and don’t waste two hours a day sitting in a car.
Yep, that is the best. For those who know denver, i bought a house in 5-points, left my job in DTC for one downtown, and had a 10 block walk to work. Not 6-months later the new job opens an office in DTC and my commute is as bad as ever.
Here’s a question though. Your company offers you the chance to work from home, but the catch is they expect an extra hour of work per day. Would you take the deal? How many millions are spending an hour + in traffic already burning their own gas $. Say 90% less gas bill, about the same free time, it’s like a raise right?
factotum- A very bright idea 4 -day, 10-hour working week!
psarhjinian,
I agree with some of what you say, but I am not so sure about a few things.
First, the lack of a social safety net is not the proximate cause of downtown crime. There will always be poor people and criminals. Our modern poor aren’t needing for much unless they are mentally ill. The safety net is pretty redundant.
The crime is from the criminals, not the poor. I am not so sure what “urban planners” are supposed to do about crime. The cops are more important here, and if the politicians and lawyers let them do their jobs you won’t have the crime.
I lived near downtown Denver, and I now live near downtown Houston. We have no zoning here, but that has not stopped an army of politicians and lawyers interfering with land use. The less they intrude, the less crime there is. As is proper in a capitalist society, those who earn money have been raising the land values near downtown in order to avoid the long commutes. If the trend continues, the crime will move out to the suburbs as it has been doing. The poor tend to rise out of their poverty as the neighborhoods gentrify, but the criminals and mentally ill get pushed out.
Lastly, western europe has ghettos. What their planners do well is ensure that the tourists don’t stumble on them. Their social safety net has created high unemployment and permanently underclass people who are just as hungry and in need of medical care as our poor. They are just less likely to rise out of it.
I have found no one who can refute Peak Oil and the Export Land Model. I have been Peak Oil aware for 4 years now and follow it daily at theoildrum. The predictions made when I first found out about PO and the ELM have come true in spades.
There’s Peak Oil as an artificial concept, and then genuine Peak Oil. The artificial Peak Oil is the present-day view of existing wells having hit maximum production while demand climbs, with prospects that maximum production cannot be sustained. Then there’s Peak Oil as an absolute notion of planetary supply being finite and going into permanent decline. The truth of the matter is that the former is a moving target, and no one knows the latter because the total supply of recoverable oil in the planet is unknown.
Similarly, the export land model is an artifice of economics and economics can change what drives it.
Peak Oil also is only estimated for “conventional” oils. It doesn’t factor in very large sources of unconventional oils that are not economic to recover at present prices. Forget oil sands. Shale oil deposits in the continental US dwarf oil sands as well as Saudi oil reserves. Somewhere north of $150/barrel nearing $200, shale oil becomes economically recoverable. While it’s difficult and we don’t know what fraction of the deposits can be obtained through existing means, once tapped the accessible energy from that source will surely expand as we learn from extracting it and develop technologies to improve our draw. At $200/barrel, oil will still yield gasoline that is cheaper in the US than it is in Europe today. There’s an adaptive stage to higher oil, but we can stand $200 oil, especially if it brings expanded domestic supplies. Not to mention deep water oil still to be obtained from the Gulf of Mexico, our coastal seaboards and international waters. Price may dramatically alter our existing notions of “Peak Oil.”
If or when Peak Oil becomes a reality other than as an artificial concept rooted in temporally and locally restricted data, it won’t kill the automotive industry. Personal mobility is a permanent human imperative, setbacks or no. We’ll just end up with different means of propulsion and different kinds of vehicles. Bring it on.
As for the Export Land Model, energy is a global imperative. If the countries that have oil out of proportion to their need try to keep it for their long-term needs or extended value, three consequences will materialize. First, and positive, today’s energy importers will spike development of alternatives and manage a transition earlier. Second, some countries will use violence or cash to put some of the oil that a producer is trying to sequester into the international market. Third, ELM adherent countries will find they need essentials for which they are not endowed and oil will be in their inventory of tradeable goods. Economics can overcome politics if needs are great.
We have lots left to understand about planetary hydrocarbon energy supply. Old oil fields refilling from below. New techniques reviving wells previously thought depleted. Previously-undiscovered deposits holding promise. Resources deliberately untapped for other reasons. Prices at which liquification of coal becomes viable. Battery advancements that make electric cars or superior serial hybrids feasible. Mass adoption of solar power. Peak Population for humanity around 2050, if we keep the world’s wealth engines going.
There will be some particular inconvenience to specific individuals that make it all seem worse than it is, but truly, in the words of Chuck Yeager, “….just the usual instability…”
Phil
The crime is from the criminals, not the poor. I am not so sure what “urban planners” are supposed to do about crime. The cops are more important here, and if the politicians and lawyers let them do their jobs you won’t have the crime.…
It all depends on how the police do their jobs. In NYC under Mr. Guiliani, the police used a tough shake down tactic in “the hoods”. Basically by profiling who the saw, they figured the odds would be better at nabbing drug dealers, illegal guns, etc. And by the numbers, that was true. However, the large majority of those who were knocked to the ground with the officer’s knee in the back had nothing illegal on them at all, but they fit the “profile” – baggy pants, black, young, wrong place, late nite, etc. This happened to innocent people over and over. Call me crazy, but I would begin to seethe with hate and anger if this was done to me on a regular basis. The cops could make a big difference here just by the approach they use, instead of leaving the innocent guy lying on the sidewalk without as much as an apology. So if “letting them do their jobs” means a blatant disregard for individual liberties, no thanks. Cops with no oversight and control let the power get to their head. Ever get searched by the police? I was when I was 18 years old and they treated me like sub human dirt until they found a seat selection stub in my pocket from Swiss Air. I guess riff raff is not into European travel.
The poor tend to rise out of their poverty as the neighborhoods gentrify, but the criminals and mentally ill get pushed out.…
NOT! The majority of the poor are evicted and pushed out of their neighborhoods as they gentrify. How many poor people in Harlem are enjoying the multi million dollar price tags a brownstone in Harlem now brings? Not too many. As the values go up, the rents go up. Landlords do their best to push out those people for those who can pay the new market rate. Which is fine, in the sense that a landlord should not have to shoulder the cost of subsidized housing, which they do. So the poor people and the crime around them simply relocate to another area. They don’t “go away”. The old school days of immigrants and poverty went like this – parents arrive, live in squalor amongst themselves, work very long and hard for a pittance, are taken advantage of, have kids, instill ethics and values, and these kids are the ones who do remarkably well. Today, it does not work that way anymore.
New York City is a poor choice for an example of how the USA works.
Certainly the police can do their jobs badly, but if their hands are tied, they cannot do their jobs well for certain. There are no guaranteed successes, only guaranteed failures.
I have no idea about Harlem, but I do have an idea about what works in more normal American neighborhoods. The gentrification process is not instant. Certainly, any neighborhood where the number of owner residents is almost nonexistant will not benefit the poor. I have some news for you – neighborhoods never have, nor ever will, belong to renters. We do no good by forcing land owners to enable the continuation of impoverished neighborhoods by keeping rents below market prices. Subsidized housing is an evil beyond evils that the lower middle class pays for on both ends with money, spirit, and blood. I am still waiting for someone to point to the hell hole created by rising rents.
I always hear about how desperate things are going to be in places like Aspen where the workers can’t afford to live. Strangely, it never becomes the problem these idiots foresee because it simply is not a sustainable problem.
If you want to stop that kind of problem, what you do is outlaw covenants and zoning preventing multi-family housing and renting of guest houses and rooms. You see, it is these government supported externalities that REALLY cause the problems.
golden2husky: In NYC under Mr. Guiliani, the police used a tough shake down tactic in “the hoods”. Basically by profiling who the saw, they figured the odds would be better at nabbing drug dealers, illegal guns, etc. And by the numbers, that was true. However, the large majority of those who were knocked to the ground with the officer’s knee in the back had nothing illegal on them at all, but they fit the “profile” – baggy pants, black, young, wrong place, late nite, etc.
New York City under Mayor Guliani also saw a big drop in crime.
Talk to people about their “anger” over this issue and you’ll discover that one big problem is that the people being caught puncture the myths they use to comfort themselves (government overreports minority crime; the big danger facing minorities is white racism or the Klan, not members of their own community, etc.).
golden2husky: The old school days of immigrants and poverty went like this – parents arrive, live in squalor amongst themselves, work very long and hard for a pittance, are taken advantage of, have kids, instill ethics and values, and these kids are the ones who do remarkably well. Today, it does not work that way anymore.
Maybe one reason it doesn’t work this way anymore is because what we call the “safety net” has really become “a way of life” for a relatively large group of people in urban (and, to be fair, rural) areas, and it doesn’t encourage people to better themselves or take responsibility for their children.
“Their social safety net has created high unemployment and permanently underclass people who are just as hungry and in need of medical care as our poor. They are just less likely to rise out of it.”
Actually, that’s no longer true.
From the PEW Trust Economic Mobility Project:
“Americans are particularly optimistic about their chances of moving up the economic ladder,” said Isaacs. “However, a growing number of studies show that when compared to other industrialized nations, the United States stands out as having less, not more, economic mobility.” In particular, 42 percent of sons born into the bottom income quintile stay there as adults, compared to 25 percent in Denmark, 28 percent in Norway and 30 percent in the United Kingdom. Moreover, it takes an average of six generations for family economic advantages to disappear in the United States, compared to three generations for Canada, signaling higher mobility in Canada. It is important to note when making such cross-country comparisons, that Americans may have farther to climb to get to the next rung on the ladder than their European counterparts due to increasing levels of inequality in the United States.”
That said, I moved out a pretentiously nice suburban community to a somewhat iffy in-city neighborhood about 5 years ago and would never go back. Its closer to everything, more interesting, and my neighbors never complain about the sights and sounds of me working on cars.
Right. We have more rungs on our ladders than they do. We knew that. How much are they paying the scholars to tell us that?
Seriously, I have lived in Canada. I know better. Very, very, very few people were rising above the middle class by working at a job. The reason was taxes. Furthermore, their rich folks were all spending a huge amount of effort hiding wealth and income. There was actually a lot of wealth disparity that was not apparent as income disparity. I met more people in Canada that had wealth and property stashed outside the country than I have ever known in the US. Tax evasion was sport. Their immigrants mostly had graduate degrees! It’s the only place I have ever been where the guy working the counter at a restaraunt or store was likely to be better educated than I am.
The poor could certainly rise up to middle class, but that didn’t look like it does to us here. Their middle class lived in pretty tiny houses, condo’s and apartments. Aside from them being more nicely kept, they otherwise looked like parts of town in the US where people don’t go at night.
I could go on and on, but I can tell you from experience that it’s a bad comparison.
shiney: Moreover, it takes an average of six generations for family economic advantages to disappear in the United States, compared to three generations for Canada, signaling higher mobility in Canada.
Not necessarily. It could also signal that Americans do a better job of managing and protecting their wealth over generations. Just because other families manage their wealth properly doesn’t necessarily mean that other, poorer families are at a disadvantage.
Total wealth isn’t a zero-sum game (where the pie is set at a fixed amount, with everyone clamoring for a share of a static pie); a healthy economy grows the total pie.