Peak Oil in Wired and Forbes

I posted the following in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Science of Conflict edition) over at Daily Kos. Instead of including it in a sustainability news linkspam, even as the top story, I decided it deserved a post of its own.

Ars Technica via Wired: Researchers Argue Peak Oil Is Here, Bringing Permanent Volatility
By John Timmer, Ars Technica
January 26, 2012

The global production of oil has remained relatively flat since 2005 and peaked in 2008, declining ever since even as demand has continued to increase. The result has been wild fluctuations in the price of oil as small changes in demand set off large shocks in the system.

In Wednesday’s issue of Nature, James Murray of University of Washington and David King of Oxford University argue this sort of volatility is what we can expect going forward, and we’re likely to face it with other fossil fuels as well.

The notion of peak oil is fairly simple: Oil is a finite resource and at some point we simply won’t be able to extract as much as we once did. There is no getting around that limit for any finite resource. The issue that has made peak oil contentious, however, is the debate over when we might actually hit it. Murray and King are not the first to conclude that we’ve already passed the peak. Even as prices have climbed by about 15 percent per year since 2005, production has remained largely flat.
...
“We are not running out of oil,” the authors argue, “but we are running out of oil that can be produced easily and cheaply.”

It's not just the scientists in Nature and the geeks in Ars Technica and Wired that are recognizing that peak (conventional) oil is here. The hard-headed businessmen at Forbes have realized this, too.

The End of Elastic Oil
By Tim Conrad
January 26, 2012

The last ten years have brought a structural change to the world oil market, with changes in demand increasingly playing a role in maintaining the supply/demand balance. These changes will come at an increasingly onerous cost to our economy unless we take steps to make our demand for oil more flexible.

We’re not running out of oil. There’s still plenty of oil still in the ground. Oil which was previously too expensive to exploit becomes economic with a rising oil price. To the uncritical observer, it might seem as if there is nothing to worry about in the oil market.

Unfortunately, there is something to worry about, at least if we want a healthy economy. The new oil reserves we’re now exploiting are not only more expensive to develop, but they also take much longer between the time the first well is drilled and the when the first oil is produced. That means it takes longer for oil supply to respond to changes in price.

In economic terms, the oil supply is becoming less elastic as new oil supplies come increasingly from unconventional oil. Elasticity is the term economists use to describe how much supply or demand responds to changes in price. If a small change in price produces a large change in demand, demand is said to be elastic. If a large change in price produces a small change in supply, then supply is said to be inelastic.

The Forbes article isn't explictly about Peak Oil, but it does discuss what happens when supply has reached the bumpy plateau and what can be done about it. One of the best lines involves reducing demand by living closer to work, including the line "the most fuel-efficient vehicle is a moving van." I resemble that remark.

From 2000-2004, I regularly put 40,000 miles on my car. In 2005, I began driving 1000 miles a week when school was in session to three different colleges and a tutoring service. Then on the weekends, I'd judge marching bands or cover drum and bugle corps shows. From May 2005 to May 2006, I drove 48,000 miles. That was the year I put my house up for sale, stopped seeing my long-distance girlfriend, and eventually sold my house. In June, I moved to the middle of my jobs and cut my driving down to 700 miles a week. Then I changed one of my jobsites and cut it down to 500 miles a week. Then I got a full-time job and quit my part-time jobs and dropped to 300 miles a week. Finally, we moved and I now drive 70 miles a week. I'm so close to work I could ride a bike on a good day.

I still haven't put another 1000 miles on my car since my last update. That was in September. Look for the next one within a week.

More on when Romney came to town

I collected a lot of links and excerpts for my posts on Bain Capital and Mitt Romney, but didn't get around to using them until now. I decided to put together a meal of leftovers before the Florida primary tomorrow so that they don't go to waste. Enjoy!

Feds find Volt's battery safe

In Good automotive news to begin 2012, I embedded a WXYZ-TV video on YouTube reporting that the issues with the Volt's battery have been resolved and suggesting that the car will be found safe to drive. Last week WXYZ followed up.

The Chevy Volt was on the hot seat during a hearing about the recent fires following crash tests.

The fossil fools behind the GOP are again attacking the green energy agenda of the current administration and making false claims that the Volt is not a market-based solution. As the reporter pointed out, the Volt was approved for production before the bailout and government takeover, which worked out rather well, thank you very much. So much for that claim!

As for the safety concerns, I'll let Wired take over for me.

Feds Say Volt Is Safe, Close Battery Inquiry
By Chuck Squatriglia
January 20, 2012

Federal regulators have closed their investigation into the Chevrolet Volt, saying they are satisfied with the steps General Motors has taken to protect the car’s lithium-ion battery and minimize the risk of a fire in the days and weeks after a severe crash.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration posted an explanation and summary of its inquiry on Friday and announced the conclusion of the investigation it launched Nov. 25.

“The agency’s investigation has concluded that no discernible defect trend exists and that the vehicle modifications recently developed by General Motors reduce the potential for battery intrusion resulting from side impacts,” the feds said in a statement.

The statement adds, “Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles.”

A battery is no worse and probably much better than a gas tank for immediate fire risk. Also, electrical fires in cars are nothing new. In fact, I lost a car to electrical issues 28 years ago.*  Therefore, I'm less than impressed with the argument that the Volt is any more dangerous than anything I've been driving for the last 30+ years.  In fact, it's probably safer!**

Sustainability news from commercial sources for the week ending January 21, 2012

Yes, I know this is from last week. However, I haven't started compiling this week's news for Daily Kos, so I'm reposting the relevant links and excerpts from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (South Carolina Primary edition) before I do. Besides, science, unlike most news, has a relatively long shelf life.

General Sustainability

This week in science: He who controls the spin controls the universe!
By DarkSyde

Our good friends at the National Center for Science Education are branching out to confront misinformation on climate change. The NCSE has a lifetime record of unbeaten on the legal battles over creationism, as in they've never lost. NCSE evolution education specialist Joshua Roseneua explains the new effort:

In our time on those front lines, we keep hearing from teachers facing similar pressure about climate change. We hear it from teachers in workshops. We see it in newspaper stories. We track legislation lumping evolution and climate change together as "controversial" issues in science class, even though both are supported by over a century of unchallenged scientific research. And as we looked around, we realized that, while lots of groups exist to encourage good climate change education and provide positive content for classrooms, no one else was focused exclusively on blocking bad science from climate change lessons.

I wish them luck in fighting both forms of denial in the classroom.

More stories over the jump.

President Obama speaks at the University of Michigan

Follow-up to this morning's post: WXYZ now has the complete speech posted on YouTube.




The speech covered both energy and education, so here are links to the relevant fact sheets from the White House's web site.

FACT SHEET: President Obama’s Blueprint to Make The Most of America’s Energy Resources

FACT SHEET: President Obama’s Blueprint for Keeping College Affordable and Within Reach for All Americans

Also, both the Detroit Free Press and AnnArbor.com have stories up. The Free Press's headline is Let's steer aid to colleges that keep tuition affordable down, Obama tells U-M crowd. AnnArbor.com had a more meta take in Campaigner in chief: Obama address to Ann Arbor crowd sounded like stump speech. I recommend reading both for a stereo view of the speech along with a good selection of the best quotes.

Obama at University of Michigan

WXYZ-TV on YouTube reports.

Anticipation is high on the University of Michigan campus with President Obama set to give a speech on Friday.

The Detroit Free Press reports that the President's speech at University of Michigan will focus on skills, college affordability.

President Barack Obama will focus on "American Skills and Innovation," including college affordability, when he takes the stage at the University of Michigan this morning in front of more than 3,000 students, faculty members and staff members.

Obama will talk about affordability and getting students and workers the education needed to develop a competitive work force, a White House official told the Free Press. It will be a follow-up to his State of the Union address earlier this week, in which he touched on the same topics.

Like most of the issues the President covered in his State of the Union Address, educational affordability is a sustainability issue. This is part of a pattern. As I pointed out the last time I blogged about President Obama visiting Michigan, "President Obama...really likes the idea of sustainable development packaged as making America competitive." Based on the reaction to the State of the Union, a lot of Americans do, too.

An overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the overall message in President Obama's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, according to a CBS News poll of speech watchers.

According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president's address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.

As for how the positive reaction to the State of the Union and other actions Obama has taken are playing out in Michigan, I'll let WOOD-TV on YouTube tell you.




It's paying off very well, thank you. As for Willard:

Romney was expected to have a hometown...advantage in the state that [his] father once governed.

Romney barely has an advantage in the primary, but right now he's getting crushed in the state where he grew up in the general. Of the five states he calls home, Michigan, Massachusetts, Utah, New Hampshire, and California, he'll probably win all of their primaries, but at most two, Utah and maybe New Hampshire, in the general. The last candidate who didn't win his home state in the general election was Gore, and we all know how he fared in 2000. He wouldn't have needed Florida if he had won Tennessee.  That's not a good sign for Romney.

UPDATE: After I crossposted the above to Daily Kos and Michigan Liberal, WWYZ posted two more videos to their YouTube page.  View them below the fold.

Gingrich shoots for the Moon while campaigning in Florida

Yes, really.





WESH-TV on YouTube has a better video, but it doesn't embed. Too bad, as it shows Gingrich using the idea of reviving the space program as a major selling point of his campaign in Florida, especially along the Space Coast. I don't know if it has helped him with Republican voters, but it certainly is getting him more attention.

Detroit, Michigan, and the auto industry in the State of the Union

Before the State of the Union yesterday, Paul Krugman managed to scoop one of the themes of the State of the Union address.

[C]an we think of a recent example in the United States where helping to preserve an industrial cluster was an important policy consideration? Indeed we can: the auto bailout. A key argument for the bailout was that if the major US firms were allowed to go bankrupt, a whole industrial ecology would be lost with them. And the auto bailout has been a huge success, not least because it did preserve that ecology.

Aren’t you glad that Obama didn’t listen to the other party on this issue?

Right on cue, immediately after President Obama listed his administration's foreign policy achievements, he pointed out the success of the auto company bailout in his State of the Union speech.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.

In the same post in which Krugman praised Obama for bailing out the auto companies in the name of preserving the industrial ecology supporting auto manufacturing in the U.S., he posted this graph of the Michigan's unemployment rate.




That's quite a recovery, although it was interrupted by the short-lived slump that accompanied the rise in oil prices during the first half of the year. In fact, the following graph from Calculated Risk displaying the unemployment rates of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia shows that it was the best recovery of all 51 reporting.




Unemployment has fallen nearly 5% since Fall 2009, when Michigan had the highest unemployment rate in the Union. Now, Michigan is below 10% after three years of double-digit unemployment and is out of the ten worst states at 11th. Both Krugman and Bill McBride of Calculated Risk are showing that what happened in Detroit (actually all of Michigan) is indeed worth emulating. Isn't that a pleasant surprise?

Preppers in Reuters and National Geographic, a murmuration

James Howard Kunstler titled this week's missive of doom Murmuration. It was surprisingly dispassionate in tone while being full of factual content and rational analysis. I found that combination not to be an accident, but I digress. What Kunstler had to say about his topic showed more insight than usual into humans as a social animal.

Investment guru James Dines introduced another seminal idea on Eric King's podcast last week. Dines's work over the years has focused much more on human mob psychology than technical market analysis - which he seems to regard as akin to augury with chicken entrails. Dines now introduces the term "murmuration" to describe the way that rapid changes occur in the realm of human activities. The word refers to behaviors also seen in other living species, such as the way a large flock of starlings will all turn in the sky at the same instant without any apparent communication. We don't know how they do that. It seems to be some kind of collective cognitive processing beyond our understanding.

Dines goes on to suggest that the political stirrings and upheavals of the past year represent an instance of human "murmuration" that will lead to even greater epochal changes in geopolitical and economic life.

My response was to praise him.

I like the concepts of trust horizon and murmuration, as they connect me to my scientific roots. Trust horizon recalls event horizon, something that marks the surface of a black hole. If we hit the event horizon, then we'll be sucked into the black hole with no escape. Of course, the center of a black hole is a singularity, so I suspect you don't want to extend the metaphor that far! As for murmuration, that's an even better one, as I'm an amateur astronomer, but a professional biologist who has studied animal behavior. Since humans are just a very smart social mammal, we shouldn't be surprised at how our behavior reflects that of other social animals, including coordination of group behavior by murmuration. Thanks for adding those concepts to my vocabulary. I'll be sure to blog about them and credit you for inspiring me.

That was yesterday morning. Yesterday evening, I encountered the following on Reuters as an example of a murmuration that is starting to change behaviors and become noticed--and noticed in a big way.

Newt Gingrich throws core GOP interest group under bus while campaigning as a populist

In When Mitt Romney came to town, he exposed the GOP's disrespect for its own ideas, I quoted Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who opined:

Here’s Newt Gingrich’s bizarre 28-minute video attack on Mitt Romney; bizarre not because of the subject matter (which is pretty devastating to Romney), but because of the political orientation. Gingrich is coming at Romney from a position that can only be described as “left wing” — criticizing Romney for precisely the Republican values that Newt (and every other candidate) espouses.

I don’t think I’ve seen a better demonstration of an absolutely amoral lust for power — from Gingrich and from Romney.  With this video, Gingrich is throwing the entire GOP ideology under the bus.

I wouldn't call it "throwing the entire GOP ideology under the bus," as major U.S. political parties don't have consistent ideologies. They do, however, have consistent core interest groups and Gingrich is throwing one of them, the northeastern business interests, which have been with the GOP since it formed out of the remains of the Whigs in the 1850s, under the bus. That ended up being smart in the short run, given that he was angling for the votes of Southern populists, who don't care much for the northeastern business interests and haven't since before the founding of the republic. They came through for him last Saturday when he won the South Carolina primary handily.

On the other hand, Gingrich's strategy is pissing off the GOP establishment, who are behind Romney and represent the core interest group of northeastern businessmen (and women), no end! For how that looks to one group of outsiders, the netroots progressives of Daily Kos, read The Republican civil war unleashed. For another, here's what the snarky animators over at Next Media Animation have to say about it.

Newt Gingrich's stunning victory over Mitt Romney in the South Carolina primary has breathed new life into the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Despite a scandalous interview given by Gingrich's second ex-wife to ABC, the former speaker of the House has firmly established himself as the leading anti-Romney candidate.

Erstwhile frontrunner and shoo-in for the candidacy Mitt Romney has been dogged by one controversy after another, from having to defend his time at Bain Capital to accusations of dragging his feet over releasing his tax returns. Most importantly, many evangelical voters simply do not trust a Mormon with a moderate record as governor of Massachusetts when he says he would be faithful to their conservative agenda as president.

The only problem: If the evangelicals get their way and nominate Gingrich, they might be committing electoral suicide.

Keep the popcorn ready, folks. This will be fun to watch.