Hmmm (to the Limbo music backing track) How Low Can We Go? How Low Can We Go? It's eventually going to get to the point where the oil is too hard to get to. Now what is that called? Oh that's right Peak Oil! Pity no one other than we Permies is talking about it.
Actually there is a lot of talk about it on the survivalist forums too (although many of them seem to be permies too). I think there is quite a bit of discussion on it out there in the Interwebs. It just hasn't reached popular culture, probably because the idea is pretty unpopular - best to just bury your head in the sand
Natural oil spill that has been going on for thousands of years... "The Coal Oil Point seep field offshore from Santa Barbara, California is a petroleum seep area of about three square kilometers adjacent to the Ellwood Oil Field, and releases about 40 tons per day of methane and about 19 tons of reactive organic gas (ethane, propane, butane and higher hydrocarbons), about twice the hydrocarbon air pollution released by all the cars and trucks in the county in 1990. The liquid petroleum produces a slick that is many kilometers long and when degraded by evaporation and weathering, produces tar balls which wash up on the beaches for miles around. This seep also releases on the order of 100 to 150 barrels of liquid petroleum per day. The field produces about 9 cubic meters of natural gas per barrel of petroleum." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Oil_Point_seep_field .
They are using exactly the same "best technology" methods that failed to fix a smaller oil spill in 200 ft of water 30 years ago! The results are the same - all failing to stop the flow. 30 years ago, the same drilling company (!) was contracted to BP (!) and the same event occurred (!). That time it took nine months to drill another hole intersecting with the blowout 1000ft below the ocean bed, and then pump concrete into it until the hole was plugged. This has the potential to literally destroy the marine ecosystem over a large part of this planet. What effect will that have on the rest of us? Perhaps we are going to hit "Peak Life" before "Peak Oil" ????
Don't forget we permie/planners Attended this last night - not a single politician (local, state or jokingly, federal) in sight: How will we cope beyond peak oil and in a carbon constrained society? All we can do is just keep banging the (oil, haha) drum, and hope (or for those that are duly inclined, pray) that people will stop, think, and change. I need a holiday, anyone know of an unpolluted beach within walking (hitckhiking) distance of me? Marko
James Cameron called in... Perhaps they are employing him to come up with some trick photography... "What oil spill? You're looking at this from the wrong dimension!" https://www.theage.com.au/environme...stop-oil-spill-20100602-wvt0.html?autostart=1 Lord help us.
Similar, from the ABC: Avatar director brainstorms on oil spill What is 'Avatar' about, anyway. A good friend said I should see it. Why, I have no idea. Will watching it help me to save the planet and humanity? If a solution hinges on 'Hollywood', I'm picking up sticks and going to live in that cave I keep dreaming about... In the meantime, I am cold. I think I will go and spread some mulch...
Avatar is about 3D cinema. I saw it, those 3D glasses never fit my head but it did look pretty cool. I think that is what most people will remember about it. The sub-plot was about the American Military blowing up stuff, killing native species and destroying ecosystems in order to get cheap energy. All set in a fantasy world where the people are at one with each other and the planet. My suspicion is that the majority of people that see it will say, "yeah, we shouldn't do that stuff", as they drive around in there 4WD vehicles through McDonald's on the way home to their super heated homes and prey for the time that 3D TV arrives
There seems to be some double standards too, In the NZ Herald, weekend one there is an article on the oil spills that happen frequently in Niger, thats Shells area apparently. One spill was reported to Shell which took them months to get around to fixing. This is supposed to be light crude oil, which we are all supposed to be really needing and wanting. According to this article, (my mum bought the paper and I should have pinched it when I came home so I could quote from it ), millions of barrels have been going down the Niger river for decades and they have been really slack in fixing the problems. The picture that was shown in the paper shows a pipe jutting out of the river billowing with black smoke and large flames shooting into the air. In the background you can see village huts all blackened. The locals are aware of what is going on in the gulf and dispair that everything is being done to stop the spill on the American coastline but nothing gets done for their area and in some cases are being blamed as vandals sabotaging the pipeline.
Out of interest when i said "Best technology" i just ment that this is all that the world can offer to solve this problem and that we are going to have many more deep sea rigs. America is a total plutocracy and i don't really think they care. Niger is what they would like to do in the gulf - it's cheaper.
The official leakage estimates keep going up, current official "guess" is over 2,500,000 gallons per day (about 60,000 barrels). https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_flow Unofficial estimates by scientific communities approach 120,000 barrels per day. There are also groups closely following BP and USCG activities that have come to the conclusion that the well casing is damaged at some distance beneath the ocean floor, abrasive materials in the gushing oil are eroding the casing and cap apparatus, and that the cap apparatus/blow-out preventer (BOP) are leaning dangerously and have the potential to break off from the well itself. This would allow oil and gas to be released at nature's full force, with almost no chance of shutting off the flow. And perhaps even worse than the oil and gas escaping are the huge amounts of toxic oil dispersants being cast about at the well head and on the surface of the gulf. Some are calling this an extinction-level event for the Gulf and concern is rising for the Atlantic Ocean as well. I wish I had something good to report about all of this, but the continuing cover-up of the real situation coupled with the self-serving response to the released oil (BP has a stake in the company that manufactures the dispersant) frankly make me ill.
I dont know what to make of this report. If true, somebody musta had a good crystal ball.... “Goldman Sachs wasn’t alone either in its astute “foreknowledge” of the collapse of BP’s stock value due to the Gulf disaster as BP’s own chief executive, Tony Hayward, sold about one-third of his shares weeks before this catastrophe began unfolding too...." https://www.twawki.com/?p=6768 .
Profligate Energy Use Interesting how our World would be without Oil, no asphalt / bitumen for roads, no diesel for trucks / tractors / trains, no naptha, kerosene and jet aircraft fuels, no LPG or lubricating oils and greases, no light machine oils, no paraffin wax for frozen food packaging, no tar or sulphuric acid or petroleum coke, no specialty carbon products, no plastics, pharmaceuticals or agricultural fertilizers, to name but a few. In short, a bloody big hole in life as we know it. And yet, most people continue to hop in their cars and blow off 90-95% of the fuel they put in their fuel tanks, in nothing more than heat, utilizing only 5-10% of that fuel to get them from A to B. This totally profligate and unthinking / uncaring use of a scarce energy resource, that is so useful for so many critical products, simply continues to occur despite the fact that more than 80% of all car trips in the Western World (and that includes Australia), are less than 5 Kilometers. Who is fooling whom in a fools paradise? Sorry, but if you are still doing this, you are part of the problem, not the solution. I'll leave the last word to Matt Savinar, who, on the 11th of October 2005, made this telling statement: "So you've given up your car and pulled your money out of the bank and burned it? Otherwise you are a full participant in the (Neo, my word) Darwinian struggle. We adapted (read were indoctrinated) to both co-operate and compete. We are already ruthlessly competing. Why do you think the money in your bank account is worth anything? Because we invade / kill people who try to move away from the Dollar (US that is). You can yap all you like, but what you do with your money (or your car) says a whole lot more!" If you truly want to change your World my friends, you must first change your own actions, completely, no buts, no ifs, no excuses. If not, get set to accede to the "Brave New World" that's coming. Mechandy
. Yer not far wrong there Mechandy. Peak fuel is on the way tho instead of further nuclear fision/fusion development we are off tilting at windmills... and sun panels..... ... the shear stupidity of it all. .
"An action can be regarded as irrational if it is ostensibly a means towards an end, such that this means leads to an end it purports to avoid" R. D Laing The Obvious
Golf anyone.... "You wouldn’t catch Obama goofing off on a yacht while the US battles the greatest oil spill in history. No, sirree": https://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun...mments/golfing_obama_whacks_yachting_hayward/ .
EPA has a little problem ?.... Questions have begun to be raised about supposed refusal by EPA of Dutch offers to supply large skimmers to help at the Gulf (reversed only recently.) https://climateaudit.org/2010/06/20/epa-and-dutch-skimmers/ .
The media beat up around the yacht story is a bit daft really. Is he really the only person at BP who is working on the oil spill? Do we really expect people to make good decisions when they haven't had a day of leisure in months? Even God got to take one day off after 6 days.....
