The divine road ahead

Medieval-manI am a one- trick pony.

OK. A three-trick pony then.

I do not have the scary blades of Wolverine or Thor’s mighty Hammer.

And there is a lot of water between me and Igil Skallagrimson.

I am not even as good a poet. (You guessed that he was an exceptional Poet, right?)

However, I am not without my immodest strengths.

Star Trek alien head. Source: Oil Drum
Mighty throbbing brain of Star Trek alien head. Source: Oil Drum

The Lesser of the three is a Mighty Throbbing Brain. This sort of effect.

If I am to survive I had better put my Superpower to use.

We (A cluster of exceptional survivors and me) need a few favors from the Gods.

The first is a miraculous and bounteous source of portable energy.

If you are not a Deist please insert your fingers in your ears at this point and sing “La La, La La. I can’t hear you”, at the top of your voice .

Apparently Atheism is losing ground as such a source is in the offing. Gail Tverberg and I doubt that it will come in good time to do you any favors. (Evolution is such a ruthless process).

Andrea Rossi’s eCat has been verified by an argument of professors in Sweden and at Cornell University. From the report:

An experimental investigation of possible anomalous heat production in a special type of reactor tube named E-Cat HT is carried out. The reactor tube is charged with a small amount of hydrogen loaded nickel powder plus some additives. The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from resistor coils inside the reactor tube. Measurement of the produced heat was performed with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras, recording data every second from the hot reactor tube. The measurements of electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth three-phase power analyzer. Data were collected in two experimental runs lasting 96 and 116 hours, respectively. An anomalous heat production was indicated in both experiments. The 116-hour experiment also included a calibration of the experimental set-up without the active charge present in the E-Cat HT. In this case, no extra heat was generated beyond the expected heat from the electric input. Computed volumetric and gravimetric energy densities were found to be far above those of any known chemical source. Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources.

Well. That will give us some breathing space. (Please do not be tempted to include yourselves in the pronoun “Us”).

The next issue to be addressed is the need for artificial intelligence and robotics. I see that we are making steady progress. You might like to observe Big Dog. Primitive, but it has possibilities.

The next thing that you we will need is a really smart way of building huge structures. And here another apple falls into our laps in the form of 3d printing.
And God just keeps giving.

What we also need is a lot of living space while we wrestle this urge to breed and it’s commensurate exponential function, to the ground.

“Space is Big. Really, really big. If you thought it was a long way to the pharmacy that is peanuts compared to space.” (Apologies to Douglass Adams)

At L4 alone there is enough room for several orders of magnitude  more people than on the cramped two dimensional surface of this orb. Here is a graphic of what a Lagrange point looks like.

Lagrange Point Source: Wiki
Lagrange Point Source: Wiki

(You see that hole in the middle. That is the Gravity Well. You live at the bottom of it, poor thing.)

But how do we get there? We all “know” that it takes $$thousands of dollars to get even one pound out of the well, don’t we?

And just what will we find when we get there? The vacuum of space is no place for a trowel and mortar. But please- one issue at a time!!

Space elevator. Source: Wiki
Space elevator. Source: Wiki

How are we going to loft the remnants of humanity off the planet? Well there are several options available to us. Colossal Carbon Nano-tubes offer us a splendid means of taking the Elevator.

Or if a week of sitting around in a lift is just too boring, please consider orbital airships. At a cost of $1 per ton per vertical mile that might be within your our budget. (Wiki does fret about re-entry problems. There will be no re-entry. Unless you are a masochist of cause.)

But ponder this problem. Where are we going to get the materials? A hint: It will not be from the bottom of some gravity well. Gravity wells suck.

The God that gives, keeps giving.

The purpose of the Moon is not to help seduce maidens.

The purpose of the moon is to offer us the resources we need at just the right distance to encourage us into The Void.

“But,” we used to declare confidently “It has no water.”

When will we learn to keep our mouths shut? So now we have water at the poles. Someone else declared that the water at the poles was the greatest discovery of all time. He was right, because we now have run out of excuses.

What’s that I hear you think? We don’t have strong enough materials. See my point above about keeping our mouths shut. Only open them to give thanks.

Graphene, a layer of triple bonded atoms just one atom thick is capable of supporting an elephant. To get it to rip the elephant would need to stand on a pencil.

OK so now we have the Energy. Check.

We have the means to get into space in huge numbers. Checkᶩ (Did I mention the fact that the Orbital Airships are made of graphene? No? I did not think it necessary. Everything will be made of graphene.)

We are developing the robots to do the hard work on the moon and construct the habitat at the Lagrange points. Check

What are we still missing? Ah Yes. The Motivation. And here it is.

Standard run model from The Limits to Growth report.
Standard run model from The Limits to Growth report.

Do you see that Black line? That is Deaths.

Do you see that little wobbly bit a few years into the 20th century? That was the combined effect of 1st and 2nd World Wars, the Spanish flu, Stalin’s pogroms and the famine in China and India.

Now look a little further along the line. Do you see a subtle change?

If you don’t see anything odd, do not be alarmed. It does not concern you.

The Limits to Growth report. [.pdf] Standard run. (Also known as the Business-As-Usual run)

To tell the truth I am getting bored spoon-feeding you. Talk about pulling teeth!

What I will do instead is to give you your  homework. Here is a fictional story that I wrote for your amusement and pleasure. It is all about human relationships and sex, so there is something in it for the girls and the boys. (Sorry. No car chase.)

My story is called “The Breeding.” And if you are very good and read to the end there is a special treat.

Unconvinced? May I suggest you stare for a good half hour into your crystal ball.

Somebody please tell the Atheists they can take their fingers out their ears now.

Widespread destruction of ecosystems and wildlife from tar sands

This is a re-post from the Post Carbon Insitute, dedicated to documenting the last moments of the Chemical Age and who unfortunately does not yet realize the potential of the New Energy Age.

Original article is here.

Tar Sands Is Worse Than You Can Imagine: Incredible Images You Have to See
Posted Apr 19, 2013 by Leslie Moyer

The Suncor Energy upgrading refinery, on the banks of the Athabasca River.     Photo Credit: Copyrighted image; photographer not disclosed.
The Suncor Energy upgrading refinery, on the banks of the Athabasca River.
Photo Credit: Copyrighted image; photographer not disclosed.

Post Carbon Institute and Alternet have partnered to shed a powerful light on the true costs of our addiction to fossil fuels, starting with the Alberta tar sands .

Every powerful photo is linked to three meaningful actions that you can take right now to fight back against tar sands mining. We need your help getting the word out; please take a look at the images, take a stand, and share far and wide with your friends, colleagues and neighbors.

The mining of the Alberta tar sands is the biggest industrial project on earth and quite possibly the world’s most environmentally destructive. The visuals are hard to stomach, but the story is an important one to tell.

Click to see the slideshow

As conventional oil and gas deplete, the energy industry must resort to unconventional resources that are more expensive, more technically challenging to access, and pose far greater risks to ecosystems and communities than ever before. The result is destruction on an unprecedented level.

The tar sands tale is told frame by frame in the image deck, guiding us from the clear-cutting of pristine Boreal forest and creation of vast open-pit mines all the way to the pipelines that transport diluted bitumen across the continent.

The connection between the astounding environmental destruction taking place in Canada and the debate over approval of the Keystone XL pipeline here in the USis clear. As the recent rupture of the Pegasus Pipeline in Arkansas makes abundantly clear, the transport of diluted bitumen from Alberta via pipelines to oil refineries thousands of miles away poses unacceptable environmental risks.

As important, the Keystone XL Pipeline is a key litmus test for the Obama Administration and the country as a whole. And the rest of the world is watching.

Although the Canadian tar sands contribute a small percentage of total global oil production and the Keystone XL Pipeline is just one of many contested fossil fuel projects in the world (in fact, First Nations and thousands of other Canadians are fighting an equally dangerous tar sands pipeline, the Northern Gateway Pipeline), this decision by President Obama is a keystone of a different kind – representing the kind of energy future we want for ourselves and our loved ones.

For that reason, it’s not mere hyperbole to say that this is a life and death decision.

We’re reaching out to you to speak up against the Keystone XL Pipeline by sharing these images with your friends, family, and neighbors, and by clicking on one of the calls to action associated with each image.

End Post Carbon article*************

Begin Cold Fusion Now commentary*************

Cold Fusion Now!

 

Oilprice.com links COT and new energy breakthrough

In Why Are the Big Financial Institutions Selling Oil BIG?, Oilprice.com author Torkel Nyberg links oil and low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) in his analysis of a recent Commitment of Traders (COT) reports.

It is a provocative thesis of his that the largest of corporations and financial institutions have inside knowledge of a breakthrough in LENR via Andrea Rossi‘s Ecat.

AE1620

From the article:
At some point during the fall of 2010 there was a large policy shift in hedging crude oil on the NYMEX futures exchange by the big banks and the oil companies. Up to that point the hedgers of crude have largely been the producers as they want to hedge their production against future price movements. On the buy side there was the big financial institutions (Swap Dealers = JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, etc), and the money managers (large pension funds, hedge funds, etc.), that speculate in a price increase.

But during the fall of 2010 this state of affairs changed. From being net-long 200 thousand contracts, the banks became net-short in a couple of months. Their selling has since continued. And now, by March 2013, they are net-short 300 thousand contracts (300 million barrels of oil = $30 billion). See the green lines in the chart above.

At the same time the producers have liquidated their 200 thousand contract short position (blue line above). They are no longer hedging as they used to. And they’ve done it in a very consistent way. It looks almost unreal, buying an equal amount of contracts each month for two years.

During this time the banks have consistently been using a strategy to buy weakness and sell strength during their massive net-selling. As if their strategy was to build a huge short position and at the same time stabilize price. The conclusion is that the banks are now net-short about 300 thousand contracts at a price about $90-$95.

On the buy side the money managers went from being neutral by fall of 2010 to being net-long 250 thousand contracts as of today. This is of course the big funds, and in the end pensions and savings. They are now net-long oil and of course net-long all the producers (oil stocks).

Researching this strategy change has given very little information. One article though, from July 2012, touches on the subject. No answers and no explanations though. [Insidefutures.com]

Following the Commitments of Traders Report (CoT) does however reveal a great deal of information. The standard report shows the commercial traders, (oil companies and banks), large speculators (big funds) and smaller speculators (the rest). The disaggregated report also shows the position of banks and producers respectively. Both these reports are shown in the graph above. The combination does tell us that something is going on, but what?

Something real is going on, but what?

Continue reading here.

The realization of Peak Oil looms large in any examination of the oil business, and will figure in any industry moves.

But as incremental successes in experimental new energy cells from LENR accelerate, the potential Black Swan of cold fusion should not be far from any energy study either, and we are beginning to see that here.

Is it finally happening?? Supporting evidence for a big shift in the energy market caused by LENR!!

The following is a rebuttal comment made by Walkerig1 ( http://news.cnet.com/8618-17938_105-57562092.html?assetTypeId=12&messageId=13482599 ). It contains some pretty powerful analysis and links that (in my opinion) provide strong evidence of that big shift in the energy market linked to the imminent emergence of LENR onto the energy market.

“I could literally fill this post with links, it is well known in the Oil industry that the major players are on a divestment and diversification strategy. Many are giving various excuses, but when you check them they do not pan out. We are shifting to US based fields is a common one, but when you look they have bought options to consider buying or leases rather than the asset.

That is key no buying only renting. You rent assets when the asset value is about to take a hit.

Shell has been on a massive divestment strategy on its oil field assets, from Africa to the Far East for the last 12 months, or since Rossi did his first demonstration this time last year.
http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/news/newsshell-divests-stake-nigerian-oil-asset

Other Fossil Fuel companies on a divestment strategy are BP who are selling their stakes in fields in the North Sea, Russia, the Arctic and the Gulf to name but a few and not even batting an eyelid about being refused license to buy future assets in the Gulf.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20527045

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7081129

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7080956

http://indrus.in/articles/2012/11/29/rosneft_and_bp_to_develop_new_arctic_oil_fields_19411.html

Connoco
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/conocophillips-to-sell-5-bln-stake-off-kazakhstan-to-incur-400-mln-q4-charge-20121126-00448

Exxon
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/09/iraqi-official-says-exxon-mobil-is-trying-to-sell-stake-in-major-oil-field-by/

http://www.newsystocks.com/News/4108444/Weak-Demand-Outlook-Forces-Exxon-Mobil–XOM–to-Sell-Its-Japanese-Unit

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/07/us-iraq-exxon-idUSBRE8A60Y420121107

Even the pipeline parts and refinery companies are joining the rush to divest the fossil fuel business.
http://dcnonl.com/nw/32627/cb

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323830404578145611979409082.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Do a Google search for any oil company and the phrase “Oil field” and the words divest or sell.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/536428

Some are trying to cover their strategy and the risk by divesting half of the asset others are just cashing in their chips.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2010/03/25/us-conoco-lukoil-idINTRE62N43M20100325

This year has been an Oil Field Night of the Long Knives as all the major players have been dumping these soon to be seriously downgraded assets.

The price per barrel dropped 20+ dollars since May.

I expect the real drop to be when the 60 day and 30 Day options on the price per barrel get shorted when the Rossi announcement is about to be made. I expect the price per barrel will drop below 70. Then it will resurge as people realize LENR will not happen overnight. Then Oil and other fossil fuels will go into a long decline with investors on a business decline strategy making money out of the asset stripping and running the oil fields into the ground. Natural Gas will be the longest lived of the Fossil Fuel assets.

Coal might die out out in as little a year and a half as converting coal power plants to use Rossi’s Hot Cat or other LENR tech will be very easy. Oil will be next. Converting all power plants could take a 5 to 7 years but the fact that President Obama changed the Law to allow Combined Heat and Power means that many plants will end up being scrapped before they can convert, as faster cheaper more nimble competitors will create power plants on customers door steps, that provide power at a tenth but theoretically at up to one thousandth of the cost.

Buckle in people it is about to get real bumpy!”

The most common alternative explanation of the big shift in the energy market (that I hope you accept as happening) is fracking and the abundance of natural gas.  It is common to explain any know phenomena using a known and accepted narrative (for instance explaining a recent downturn in the stock market as being because of the “fiscal cliff debate”).  Yet, when I watch the news I don’t see upward movement of the stock market ever being cited as counter-evidence of that explanation.  What I am trying to say is that the known big shift in the energy market can (in my opinion) be more easily and completely explained as the imminent emergence of LENR, than for any other explanation (like “shifting to US based fields”).

Collapse/Las Vegas/Cold Fusion…

Recently Collapsenet.com, the website focusing on issues of peak oil, climate change, and surviving the coming economic/ecological collapse, featured a trailer for a documentary they’ve been working on regarding Las Vegas, one of the most glaring victims of current and potentially upcoming severe, collapse. On one hand it exists in the middle of the desert with few natural resources, and on the other it’s an energy sucking mega metropolis completely reliant on an enormous amount of incoming cheap energy. Not to mention the idea that the city is essentially “made and sustained by losers”; a business model which relies heavily on addiction and loss.

Signs of said collapse are already present. Shut down establishments, housing bubble bursts, declining tourist turnouts in recent years (though it does appears numbers are being reported as UP in 2012; the real factors of which are unclear, and likely wouldn’t consider off factors such as Nevada’s pot farming tripling in the last few years, and the reality that the American populace have clearly lost their mind, to the point of the absurd):

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) –

A new slogan was unveiled Wednesday for downtown Las Vegas.
“Every City Has a Soul” was the winning tag line of more than 1,200 online votes.

A few years back, a prime-time special on peak oil/resource depletion somehow squeeked by and was featured on one of the main networks (can’t recall the title). It depicted a look at what the near future would look like as cheap energy ran out and collapse took effect. One segment animated a travel through a now deserted, decrepid Vegas, occupied only by rogue gangs looking to hijack passer by’s. Extreme, but portrayals of doom and gloom usually accept a crashed and burned scenario, bringing back the city to it’s desolate desert origins.

Left out of the conversation of course, is the influx of near future Cold Fusion possibilities. Collapsenet’s documentary will likely not include this (we already presented former Collapsenet frontman Mike Ruppert Cold Fusion answers to his alternative energy talking points, which were more or less dismissed…link to follow).

What happens in Vegas, won’t stay in Vegas this time around, as many aspects of Collapse are already occurring worldwide, and likely to worsen. How, when, to what degree the coming age of Cold Fusion will halt, repair, replenish or rebuild the situation entirely is unclear. The thought of Vegas folding it’s hand first, and Cold Fusion appearing second might sound preferable to some, but at the rate things are happening on the Fusion front, and the desperate soul labeling – seems to be somehow slightly working – attempt to hold on to current paradigms will mean the technology gets thrusted towards upholding the loser model.

Of course the Vegas scenario presents a larger question overall on how the technology will be used more for nostalgia upholding rather than new, healthier more fulfilling ways of existing.

It’ll be interesting to watch the completed Collapsenet Vegas documentary, and then fill in the blanks of how the implications of CF may alter the doom and gloom predicted and portrayed.

CollapseNet’s First Full-Length Documentary To Focus On Las Vegas Trailer from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.

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