ASPO 2011: The Bright Future of Too-Big-To-Not-Fail Finance

Stadien des Kollaps Revidiert: „An der Brieftasche verwachsen“

[Auf Englisch]

Meine nette, geordnete Taxonomie des Kollaps, „Die Fünf Stadien des Kollaps“, wurde allein auf meinem Blog mehr als 70,000 mal gelesen seit ich ihn im Februar 2008 veröffentlicht habe. Der Artikel ist immer noch populär: alleine in diesem Jahr gab es über 10,000 Hits auf der Seite. Die Leute müssen ihn immer noch für hilfreich halten.

Und doch verläuft der Kollaps bisher nicht nach Plan. Was mich bewog den Artikel zu schreiben war der finanzielle Zusammenbruch von 2008, der zunächst nach einem Schachmatt für die westliche Finanzwelt aussah. Davon gehe ich immer noch aus. Damals schrieb ich über den „credit event“ von 2008:

Die Regierung könnte als Reaktion einige hilfreiche Predigten über „der Sünde Lohn“ halten und ein paar Suppenküchen und Absteigen an verschiedensten Orten, darunter auch an der Wall Street, eröffnen. Die Nachricht wäre:“ Ihr, die ehemals Schuld- und Spielsüchtigen, habt es wie man so sagt 'verbockt' und dies wird euch eine Lange Zeit leidtun. Wir werden euch nie wieder in die Nähe des großen Geldes lassen. Schafft eure Hintern in die Suppenküche und bringt euren eigenen Napf mit, denn wir waschen nicht ab.“ Das Ergebnis wäre ein stabiler Kollaps im ersten Stadium – die Zweite Große Depression.

Das ist allerdings unwahrscheinlich, denn die US Regierung ist nun mal der Schuld- und Spielsüchtige Nummer eins. Als Individuen können wir noch so tugendhaft sein die Regierung wird dennoch exorbitante Schulden in unserem Namen anhäufen. Jede Ebene der Regierung, von lokaler Verwaltungen und Behörden die den Kreditmarkt zum finanzieren öffentlicher Dienstleistungen und Aufträge benötigen, bis hin zur Bundesregierung, die für ihre endlosen Kriege auf ausländische Investitionen angewiesen ist, ist von privaten Schulden abhängig. Sie wissen dass sie nicht aufhören können Schulden zu machen, also werden sie alles in ihrer Macht tun das Spiel so lange wie möglich am Laufen zu halten.

Ich dachte zwar der Regierungsintervention ins private Finanzwesen die Qualen etwas verlängern würden; doch dass sie sie bis zum Tod der Regierungen selbst verlängern würde hätte ich nicht erwartet.

Der Effekt der Einmischung in den USA und Europa war das Niederreißen jedweden Schutzwalls zwischen privaten und öffentlichen Finanzen, mit dem Ergebnis das wir uns zwei monströsen, furchtbar kranken, siamesischen Zwillingen gegenüber sehen. Der Tod des einen bedeutet den sicheren Tod des anderen. Sie mit einem Hackbeil zu trennen wäre zwecklos: sie würden nur rote Tinte bluten und früher sterben als sie es ohnehin müssen.

Vielleicht wäre ihr frühzeitiger Tod hilfreich. Jetzt, da es mit wirtschaftlichem Wachstum so gut wie aus und vorbei ist, stellt die Großfinanz und hohe Politik nur ein Hindernis dar für ein geordnetes Einschrumpfen der Weltwirtschaft. Was ich mit einem „geordneten Einschrumpfen“ meine, ist ein Prozess bei dem die Wirtschaft in einem gesunden Maße schrumpft, bei etwa der Rate, die man einst als gesunde Wachstumsrate bezeichnet hat. Aber auf eine Weise die es den meisten Menschen erlaubt zu überleben, indem man einige Notwendigkeiten zur Verfügung stellt. So etwa Nahrung, Unterkunft, Sicherheit, der Zugang zu Medizinischer Versorgung, die Möglichkeit Kinder groß zuziehen und so weiter.

Die endlosen, leidenschaftlichen Gebete, für nicht existentes und physikalisch unmögliches Wachstum, sind verräterisch: Ohne Wachstum muss man die befristeten Tricks der Regierungen und Geldinstitute die das Spiel am Leben halten als unbefristet erachten, und unbefristet funktionieren sie nicht. Da gäbe es z.B. den „versteckt den Dreck“ Trick für die Bilanzen der Zentralbanken. Der würde funktionieren wenn der Dreck irgendwann wieder etwas wert wäre, was mit Wirtschaftswachstum denkbar wäre. Ohne ihn bleibt es Dreck.

Ein anderer Trick ist die massive Aufstockung der Rettungsschirme unter Garantieversprechen seitens der Regierungen; Dieser Trick könnte funktionieren, wenn das Wachstum wieder anziehen würde, denn dann würden die Garantien niemals in Anspruch genommen. So wie es steht werden sie aber garantiert in Anspruch genommen. Und da die öffentlichen Gelder hinter den Garantien nicht existieren, dürfte die Behauptung, dass Billionen an Rettungsgeldern zur Verfügung stehen, sicherlich schnell seine Wirkung verlieren.

Ich hätte mir eine geordnete Kaskade kollabierender Institutionen gewünscht, mit genügend Abstand zwischen den Ereignissen, damit sich allgemeine Psyche und Habitus an die neue Realität anpassen können. Doch die fast vier verschwendeten Jahre, in denen die Finanzwelt und Regierung nun schon auf eine Zukunft setzen die nicht existieren kann, und dabei jeden Einsatz verdoppeln den sie verlieren, haben diese Hoffnung zerschlagen. Ich denke der Effekt wird lediglich der sein, dass sich finanzieller und politischer Kollaps in einer einzigen chaotischen Periode verdichten. Der wirtschaftliche Zusammenbruch wird dann nicht lange auf sich warten lassen, denn der globale Handel ist vom globalen Finanzwesen abhängig, und sobald internationale Kredite austrocknen fahren Tanker und Frachter nicht mehr. Kurz danach gehen die Lichter aus.

„Die Fünf Stadien des Kollaps“ war eine nette Theorie. Ach hätten wir doch nur so viel Glück gehabt! Ich schreibe das um Sie zu warnen: erwarten Sie besser nichts derart geordnetes.

Stages of Collapse Revised: “Joined at the Wallet”

My neat and tidy taxonomy of collapse, “The Five Stages of Collapse,” has been read more than 70,000 times just on my blog alone since I first published it in February of 2008. It continues to be popular: there were over 10,000 hits to the page just this year. People must still be finding it helpful.

And yet collapse has not gone according to plan. What caused me to write the initial article was the financial collapse of 2008, which was shaping up to be a game-ender for Western finance. It still is, I believe. Back then, I wrote of the “credit event” of 2008:

The government response to this could be to offer some helpful homilies about "the wages of sin" and to open a few soup kitchens and flop houses in a variety of locations including Wall Street. The message would be: "You former debt addicts and gamblers, as you say, 'fucked up,' and so this will really hurt for a long time. We will never let you anywhere near big money again. Get yourselves over to the soup kitchen, and bring your own bowl, because we don't do dishes." This would result in a stable Stage 1 collapse - the Second Great Depression.

However, this is unlikely, because in the US the government happens to be debt addict and gambler number one. As individuals, we may have been as virtuous as we wished, but the government will have still run up exorbitant debts on our behalf. Every level of government, from local municipalities and authorities, which need the financial markets to finance their public works and public services, to the federal government, which relies on foreign investment to finance its endless wars, is addicted to public debt. They know they cannot stop borrowing, and so they will do anything they can to keep the game going for as long as possible.

I thought that government interventions in private finance would prolong the agony somewhat; what I didn't think was that they would prolong it even onto the death of the governments themselves! The effect of the interventions since then, in the US and in Europe, has been to knock down every firewall between public and private finance, to the point that now we are faced with two monstrous, and monstrously sick, conjoined twins, and the death any one of them is sure to spell the death of the other. Trying to separate them with a cleaver will be of no use: they will simply hemorrhage red ink and die sooner than they would otherwise.

Perhaps their early demise would be useful. Now that economic growth is pretty much over and done with, big finance and big government stand directly in the path of an orderly shriveling-up of the global economy. What I mean when I say “an orderly shriveling-up” is a process by which the economy shrinks at a healthy rate, corresponding to rates that were once considered to be a healthy growth rate, but in a way that allows most people to survive by providing a few essentials, such as food, shelter, security, access to medical care, ability to raise children and so on.

The endless fervent prayers we hear for nonexistent and physically impossible economic growth are telltale: without growth the temporary tricks used by government and finance to keep the game going have to be seen as permanent tricks, and as permanent tricks they do not work. There is the trick of “hiding the garbage” on the balance sheet of central banks. It would work if the garbage (loans gone bad) were to some day be worth something, which it might have if there were to be growth. Without it, they remain garbage. Another trick is to extend government guarantees to massively raise the amount of available bail-out funds; this trick would work if growth were to resume, in which case the guarantees would never need to be used. As it is, they are guaranteed to be used, and since the public funds behind these guarantees don't exist, the pretense of there being trillions of bail-out funds available is sure to wear thin quickly.

I wished for an orderly cascade of collapsing institutions, with enough of a gap between them for public psychology and behavior to adjust to the new reality. But almost four lost years of both government and finance betting on a future that cannot exist, doubling down every time they lose again, have dashed those hopes. The effect, I think, will be to compress financial and political collapse into a single chaotic episode. Commercial collapse will not be far behind, because global commerce is dependent on global finance, and once international credit locks up the tankers and the container ships won't sail. Shortly thereafter it will be lights out.

The Five Stages of Collapse was a nice theory. If only we had been so lucky! I am writing this to warn you: don't look for anything quite so tidy. Oh, and happy Halloween!

Where's Muammar?

Auf Deutsch—Vielen Dank, Alexander!

[48-hour update: Muammar is in his home town of Sirte, dead. He died like a warrior, surrounded by his loyal followers, who fought on against insurmountable odds until the very end. He is survived by his enemies, who, if they are lucky, will die the death of cowards—in a hospital bed, fussed over by money-grubbing physicians. And if they are not so lucky—imagination runs wild. Being the scum of the earth is not illegal, but there is most likely a limit to how long people will be willing to go on believing that. I raise my glass of tea to Muammar, a unique and colorful dictator who made other bloodthirsty tyrants look like mice.]

It's been over seven months ago that I commented on the fact that not all is going according to plan in Libya. The Langley, Virginia chapter of Al Qaeda had decided to overthrow Muammar, for all the obvious reasons. The British jumped on board, mostly because they are British. The French jumped on board because Muammar had put up some communications satellites that were undercutting France Telecom's ability to gouge and fleece poor Africans. Everyone else was  disgusted.

They've been overthrowing him continually for seven months now. At this point, he appears to be close to 90% overthrown, but the remaining 10% are proving to be slow going. It remains to be seen whether “Operation Suck 'Em Dry” will go according to plan, or whether it will result in pipelines and installations being blown up sporadically for years on end, as it has in every other oil-producing place that's been bombed into submission, invaded and ransacked.

Also, nobody seems to know where Muammar is. Now, some other overthrown dictator might be feeling low around now, but that's not our Muammar! My feeling is that, wherever he is, he is probably having a good time. But seeing as even his most stalwart supporters are ready to concede that his return to power in Libya is, at this point, unlikely, I thought it would be a good time to share with the world my Muammar scrapbook.

And if he is in your area, please be hospitable. He is not a bad sort. Things got out of hand; he didn't mean it; he is sorry. All he ever wanted was to be a non-pro-Western Arab dictator, for a change. Who can blame him for that?

With Mr. 0

Being polite to some sleazebag

With Vova

With... WUGGHGHGH!

Puckering up for Yasser

With his good friend Mandela

Crossroads Lecture on “The Fall of the American Empire”

Photo credit: David Reid

Update: We managed to completely fill Orcas Center. As one of the organizers said afterwards, "The 99%ers loved it, the 1%ers hated it." I prepared for this eventuality by providing a few shiny new dimes: the 1%ers got a 1% refund on the $10 ticket. I suppose the 1%ers didn't much like my characterizing them as "Bums with money."

Here is the mp3 of the talk.


Sunday, October 9 at 2 p.m. at Orcas Center

From the Crossroads Lecture Series Committee

The Orcas Crossroads Lecture Series presents Dmitry Orlov’s lecture, Fall of the American Empire next Sunday, October 9, 2 pm at Orcas Center, including a reception and book signing with the speaker following the presentation.

Update: Here's a write-up from a local paper.

Living on Stolen Time

Extracting the Stone of Stupidity

Consider a flame; a jet of methane, for example, injected into an oxygen-rich atmosphere and set alight. Now try to describe the shape and structure of the flame mathematically, in a way that will allow you to accurately predict how its shape and structure respond to changes in various conditions—oxygen concentration, gas pressure and so on. You will quickly discover that the mathematics of the problem can be derived from basic physical principles but is intractable: there are equations that accurately describe the situation, but they are too difficult to solve. Often the easiest solution, one that is practical in the case of a simple gas jet, is to build a physical model or a prototype, test it, and make some observations and measurements that characterize the system. But what if that's not possible? Then the usual recourse is to build a computational model that simplifies the physics in various ways and brute-forces the solution by crunching through lots of numbers.

A flame

Now consider that same flame again from a slightly different perspective: what's actually going on? Yes, the character and behavior of the flame are difficult to characterize and predict with great accuracy, but suppose you already know what a gas flame looks like, and just want to know what it is. Here, the equations are simple. First, methane oxidizes to carbon monoxide, hydrogen and water vapor, giving off energy (heat and light) in the process:

CH₄ + O₂ → CO + H₂ + H₂O

Next, the hydrogen oxidizes, giving off more water vapor and energy:

2 H₂ + O₂ → 2 H₂O

Finally, the carbon monoxide oxidizes as well, producing carbon dioxide and more energy:

2 CO + O₂ → 2 CO₂

This is quite typical of how we go about explaining just about everything we encounter. To understand the flow of traffic, we think about individual vehicles and the interactions between them. To understand epidemics, we think about the course of the disease in individual patients and the spread of infection from patient to patient. To understand how an industrial chemical affects an ecosystem we look at its effect on individual cells in individual organisms. We take a specimen, study its behavior, and extrapolate it to the population as a whole. This approach gives at least the illusion of explanatory depth; more importantly, it often allows us to establish cause and effect relationships and, based on them, make constructive changes that decisively influence the outcome: impose speed limits, quarantines and environmental regulations, respectively.

Let us try to apply this same approach to a truly complex system: the economies of US and Europe, in the state in which we currently find them: raging government deficits, staggering levels of bad debt, continuous government bailouts and infusions of free money by central banks, record levels of poverty and long-term unemployment and underemployment, and a lack of any meaningful economic growth. Specifically, let us try to characterize the effect of the continuous monetary infusions, bailouts, and stimulus spending. The economics profession has failed to do this and so amateurs are forced to step into the breach. The economists' usual excuse is that it's all very complicated; sure it is, so is a gas flame.

All money is debt. It is created when someone takes out a loan, promising to repay it (with or without interest) with proceeds from his or her future labor. If that promise is broken, the money ceases to exist. In the normal course of affairs, the lender then “loses” the money. If the lender loses more money than he happens to have, then the lender is bankrupted and, economically speaking, ceases to exist as well. What happened during the financial collapse of 2008 is that the real estate bubble burst and many loans went bad at the same time. The response was not to liquidate the lenders who lost more than they had, but to prop them up by issuing further loans that were not supported by any specific mechanism or realistic chance of repayment—just the compulsive thought that big financial organizations must not be allowed to fail because that would irreparably damage the system. Propping up bankrupt institutions by issuing fake money (or, more precisely, fake debt) has been assumed to be less damaging to the system than doing nothing.

This assumption would perhaps have been justified if the financial difficulties were, as was once thought, temporary in nature, that the economy would roar back to life and growth would resume. Now, three years later, we find ourselves back where we started, and this assumption no longer seems tenable. It is not clear why growth should resume, as many factors, persistently high energy prices among them, continue to weigh it down. We shouldn't bet on any more economic expansion, at least not in the developed world. As Richard Heinberg argues persuasively in his latest book, The End of Growth, growth has reached its limits, which are both numerous and insurmountable.

There is a plain and simple distinction between the two kinds of money: real money, which was lent into existence with a specific and realistic promise of repayment by a specific party, and fake money, which was dreamt into existence by a central banker without anyone specifically promising to repay it. Suppose a person walks into a grocery with fake money in his wallet, and buys something. This is no different from paying with counterfeit money: the grocer is getting robbed. But there is also a difference: the officially issued fake money is indistinguishable from real money. But just because you can't spot a fake doesn't mean that you aren't getting robbed. And so the fake money mixes with the real money and sloshes about the economy, robbing each person who touches it, until everybody is poor. Since poor people can't pay back big loans, the central banker's conceit that the fake money is debt seems rather unjustified. It is owed by the central banker to the central banker, and it would be foolish of us to expect him to ever work it off.

I am using the word “robbery” here not to indicate moral indignation or feigned umbrage, of the “I am shocked! Shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” variety. I might even say that sometimes robbery is justified (“expropriation” or “commandeering” are its more polite, civilized variants). I am using it because the trick—paying with a fake—is an obvious one, and the result—the robbed party becomes poorer—is obvious as well. And so whether it is a retiree spending his deficit-financed social security check at the dollar store or a banker spending his bailout-financed bonus on lavish gifts for his trophy girlfriend, or a construction worker drinking his economic stimulus-financed paycheck at the bar, somebody somewhere is getting robbed—and becoming poorer.

Rest assured, I am not advocating letting people starve or forgo beer or anything of the sort. A warm bed and three squares a day is, to me, a human right. I am not interested in policy (nor are policymakers interested in me). But I am interested in making a specific prediction: that government and central bank efforts to stabilize the financial system and restart economic growth will do the exact opposite: they will destroy that which they are trying to save more completely although a little bit later. They are living on stolen time.

The alternative (in case policymakers suddenly decided to pay attention and were capable of taking on board such a radical notion) is a jubilee: full repudiation of all debts public and private and a ban on all repayments, repossessions and collection activities. This would force a full shutdown and cold restart of the financial system. But it will probably have to happen anyway. In the meantime, do your best to avoid getting robbed.

Peak Oil: Laherrère responds to Yergin

Daniel Yergin

By Matthieu Auzanneau, Le Monde
Translated from French by Natasha

Jean Laherrère, co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil is a retired expert from Total. He picks apart the latest analysis from the champion of optimists, the American Daniel Yergin.

Daniel Yergin is back. The author of The Prize, an oft-cited history of oil which glorified the industry, last week has published an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, in advance of the release of his latest work, The Quest.

Daniel Yergin is the vice-president of IHS, a powerful economic intelligence agency considered to be very close to the major American oil companies. The arguments this first-rank analyst develops in the Wall Street Journal is a long-awaited counterattack on the proliferation of alarming forecasts for the future of global oil production.

Daniel Yergin admits that success in satisfying future demand for petroleum constitutes a “challenge”. But he says that he has severe doubts about the credibility of the members of ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, who claim that this battle has already been lost, due to lack of sufficient oil reserves that remain to be exploited.

In his portrayal of the current situation, the vice-president of IHS omits a key fact: conventional oil production (the classical liquid oil which comprises 80% of the current crude oil supply) reached its absolute peak in 2006. The date of 2006 was predicted back in 1998 by Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère, two petroleum geologists who founded ASPO.

And so I have asked Jean Laherrère, former chief of exploration technology at Total, to react to the key statements contained in the optimistic analysis provied by Daniel Yergin. 

Daniel Yergin: “Just in the years 2007 to 2009, for every barrel of oil produced in the world, 1.6 barrels of new reserves were added.” 

Jean Laherrère: Daniel Yergin cites official, political estimates published in the Oil & Gas Journal and by BP. According to these figures, global reserves were at 1253 billion barrels (Gb) in 2007 and at 1333 Gb in 2009, after the addition of 72 Gb of extra-heavy Orinoco oil discovered in Venezuela... in the late 1930s. What is, let us say, astounding about this, is that Mr. Yergin ignores confidential the figures from his own agency, IHS.

These figures, here they are. Note that they do not incude the extra-heavy oil

	Discoveries (Gb)	Production (Gb)
2007	10.0	26.0
2008	13.0	26.3
2009	12.4	25.8
Total	35.4	78.1

The reality is that for each barrel produced less than 0.5 barrels have been discovered, and not 1.6! Oil continues to be consumed faster than it is discovered. This situation has lasted for a quarter of a century now. 

Daniel Yergin: "One example [of revolutionary technology] is the "digital oil field," which uses sensors throughout the field to improve the data and communication between the field and a company's technology centers. If widely adopted, it could help to recover an enormous amount of additional oil worldwide—by one estimate, an extra 125 billion barrels, almost equivalent to the current estimate reserves of Iraq."

Jean Laherrère: It is at present quite fashionable to talk of the “digital oil field” to impress investors. But to this day I have not come across any mature field that has significantly increased its reserves by the use of this technology. To pretend to be able to grow reserves by 125 Gb thanks to this technology amounts to nothing more than wishful thinking, and does not stand up to any serious study. 

How does one increase the size of recoverable reserves of oil fields? Well, first of all, there are secondary recovery techniques: the use of water or gas injection to maintain field pressure. This is a practice that is in actual use from the very begginning on all new oil fields.

Tertiary recovery (or EOR, for “enhanced oil recovery”) is used to modify the properties of the liquids: thermal methods (by using steam), chemical, or injection of oil-soluble gases such as CO₂. It's in the United States that EOR is most developed. And yet the number of EOR projects has gone down from about 500 in 1986 to only 200 in 2010. They yielded 600000 barrels per day (bpd) in 1986. From 1992 to 2000, they have remained level at around 750000 bpd. In 2010, they produced no more than 650000 bpd, and this despite high oil prices and the generous easing of environmental regulations of the Bush era.

Technology can do nothing to modify the geology of an oil reservoir! It just allows it to be produced faster, thereby accelerating the decline of mature fields... Here's an example: the very pronounced production declines at the giant Mexican Cantarell field, which made use of massive nitrogen injections.

The rate of recovery of a feld depends above all on the properties of the field and the liquid it contains. This rate can be as high as 80% for sandstone or very porous limestone, and might not exceed 1% for a tight reservoir with isolated pockets. 

Daniel Yergin: "A study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that 86 percent of oil reserves in the U.S. were the result not of what was estimated at the time of discovery but of revisions and additions from further development. "

Jean Laherrère: Evidence that the proven reserves of the United States do not increase: over the last decade, according to the US Department of Energy, the amount of upward revisions of U.S. reserves is roughly equal to the amount of downward revisions [pdf, see column 2: "net revisions"]. 

What allows Mr. Yergin to believe anything different? In the United States, reserves are reported according to the rules imposed by the SEC, the policeman of Wall Street. From 1977 to 2010, these rules required oil companies to report as "proved" only those reserves that were directly accessible by the wells already in production. The SEC prohibited the reporting of reserves called "probable" and found in the vicinity of these wells, even if the probability was very high.

This misleading rule was designed to protect the bankers who, if a producer went bankrupt, could decide to seize only the producing wells. This very narrow definition was anything but reliable, because it led to an underestimation of the actual reserves of American oil fields at the beginning of production, and their subsequent systematic upward re-evaluation.

Take, for example, the Kern River field, located in California. Since 2000, production from this old field has declined steadily. However, the amount of reserves reported for Kern River rose from 318 million barrels in 2000 to 542 million barrels in 2010. This amazing growth is due to the fact that between 2000 and 2010, 560 new wells were put into production (but failed to halt the decline of Kern River)!

Only the addition of both proven and probable reserves allows a field to be evaluated correctly. This method, called EPS, is now used everywhere the world—I actually participated in its development in 1997. Everywhere ... except in the United States. The growth of U.S. reserves which Mr. Yergin celebrates owes nothing to the advancement of technology: its cause is the incorrect method advocated by the SEC until 2010.

Moreover, since 2010, the SEC has lurched from one extreme to another. It now allows estimates of proved reserves not only from producing wells, but according to an evaluation model of the entire field that companies can keep secret! This new method supports all kinds of excesses and abuses, which have been denounced in the New York Times in particular.

This new SEC rule bore fruit in the form of the considerable growth of U.S. reserves of shale gas. Again, this has nothing to do with the implementation of technologies that are supposedly “new”, but which in reality have been there for thirty years, such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of rocks. [Editor's note: land speculation fueled by questionable claims for reserves of shale gas is going to feed a large bubble in the U.S., according to an investigation by Ian Urbina New York Times, who is also the author of the article cited above.]

Daniel Yergin lies on reserves, just as Greece has lied about its deficits. Warning: in the world of energy, there are no rules—except to make money, and there are no referees and umpires! 

Finally, a little background. In 2005, Daniel Yergin published an editorial in the Washington Post in which he was already mocking the pessimists, and in which he predicted that by 2010 global oil production capacity could increase by 16 million barrels per day (Mb/d) from from 85 to 101 Mb/d. Since then, global production capacity remained on a plateau of about 86 Mb/d... You ought to go back and re-read yourself, Mr. Yergin.

[Daniel Yergin's editorial has elicited other strong reactions among those who support the hypothesis of an imminent decline in the global production of liquid fuels. These include, notably, an on-line article by Professor Kjell Aleklett, president of ASPO International.

In 2008, Glenn Morton, a an American geophysicist and investor, published what he presented as an inventory of the optimistic but incorrect predictions about the state of the oil market provided over the years by Daniel Yergin and IHS.]

Peak Moment TV: Collapse of the Titans

ASPO Conference

I'll be speaking at the ASPO in Washington, DC on November 2-5 on why gradual energy descent is a science-fiction scenario that includes friendly oil-exporting space aliens and why the end of the fossil fuel age is likely to be a step-function. I will also talk about investing for post-collapse. I believe that there might still be time to engineer a soft landing at the end of the upcoming economic cliff-diving exercise. This can be done if groups of individuals decide to sell off financial instruments that will have little or no survival value post-collapse (stocks, bonds, gold, etc.) and invest in something that is not useful now but will be: complete construction kits for businesses to deliver products and services that are certain to be in high demand, for lack of better alternatives. To make this scenario possible, it is necessary to design plans, recruit people and stockpile and pre-position materials while finance, industry and transportation systems are still functioning. I hope to see some of you there.

The 2011 ASPO-USA Conference, Peak Oil, Energy & the Economy, will provide eye-opening information and hard-nosed analysis to help you navigate an increasingly uncertain future. Featuring experts from a cross-cutting array of disciplines and perspectives, the Conference will empower you with the tools and connections to make critical decisions for your business, your family, and public policy.

Under the theme of "Truth in Energy," the conference will stress the essential need for reliable, transparent, fact-based information, and a full understanding of growing energy and economic challenges.

The ASPO-USA Peak Oil, Energy & the Economy Conference, November 2-5, 2011 in Washington, DC, is the world's premier event focused on peak oil challenges and solutions. It is produced by the nonprofit Association For The Study Of Peak Oil & Gas - USA (ASPO-USA). The format includes keynotes, plenary sessions, concurrent educational tracks, networking receptions, and exhibits. The conference is supported by more than 35 publications, websites and partnering associations. You can receive a $50 discount off the prevailing fees for Peak Aware Package registration option by inserting the code mediapartner when prompted on the eRegistration page linked from http://www.aspousa.org/conference/2011/Agenda.cfm

How I Survived Hurricane Irene

Quite a few well-meaning people have written to ask me how I survived the recent hurricane. Some have even suggested that I should give up living aboard and flee to higher ground.

We spent the entire event at the dock, bobbing up and down slightly and leaning over a bit in the wind gusts. By the time she hit Boston Harbor, Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm, with the eye well to the west of us. Still, we got buckets of rain and several hours of gale winds.

The worst of it was the preparation. I had to clear lots of things off the docks and the deck, rig additional dock lines, lace up the sail cover so it wouldn't flog in the wind, take down the awning, secure the dink so that it wouldn't get bashed around, tie down various items on deck so that they wouldn't blow away, fill the water tanks for additional ballast and in case we lost shore water, and so forth. That seemed like a lot of work.

During the hurricane itself we stayed on board, where it was warm and dry. We rocked a bit, and we spent a few hours leaning at about a 15º angle in the stiff breeze. My wife and the cat pretty much slept through the entire event. I would venture out periodically, mill around on the docks with the neighbors, adjust a few dock lines, and go back inside.

A few worst case scenarios were being contemplated, without much conviction, because several people have seen much worse. In one scenario the docks themselves start breaking up and boats start bashing into each other. As it turned out, just one dock cleat pulled out and some boards popped out of the finger piers from the twisting. Another potential problem would be if wind gusts got so stiff that sailboat masts would get tangled up in each others' rigging, possibly leading to a few dismastings. They didn't even get close. The ultimate nightmare scenario involved a storm surge so huge that the entire structure would float off the pilings and crash into the seawall. We were well short of that, in spite of a couple of extra high tides due to the full moon that coincided with the storm surge. We never even lost shore electricity, shore water or internet access, but with a wind generator, 1000 liters of water and plenty of books this wouldn't have affected us too much either.

During the worst of it

It seems like our "house" was designed to take it better than your average house. In a hurricane, there is a high risk of flooding, so it is helpful if your house can float. Also, there is a high risk of very high winds, so the house should be streamlined in shape and able to withstand hurricane force winds, even while floating. The combination of water and wind is known to cause waves, so it is helpful if the house can take the ocean swell and the odd breaking wave without capsizing or swamping. There is a good chance of power cuts and water main and gas line breaks, so the house should have its own internal electricity generation system, and its own supplies of water and propane. Lastly, a hurricane might make a certain area uninhabitable for a period of time, prompting you to want to move, but hurricanes also tend to wash away roads and bridges, so it would be better if your house could make its escape via the waterways. There might also be fuel supply disruptions, so it's better if your house can move without the use of fossil fuels by, say, hoisting a sail or two. In short, if you want to survive a hurricane, you want to be on a sailboat.

Now, granted, you could also be perfectly safe in a house that's built to withstand a hurricane, in an area that's full of such houses. But where is that? Most people I know can't afford the house they are living in now, never mind making it hurricane-proof.

Aside from hurricanes, there are forest fires, tsunamis and earthquakes. Forest fires aren't much of a problem out on the water. Tsunamis are uniquely survivable aboard a boat, given a bit of warning; when you see the water going out, head for deep water. Then, once it's all over, come back to survey the damage. During the recent East Coast earthquake, which damaged the National Cathedral in Washington, everyone in Boston felt it. My wife didn't; she was on the boat at the time.

It was a wet and windy weekend, and I didn't get a lot done. But compared to the scenes of devastation we see among the East Coast communities from Hatteras all the way up the coast and inland through Western Massachusetts to Vermont, for those of us living afloat in the harbor Hurricane Irene was pretty much a non-event.