[C8]

Recently, since the speed of this site has increased, I have noticed more and more names that I recognized from the Oil Drum (TOD). I am wondering who you are (in case you changed your user name) and why you have started posting here.

My story- I was only at TOD for less than a year but I did have a number of accomplishments. I wrote a review of Morris Berman's book Why America Failed that must have set some sort of response record over there (over 600 responses). I wrote a journalistic article about the effects of fracking in the Wheeling area that a poster said "should be published somewhere". I also predicted the epic 2012 drought in a Spring Drum beat and noted, in June of 2012, that the Arctic would have to get much worse in area extent loss to match volume declines- then it began its new record decent just 2 weeks later.

In the end I left because there was just too much rudeness and awful moderation, there just seems to be an attitude of "I am your intellectual superior" among too many there (it is actually a little better now). Its hard to describe- but the insults, boorishness, and superiority attitude wore me down.

The final straw came during the week of X-mas when I wrote a simple "happy holidays- be safe driving as there is, unfortunately, no peak alcohol yet" post. It was very uncontroversial- almost Hallmark actually- and it was deleted! This flipped me as many people wrote tons of inappropriate stuff, made insults, etc. but were not deleted. In fact, later in that same drumbeat others, such as wiseindian, also wrote holiday greetings that were note deleted- it all seemed very arbitrary.

I realized that I needed a site that didn't take itself too seriously (I'm just guessing, but I believe Obama is not reading TOD). I also wanted a site where the mods were a little bit fairer and considerate- and not believing themselves to be infallible. A place where humans talk- not humans who think they are gods.

I like the threaded format here and the flexibility this gives my schedule to comment as I get the chance- not in a race to beat a 2 day drumbeat deadline. I like being able to start threads and find subjects quickly. I also hope the mods here are a little more like human beings- and don't take themselves, or life, too seriously.

Any case, that's me- who else is out there from TOD and why?

[John_A]

Any case, that's me- who else is out there from TOD and why?

Count me in. I became more than a little suspicious of their intent after they declared peak oil in early 2009, a year later spent way too much time explaining how they weren't toadies to BP during the Macondo prospect leak, and then when they bashed Simmons I gave up. Came back a few years later, checked around when I came back and never went back to TOD.

EnergyBulletin converted over to a more ecofascist format, ASPO became a lobbying group, EVs hit the roads in quantity and now we are about to get some nice diesels in America...well....we all live and learn, and this place has cool stuff most of the time and doesn't overly focus on oil topics much.

[dissident]

My account became inaccessible one day and I did not bother to try to contact them to see why. The moderation is atrocious and the site is basically a nest for a certain set of zealots. There are and were very good posters at TOD and overall the site is designed well and has interesting articles. There is more diversity on this board and balanced moderation, which appears to lean away from censorship. There are too many boards where the moderators act like little dictators who cannot tolerate dissent.

[ralfy]

Count me in. I became more than a little suspicious of their intent after they declared peak oil in early 2009, a year later spent way too much time explaining how they weren't toadies to BP during the Macondo prospect leak, and then when they bashed Simmons I gave up. Came back a few years later, checked around when I came back and never went back to TOD.

According to the IEA, peak oil took place in 2005. For production per capita, it took place in 1979.

EnergyBulletin converted over to a more ecofascist format, ASPO became a lobbying group, EVs hit the roads in quantity and now we are about to get some nice diesels in America...well....we all live and learn, and this place has cool stuff most of the time and doesn't overly focus on oil topics much.

ASPO provides useful studies from various experts, including points on the IEA report forecasting conventional production not dropping.

Oil Drum provides further analysis, such as conventional production from major players.

Resilience (Energy Bulletin) brings together various articles on how to prepare for peak oil.

Peak oil is the place for discussing the implications of PO, especially in reference to studies reported by ASPO, TOD, and mainstream media.

For EVs, diesels, and everything "nice," not to mention "cool stuff," there's mainstream media.

[Oily Stuff]

I joined TOD about the time of the Macondo incident; I had been in the well control business for many years in the past, been involved in things like that many times, had friends out there on the job both with the operator and the well control company. I thought I could offer a different perspective to the relentless speculation...a "toadie" to actual well control experience, I was. People were rude beyond belief when I for instance defended or tried to explain a procedure. Like C8 I have absolutely no tolerance for people that hide behind a key board and say vicious, mean things simply because they don't agree with you. I try and write to people the same way I would talk to them. Months after the well was capped, on an entirely different topic, some particularly horrible people started in ranting about things associated with my political idealism, my spiritual beliefs and my home. I am a proud Texan. I fired back and Leann scolded me like I was a child. Relentlessly. I asked to be removed and did not participate in any thing like this for more than a year. I still read TOD because as pstar suggests, it is important. Most of the time, anyway. Its changing.

I like this format very much here and enjoy being able to occasionally express my opinion about something important to me. Like other forums I have observed it seems to me people take themselves entirely too seriously sometimes and tend to get the big head about their status on this site and their opinions about things in life that can't be changed too much no matter how right you think you are. There are professional internet people everywhere I guess. Too many yards go un-mowed these days because of the internet, I think. But, I am glad to be here!

[John_A]

Count me in. I became more than a little suspicious of their intent after they declared peak oil in early 2009, a year later spent way too much time explaining how they weren't toadies to BP during the Macondo prospect leak, and then when they bashed Simmons I gave up. Came back a few years later, checked around when I came back and never went back to TOD.

According to the IEA, peak oil took place in 2005. For production per capita, it took place in 1979.

According to the IEA we still have another 8 trillion barrels to burn. And I'm with Rockman and his POD on this one, way too much fascination with a date certain, rather than the long and drawn out emergency.

ASPO provides useful studies from various experts, including points on the IEA report forecasting conventional production not dropping.

ASPO certainly has experts, the newest director, you think he is qualified with his background to understand complex geologic and engineering topics do you? Or perhaps better prepared to guide the organization through the byzantine world of lobbying? For..something? Can't say I've figured it out either.

For EVs, diesels, and everything "nice," not to mention "cool stuff," there's mainstream media.

EV's, bicycles, the joy of walking, insulating ones home, practical installation and upkeep of solar panels, firearms training and such don't fall into the category of "nice", more like a practical persons guide to survival in a resource constrained world.

[ralfy]

According to the IEA we still have another 8 trillion barrels to burn. And I'm with Rockman and his POD on this one, way too much fascination with a date certain, rather than the long and drawn out emergency.

Barrels to burn <> flow rate.

ASPO certainly has experts, the newest director, you think he is qualified with his background to understand complex geologic and engineering topics do you? Or perhaps better prepared to guide the organization through the byzantine world of lobbying? For..something? Can't say I've figured it out either.

Director of ASPO <> ASPO.

EV's, bicycles, the joy of walking, insulating ones home, practical installation and upkeep of solar panels, firearms training and such don't fall into the category of "nice", more like a practical persons guide to survival in a resource constrained world.

For others, EVs are supposed to replace gas-powered passenger vehicles, thus implying "business as usual." The same goes for "the joy of walking," as if walking will be a matter of choice. Finally, solar panels and firearms will still require a JIT system and manufacturing heavily dependent on oil.

That's why, not surprisingly, the same views appear in either mainstream media or "survivalist" sites where members think that the idea of a "resource-constrained world" is merely a "hoax" as there are trillions of barrels" of oil.

[rockdoc123]

I joined onto Oildrum not much after when I joined here. I posted there from time to time....and like Oily on the Macondo incident. What I learned pretty early on is the people there who like to portray themselves as "experts" actually don't know shite from shinola about what they profess to be experts in. A case in point to my mind was all the accolades heaped on one party for his satellite analysis of activity in Ghawar and his subsequent conclusion from his snapshot tally of rig activity that they were about to go belly up.....he didn't have a clue what was going on, no idea whether he was looking at service rigs, what the planned timing of drilling activity was etc....of course as it turns out he was completely wrong as not too long after that Aramco brought on a bit north of 300 kbpd of production from Haradah III. But because of the "protection" offered to the insider posters on that site you can't even argue reasonably with them. The same was the case with Macondo...there was a ton of absolute ridiculous crap posted by those who claimed to know what they were talking about and they really had their heads up their backsides. For those of us who worked in the industry and have had the unfortunate luck of being involved in blowouts offshore and the issues around remotely trying to first figure out what happened and then solve the problem it was pretty clear what was going on and that the right things were being done...but no, everyone wanted to believe that there was somehow communication with wells tens of kilometres away on different geologic structures and that BP was lying to everyone. You couldn't, as Oily noted, try to offer any sort of "calm down, this is our business, we know what we are doing but it takes time and we need to do things by the book" advice as it apparently wasn't politically correct.
I continue to post on the PeakOil site about science and the oil and gas industry in general simply because I think there are people here who are actually interested in understanding the problems we face without all of the rhetoric and the mods are nonpolitical in general. Panic selling is a problem in all things whether it be climate science or peak oil and my hope is that I can try to point out errors, overstatements, incorrect views based on my own knowledge as well as the readily available literature which as a gentleman of leisure I have lots of time to access. This is of course unacceptable on the Oildrum in my experience. That's fine with me...they have a message they would like to tailor and it is a free world (outside of China apparently) but I don't have to be part of their agenda. I taught at university to all levels and the reason I quit doing that many, many years ago (besides the crappy wage and requirement for publish or perish) was that there were only a few people who actually were interested in learning. I have no interest in posting something that has no chance of helping someone to understand something better...you don't have to agree with the information I provide but if you think about it long and hard enough then your eventual decision is more informed, I hope.
When it's all said and done everyone should be capable of making their own decisions, but to do that properly they need all of the information in an unfiltered and relatively opinionated form. It is very unfortunate that people count on the "experts" to give them an opinion rather than the information to make their own opinion...not sure if that is laziness or just some desire to not be responsible for outcomes but it is hugely dangerous given the "experts" often lend up less credibility than Chauncey Gardiner (Chance the gardiner...if you have never read Jerzy Kozinskis book you really need to, and everything else he wrote as well).
And I'm sure someone will say...well aren't you one of those "experts" to which I would reply....I know my stuff but I hope all I'm doing is giving you information to make your own decision, not telling you what the decision should be without the information. If I've failed in that ..well mea culpae.
Down off my soapbox.!

[Pops]

When it's all said and done everyone should be capable of making their own decisions, but to do that properly they need all of the information in an unfiltered and relatively opinionated form. It is very unfortunate that people count on the "experts" to give them an opinion rather than the information to make their own opinion...

What you say is so very true doc.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much information is available on the net. As a kids I walked to our small town library and poured through the card catalog looking fro a book or periodical trying to find an answer to [something] and was more often than not frustrated. Now I can find the wiring diagram for my clothes washer, the biography of the author you mentioned or the path of fructose metabolism in 2 or three clicks.

Unfortunately, most of us - and I count myself, are looking for a mirror rather than a microscope. We aren't looking so much for information as confirmation, we want a guru who preaches the sermon we'd write and a choir that is enthralled by our every note.


But be that as it may, I'm glad you folks have started posting at po.com. Personally I don't see the sites as mutually exclusive and hope whatever problems they are experiencing can be fixed, I can tell you that PO.com has been a learning experience for me and everyone involved in trying to keep it together! At any rate I've always thought TOD and PO were more complimentary than not, the format there promoting articles with a greater investment of time and here discussions both more wide ranging and more specific.

Anyway, welcome.

[John_A]

According to the IEA we still have another 8 trillion barrels to burn. And I'm with Rockman and his POD on this one, way too much fascination with a date certain, rather than the long and drawn out emergency.

Barrels to burn <> flow rate.

You think the experts at the IEA, and undoubtedly they have plenty, somehow missed that one? Maybe somebody can get TOD to show up enmasse in Paris and complaiin? ASPO-USA tried it locally, not sure it has had any effect.

ASPO certainly has experts, the newest director, you think he is qualified with his background to understand complex geologic and engineering topics do you? Or perhaps better prepared to guide the organization through the byzantine world of lobbying? For..something? Can't say I've figured it out either.

Director of ASPO <> ASPO.

True. Any organization run by a director rarely needs their director to know anything about the thing he is directing.

EV's, bicycles, the joy of walking, insulating ones home, practical installation and upkeep of solar panels, firearms training and such don't fall into the category of "nice", more like a practical persons guide to survival in a resource constrained world.

For others, EVs are supposed to replace gas-powered passenger vehicles, thus implying "business as usual." The same goes for "the joy of walking," as if walking will be a matter of choice. Finally, solar panels and firearms will still require a JIT system and manufacturing heavily dependent on oil.

Not the ones installed on my garage or already in the gun safe in the basement. And "heavily dependent on oil" doesn't have the kick it once did, everything is heavily dependent on oil, but that is not a requirement of the natural world, it is only a current snapshot on how things are done in the human world.

and we are now WAY off topic. Last I looked, draconian censorship ala TOD wouldn't even allow us to wander as far afield as we have, so how about we get back to business? I'm game....you?

[ralfy]

You think the experts at the IEA, and undoubtedly they have plenty, somehow missed that one? Maybe somebody can get TOD to show up enmasse in Paris and complaiin? ASPO-USA tried it locally, not sure it has had any effect.

Actually, they didn't miss that one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK730U0Q4NU

The catch is that they argue that conventional production won't drop soon.

True. Any organization run by a director rarely needs their director to know anything about the thing he is directing.

The director does not speak for the organization.

Not the ones installed on my garage or already in the gun safe in the basement. And "heavily dependent on oil" doesn't have the kick it once did, everything is heavily dependent on oil, but that is not a requirement of the natural world, it is only a current snapshot on how things are done in the human world.

Yeah, your EV, garage, gun, and gun safe were made without a manufacturing and delivery system that's dependent on oil.

and we are now WAY off topic. Last I looked, draconian censorship ala TOD wouldn't even allow us to wander as far afield as we have, so how about we get back to business? I'm game....you?

You need to read up on peak oil first.

[Oily Stuff]

Rockdoc, without question every time you post some portion of it sticks with me and I learn from it. Always. I don't know how to compliment you any better than that.

I too would like to agree with you on the Macondo matter; my message then was the same as yours: calm down America; let us sort this out and we will fix it. We have for a hundred years, this is not the first blowout that ever occurred, certainly not the first good men that have been lost; give us the time we need to make a plan and we will fix it. But the public and politicians could not say out of it and, in my humble opinion, that delayed the capping of the well considerably. I use to go on many blowouts and fires; onshore we would simply close the cattleguard everyday, put a guard on it with instructions to keep everybody out, and we would do what we had to do to get the well under control. Unfortunately there was no cattleguard to close on Macondo.

I don't want to open this can worms up again but I think, Doc, I hope anyway, you would agree with me about this: whatever the cause of the accident, and that is what it was, an accident...what BP and WWC and John Wright and lots of other really smart fellas did to bring that well under control and to kill it, top to bottom, in 5000 feet of water, was and in my mind one of the most remarkable engineering feats in the history of the oil and natural gas business.

Life is far too complex and far too unpredictable for there to be any "experts" on any facet of it, IMHO. After 60 years in the oil and gas business I am humbled every day by how little I actually know about it.

Thanks, Pop.

[John_A]

You think the experts at the IEA, and undoubtedly they have plenty, somehow missed that one? Maybe somebody can get TOD to show up enmasse in Paris and complaiin? ASPO-USA tried it locally, not sure it has had any effect.

Actually, they didn't miss that one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK730U0Q4NU

The catch is that they argue that conventional production won't drop soon.

Okay...so their experts say that conventional production won't drop soon. Certainly a plateau idea is exactly what happened to peak oil, so such an assumption seems quite reasonable. Good for them, declaring that both there was peak oil a few years back, conventional production won't drop, and there is another 8 trillion barrels of stuff to burn.

Some of those strike me as mutually exclusive, but they are the experts. I guess.

True. Any organization run by a director rarely needs their director to know anything about the thing he is directing.

The director does not speak for the organization.

Tell it to all the other Directors of all the other organizations on the planet. Directors where you live must not be like American ones, Canadian ones, developed world ones, Third World ones, or the ones on little islands no one has ever heard of, doing their directing....without...speaking for their organization....but directing...them.

Yeah, your EV, garage, gun, and gun safe were made without a manufacturing and delivery system that's dependent on oil.

Fortunately, embedded energy in useful tools doesn't go away just because peak oil arrived a few years back. Those guns will continue to shoot stuff as long as I've got bullets. Hoarded embedded energy might come in handy sometime this century.

You need to read up on peak oil first.

You need to understand how the world works first. Directors don't speak for the organizations they direct...good one.

[John_A]

I don't want to open this can worms up again but I think, Doc, I hope anyway, you would agree with me about this: whatever the cause of the accident, and that is what it was, an accident...what BP and WWC and John Wright and lots of other really smart fellas did to bring that well under control and to kill it, top to bottom, in 5000 feet of water, was and in my mind one of the most remarkable engineering feats in the history of the oil and natural gas business.

Admittedly, the oil and gas business employs the best, pays well, and does things that others can't even imagine. Unfortunately, some don't believe it was an accident. And those who fall for this kind of stuff, also fall for other nonsense stuff. Which is why TOD can be so whacked.

http://lisaleaks.com/2013/01/28/too-big ... -disaster/

[ralfy]

Okay...so their experts say that conventional production won't drop soon. Certainly a plateau idea is exactly what happened to peak oil, so such an assumption seems quite reasonable. Good for them, declaring that both there was peak oil a few years back, conventional production won't drop, and there is another 8 trillion barrels of stuff to burn.

But that's not what happened with U.S. oil production or other oil-producing countries where production peaked and then dropped. In which case, the assumption is far from reasonable.

Your latter point is also wrong because reserves <> flow rate.

In short, the IEA did not apply the same principle to the latter half of the graph. I'm not even sure if they considered decline curves for various sources of non-conventional production.

Some of those strike me as mutually exclusive, but they are the experts. I guess.

Yes, but there are experts who want business as usual. In which case, you need others to question what they say. See another thread regarding the IEA for details.

Tell it to all the other Directors of all the other organizations on the planet. Directors where you live must not be like American ones, Canadian ones, developed world ones, Third World ones, or the ones on little islands no one has ever heard of, doing their directing....without...speaking for their organization....but directing...them.

Tell it to all of the members who do not repeat what "directors" say.

The director speaks for the organization. How naive.

Fortunately, embedded energy in useful tools doesn't go away just because peak oil arrived a few years back. Those guns will continue to shoot stuff as long as I've got bullets. Hoarded embedded energy might come in handy sometime this century.

I wasn't referring to "embedded energy" but a JIT system that's needed to make even ammo available.

You need to understand how the world works first. Directors don't speak for the organizations they direct...good one.

Directors speak for organizations. Good one.

[SamInNebraska]

Directors speak for organizations. Good one.

Here is the Executive Director speaking for the organization. It wasn't that hard to find, either one of you should have provided the example to prove the point or the other should own up to yes, Directors do speak for their organizations before someone comes up with another hundred examples. Is the real point that we want them to stop? Or not? In either case, why is the executive director speaking for aspo talking about climate change in the same sentence? Has something happened with the stated goals of ASPO-USA related to exactly WHAT it is lobbying for?




Jan Lars Mueller

Executive Director

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA

Washington

Mr. Yergin's article puts an end to M. King Hubbert's peak-oil specter. There is and will be plenty of oil. There is an elephant in the room, however. By utilizing that oil we will hasten destructive global climate change.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 55070.html

[ralfy]

Here is the Executive Director speaking for the organization. It wasn't that hard to find, either one of you should have provided the example to prove the point or the other should own up to yes, Directors do speak for their organizations before someone comes up with another hundred examples. Is the real point that we want them to stop? Or not? In either case, why is the executive director speaking for aspo talking about climate change in the same sentence? Has something happened with the stated goals of ASPO-USA related to exactly WHAT it is lobbying for?

Jan Lars Mueller

Executive Director

Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas USA

Washington

Mr. Yergin's article puts an end to M. King Hubbert's peak-oil specter. There is and will be plenty of oil. There is an elephant in the room, however. By utilizing that oil we will hasten destructive global climate change.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 55070.html

See

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2011- ... at-matters

Also, directors don't speak for their organizations. For example, see

http://www.peakoil.net/about-aspo/aspo-president

and the Youtube video linked here:

so-who-is-here-now-from-the-oildrum-and-why-t68308.html#p1150980

[SamInNebraska]

See

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2011- ... at-matters

Also, directors don't speak for their organizations. For example, see

http://www.peakoil.net/about-aspo/aspo-president

and the Youtube video linked here:

so-who-is-here-now-from-the-oildrum-and-why-t68308.html#p1150980

So now you managed to show Jars speaking for his organization, and Fatih, and aleklett, assuming I recognized the faces. So I don't get it, you just made John's point for him, while claiming these people aren't speaking for their organizations? Right after Fatih they showed a graph making his point...labeled IEA.

[Pops]

Stick to the topic please.