What do you think the future looks like?

What does the future look like ? I guess it all depends on the view from where you are standing.

Remember, change is not a roadsign that you pass, but more a frog in boiling water. By the time you really see the signs, the effects have already been felt.

There have been some great suggestions posted here, and I won't go into my personal list of favorites because my soapbox is in need of repair.

There will always be 'have' and 'have nots'... what you need to decide is what it is you want to 'have', and a plan of action to obtain it.

There is no right and wrong answer, just action and consequence.

It is not my job to save the world. It is an impossible task, because the world does not want to be saved. What is my concern... is my pesonal, and my family's well being. I've made my plans, and I'm working as hard as I can to achieve those goals.

Make your plans, and make them well.
Those who rely on the promises of others may be dissapointed ...as promises can be broken.
...and the US dollar is the govt's biggest promise of all.

There seem to be more grasshoppers than ants in the US today.

"it is best to prepare for the days of necessity." Aesop

Great thread and a lot of smart cookies here. I agree with BooBoo on the energy issues, there certainly have been great discoveries/inventions that have been sabotaged/crushed by the powers that be and can only be described as evil at best. Private property rights are in danger and that concerns me as that will greatly determine our way of life. Also control of crop seeds and the total immersion into GM technology and the animal ID is alarming. I feel like we are targeted as farmers to succomb to total control by the gov. Who controls the food, controls the people. I do think we are quickly heading for a no middle class society. Our economy is like a house built on sand.

But I don't wring my hands over it, get mad or lose sleep.......I don't know what the future holds but I do know WHO holds the future......an old familiar saying but it says it for me.

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Disease is not an entity, but a fluctuating condition of the patients body, a battle between the substance of disease and the natural self healing tendency of the body......Hippocrates

"futures' so bright, I gotta wear shades"

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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

The subject of this thread made me think of an interview with John Shuttleworth which appeared in two issues of The Mother Earth News years ago. This link is to the second half of the interview -- if anyone would like a link to the first half of it (mostly about his life and starting TMEN), let me know and I will post it.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/DIY/1...n_Shuttleworth

I think those of you interested in this subject will be interested in this article.

MaryNY

__________________
"...creating & living an independent, self-reliant, building constructing, garden-/animal-raising, food-preserving, ecologically sound, solar/off-the-grid, self-made, individualistic lifestyle..."

I agree. The price may go down for a while, but I'd bet it will go up again. And the supply of oil is not infinite. What a lot of people aren't aware of is the fact that the oil industry has been overestimating the "reserves" for years, and they've been caught doing it several times(and yes, they've admitted it when they HAD to ). Remember that the next time they announce some more news about the next big find.

BTW, if you're standing beside a road and you see a car coming down the road, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'd say it's neither. It's just a fact. Does it make you a pessimist if you tell someone there's a car coming down the road?

__________________
"I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did."
— Henry James

I dont expect the price to have anything to do with supply,any more than it does now.There is no shortage now,so I dont think supply dictates price.

As for reserves,may or may not lie about it,But the finds around Thunder Horse are certainly real,they are pumping them.That BP says they've found more,I believe it,as I believe that whole area of proven production by BP leads me to believe this hit too.

Russian production is also up,and the water in the Middle East,lot of oil there too.

Whats interesting is the depth,now going 6 miles deep with the drilling and they are finding oil previously unable to even drill to.Oil of extreme heat and extreme pressures,tech to solve those problems is here and its now.Lots of oil.

The new drilling tech is making a mockery of Peak oil,these are supplies never before possible to reach.Peak Oil 'experts' never figured on that.
One peak oil claim,no new large fields will EVER be found again.Well,Bp has the infrastructure and new wells producing in the Gulf 800,000 bbd,(250,000 of that from Thunder horse alone,going on line in 2007).Other platforms,already producing.All found and put in production in just the last few years.



All Record breaking deep drilling.Cool stuff.
Tech,tech,tech,plenty of oil finds.
The Gulf has a LOT of oil,clearly.

FWIW,if anyone cares.

BooBoo

You don't even need to outsource to India. Their nurses will come here:

http://www.rnindia.com/hospitals/whyindia.html

As it says, they can assimilate to our culture very easily and "Our recruitment and placement fees are extremely reasonable. In fact, most healthcare facilities save over $60,000 per nurse over a two year period by using our services."

There are a lot of real shaky claims made here about things like peak oil and production in places like Saudi and Russia.
Peak oil is clear defined as the point at which we are starting on the second half of the oil reserves of the planet and oil production has reached it's peak and is in decline. This is NOT due to a shortage of oil. It's due to a shortage of cheaply extracted, easily accessible oil. The "big news" from the Mexican gulf fits neither of these criteria, nor is it big news. These super deep rigs are able to be economically feasible in an enviroment of $70 barrel prices. They have huge development costs and are drilling in water that's nearly two miles deep. numbers like 250K barrels per day are not "salvation" by any means. There are 110 million barrels consumed daily on the planet. There are 2.5 million gallons of float in the system. meaning that you can ask OPEC and everybody else how much they pump each day and there is a 2.5 million BPD discrepency. When BP shut down the pipeline everybody predicted that the SWHTF. It turned out to be 400K. BPD and obviously it doesn't matter much as the market continues to fall.
As for claims that the Saudis are doing great, sorry but that dog won't hunt. They are in deep sheet at Ganwar, which is the largest field in the entire region. They are forcing millions of barrels of water a day into the field and getting a really poor quality soup out of the wells. It is decribed as a 90% water cut. Meaning that it's ten percent sweet crude, ninety percent water, acid, sulfer etc...hardly the endless bounty they would like the world to believe. the Saudis have claimed many times over the last few years that they have the capacity to be a swing producer. capable of instantly ramping production by millions of barrels a day to smooth the world market. The used to be able to do this. Now, it's all talk and no juice. they simply don't have the excess to pump anymore.
I'm no chicken little, and the world won't end tommorrow. However, arrogantly claiming that everything is just wonderful in the world's energy market is nothing I'm willing to buy either. I read a great quote the other day by a guy who had spent his entire career as an oil company scientist. He basically said all the BS about a lack of refining capacity was just that. No oil company that was fiscally responsible to it's stockholders would drop tens of billions into a major new refinery anywhere in the world for one simple reason. There just isn't enough product available to justify the risk. His claim is that we are going to see the yearly output slowly drop over the next few years and there is no real need for additional refinery capacity.
Don't forget the one player in this that can never be harmed is big oil. No matter how much oil is still in the ground, in many case they already own it, or the rights to remove it on somebody's behalf. So if the can only pump 95% of the world's daily need on a given day, and they get $100 a barrel for it, they are making a heck of a lot more for THEIR product than when there was a flood of it a few years back, and it was bringing $12/barrel.
When the concept of peak oil was first developed, half a century ago, the guy behind the idea was ridiculed. He predicted the peak and decline of the domestic industry in the 1950s. It happened in the early 70s exactly when he said it would. He,and many other experts predicted the world peak to be in the first decade of the new millenium. So far there is nothing to indicate they are wrong, and a lot of their caculations proved to be right on the money.

Just my thoughts.

Yes, we are in for a bad time - especially here in America.

I absolutely do not believe in the 'we're running out of oil' talk. We are out of cheap oil -
If we were truly running out of oil - there would be a lot of people with money investing in solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources - for the average home.\
The people with money know the facts - if they thought in 10 years, there would be no oil to run things, they would be working feverishly to sell every home in America some kind of solar/ and or/ wind power - on credit , if necessary. It is a gold mine - yet no one is doing it on a large scale. Why not?

Speculators are driving oil prices - not availability.

My petroleum geologist nephew just brought in a couple of wells in Africa. One is a record producing well. He says they have only begun there. When I told him I wanted him to find some cheap oil - he said there was no such thing and that Wall Street was setting the price.

I think Americans are going to have to 'back up and punt'. Right now we are fueled by credit card debt, home equity loans, and spending the retirement accounts. All the while with 125% home equity loans hanging over your home.

The government wants us all living in cities, dependent on the 'system' and working for what they want to offer us. Whatever else you might think about the future - that is something we all need to keep in mind when we make our decisions.

Yes, there are a lot of Starbuck's, and health spas, and expensive boutiques - but those are not the things that will continue when people no longer have a paycheck.

A country - whose largest employer is a discount retailer who sells cheap, shoddy Chinese goods - does not have a sound economy- and they plan to continue to grow in the US.

The future - larger gulf between the haves and have nots - very little middle class.

Living under the thumb of a government.

This is a serious question - why gold? I am not being insulting - I just don't understand it. You can't eat gold. Of course, I am thinking of a total collapse - maybe the gold buyers are thinking of short term or partial collapse.
My thoughts would be along the lines of food, clothing, seeds, medical supplies -

Because it's been a store of value for 6,000 plus years.

Because the TPTB fear it, hoard it (personally) and at the same time use their lap dog central banks and certain gold and finance companies (barrick, Goldman Sachs) to keep the prices artificially low so that the massive inflation of their fiat currencies is not a noticable.

Because a dollar is just a piece of paper or an electron---not something that has intrisinct value.

Because you need storable, portable wealth/money.

Because it is honest money that takes energy and resources to produce--not magically created ala the fed and fractional reserve lending.

Because the dollar and world currencies are inflating and hopefully you will be able to trade precious metals for goods and services after hyperinflation erodes your buying power (ala Argentina after the IMF wrecked their economy).

Because people need to save and Gold is a safe form of savings for all the reasons listed above.

Goods bought now are also a good thing; the things that you listed for complete SHTF scenerios. However, for those who wish to save some of their buying power for the future, Gold has a place. SHTF can't last for ever unless it is a complete global killer.

Nicely done.

Wow, I can't believe it, where did you people come from?!?!?

I'm a member of several different types of forums (economics, energy, politics, diesel engines) and very few people "get it" but this forum has many informed and enlightened people.

And to think, I only came here because I wanted to know how to raise a chicken.

OK, I understand a little of where you are coming from on the gold as a savings or in a limited collapse of the monetary system.

I just can't see myself selling food or other necessities for gold in such a case.

Not to be argumentative. Just can't quite wrap my mind around it.

Once again, why aren't the money people putting their money in alternative energy?

Yes, I think the competition for oil will be greater in the future.

But why isn't some gazillionaire(s) right now developing - or why haven't they already developed - solar and other alternative energy for the individual homeowner?

If we were truly going to be without it, the one who came out first with this system or combination systems, would dominate this market. There are millions of homes in America. Every home is a potential customer for alternative energy, if oil is truly running out.

The people who have the money to do this kind of thing, also have the ability to know the truth. So why don't we have someone developing this?

As a matter of fact, I don't understand why we don't have someone 'small' doing this. I can see that the oil people - who in turn own much of our government - would go a long way to keeping a small concern from doing this.

They might not, however, have the ability to stop a big concern - unless of course, the big guys are all making plenty of money from the manipulation of the oil prices and just aren't going to go into competition with themselves.

On the topic of outsourcing jobs--buy Japanese when you buy a car. Why? Because they are better, more fuel efficient cars than anything else. But in addition, most of the cars sold in America are made in Japanese-owned plants in America, employing real Americans (or at least illegal mexicans) at real wages. By buying a Japanese car you are outsourcing the jobs of the CEO and upper management while protecting the job of the 'little guy'.

Vengance!

You are absolutely right Trixie,gold/silver is where you go AFTER you have the rest in place.

I cant eat gold either,thats why we have food.I cant live in a gold house,thats why we have shelter.I cant shoot gold,thats why I have bullets.

But I can wipe my behind with FRNs,thats why I have gold.One has value,one is paper.

Peak Oil,I'll believe it when I see it,right now,as Trixie says,there is oil being developed all over the world.

Ive also researched what it costs to bring deep wells online,it adds miniscully to the cost of a barrel of oil.More than a surface well,sure,but in price per barrel its very little,like a buck per barrel on the Gulf oil.Dont swear by that number,I forget exactly when I figured it,it might have been 5.But it was miniscule.Hardly a deal breaker.Ok,here it is,I saved it for some reason....Its 4 dollars or so per barrel
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Fascinating tech!All new challenges never before seen,high temps,high pressure and 6000 meters deep from the sea floor.

The first well took 51 days to complete at Thunder Horse.On the link I have,under deepwater technology,a single well can produce 50,000 bpd,WOW!

Thunder Horse is amazing! The name is appropriate too,the oil comes thundering out.

EDIT-A 2.5 billion barrel oil field there costs 8 billion to develope,lets say it costs 10 billion,its 4 dollars per barrel in developement costs.

Numbers by BooBoo,I will look at yours,these were figured using numbers I found on the web.
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What are YOUR numbers for cost for deep oil wells TC?

And bringing on a million barells per day is NOT small potatoes in the USA(20 million bpd usage),along with HUGE amts of Nat Gas that is coming with them.
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The Offshore US Gulf of Mexico has become one of the "hottest" exploration areas in the world, just a few years after many had declared it the "Dead Sea" for exploration potential(Probably the PEAK Oil crew with that prediction,BooBoo). Dramatic improvements in 3-D Seismic technology (increasing success rates to as much as 80%, up from less than 40%) and deepwater drilling methodology are largely the basis for this resurgence. And several very nice discoveries have not hurt one bit. Reserves in discovered deep-water (>500 meters) fields alone are estimated at nearly 1.5 billion barrels, with two fields (Shell's Mars and BP's Crazy Horse, renamed Thunder Horse) at about 100,000,000 barrels or more.
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Gulf oil production is exploding.Its a fact.

IF we knew how much there ISNT,doesnt it stand to reason we KNOW how much there is,and where its at?
Obviously we dont know where its ALL at.Thats why we keep finding more.

All we know is what the current discoveries hold.Big deal,there will be more fields found.The current reserves dont mean much.

If its 6 miles deep now,I bet in the future we find more,still deeper.
Will deep oil kill us,I doubt it.It isnt cost thats the killer here,just the tech to get to it.We now have 6 mile depth drilling tech.80% success rate finding oil with 3d siesmology!Its opening up previously undreamed of oil.

Agree or disagree,your choice.

BooBoo

I agree, Citiot. Nicely put, tiogacounty!

NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Shell Exploration and Production Co., part of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research), said its Mars platform in the Gulf of Mexico was producing 190,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, an increase of 20 percent from output levels before it was hit by Hurricane Katrina last August.

The platform returned to operation in May after it was shut shortly before Katrina buffeted it with 80-foot waves and wind gusts exceeding 200 miles per hour.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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The Mars Tension-leg Platform, or Mars Platform, is a permanent offshore drilling and production tension-leg oil platform operating at Mississippi Canyon block 807 in the Gulf of Mexico. At 990.6 m (3,250 ft), it was for a period of time the deepest TLP, measured from its base on the seabed to the top of its tower, the Magnolia Tension-leg Platform currently holding the record.[1] The Mars platform is positioned in a water depth of 896 m (2940 ft) of water and is designed to produce 220,000 barrels of oil and 220 million cubic feet of gas a day.

The platform is a joint venture between Shell Oil Company and BP, with Shell owning the majority share.
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Mars Field
Field/Project Ownership
Project Name: Mars Field operator logo
Operator: Shell
Ownership: Shell 71.5% and BP 28.5%
Location
Region: N. America - US GOM map
Country: US
Location/Block: Mississippi Canyon block 762-63, 806-7, 850-51
Water Depth: 884 meters
2,900 feet
Reserves convert these values
Total Oil Reserves: 500 mmboe Total Gas Reserves: --
Rec. Oil Reserves: -- Rec. Gas Reserves: --
Daily Oil Prod. Cap.: 220,000 bopd Daily Gas Prod. Cap.: 220 mmcf/d
Discovery & Development Production
Discovery Date: January 1989 Production Start Date: July 1996
Discovery Rig: Discoverer Seven Seas Est. Field Life: Unknown
Govt Approval Date: Unknown Duty: Oil/Gas
Development Cost: $100,000,000 USD Host Type: TLP (Tension Leg Platform)

Field Description - Mars Field
The Mars Unit, approved by the MMS in December 1992, encompasses all or a portion of 6 OCS leases in the Mississippi Canyon Area - Blocks 762, 763, 806, 807, 850 and 851 - located in the Gulf of Mexico about 130 miles southeast of New Orleans. The leases were acquired by Shell in 1985 and 1988 for a total bonus of $5.3 million. Shell Deepwater Production Inc. is operator and has a 71.5% interest in the project. BP Amoco has the remaining 28.5% interest.

DRILLING

The discovery well was drilled on Mississippi Canyon Block 763 in 1989 using the drillship, Discoverer Seven Seas. The geologic age of the Mars formations above 14,000 feet are Pliocene and the deeper reservoirs are Miocene. The average API gravity of the crude is about 30° and sulfur is about 2.1%. Data from four other wells, six sidetrack wells and 3D seismic work were utilized in making a decision on development.

PRODUCTION

Production began July 8, 1996.

Current design capacity is about 220,000 barrels of oil per day and 220 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. The TLP's capacity was increased in 1999 to accommodate additional subsea developments in the area, such as Europa and King. The capacity was further increased in 2000/2001 based on well performance.

The oil is transported 116 miles via an 18/24-inch diameter pipeline to the Clovelly, Louisiana area and the gas is transported 55 miles via a 14-inch pipeline to West Delta 143. Both pipelines were installed as part of the Mars development.

TLP ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION
DETAILS

The Mars TLP was designed and engineered by Shell Oil Company. The TLP is 3,250 feet high, from seafloor to the crown block of the drilling rig. The steel weight of the TLP is approximately 36,500 tons. The TLP is designed to simultaneously withstand hurricane force waves of 71 feet and winds of 140 mph.

Hull - The hull is comprised of four circular steel columns, 66.5 feet in diameter and 162 feet high, and four pontoons 27 feet wide and 24 feet high, which connect the bottoms of the four columns. The hull weighs approximately 15,650 tons. The fabrication of the hull was completed by Belleli S.p.A. of Taranto, Italy in August 1995 and it arrived in Corpus Christi, TX on August 31, 1995.

Deck - The deck is composed of five modules: wellbay, quarters, process, power and drilling. The deck is an open truss framing design, 245 feet x 245 feet x 45 feet high and weighs approximately 7,200 tons. The fabrication of the modules was completed by McDermott Inc. in Morgan City, Louisiana, with the first module loaded out on September 13, 1995 and the last module arriving in Corpus Christi on November 13, 1995.

Tendons/Piles - There are 12 tendons, three per corner, each with a diameter of 28 inches and a wall thickness of 1.2 inches. Each tendon is approximately 2,852 feet long and the total weight for the 12 tendons is 6,150 tons. The tendons are connected directly to piles in the seafloor. There are 12 piles about 84 inches in diameter and 375 feet long, weighing 260 tons each. Aker Gulf Marine fabricated the piles and tendons at its Ingleside, TX yard.

Drilling and Production Topsides - There are 24 well slots. Additionally, a subsea well is tied back to the TLP. There are complete separation, dehydration and treatment facilities. The Accommodation module houses 106 people, along with a control room and emergency response center.

Integration and Installation - The contract for integration was awarded to Aker Gulf Marine of Ingleside, TX including the module setting and interconnect steel, piping, electrical and instrumentation. The integration was completed during the second quarter of 1996. The contract for installation of the TLP was awarded to Heeremac. Installation occurred in May 1996.

DEVELOPMENTS

Shell announced in October 1993 its plans to develop Mars utilizing a tension leg platform (TLP) to be installed on Block 807.

The TLP was installed in May 1996 in a water depth of 2,940 feet, which surpassed the depth record in the Gulf of Mexico for a permanent drilling and production platform - Shell's Auger TLP - which was installed in 2,860 feet of water in the latter part of 1993.

Current production facilities are designed to recover about 500 million barrels of oil equivalent.

The development cost for the initial phase is approximately $1.0 billion.(Thats 2 dollars/barrel in developement costs,again,hardly a deal breaker,BooBoo) About 55% of the project costs were spent for fabrication and installation of the hull, deck, facilities, and pipelines. The other 45% of the project costs will be spent for drilling and completion of the wells.

10 of the TLP development wells were predrilled beginning in the fourth quarter of 1993 using Sonat's semisubmersible, George Richardson. The remaining wells will be drilled with H&P 201 (contract rig) installed on the TLP.

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Yep,just ONE singular NEW platform,190,000 BOE per day.
And all of this done with tech never DREAMED of by the Peak Oil experts.

BooBoo

I say buy foreign because this print-out-a-dollar-and-exchange-it-for-goods thing is going to be short lived.

I should point out that this will eliminate my job but I feel this is the only way to teach America a lesson.

Operating as the world's fiat reserve currency is the cruelest scheme I have ever witnessed.

Not only is it cruel and unfair to the non-reserve currency countries, it is also destroying the foundation that the US was built on.

When you can simply print out money and exchange it for goods you are doing little or no real work at all.

The best analogy I can think of is a marathon runner (the US in it's hayday of industrialization) that decides one day that they are going to sit on a couch all day, everyday. Being waited on hand and foot, never getting off the couch. Over time the muscles slowly atrophy, the body degrades and breaks down, the cardiovascular system slows down, etc. If after a year of sitting on the couch this person had to get up and run a marathon, they would sooner die than complete the race.

A person or group of people is only as strong as the trials and tribulations that they have endured and in my short time here on earth I've never seen bad times in the US. Someday soon we're gonna get kicked off the couch, I wonder how far we'll make it.

"Peak Oil,I'll believe it when I see it,right now,as Trixie says,there is oil being developed all over the world."

By the time you see it, it'll be a bit late to DO anything about it. They have been "developing" oil for about 100 years, but they haven't been discovering much new oil for the last few years.

"Gulf oil production is exploding.Its a fact."

Another fact is that the US still imports more oil than it produces.

"IF we knew how much there ISNT,doesnt it stand to reason we KNOW how much there is,and where its at?"

Nope. We don't know how much there is, and we don't know where it is. What we do know is that production seems to be slowing down, and discovery of new oil seems to be slowing down, too. That might mean we have already passed the peak, or it might mean we're on a plateau. Only time will tell.

"Obviously we dont know where its ALL at.Thats why we keep finding more."

Will that hold true until we DON'T find any more?

__________________
"I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did."
— Henry James