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Peak Oil Passnotes: Where Is the Recession?
Edward Tapamor, Resource Investor
…I am not going to make any bold predictions here. What I would like is to run through some probabilities. Firstly that energy costs have been absorbed by many ordinary people in the rich economies of the world, the OECD nations. Those costs have either been ignored by the very rich – I mean the top 1 or 2% of earners – or they have been passed along the chain by regular earners.
The very poor are already starting to hurt, we can see this from anecdotal evidence of pensioners, students and other low income earners. Most people however have passed on higher energy costs just as they have passed on low wage increases, they turned it into debt. Then they turned it into more debt. The took advantage of the fear of a deflationary recession – and resulting low interest rates – to re-mortgage and so on.
In fact all over the OECD countries they have done the exact opposite of save. They have heavily indebted themselves. In an economy with a fear of deflation it became very easy.
…A consolidated ‘free market’ economy has been able to also absorb high energy costs. There has been a round of consolidation across many industries, from cars, to oil companies themselves. There has been the reliance on goods from super-cheap countries mainly China. But now even the Chinese economy is showing signs of inflation.
…When the oil price first moved up movers and shakers said it would be no problem until it got to where we are today. They could well have been right. In a tightening cycle, with an impending shake-out of the most indebted, well, in the next 12 months we could have problems. Serious problems.
(14 July 2006)
Using community radio to communicate peak oil
KVMR (Nevada City, California)
A unique, first-of-its-kind regional “Town Hall Meeting” will bring listeners of five northern California community radio stations — including Nevada City’s KVMR (89.5 FM) — into a common dialogue on what the stations are calling the burgeoning “localization” movement when they simulcast together this Wednesday night (July 19) from 7 to 9 p.m.
…The topic at hand of Wednesday’s broadcast will be the efforts of a number of northern California communities to become more self-reliant as global oil supplies decline relative to demand. This “peak oil” hypothesis has led to formation of “localization” groups in such places as Laytonville, Willits, Garberville and western Nevada County. Issues explored by these groups include expanding local food production, developing sustainable building material and improving energy sources not derived from petroleum. Guests at each participating radio station will describe activities going on in their communities.
“If we can pull off the challenge of technological wizardry that it is,” says Baker, “it’s what community radio was meant to be.”
(14 July 2006)
Potential Impact of Cantarell’s Decline on Mexico’s Oil Production
Khebab, The Oil Drum
In 2005, Cantarell produced more than 60% of Mexico’s oil production. Therefore, Cantarell can be considered as the “Ghawar” of Mexico. As we can see on Fig. 1, Cantarell’s output doubled within a few years thanks to Nitrogen injection. However, the oilfield production has started to decline rapidly since 2004: [Graph]
We are proposing to analyze the Mexican production based on two separate Hubbert Linearizations. The resulting production decline is much more important than the decline forecasted by the application of one Hubbert Linearization on the total profile.
(14 July 2006)
