Discussion on:

Waiting for the punchline

Just wait until Yellowstone blows, decimates the midwest, and puts the world into a "nuclear winter" where we lose at least one full global growing season. With a death toll that could easily reach the billions you'd think we would wake up and see what we're doing to ourselves.

For most that world is to scary so they will like everything else most humans like to do. They will make it into a parity and make believe it could never happen. Take into consideration the amount of religiosity and well don't expect much from most of society.

Thanks for the piece, Chris.

Lots to talk about. I mean LOTS.

One thing that you don't treat, and which will play a huge role, is the paroxysms of geo-political mayhem that will be precipitated by the rolling denouement of the multiple story lines that you describe and of which we are all, mostly (even if only at a certain level) aware.

China's place in the global economy is growing by leaps and bounds. They do not have --and no such large state could have-- a truly stable society and government structure. Their one reliable available strategy for forcing domestic discipline is the demonization of foreign states and cultures. In full swing, and once the size of domestic markets challenges the export markets upon which they depend, they can easily create the most advanced and largest military capability in the world at a much smaller fraction of GDP than is achievable in the Western economies now. And in that same vein of discussion. The current economic crisis befalls a heavily leveraged US economy that has spent vast amounts of its domestic and foreign debt on what is the world's currently largest and most powerful militaries. The Chinese and US respective climb and decline curves will cross; probably within ... hmmm ... fifteen years? Ten? Eight?

China and te US are merely the two largest single factors on our political and economic landscapes. But since, alone, they are capable of bringing about complete, sudden, alteration of the status quo, the mind cannot even bring itself to boggle when we think about everything else than can be served up by any number of combinations of other players: the prospect of too much confusion is a sedative.

I think that this is basically what this is all about. Psychologists are finding that the only way to make people resist or even deny a hard truth is to explain more about it.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Walt. You've raised an important question - one I have been thinking about and might explore in a future column. How the US-China relationship plays out over the coming decades could be mutually beneficial in a big way, or it could be hugely and mutually self-destructive. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

China is now scrambling to duplicate the success of the US with fracking. If they can pull it off the global price of natural gas will crash and it will drag the global oil price down with it. You're not going to see a BTU of oil trade at 5X the price of a BTU of gas on an international basis, the global economy has too much gas-for-oil switching capacity for this to happen. Besides, China shale is probably wet enough to be a significant oil supply in it's own right.

I look for China to become an emerging energy super-power in 2020, and the US to become extracting it's vast coal-gasification options around that time. Peak oil is dead for a quarter century at least, I doubt your young enough to see it come back Chris. Your seriously kidding yourself if you think it will rebound in 2 years.

Of course the wild card is Middle Eastern shale. No-one's even tried to look at what can be fracked there. Did you notice that the birth of oil (Pennsylvania) is now a hot-bed of fracking? Hmm..... A quarter century might be too quick, peak oil might be dead for the next 100 years.

Ok, James, let's say you're right and we'll frack our way to energy independence here in the good old US of A (and in China and lots of other places). That will mean we'll be stuck with our oil addiction for... let's say 100 more years as you suggest. Well, that's going to royally screw up the climate (even worse) and raise CO2 levels in the ocean even more (thus lowering pH and killing off huge parts of the marine ecosystem). Ocean pH levels are, I think, the most immediate threat posed by burning fossil fuels. Ocean pH levels are falling rapidly (at least given the size of the ocean) and that's not only going to impact coral reefs (corals will not be able to grow or even live in the lower pH waters) but also shell fish and plankton. You kill off enough of that stuff and most higher life forms on the planet are pretty much toast.

I think if you're right we're facing a bigger ecological disaster than if we are in peak oil right here and now. If we find that there's still more "plentiful", "cheap" oil available to us for the burning people will continue buying gigantic SUVs not only here in the US, but also in China. If you're right, then we won't face up to the ecological problem. If we have peak oil now, then we'll be forced to use less of the stuff and that will (eventually) help mitigate the ecological problem. If we don't and you're right then we won't do anything meaningful to correct our course.

...and then there's the issue of fracking itself... Do we really want widespread fracking?

wackos always use to try to legislate their way into societies.

Why does it have to be simply SUVs? Why not clean and energy efficient SUVs? They are being produced now as we speak, and people are actually buying them and driving them.

The problem with the environmental agenda, is that, it doesn't care to listen ot the other side's views.

Besides, the ecological disaster idea came from the "global warming" junk science, which is basically an agenda driven research, which then makes that research, completely bogus and faulty and fraudulent.

Chris is driven by the same agenda, and, though he may sprinkle a few facts along the way in his articles to try to lend some sort of credibility to his overall assertions, the bigger point to him, is the environmental agenda. There is nothing wrong with having an environmental agenda, but it shouldn't be one that is based on faulty science,and on a social agenda to add more control over people's lives.

Why not clean SUV because reality has a way of inserting it self. That much weight is not something you can just put change in a way that will impact fuel economy. I own 2 I don't need to care because of my financial security but I don't kid my self that they are clean or fuel efficient. As I posted above fantasy seems to run deep for most people.

Nelder is a peak-energy guy. He staked his flag there. Peak-energy is now deader than a doornail, thanks to fracking.

Perhaps Nelder should stop carrying this "peak oil will doom us" sign and switch to carrying a "climate change will doom us".

"..and then there's the issue of fracking itself... Do we really want widespread fracking?" Considering that fracking has been widely used for 5 decades, I think the answer is yes.

The shale energy boom resulted from combining fracking with super-accurate long range horizontal drilling and carefully engineered frack fluids. Fracking is just the scare word the environmental nuts have latched on. Nelder has enough integrity to admit that shale energy is no worse, from an environmental standpoint, than anything else the oil industry has done.

Rooftop solar? EV cars? carbon free/carbon taxed? How? No one can afford to pay 2-10x as much for energy. No one is willing to regress to Amish levels of technology, and there's no money left to blow on pie in the sky dreams. Stop researching the environment, stop complaining about the enviromnent. Put your effort into economically effective solutions instead. find cheap hydrogen, invent something. NO OTHER SOLUTION WILL WORK OR BE ACCEPTED. Anything else is pissing into the wind. Clear enough guys?

could not have grown its economy to where it is now, without the U.S. shipping a lot of its production needs to China.

For China to grow to a point where it becomes a big threat to the U.S. economically, it would mean that the U.S. had declined to a point where its people were in very desperate economic times. But, that's a paradox which many people fail to see, that, if the U.S. does get to a point of desperate economics, that China itself would also because of that decline.

Basically, China is a "dependent" country, and it does not have the same independent structure that defines a self-sustaining economy, which could take care of its own population.

As goes the U.S., so goes China. That shouldn't be that hard to understand.

wallpalmer,

Perhaps, I'm naive, but only in America do we have such a virulent anti-logic and science denialist cult of almost religious proportions as are evidenced in a lot of the comments here. As the Great Contraction sets in, I've got to think that most of the world realizes that the next guy (country) has nothing worth spending needed treasure to steal. If there's geo-political mayhem in the years to come, we're the most likely suspects to be in the thick of it, most likely in the Middle East, where they will greatly regret ginning up their reserve figures.

And, what the heck is that "anti-science, denialist" crap?

The ones destroying the scientific method, are the environmental wackos, and their agenda driven "global warming" science. That is not science; that is junk science, aka: crap.

Once the "climate change" or "global warming" science uses proper research, not driven by an agenda, then they'll gain some credibility, but till then, they are nothing more than shysters, looking to pass control over people's lives, via junk science.

adomoe wrote, "And, what the heck is that "anti-science, denialist" crap?"

The heck would be you, sir! Are you living large on the climate change denial and lying fossil fool abundance boosterism you attempt to sow? Folks with reasoning faculties know you for what you are.

adornoe, you have demonstrated here time and again an ideologically driven agenda that largely ignores the real world. You wouldn't recognize the scientific method if it came up and slapped you in the face. You'll never believe what climate scientists find unless by some miracle they end up finding evidence that agrees with your ideology.

"perhaps the opinions and opposition from others should be considered, and perhaps there is worthy information to be gained from the opposition" Pidgeonholing and apparently assuming that everyone must address every possible issue at all times is not really effective argumentation. But the part I quoted makes good sense for all of us.

and opinion and opposing views should always be taken into consideration. Otherwise, it would just be an environment where the ones with the loudest voices get to rule. The environmental lobby is a very loud one, and they won't rest until they have their way, even when they might be in the minority.

You said: "He'll talk about disappearing species, while disregarding the well-known fact that, species have been disappearing from our planet from the very beginning, and they've been disappearing before humans came on board or before fossil fuels were even used."
Yes, this has happened since the beginning of time, it is the survival of the fittest. But, that is not what Chris is talking about. He is commenting on the speed that species are disappearing now. Never before have we been losing this many species.

Right, I think Chris is talking about the disappearance of entire ecosystems. For example, if the pH of the oceans falls enough (and we are seeing it falling now) then coral reefs will be killed off entirely. That would be a catastrophic loss of an entire ecosystem. It doesn't take much of a drop in pH in the oceans (due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere) to do something like that... it would also lead to the loss of most shellfish as they would not be able to form shells.

It's interesting the folks who say "We've always been losing species, what's the big deal?" seem to not think about the catastrophic scenarios we are now facing - the unfolding events have much more akin with a massive meteor strike that wiped out the dinosaurs only this time it could ultimately be us.

Dinosaurs disappeared without the help of humans. Twice!!!

Many other species also disappeared from the planet, via "climate change", but not because of the human use of fossil-fuels.

What happens in nature, is mostly driven by natural forces.

In fact, the Tsunami in the far east in 2004, caused large masses of the earth's crust to be shifted into different positions, which would disturb a lot of the species below and above water, and which also caused some change in the weather pattern, however small that was. The earth is undergoing constant change, and little by little, and for long periods of time, the weather patterns will have changed completely from what they are today, and all of that will have occurred naturally, and without the help of humans. Unless, of course, the environmental wackos want to attribute tectonic plate migration to SUVs and the "deniers".

The stupidity of the environmentalists never fails to amaze.

Chris "Malthus" Nelder. What a hoot. One supposes this is inevitably what happens when a software engineer with a chip on his shoulder decides to become an "energy expert."

For the entire history of the petroleum industry to date, we've been drilling for the left overs - the hydrocarbons that are actually expelled from the source rocks, and then trapped by chance in sparse, isolated rock formations that happen to be favorably configured to trap hydrocarbons. As one might imagine, despite the large volumes we've produced historically from these "conventional" reservoirs, these volumes represent only a *TINY* fraction of the hydrocarbons actually present in the source rocks themselves.

We know have the first generation of drilling and fracturing technology in the U.S. capable of targeting the source rocks directly. The potential reserves in these source rocks *DWARF* all the hydrocarbons produced by the industry to date.

There is nothing unique about America's petroleum producing geologic basins; the source rocks in these basins are similar to those found in every petroleum producing basin throughout the world. As the new drilling and fracking technology inexorably disseminates to the rest of the world, shale gas and liquids production will become the norm. The entire world will be swimming in a glut of oil and gas.

Bottom line: We won't hit peak oil in our lifetime, or our children's lifetime. Ain't technology grand?

If you're right and fracking technology will lead us to a shining future with giant SUVs for all... then we're screwed even worse from an ecological perspective. if oil remains relatively cheap we'll keep burning the stuff and that will lead to even more problems with our climate and oceans. If you're right I think it would actually be the worst case scenario - the only thing that's curbed oil use in the past has been price increases. If oil remains relatively plentiful we will not curb our use of the stuff and we'll damage our ecosystem irreversibly.

Powerful language. May be you are perfectly correct.
Human beings have a strange power to adapt. May be he will be able to overcome the difficulties.
In the mean time, let those who want to enjoy, let them do it in their own way.
I am a third world Scientist.
Gopinathan Krishnan

There are solutions, he has a gloom and doom outlook. Technological solution stories on smartplanet should give people hope.

This is probably the best article I`ve read anywhere in over a year. What an amazing and refreshing perspective!

It is absolutely the best thing I`ve read this year and sets an extremely high bar for every op/ed piece I`ll read in 2013.

Good luck topping this.

and you need to read more, otherwise, you will continue to be led down the path of the ill-informed.

What a horrible, horrible time to be a peak-energy doomer. It must pain you, deeply, to look at the Henry Hub price every morning.

Today it's around 3.10 per MMBTU. Normalizing against median household income, this is the cheapest natural gas has been in the history of America. And let's not forget, a BTU of natural gas is the most useful BTU of fossil fuel known to man, incredibly clean to burn and hyper-efficient at performing useful work. A modern natural gas power plant approaches twice the efficiency of an aging coal plant, when comparing BTU's in to kilowatt hours out.

The coming decade, and the associated explosion of shale energy in America will make these Nelder postings more quaint and humorous. I expect, by 2020, people will read such things and laugh ... "can you believe supposedly smart people actually worried where the energy was going to come from".

If it makes you feel better Chris, I doubt any news show will have you on anytime soon. Your peak oil background now has you on the wrong side of history.

Keep your tin-foil hat on tight Chris. The shale gale is going to blow long and hard.

in his next blog.

Chris actually thinks there is only one negative commenter that follows him everywhere and uses different aliases. It's all part of his wonderfully florid imagination.

Actually, there are many people who gritted their teeth when clowns like this were taken seriously in '08, and now get their kicks by kicking Chris while he's down. Should be good sport for the next 2 decades are so. Welcome to the "Kick Chris" club adorne. You can follow his (sadly infrequent) media appearances by watching his http://www.getreallist.com/ blog, which nicely tracks his every move.

with him.

Remember, even the negative comments, add to his visibility, and his popularity.

We won't hesitate in giving you the boot for personal attacks.

Disagree with him as much as you want, but don't be a dick.

There is certainly plenty of opportunity for disagreement.

I'm glad you are not sleeping at the switch. These two are viscous.

A lot of the problems that Chris Nelder wrote can be attributed to human over population. The seas are overfished because of the increase of people, the fossil fuels are burned at increasing rates to support the world of humans.

There have been population studies using rats put into a finite space but with enough food for all. It does not take long for the population of rats to increase to see the effects of the stress caused by crowding, even though there is enough food and water for all. At a point near peak population the rats start acting differently and more aggressively. Food and water is cheap but a nest is dear and hard to keep. The researchers saw rats do things that rats don't do in the wild, things like murder and violence against each other. Then at the peak of population the rats suddenly die off until it is back to a more normal population.

Humans are a social group and can tolerate some crowding, but in the past there was always unsettled land that people can migrate to escape the crowds. We are running out of unsettled land that can support the crops and animals needed to survive. We are seeing increasing and irrational actions by a growing group of violent men and women.

With this view, Malthus was an optimist. Mankind has been extremely clever at finding solutions that help add to the human population without forcing groups to feast and famine conditions.

in order to help the planet,

But, don't stop there. I would suggest to all that feel that the globe is overpopulated, that they too have a duty to help the planet by, not breeding and/or dying early.

Studies have been conducted that showed that, the world is easily capable of sustaining a population of 20 billion or more, with food and and whatever else is needed. But, a self-sustaining world population is not what the liberal/socialist agenda is about; it's about control of that population, by whatever means necessary. Part of the agenda includes scaring people into doing things to get that agenda implemented.

Some people, like Chris, may pretend that, it is he and his co-alarmists who care about the world's condition, but it's mostly a fake concern. That fake concern is used to try to advance the alarmists' agenda.

It is possible that the earth can support 20 bilion people, but it is not that probable. Using your own words, people will always disagree. On a talk back that usually is a polite agreement to disagree; but you make it personal and impolite.

Let me assure you that my death will come as will yours. We actually are closer to agreement on things but the main difference between us is that I do not need to be right and actually would prefer to be wrong about what I wrote.

In a world with over 7 billion humans, there are so many small wars, threats of aggression and misery. To triple that and think that there will be no aggression of one group against others is magical thinking.

To talk about possible negative changes is not alarmist, it is considering patterns and conditions as a warning to either prevent or prepare for those events. Besides, your strident comments have not disproved anything other than you have respect for others.

do not bother to respond, I will not check this discussion again.

As we look back in history at the great civilizations that came before, we notice one thing. They are all dead. In virtually all cases, there were doom-sayers who saw it coming. But no one listened to them. Where are they now, the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Mayans? The ruins of their great civilizations remain after each and every one of them fell. But some small smidgen of the people remained. Humans survived, even if the civilizations did not. Given this terrible trend in human history, why do so many people think that our modern civilization will somehow escape the cyclical fate of our ancestors?

civilizations.

What England used to be, started disappearing long before the U.S. revolutionary war. And the U.S. started its downward slide towards insignificance when the people started deciding that, big government was preferable to self-governance, self-reliance, and their freedoms. It's only a matter of time before the U.S. becomes a third-world country, and we're way on the way towards that finality.

Chris, old buddy, you've gone and done it this time. The denialist fossil fools have driven in their monster SUV's straight to Bonkersville. All they can sputter is drilling enough holes to burn this planet down, after turning it into a wasteland. All it took was Kunstleresqe resignation. Bravo!

They may not appreciate your research and real numbers but I do.

I'm having trouble finding a number and wonder whether you might have access to it without too much trouble. Is there any average number that can be put to the overall output of a natural gas frack well, i.e., how much gas will come out of the average NG fracked well by the time it's too miniscule to deal with, counting dry holes and all? Do I remember correctly that output falls precipitously over the first year to 10% of original output and continues to fall slowly in subsequent years for the 5-10 year life of the well? Looking for a cumulative average per drilled and fracked well, today, realizing that over time that average output will fall because of the first and easiest fruits principle? I understand that it's liable to be real tentative with questionable accuracy.

Thanks if you can help!

Hi Ron,

One could calculate the average production of all shale gas wells in the US, I suppose, and somebody probably has, but it wouldn't be very useful. Production varies widely from play to play, and even within the plays. I.e., the "sweet spots" in a given play will be much more productive than the ones on the edges. If you look back through my archive of shale gas stories you'll find some data and production charts on the various plays. And yes, all shale gas wells have steep decline profiles for the first year. Most of them show a quasi-hyperbolic profile.

Thanks Chris, I think I can extrapolate from numbers found here: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/take/the-murky-future-of-us-shale-gas/157

Gas production in the US has flattened simply because we're producing more than we can use. In fact, natural gas storage for this time of year is at near record levels for the past 12 years ( http://ir.eia.gov/ngs/ngs.html ). As a result, the price is near the cost of production (around $3.50) and producers have shifted from producing shale gas to producing shale oil.

What you are "extrapolating" as the beginning of the end is actually evidence of overabundance.

The point is simply this

-> there is a huge amount of natural gas waiting for $4.
-> $4 IS cheap energy

ergo ....

in the USA we have an abundance of cheap energy.

Obvious, no? This is what Nelder is mourning. The presence of cheap energy.

". If you look back through my archive of shale gas stories " what you'll actually find is a lot of doom and gloom predictions that are now proving spectacularly false.

Aubrey Mclendon is the next Bernie Madoff, if only we wait long enough his fraud will be exposed, that kind of stuff.

at the "competing" data regarding the production of fossil-fuels and of natural gas, chances are that, you'd notice that, what you and Chris "believe", is the part that makes you and Chris the real "bonkersville".

A "denier" is a denier, not because he wants to just be rebellious, but because he is a proponent of real research and real science, which is not part of an agenda.

You have not learned what real science is, and real science is not what the "global warming" alarmists practice.

Keeping the planet clean and safe? Who wouldn't want that? But, who wants to bastardize real science just to achieve his/her political goals?

You have yet to demonstrate that you know what real science and research is. Most of the things that climate scientist have expected to happen are happening, often faster than they expected.

Chris speaks to my condition exactly.
Franny Armstrong said it first; if you give yeast carbon energy (ie sugar) what does it do? It gobbles up the energy as fast as it can, reproduces out of control and dies in its own waste products. And there's nothing we are doing that is any different.
Except that we are supposed to be clever enough to realise it.
And with yeast, at least you get beer and bread in the end..

Sheesh, man! Get some education, and come up with something more clever.

I like that ...yeast. We've all heard the virus analogy from "The Matrix" fame. Some people will fight to get back into the Matrix... Get Back! He's gonna POP!

A better analogy is that mankind is like the cane toads in Australia. The cane toad was transplanted to address a problem with pests and became a greater pest. The problem with the cane toad in australia is that it has no predators to keep the cane toad populations in balance. Man does not have a predator to keep population balances stable; disease, war and poverty are the only checks to the imbalance.

"Merely stocking up on guns and ammo... it will ... result every so often in classroom full of dead kids."

The author is an anti-self defense spinner. The author, and anyone else, is free to disarm themselves, if they think it will prevent themselves from committing crimes. Its a free country.

I'll keep my guns and ammo thanks. In case a psychologically defective person like that killer comes to attack me, I can use those modern tools to defend myself. It's because I'm responsible for my own safety and I am not a victim.

Schools should have better security against such persons. Pencils don't make spelling mistakes, cars don't drive drunk, and guns don't kill. It is "People" that do things. A way to identify crazy people has to be found.

do that!

That would be placing the blame where it belongs, and so, we must place the blame on guns, to be fair to the unstable people. Without the guns, people wouldn't get any kind of ideas about going out to kill people, or to commit robberies, or to get revenge on someone. Guns are the problem. They cause people to become psychologically unstable.

Before guns were invented, people didn't commit murders, or commit robberies. Look it up. It has to be in a liberal encyclopedia somewhere.

Ok, how about if before you are allowed to buy a gun or ammunition you are subject to a day or more of psychological testing to determine if you are sane enough to responsibly possess a firearm? Add to that jail time if your gun is used by someone else to commit a crime.

Yes there is lots of energy in unconventional sources, like shale and oil sands, but extracting it ruins lots of fresh water, which we are also running out of. The GAO found: "energy and water planning are generally 'stove-piped,' with decisions about one resource made without considering impacts to the other resource." http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-880.

not really.

How about this, when all the golf courses turn brown from a lack of water, I'll start worrying about water shortages. Otherwise, it looks like so much more fearmongering.

Not saying there isn't an issue there to address. I support desalination, as is common in Australia. But if you think fracking will stop for a lack of water, you just haven't looked at the numbers.

Apocalypse coming soon (or) the New and Improved Dark Ages. It will get worse and it will get better. Just as Humanity has fallen from past Civilizations ours will alternately fall and then rise.
I now own a Prius and a Prius and a Ford F150 PU. I rarely drive the gas hog, but it does things the Prii don't. The household uses about $60/month in electricity, $40/month for natural gas. The garbage can is almost empty every week, the recycling can is used a little. We are thrifty consumers by average USA standards.
When I was running a business there was always some high priority that needed my attention. I found that it usually came down to time or money, sometimes both. I would either waste money or time to solve the problem, before the next high priority came along.
We as a country are trying to solve the immediate problem because it is right in front of us instead of looking a little further ahead to see the big picture. It has always been this way and won't change. What some of us are seeing in the future is very scarry and what is worse is that we can't seem to get others to even acknowledge its coming. So we tend to yell louder thinking this will get thier attention. Then we realize that they are only shoving thier earplugs in deeper and turning up the volume so they can't hear us.
Some very promising research is being done in many fields at the same time. Some very effective propaganda is being very well funded to make sure that we maintian the status quo. Reality will eventually catch up to society and the most advanced and far thinking of us will at least understand it is coming and have some idea about what to do. The others will be living in the New and Improved Dark Ages.

My question is: If we had no media and/or knowledge of these issues, how would their realities affects us? Would we be just as stressed? Would we worry? Does or worrying do any good anyway? Arent we acting on inaction or distractions from the most critical issues? Cant we just reboot our economic system and debt like so many civilizations have in the past? Should we just maintain, or should we start rebuilding now as if the fall of Rome has already happened? If we ignore the global and economic issues, and do our best for the earth and each other, will it all work out anyway? After all: Didnt we basically vote for sex and drugs in the last election, rather than for real solutions to the debt and energy? Will who marries who and where we can get a joint really matter when the fall comes? IF the fall comes? When there is a critical threat to the body, or even to a computer, all non-critical systems shut down in favor of the most necessary. Why arent we doing this as a nation as well? When I get in a car wreck, I dont really think about sex and drugs. When I rehab my spinal injury I dont really think about abortion and other social issues. I focus on walking again, etc. We cant all just sit in a tent and protest those who have more insignificant things than we do. After all, our 99% is still in the 1% world-wide!

Thanks Chris. I liked YOUR observations ALOT. You have a talent at seeing the big picture and articulating the same (without stats, graphs and hard data). You do that type reporting even better but it's very nice to see this side of your talent as well. DRIVE ON SOLDIER! DRIVE ON!

I'll need to contact Kuntsler now and tell him he has a competitor kindred spirit that understood "the Long Emergency" and reframed it in the Long Contraction. Do you recall Helicopter Ben's doublespeak telling us he was taking us in for a "soft Landing".

Along with the theme of the article, I recently got to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on NETFLIX for the first time. I still can't get the time exposure satellite images of the melting glaciers out of my head. Ironically over at Energy & Capital diaspora, our buddy K.K. is telling us that Al's company is moving dollars out of green energy. I think part of our societal zombification is majorly attributable to TMI (too much information) and TMW (too much work). We don't know what to believe in a gray semi-factual world.

I chose to take the "RED PILL" abnd Iwe've been to the bottom of the rabbit hole. Now the science no longer seems like magic.

Most amusing comments from a kindred spirit. JK knows me but go ahead. I wish K.K. well. It is refreshing to write about something other than data once in a while. I might make it a top o' the year tradition. Drive on...

Chris, I applaud you on capturing perfectly the way I feel. As a physicist I worked for years on instruments to measure climate change, and when I realized the seriousness of the problem I began a personal quest to find "the most cost-effective solutions." Like many other engineers, I soon calculated that energy conservation in buildings and power plant design, re-designing of our cities (and cultural expectations of what a city should be like) to be transit-efficient, wind energy+energy storage systems (= electric cars), and nuclear fission were among the most cost-effective near-term solutions available. I began to transition toward a career in nuclear energy in anticipation of the "nuclear renaissance" that was obviously coming soon.... except it did not come. Neither did the transit-efficient cities, or the energy storage systems, and the energy conservation buildings, power plants, and wind turbines are arriving far too slowly to make any significant change in our terrible trajectory. For two decades now I have watched with stunned amazement as "the band plays on," marching as it were across the deck of the Titanic to cheer the crowds of passengers wondering about that "loud thumping sound" they imagined they might have heard...

You described me well in your paragraph,

"...I have found them generally to be quiet, studious, scientifically-minded people who, for whatever reason, latched on to a study of data and eventually realized the terrible implications of it. They dont want society to collapse any more than the next person; indeed, most of them have suffered enormously to prevent it and get their messages out against a tide of well-funded propaganda, to an audience of poor students who mostly dont want to hear it. They have all sacrificed friends, marriages, jobs, and family relations in their quests for the truth.
...they have also come to terms with their grief... Now they look on collapse with a cool resignation, and perhaps a bit of impatience..."

I am still working on a "safer" (better) Fourth Generation nuclear reactor design which will, I hope, be used in Asia (Indian and China) in place of many of the coal and natural-gas power plants that would otherwise be built there. I am usually not paid for this work--I do it as a hobby (with a team of other philanthropic hobbyist physicists from around North America) because there is no "market" for saving the world 40 years from now. I am still looking for the way in which my particular talents as a physicist could best help the world in this tragic situation. Unfortunately, seeing the path we have taken in the past 20 years, I cannot imagine how my efforts could possibly help at this pace. If I and a thousand scientists like me swim against the current of the other 7 billion with all our strength, we cannot steer this ship away from its now evident destiny: climate change leading to a "significant reduction in earth's human carrying capacity."

That is a fairly cool, resigned, and impatient way of describing a wave of global genocide that will dwarf anything in the 20th century by about two orders of magnitude. My only consolation is that I won't live long enough to see it. I feel very sorry for my children however, and I struggle with myself, to avoid recommending to my children that they "avoid the mistake of having another generation of children who will have to live through what is coming."

Thanks for sharing your experience, madboy. I hear you and share your internal struggle. It's a burden to understand the data and to be unable to get others, especially decision makers, to comprehend it. But whaddyagonnado, except carry on applying your talents and knowledge the best you can? If you ever get traction in getting your reactor built, please drop me a line about it.

Mr. Nelder talks about being called a peak freak and points to a video posted in May, 2008. In it (about 2:30 in), he says expects peak oil to be reached in about 2 years -- or 2010. Now in his current post he's saying "I think well be kept in suspense for at least another year".

If Mr. Nelder misses by a few years, I don't suppose anybody can fault him. But it's the same song I've heard all my life. Back in the '60s it was how we would run out of food and other resources and face global collapse by 2000. Then 2000 arrived and the global standard of living was at an all-time high. That didn't work out, so now it's peak oil that will seal our doom. Except even back in the '60s people were also talking about running out of oil by 2000 and that didn't happen either.

Yes, the world is a finite place. If you sound doomsday long enough one day you'll be right. But I've lived over 50 years on this planet and doomsday keeps being delayed. It's delayed not because of the alarmists but because of the people who work on the problem a little bit everyday. They find better ways to produce more food, manufacture using less materials and energy, and yes, even better ways to find and drill for oil and gas.

Keep it up, Chris!

The Fracturalists miss what matters, sadly, so do the Peak Oilers.

Using fossil fuels does not provide an end product or a 'good' in return for the fuel. Except for taxi drivers and delivery men, driving a car does not pay for the car nor does it pay for the fuel. Driving the car does not pay for the road or other bits of infrastructure, the military needed to steal the fuel or the finance establishment needed to 'massage' the costs. Everything must be funded with loans which now total hundreds of trillions of dollars.

The only way users can meet the (credit) costs is if the fuel is very cheap. When the fuel becomes pricey -- because of diminished supply -- the fuel cost must be added to the cost of expensive credit. The outcome is economies falling underwater and entire countries becoming bankrupt.

YOU can point to frakking and 'technology' and I will point toward teetering France, Italy, Spain, Japan ... China, USA, the world's auto industry, the world's finance sector ... all poised at the edge of the abyss or ... over the edge.

This is the point when the cost of gaining new fuel cannot be met by the creditworthiness of the fuel consumer, this is 'net energy negative' and the world is very close to that point, two years away or less.

This isn't a theory, it is what the crude oil price in world markets say. The markets say the world is becoming poorer and must borrow less ... meanwhile, the cost of new fuel relentlessly increases. Fracking and deepwater drilling are a lot of things ... mainly expensive. It does not matter how much reserves a country has if nobody can afford them.

Right now there is rationing by access to credit, when this process is unworkable there will be physical rationing. There will be permanent shortages and the usual gas lines and panic. Permanent: when fuel is unavailable because the customers cannot afford it, there will be diminished fuel available as people become poorer, over time.

Sorry to rain on yr parades but the only solution is to get rid of the car(s).