Any mainstream, credible sources for Peak Oil info?

[brystheguy]

I have been doing a lot of reading on Peak Oil and the fact that we are running out. I've been having "discussions" with my wife who says that we shouldn't worry because new technology will come along, yada, yada, yada. She then asked for a good source so that she could read up on it herself because she she thinks that DUers are going a little overboard on what will happen when Peak Oil hits. Anyways, back to more credible sources. I know that there is the Oil Depletion Analysis Center but who is behind that? I feel like I could start the Sugar Depletion Analysis Center and say that we are running out of sugar and put it on the internet and I'd get some believers. Are there some more legitimate or mainstream sources for Peak Oil info and why are they legitimate? Thanks.

[EVDebs]

1. Richard Heinbergs book "The Party's Over" is a good start

www.fromthewilderness.com has good stuff

and

www.oilempire.us and OilEmpire does too.

www.museletter.com is Heinberg's site.

[NAO]

2. Peak Oil Resources - Many at Ruppart's "From the Wilderness"

Michael Ruppart's book "Crossing the Rubicon" is highly recommended. This fantastic book is rigorously documented and Peak Oil is a central theme.

Ruppart's web site, "From the Wilderness" has both a free and a subscription section. He frequently provides links to mainstream media stories about Peak Oil.

There have been several stories in the mainstream press about Peak Oil. They are reluctantly acknowledging the basic truth of oil production in decline, but of course they maintain utter silence about the implications for the world if oil did run out.

From the Wilderness
http://www.fromthewilderness.com

[Speck Tater]

3. "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler.

Adresses the flaws in the argument that "they" will discover some alternate energy source in time. An excellent and even-handed overview of the whole situation.

[mirrera]

4. Powerdown :

Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World
by Richard Heinberg
Excellent book...

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Serious academicians

1. Ken Deffeyes (Columbia Univ Geology Prof) - Two very readable books:

a) Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak
b) Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage

2. David Goodstein (Cal Tech Physics Prof), Out of Gas: The End of the Age Of Oil
3. Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
4. Daniel Yergin (Petroleum Analyst), Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
5. Evans, An Introduction to Economic Geology and Its Environmental Impact (Not really about "Peak Oil" - but a good intro to natural resource geology)
6. Colin Campbell and Jean Leharre, "The End Of Cheap Oil" (a Scientific American article, Acrobat PDF can be downloaded from the Scientific American web site)
7. John Vidal, "The End of Oil Is Closer Than Youn Think", Guardian UK, April 21, 2005


Note: I think Kunstler's book is way too Malthusian and pessimistic. While not a "cornucopiast" - I do believe the Stan Ovshinsky and Amory Lovins model - that if we just think and work smarter we will survive (hint: a flat panel computer display uses just 3% of the electricity that a CRT computer display uses; historically, plastics were made from veggie oils long before they were made from petroleum, etc.)

I also think electric cars (including fuel cell cars) will replace internal combustion engine cars within two decades. Yes electric cars.

[Speck Tater]

7. Of course we will survive, but...

At a much lower "standard of living" and on a much more localized level.

<<historically, plastics were made from veggie oils long before they were made from petroleum>>

That's true, but just because it's possible doesn't mean it's scalable. Where will millions of barrels of veggie oil a day come from? Large scale factory farms running diesel tractors and using petro-based fertilizers and pesticides? It will become too expensive to run those kinds of petro-based factory farms. So plastics may still be made, but on what scale?

<<I also think electric cars (including fuel cell cars) will replace internal combustion engine cars>>

However, batteries are for energy STORAGE. They do not produce energy. That energy has to come from somewhere. Somewhere an electric generator fueled by something has to generate the electricity that gets pumped into the battery. As for fuel cells, running on what kind of fuel? Ethanol? On what scale do we need to convert biomass into ethanol to support our current driving habits? 10 million barrels a day? Where will that biomass come from without fuel of some kind to run the farms and harvest the biomass and power the plants that turn it into ethanol?

Hydrogen? Hydrogen is like batteries. It's a way to store and transport energy, not an elemental source of energy. The hydrogen has to be extracted from something. Oil? Natural gas? Water, by using huge amounts of electricity generated how? The energy density of hydrogen is such that for every gasoline tanker truck on the road today there would have to be 13 hydrogen tanker trucks to deliver the same amount of energy to the local refueling station. How will those tens of thousands of extra tanker trucks get built when the economy is in a shambles due to oil prices causing business after business to collapse? There won't be any capital to build the infrastructure. Building a hydrogen extraction plant without diesel powered bulldozers won't be easy, and building alternative fueled bulldozers won't be easy without the oil-supported infrastructure needed to build the plant to build them in.

And where will the steel come from to build all those things we need? There are no steel mills in the US, and if fuel costs go high enough it won't be economically possible to transport steel from China.

Historically, mankind hasn't planned ahead for things like this, but waited until the problem has become intolerable before taking corrective action. Only this time, by the time the problem is intolerable it will also be irreversible.

The future will be an odd mixture indeed. We may still have our flat screen monitors on our computers and be able to surf the Internet, but we may commute to work in a horse-drawn city trolley car. Things are going to change drastically, but this does not mean the "end of the world", only the end of our accustomed way of life.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. Spent several years in an alternative energy "think tank" - "incubator"

where we had some very bright people looking at these problems.

Our bias was "anti-nuke" (I was there shortly after "Three Mile Island" - along with a fair number of nuclear power alumni and veterans), and we made major break throughs in photovoltaics, Sabbatier-Peltier effect generators, high energy density batteries, and fuel cells.

Before that I had started out of school in nuclear power and then worked in "industrial electrochemistry" (the underlying science common to batteries, fuel cells, aluminum refining, copper refining, semiconductor fabrication, etc.). Afterward I went into semiconductor fabrication and then into my own alternative and renewable energy business.

You are right - batteries and fuel cells and hydrogen are 'carriers" of energy. That is Thermo 101.

Try as hard as I can to finagle the numbers in favor of wind, geothermal, hydro, and photovoltaic, I see them as niche. We will be stuck with (or driven to) a mix of coal and nuclear. (I know all about the issues of Yucca Mtn - no answers - just problems - I worked with Ivan Itkin). Still - it's the least bad response to a bad problem. I really think nuclear power is preferable to an energy driven (or "lack of energy" driven) return to the Great Depression.

Peak oil is not a wall. There is a lot of oil left in those deposits - its just that the "Energy Output/Energy Input" is adverse. But, if you are talking "chemical feedstocks" instead of "BTUs" the equation changes. Feedstocks are less then 5% of the cost of finished plastic articles.

As to AG chemicals - we are talking about ammonium nitrate. Where is it written that the hydrogen for ammonia has to come from hydrocarbons? Nowhere. If we go nuclear - it is cheap to decompose water compared to cracking scarce oil.

We have steel mills - it's the iron making that we don't have.

And where is it written that we will indeed sustain our current driving habits - with SUVs, spread out and pedestrian-unfriendly suburbs that lack transit. Those days are rapidly drawing to a close.

I am not really sure where you are going with:

Hydrogen? Hydrogen is like batteries. It's a way to store and transport energy, not an elemental source of energy. The hydrogen has to be extracted from something. Oil? Natural gas? Water, by using huge amounts of electricity generated how? The energy density of hydrogen is such that for every gasoline tanker truck on the road today there would have to be 13 hydrogen tanker trucks to deliver the same amount of energy to the local refueling station. How will those tens of thousands of extra tanker trucks get built when the economy is in a shambles due to oil prices causing business after business to collapse? There won't be any capital to build the infrastructure. Building a hydrogen extraction plant without diesel powered bulldozers won't be easy, and building alternative fueled bulldozers won't be easy without the oil-supported infrastructure needed to build the plant to build them in.

I worked in that field at the "Think Tank" - about a technoid generation obsolete.

Too much Kunstler - not enough Deffeyes.

And, as violative of "Progressivism" as it may be - think nuclear -- the environmental cost of going nuclear is not as bad as the social cost of not going nuclear.

[thegreatwildebeest]

12. I'll take the horsedrawn carriage thank you...

And, as violative of "Progressivism" as it may be - think nuclear -- the environmental cost of going nuclear is not as bad as the social cost of not going nuclear.

The social cost? You mean maintaining our comfort of living that is almost universally wasteful, reckless, and disposable? So we can have more nuclear waste sites, more issues of radioactivity in the environment, and even larger subsidies for an industry that cannot sustain itself as it is? I would rather use the horsedrawn carriage.

I'm sure no one here has read Zerzan, or remotely in anyways subscribe to primitivist thinking or analysis, but there is a certain modicum of truth in what he writes, as well as other primitivist authors, even if you don't buy into the ideal lifestyle being "hunter/gatherer". And that civilization maintains itself and its structure off vast human and mineral resources, and lacking those things, inevitably devolution kicks in.

I'm leery of the idea that the sky is falling, but I do believe that in my lfietime, some crazy stuff is going to happen, and that things as they are are not going to last. They can't.

I also wonder about how much people here have a personal commitment to reducing their consumption, using sustainable products (like Seventh Generation products) when necessary, or even something as simple as creating a compost pile/small garden if possible.

[Coastie for Truth]

13. Haven't thoroughly read John Zerzan, but I have read Mikhail Bakunin

and from what little I have read of Zerzan and Bakunin - it isn't an idyllic paradise -- it is a cruel "survival of the fittest" combat zone existence. That is our genetic heritage.

[thegreatwildebeest]

14. Clearly...

Clearly you haven't read either. And what is todays world if not a cruel survival of the fittest existence? Last time I checked if I didn't have a job, my existence was not guranteed in anyway, since without a job I cannot own land in which to grow my own food, and that acquisition of food by any other means (ie: stealing from either farm, orchard, or supermarket) is illegal.

As for your assertion that it is "our genetic heritage", that is also equally absurd, since no person today is raised without the taint of the system we grow up in. You are a product of outside forces, which demand competition, ruthlessness, and everything else. Everyone is. No person today is an example of "human nature", since human nature is the sum of the cultural influences around you. Most people seem to accept this in a wide range of scenarios, but when it comes to the idea of human nature as inherently destructive and competitive, no one makes that step further to say that makes no sense.

Zerzan, for all of his faults, makes a clear argument that we probably suffer more work hours today for less in return, than our ancestors did thousands of years ago, under so called primitive conditions. It's the argument of the "primitive affluence", which says that a primitive hunter-gatherer society works less for its food and sustenance than almost every single person today. In his research, and that of others, they peg the amount of work requried each to acquire food at about 4 hours a day. Considering people work a minimum of 8 hours, or more, to put food on their table now, thats an effective net gain across the board of time for yourself. Now you can argue with his research, as many have, and assert that it would be a "survival of the fittest" scenario, and one alot harder than simply foraging for four hours a day. But thats not Zerzan, or any other primitivists claim.

As for Bakunin, your assertion that he wished for a survival of the fittest type scenario is again, not at all what he stated. Bakunins works, and one of the major reasons why he was expelled from the Communist International, as well as becoming a pariah of Marxists everywhere, is his assertion that destruction of economic and political privlage, without a transitional state, was the most desirable goal possible. A formation of an egalitarian society through the destruction of hiearchial constructs. You can say thats pie in the sky, idealistic, or whatever, but you can't say he suggested that the world should be a matter of survival of the fittest. His ideas would form the basis of anachist thought that still chug today, and are used by many people, myself included.

[Coastie for Truth]

15. I' m a little older then you--

read Bakunin about 45 years ago in college.

Read (lightly skimmed, put back on shelf, didn't check out) part of Zerzan at the library following a reference in some magazine.

[thegreatwildebeest]

24. Either way...

Either way, you're not responding to the main thrust of my criticism, which is the idea that nuclear power must be instituted on a mass scale in order to perserve our so called way of life. At what cost my friend? More meltdowns, more waste that won't go away and is highly lethal, and more of the same from energy compaies covering things up and letting radiation seep into our air, drinking water, and everything else? As you say, you don't have answers, yet you seem awfully willing to endorse probably one of the most destructive forms of energy creation known to man. We need to be dismantling nuclear plants, and replacing them with more sustainable generation, not constructing more. For someone who spent time in think tanks, you also don't seem to acknowledge the heavy government subsidies that keep nuclear power afloat in this country way past its commercial viability, if it was in fact ever viable.

The general solution is reduced consumption , not more ham fisted ways to increase supply to meet an ever expanding and never ceasing and unsustainable economy. The "social consequences" otherwise will be the absolute ruinment of large swaths of the environment.

[bloom]

31. I would like to see "sustainable living"

become mainstream.

:bounce:

[IrateCitizen]

32. What will be "sustainable" in another 50 years...

... will probably seem like massive deprivation to those of us alive right now. We had a chance at "sustainability", and we blew it.

That's not to say I'm not a big fan of the living simplicity movement... I just don't think it offers enough to solve the problems we face, and it's too voluntary for the majority to reject.

[bloom]

33. I don't expect it to solve everything

just that it's one part of the equation and one that most are still not taking seriously.

It's the part that everybody can be doing something about.

I don't think that it is too late for people to do something. Something is always better than nothing.


But I'm not very optimistic about societies ability to do what needs to be done or gov'ts ability to lead the way - at least at the rate we are going now. But saying that it's too late doesn't help either.

[IrateCitizen]

34. Jevon's Paradox

Here's an excerpt taken from www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net that might help explain why the simple living movement won't really do anything to stave off decline...

"What About Large-Scale Efforts at Conserving Energy or Becoming More Energy Efficient?"

Amazingly, such efforts will actually make our situation worse. This probably makes absolutely no sense unless you understand how the modern day banking and monetary system works. To illustrate, let's revisit Jevon's Paradox, explained above, with an example:

Pretend you own a computer store and that your monthly energy bill, as of December 2004, is $1,000. You then learn about the coming energy famine and decide to do your part by conserving as much as possible. You install energy efficient lighting, high quality insulation, and ask your employees to wear sweaters so as to minimize the use of your store's heating system.

After implementing these conservation measures, you manage to lower your energy bill by 50% - down to $500 per month.

While you certainly deserve a pat-on-the-back and while your business will certainly become more profitable as a result of your conservation efforts, you have in no way helped reduce our overall energy appetite. In fact, you have actually increased it.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, "How could I have possibly increased our total energy consumption when I just cut my own consumption by $500/month? That doesn't seem to make common sense . . ."

Well think about what you're going to do with that extra $500 per month you saved. If you're like most people, you're going to do one of two things:

1. You will reinvest the $500 in your business. For instance, you might spend the $500 on more advertising. This will bring in more customers, which will result in more computers being sold. Since, as mentioned previously, the average desktop computer consumes 10X it's weight in fossil-fuels just during its construction, your individual effort at conserving energy has resulted in the consumption of more energy.

2. You will simply deposit the $500 in your bank account where it will accumulate interest. Since you're not using the money to buy or sell anything, it can't possibly be used to facilitate an increase in energy consumption, right? Wrong. For every dollar a bank holds in deposits, it will loan out between six and twelve dollars. These loans are then used by the bank's customers to do everything from starting businesses to making down payments on vehicles to purchasing computers. Thus, your $500 deposit will allow the bank to make between $3,000 and $6,000 in loans - most of which will be used to buy, build, or transport things using fossil fuel energy.

Typically, Jevon's Paradox is one of the aspects of our situation that people find difficult to get their minds around. Perhaps one additional example will help clarify it:

Think of our economy as a giant petroleum powered machine that turns raw materials into consumer goods which are later turned into garbage:

The Economy:

Petroleum In -------> Garbage Out

If you remove the machine's internal inefficiencies, the extra energy is simply reinvested into the petroleum supply side of the machine. By removing the machine's internal inefficiencies, you have enabled it to consume petroleum and produce garbage at an even faster rate.

The only way to get the machine to consume less petroleum is for whoever owns/operates the machine to press the button that says "slow-down." However, since we are all dependent on the machine for jobs, food, affordable health care, subsidies for alternative forms of energy, etc., nobody is going to lobby the owners/operators of the machine to press the "slow-down" button until it's too late.

Eventually (sooner than later) the petroleum plug will get pulled and the machine's production will sputter before grinding to a halt. At that point, those of us dependent on the machine (which means all of us) will have to fight for whatever scraps it manages to spit out.

To be clear: conservation will benefit you as an individual. If, for instance, you save $100/month on your energy bills, you can roll that money into acquiring skills or resources that will benefit you as we slide down the petroleum-production downslope. But since your $100 savings will result in a net increase in the energy consumed by society as a whole, it will actually cause us to slide down the downslope faster.

[bloom]

35. I think that sounds like the rationalization of someone

who doesn't want to alter his/her lifestyle.

It's easy for me - I have everything I need. But if I followed the "dictates" (or advertisements) of society - I would be out there making as much money as I could (which would probably involve moving or commuting) and buying as much stuff as I wanted - remodeling the kitchen just for the halibut and so on and so forth.

I enjoy the frugal mentality. I enjoy living outside of the mainstream. But I wouldn't mind if the mainstream wanted to join me.

[IrateCitizen]

36. I too enjoy a more frugal lifestyle... BUT

That does not change the reality of the comments regarding Jovan's Paradox. If you read the rest of the information at www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net (where that excerpt is taken from), I think you'll see that the person who wrote that passage is HARDLY trying to rationalize not changing his lifestyle. He's simply stating the reality that the overwhelming majority of people are not going to change theirs, and that so long as the system remains "Petroleum ---> Garbage", that all that extra capital is doing is improving the internal efficiency of the system and actually making it work faster.

The only way to actually prevent this is to take the extra money you make and stuff it under your mattress or bury it in coffee cans in your backyard.

[IrateCitizen]

18. Regarding nuclear power generation...

It seems to me that one thing you're ignoring is the availability of nuclear fuel necessary to maintain anything close to our current energy usage. Uranium doesn't exactly grow on trees, and it also requires significant energy to extract -- energy that must be transportable in order to operate heavy machinery (i.e. petroleum).

Without cheap oil to extract uranium needed for nuclear power, how is this going to expand. Also, I've read estimates that we are currently at least 10 years away from having enough nuclear plants online to generate the power needed to replace oil usage in any significant way, assuming we started building them today. If the cost of oil keeps going up (assuming we're near or past peak oil now), how do we construct these plants affordably?

Finally, WRT coal, I can't believe you're mentioning it. The environmental costs of expanding coal are significant -- to the point that they spill over into social costs. I can't imagine the impact of increasingly acidic rainfalls and mercury releases into the air.

[Coastie for Truth]

20. Unfortunately most people can't visualize JOULES or BTUs or even KWHR

...so the energy needs of most processes are stated in terms of barrels of oil. To be correct, the media should say "barrel equivalents of oil" - I apologize, flame off (I was a real nit pickie thermo TA)

As to coal - I grew up where the Monongahela Valley changes from West Virginia's "Coal Valley" to Pennsylvania's "Steel Valley" - just down river from Donora PA, site of the Donora Killer Smog, and my dad (a one time hard rock coal geologist and mining engineer) was a Workers Compensation Lawyer for the United Mineworkers. Plus, my sister still shops at Century III Mall in West Mifflin, PA. (on top of the mine waste and steel mill slag). So I do know "coal."

The acid rainfall and mercury releases from coal are political - the "best available technology" exists now, today to control acid and mercury. But the coal industry and power industry lobbyists have been politically powerful enough to restrict Congress to only require the "best commercially practical technology" - it's like the auto industry and CAFE.

I am not a "conucopiast" - but I am a fan of Samuel Florman's "Existential Pleasures of Engineering" - and I am impatient with politicians and bean counters.

We do not need to go back to the non-idyllic days of the Great Depression and the Nineteenth Century in some Malthusian nightmare with James Howard Kunstler or John Zerzan - when we can follow Buckie Fuller and Amory Lovins and Stan Ovshinsky instead.

[IrateCitizen]

21. On a side note...

I'm from Armstrong County, PA, so I know coal as well. My grandfather was a coal miner for a few years, and then went to work in a steel mill for the rest of his working life.

Personally, I don't think that Kunstler's work is predicting a return to the 19th century -- it's much more of an 18th century return. Then again, given the disappearance of craftsmanship that was so prevalent in that pre-fossil fuel period, we're probably returning to more of a 13th or 14th century existence. Believe me, I don't relish that kind of a future....

And you don't have to apologize for being a nitpick on terms -- I'm an engineer myself, so I do understand a great deal of which you speak.

I think that the thing that the likes of Lovins miss is the way in which our culture will have to give up the auto-centric culture we have come to take for granted. If we truly want to still be mobile, we will have to go to public transit (particularly rail) for the majority of our transportation needs, in addition to building walkable and bikeable communities. This is, I believe, where Kunstler's work has its greatest impact -- he realizes fully the way in which the growth model chosen for the past 50+ years is a completely unsustainable dead-end, and that we MUST change if we want to be able to adjust to peak oil. Lovins, OTOH, built a green building complex for the RMI headquarters -- and put it out in the middle of nowhere so everyone who works there would have to drive. :wtf:

BTW -- thanks for the recommendation on Florman, I'll have to check it out. Hopefully it can give me some ray of hope into what I have come to view as a relatively dead-end profession that is captive to the overarching political thrust toward a dead-end future.

[Terry in Austin]

27. Nuclear niche

From an MIT study in 2003:

our study postulates a global growth scenario that by mid-century would see 1000 to 1500 reactors of 1000 megawatt-electric (MWe) capacity each deployed worldwide, compared to a capacity equivalent to 366 such reactors now in service.

We believe that the world-wide supply of uranium ore is sufficient to fuel the deployment of 1000 reactors over the next half century and to maintain this level of deployment over a 40 year lifetime of this fleet. This is an important foundation of our study, based upon currently available information and the history of natural resource supply.

So basically, they are saying that we build enough reactors to have 3x the number we have right now, and there is enough uranium to fuel them for 40 years, or the lifetime of a reactor; this will provide only about 20% of the worlds energy needs.

[thegreatwildebeest]

28. Mind you...

Mind you, that buying ourselves another 40 years of energy, will be accomplished at the creation of humongous amounts of radioactive waste which cannot and will not go away in 40 years. This isn't even thinking about the increased chances of melt downs, radioactive poisoning, terrorist attacks, etc etc. Nuclear power is a bad idea, period.

[Terry in Austin]

40. Choir here

Nuclear is definitely a bad idea, for all the reasons you say. I just think the capper is that it doesn't work out so well even in their terms -- all that poison and hazard for 20% of energy needs for a generation or so, at most. Pikers!

[Coastie for Truth]

9. As to the "capacity" of the local electric company

we had several teams working with utilities on "gentle persuasion" to "carrot and stick" to "surcharges and discounts" to switch as much electric consumption as possible to off peak hours--

1) Clothes washing and drying
2) Dishwashing
3) Charging electric vehicles
4) Swimming pool heating

Found it did not take much of a discount to get most people to "time shift"

Also, we did several studies on "gentle persuasion" and "carrot and stick" and "surcharges and discounts" to "shave peak load." Found it did not take much of a discount to get people to agree to killing their a/c on those hot humid August afternoons - if you discounted their base 600 kwhr/month.

Lots of EPRI and Edison Institute and SERI money flying around to do "neat stuff"

[GumboYaYa]

10. In talking with AmerenUE engineers to design our grid-tied

system, one of the guys told me about a similar program they ran a few years ago to get people to switch to energy efficient refrigerators. People jumped al over the discounts they got for the new fridges. The program appeared to be a success until they realized that there was no reduction in demand. People were buying the new fridges and moving the old ones to the basement to hold beer. Geez....

Another little factoid I picked up going through this process is that the power companies are not excited about being in the business of generating power. Apparently from what I have been told (and I have no documentation for this other than conversations), building power plants is a money loser. The power companies make more money from managing the transmission of electricity than generating it in many instances.

[Coastie for Truth]

11. Yup--

That's where Enron etc. made their money

"Another little factoid I picked up going through this process is that the power companies are not excited about being in the business of generating power. Apparently from what I have been told (and I have no documentation for this other than conversations), building power plants is a money loser. The power companies make more money from managing the transmission of electricity than generating it in many instances."

[megatherium]

29. no steel mills in the us?

my impression is we still produce approximately the same amount of steel as in years gone by (albeit with fewer workers).

[Coastie for Truth]

30. Blast furnaces and open hearth furnaces are history

(at least there aren't any in the Pittsburgh area). Iron is now refined by a much less energy intensive, much lower manpower process. And we don't need as much iron (the market has shrunk significantly since the glory days of the 1950's).

Steel is made by (1) refining iron, and (2) recycling scrap, with various alloying elements. We now recycle a lot more scrap. Generally done in "oxygen furnaces" - smaller then "open hearth" furnaces.

So, we are getting the same or more steel "product" (sheet, rod, structural, pipe) per ton of ore (that's what recycling scrap is all about).

But those blast furnaces were the Big Babies along the Penn Lincoln Parkway East near Bates Street and the Blvd of the Allies.

The open hearths were just off of the Homestead High Level Bridge.

Don't get me going - or I'll tell you about the Pirates and Roberto Clemente and the Steelers and Franco Harris and Terry Bradshaw and Lynn Swann, and the Dukes and the Panthers and the Tartans, and Rege Cordic and the existential pleasures of Iron City and a Kolbassi at Chiodo's or Frankie Gustines, or riding the 68 or the 77/54 ("The Flying Fraction") -- or the all night sessions in the CS Department in the basement of GSIA - to get programs to run while subsisting on Skibo Pizza.

[funflower]

38. Thanks, Coastie and everyone else

for the great resources and info in this thread. All in all, a very substantive discussion!

:yourock:

[Tace]

6. EnergyBulletin.net Is A Great Source For Daily News

http://www.energybulletin.net

321 Energy is another good source for energy related news:

http://www.321energy.com

[NJCher]

16. what is your hang up on "mainstream media" sources?

These guys are the biggest liars around.

Pay attention to the posts with the scholarly sources. Academicians generally have no special interests to which they are beholden, unlike NBC, which just so happens to be in the defense industry.


Cher

[RafterMan]

17. I suspect

because the OP mentioned a dispute with his wife, that he is not trying to convince himself but others.

Since the weight it carries with so many people is precisely what makes the mainstream media mainstream, it is perfectly logical to seek out citations in such sources in that type of argument.

"Hang up" is, therefore, out of line.

[NJCher]

19. yeah, you're prob'ly right

Poster is new; has only 23 posts. I apologize. After a few more weeks around here, he'll see what a sham the "mainstream media" is and be able to explain it to his wife.

:hi:

Welcome brystheguy. Good to have you onboard!


Cher

[brystheguy]

22. Thankyamuch!!

Thanks for all of the great responses! I put several of the books on hold at my local library and can't wait to start reading. A lot of good website suggestions also. Looks like I'll be busy for a while. Thank you to those of you that pointed me in the right direction. Like I said, my wife wants a more mainstream source, so hopefully I'll be able to get her to pick up a book on it herself as there don't seem to be a lot of mainstream sources picking up on this (which I was aware of). I worry about Peak Oil sometimes and she thinks I worry too much. I'd like to move to a place closer to her job as we now live out in the burbs but she's not buying it. Maybe these books will present me with a more realistic view of what may or may not happen.

[Terry in Austin]

26. But if it's mainstream sources she wants...

Here are a few online articles. Little easier to get the gist, before plowing through a book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1464050,00.html
The end of oil is closer than you think

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a3b6a0c2-a792-11d9-9744-00000e2511c8.html
IMF warns on risk of ‘permanent oil shock’

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0307-02.htm
Published on Sunday, March 6, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
Running Out of Oil -- and Time

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/
World oil and gas 'running out'
By CNN's Graham Jones
Global oil supplies will peak soon after 2010, Swedish scientists say.

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm
THE END OF CHEAP OIL
by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère,
Scientific American, March 1998
"The granddaddy" Peak Oil article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17039-2004Jun4.html
After The Oil Runs Out
James C. Jordan is an energy and environment policy consultant and a former energy program director for the Navy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3623549.stm
When the last oil well runs dry

http://members.aol.com/LSInvestor/smu2/
New Scientist
Brace yourself for the end of cheap oil;
Is the rate at which we can produce oil about to peak?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5636037/site/newsweek/
Gas Guzzlers' Shock Therapy
One expert has picked an Armageddon date for the peak of oil production: Thanksgiving 2005.
The slow decline in world supplies will start then

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1172404.htm
Oil demand will soon outstrip supply: industry planner

http://www.culturechange.org/fall_of_petroleum_DowJones.html
OIL OVER A BARREL: Good-Bye To Cheap Oil From 2010?
(first published by Dow Jones Newswires on Monday 8 March 2004.)

[ROH]

41. These three sources (BBC, Washington Post, and CNN) ...

particularly explain the subject in easy-to-follow articles:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3623549.stm
When the last oil well runs dry

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17039-2004Jun4.html
After The Oil Runs Out
James C. Jordan is an energy and environment policy consultant and a former energy program director for the Navy.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/10/02/global.warming/
World oil and gas 'running out'
By CNN's Graham Jones
Global oil supplies will peak soon after 2010, Swedish scientists say.

[umass1993]

23. try the Millenium Assessment

it was put out by the UN and World Bank.

It describes 4 scenarios for the year 2050. The happiest of which describes a situation not far from Kunstler's view.

My gut feeling, is that Kunstler is a bit too pessimistic. But when I actually try to find a statement with which I completely disagree, I usually fail.

Kunstler's, "The Geography of Nowhere" is a must-read for every citizen in the US.

I think the future will depend much on where you live. Norway is all set. 99% of their electricity is hydropower.

The US is the most vulnerable. We are in debt, publically and privately, and highly dependent on a rapidly diminishing resource.

[Terry in Austin]

25. Denial

There's a definite sequence a lot of people go through when they first are exposed to Peak Oil. After all, you're telling them "poof -- there goes the future you thought you had."

The sequence starts with denial. At that stage, they will dismiss any source you give them, mainstream or no. They need to be brought along at their own rate, with consideration. Good link on this, from Matt Savinar's site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/54336

"STRATEGIES FOR DELIVERING THE ENERGY DECLINE MESSAGE

The energy decline message is unavoidably a 'disappointment' to the listener.

The nature of the message puts the explainer in a position of power-of-knowledge over the hearer. To them, that can be shocking, intimidating, distressing and repulsive.

Here are some ways that avoid those things."

Definitely worth a read.

[gdub]

37. You guys are all cooked!

There is substantial support for Peak Oil as a hoax, both currently and in the 60 year history that the idea has existed. I am compiling an exhaustive resource on this topic as part of a book project.

Those that posit the "denial" theory are simply full of themselves. Denial here is substituted for lack of facts.

Please see some recent posts here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=122376&mesg_id=123044

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=266&topic_id=624&mesg_id=709

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=266&topic_id=624&mesg_id=711

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=266&topic_id=624&mesg_id=714

[Terry in Austin]

39. No harm in positing the "cooked" theory

That's your business. However, I've seen most of the material you cite, and weighed it against the material on oil depletion.

As far as I can judge, we're in for a long stretch of economic hardship, a significantly scaled-down use of energy, and a fundamental reorganization of life that has been built on abundant, cheap energy.

The numbers just aren't there to convince me that these consequences will be avoided. Nor are the numbers there to show that abiotic oil is likely to be available in sufficient quantities. The Russian results are interesting, but their interpretation is still very open.

"Peak" just means demand outrunning supply. That's happening right now. A look at the industry numbers, even with the most optimistic projections of discovery and production, shows that supply will not meet demand any time in the foreseeable future.

Does oil decline mean Mad Max, global chaos, massive dieoff? I wouldn't think so, but everybody's got their scenarios, some of them more plausible than others.

Is Peak Oil a hoax? Unlikely -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary support, and I've seen nothing extraordinary to support a hoax explanation. Your setting out to prove it as such is a little unsettling, but at the end of the day, you either have the factual support or you don't.

If it does turn out to be a hoax, I would be eager to know about it, since the proof would also have to show what the actuality is.

Good luck!