Steve Bull's Blog, page 200
August 17, 2022
August 16, 2022
Paradigm Shift: End of the Oil Age
The world thinks it’s in an energy crisis today and indeed there are shortages in some places but the world is undergoing an energy crisis more fundamental than the simple shortage happening today in Europe. A shortage can be remedied.
The larger problem is that oil use began to decline from 48% of total world energy consumption after 1977 (Figure 1). This was the beginning of the end of the oil age.
Figure 1. The end of the oil age began with the price shocks of the 1970s. Oil consumption has fallen from 48% to 36% of total energy use since 1977. Source: EIA, BLS & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.
Per-capita oil consumption has been flat since since 1985 (Figure 2). That means that individual worker productivity is not growing as it did before the oil shocks.
Figure 2. World per-capita oil consumption reached a peak in 1978 and has been on an undulating plateau since 1985. Source: EIA,FRED, OWID, BP & Labyrinth Consulting Services.The world thinks that an energy transition is underway but fails to understand that transitions are additive. The relative percent of fuels changes but volumes rarely decrease. The world uses, for example, as much biomass today as in 1800 (Figure 3). Nor is there any likelihood that this transition will take 30 years instead of the century or longer period for earlier transitions.
Figure 3. Energy transitions are additive. The relative percent of fuels changes but volumes rarely decrease. The world uses as much biomass today as in 1800. Source: EIA, BP, IEA, FRED, OWWD, World Bank & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.The real crisis today is that oil is the economy. The oil age has been ending for 50 years but there is no substitute for oil. Wind, solar and nuclear only address electric power generation which accounts for only 18% of world energy consumption…
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Europe’s Nuclear & Hydropower Falter With Droughts
As Europe looks to secure alternative energy sources to Russian gas in light of the war in Ukraine, Statista’s Anna Fleck warns, a new threat to energy security is stirring, this time from droughts.
The droughts hitting Europe are impacting everything from food to transportation to the environment.
In Italy, the River Po has fallen two meters below its normal levels, seeing rice paddy fields dry out. Meanwhile, Germany’s River Rhine has become so shallow that cargo vessels can’t pass through it fully loaded, pushing up shipping costs, and France’s Tille River, in the Burgundy region, is now a dried up bed covered in thousands of dead fish.
But Europe’s energy production has also been impacted. As Statista’s chart below shows, hydroelectric power has fallen some 20 percent since 2021. This partly comes down to the fact reservoirs have been drying up in countries such as Italy, Serbia, Montenegro and Norway. The latter, according to Bloomberg, usually a major hydroproducer, is even taking the steps to reduce exports in order to prioritize refilling its reservoir’s low water levels so the country can maintain domestic production.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Nuclear power too has fallen since 2021. One reason for this is that France has had to shut down several of its nuclear power plants because the rivers Rhone and the Garonne have been too warm to be able to cool down its reactors. France is 70 percent dependent on nuclear energy and is a key exporter of electricity, usually supplying Italy, Germany and the UK. It’s important to note here however, that other problems are troubling France’s nuclear fleet too. A significant number of the country’s power plants have had to be powered down recently due to malfunctions and maintenance issues, which had been delayed because of the pandemic. These combined reasons mean, according to Wired, that the country’s hydropower output is down nearly 50 percent.
“Worst I’ve Ever Seen”: Cotton Prices Soar After Historic USDA Cut Amid Megadrought
US cotton prices continued to surge above the boom days of 2010-11 after a massive crop estimate cut by the USDA, shocking Wall Street analysts and traders, due primarily to a megadrought scorching farmland of Texas, according to Bloomberg.
Futures in New York for December delivery were up 4.5% to $1.1359 a pound and up more than 21% this month.
“I don’t think you can put a top on prices right now,” Louis Barbera, the managing partner for VLM Commodities, told Bloomberg.
“I have been going to Texas for more than ten years, and this is by far the absolute worst I have ever seen , said Barbera.
What Barbera is referring to is the drought situation in Texas. The long stretches of triple-digit temperatures and limited rainfall this summer have turned vast amounts of farmland to dust, hurting cotton farmers in the South Plains of West Texas.
Last Friday, the USDA’s bigger-than-expected cut to domestic cotton crop stunned many on Wall Street. Crop output plunged to 12.57 million bales, the lowest in a decade. The cut also pushed down the US from the world’s third-largest producer to the world’s fourth.
Barbera said the western Texas region (around Lubbock and Lamesa), the epicenter of America’s cotton-growing belt, has “literally nothing” in fields that are just desert sand. He said fields that had drip irrigation were harvestable, but ones that weren’t weren’t salvageable.
How bad is the heat and drought in Texas? Outside of Amarillo, what was a cotton crop. pic.twitter.com/dp77GYUxOd
— 247AG (@247dotAg) July 22, 2022
“If cotton is not readily available from other sources, the scarcity of supply from the US could support prices globally, said Jon Devine, supply-chain economist for research Cotton Inc.
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A Horrifying Drought Is Causing Widespread Crop Failures Throughout The United States And Europe
We really are reaching a major crisis point. Thanks to soaring fertilizer prices, insane weather patterns and the war in Ukraine, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. So we really needed a banner year for agricultural production in both the United States and Europe in 2022, and that is not going to happen. In fact, unprecedented drought is absolutely devastating crops all over the northern hemisphere. A lot of people are complaining about how high food prices are right now, but just wait. If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations in both the United States and Europe, and that is going to have very serious implications for 2023.
Let me start by talking about the nightmare that is starting to unfold in Europe.
According to CNN, it is now being projected that farmers in Italy have lost “up to 80% of their harvest” because the drought has become so severe…
In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.
How are those farmers going to survive?
Many farmers in France are facing similar losses because they have only been receiving a fraction of the rainfall that they normally get…
In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7 millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.
That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961, the agency added.
Crop failures in France would be a really, really big deal, because France is normally “the fourth-largest exporter of wheat” in the entire world…
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August 15, 2022
It’s Time to Wake Up – The Currently Known Global Mineral Reserves Will Not Be Sufficient to Supply Enough Metals to Manufacture the Planned Non-fossil Fuel Industrial Systems
The research report made by Associate Research Professor Simon Michaux from Geological Survey of Finland GTK shows that if we want to transition away from fossil fuels, mining of minerals and using recycled minerals and metals from industrial waste streams in new ways will have to increase greatly.
No matter what minerals will be needed, we will need large quantities of them as the renewable power sources like wind and solar, require extensive mineral resources to manufacture the infrastructure for fossil-free energy.
And there is a challenge. Given the estimated required number of Electric Vehicles (EV’s) of different vehicle class, it is clear that there are not enough minerals in the currently reported global reserves to build just one generation of batteries for all EV’s and stationary power storage, in the global industrial ecosystem as it is today.
The World needs a new plan to build a genuinely sustainable non-fossil fuel industrial ecosystem
Decisive actions need to be planned to diversify sustainable material/metal/mineral sourcing, where manufacture could be done with parallel technology systems that require different material chemistries. In doing so, current reported mineral reserves may be sufficient for long term supply.
Key elements include developing new ways to utilize minerals, metals and materials of our industrial waste and to promote manufacture of easily recyclable products.
Exploration for new mineral deposits, feasibility studies, and pilot scale tests of existing known deposits will be needed on an unprecedented scale, will be needed all over the world. The restructuring society and the industrial ecosystem to consume less and establish a new relationship with raw materials and energy might be needed.
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German Officials Warn Of Draconian Energy Regulations, “Extremists” Fueling “Mass Protests And Riots”
As queries for “firewood” have exploded on Google in Germany, and Deutsche Bank predicting that “wood will be used for heating purposes where possible,” German officials are now warning of extreme energy rationing measures, along with the potential for “extremists” to fuel national unrest over the deteriorating situation.
For starters, German Economy Minister and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck – who previously called on residents to cut back on heating, visits to the sauna, and showers – announced on Friday that public buildings across the country won’t be allowed to set heating above 19 degrees Celsius (66.2F) this fall. Exceptions will be made for hospitals and ‘social facilities.’
In an interview with Suddeutsche Zeitung, one of the country’s largest daily newspapers, Habeck said that the new regulations would be part of the Energy Security Act – adding to previously announced bans on heating private pools.
In addition, buildings and monuments will not longer be lit at night, and there will be curbs on illuminated advertising – while “more savings are also needed in the work environment,” he added.
Habeck’s announcement comes just days after the head of Germany’s grid regulator, Klaus Mueller, said that German families would need to cut 20% of their normal energy consumption in order to avoid gas shortages by December.
“If we don’t save a lot and get extra fuel, we will have a problem,” he told Welt am Sonntag in an interview last week.
The situation has been brewing, as the bloc’s reliance on Russian energy comes into conflict with sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine – causing prices to skyrocket amid a decrease in Russian natural gas supplies to Europe.
Meanwhile, German officials are preparing for civil unrest.
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August 14, 2022
We Are Not the First Civilization to Collapse, But We Will Probably Be the Last
The archeological remains of past civilizations, including those of the prehistoric Cahokia temple mound complex in Missouri, are sobering reminders of our fate.
Doomsday Selfie – by Mr. Fish
CAHOKIA MOUNDS, Missouri: I am standing atop a 100-foot-high temple mound, the largest known earthwork in the Americas built by prehistoric peoples. The temperatures, in the high 80s, along with the oppressive humidity, have emptied the park of all but a handful of visitors. My shirt is matted with sweat.
I look out from the structure—-known as Monks Mound — at the flatlands below, with smaller mounds dotting the distance. These earthen mounds, built at a confluence of the Illinois, Mississippi and Missouri rivers, are all that remain of one of the largest pre-Columbian settlements north of Mexico, occupied from around 800 to 1,400 AD by perhaps as many as 20,000 people.
This great city, perhaps the greatest in North America, rose, flourished, fell into decline and was ultimately abandoned. Civilizations die in familiar patterns. They exhaust natural resources. They spawn parasitic elites who plunder and loot the institutions and systems that make a complex society possible. They engage in futile and self-defeating wars. And then the rot sets in. The great urban centers die first, falling into irreversible decay. Central authority unravels. Artistic expression and intellectual inquiry are replaced by a new dark age, the triumph of tawdry spectacle and the celebration of crowd-pleasing imbecility.
“Collapse occurs, and can only occur, in a power vacuum,” anthropologist Joseph Tainter writes in The Collapse of Complex Societies. “Collapse is possible only where there is no competitor strong enough to fill the political vacuum of disintegration.”
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BP Statistical Review of World Energy
Energy developments
Primary energy demand increased by 5.8% in 2021, exceeding 2019 levels by 1.3%.Between 2019 and 2021, renewable energy increased by over 8EJ. Consumption of fossil fuels was broadly unchanged.Fossil fuels accounted for 82% of primary energy use last year, down from 83% in 2019 and 85% five years ago.Primary energy in 2021 grew by its largest amount in history, with emerging economies accounting for most of the increaseThe increase in carbon emissions in 2021 was driven by the rebound in economic growth[image error]Carbon emissionsCarbon dioxide emissions from energy use, industrial processes, flaring and methane (in carbon dioxide equivalent) rose 5.7% in 2021 to 39.0 GtCO2e, with carbon dioxide emissions from energy rising 5.9% to 33.9 GtCO2, close to 2019 levels.Carbon dioxide emissions from flaring and emissions from methane and industrial processes rose more modestly by 2.9% and 4.6% respectively.[image error]OilOil prices averaged $70.91/bbl in 2021, the second highest level since 2015Oil consumption increased by 5.3 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2021 but remained 3.7 million b/d below 2019 levels.A majority of the consumption growth came from gasoline (1.8 million b/d) and diesel/gasoil (1.3 million b/d). Regionally, most of the growth took place in the US (1.5 million b/d), China (1.3 million b/d) and the EU (570,000 b/d).Global oil production increased by 1.4 million b/d in 2021, with OPEC+ accounting for more than three-quarters of the increase. Among all countries, Libya (840,000 b/d), Iran (540,000 b/d) and Canada (300,000 b/d) saw the largest increases. Nigeria (-200,000 b/d), the UK (-170,000 b/d) and Angola (-150,000 b/d) reported the biggest declines.…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Washington steals over 80 percent of Syria’s oil output per day
(Photo credit: USA Today)
The Syrian Oil Ministry released a statement on 9 August accusing US forces occupying Syria of being responsible for the theft of most of the country’s oil.
“The amount of oil production during the first half of 2022 amounted to some 14.5 million barrels, with an average daily production of 80.3 thousand barrels, of which 14.2 thousand are delivered daily to refineries,” the oil ministry’s statement said.
The statement went on to say that “US occupation forces and their mercenaries,” referring to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), “steal up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83 percent of Syria’s daily oil production.
According to the ministry’s data, the Syrian oil sector has incurred losses nearing “about 105 billion dollars since the beginning of the war until the middle of this year” as a result of the US oil theft campaign.
Additionally, the statement added that alongside the financial losses incurred by the oil sector were “losses of life, including 235 martyrs, 46 injured and 112 kidnapped.”
On 10 August, footage filmed by a Russian attack helicopter was released on social media, showing a convoy of trucks operated by the US military, smuggling stolen oil destined for Iraq, out of Raqqah.
Recently, the US army, which currently occupies northeast Syria, has been consistently looting the country’s oil and smuggling it into their bases in Iraq through several illegal border crossings.
Local sources in Syria’s Hasakah governorate reported on 6 August that the US army looted and smuggled dozens of oil tankers out of the country, making it the second stolen oil shipment by the US that week.
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