Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 10:19 am Post subject: Re: Olduvai and the Alberta Oilsands
I think natural gas use in tar sands plants has been gone over in a few threads, but the reality is that it's not that big an issue. Tha mount of natural gas that is used has been cut drastically over the last few years through new technologies. Once natural gas goes into decline they'll use other energy sources (coal, bitumen) in place of it.
The labour shortage isn't just an issue in Fort MacMurray. It's province-wide. I run purchasing for a company in Edmonton that builds equipment for natural gas processing and we're constantly hiring people because the turnover is so high. All the machine shops, welding fabricators, pipe distributors, etc. are all trying to find people and nobody can.
The problem with getting people to work in Fort Mac is that it's a dump and housing costs are insane. Do a real estate search on it and you'll see what I mean.
Trailers (with the trailer park lot, mind-you) are going for $200k. In order to make a mortgage on that you're going to need to be pulling in at least $30 and hour. Or you could always live on-site. From what i've heard, it's supposed to be like jail.
Joined: Jul 21, 2004 Posts: 1287 Location: Suburban tar sands
Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2006 1:19 am Post subject: Re: Olduvai and the Alberta Oilsands
Motel wrote:
I think natural gas use in tar sands plants has been gone over in a few threads, but the reality is that it's not that big an issue. Tha mount of natural gas that is used has been cut drastically over the last few years through new technologies. Once natural gas goes into decline they'll use other energy sources (coal, bitumen) in place of it.
The labour shortage isn't just an issue in Fort MacMurray. It's province-wide. I run purchasing for a company in Edmonton that builds equipment for natural gas processing and we're constantly hiring people because the turnover is so high. All the machine shops, welding fabricators, pipe distributors, etc. are all trying to find people and nobody can.
The problem with getting people to work in Fort Mac is that it's a dump and housing costs are insane. Do a real estate search on it and you'll see what I mean.
Joined: Nov 28, 2004 Posts: 12434 Location: Neither Here Nor There
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:06 am Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
Ludi wrote:
That's great, Ayoob. Just be sure nobody reading your post there ever meets you in real life post PO, they will probably deal with you very quickly, knowing you are entirely untrustworthy and a menace.
Good luck in the future. Or rather, bad luck, I should say.
I can't figure this guy, Ludi. He boasts of embracing evil, but he's gone to alot of trouble to train as a paramedic. Seems like if he was really evil, he would have stayed put as a shyster stockbroker. Maybe he's just spent too much time reading Nietzsche and de Sade. Evil people don't boast of their evil so he's probably just confused or else he's a drama queen. A third possibility is he's out of his mind. He didn't seem like such a whackjob a year ago. Could be the situation has turned his head. Then again, maybe he's just lost control of his drinking habits.
Joined: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 890 Location: Scotland
Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 7:03 am Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
Wow, you sound like a total and complete idiot. No idea what relevance your post has to mine, at all. I was opining that olduvai and hubbert's theories may not apply to a 'whole world' situation - or, at the very least, they are too simplistic and cannot predict with accuracy what happens on a worldwide scale as compared to a country wide scale.
Then you go and reply with a nonsensical post like that.
I have a suggestion, seek medical help.
Ayoob wrote:
linlithgowoil wrote:
i just dont really get why there should be a 'cliff' event at all? won't we just go nuclear?
also - will france, with its overwhelmingly nuclear based electricity system, also have no electricity due to NG issues?
its a theory that cant be applied worlwide, in my opinion. it could definetly apply to an isolated country such as the US, as it doesnt import electricty (i dont think) from anyone.
its a bit like the peak oil theory as well. it works very well in one country, but when you try to apply it worlwide it doesnt quite fit so well, because everything gets too complicated and there are too many factors and variables. dont get me wrong, i still think we are near peak, i just think that hubberts theories and the olduvai theory are a little simplistic to apply on a worldwide basis.
Hey, you could be right. All we need to do, really, is share what we have and care about what happens to our neighbors. That's pretty much it, all we need is love.
What's really going to happen is the same thing that's happened for 30,000 years. When the S hits the F, the strong will line up
[Phrase deleted for abusive graphic contenet - see CoC & ToU - Backstop]
I'm kind of glad that people like you write posts like this. It makes me much more confident in my Personal Commitment to Evil. As long as I fully embrace stupidity and selfishness in my personal activities, and refuse to consider the cost to others, I will outlast you and your children and your woman. Who knows, maybe they'll be working for me some day.
Good luck with dancing around your nuclear Maypole!
Here's a couple of quotes from my mentor, Genghis Khan. He wasn't a cartoon character, by the way, this was a real flesh and blood man. Interestingly enough, his name was enough to drive the
“It is not sufficient that I suceed - all others must fail.”
“I am the punishment of God...If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”
"The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him. To ride their horses and take away their possessions. To see the faces of those who were dear to them bedewed with tears, and to clasp their wives and daughters in his arms"
I'm going to have to do a post on a Personal Commitment to Evil one of these days.
Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:06 am Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
Damn that Duncan! For all his inexperience and lack of mathematics to back up his theory, his timing seems to be on track. More problems with the grid now surfacing, again, in Canada. Canada News
How scary is it that they are crying out for the public suggestions to solve the inability of the electric grid to serve a growing public? Think about that - they are literally the "broken clocks" like Duncan and myself, who have no mathematical ability, to offer suggestions on something so complex that we can't understand it enough to see there's a problem to begin with.
Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:42 pm Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
Its funny that even if a broken clock is only right twice a day, like Duncan for example, how often the bell tolls midnight for all of us. Now, the China Daily is reporting they don't have enough natural gas to run their power plants.
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:17 am Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
seahorse2 wrote:
Its funny that even if a broken clock is only right twice a day, like Duncan for example, how often the bell tolls midnight for all of us. Now, the China Daily is reporting they don't have enough natural gas to run their power plants.
After the passage of the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act in 1978 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992 ....
.... industrial customers can buy power from plants hundreds of miles away, putting major burdens on the transmission system and increasing the likelihood of a blackout. That has made a huge difference: The number of times that the transmission grid was unable to transmit power for which a transaction had been contracted jumped from 50 in 1997 to 1,494 in 2002. This metamorphosis has done little to improve the physical system of transmission or its control systems. The burden of making the new system operate reliably has instead fallen on people.
This is not the mechanism that Duncan offered (e.g. erosion of topsoil, depletion of aquifers and other neo Malthusian doomer porn masturbatory fantasies) _________________ "Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:37 am Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
Energyspin,
I was hoping to "bait" you back into this debate. Dangling all that "broken clock" bait in front of your spider hole
You're appearances provide necessary balance, although, you still haven't told us what time it is. If you don't tell us what time it is (speaking of the grid countdown clock), I may have to make a sun dial just in case the electricity does go out.
Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:44 am Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
seahorse2 wrote:
Energyspin,
I was hoping to "bait" you back into this debate. Dangling all that "broken clock" bait in front of your spider hole
You're appearances provide necessary balance, although, you still haven't told us what time it is. If you don't tell us what time it is (speaking of the grid countdown clock), I may have to make a sun dial just in case the electricity does go out.
Lol, your intention did not really escape my radar beam
Before I can tell you what time really is, you have to frame the question in a more precise manner.
To answer your question: no I do not think the Odulvai theory is credible for reasons that I have detailed in previous posts.
Do I think that random blackouts and higher prices will soon hit us?
Of course I do: the decision to deploy NG plants is coming back to bite us and the same goes for the deregulation (this applies to all countries not just the US). What can we do? in the short term, sliding scale rates that provide financial incentives to conserve while securing access to electricity for the basic needs of consumers and industry. In the medium to long term we build wind farms and nuclear reactors as fast as we produce concrete. Since the situation is reminiscent of the aviation industry in the 50s (did you read Apt's piece?) we should also deploy similar regulatory measures as they did 40-50 years ago.
To get back to your clock question: the grid is not going to kiss us goodbye permanently but it is 10-11pm as far as the NG supply related crunch is related. _________________ "Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: Re: Review of the Olduvai Gorge
Cheers Seahorse.
It would be interesting to see the energy per capita profiles for individual countries. For instance, the other day someone was quoting numbers for Sweden that equated to a figure like 44 boe/c/yr. _________________ The Olduvai Theory is thinkable http://www.dieoff.com/page224.pdf
Easter Island - a warning from history : http://www.dieoff.org/page145.htm
When I first saw this graph, my chin fell so hard that I had to dig to find it, and I think I've still yet to fully understand what it means. It was like finding the missing link of Mankind (in this case Oil-Mankind). Since 1983 Oil Production per Capita has been flat. This has to mean one of two things:
* Population Growth drives Oil Production, or;
* Oil Production drives Population Growth.
ROFL! Man thats gotta be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. _________________ "Production of useful work is limited by the laws of thermodynamics, but the production of useless work seems to be unlimited."
When I first saw this graph, my chin fell so hard that I had to dig to find it, and I think I've still yet to fully understand what it means. It was like finding the missing link of Mankind (in this case Oil-Mankind). Since 1983 Oil Production per Capita has been flat. This has to mean one of two things:
* Population Growth drives Oil Production, or;
* Oil Production drives Population Growth.
ROFL! Man thats gotta be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
Duncan is a prime example of what happens when people obtain access to datasets+numerical software in spite of them being completely clueless about experimental and statistical methods. Reminds of a recent paper that a grad student of mine found in a rather prestigious source: the authors proposed a rather tedious way metric which was nothing else but the humble correlation coefficient in disguise. Unfortunately, it was the wrong metric for the particular problem .
Kind of similar to what Duncan "achieved". _________________ "Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
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