Even the most cursory glance at economic and financial history will reveal a litany of bubbles and booms, crashes and crises. We’ve seen numerous instances of speculative manias, real estate bubbles, market collapses and banking crises. Even the dot-com bubble of 1995-2000 wasn’t really ‘a first’, since there’s at least one previous instance – the Railway Mania of the 1840s – of the public being blinded to reality by the glittering allure of the latest vogue in technology.
Oil from a Critical Raw Material Perspective
Global trend ECoE (from all sources of primary energy) has risen from 2.0% in 1980 to almost 10% now, and is likely to reach 13% by 2030, and 17% by 2040. What this means is that, from every 100 units of accessed energy, the ‘available for use’ or surplus component has decreased from 98 units in 1980 to 90 units now, and is likely to have fallen to 83 units by 2040.
It’s important to remember that surplus energy isn’t used just to supply products and services to consumers, but to maintain and replace productive and social infrastructure as well. This means that sensitivity to rising ECoEs is an inverse function of complexity – the more complex an economy is, the greater is the surplus energy required just to sustain the system.
Global trend ECoE (from all sources of primary energy) has risen from 2.0% in 1980 to almost 10% now and is likely to reach 13% by 2030, and 17% by 2040. What this means is that, from every 100 units of accessed energy, the ‘available for use’ or surplus component has decreased from 98 units in 1980 to 90 units now, and is likely to have fallen to 83 units by 2040. ,
Hi Tim,
Are these figures still Stylised or have you got some empirical source data you can share?
Who are the Priests and the Princes of Peak oil. There are three Peak Oil subjects, The Narrative Myth, The Actual output and investment figures, & Oil Wars.
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Table 17. Energy Returned on Energy Invested for fossil fuel sources (References taken from several sources, as quoted)
Range given
Between 40 and 20.
Figure 198. The net energy cliff with published numbers of ERoEI from Tables 17 and 18
To appropriately compare Table 17 and Table 18 together a consistent and comprehensive dynamic
ERoEI needs to be applied to the same macro scale industrial ecosystem, where each of these sources
supply energy in some form. Each one of these studies have been done to a separate paradigm, using
different input assumptions and boundaries and often have inconsistent material units. Most of these
studies may have been done with a static or standard ERoEI paradigm using just Equation 3. This means
that the results shown in Figure 198 should be treated as rough guide, not a precise calculation. As
such comparing sources in this context is not that useful beyond a few very blunt statements:
“Roger, you have posted numerous comments linking to the same site, presumably your own. If you’ll refrain from doing that for a period, that would be helpful.”
Hi Tim, I have also been studying the monetary system and particularly Energy Economics for quite a long time, Soddy’s Work and also the Work of Technocracy back in the 1930’s was alive to the point. As such when I link to my own Blog it is to the full extent of the references I have made to those questions.
The Internet is about Links, Hyper text Transfer Protocol .(HTTP) and ( “URL’s )(Uniform Resource Locator’s) is a way of addressing Meta data and searching for needles in haystacks and for attribution.
I also make video and link to those, Search engine optimisation is very much driven by link backs and cross-references and my linking as well as providing source material is designed to bring traffic back to this Blog.
Strawmanning of argumentation is a ubiquitous feature of the internet as is forum sliding and de-platforming both subtle covert and overt. All these things are relevant to Media outlets that challenge established Narratives.
Mark Carney’s recent sermons on Net Zero Carbon and punishment for those who refuse to buy into the narrative and the ( Carbon Credits) and Yannis Varafoukis’s recent Project Syndicate Article on The IBS adopting Libra the CryptoCurrency are all relevant to both the core subject of this Blog but also the context of the political economy and geopolitical context.
Tim, You say and have said before many times that.
“All of these hopes miss the fundamental point, which is that ECoEs are very much higher now (above 9%) than they were in the 1970s (at or below 2%).”
Russian and Saudi Lifting costs account for a very large part of core world supply and also proved reserves for future supply, as the proved reserves are using enhanced recovery methods but not the more expensive heat-based recovery of non-conventional heavy oils. I think the simple claim that a substantial proportion of world oil production and continuing supply from those reserves are still at High ECOEs, can you prove otherwise?
Accessible data available in admittedly partial data sets, contradict the very stark claim you make that up to the 1990’s it cost 2 barrels of oil to extract 100 barrels giving a net 98 surplus energy barrels. and that now the energy cost is 9 barrels of every 100 giving 91 surplus barrels.
Adjusted lifting costs on a per-dollar basis have if anything fallen, it is also possible that for Giant fields that lifting costs have actually fallen in Energy terms.
Are your 2% and 9% figures theoretically or empirically derived and if empirically could you please provide the data source from which you derive such a bold claim?
It is also unsatisfactory not to provide adjusted figures for the different souces be they, conventional Land, off shore, deep sea and shallow and deeper conventional sources.
At this point I think it is reasonable to put the End of cheap oil in energy terms theorists to proof.
This paper tackles the question in energy terms and not assumptions drawn from monetary/price assumptions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4687841/
Tim, You say and have said before many times that.
“All of these hopes miss the fundamental point, which is that ECoEs are very much higher now (above 9%) than they were in the 1970s (at or below 2%).”
Russian and Saudi Lifting costs account for a very large part of core world supply and also proved reserves for future supply, as the proved reserves are using enhanced recovery methods but not the more expensive heat-based recovery of non-conventional heavy oils. I think the simple claim that a substantial proportion of world oil production and continuing supply from those reserves are still at High ECOEs, can you prove otherwise?
Accessible data available in admittedly partial data sets, contradict the very stark claim you make that up to the 1990’s it cost 2 barrels of oil to extract 100 barrels giving a net 98 surplus energy barrels. and that now the energy cost is 9 barrels of every 100 giving 91 surplus barrels.
Adjusted lifting costs on a per-dollar basis have if anything fallen, it is also possible that for Giant fields that lifting costs have actually fallen in Energy terms.
Are your 2% and 9% figures theoretically or empirically derived and if empirically could you please provide the data source from which you derive such a bold claim?
It is also unsatisfactory not to provide adjusted figures for the different souces be they, conventional Land, off shore, deep sea and shallow and deeper conventional sources.
At this point I think it is reasonable to put the End of cheap oil in energy terms theorists to proof.
This paper tackles the question in energy terms and not assumptions drawn from monetary/price assumptions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4687841/
Discussion
The net energy return ratios (NERs) examined in this study for global oilfields range from approximately 2:1 to 100:1, with a production-weighted mean of 33:1. These results are most sensitive to changes when the gas processing configuration is unknown (as discussed above) or where the properties of injected steam are unknown. The implications of these relative magnitudes of energy returns are robust to explored uncertainties. A resource with an small energy return ratio may face challenges in scaling output, will consume large amounts of energy for production, and likely cause large environmental and climate impacts per unit of energy produced. This range of observed NER ratios is within the range suggested in prior literature. This agreement is a sign of convergence between methodologies: while the method used here is much more specific than prior methods, in that it models the engineering processes in oil extraction in greater detail, it provides similar order of magnitude results as methods used elsewhere.
What I am getting at is that at best you are in making the claims you do for ECOE that they are Stylised and such not fit for policy prescriptions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_oil_and_gas_fields
Giant field production properties and behavior
Comprehensive analysis of the production from the majority of the world’s giant oil fields has shown their enormous importance for global oil production.[10] For instance, the 20 largest oil fields in the world alone account for roughly 25% of the total oil production.
Further analysis shows that giant oil fields typically reach their maximum production before 50% of the ultimate recoverable volume has been extracted.[11] A strong correlation between depletion and the rate of decline was also found in that study, indicating that much new technology has only been able to temporarily decrease depletion at the expense of rapid future decline. This is exactly the case in the Cantarell Field.
Oil from a Critical Raw Material Perspective is authored by Simon Michaux who dedicates his report to ” Prof. Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989), who more
than half a century before most industrial analysts, understood what oil really meant for the industrial ecosystem.”
Geological Survey of Finland
Oil from a CRM Perspective
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20.13 Peak Oil
• The conventional concept of peak oil on its own is too simplistic to be useful, however. Energy
supply is just one component, where oil is just one energy source (albeit the most influential
one).
• A more holistic approach to model peak oil production is appropriate (Figure 276). ( See Above)
• Peak oil will be driven by a combination of a window of viability between an oil price low enough
for consumers to support where economic growth is possible, and an oil price high enough for
producers to be economically viable.
• It is not clear when peak oil production will happen, but it is clear that the viable window of oil
market operation is closing (Figure 258).(See Below)
• There was a global peak in oil production in November 2018. This peak is more related to the oil industry having a shortfall of upfront capital investment, than a geological limit of reserves in the ground. Whether this is a genuine peak will not be known for several years and is entirely dependent on investment in the oil and gas industry to support production from comparatively low ERoEI oil plays.
It is interesting that both Saudi Arabia nor Iraq are not labeled as “Peak Oil Literate in the following diagram, ( Just Saying?)
16.7 Oil finance dynamic interaction with strategic policy decisions over a sequence of events
So oil production and finance structures are linked and dynamically interact. Events and strategic
decisions made that have dynamically interacted to create the current circumstances include:
• The decoupling if the U.S. dollar from the international gold standard in 1971, allowing the printing of
money to regulate the markets of physical goods and services.
• The Petrodollar agreement in 1973, requiring all Saudi Arabian oil contracts to be priced in $USD, forcing
the global industrial economy to engage in this system.
“The great unwinding of the financial sector showed that the smartest mathematical minds
on the planet, backed by some of the deepest pockets, had not built a sleek engine of
permanent prosperity but a clown car of trades, swaps and double dares that, inevitably fell
to bits.”
– Raj Patel 2009
18.9 Temporal Sequence
The following temporal events have shown to be significant in understanding the net position of the
industrial ecosystem.
1. 15 th of August 1971. The United States decouples it currency form the gold standard and
becomes a fiat currency. This allows monetary creation at will to solve all geopolitical and
domestic problems.
2. The Petrodollar agreement in 1973. The petrodollar is any oil purchase or trade by an oil-
exporting country is to be done in $USD. Since the dollar is a global reserve currency, all
international transactions are priced in dollars. All nation states were then forced to interact
with the $USD fiat currency system, and any internal issues within the $USD were automatically
transferred to all over the world.
3. Oil production plateaued in January 2005, while oil demand continued to grow, creating an
inelastic supply market. Possible cause, Saudi Arabia unable to increase production.
4. The price of industrial metals blows out in 2005.
5. The real economy starts to contract in 2005. A persistent turning point.
6. The Global Financial Crisis starting in early 2008. The worst economic correction since the 1929
Great Depression.
7. The initiation of unprecedented quantitative easing monetary creation program QE1 by U.S.
Federal Reserve Bank (November 2008 to June 2010).
8. Bank of China QE program from 2008 till present.
9. A new technology of horizontal precision drilling applied in oil fracking operations, triggering
the oil shale revolution in the U.S. Tight Oil frontier. Oil supply stabilizes with global demand.
10. Bank of England QE program March 2009 to January 2010.
11. Chinese industrial activity starts to contract in 2009
12. U.S. Federal Reserve Bank QE2 program from November 2010 to June 2011.
13. U.S. Federal Reserve Bank QE3 program from September 2012 to October 2014.
14. Bank of Japan QE program April 2013 till present.
15. European Central Bank QE program March 2015 to December 2018
The prognosis of this sequence of events suggests that:
• Something fundamental changed in the industrial ecosystem in 2005
• In 2008 the financial markets were structurally damaged by the application of quantitative
easing in response to the most serious economic crash seen in the previous 75 years, the GFC.
• The GFC was a market correction as a consequence of what happened in 2005.
• Whatever caused the volatility in the commodity markets in 2005, was not resolved by a
major economic crash, and the fundamental issues are still in play.
• The current market systems are now dependent on more quantitative easing to maintain
stability.
• There will come a point when QE is not possible anymore and the correction that was started in 2008 will resume.
The prognosis of this sequence of events suggests that:
Figure 294 (Figure 258 reproduced) shows that the window of oil market viability is closing, which
suggests the resumption of the 2008 correction will be soon.
Predicting the time the window will completely close is not appropriate as this is a nonlinear system
with unknown influences. It could be postulated though that the window of viable operation could
close between now and 2025.
Figure 295 shows the global crude oil production, excluding the United States and Iraq. What can be
seen here is that without the U.S. and Iraq, global oil production actually peaked in 2016 and is now
declining. This really does highlight that any expansion in supply is dependent on the United States
(the Tight Oil sector in particular). This also shows that the United States is now the supporting supplier
(or swing producer) for the global oil market, in the same fashion that Saudi Arabia has been for the
previous 50 years.
Hi Don,
Murphy has a particular viewpoint, earlier last month you cited a joint paper by Tim Garret with Steve Keen was linked to in the Comments here at SEEDS. https://esd.copernicus.org/preprints/esd-2021-21/esd-2021-21.pdf
What is apparent is an inconsistency in Starting points, starting assumptions, and also objectives. A job for integral analysis if ever there was one.
Keens Book The New economics: a manifesto, was positively reviewed by Simon and Nitschler, with the following proviso as to where next?
“…politics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, international relations and other aspects of society affect
the economy. But these effects, whether supportive or distortive, are assumed external to the
economy proper. And this assumption is pivotal. Although the effects of these so-called external
factors alter economic outcomes, they leave the economic categories themselves intact. And this
bifurcation, we argue, is the Achilles’ heel of all economic theories, orthodox and heterodox,
old and new.
In our view, capitalism is not an economic system, but a conflictual mode of power. Those
who rule this mode of power – its dominant capitalists, politicians, mainstream academics,
opinion makers and the various organizations they control – make every effort to conceal its
power features. This is why neoclassical economics, beholden to its masters, can never be a
science. But the problem besieges every and any economic theory that keeps power external to
its basic categories. In our opinion, it is only when the study of capitalism substitutes for the
narrow understanding of its economy that power can assume centre stage to reveal what economics is structured to conceal.”
In the Garret and keen paper. it is stated.
“The half-century for which this fixed ratio held covers two thirds of historical growth in energy demands, so assuming its persistence, the implication is that society is not in fact decoupling from resource needs.”
I did reply but my comment didn’t make it past the filter. Here it is again.
I have read through the Book.
I will read it in more detail. It certainly has a great framework to base a scientific discussion around.
Without hot air by The Late prof. Sir David MacKay is well worth a read its easily findable online. For the less mathematically minded Davids’s book would certainly make a good primer for the Murphy book.
Regarding the shape of and timescale over which an Energy Transformation will take place
There are of course challenges if one has to adhere to an Urgent timescale.
My view is that there is no urgency and those particularly invested in the Urgency narratives tend to be
more closed-minded as to what potential replacement energy sources can take up the slack where other staple energy sources are unable to meet the demands of the future human requirements.
I find the insights of Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan on Capital as Power very compelling their work on Oil price and differential accumulation offers a fascinating perspective on the actualities of oil supply over conjectures of peak oil and EROI of petro carbons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity
In alternating prose and verse, Seneca wrote a witty, but ruthlessly vicious satire on the recently assassinated Emperor Claudius (the only surviving sample of a so-called Menippian satire, see Satyre ménippée ).
Audiatur et altera pars – “The other party should also be heard”
Non vitae sed scholae discimus – “We do not learn for life, but for school”. (When he criticized the school system in Rome.)
When a child is born malformed, you drown it (Quoted by Hjalmar Söderberg in Doktor Glas )
bezuhov1 on March 21, 2022 at 7:12 pm
Such questions as ‘Can European countries afford the sanctions they are imposing?’, or ‘Can Western countries afford to take the collosal risks they are taking as they try to drive Russia into bankruptcy?’ – are to completely misunderstand the objectives of the globalist governments running the West for their global cabal masters.
This Alex Thompson pair of talks and helpful slides analyses the two main flavors of They.
Platonists and Aristoelians.
The other factor to figure in is what David Graeber called “the underside of the western tradition.”
“Western philosophy, after all, really begins with the quarrel between Heraclitus and Parmenides; a quarrel that Parmenides won. As a result, from almost the very start, the Western tradition marked itself by imagining objects that exist, as it were, outside
of time and transformation. So much so that the obvious reality of change has always been something of a problem.”
David Graeber. p.19. (2005)
Free will or determinism. Hard soft compatabalist or Epicurian?
e•pic swerve [ˈɛpɪk][swəːv]: small shift, heroic changes https://www.epicswerve.com/
“We must now take precautions to prevent you from being embarrassed by something in which the ignorant majority is at fault for lack of proper consideration, and so from supposing with them, that man has not been created truly good simply because he is able to do evil. … If you reconsider this matter carefully and force your mind to apply a more acute understanding to it, it will be revealed to you that man’s status is better and higher for the very reason for which it is thought to be inferior: it is on this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either alternative, that the glory of the rational mind is based, it is in this that the whole honor of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived.”
Pelagius
The Money Changers. ( Austerity, the poor must remain poor to remain obedient ) Calvin
MARCH 10, 2019
In Part 1 we look at the sweep of dominant narratives built upon 2000 years of the Judaeo Christian Tradition and contrast it to the Orthodoxy of Abrahamic verbal Torah tradition.
The Tower of Babel with knobs on in part 2 as we look at the phenomenon of Chinese whispers, divide and rule merchants of doubt and spreading facts irresponsibly.
From Me to a freind by E-Mail
Oct 6, 2018, 9:46 AM
The Alternative media as with the MSM has become a place of repeated theory and the Audience is becoming static and infected with groupthink. Ryan should write a Book and do a book tour, he is a clever guy although I sense he is frustrated that more people do not give him accolades.
Social Media is a consumer of self-worth and manufacturer of fragile EGO, narcissism, and delusion. There is a Welsh bloke who regularly interviews Paul Craig Roberts, the Welsh bloke spends most of his questions blowing smoke up PCRś arse. A remarkable thing about James Corbett ( also based in Japan) is how fresh he keeps his work and even with James, I can’t stomach watching the regular segment he was chatting with some other guy for an inordinate length of time.
The Musk Letter from Greenlight is pretty solid I am sure. The Management of Expectations in the tech market is not something that anyone has got the hang of and anyone that does is fired for being a Cassandra. Things are complicated in that as with Solar, Wind and Energy storage technologies there is real progress but also the reality that The existing paradigm cannot be ditched anytime soon and is, in fact, part of the solution and not the problem which the new technologies are solving.
I think the problem is one of not only expectations but also of spinning what the PR people hope will be self-fulfilling prophecies, the Rove type Actors in History idea. In itself, the Actors in history idea is just a variation of Hans Christian Andersons “Emperor’s new clothes “
If we are headed for a Repeat of 2008/9 and a new Lehmans moment Mike ? where will the preferred Scapegoats come from? Musk would be more like another Enron than another Lehmans? Theresa May blamed New Labour and Profligacy in public spending for the 2008/9 crisis in here Speech at the Tory conference, The Austerity Narrative is still very raw and how much of the current economic malaise on main street be laid at the door of Austerity and too much of newly created debt-based money going into pumping up the financialised economy?
Tesla is a small part of a bigger picture, what the real budget is to get the show back on the road rests in the availability of Energy and Resources which are properly directed to areas of real market need as opposed to artificially created Market wants? This is obscured by the nonsense narratives of Money as a scarce resource. I suspect that Bezos ( Amazon) and Zuckerberg ( Facebook) UBER possibly, may be in the crosshairs for scapegoating as well. Personally, I would be looking at the Hedge Funds/Private equity funds which are in fact just a new front for what we used to call Merchant Banks, Black Rock and the long list of familiar names in the MEGA m&A action are where I think the Crosshairs should be trained but, I suspect that yet again the next crisis will see Banks getting away with it and ending up with the Jewels in the pile of shit, one of which in all likelihood will end up being Tesla, https://therealdeal.com/2017/11/06/banks-are-far-more-exposed-to-risky-real-estate-loans-than-you-think-thanks-to-this-loophole/ This article has stood out in my mind from what I have read over the past month
Dr. Mackintosh’s book is a risible screed of cliche and Teenaged emo angst pseudo-intellectualism. The seriousness of the academic rigor is amply illustrated with quotes from Greta(fig 1)( No Climate facts then?) and Attenborough.(Fig 2)
The pessimistic predestined Calvinist would be commissar gives Gem Bendell of Deep adaptation fame a serious run for his money, in the inauthenticity of their “Clinton Thumb Sincerity”
The better Book to read if one wishes to explore these issues is The economic superorganism by Dr. Carey King. Mackintosh’s effort can be viewed as an absurdist caricature along the lines of Zinoviev’s The Yawning heights, read straight it’s just a Yawn I’m afraid.
In the Financialised economy and with the CBDC push tied to Digital Id’s, we see a symptom of the appearance of what the system is trying to preserve, namely itself and its Monopoly ingroup. The real Economy is put in the position of trying to make bricks without straw, a misallocation of resources, and the Credit tokens to acquire those resources.
The Dominant Resource tieing the Financial system’s real potentials to the Real potentials of the real economy is the Flow of Energy resources and Primary resources through the economy. It would seem that a Hard limit on available energy to sustain the present industrial output of the global economy has been hit, what seems inexplicable is the Priorities touted in narratives regarding Why our largest Energy Sources the Hydro Carbons, Gas, Oil and Coal, and the largest potential replacement for them Nuclear are being demonised? It is more properly described as being stood down, why? Climate Change, The Climate Crisis, The Plague of Humans. (1)
“The purpose of the 4th Industrial revolution is to stymie the development of energy resources and to control Population and growth and instigate rapid population decline”.
The cakes currently burning King Alfred style were placed in the Oven in the pivotal period.
2015 Election, Feb 2016 oil price low, 2016 Brexit/trump, 2017 Election, September 2018 Repo Spike 2019 Election, Covid 19.
Covid 19 is a distraction the main currents date back to policy following the break up of the Soviet Union, 1990, 2000 Dot Com Bubble, 9/11, 7/7, 2008 GFC 2010 Coalition and
Build Back Better Going Direct and 4IR are all Political Slogans for the Trilateral World Government party, which represents only the hybridized Elite Billionaire class and their lackeys. Differential accumulation is their only concern and also of course population control.
Mackintoshes book shares the following “Quality” with Carey, it is an apologetic, a Polemic, A Narrative. Careys is better disguised Though. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5…
“In Short, the book is an exercise in knocking down mutually opposed straw men arguments, much of the argumentation I take no issue with whatsoever but the Ultimate apologetics for the discredited Climate Scientism and advocacy for Carbon indulgences ( SPASH #WrongKindofGreen Brave New World of Carbon Trading ) coupled with a failure to consider International Finance and PetroDollar hegemony which is an effect that the Authors own “Swing producer” price stability arguments for Texas in 1935, and in which we find ourselves living again in a deflationary age of a Quasi Petro/Carbon Gold Standard.”
QED.
“Crude oil is the real ‘currency’ of the world,” said Lindsey Williams at a gathering of the Midwest Concerned Citizens group in Kansas City on July 22. But Americans will never hear about huge oil and gas reserves in the United States, which, if ever tapped, would bring today’s fuel prices at least as low as $1.50 per gallon and make America more energy independent.
As a Baptist missionary in the 1970s, Williams said he rubbed elbows with members of the world’s power elite—who boasted of detailed 30-year and 50-year plans to control the flow of oil and information.
A huge quantity of crude oil and natural gas exists under Gull Island, located in the waters of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, says Williams. He cited key British Petroleum memoranda and related the statements of upper echelon oil officials who told him that Gull Island would be kept under wraps, limiting domestic supplies so Americans would someday see prices hit up to $10 a gallon at the pump.
“Every issue in the world today relates to crude oil,” said Williams. The U.S. occupation of Iraq and the saber rattling about attacking Iran fit into the crude oil matrix.
Iran is being targeted because it’s one of several countries that want to use their own currencies for oil sales, rather than using the U.S. dollar. Williams told AFP that any country that doesn’t want to “play ball” with the U.S. government and the financial and oil interests is, in essence, put on a hit list.
The United States, he said, learned that Iran intended to form its own bourse and not use the dollar for oil sales. Therefore, the notion that Iran is a menacing “almost-nuclear” country was trumped up, presented as fact via the corporate media and Iran is now in the crosshairs.
Other nations wanting more independence from U.S. meddling include Norway, Venezuela, Nigeria, Bolivia, Sweden and Russia.
The 30-year plan, which was first proposed three decades ago and is nearing fruition, included smug assurances from oil officials that the United States will triple its crude-oil usage and alternative fuels will not be allowed to gain enough ground to make a difference. They also noted that all foreign oil production will be scaled back to the United States and that Americans soon will pay $4 to $5 a gallon at the pump and could pay as much as $7 to $10 down the road.
In the early 1960s crude oil was selected as a tool of world control, Williams said, adding, “What we pay at the gas pump is a form of taxation.” The American consumer’s dependence on crude oil thus far has enabled people from foreign oil-producing nations to buy T-bills (U.S. treasury notes) in order to support the U.S. national debt and continued deficit spending. The need to support that debt puts the U.S. government in a bind, forcing Americans to remain dependent on foreign oil.
Williams, as a chaplain in 1970 when the trans-Alaskan oil pipeline was finished, ministered among the pipeline workers. However, as time passed he made a favorable impression with the top brass and was asked to improve worker-company relations. Next thing he knew, he said he was sitting at meetings of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and various meetings of oil executives over a three-year period.
He told AFP that the IMF-World Bank acts as a middleman between oil producing nations and refineries. In so doing, they set oil prices, he said.
The big event in that three-year period was in 1977 when an Atlantic Richfield oil executive told him, “We have just drilled into the largest pool of oil in North America—[and] in the world!”
That pool was Gull Island. It was said that there was enough natural gas to supply America for 200 years. But to this day, “not one drop” of that oil has been released to American refineries, Williams said.
Williams said the executive had warned him that the Gull Island find was highly classified. Do not repeat any of this, he was told. Obviously, that warning did not stop him.
(Issue #33, August 14, 2006)
https://archive.org/details/3302577/mode/2upCapital as Power Conventional theories of capitalism are mired in a deep crisis: after centuries of debate, they are still unable to tell us what capital is. Liberals and Marxists both think of capital as an ‘economic’ entity that they count in universal units of ‘utils’ or ‘abstract labour’, respectively. But these units are totally fictitious. Nobody has ever been able to observe or measure them, and for a good reason: they don’t exist. Since liberalism and Marxism depend on these non-existing units, their theories hang in suspension. They cannot explain the process that matters most – the accumulation of capital. This book offers a radical alternative. According to the authors, capital is not a narrow economic entity, but a symbolic quantification of power. It has little to do with utility or abstract labour, and it extends far beyond machines and production lines. Capital, the authors claim, represents the organized power of dominant capital groups to reshape – or creorder – their society. Written in simple language, accessible to lay readers and experts alike, the book develops a novel political economy. It takes the reader through the history, assumptions and limitations of mainstream economics and its associated theories of politics. It examines the evolution of Marxist thinking on accumulation and the state. And it articulates an innovative theory of ‘capital as power’ and a new history of the ‘capitalist mode of power’. Jonathan Nitzan teaches political economy at York University in Toronto. Shimshon Bichler teaches political economy at colleges and universities in Israel.
You may post and read comments on individual papers by clicking below on the paper titles. To qualify for posting, comments must refer directly to the RWER paper, and not just to other comments. Posted comments may be considered for publication in the journal.
In this issue:
The euro area’s secular stagnation and what can be done about it 2
Leon Podkaminer download pdf Six core assumptions for a new conceptual framework for economics 17 Gustavo Marqués download pdf
The Federal Reserve and shared prosperity 27
Thomas Palley download pdf
Still about oil? 49
Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan download pdf
A monetary case for value-added negative tax 80
Michael Kowalik download pdf
Did globalisation stimulate increased inequality? 92
A population perspective on the steady state economy 106
Herman Daly download pdf
Money and Say’s law:On the macroeconomic models of Kalecki, Keen and Marx 110
José A. Tapia download pdf
Asymmetric information, critical information and the information interface 121
Patrick Spread download pdf
Productivity declinein the Arab world 140
Ali Kadri download pdf
From TREXIT to GREXIT? – Quo vadis hellas? 161
Claude Hillinger download pdf
It is interesting that both Saudi Arabia and Iraq are not labeled as “Peak Oil Literate in the following diagram, ( Just Saying?) By GTK report , One wonders if Bichler and Nitsn would agree, I think not!.
Bringing Capital Accumulation Back In: The Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition – Military Contractors, Oil Companies and Middle-East “Energy Conflicts” (1995) https://bnarchives.yorku.ca/13/
Putting the State In Its Place: US Foreign Policy and Differential Accumulation in Middle-East “Energy Conflicts” (1996) https://bnarchives.yorku.ca/11/
Hi Jonathan,
first thanks for your recent work on Creorder out of Chaos, I think it is very insightful and explains a lot of the processes and bad outcomes coming out of the “Pandemic Response”?
You might enjoy this excellent article https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-central-bankers-long-covid-emergency-noise-and-conspiracys-best-kept-secret/
“”“The consequences of emergency capitalism are emphatically biopolitical. They concern the administration of a human surplus that is growing superfluous for a largely automated, highly financialised, and implosive reproductive model. This is why Virus, Vaccine and Covid Pass are the Holy Trinity of social engineering.””
On the question of energy inputs into the world economy, there is an open question as to whether World demand has reached a hard ceiling in terms of the ability to expand Energy production to meet global demand.
There are Population COntrol agendas hiding behind some policy narratives I think.
A population perspective on the steady-state economy 106
Herman Daly
Figure 15.3 Tobin’s Q?
Note: The market value of stocks and bonds is net of foreign holdings by US residents. Series are
smoothed as 5-year moving averages.
Source: For data sources and computations of the Buy-to-Build Indicator, see Data Appendix to
the chapter. Data for Tobin’s Q: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis through Global Insight
(series codes: FAPNREZ for current cost of corporate fixed assets). The market value of stocks
and bonds splices data from the following two sources. 1932–1951: Global Financial Data
(market value of corporate stocks and market value of bonds on the NYSE). 1952–2007: Federal
Reserve Board through Global Insight (series codes: FL893064105 for market value of corporate
equities; FL263164003 for market value of foreign equities held by US residents; FL893163005
for market value of corporate and foreign bonds; FL263163003 for market value of foreign
bonds held by US residents).
“This chart is simply wrong. No serious climate scientist would dare to deny validity of the existing CO2 record based on well established geological proxies. A simple google search of academic literature on the subject would reveal that much. Here is just one example: http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/PhanCO2(GCA).pdf”
NOTE: One cannot claim ignorance as an excuse for causing harm by acting on the information provided by others if the agent in question did not seek to personally verify that acting on the relevant information will not cause harm. For example, a politician who causes harm by acting on the advice of experts cannot claim that he acted in good faith in trusting the experts; he is personally liable for causing harm because he failed to verify that acting on the relevant information would not cause harm and therefore intentionally acted with indifference to the possibility of harm. Moreover, an agent who affirms and propagates unverified information does so with the intent of propagating it even if it is malicious or false information.
What the heck are US-sponsored sanctions if not “politically motivated”? Was Obama dumb enough to believe Russia would not respond? Or did he simply not care about the consequences to Ukraine and Europe?
By now, two things should be crystal clear
Russia has the upper hand.
More sanctions cannot possibly help.
Finally, the statement by Nuland regarding “reverse flows of natural gas from Slovakia, from Hungary, from Poland,” is preposterous.
For starters, the infrastructure is not in place. But even if the infrastructure was in place, precisely where are Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland going to get the gas to send to the Ukraine?
The apparent answer is Russia, and Russia can cut off all gas to Europe in response.
The only thing missing in this sorry charade is more counterproductive bellowing from senator John McCain about putting missiles in Georgia.
7 thoughts on “Who are the Priests and the Princes of Peak oil. There are three Peak Oil subjects, The Narrative Myth, The Actual output and investment figures, & Oil Wars.”
Mamdouh Salameh
on
March 10 2023
said:
OPEC+ has emerged from the pandemic as the most influential player in the global oil market and will maintain this position as long as it continues cooperation with Russia. By contrast, US shale oil has been a spent force since it was decimated by the pandemic in 2020. Any reported rise in US shale production will be overwhelmingly hype by the US Administration (EIA) and only a tiny bit realistic.
Even in 2019 when the Trump administration was encouraging the shale oil industry to flood the market even at huge loss for the sake of undermining OPEC and claiming oil independence and boasting that the United States is the world’s largest crude producer producing more than 12.0 million barrels a day (mbd), it was overwhelmingly hype orchestrated by the EIA in cahoots with Rystad Energy and the International Energy Agency (IEA). Production could never have really hit 12.0 mbd because there is a difference of 1.5-2.0 mbd between the EIA’s weekly and monthly figures, hence the EIA vowing on 6 March to improve the accuracy of its oil data.
OPEC+’s market share is projected to rise to more than 50% in the foreseeable future because of plans by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait to expand their production capacity with Russia projected to add 1.5 mbd from Arctic oil by 2026/27 thus adding more clout to the group.
Moreover, the balance of power in the global oil market has been shifting overwhelmingly in favour of the National Oil Companies (NOCs) at the expense of the International Oil companies (IOCs). This is partly due to a resurgent resource nationalism.
Whilst top IOCs such as Total, BP, Shell, Chevron, ENI, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Equinore and Repsol have reserve estimated to last from 8.0-10.5 years, the NOCs of countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Venezuela, Russia and Kuwait to name but a few have access to proven reserves which could last from 66-91 years.
Overall average IOCs’ reserves in place have fallen by 25% since 2015 with less than 10 years of total annual production available. For instance, oil supermajor Shell expects to have produced 75% of its current proven oil and gas reserves by 2030, and only around 3% after 2040.
In fact, the last three produced barrels of oil in the world will come from three regions: the Arab Gulf region, Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt and Russia’s Arctic with the very last barrel most probably coming from Iraq.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Global Energy Expert
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/notthegrubstreetjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Selection_093.jpg?fit=221%2C300&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/notthegrubstreetjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Selection_093.jpg?fit=708%2C962&ssl=1″ data-recalc-dims=”1″ data-lazy-loaded=”1″>
Climate Crisis Economics by Stuart P M Mackintosh
On the Tobin’s Q “Puzzle” and its resolution with our Buy-to-Build Indicator, see our book “Capital as Power”, Ch. 15, and particularly Figure 15.3 (http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/259/2/20090522_nb_casp_full_indexed.pdf).
https://archive.org/details/3302577/mode/2up