Oh, bother.

This coming Thursday, September 30, will be my last day at a job I have held for over twenty-one years. My lay-off has nothing to do with peak oil, but it is still traumatic. Overwhelmingly so. I’m in the process of getting set up to work at home, and my new full-time job is “writer”. (It has been my part-time position up until now.) So, if there’s a slight lag in my blog entries here, please forgive me. If you're really missing me, you might check out my upcoming media schedule because...

In better news, Peak of the Devil will be officially released the following day, this Friday, October First. 10/01/10. Wow. I can’t wait to see how it does and how it is received once it’s out there. And of course I’ll read the reviews on Amazon. (So please be kind.) Is this the right book for the right time? I really do think so. Oil is in the news more and more, and more people are starting to understand that there’s more to the problem than just a spill or two. The big picture is grim, and getting worse. Welcome to the peak of that devil.

As of this morning, I have three more days in my old job. It’s weird. The office vultures have already started to circle, checking out our desks and chairs and stuff — to see what they want to grab before the seat cushions cool off. My cubicle, once festooned with bicycle posters as well as bicycles, is absolutely bare. Most of the drawers are empty. I could, right now, pick up three things, walk out the door and never look back. Except, I have to say, I really liked this job. I understand where Lot’s wife was coming from. I will look back.

With my new job as writer, I will most certainly have more time to write. I’ve another non-fiction book I’d like to write this winter, and ideas for a couple of novels I’d be delighted to beat out of a willing keyboard. If my new full-time job is writer, my new part-time job is going to be “find an agent for my fiction.” If there’s anyone out there that wants to be my fiction agent, drop me a line and we’ll talk. I have finished two novels, a stage play with 17 original songs, and a short story (about peak oil!) that knocked ‘em dead in Maine a few years ago. And, of course, I want to write more. But I need an agent for my fiction. Anyone? Anyone?

Let’s end this on the most incredible high note possible: Last week I received a hand-written note from Harper Lee. That, to me, is like having God show up at your birthday party to give you a puppy. Whew.

The Germans get it in one

So there’s a new report out on peak oil, leaked from a German military think tank. The report spells out the dire consequences of peak oil, and says this is it: It happened this year. It’s tough to argue with the Germans. They tend to get their facts straight and don’t go in for a lot of sugar coating. I tend to believe them.

Historically, the German military has always had a major stake and interest in oil. During the middle of the 20th century, when half of the German military was on a road trip through scenic Russia and the other half was on a working vacationing in France, the folks back home were saddled with the important task of keeping everyone moving right along - without oil. They worked very hard to develop synthetic oil, and found then what we know now: Yeah, you can do it. You can make synthetic oil, but: It’s very expensive, labor intensive, takes a lot time and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to make all you need. So now, when the Germans say we’ve reached peak oil, I do think they know of what they speak. I also think, for Germans, they are being wildly optimistic. That doesn’t seem like them at all.

Well, no matter what, now another precinct weighs in. The Germans say it happened this year. I said it happened in 2005, but I admit mine was just a barely educated guess. By the time you feel it, by the time you see it, the actual date of peak oil won’t matter at all. People who have studied peak oil for years often argue whether it will be a fast crash or a slow crash as the oil goes away. My answer is that it will be a slow crash until it gets to you. Then it’s going to seem mighty fast.

In the meantime, it was good to see the Germans say something about it publicly, even if the report was leaked. As for me, I’m just happy to be able to report the report, and to be able to offer up Basil Fawlty’s most famous quote: “I mentioned the war once, but I think I got away with it.”

What Fun!

I spent a little bit of time yesterday evening chatting with Dave McGee and Sean Phipps on Dave’s radio show. I had called a few minutes before my appointed interview time, and got to listen to some of the show as I was on hold. It was interesting to hear them go after both the President and Glenn Beck with equal cheek, and I had to wonder what I was in for when my turn came. As it turned out, I had no reason to worry. We had a great time and laughed like crazed hyenas.

We talked about peak oil, of course, and I equated it with peak dating, and how you’re never quite sure when you’ve reached peak date, so how could we know peak oil? They got a kick out of that, and I think it made Sean ponder his big date last week. Was that his peak date? And at what point does he admit that it was? Peak oil is the same way.



Both my publisher and my publicist are going to have me trotting in October, promoting Peak of the Devil, and I like that. I am not shy. Having performed on stage, in tights, at the local Renaissance Festival for some years, I have no fear of crowds or cameras — as long as I am wearing pants. I always check before I go on. Let’s see. . . Yep, they’re there. I’m golden.

If you’re lucky, you will hear me on the radio or see me on TV over the next six weeks or so. And if I’m lucky, you’ll listen. I promise to keep the message up beat and entertaining, despite the decidedly down beat and somber subject matter. I feel a little bit like Country Joe and the Fish here: “Ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopie we’re all gonna die!” Oh, I could so re-write that song for these times.

So keep your ears open for the sound of my lilting, if not dulcet tones on the radio. Look for my mug on the tube. Who knows? I might be there. Just remember, no matter how funny it might sound at the moment, and no matter what I say, the underlying message is far more serious than I will ever let on.

Now don’t touch that radio dial!

Another oil rig explodes. Second verse; same as the first?

I’m ‘Enery the eighth I am, ‘Enery the Eighth I am, I am… no, wait, I’m really not. And I know you hear people say they hate being right all of the time, but you won’t hear that from me. I don’t mind so much. So here we go again already so soon.

In the news today: Another oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico has exploded. This one is 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. No word yet on any leakage, but at least no one was killed. We’ll see how the story evolves over the next day or so.

I’m the guy who said we could expect more of this sort of thing, but I honestly didn’t expect to see another one so soon. Then again, it has been over four months since the Deepwater Horizon went to the briny deep. Desperation breeds adventure, it seems. Oil companies are willing to take the risk because they have little choice. If you want the oil, and they want to sell you that oil, they have to go where the oil is, and they’ve already been where most of the oil was. We’ve plucked the low-hanging fruit, and now we’re serious about trying to keep up appearances and keep the oil flowing — no matter what it takes, who gets hurt or how many fish get in the way. Drill, baby, drill!

In truth, if you looked at every oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, you’d probably find a lot of them leaking oil to one degree or another. Such is the unnatural nature of the business. But that ain’t news. The darned thing has to blow up to make it on TV. And you’d better believe this will be the lead story tonight.

So sit back, relax and get comfy. Here we go again. Second verse, same as the first. And I can’t help but wonder where Peter Noone is these days.

BP Dispersants: It seemed like a good idea at the time

Man oh man oh man. You ever notice how, when a guy does something really stupid, the long rambling excuse he offers up later so often starts with the phrase, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”? Yeah, well, see, there was this big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico awhile back. It was in all the papers. Sure, they capped that puppy, but not before a whole mess of gooey oil got loose. One of the first things the oil company did, in response to the massive leak, was to spray dispersants on the oil that gathered over the surface of the water. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Dispersants. Not gather-it-all-upants. Not make-it-go-awayants. Dispersants. So then what did the oil do? Class? That’s right, Johnny: It dispersed. It did not go away and it was not gathered up. It dispersed. The big gooey mess was, through the magic of toxic chemicals, reduced to teeny, tiny little messes that maybe no one would see. Or so I’m sure they hoped. All together now: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I have to admit: I was really skeptical at the time when the marine science guys from USF came back from the northern Gulf of Mexico and said they had found oil plumes moving well under the surface of the ocean out there. I mean, come on, we all know oil floats. How can oil not float? It’s oil. Apparently, if you spray crude oil with the right dispersant, it breaks up into very small molecules and does not float. Out of sight, out of mind. Were they out of their minds? We’ll leave that topic for another blog. Right now, we’ve got an oil mess to clean up. If we can find it.

So now we have the Gulf of Mexico looking virtually free of surface oil, but: They are finding more and more oil moving below the ocean’s surface or sunk to the bottom in sizes small enough to enter the food chain. And dude, you are part of that food chain. This is your food chain we’re talking about here. The phrase “fish oil” is taking on a whole new ugly meaning. How soon before we see this oil in the fish we can’t eat?

Even though this all started months ago, we still have not seen the last of it. People are just now finding out how badly the dispersed oil has messed with the subsurface environment in the Gulf of Mexico. It may be years before we know the full impact and how long it might take for the oil to work its way out of the ecosystem. Until then, expect this to be a sort of lingering annoyance thing. It’s no longer news, as it is no longer spectacular. The ongoing contamination of life in the Gulf will not make the headlines. It will be the subject of quiet reports and research papers. No biggie. It’s just the death of the ocean. Who’s gonna notice?

Maybe the oil company wasn’t so stupid after all. They got rid of the visible signs of their screw-up. Subsurface microscopic oil contamination is tough to film for the evening news. The situation has become all technical and scientific, and who wants to read about that? Too many big words. Maybe, from BP’s point of view, it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Maybe, like so much else they BP does, it was simply evil.

Waiting for the other shoe

So here we are in the middle of August, BP has capped their runaway oil well and all is right with the world. (Man, that was tough to type with a straight face.) The media (and America’s) attention span being what it is these days, the oil spill in the Gulf is now officially old news, and to keep hammering away at it makes you look a bit out of it, sort of like a bad SNL skit. Or a really good one. And yet. . . .



And yet, I sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, they capped the well. The relief wells are not yet drawing off the oil to release the pressure, so there’s still a chance the original well will rupture far below the sea bed (below the cap plug) and turn a major oil spill into something far, far worse — and impossible to stop. Of course, that hasn’t happened yet. That we know of. I did get a kick this week — this week — out of Greenpeace sending a ship out there to check it out. Uh, guys? Where ya been? This all happened four months ago. You’re late to the party. Way late. It’s old news. But thanks for stopping by.

Let me tell you how old this news is: A couple of weeks ago, a tugboat hit a barely submerged well head up that way, in the Gulf, and it spewed oil like a big fountain in Vegas, right out there in the Gulf for all to see (if you just happened to be there). It hardly got any mention at all in the media. It’s old news. There are most certainly other wells out there, abandoned and leaking away like crazy, but no one’s going to bother to mention them. That’s really old news. I guess Lady Gaga is hogging all of the headlines these days until Michael Jackson does something interesting. Like breathes.

Of course this will happen again; that is, there will be other oil spills/leaks/whoopsies out in the Gulf, but here’s how the media works: If the next one isn’t bigger than this one, you might not ever hear about it at all. It ain’t news unless it’s new.

Meanwhile, before Lady Gaga walks in here and punches my lights out (or Michael Jackson does a very impressive zombie dance), how about we compare notes? If you have made any changes in your life in response to the possibility of peak oil, I’d like to know what you’ve done. We’ve lowered our home energy use (to 5 kwh a day) and I do a fair amount of practical cycling around town. If you’ve done anything in the way of prepping for peak, post it in the comments section here and we’ll talk about it.

The Boy Who Cried “PEAK!”

For every person out there that thinks the world’s supply of oil will some day peak, there’s another person even further out there that is just as sure it won’t. These are the “Cornucopians”, who see the earth’s supply of oil as virtually inexhaustible. This “Oil Forever” camp can be roughly divided into three broad groups: You have your Economic Cornucopians that believe that demand (price) creates product, the Techno-Cornucopians that are sure that technology will save us and provide a never-ending supply of energy, and my personal favorites, the Chewy Nougat Center Cornucopians that are convinced that the center of the earth is full of “abiotic” oil. I kid you not.

And every one of these wonderful, thoughtful shiny people are more than happy to point out that the people that predict peak oil have been predicting the peak of oil for a very long time. Like for over a hundred years. And it hasn’t happened yet. (As far as we know.) People that do predict the peak of global oil are very often accused of crying wolf. “Remember the boy who cried wolf”, they will say, with a smile and a wink and a sort of knowing nod to dismiss anyone so foolish as to think that we might some day run low on oil. Perish the thought, if not the thinker.

So I’ve been thinking, and here’s my thought for the day: Yes, people that believe that we might some day run low on oil are very much like the boy that cried wolf, but not for quite the same reason. The boy cried wolf because he craved the excitement. We cry wolf because we lack complete, accurate data and must, for lack of a better world, guess at what we are seeing and what it all might mean.

The funny thing is, those that accuse us of crying wolf forget how the story ends. At the end of the story, there’s a wolf, and people don’t listen.

Life imitates art yet again. Woof, woof.

The gloves come off. The claws come out.

You know me. I’m a nice guy, more than willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But if there is no doubt? Watch out.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, from London to New York, blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. Two hundred and seventy people lost their lives. In January of 2001, Abdelbaset Ali Mohaned Al Megrahi, a Libyan, was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to life in prison for the event. He was serving that sentence when a doctor examined him, proclaimed that he had advanced prostate cancer, and should be released on humanitarian grounds and returned to Libya to live his last days. He was released in August 2009 and returned to a hero's welcome. As of July of 2010, Megrahi is alive and well.

Now, as it turns out, Megrahi’s examination, diagnosis and repatriation were all arranged by British Petroleum in return for some consideration by Libya for a deal with BP for oil rights in that country. And that subtle shaking noise you just heard beneath your feet? That would be the Devil himself, shuddering in disgust. Even the Prince of Darkness, it seems, has higher moral standards than British Petroleum.

It’s one thing to screw up out of greed and laziness and corner-cutting and have your oil rig blow up. It’s quite another to go considerably out of your way to aid a convicted terrorist and a very unpleasant regime that quite honestly hates you anyway, just because you think you can make some money off the deal. Money made over two hundred and seventy dead bodies. Money made because you freed their murderer, and you didn’t even agree with him or his ideology. You just wanted the chance to make the money, with no concern for honor, pride, ethics or morals. This takes it to a whole new level. British Petroleum is neither lazy nor greedy. British Petroleum is pure evil.

Now it’s true that various elected officials here in the United States are looking into BP’s actions, but we are talking about things that happened in other countries, so there was really no crime committed here on US soil – unless you count the very presence of BP itself, and I do. And by now, you know merely boycotting your local BP station will have no impact whatsoever on BP the corporation. In a perfect world, which this is obviously not, BP would be removed from the US and all of its upper management, world-wide, required to finish the terms of Megrahi’s life sentence. Every last one of them. But that’s not going to happen, either. The Scottish Government will “look in to it,” as will ours, and, in the end, it comes down to this: They got away with it. BP got the guy out of prison and got him sent home, where he lives to this day. At some point, BP will quietly begin its oil operation in Libya, and at some point, someone’s going to be driving around with gasoline that should be dyed very blood red to reflect its true source.

And when it comes to British Petroleum, even the Devil has to step back in awe.

A sheep in wolf's clothing

I can make myself invisible any time I want. I did it the other day, and it was great. I got tons of stuff done with no interruptions. No one bothered me at all. Matter of fact, people went out of their way to not see me. All I had to do was wear my BP shirt.

The Lovely JoAnn and I usually go top off our truck’s gas tank every Saturday morning after we have breakfast at Tory’s Café. Charlie’s BP station is just down the road from the café, on the corner of Highland and Belleair, and we know everyone there. It’s a Saturday morning ritual. One morning awhile back I was talking to Nan, their Saturday morning attendant, and she said she forgot to take off her BP logo shirt before she went grocery shopping, and couldn’t believe how easy it was to shop when people made a mad scramble to get away from you. Oh, really? Oh, really. Oh, I’ve got to try this. She found us a couple of shirts, and I gave it a go. It was great. People saw that shirt and couldn’t get away fast enough. I was like a seeping leper with a big grin, looking to shake their hand. It was hilarious. I got stuff done.

Of course, I had also told Nan that Charlie should be putting the monthly franchise fees that he normally pays to BP in an escrow account, seeing as how that “paying for the corporate goodwill” thing isn’t exactly working out these days. He’s really paying for being a BP station now, in many, many different ways. And I don’t see that changing for the better any time soon.

So here’s the deal: If you do happen to see someone walking around in a BP shirt, give ‘em a smile. Odds are it wasn’t their fault. Odds are they just work for a local gas station, and they got caught up in it just like everyone else. They are just as worried and angered by it all as you are - maybe more so, considering the extra level of poo they have to put up with these days, just for working for a franchised store. (They probably don’t even really work for BP itself.) So cut them some slack. It’s not like they’re clubbing baby seals. (Unless, of course, they are.)

As for me, I’ve got my BP shirt anytime I want to travel unnoticed and get things done. I can set high-speed shopping records in the grocery store and cruise through the mall unmolested by the kiosk crews. It really does work wonders, but I do draw the line: I won’t wear my BP shirt to the beach. No way.

Radio Interview 7/8/10

Check it out...had a great time doing it; hope you enjoy listening. We talked about the Deepwater Horizon, peak oil, my forthcoming book, Peak of the Devil: 100 Questions (and answers) About Peak Oil, and Jimmy Buffett.

Click here to listen.

Peak of the Devil: Part One

The first mention I saw of the Deepwater Horizon’s demise was a small item on The Drudge Report, probably the day after it happened, April 21st. I remember I wrote down the date it blew up, April 20th, on a piece of paper, in case I needed to know it later. It seemed curiously important at the time, although, from that first article, you might not have known it at the time.

About two weeks later, as it all began to unfold, I pedaled down to the beach and collected some sand in a jar. The following Monday I gave this letter to the local newspaper:

Editor:

I’ve buried both parents and I buried my dog. I’ve said goodbye to people I didn’t want to leave and I’ve left places when I didn’t want to go. Last Sunday morning I pedaled my bicycle to Clearwater Beach and locked it up at Pier 60. I walked out on the sand south of the pier and filled a small jar with pure, perfect, brilliant white sand. I put the jar back in my pack and pedaled home. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever done.

I know all things change, but to see all of this change for the worse, for nothing less than laziness and greed, is an astounding disappointment and a thorough condemnation of our misguided priorities. I won’t say I didn’t look back. The view from the top of the bridge is still beautiful - but for how much longer? A week? A month?

The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon has become an event horizon in its own right. Will the oil reach the beach? Or is it simply a matter of when? In a jar on my workbench, next to all of the jars of bicycle parts, is a jar of pure, perfect, brilliant white sand from Clearwater Beach. I want to remember it all as it was, and as I hope it will be. I will save what I saved, seeing as how we aren’t smart enough to protect the rest of it.

That jar of pure white sand is still right there on my workbench, labeled “Clearwater Beach, May 2, 2010”. And for now, over two months later, the beach is still ok. However: If you look at a map of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, you can see that the part of western Florida that sticks out in to the Gulf the most is, in fact, Clearwater Beach. The same Gulf currents that give us that beautiful sand will also send us that ugly oil. It’s only a matter of time. At least my sand is safe.

We’re used to watching hurricanes as they slowly roll across the ocean and there’s not a thing you can do about them. This is a lot like that, but unlike hurricanes, this is entirely our own fault. We can’t blame Mother Nature for this one.

Stay tuned.