A while back I commented that I was surprised that oil prices would increase so much given that oil production finally seemed to be increasing. I now believe that I was wrong. I have now regularly watched EIA oil statistics fairly regularly for about a year. One rather absurd trend seems to have become apparent within the numbers for world oil production. Just about every month the EIA reports that we produced more oil than we ever have. Than they go and lower the estimate again and again over the next six month period.
The most current numbers for world production are:
Thousand Barrels Per day
2005 January- 73,202
February -73,481
March -73,800
April -74,082
May -74,241
June -73,859
July -73,700
August- 73,736
September- 73,301
October -73,396
November- 73,869
December -74,157
2005 Average -73,737
2006 January -73,673
February -73,583
March- 73,419
April- 73,507
May -73,068
June -72,976
July -73,997
August -73,677
September -73,390
October- 73,730
November- 73,362
December -73,141
2006 Average- 73,461
2007 January -72,801
February -73,047
March -72,975
April - 73,220
May -72,744
June -72,348
July -72,869
August -72,224
September -73,028
October -73,689
November -73,395
December -73,873
2007 Average- 73,018
2008 January -73,910
February -74,085
March -74,206
April -73,791
May -74,339
June -74,259
July -75,099
2008 7-Month Average -74,245
You can see from taking a look at that list the maximum production for 2005 was in May with 74, 241 thousand barrels of oil per day produced. In 2006, and 2007 we never managed to produce as much oil as we did in 2005. Then in May 2008 we heroically managed to surpass that production level, again in June, and again by even more in July.
There is only one problem with all of that. The EIA said the same several months back. First in October and November they claimed we finally beat the peak in production that occured in may 2005. Than, quietly, those numbers were lowered a few months later, now they are almost a million barrels a day lower than May 2005. Once again in January, February and March they made the same claim, we finally beat the peak in production that had occured in 2005. Once again, those numbers got subsequently lowered.
Now, I am not saying there is some huge conspiracy here, oil statistics are often not completely accurate for as long as two years. A great deal of guess work goes into producing the numbers since many countries do not publish any production numbers. Still, a really good case can still be made that the world hit peak oil in mid 2005. Even the high prices of 2007 were not enough to break that trend, and the verdict is still out as to whether the prices of 2008 were enough. If that proves to be the case I will be kicking myself for not investing in oil right now when it is down to $80 a barrel.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Why I do disease research
The following graph from the AAAS about what sectors get the most research money does a good job of demonstrating why I am not currently doing energy research, and somehow ended up working on cancer. Despite politicians talking about making us energy independent, energy research is funded with less than half the money that it was in the 70s. The corporate picture looks much the same. At one point the oil companies had huge research institutions. Over the same time period these institutions have decayed significantly. You will know congress takes these issues seriously when the green section of the graph expands to at least the size it was in 1980.
Edit: I just read the small print under the graph. I am not entirely sure anymore it is not complete fiction. It fits with what I have seen at Cornell though. A whole lot of talk, and people interested in doing something relative to the amount of funding to actually do stuff. There was almost no primary energy production research here when I was looking for a lab. Maybe two graduate students doing solar research, and a couple biofuels people.
Edit: I just read the small print under the graph. I am not entirely sure anymore it is not complete fiction. It fits with what I have seen at Cornell though. A whole lot of talk, and people interested in doing something relative to the amount of funding to actually do stuff. There was almost no primary energy production research here when I was looking for a lab. Maybe two graduate students doing solar research, and a couple biofuels people.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Above Average!
I have finally succeeded at something in graduate school!
When I was in Junior High, and High School I did four and a half seasons of wrestling. My first season I am pretty sure I was pinned every match and didn't score a single point all season. The second season I was something like 4 and 9 and was probably only pinned half my matches. The third I went up against slightly better competition am pretty sure I was 2 and 12. I don't really remember much about my forth season which was a freestyle season but I am fairly certain that despite beating some redheaded girl and another person with little experience, resulting in my winning the only athletic tournament of my life, it was not a winning season. My fifth season I pinned the first two people I went up against than got ring worm which resulted in me dropping the sport and doing Academic Decathlon instead.
As a grad student I have been taking PE courses though. So far I am taking, or have taken, SCUBA Diving, Beginning Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Gymnastics, Swing Dancing, Taekwondo, and Judo. In Mixed Martial Arts, it was pretty clear I was about average. That class however had a fairly intimidating name which resulted in several people with black belts or significant experience in another martial art.
In Judo this semester I have gone up against a total of six people, all about my size, in sparring drills. So far only one put up a real fight, and I suspect would have beat me one out of three matches, the other five I was clearly at an advantage against though. This puts me finally above average at a martial art! Of course this is relative to a much less competitive group of people than being on one of the top high school wrestling teams in the country. Still, I suspect this group of people is more similar to the general public, although most of them were in pretty good shape which is more than I can say for most Americans.
When I was in Junior High, and High School I did four and a half seasons of wrestling. My first season I am pretty sure I was pinned every match and didn't score a single point all season. The second season I was something like 4 and 9 and was probably only pinned half my matches. The third I went up against slightly better competition am pretty sure I was 2 and 12. I don't really remember much about my forth season which was a freestyle season but I am fairly certain that despite beating some redheaded girl and another person with little experience, resulting in my winning the only athletic tournament of my life, it was not a winning season. My fifth season I pinned the first two people I went up against than got ring worm which resulted in me dropping the sport and doing Academic Decathlon instead.
As a grad student I have been taking PE courses though. So far I am taking, or have taken, SCUBA Diving, Beginning Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts, Gymnastics, Swing Dancing, Taekwondo, and Judo. In Mixed Martial Arts, it was pretty clear I was about average. That class however had a fairly intimidating name which resulted in several people with black belts or significant experience in another martial art.
In Judo this semester I have gone up against a total of six people, all about my size, in sparring drills. So far only one put up a real fight, and I suspect would have beat me one out of three matches, the other five I was clearly at an advantage against though. This puts me finally above average at a martial art! Of course this is relative to a much less competitive group of people than being on one of the top high school wrestling teams in the country. Still, I suspect this group of people is more similar to the general public, although most of them were in pretty good shape which is more than I can say for most Americans.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Still no Solar
A few days ago I watched the CEO of Skypoint Solar give a presentation on solar power. It pretty much convinced me solar will not matter for at least a decade, probably two, if then. The following two figures from his presentation pretty much make the case:
(you can click on the first image to get a larger one if you cannot read it)
Solar electricity has been one of the favorite energy topics for researchers for quite some time. The first working prototypes were decades ago. In all of this time solar has only managed to hit .034% of world electricity production. Three hundredths of a percent. Compare that to wind, and geothermal. As best as I can tell have been comparatively ignored by governments yet produce ten times, and twenty times as much electricity as solar respectively. Judging by the huge rates of growth in wind power for the past two years I suspect the numbers are even farther apart today.
That gets worse in the second slide. This figurelists what growth the solar electricity industry would need to maintain to produce 1% on the left, and 10% on the right of our electricity assuming energy use increases by either 175, or 450%. I am unaware of any industry maintaining 30% growth rates over a 17 year period. Yet that is exactly what would need to happen for solar to only produce 1% of the electricity the world uses in 2025! To actually put enough of a dent in coal to actually matter we would need 20-50% of our electricity from solar. Unless something changes in a big way that remains fifty years off. If we dramatically expand nuclear, geothermal, and wind power for the next two decades I don't actually see much remaining for solar to do. Most of our energy problems can be solved before this technology has a chance to get off the ground.
I actually dropped solar power as a field I am looking into on my resume. Once the industry manages to produce 1% of our electricity I will reconsider. The wind industry in America is already at that level, if the wind industry managed to get 30% growth rates over the same time period we would produce something like 50% of our electricity from wind(although practical concerns may limit that at about 20%). I would much rather be in an industry adding full percents to its market share than hundredths of a percent. Geothermal, and nuclear power are in a more similar position to wind than to solar, so those seem like reasonable technologies to work on. I gave up most hope on entering the nuclear power industry though when I looked at a map of where the nuclear power plants in America are located. Out of 104 plants, only 2 are in California and very few are elsewhere on the west coast.
There always is the chance of 40% efficiency solar cells at half the cost of current cells, and there has been 7 years of ~40% growth rates in the industry, so I haven't quite given up hope on the field, but in the next two decades don't expect anything out of it.
(you can click on the first image to get a larger one if you cannot read it)
Solar electricity has been one of the favorite energy topics for researchers for quite some time. The first working prototypes were decades ago. In all of this time solar has only managed to hit .034% of world electricity production. Three hundredths of a percent. Compare that to wind, and geothermal. As best as I can tell have been comparatively ignored by governments yet produce ten times, and twenty times as much electricity as solar respectively. Judging by the huge rates of growth in wind power for the past two years I suspect the numbers are even farther apart today.
That gets worse in the second slide. This figurelists what growth the solar electricity industry would need to maintain to produce 1% on the left, and 10% on the right of our electricity assuming energy use increases by either 175, or 450%. I am unaware of any industry maintaining 30% growth rates over a 17 year period. Yet that is exactly what would need to happen for solar to only produce 1% of the electricity the world uses in 2025! To actually put enough of a dent in coal to actually matter we would need 20-50% of our electricity from solar. Unless something changes in a big way that remains fifty years off. If we dramatically expand nuclear, geothermal, and wind power for the next two decades I don't actually see much remaining for solar to do. Most of our energy problems can be solved before this technology has a chance to get off the ground.
I actually dropped solar power as a field I am looking into on my resume. Once the industry manages to produce 1% of our electricity I will reconsider. The wind industry in America is already at that level, if the wind industry managed to get 30% growth rates over the same time period we would produce something like 50% of our electricity from wind(although practical concerns may limit that at about 20%). I would much rather be in an industry adding full percents to its market share than hundredths of a percent. Geothermal, and nuclear power are in a more similar position to wind than to solar, so those seem like reasonable technologies to work on. I gave up most hope on entering the nuclear power industry though when I looked at a map of where the nuclear power plants in America are located. Out of 104 plants, only 2 are in California and very few are elsewhere on the west coast.
There always is the chance of 40% efficiency solar cells at half the cost of current cells, and there has been 7 years of ~40% growth rates in the industry, so I haven't quite given up hope on the field, but in the next two decades don't expect anything out of it.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Bugs
My back yard is being invaded by strange bugs. I can't actually figure out what they are doing, they just seem to like to congregate in large groups, mostly on the pavement. When you scare them away it appears that they are just standing on empty ground. Most mysterious.
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Trains Verses Planes
A professor here, Francis Vanek, gave a talk last week mostly supporting plug in hybrid vehicles. In it however was a graph that was pretty shocking to me. It is comparing the energy use per passenger mile on trains, planes, and buses.
You would expect that trains would be significantly more efficient than planes than planes are, and in fact they are. However not many people use the train meaning you are comparing empty trains to full planes. This makes me feel a little better about all of those plane rides. A shame the graph doesn't have cars though.
You would expect that trains would be significantly more efficient than planes than planes are, and in fact they are. However not many people use the train meaning you are comparing empty trains to full planes. This makes me feel a little better about all of those plane rides. A shame the graph doesn't have cars though.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Talking to Dead People
I haven't been writing much on here recently and I thought I would talk a little about what led to that. I decided to try to as much as practical cut off contact with dead people, and people I don't know.
That may seem an odd way to live, but it is how most of people through most of history have lived. The real difference between the modern world, and the stone age is that at some point we learned to transmit information over vast distances in space and time first through painting and writing, then later through radio, tape cassettes, video games, the internet, television and dozens of other forms. Without this transmission of information we never could have created the world we live in today.
So, why cut off from all of this information if it has created so much? Well, perhaps the biggest reason is to see what happens. To the best of my knowledge no group in modern society has actually gone out of the way to live like this. I for example managed to live without a computer or television in my apartment for several months right when I started graduate school. What did I do with that time? Primarily I read books. One person I don't know telling me what to think was replaced with another! There has been no point in my life where I have cut myself off from all of this useful information, propaganda, and entertainment.
Another reason has been the realization that I know too much and do too little. Outside of a tiny number of technical subjects my life would not improve with more information. There was a time in my life where this was probably not true. Not because I did a lot then, but because the only expectation on me was to learn. Was I to cut myself off of information at that point in time the results on my life would most certainly be destructive. That no longer appears to be true, I could forget for decades and still know enough to function in society. It makes more sense to focus on actually doing something.
Watching myself and other people whenever they are not doing something interesting or productive they seem to be taking in information from, or being entertained by people they don't know. They watch TV, surf the internet, read cheap romance novels, read the newspaper, play video games, and so on. Even much of the apparently unproductive time people spend when they are not taking in information from strangers is actually fairly productive. The best example I have is drinking. You might expect that regularly going to the bar would have a general negative effect on your life. In some ways it may well, but if you compare the incomes of people who drink socially with those who do not you find that up to around an astonishing 35 drinks a week people who drink socially make more money than those who either do not drink, or drink alone. It is not the alcoholic who spends his time at parties or in the bar who ruins his life, its the alcoholic who gets drunk and watches television. Cutting the television from his life may be the more prudent move.
I have decided upon a complex set of rules for this experiment. Any activity that is primarily used to contact people I know is fair game. Email, Instant Messages, Phones, and so on. I decided to keep the blog because lets face it, no one I don't know will ever read it. Posting to reddit, or arguing on its comments section is clearly out as it is primarily me communicating with people I do not know. With works of art such as paintings and music I have decided to keep originals, even if the painter is dead, but as much as reasonable limit duplicates and recordings. Going to a concert, or museum sounds close enough to productive for me to keep it as an option. With books and articles, I try to cut it off if it is not directly related to my courses or research. I used that fudge word at the start of this blog, practical, it is not practical for me to enter a new field without a great deal of reading on the subject. The goal is not to be anti-technology, or in some sense even anti-information it is to be pro doing something interesting with my time. I have also instituted a rule to not be an asshole about it. If you are at someone's house and they want to watch a movie, it is rude to apply pressure to do otherwise. Not going to a party, or requesting someone turn off the music at a party are both not options that will improve life.
Starting was particularly difficult. My alarm was initially a radio station, I changed it to that annoying beeping. Car radio got turned off. The first day I drove in silence it was really really hard to not turn the thing on and flip through stations. Within a week I stopped noticing it. I took to turning off my computer to increase the amount of effort I need to get onto it. While you are motivated turning the monitor so it is facing away from you is also particularly effective as a way to break you down when you are less motivated. I stopped carrying headphones with me so listening to Audiobooks stops being an easy option.
In some ways I have done really well, in other ways not as much. I haven't been to reddit in two weeks, which opened up a lot of time in my life. I never started listening to audiobooks or the radio again. I haven't played video games in the time period either. I was doing fairly well with newspapers, forums, and television until I got sick. In the last few days I have not done very well at that.
The thing I would consider this the most like is breaking up with a girlfriend. You end up with all this time, and no obvious thing to do with it. Think of all that time you spend staring at a screen and consider for a second what you would be doing if you were not at that screen. I spent a great deal of time staring at my aquarium trying to figure out what to do. I now seem to go to bed about two hours earlier than before. Before I would get so interested in what I was doing that I would stay up late. Now I face an empty apartment and sleep all of a sudden sounds like a good plan. However when you are faced with no interesting options to do with your time you eventually go to your list of things you really know you are supposed to be doing and do it. While I still haven't been as productive as I need to be, this certainly helped a lot.
Will I try to go along with this crazy plan for long? I honestly have no idea. Anyone who has known me long knows I am capable of taking crazy ideas to limits that most people would consider insane. Breaking so many habits at once is really difficult to do though and if I end up unemployed in January it may prove really hard to hold up.
That may seem an odd way to live, but it is how most of people through most of history have lived. The real difference between the modern world, and the stone age is that at some point we learned to transmit information over vast distances in space and time first through painting and writing, then later through radio, tape cassettes, video games, the internet, television and dozens of other forms. Without this transmission of information we never could have created the world we live in today.
So, why cut off from all of this information if it has created so much? Well, perhaps the biggest reason is to see what happens. To the best of my knowledge no group in modern society has actually gone out of the way to live like this. I for example managed to live without a computer or television in my apartment for several months right when I started graduate school. What did I do with that time? Primarily I read books. One person I don't know telling me what to think was replaced with another! There has been no point in my life where I have cut myself off from all of this useful information, propaganda, and entertainment.
Another reason has been the realization that I know too much and do too little. Outside of a tiny number of technical subjects my life would not improve with more information. There was a time in my life where this was probably not true. Not because I did a lot then, but because the only expectation on me was to learn. Was I to cut myself off of information at that point in time the results on my life would most certainly be destructive. That no longer appears to be true, I could forget for decades and still know enough to function in society. It makes more sense to focus on actually doing something.
Watching myself and other people whenever they are not doing something interesting or productive they seem to be taking in information from, or being entertained by people they don't know. They watch TV, surf the internet, read cheap romance novels, read the newspaper, play video games, and so on. Even much of the apparently unproductive time people spend when they are not taking in information from strangers is actually fairly productive. The best example I have is drinking. You might expect that regularly going to the bar would have a general negative effect on your life. In some ways it may well, but if you compare the incomes of people who drink socially with those who do not you find that up to around an astonishing 35 drinks a week people who drink socially make more money than those who either do not drink, or drink alone. It is not the alcoholic who spends his time at parties or in the bar who ruins his life, its the alcoholic who gets drunk and watches television. Cutting the television from his life may be the more prudent move.
I have decided upon a complex set of rules for this experiment. Any activity that is primarily used to contact people I know is fair game. Email, Instant Messages, Phones, and so on. I decided to keep the blog because lets face it, no one I don't know will ever read it. Posting to reddit, or arguing on its comments section is clearly out as it is primarily me communicating with people I do not know. With works of art such as paintings and music I have decided to keep originals, even if the painter is dead, but as much as reasonable limit duplicates and recordings. Going to a concert, or museum sounds close enough to productive for me to keep it as an option. With books and articles, I try to cut it off if it is not directly related to my courses or research. I used that fudge word at the start of this blog, practical, it is not practical for me to enter a new field without a great deal of reading on the subject. The goal is not to be anti-technology, or in some sense even anti-information it is to be pro doing something interesting with my time. I have also instituted a rule to not be an asshole about it. If you are at someone's house and they want to watch a movie, it is rude to apply pressure to do otherwise. Not going to a party, or requesting someone turn off the music at a party are both not options that will improve life.
Starting was particularly difficult. My alarm was initially a radio station, I changed it to that annoying beeping. Car radio got turned off. The first day I drove in silence it was really really hard to not turn the thing on and flip through stations. Within a week I stopped noticing it. I took to turning off my computer to increase the amount of effort I need to get onto it. While you are motivated turning the monitor so it is facing away from you is also particularly effective as a way to break you down when you are less motivated. I stopped carrying headphones with me so listening to Audiobooks stops being an easy option.
In some ways I have done really well, in other ways not as much. I haven't been to reddit in two weeks, which opened up a lot of time in my life. I never started listening to audiobooks or the radio again. I haven't played video games in the time period either. I was doing fairly well with newspapers, forums, and television until I got sick. In the last few days I have not done very well at that.
The thing I would consider this the most like is breaking up with a girlfriend. You end up with all this time, and no obvious thing to do with it. Think of all that time you spend staring at a screen and consider for a second what you would be doing if you were not at that screen. I spent a great deal of time staring at my aquarium trying to figure out what to do. I now seem to go to bed about two hours earlier than before. Before I would get so interested in what I was doing that I would stay up late. Now I face an empty apartment and sleep all of a sudden sounds like a good plan. However when you are faced with no interesting options to do with your time you eventually go to your list of things you really know you are supposed to be doing and do it. While I still haven't been as productive as I need to be, this certainly helped a lot.
Will I try to go along with this crazy plan for long? I honestly have no idea. Anyone who has known me long knows I am capable of taking crazy ideas to limits that most people would consider insane. Breaking so many habits at once is really difficult to do though and if I end up unemployed in January it may prove really hard to hold up.
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