Back on terra firma, Oilman2 added something to think about if you’re considering that idea I mentioned (buy “proven reserves” and wait).
First, read this (it’s short):
BP Expects Shale Boom in Russia and S. America to Cause Problems for Middle East
Now, look at CanUSA – 3450 rigs total with 1754 in US & Canada 804 or so. There are 3450 land rigs in the world…..1754 + 804 = 2558 and 2558/3450 = 74%
Knowing that Shale gas and oil entail “drill or die” programs due to the nature of their depletion curves, they are proclaiming that the remaining rigs in the world all leave China, Saudi, Africa, Indonesia, etc. and go to Russia, whereupon 26% of the world fleet will perform like the 74% we have here in CanUSA…
DO NOT even get me going on how dilapidated the majority of the Russian/CIS rigs are (circa 1940 in age)…
BP is obviously smoking a unique blend of ganja, and we should invite them to meet us in Colorado where we can “share their vision”…
George, this is why most industry ‘analysts” should be drawn and quartered – they believe anything they hear over a few beers and lack any deductive reasoning capacity.
FMTT, can I borrow your vicegrips?Oilman2
We are also thinking through the matter of what’s a “proven reserve.” Back in the day (when there were real oil analysts you’d be able to get reports that listed in tabular fashion “If oil is $150 then we have Y million barrels recoverable.. If the Price is $80, we have Z barrels recoverable.
They don’t call them the “good old days” for nothing.
Today it’s hard to work the numbers. An oil company might have X in “proven reserves” but the multiplicity of factors leading to an insight on what’s profitable has tossed in so many interdependent variables has to make home calculation damn near impossible.
Some of the factors that come into play:
- What’s the current (real) water cut in Saudi Arabia?
- Is Venezuela stable?
- How long are current prices expected to remain stable?
- What’s the public mood and education level in proven reserve areas only recoverable by fracking?
- What’s the environmental penalty cost if we frack anyway?
- What’s the US dollar outlook, and how long is China going to keep us afloat?
I’m not going to tell you where this picture of a new kind of law enforcement came from, but once again, we see how the “federalization” of local police agencies is in full-tilt boogie.
As one reader tells us:
LE guys or government bureaucrats who take a 1, 2 or 3-day course and work for counties via the TNRCC. In short, amateur “eco-police” that aren’t likely to know what dihydrogen oxide is….
Photo of HUGELY labeled vehicle attached for your enjoyment…
All of which makes it clean that a citizen innocently burning trash (or leaves) can no longer do so secure in the knowledge that they are keeping up their property and removing fire hazards. No, we have a new kind of (totalitarian) off in the wings. Global Warming will be the “new terrorism” – just watch.
Yes sir, here’ how I expect it to roll: EnviroCops who will inspect your septic, check to see that you’re not filching the King’s water with a rain barrel hooked up to your gutters or some other heinous crime. Oregon’s rolling this out already!
And we better call the SWAT team because there’s a guy changing the oil in his car in that driveway over there without a permit, and look, what’s that?
“OMG, down men! He’s got an unregistered five gallon pail of used oil in his garage. Why, he’s a….a…ECO .TERRORIST!”
Of course, it is a crime to flush used motor oil down a storm drain, but the cost benefit of things like EnviroCops seems sketchy at best.
But when you step back far enough, a pattern emerges: We’re in a period of history where government action/regulation is being used as THE major job creation tool.
The possibility that some f-tard could dump oil down a drain will be used, sure as hell, to create mandatory oil change logging next!
I can see it already: “Sonny,” says the officer on a traffic stop, “Let me see your drivers license, insurance card, oil change and maintenance log, Oh! and your DNA sample…”
Say no to any of it (“But officer, I changed my own oil and I recycled it at AutoZone!” “Oh yeah? Got a receipt for four and a half quarts on you with a countersigned odometer log entry from an approved parts store?”
And they’re going to pull up GPS logs to cross check, to make sure you went to AutoZone since that’s all on file, too.
But in the meantime, the real environmental killers are hiding behind the boardroom doors as reader Skie fills us in from water-parched West Virginia…
My aunt, who lives in Huntington WV , has had a long battle with various cancers. recently it was found that she has many nodes and cysts in her throat and yesterday went in for a surgical biopsy. She was the THIRD person for such an operation that day! The doctor says he’s never seen so many people in one area have these same problems.
Even the famous Erin Brockovich is there investigating. This is at least an hour away from Charleston and obviously it takes more than a week for these things to show up in numbers so whatever environmental problem this is has been going on for a while.this part of WV is a big coal mining area, not sure if that could be related to the cause.
Are the the EnviroCops out interviewing doctors and PA’s (physcian assistants) and oncologists in West Virginia looking for cancer clusters (Answer: hell no, that might point up the food chain!) and doing the hard frigging work to trace back human health to point-source pollution? Nope. They aren’t eco-terrorists. You are.
How this works is simple if you missed the pattern: The “free enterprise” answer is to wait until Ms. Brockovich and other defenders of the public good, put it all together.
But those things all take time and the point-source polluters know that. So the dirty boardroom model is to “run the clock” and even when lawsuits are eventually brought, the sleazy corpdog legal beagles will exclude from the class seeking damages anyone who was only likely impacted by whatever pollutant is involved. Watch ‘em exclude the dead, too, since they can be put under cross…
But, by God, we’ve gotta harass Joe Six-pack because he’s a Saturday morning Environmental Terrorist with his oil change at home plans….
All of this sounds like a terrifying (and impossible fictional) direction for the US to devolve into: Criminalizing the “do it yourself” class, but in case you haven’t noticed, that template has been slowly lowered over American over the past 50-years. Need examples? Sure…
- Once upon a time, it was possible to install a new branch circuit (like out to your greenhouse, or carport for example) without having to pull an electrical permit. Try doing that anywhere but here in the (still sane but only for now) outback.
- Once upon a time you could build a whole house without a building permit. You bought land, and built.
- Today you need a building permit
- Today you need an architect in mpst cities to sign off of structural loads
- Today this crap includes a simple Carport, that used to be a father-son weekend project
- Today you may need for that same thing:
- Building permit
- Storm water runoff management report
- Seismic study
- Soil engineer’s report
- And (dazzlingly) an environmental impact statement…
I’m telling you now, in case you missed the point, that the next time you go to the local lumber yard, keep an eye peeled for that city or county zoning stooge on stakeout. “George, what you buying all them 2-by-4’s for?” Don’t say nuthin. “I cut them up and burn them. Makes a nice, neat fire.” “Got a fireplace inspection?” It never ends…
And don’t forget to pull an electrical permit if you want lights in that snuck-in carport.
There was a joke, once upon a time in America (before it became the corporative ‘Merica”) about those “Do not remove this label under penalty of Federal Law” labels that were on furniture cushions and even pillows.
Well, I got news for you: I’m a label-ripper and I’m pretty sure that makes me a Class 2 Felon, though I’m yet to be convicted.
So for now, I just quietly live in the Outback, staying out of the way of “the machine” and “EnviroCops” although even my fall-back strategy is bound to fail. And you know why? Because we have a seasonal creek that comes down the hill north of us and that’s going to be (if it hasn’t already) become “Navigable Waters of the United States.”
This is why even tattered ‘Merica’ is doomed.
But not to worry. I’ve figured out how to make it through and prosper in the process.
I’m gonna rent ViceGrips to half-dozen, or so, Free Men and Free Women who see the game for what it is, and like me, need some “high pressure counseling.”
Wait! I’m sure there’s got to be a law against renting out ViceGrips.
Let me get back to you on that. In the meantime, go read the 2005 Hirsch report on peak oil, that says in part:
The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an
unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.
Care to guess when NOW is? Yes: this is just the leading edges of economic, social, and political costs. The final press of the Roaring Teens as compared with the Roaring 20’s.
Normally, on a Friday morning, I’d admonish you to go out and make something of value with your resources this weekend. You know, work in the home shop, get that garden ready for spring, change your own oil, build a carport of deck.
But since America sunsetted, I think that would make me an unindicted co-conspirator. Just in that list I’ve stepped into OSHO (power tools), FDA (food safety), EPS (oil pollution), and Zoning Departments (permit also means “to allow” and I don’t agree to “permitting” me something on my own property). But you know what? That’s how freedom left. It’s how it got hijacked and turned into millions of government jobs.
So this weekend, go abuse some legal substance, get laid, do nothing, get deeper in debt and continue to rent your life from the corporate machine. It’s where we’re going and a freedom loving old cuss like me isn’t going to change much on his own. Government is selling the myth that it can legislate against stupidity and people have bought it.
There’s a circular reference in there if you look close.
Or, Form a Church
Reader Bill piped up on our discussion of sod home, t’other morning:
Our spiritual order has a 330 acre organic farm in Southern Oregon. As a project they had a man from Eastern Europe come over who was an expert in building Cobb houses. He directed the building of a very cozy pleasant Cobb House. With real windows and doors fitted and a real flooring. In our case the retreat management decided to pay to have a regular shingled carpenter type roof built for it. However, the Cobb Houses are usually covered with Thatches and that works quite well. And don’t cost much either.
They the Cobb House, are usually finished on the outside by painting with a soup made of limestone and water, works fine last a LONG time. There are Cobb houses in Europe and Africa that are 1,000 years old.
Basically anyone with energy and willingness to follow directions can build a Cobb House. Don’t take a lot of money.
I would think a Cobb House would be much more to your liking and desires than an Icelandic turf house.
That sounds way cool. Except, I wonder if the building department got involved in that one? You see: Claiming separation of Church and State, I can see how a common-sense spiritual group could have a “temple” specified in it’s good book that would need to be made out of cobb.
Not building department would challenge that since it’d be a religion deal.
Don’t look now, but L. Ron Hubbard got there first.
Write when you break even…
George george@ure.net