New Stadiums

New sporting arenas for professional sports teams are not to be considered as externalities. Dear Minneapolis, Anoka and the State of Minnesota, please get this through your head. Stay tuned for more.

Thoughts on Mirrormask

I saw this movie earlier in the week with Ben and Kristen and had absolutely no idea what to expect as I went to see it. If I were to describe it in detail, ala the plot, story, characters, I couldn't. So to get a sense of the movie imagine Picasso, a Jim Henson produced Cirque du Soleil and Methamphethamines (or some other normality bending drug) located in Brighton, England turned into a dream world. Through all of that I was pleasantly surprised when I got up and left the theatre. The visuals, colours and effects were amazing. Bits of humour were thrown in at what seemed like random times, though they did not interupt the flow or break up the feeling of the story. The movie also took sharp turns throughout the plot, much like the sharpness of the dream characters physical features. Definitely worth checking out.

I also want to see Doom if anyone is interested, and, recently purchased Land of the Dead!

Music

I'd like to meet the (any?) person who actually owns all 20 volumes of NOW (that's what I call music). What awful taste in music. Sure sure, some people may actually like that stuff, but I think it sucks. My recent purchases have been:

Nehemiah - Lenore
A Life Once Lost - Hunter
Propagandhi - Potemkin City Limits
Between the Buried and Me - Alaska

Breakfast foods

Instant oatmeal packets are a real letdown.

More oil ranting

Let's run with this for a bit. The IEA (a French NGO I think that deals with energy issues) has offered some forecasts showing that peak oil could potentially happen as many as 120 years form now, in 2125. A forecast such as this is based on very conservative estimates of increasing demand and very generous discoveries of new oil reserves over this period of time. Other forecasts show it could happen as soon as 2013, or even November of this year! Peak oil in two weeks? Probably not. Even if oil production can exceed supply for a period of time longer than expected, don't count on the cost of oil staying down.

I thought of this analogy/example at work the other day (finally a slow week!). Imagine you were lucky enough to to have a money tree in your backyard. This is not an ordinary tree, this is a giant redwood sequoia sitting on your property. Unlike normal trees, once the money leaves were plucked from the branches, they never grow back. So you have this wonderful new source of wealth and you want to start using it to buy things you used to be able to not afford. Where would one start grabbing the money leaves from the tree? Nobody would climb all the way to the top of a massive 200 + ft. tree to get the cash. They would start with the money that is easiest to obtain: the crisp clean $500 bills growing in abundance at the bottom. You can stand on the ground and pluck all the money-leafs you can hold. You might need a small ladder to reach some of it after a while. Then once that is gone you might need a big extension ladder to be able to get within reach of the money. Pretty soon the bottom of your tree looks as bare as a branch at the end of autumn.

Now it is no longer an easy process of grabbing the money-leafs. There are a few options available. You could spend some of the money you already took to go buy a cherry picker to get even higher into the branches or if you are adept at climbing trees you could scale up the trunk. The former option requires capital expenditures and the latter requires some serious risk taking. No matter how good at tree climbing on might be, the risk always exists of falling down to the ground. It is no longer "free" to go and take the money from the tree, i.e. there is a cost of retrieval. As you get higher and higher the cost of retrieval becomes more and more. You may need to hire other people to assist you in the recovery process, you might need to buy more elaborate and technologically advanced equipment to reach new heights. These new methods of recovery are always becoming more and more expensive and generate ever decreasing sums of money-leafs; as you go up the tree taking the money-leafs the branches are spread out more and more. The trunk is narrower at the top than the bottom and thus does not allow for the same amount of leaves at the bottom. You are always willing to spend capital because you can still see there are millions and millions of dollars waiting to be taken from the tree, but no one can reach them.

Eventually you come to a point where you can see there is some amount of money left (say one million dollars) to recover but to reach it you have to have some new piece of special equipment or technology. You go to the store to get this equipment and see the price tag of 1.2 million dollars. You do not need to be a financial analyst to conclude that the remaining one million dollars on the tree us unatainable. You forgo purchasing the equipment and let the tree sit in your back yard, occassionally looking up at the remaining cash at the very tip of the tree knowing it is not economically recoverable.

This is my very simple analogy to oil production over the last 60 years. Private enterprise and Nationalised companies went after the cheapest and easiest to obtain oil right away. There were some parts in the world where it was flowing out of the ground on its on will. For a long time oil drilling consisted of mainly sticking a big pipe in the ground and letting the massive natural pressure of oil wells push it into billions of barrels. This kind of drilling and production no longer exists. We are presently about halfway up the tree. Oil is becoming more difficult to produce and discover. The extremely high quality oil we are producing these days is running out and the oil we are discovering is of a much lower quality. I think it is safe to say that another oil myth is the belief of most people that a barrel of oil produced in Saudi Arabia is the same as a barrel of oil produced in Norway is the same as a barrel produced in Indonesia is the same as a barrel produced in Texas is the same as a barrel produced in Venezuela. Fields and reservoirs within 250 miles of each other contain very different qualities, let alone fields and reservoirs from different countries. Low quality oil (the heavy sours) is far more expensive to refine into usuable products than our current production of high quality oil (the light sweets).

We have extracted an esitamted half of total world reserves. This half was the easiest and cheapest to produce. The second half is in much more difficult-to-extract locations within borders where the governments are authoritarian and have a general dislike toward the Occidental, oil consuming countries. A heavy price will be paid to obtain this oil. There is no swing producer that can match an unexpected surge in demand with a similar surge in supply. Price gouging is a completely different issue which deserves attention and investigation by the government.

Recent running observations

So for the last two weeks, I have went running probably 11 of the last 14 days. 2 of the 3 days I didn't run I rode my bike to work and didn't feel the need to run. I'm gonna go ahead and say it's the new shoes, but the last two weeks of running have been awesome. All this summer since getting over some wicked shin splints at the end of May I had a slew of problems: EICS, breathing, more shin splints, just not being able to run far, cramps/side aches, sore joints. It would always be one thing. If it went away another problem appeared. Maybe I still have EICS and just am used to it or is now less severe....I dunno. Each time I go out, the distance covered is at least 2.5 miles and sometime around 4. I think on Saturday I will shoot for close to six if I can go around the lakes. For some that is a walk in the park but for my poorly designed body, most impressive I must say. The thing is when I stop I still feel like I could go on and on. There is no fatigue, sore-achey body feel I used to get when running this summer. I also am finding a rythm much quicker from the start. It used to take a good mile or so to get into the "zone" but now I get in stride in just a few blocks. Heavy breathing at the start quickly turns to normal exercise breaths that don't strain my lungs. But I still eat like shit. Perhaps I've discovered a routine or pathway to good running habits: take it slow, don't push yourself too hard, one can always go further the next day. I still and probably always will believe my body was made for swimming and cycling, but I hope running keeps getting easier. It's probably about all I will be able to do in London.

A summary of my night

I left work and rode home on my bicycle after having free Big Bowl for lunch and a few beers on the company dollar. No one was home when I arrived so I proceeded to watch some TV and lounge for a while. Mom came home after a while, usual greetings and I then proceeded to fall asleep on the floor. Ya know, the floor is oddly comfortable. If you stretch out into the right position you don't get too sore and sorta stretch out the muscles you use after biking home form work. I awoke in an unlikely position: face down, chest/stomach on floor and legs propped up on the nintendo chair as though I had tripped over it and never got back up. Wondering how long I had been out, I checked my phone. About 2 hours. Sat around for a while wondering what to do, completely stuffed from earlier in the day (so late dinner was not an option) and decided to go to Walgreens to get some pictures for my ID/application (I know, I still haven't sent it in). Apparently Walgreen closes early and was rejected from having my 2x2 inch pictures taken. Guy was totally not helpful at all. Maybe I just wasn't asking my questions right, but it took about 5 or 6 to learn when I could actually have them taken. Returning home I thought I might be able to get to bed early, which I desparately need. But no, I staye dup way too late doing I don't know what. A few phone calls, reading the entire internet and staying up for the sake of staying up. I have a ton of stuff I need to do so you'd think I'd get on that but even though I am out of school I still like to procrastinate. Not such a good thing. I finally made it to bed and came to the conclusion that it is far more comfortable than the floor. I'd like to say that is not very typical, so I will. This only happens once or twice a week, tops.

Update and notes to October 9th post

Last months sales of SUV's were down over all. Good! At the beginning of these employee discount programs, large truck and SUV sales were up. Sales of these vehicles is not sustainable even with 20-25% of the price being cut. I hope GM realises this before they increase production of these vehicles to meet this apparent demand that now certainly does not exist. If not, to them a lower credit rating and one step closer to declaring bankruptcy. I also saw a statistic that reportedly 51% of Americans want more investment in mass transit compared to only 18% favouring more investment in big highway/freeway projects.

The government is incosistent about ethanol use and statistics. After looking around a bit I discovered that the dept. of Energy says that ethanol is a net energy loser and the dept. of agriculture says it is a net energy gainer. How are people supposed to make decisions and policy when the government can't even agree with itself on the energy transfer of ethanol?

Assumption

Don't always assume you are in first gear. Sometime you are in reverse and will go flying backwards, quite unexpectedly I might add, when pulling away from the curb.

Things I received in my inter-office mail today:
-expense reports
-a little rubbery fish from San Francisco


No idea why I got it, but now it sits atop my monitor.

Technology not enough to end dependence on foreign oil

OK, this is kinda long. I've already got mine own critique ready, but leave your thoughts cause I definitely want to read them!

With the high fuel prices motorists face today there has been a lot of talk into finally embracing a new mode and culture of personal transportation. There are many alternatives to gas powered vehicles that are still quite new to the market and consumer’s tastes. In the past these alternatives have only had strong demand with environmentalists, people who realize that traditional motoring is not a sustainable habit and people with the lack of desire for a typical American automobile. The American lower and middle classes along with the rest of the world population can only endure for so long gasoline, oil, natural gas and diesel price increases of over 65% annually. At some point market forces will make the Auto industry realize that something has to change. This change has come in the vision of hybrid, ethanol, ethanol hybrid, pure electric, diesel hybrid and of course the long awaited hydrogen fuel economy. However this vision is not currently held the Big 3 and numerous other world manufacturers. General Motors plans to increase its production of large SUV’s because of an apparent surge in demand. Never mind the employee pricing deal taking place for the remainder of its fiscal year. This vision is held by people thinking more than two or three years into the future. This vision is ultimately supposed to lead to some goal, that being how we will no longer depend on countries such as Canada, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and other major oil producing countries to satisfy our growing energy needs. Most of these countries have unstable economies and governments and as consumers of 25% of the world’s energy we take on a lot of risk essentially basing and fueling our own economy off these other countries’ oil output. Oil independence is a worthy goal and the government should pursue a policy that will move the country in that direction but in reality it is not ever going to happen; at least with new technology alone it won’t.

There are a number of problems with alternative fuels themselves, along with logical flaws in thinking that these alternatives will “save” us from the end of cheap oil and provide a smooth and problem free transition into the future of transportation. There were several articles recently published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the pressures of high fuel prices and new technologies that can help offset those high prices. One author talked about combining electric engines with ethanol. Either one of these alternatives themselves is not quite viable. The electrical grid does not have the capacity to withstand the transition from nearly 100% oil to nearly 100% electric transportation. The rolling blackouts in California and the massive power failures on the East coast are evidence that the electrical grid can barely support current power needs, and would completely collapse if the nation attempted to convert all or even a significant portion of its oil based transportation into new electric demand. Enter the “renewable fuels” ethanol, biodiesel and the like. The idea is that with both technologies mated together, we will use just enough electricity so as not to over load our power grids and renewable biofuels will fill in the gap. The gap is the difference between energy supplied and available to consumers at a price they are willing to pay and the amount of energy required for one to go about his or her daily life according to year 2005 standards. This will be brought up later on.

So we have found our path to foreign oil independence: new technology will enable us to use crops grown in our Minnesotan backyard along with our electrical infrastructure to carry on our current way of life while cutting off (or at least greatly reducing) our dependence on foreign oil. Not so fast! There are a number of variables and facts that stand in opposition to this path to independence. First of all the United States’ crude oil production peaked 35 years ago between 10 and 11 million barrels per day; we now produce just over half that amount and domestic crude oil production shrinks every year. Let this scenario play out: our energy requirements stay constant and we continue to use the same technology (modes of transportation, sources of electricity generation and other commercial uses of oil) to process the fuels into things we use, we will become ever more dependent on foreign oil. Basic math tells us this, one does not need an economist, investment banker, foreign policy advisor or oil industry expert to explain it, yet most of the country is clueless as to the status of domestic and foreign oil supply. Chalk that up to the 85 year run of cheap and easy oil, ingrained into the entire West’s mind, attitude, culture, way of living and economic basis. As our domestic production declines, we have to import more foreign oil to meet demand. Demand is not going to stay constant. We have seen that over the last year gas prices have increased dramatically, especially in the wake of the hurricanes damaging oil rigs and refineries throughout all the Gulf of Mexico – prices have increased more than 30% year-to-date and closer to 100% over the last two years. One reason prices change is to curb demand. When prices go up, consumers buy less. This has not been the case with gasoline; demand was up between 2% and 3% over the summer. So either oil and its derived products do not obey standard economic rules of supply and demand, or the country is so dependent on oil products that it will pay any price (and so far it has, how high it will go is another question) because we simply cannot continue the daily grind without gas. There is a term for a person or group so fixated on something that if they do not have it, its entire system of being begins to collapse: addict. The former seems to become more and more true every day: when an increase in price causes an increase in demand, energy policy, economics and analysis becomes tricky business. What this really comes down to is that U.S. production is declining, yet the people who are promoting technological alternatives are not taking this into account. Their idea is that U.S. domestic supply will remain constant and all energy savings will be directed at reducing foreign oil independence when in reality most of it will go to offset domestic oil field depletion.

Another problem with these homegrown fuels is that, currently, the market for ethanol and the future markets for biodiesel are subsidized and propped up by government price mechanisms. This is probably why there has been none to a very small amount of private enterprise moving into the market; it is not profitable. On top of being unprofitable on a self-sustaining and self-reliant basis, these fuels are net energy losers. Imagine you have two selections of fuel to put in your vehicle. The first is a unit of gasoline. You can take this and use it to power your car, or you could take this gasoline (or for arguments sake any oil product) and use it to create a unit of ethanol, a renewable energy source. Most would opt for the ethanol selection, assuming their car allows its use as it is seen as less of a polluter and less harmful to environment. Here is the problem though: from what I have read on ethanol use and production, creating and using that ethanol will result in 40 percent less total energy for the end user and one would have been better off using the gasoline. The energy loss comes from using natural gas and petroleum based fertilizers to grow the corn, using large diesel powered farm equipment to harvest the crop, using energy in converting the corn into usable ethanol and then the fact that ethanol contains less energy – as measured by BTUs – than gasoline. Essentially what happens is that you take perhaps 1.5 gallons of fuel and use it in a way that yields 1 gallon of fuel. This is why current ethanol standards and practices should not be subsidized and pursued. Instead we should be developing methods and searching for a way to create ethanol that is not an energy loser (if that is even possible). I do not know if the soybean powered biodiesel is a net energy loser as well but if so, then the same logic applies. I recently went to hear Richard Heinberg speak on peak oil and when the topic of ethanol as a gasoline replacement came up, most nodded their heads in approval as there is great pride that Minnesota is the biggest ethanol enthusiast in the country. When Heinberg dismissed current ethanol practices with the same net energy loser argument as above, the same people were all in disagreement. Let’s not let our State pride blind us into a destructive approach of overproducing the land- land that should be used for food production, so we can continue our driving (or NASCAR culture as a friend of mine likes to say) habits while depleting our non-renewable energy sources at an even more alarming rate. It will take an immense amount of oil and its refined products to create enough ethanol to make the transition from gas/diesel/hybrid to ethanol/bio/hybrid and continue current driving and transportation trends.

Ethanol and biofuel based technologies will not free is from foreign oil independence even when mated with electric hybrid technologies. If we use ethanol for a small percentage of our current driving needs and use electricity for the majority of it, new power plants would be needed because of the reasons mentioned above. There are a few choices when it comes to electricity generation: coal, nuclear and oil based fuels. Coal has been historically dirty and new “clean coal” plants are expensive. The United States does have a great coal resource to draw upon though so this option has some potential. Nuclear power is quite the conundrum. There was the Three Mile Island incident years ago, which caused a major scare and created suspicion as to the safety of nuclear plants, especially when coupled with the Chernobyl disaster. We are currently facing a major problem over where to store nuclear waste, and this is without a massive new demand for electric cars. Imagine the crisis the country would be in when the amount of spent nuclear fuel rods exceeds the handling capacity of their power plants. So instead of using gasoline refined from foreign oil to directly power the nation’s auto fleet, we would use foreign oil to generate electricity to charge the batteries in our new electric hybrids. Something just does not sound right about this. This is the perfect example illustrating that technology is not a replacement for oil. The energy transfer and conversion process is simply being reorganized in a different way. We are not freeing ourselves from foreign oil independence with this reorganisation.

Nearly every article responding to high energy prices has one thing in common: the authors are all suggesting ideas so that we can continue our driving habits well into the future, but we will do it in a different way. Very few people have realized and made the call for a change in our culture and curbing our driving habits. This is exactly what will have to change, not the fuels that power our vehicles, but the attitudes that influence our decisions. We probably will no longer be able to live in suburbs and commute 20-60 miles one way to work and back on a sustainable basis. How strong will the shock have to be to shake us from our current way of life? My guess is that it will have to be many volts. Americans have had an extremely comfortable living arrangement, primarily due to cheap fossil fuels, which in turn have conditioned our attitudes, mindset and lifestyle.

Star Tribune Letter

I wrote this short letter at the end of August in response to a New York Times piece in the OpEd section. It was not published.

Not the Best Bet

John Tierney of the New York Times is wrong to believe that the price of oil will not increase dramatically in the future (The $10,000 question on price of gasoline, Aug.25). He is betting his money on the idea that new discoveries and technologies will keep oil from multiplying in price.

There are two flaws with this idea. The first is that global oil discoveries peaked in the 1970's when governments and energy companies scoured the globe for new oil fields. Since then, new discoveries have only been a tiny fraction compared to those of the 1970’s. The second flaw is believing that technology is a replacement for oil. Technology controls how we use the resource and is not the raw commodity itself. Even with futuristic technology, cars will still require gasoline and as of right now there is no suitable replacement for oil.

It’s time to think realistically about the upcoming oil dilemma the world will face and not live in Tierney’s cheap energy fantasy.

Political Stance

Try this. My score is a (-7.13, -4.46) using graphing coordinates. Spot on, or just "southwest" of Gandhi.

Soc. Sec.

I went to a forum on Social Security tonight where there were some rather prominent panelists. I don't really even know where to begin. The issue is so mammoth and complex, I dont know how to tackle it myself. In short, the problems are easy to listen to but hard to repeat. Before attending I was informed enough to be able to critique and partially respond to arguments and point our pros, cons or flaws in possible solution or directions to what needs to be done to socsec, all on a limited basis. Now I feel much more comfortable talking and have some stronger responses to the idea of privatised accounts and this enormous entity that is Social Security. That's a big project I think though. It will all come in time.

I am close to finishing the oil myth piece so I hope that'll be up in a few days.

Oh, the panelists were: Tim Penny (senior fellow at the U of M), Eric Hoplin (college repubs, other stuff), Bill Moore (afl-cio) and David Hage (star trib editorial writer- and probably my favourite panelist, meaning the best spoken, best ideas, thoughtful, practical et cetera)

"I see," said the blind man, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

A downhill start to the week

A word of advice to all: After changing your oil, remember to put the engine filler cap back on otherwise when you'll come to a stop after exiting the freeway at Diamond Lake Rd and excessive amounts of smoke will pour out of your hood and people will give you stange looks like your car is on fire. And it sort of is because your spark plug wires have foil wrapped around them to cary current so there are sparks externally flying all along the plug wires and the plug wires lay right across the open oil-pour opening. Huh......

Then I posed big time on Sunday night by not going to Between the Buried and Me, Into the Moat (one of the most brutal bands ever) and Black Dahlia Murder because I thought it was tonight. Then you get frustrated and pose out on seeing The Red Chord, who are also sweet.

This is pretty much awesome

I have to link to this nicely written blog from a few days ago.

dKos diary

Coming soon(I hope): the myth of oil independence

^I wish I were good at writing^

Blackgold

I created a small oilfield in my driveway today. I had drained my motorcycle synthetic into an oil pan and let it sit there for a while. The motorcycle eventually started resting on it and I guess I never put the plugs back in. Well it rained quite heavily for a few days over the last two weeks and this rain water drained into the pan. Since I have been reading Twilight in the Desert I have learned that natural oil reservoir pressure usually comes from an aquifer located underneath the oil. The oil and rain water in the pan proved this because when I opened up the plugs (wellbore valves if you will) oil gushed out of the pan freely. Not at the rate or pressure of Ghawar or anything. But to the point where it wouldnt go back in. Then I had an oil spill on my hands and some environmentalists came over to my driveway and beat me up for damaging my driveway's ecosystem.

I'd also like to give a big thumbs down to the city of Roseville. Two reasons: for existing and for leading me to a HHW materials drop site that does not exist.

Today is completely awesome outside so I went biking for ways and ran around Harriet. Best run in quite some time as there was no muscle tension that developed and I think I covered the three miles in about 25 minutes. Pretty fast for this guy.