chlamor
03-21-2007, 11:06 PM
Iceberg Dead Ahead Captain
by Chuck Willis
“Iceburg Dead Ahead, Captain!” — Saudi’s 8% Oil Decline is the Iceburg in the Titanic Disaster
Over the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a trickle of articles, that more and more are being backed up with fact, about the declining oil production in Saudi Arabia over the past 8 months, long before the OPEC cuts took hold. I began to understand what the last hours of the Titanic may have been like, because I began to feel like someone who was on that great ship some 95 years ago. I started pondering what I was to do in light of this troubling discovery happening a half a world away in an almost featureless part of the planet. I began to see this with many similarities to the Titanic disaster nearly a century ago. I can’t think of a better term for peak oil than “Titanic Disaster.”
So what similarities can we draw from the Titanic’s voyage? First of all, the Captain was warned well in advance that icebergs lay in their path of travel a half a day before they met up with them. Even though the peak oil theory has been around for 50 years, it has only been in the last 6 or 7 years that petroleum geologists have stepped up and said there’s an “iceberg” in our future with enough volume that we could hear. Still there was time to start taking evasive action…… The Titanic’s radio room had received reports of large icebergs directly in their path a couple of hours ahead, but they were too busy sending and receiving commercial radio messages for the wealthy passengers aboard, and failed to pass what was a critical message to the officers of the ship. Ships that had shut down in the ice field as darkness approached tried to warn the Titanic, only to be told by the Titanic’s radio room to quit bothering them, they were interfering with the “paying” traffic. Similarly, the voice of those warning of peak oil has been ignored by the media, lest it interfere with the paying traffic concerned with where Anna Nicole Smith was to be buried, or what Britney Spears was doing. Another opportunity lost……..
The Titanic’s captain posted the watch in the crow’s nest to watch for icebergs, but a dark night on the ocean makes them difficult to spot until you are very close to them. After all 9/10 of them are underwater and unseen. The part you see isn’t as worrisome as what you don’t see. Sort of like us trying to guess what is ahead with peak oil, when the darkness of the lack of data out of some of the largest oil producers, hides the magnitude of what is ahead, and underground.
The lookouts are vigilant, but there are only two of them to warn of impending disaster in the crow’s nest. Like the brave few who have stood up to let us know of what is about to appear in our path on the sea of fossil fuels. There were conflicting priorities that the Captain and crew had, his company and shareholders wanted to make sure the Titanic was a success, and what better way to do that than making the Atlantic crossing in record time. Slowing down to safely navigate the icepack was at odds with the orders from the people who didn’t know, and frankly were more concerned with the large profits to be made from a ship that could beat everything else on the seas. Our government and President are really like the crew on board the Titanic. They are sort of in charge, but their orders are conflicting with the reality that is quickly coming upon them. The politician that doesn’t keep pouring on the coal, delivering more growth, keeping more people employed, more profits to the companies, more comforts to the masses, will soon be a forgotten part of history. No person likes to be considered useless and worthless. So lets keep the economy speeding along as fast as we can possibly push it, throwing a little more money in the boiler to keep up a full head of steam, lest we be called ineffective. The opposing political party can always find ways to distract the leader, pushing their own agenda. Of course they don’t want to slow things down, they just want a slightly different compass heading. Still peril is ahead……..
Late at night, the lookouts pick up the latest technology of the day in their crow’s nest, a telephone headset and call back to the bridge, “Iceberg dead ahead Captain”. Ooops, this isn’t what we planned 4 days ago when we laid out our course, or last year or 8 years ago. Our options now are down to three or four, none of which are good; hard port, hard starboard, full astern, or keep going like we were. First we go hard starboard, the hydrogen solution will save us and our way of life. Nope, the iceberg appears larger on that side. Hard port, the biofuels will save us and our way of life. Lets throw the engines into full astern to slow us up so the crash won’t be as hard. Lots of activity going on with the Titanic’s crew. From an observer on the stern, it looks like everything is being done that can be to mitigate the impending disaster. The water is certainly violently boiling behind the reversed props, something positive is certainly to come of that. Except there was a fatal flaw and a fatal miscalculation done at the last minute with the propulsion machinery. Of the three engines on the Titanic only two could be reversed, the center engine was essentially wind-milling since it was not reversible. Secondly, all the churning water from the two reversed engines, while impressive to an uninformed observer, was essentially rendering the rudder somewhat useless in the turbulent water. What is the fatal flaw with industrialized society? It is the insane dependence on something with a finite life of availability. What will be the fatal miscalculations that we will make as industrialized societies? Who knows? One of things people used to ask back in my flying days was whether I considered it dangerous, and I usually replied it was if you ran out of ideas and time at the same instant. We have a limited amount of time like the Titanic to make our choices. Like the Titanic, the shear mass of the ship prevented it from changing course quickly or smoothly, the same applies to our industrialized world, quick changes will hurt many people. Plus we have many hands on the ship of state’s wheel all trying to shout their course changes on nightly TV trying to drown out the Captain’s voice and direction.
http://www.energybulletin.net/27373.html
http://www.peakoilblues.com/lilly2.jpg
by Chuck Willis
“Iceburg Dead Ahead, Captain!” — Saudi’s 8% Oil Decline is the Iceburg in the Titanic Disaster
Over the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a trickle of articles, that more and more are being backed up with fact, about the declining oil production in Saudi Arabia over the past 8 months, long before the OPEC cuts took hold. I began to understand what the last hours of the Titanic may have been like, because I began to feel like someone who was on that great ship some 95 years ago. I started pondering what I was to do in light of this troubling discovery happening a half a world away in an almost featureless part of the planet. I began to see this with many similarities to the Titanic disaster nearly a century ago. I can’t think of a better term for peak oil than “Titanic Disaster.”
So what similarities can we draw from the Titanic’s voyage? First of all, the Captain was warned well in advance that icebergs lay in their path of travel a half a day before they met up with them. Even though the peak oil theory has been around for 50 years, it has only been in the last 6 or 7 years that petroleum geologists have stepped up and said there’s an “iceberg” in our future with enough volume that we could hear. Still there was time to start taking evasive action…… The Titanic’s radio room had received reports of large icebergs directly in their path a couple of hours ahead, but they were too busy sending and receiving commercial radio messages for the wealthy passengers aboard, and failed to pass what was a critical message to the officers of the ship. Ships that had shut down in the ice field as darkness approached tried to warn the Titanic, only to be told by the Titanic’s radio room to quit bothering them, they were interfering with the “paying” traffic. Similarly, the voice of those warning of peak oil has been ignored by the media, lest it interfere with the paying traffic concerned with where Anna Nicole Smith was to be buried, or what Britney Spears was doing. Another opportunity lost……..
The Titanic’s captain posted the watch in the crow’s nest to watch for icebergs, but a dark night on the ocean makes them difficult to spot until you are very close to them. After all 9/10 of them are underwater and unseen. The part you see isn’t as worrisome as what you don’t see. Sort of like us trying to guess what is ahead with peak oil, when the darkness of the lack of data out of some of the largest oil producers, hides the magnitude of what is ahead, and underground.
The lookouts are vigilant, but there are only two of them to warn of impending disaster in the crow’s nest. Like the brave few who have stood up to let us know of what is about to appear in our path on the sea of fossil fuels. There were conflicting priorities that the Captain and crew had, his company and shareholders wanted to make sure the Titanic was a success, and what better way to do that than making the Atlantic crossing in record time. Slowing down to safely navigate the icepack was at odds with the orders from the people who didn’t know, and frankly were more concerned with the large profits to be made from a ship that could beat everything else on the seas. Our government and President are really like the crew on board the Titanic. They are sort of in charge, but their orders are conflicting with the reality that is quickly coming upon them. The politician that doesn’t keep pouring on the coal, delivering more growth, keeping more people employed, more profits to the companies, more comforts to the masses, will soon be a forgotten part of history. No person likes to be considered useless and worthless. So lets keep the economy speeding along as fast as we can possibly push it, throwing a little more money in the boiler to keep up a full head of steam, lest we be called ineffective. The opposing political party can always find ways to distract the leader, pushing their own agenda. Of course they don’t want to slow things down, they just want a slightly different compass heading. Still peril is ahead……..
Late at night, the lookouts pick up the latest technology of the day in their crow’s nest, a telephone headset and call back to the bridge, “Iceberg dead ahead Captain”. Ooops, this isn’t what we planned 4 days ago when we laid out our course, or last year or 8 years ago. Our options now are down to three or four, none of which are good; hard port, hard starboard, full astern, or keep going like we were. First we go hard starboard, the hydrogen solution will save us and our way of life. Nope, the iceberg appears larger on that side. Hard port, the biofuels will save us and our way of life. Lets throw the engines into full astern to slow us up so the crash won’t be as hard. Lots of activity going on with the Titanic’s crew. From an observer on the stern, it looks like everything is being done that can be to mitigate the impending disaster. The water is certainly violently boiling behind the reversed props, something positive is certainly to come of that. Except there was a fatal flaw and a fatal miscalculation done at the last minute with the propulsion machinery. Of the three engines on the Titanic only two could be reversed, the center engine was essentially wind-milling since it was not reversible. Secondly, all the churning water from the two reversed engines, while impressive to an uninformed observer, was essentially rendering the rudder somewhat useless in the turbulent water. What is the fatal flaw with industrialized society? It is the insane dependence on something with a finite life of availability. What will be the fatal miscalculations that we will make as industrialized societies? Who knows? One of things people used to ask back in my flying days was whether I considered it dangerous, and I usually replied it was if you ran out of ideas and time at the same instant. We have a limited amount of time like the Titanic to make our choices. Like the Titanic, the shear mass of the ship prevented it from changing course quickly or smoothly, the same applies to our industrialized world, quick changes will hurt many people. Plus we have many hands on the ship of state’s wheel all trying to shout their course changes on nightly TV trying to drown out the Captain’s voice and direction.
http://www.energybulletin.net/27373.html
http://www.peakoilblues.com/lilly2.jpg