Peak oil is now official

Written By: Ed Deak
Date: 2006-03-26 11:51:00
<a href="/article/155113672-peak-oil-is-now-official">Article Link</a>

A leaked internal memo from inside Pemex said water and gas were seeping into the massive offshore oil field. Cantarell is showing the signs of peaking.

Canterell's Output Levels
Year Output
1994 1.0 mb/d
2000 1.5 mb/d
2004 2.13 mb/d (Peak)
2005 2.0 mb/d
2006 1.9 mb/d (projected)
2008 1.43 mb/d (projected)

To make up the decline of Cantarell, Pemex is spending billions to develop new fields such as Chicontepec. This will prove difficult for a company that lost $3.75 billion in 2005, during a time of record high crude prices.

<a href="http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=269">http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=269</a>

[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on March 27, 2006]

Why & How, We have all been Bush Wacked ! The Secret Covenant!

A Must READ !!!! In order to STOP WARS & Establish PEACE !

THE SECRET COVENANT

An illusion it will be, so large, so vast
It will escape their perception

Those who see it will be thought of as insane
We will create separate fronts to prevent them
From seeing the connection between us

We will behave as if we are not connected
To keep the Illusion alive

Our goal will be accomplished one drop at a time
So as never to bring suspicion upon ourselves
We will also prevent them from seeing changes as they occur

We will also stand above the relative field of their experience For we
know the secrets of the absolute

We will work together always and will remain
Bound by blood and secrecy

Death will come to he who speaks.

We will keep their lifespan short and their
Minds weak while pretending to do the opposite

We will use our knowledge of science and technology
In subtle ways so they will never see what is happening

We will use soft metals and aging accelerators and
Sedatives in food and water; also in the air

They will be blanketed by poison everywhere they turn
The soft metal will cause them to lose their minds

We will promise to find a cure from our many fronts
Yet we will feed them more poison

The poisons will be absorbed through their skin and their mouths They
will destroy their minds and their reproductive systems

From all of this, their children will be born dead
And we will conceal this information

The poison will be hidden in everything that surrounds them
In what they drink, eat, breathe and wear

We must be ingenious in dispensing the poisons for they can see far We
will teach them that the poisons are good With fun images and musical
tones

Those they look up to will help
We will enlist them to push our poisons

They will see our product being used in film and will grow Accustomed to
them and will never know their true effect

When they give birth we will inject poisons into the blood of their
children
and convince them it's for their help

We will start early, when their minds are young
We will target their children with what children love most, Sweet things

When their teeth decay we will fill them with metals that will Kill
their mind and steal their future

When their ability to learn has been affected, we will create medicine
that
will make them sicker
And cause other diseases for which we will create yet more medicine

We will render them docile and weak before us by our power
They will grow depressed, slow and obese, and when they come to us for
help We will give them more poison

We will focus their attention toward money and material goods So they
may never connect with their inner self

We will distract them with fornication, external pleasures and games So
they may never be ONE with the ONENESS OF IT ALL .

Their minds will belong to us and they will do as we say.

If they refuse we shall find ways to implement
Mind-Altering technology into their lives

We will use FEAR as our weapon.

We will establish their governments
And establish opposites within

We will own both sides

We will always hide our objective but carry out our plan
They will perform for us and we shall prosper for their toil

Our families will never mix with theirs.
Our blood must be pure always, for that is the way

We will make them kill each other when it suits us
We will keep them separated from the ONENESS by dogma and religion

We will control all aspects of their lives and tell
Them what to think and how

We will guide them kindly and gently letting them
Think they are guiding themselves

We will ferment animosity between them through our factions.

When a light shall shine among them, we shall
Extinguish it by ridicule, or death, whatever suits us best

We will make them rip each other's throats apart
And kill their own children

We will accomplish this by using hate as our ally,
Anger as our friend

The hate will bind them totally, and never
Shall they see that from their conflicts we emerge
As the rulers

They will be busy killing each other
They will bathe in their own blood and kill
Their neighbors for as long as we see fit

We will benefit greatly from this, for they will not see us, For they
cannot see us

We will continue to prosper from their wars
And their deaths

We shall repeat this over and over until our ultimate
Goal is accomplished

We will continue to make them live in fear and anger
Through images and sounds

We will use all the tools we have to accomplish this
The tools they have provided by their labor

We will make them hate themselves
And their neighbors

We will always hide the divine truth from them

THAT WE ARE ALL ONE

THIS THEY MUST NEVER KNOW!

THEY MUST NEVER KNOW THAT COLOR IS AN ILLUSION

THEY MUST ALWAYS THINK THAT THEY ARE NOT EQUAL

Drop by drop, until we advance our goal

We will take over their land, resources and wealth to exercise Total
control over them

We will deceive them into accepting laws
That will steal the little freedom they will have

We will establish a money system that will imprison them Forever Keeping
them and their children in debt

When they shall band together, we shall accuse
Them of crimes
And present a different story to the world
For we shall own all of the media

We shall use our media to control the flow
Of information and their sentiment in our favor

When they shall rise up against us
We will crush them like insects, for they are less than that

They will be helpless to do anything
For they will have no weapons

We will recruit some of their own
To carry out our plans

We will promise them eternal life
But eternal life they will never have
For they are not of us

The recruits will be called 'initiates' and will
Be indoctrinated to believe false rites of passage to higher realms

Members of these groups will think they are one with us
Never knowing the truth

They must never learn this truth
For they will turn against us

For their work they will be rewarded with earthly things
And great titles
But NEVER will they become immortal and join us

Never will they receive
The Light and Travel the stars

They will never reach the Higher Realms
For the killing of their own kind will prevent passage
To the Realm of Enlightenment

This they will never know.

The truth will be hidden in their faces
So close.
They will not be able to focus on it until it is too late.

Oh, yes! So grand the Illusion of Freedom will be
That they'll never know they are our slaves

When all is in place, the reality we will have
Created for Them .

WILL OWN THEM.

This reality will be their prison
They will live in self-delusion.

When our goal is accomplished a new era
Of domination will begin

Their minds will be bound by their beliefs
The beliefs we have established from time immemorial

But if they ever find out they are OUR EQUAL,
We shall perish then

THIS THEY MUST NEVER KNOW.

If they ever find out
That TOGETHER
They can vanquish us
They will take action

They must NEVER, ever find out
What we have done
For if they do
We shall have no place to run

For it will be easy to see who
We are
Once the veil has fallen

Our actions will have revealed
Who we are
And they will hunt us down
And no person shall give us shelter

This is the secret covenant by which we shall live the rest of Our
present and future lives, For this reality will transcend many
generations and life spans

This covenant is sealed by blood, our blood.

We, the ones, who from heaven to earth come

This covenant must NEVER, EVER be known to exist.

It must NEVER, EVER be written of or spoken of
For if it is
The consciousness it will spawn
Will release the fury of the PRIME CREATOR upon us

And we will be cast
To the depths from whence we came
And remain there
Until the end time of infinity itself

David. aka Diogenes, Metis

---
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
Ezra Pound

I've read this before. The Illuminati. I got a chill when I read it. This would mean its not about the states at all. That the states is merely a tool and means to an end. Frightening if true.

as an old rounder I know this to be true: act as if
I havent shared my story on vive and very well may not but this bit od tautology I DO know.

there are more things under the sun than meet the eye
to say otherwise is deceit

---
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
Ezra Pound

So if this is true and the Illuminati are behind globalism would that mean that the masons are part of it. (I'm curious and certainly not being condescending). Could you give me some links that are good on this. Ive read a few and its quite riviting. I've been on vive for only a short while.

My own take is that we are far from running out of hydrocarbon based enery.

There is enough carbon and hydrogen on earth for vast amounts of fuel to be produced by synthetic means if we so desired to do so.

Would it be wise? Probably not.

Is it possible? Most definitely.

As for the Illuminati, Weishaupt's devilish diciples have been trying to screw the world over for over 200 years.

They've been starting wars for their own purposes and gains whenever possible, and causing crisis' that they already have pre-planned "solutions" for.

911, and it's ongoing aftermath, is no doubt another of their little projects.

Looks up Adam Weishaupt on Google. it's as good a place to begin as any.

---
"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

When considering the matter of Peak Oil we must remember that our current economic systems evolved on the assumption that we would always have access to relatively cheap and plentiful stores of energy to fuel a perepetual economic growth. 
 
Perpetual economic growth also means that our economies need perpetually growing quantities of energy to fuel that growth (barring significant breakthroughs in implementing energy efficiency/energy saving technologies), and in addition to the already industrialized west, we now have the Asian giants like India and China rapidly industrializing and adding most significantly to the growing demands for energy as well. 
 
In considering the ramifications of perpetual growth it is important to understand the concept of exponential growth patterns and doubling times. When any quantity increases by a fixed percentage year over year, at some point the original quantity will have doubled (this is the same principle by which compound interest works on a savings account). Unfortunately even relatively small annual percentage increases can lead to doubling times much more quickly than many realize. 
 
The doubling time can easily be derived by dividing the number 70 by the annual percentage increase. So if starting from this year 2006, the world oil consumption increases continuously by 2% per year (as is currently projected for the next few years at least), the world total oil consumption will double in 35 years (70/2 = 35). So in 2041 we would be using twice the volume of oil we used in 2006. In addition, the total amount of oil used in this 35 year period from 2006 to 2041 would be greater than all the oil used previously in history up to the start of the doubling period (in this example 2006). So in the 35 years between 2006 and 2041 we would use more oil than had been pumped out of the ground in the entire 146 years between 1860 (approx start of the oil age) and 2006. 
 
Here is the other angle that's relevant to the exponential growth issue. Think of a pond populated by lilly pads that double in quantity every day such that the pond starts with only 1 lilly pad on day 1 but on the 30th day the pond is completely covered. When is the pond half full? Day 29, only one day before it is completely 100% covered. On day 29 the pond is half full, then the number of lilly pads double and on day 30 it is completely full. 
 
Suppose on day 29, the lilly pads clued into the fact that the next day the whole pond would be covered and there would be no more room for expansion, so they launch an all out effort to find new open ponds which they can populate and fill. The chief of the lilly pads makes an announcement on the evening of day 29 to his fellow lilly padians with the good news that after much expense and effort they have found 3 new ponds of identical size to their original home and completely empty of lilly pads and open for expansion. How much breathing room do these new discoveries give them? Well on Day 30, the original lilly pad is completely full and then they double in quantity the next day and entirely takeover one of the 3 new empty lilly ponds. On day 31 there are now 2 full ponds with 2 more empty ponds open for expansion. 
 
The lilly pads double in size once more on day 32 and they've now used up the 2 remaining empty ponds. All their excess capacity they had found after much trouble and expense gave them precisely 2 more days of growth even though the new ponds in total area were 3 times the size of the one original lilly pond. 
 
It looks like with regards to oil/energy issues we are at the spot where the lilly pads were in day 29, but we can't even find an oil equivalent of the lilly pads 3 new empty ponds to buy us even a few more "days" of breathing room, because the consensus seems to be that our oil discoveries peaked almost 40 years ago in the late 1960s/early 1970s and we are now burning approximately 4 barrels of oil for each new barrel we discover. 
 
Notice how when you are reading stories about resources or oil and energy issues, they'll often say something like, "We enough coal in North America to last 500 years at current rates of consumption," with the implication being that we can all relax as there is no immediate danger of the resource running out. After all, we've got at least 500 years left to find more or to find a substitue for when the original coal runs out. 
 
That's all fine and dandy, except our economies as currently organized ususally demand growing rates of consumption, not constant rates of consumption, and once you have annual increases in consumption, you have exponential growth and all the ramifications of exponential growth, doubling times etc. described above. So the reassurance that we have 500 years of commodity X at current rates of conusmption is effectively meaningless. What we have to be concerned about is what is the rate of growth in consumption of commodity X, and add that factor into the calculation to determine the effective life of the resource we are exploiting. 
 
For further examination of this topic (and the principles are relevant in many other areas as well as oil and energy) I really recommend that everyone watch the lecture on exponential growth and resource consumption given by Dr. Albert Bartlett, a physics prof. from the University of Colorado and available on line at the links below. You do not need high level math skills to follow Professor Bartlett's lecture. If you can mulitply by 2 and understand percentages, that's all the math it takes. 
 
This is an MP4 of Bartlett's lecture suitable for dial up and playable with Quick Time. You can also right click the link and select "save as" to save the file to your hard drive first: 
 
<a href="http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4">http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4</a> 
 
This link is a video of Professor Bartlett's lecture in Real Player format: <a href="http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RAM/2005/08/AlbertBartlett.ram">http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RAM/2005/08/AlbertBartlett.ram</a> 
 
This last link is an MP3 (sound only) 
<a href="http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RM/2005/08/Bartlett.mp3">http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RM/2005/08/Bartlett.mp3</a> 
 
This is a link to a paper by Professor Bartlett "Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis" on which his lecture is based: 
 
<a href="http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_section2.htm">http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_section2.htm</a> 
 
Not directly related to the exponential growth issue discussed above, but relevant to the discussion is 
an article from <a href="http://www.theoildrum.com">www.theoildrum.com</a>: 
 
Why peak oil is probably about now 
 
Posted by Stuart Staniford on Wed Mar 01 at 5:12 AM EST 
 
This post is for the benefit of those readers whose friends or relatives just spat out their coffee over their morning New York Times in surprise that oil is starting to run out and nobody warned them before now. If you are looking around for more background information, I would like to summarize a series of arguments and analyses that have led me to the view that peak oil is most likely occurring about now, give or take a year or two. My personal coffee-spitting incident occurred about a year ago, and this is some of what I've figured out in the meantime. 
 
Continued at: 
<a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/storyonly/2006/3/1/3402/63420">http://www.theoildrum.com/storyonly/2006/3/1/3402/63420</a>

Having lived under every known ideology and survived, I neither believe, or disbelieve in anything any more.

Don't know, or give a damn thing about Fremasonry, but I picked up a book a few years back that goes into great details in claiming that Freemasonry originated with some extraterrestial invaders of Earth, with the intention of total control.

It is over 10 years ago since I've read it and remember only a few details, but if anybody's interested, it is "The Gods of Eden" by William Bramley, my copy published by Avon Books in 1993.

It could be the ramblings of a nut, or an interesting case of imagination, worthles garbage, or valuable information. In any case, the guy makes some very interesting documentation that can not be denied.

Who knows what's true these days of daily increasing madness gripping the world?

On the subject of oil, with China's "demands" increasing by the minute, I was talking to a Beijing born Chinese last week, who told me that the most popular cars in Beijing are the Mercedes.

Apparently, cars registered outside of Beijing are not permitted into the city, only on special days, so many wealthy communists are buying and registering cars in Beijing, so they can drive into the city on any day.

While workers in the 4200 Wal-Mart factories are sleeping in dormitory hot beds, where one worker gets out so the next one can sleep. Like in submarines.

Ah, for the brotherhood and equality of the Workers' Paradise.

Now, here's a question I could never figure out, although I've been involved in intelligence analysis in another life.

We had a Cold War between the so called capitalists and so called communists going on for about 45 years after WW2. Incredible amounts spent, as they're being spent now, on "defence" on both and all sides, like these idiotic B52s still over our heads every day on their "fail safe" missions.

During all those years, both sides, especially the Soviets, had the easy means to ruin all the capitalist economies simply by playing the stock and money markets. They had the money and knowledge on how to wreck the markets and cause a depression, but they haven't done it. Anybody knows why?

Perhaps it was the Illuminati working for each other on both sides?

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

I believe one must determine for themself the validity of these claim 
Gary Allen 's work is a jumpoff point and while many will present counter-claim arguement the rule of criticl thinking must be applied. 
<a href="http://www.mega.nu/ampp/">http://www.mega.nu/ampp/</a> 
 
<a href="http://www.publiceye.org/research/biblio/Right_Chrono_Bib.html">http://www.publiceye.org/research/biblio/Right_Chrono_Bib.html</a> 
 
<a href="http://reactor-core.org/none-dare.html#introduction">http://reactor-core.org/none-dare.html#introduction</a> 
 
<a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=NoneDare">http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=NoneDare</a> 
From here one can google 
 
Please read Ed Deaks thought on this page- 
<a href="http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20051203212831162">http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20051203212831162</a>--- Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding. 
Ezra Pound

Ed, have you checked out these online, streaming videos about the scam behind our fractional banking systems, the IMF and World Bank etc. I think it's in the second of the 2 videos that they describe how financial support from Western sources was used to prop up the Soviet Union, the supposed enemy of capitalism. <a href="http://madcowpolitics.com/moneymasters.wmv">Money Masters Part1</a> <a href="http://madcowpolitics.com/moneymasters2.wmv">Money Masters Part2</a> And we now know as well how the current Idiot-Son-in-Chief's grandpappy, Prescott Bush, and his rich American and German friends helped finance the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in Germany. See the article "Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed" by John Buchanan, originally published in The New Hampshire Gazette, October 10, 2003 WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners. The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law. Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war. <a href="http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/bush-nazilinkconfirmed.htm">Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed</a> Seems like when it comes to making money from war and conflict, backing both sides is considered a winning strategy. At least that way, you'll always find yourself on the winning side.

(see my posting of Friday on this topic)

So that's why Pemex decided not to sell oil to the proposed refinery near Yuma Arizona.........

And that's why that US company is now heading north to buy oil from Canada.

I guess Canada should demand payment for oil in Euro.

As (almost) always your words spark an interconnected 3 Dimensional thought pattern within me...

starting with this sentence...
" While workers in the 4200 Wal-Mart factories are sleeping in dormitory hot beds, where one worker gets out so the next one can sleep. Like in submarines.”

And continuing on in the following thoughts

“Now, here's a question I could never figure out, although I've been involved in intelligence analysis in another life.

We had a Cold War between the so called capitalists and so called communists going on for about 45 years after WW2. Incredible amounts spent, as they're being spent now, on "defence" on both and all sides, like these idiotic B52s still over our heads every day on their "fail safe" missions.

During all those years, both sides, especially the Soviets, had the easy means to ruin all the capitalist economies simply by playing the stock and money markets. They had the money and knowledge on how to wreck the markets and cause a depression, but they haven't done it. Anybody knows why?

Perhaps it was the Illuminati working for each other on both sides?”

Your last sentence of your post supposes quite correctly the situation and although I don’t recall the book or internet page titles of such information I know it is available.

In my studied opinion, those who would deny conspiracy as a tool must have some fear of the “what is…?”
For any who care to spend the time on such issues it will become apparent interconnected conspiracies make up the ruling part of the whole ( I say whole in the sense of the Seven Hermetic Traditions) with the fiat money creators playing a significant role.
Depression years: no jobs, money
Second world war years: bombs bullets munitions tanks, planes, … yatity yada where’d the “money” come from?
Where ALL fiat money comes from!
Crank up the presses!

The Greatest Confidence Game the World knows!
Its all a con shot!
And you and I are and must be a part of it!

---
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
Ezra Pound

As long as we have carbon and hydrogen here on earth, we will never realistically lack for hydrocarbon based fuels.

But then easy sources are what keep oil companies in business.

We have easy access to all sorts of alternative energy: tidal power, wind, a new generation of high efficiency solar panels, nuclear, in the future POSSIBLY fusion.

Any of these has proper place and use, even if it's providing the energy required to make hydrocarbon fuels.

Now I do not know if we have actually hit peak globally or not, but it's obvious to anyone with sense that you cannot just waste a resource because of market demand and the lure of riches. With very few exceptions, nothing can ever truly be "limitless".

Now, I am no supporter of global government, I despise the very notion of it. However some form of global CO-OPERATION regarding fossils fuels has to be agreed upon by all the stakeholders involved. Any negotiations towards that end will be difficult, and would prefably NOT involve big oil interests.

To carry on as usual is madness.

---
"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Dio...

I spent over 60 years by now on the search for the "Common denominator of history's tragedies", ever since I stood by an operating table for months, holding guys' legs as they were being amputated, twisting and turning them on the doctors' orders.

I was only 18 at the time, but had a lot of time to think and decide, that there must be a common thread to this ever repeating madness. It took me 40 years, but I did find it.

I had a short and very pleasant chat with BCNDP Leader Carole James on March 2, when she was In Williams Lake and the question of my Principle came up. I promised to send her a detailed copy and I did, which she received. Unfortunately, her hands are tied by convention, the Inner Circle of the party brass, and brainwashed economists, so I don't expect anything out of it. Until this whole corrupt system collapses.

However, one of these days I'll sit down and take some time to re-write it into an article and submit it here to Vive and The Tyee. Perhaps it won't published , or make any difference here either, but I'll do it as matter of conscience.

Ed Deak.

The problem with currently existing alternatives to oil is that in general they have a very low ERoEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) when compared to traditional conventional oil. In other words, traditionally it has only taken the energy from a very small amount of conventional oil, to find lots and lots more conventional oil, and this left us lots of oil left over after the discovery, pumping and refining processes to run our cars, fly our 747s, turn into plastics, etc. etc. The proposed alternatives are also usually not as versatile as oil (it's hard to operate 747s or bulldozers with solar panels) and can not play all the different roles that oil has up to now easily played in providing energy in various forms and products to our economies. Energy return on energy invested, or EROEI When an energy source that has an EROEI ratio of 4:1 is replaced with another, alternative, energy source which has an EROEI ratio of 2:1, twice as much gross energy has to be produced in order to reap the same net quantity of resulting usable energy. This can be worse than it looks. Consider that I inherited one barrel of oil, and the EROEI was 4:1. I could use my one barrel and end up with four barrels. Now consider that the EROEI was 2:1, and I still wanted four barrels. Well, I can use my one barrel to extract two barrels, then I have to use those two barrels to extract the four barrels that I want. Thus with an EROEI of 2:1, it has cost me three barrels to gain four; whereas with an EROEI of 4:1, it only cost me one barrel. This means that when a society moves to using energy sources that have lower EROEIs, the actual amount of energy available to use (for manufacturing, transport, heating etc.) inevitably will diminish. <a href="http://www.abelard.org/briefings/energy-economics.asp#eroei"> Energy Economics</a> The EROEI of oil from conventional, land based oil wells, runs anwhere between 30 to 1 to 100 to 1. The EROEI of tar sands oil, the supposed replacement for Saudi Arabia runs around 1.5 to 1. Nine Critical Questions to Ask About Alternative Energy May 27, 2003, 1400 PDT (FTW) -- Before we instantly accept alternative energy lifeboats that will let us keep our current lifestyles, don't you think it wise to see if they float? Here are nine questions that you must ask of yourself, and anyone who claims that they have found a perfect alternative to oil. After answering these questions, you may have a better idea about whether you want to jump (or throw your family) into something that might sink in short order. SNIP 1. How Much Energy is Returned for the Energy Invested (EROEI)? Have all energy costs been taken into account? This is where too many alternative energy sources fall flat after the simplest examination. Commercial hydrogen offers one clear example of how it takes more energy to produce the fuel than can be obtained from burning it. The current feedstock from which hydrogen is produced is natural gas. The natural gas is then treated with steam. Steam is water that is boiled using more natural gas, oil, or coal, either in the form of direct fuel or to generate electricity which is used to boil the water. Common sense dictates that this cannot be a solution because it still relies on fossil fuels. Converting water to hydrogen is done through electrolysis. Scientist David Pimentel has established that it takes 1.3 billion kWh (Kilowatt hours) of electricity to produce the equivalent of 1 billion kWh of hydrogen. (BioScience, Vol. 44, No. 8, September 1994.) Even a small positive EROEI, if obtainable, is not a solution because fossil fuels on the whole return many times the energy invested, not just a fraction. That's why we use them. Ethanol is another case in point. Some research has shown a negative EROEI for ethanol. Newer research from Oregon shows a slightly positive return. Ethanol is, at best, a slightly beneficial temporary alternative - not a substitute. Claims that cars can run on vegetable oil never take into account the amount of energy necessary to generate the vegetable oil (farming, vegetable transport, extraction, etc.). Devices that recycle plastic into oil don't mention the fact that plastic is oil, and that a great deal of energy was used to make it into plastic in the first place. Similarly, the new technology of thermal depolymerization is not a legitimate alternative energy source. This process transforms carbon-based wastes back into hydrocarbon fuel. This technology is useful, and may help us on the downside of the Hubbert curve, but it will never replace fossil fuels. Why? Because the wastes were produced by the use of fossil fuels. More at: <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/052703_9_questions.html">9 Critical Questions About Alternative Energy</a> Also another point we can't overlook is that the infrastructure to produce and use these fuels and alternative energy sources as oil alternatives or replacements do not currently exist and it will time and huge amounts of resources to impliment the necessary infrastructurem, time we just might not have before the traditional oil supplies become limited and the price increases significantly enough to cause widespread dislocations. If the conventional oil should start running low, the economic consequences could be so devastating that we find ourselves stuck permanently "behind the 8 ball" and are never able to complete the switch over to alternatives before permanent economic and social breakdown sets in. This is the likely scenario forecast by the really pessimistic peak oil sites such as <a href="http://www.dieoff.org">www.dieoff.org</a> Smoke & Monetary Policy by Jeff Vial On Tuesday I had a conversation with a few Senior Executives in the Department of the Interior about how to solve the Peak Oil problem--and we all came to the same conclusion: there is a structural block to the solution to this problem, because to do so would require massive and immediate investment that would not pay dividends for at least 10 years--longer than the 2, 4, and occasionally 6 or 8 year cycles in American politics that proscribe our national time-horizon. It just isn't politically realistic to back a project that won't pay off in time for the next relevant election cycle--even if you could find politicians that would be willing to sacrifice their own re-election for the greater good, they would still be hamstringed by the unavailability of the campaign funding on which they require, and would likely lose in the next election to a candidate who is promising a short-term benefit... We're structurally short-sighted, which goes right along with my general thesis that the structure of our institutions, much more than the individuals within them, is the real root of our problems. Some people believe that we can circumvent this structural problem with government by relying on the market, on private business, to make the kind of long-term investments that will save us. The problem here is that this structurally short-sighted government still sets the parameters within which private business operates, through interest rates and monetary policy. So market forces are channeled within these government parameters--which are broadly manipulated to benefit the short-term structural cycles of politics, and as a result they co-opt market forces towards their own ends. <a href="http://www.energybulletin.net/14353.html"> Smoke & Monetary Policy</a> I don't think we can evade the fact that it will take a significant amount of changes to our economic and indsutrial infrastructure and to our existing free-wheeling, cheap-energy-burning lifestyles if we are going to meet the challenges of peak oil and leave a livable and sustainable world to our children and grandchildren. One last point to consider: Is complexity bad for us? Is simpler better? Joseph Tainter first posited in his book, "The Collapse of Complex Societies," that complex societies most frequently attempt to solve their problems by increasing their complexity. This usually requires the input of additional energy from people or fuel sources or both. This strategy may be a good one when returns from complexity are high. But, such a strategy may also subject a society to collapse. Returns tend to diminish as complexity increases. Ultimately, returns go negative. In short, more complexity isn't necessarily better. For Tainter there are many reasons to believe that contemporary civilization has reached the point of diminishing returns from complexity. If he is correct, this calls into question proposals for technical fixes for our energy problems since by definition those fixes will increase complexity in an energy-starved world. Will solar platforms in space or a vastly increased number of nuclear power plants lead to a more stable, sustainable society? There are many ecological reasons to doubt this in the long run. But there are historical reasons to believe that these things might not even work in the short run, say, the next several decades. Increased complexity may result in less resiliency in our current world system making it vulnerable to novel or persistent shocks. Terrorist attacks on infrastructure and proposals to militarize space are just two that relate to the examples given above. The alternative would be to simplify our systems. This may necessarily lead to a lower standard of living and to decentralized forms of social, political and economic organization. That will be hard to sell to a population accustomed to having giant international corporations and central governments organize large parts of their lives. These same corporations and governments also propagandize their customers and citizens into believing that material wealth is the only true wealth. Even harder will be breaking through a belief in the magic of technology. Hidden from most people is the fact that technology has its greatest effect at low levels of complexity; new technologies may fail to deliver the promised results when societies have become too complex. <a href="http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2005/05/peak-oil-solutions-is-simpler-better.html"> Peak oil solutions: Is simpler better?</a>