We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
The Peak Oil concept is that production has peaked, production levels will soon decline in the U.S. & worldwide, and we will soon run out of oil. At a fundamental level that assumes there isn’t any more oil than what we know about right now and that we can’t get to anything that we don’t know how to reach now.
Today I provide two illustrations of the fallacy of Peak Oil.
First, a new field means that tomorrow we can get to energy we didn’t know about yesterday.
So what was the cost for cross-country travel by stagecoach in the 1870s?
I previously mentioned some of the fun exhibits in the Seeley Stable and Wells Fargo museums in Old Town, San Diego.
Putting together several of the information displays gives this information:
The Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach run from St. Louis Missouri to San Francisco, California covered 2800 miles.
The fare was $200.
Travel time was 24 days. That means the overall average travel speed was 3½ or 4½ miles per hour including changing out the horses and rest stops.
Let’s convert that into weeks of salary
Continue reading “Travel cost by stagecoach in 1870s – part two”
What did it cost to travel by stagecoach from San Diego to Los Angeles in 1871? How does that compare to today?
The Seeley Stable Museum and Wells Fargo Museum in Old Town, San Diego offer fun examples of 1800s transportation. Carretas, cargo wagons, Mud Wagon stagecoaches, and Concord stagecoaches.
I picked up a lot of fun information while touring those museums a while back.
Continue reading “Travel cost by stagecoach in 1870s – part one”
Take hundreds of pictures of your favorite sculpture, drop them into specialty software, touch up the results, and you can print a replica to enjoying your home or office.
That’s where 3-D printing is at right now.
Cosmo Wenman took 1000 pictures of a favorite sculpture and now has a replica he can hold in his hand.
Here is the video:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blKcIsEEoag]
Here’s a few graphs of North Dakota oil production.
Click on any graph to enlarge.
Average daily production by month:
Annual average of daily production (calculated as total production for the year divided by 365, except for 2012 which is divided by 121): Continue reading “Graphs of North Dakota oil production – April 2012”
The frontier is a major part of American history. It is a huge factor in our identity.
From about the end of the American Civil War in 1865 until around the turn of the century, the frontier was wide open.
What was the appeal?
New opportunities.
I’ve been using Daniel Yergin’s Wall Street Journal article There Will Be Oil as the jumping off point to explain that the concept of ‘peak oil’ is invalid. The posts have been combined into a page. You can click here or click on the “Peak Oil” page at the top of this blog.
Mr. Yergin comments on the Bakken field. Look at the appearance of unknown oil:
In 2003, the Bakken formation in North Dakota was producing a mere 10,000 barrels a day. Today, it is over 400,000 barrels, and North Dakota has become the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the country. Such “tight” oil could add as much as two million barrels a day to U.S. oil production after 2020—something that would not have been in any forecast five years ago.
(I think the stat for 2003 production is far too low, but the underlying point stands strong.)
Notice the unexpected growth in Bakken production? The huge amount of oil behind that 400k per day output wasn’t anywhere in the proven reserve list in 2003. Wasn’t even an idea in anyone’s head.
Found a great resource that provides a frame of reference for wages in the last half of the 1800s. It is from the National Bureau of Economic Research:
Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890: Wages by Occupational and Individual Characteristics (update: link was broken; works now; document is downloadable)
(Update: Each chapter in the book is downloadable :Wages and Earnings in the United States, 1860-1890
Perhaps there are better resources. I’ll go with this.
In table 39, you can find average daily or hourly wages in five skilled occupations. Count this as skilled tradesmen. In table 43 you can find the average wages for common labor. Count this as unskilled labor, perhaps equivalent to minimum wage today.
I will go with the Aldrich report data which is hourly wages. It appears the standard is 10 hours a day. I will go six days a week to get weekly income.
Here is the average hourly wage: Continue reading “Typical wages in 1860 through 1890”
A while back my wife and I vacationed in San Diego. I learned a lot of new things in Old Town. That is a state park where many buildings have been renovated to reflect life as it was from 1810 through 1870.
I read a delightful, short history of Old Town titled San Diego’s Beginnings.
One of many fascinating things is the long list of outside pressures that forced massive change on the residents of Old Town.
April production averaged 609,373 barrels per day. That is up 33,883 bopd from March. Number of producing wells is 6,734, which is an increase of 93 for the month.
Stats on oil production from the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources are here.
Production data from Alaska can be found here.
With April production in Alaska of 18,210,000 barrels for a 30 day month that is an average of 607,000 per day. That means production in North Dakota is very slightly ahead of production in Alaska.
Walter Russell Mead has a good update on where things stand in Mali. Tuareg rebels control the north. The story consists of reprisals, counterrevolutionaries, refugees, and unintended consequences.
Wilsonian Wars, Wilsonian Ruin
My previous posts here and here.
This discussion sounds like it’s about Williston, North Dakota:
Oil rigs are springing up in farmers’ fields. “No vacancy” signs hang in the windows of local motels, and a steady stream of trucks barrel through Main Streets. Along the state’s southern border, the once-quiet farm towns are quickly transforming into boomtowns.
Hundreds of workers seeking high-paying jobs are flocking to places like Harper County, which had resorted to paying people to live there because of its declining population. Businesses are coming back from the dead and a housing shortage has caused rents to triple.
That is actually a description of what’s going on in south central Kansas, according to CNNMoney’s article Oil boom strikes Kansas.
Continue reading “Mississippian Lime – another name to watch”
The Wall Street Journal has more info on guar gum in their article Obscure Indian Bean a Boon for Farmers. Mentioned earlier here.
Demand has increased which causes the price to rise:
Mostly grown in the heart of India’s desert lands, the price of the vegetable has jumped from about 40 rupees ($0.7) a kilogram at the time of the September-October harvest to around 300 rupees ($5.4) per kilogram today.
I’ll make a wild guess when production of oil in North Dakota will hit one million barrels a day. I’ll put my estimate on the table.
Before September 30, 2013.
I’ve not seen any projections on Bakken production that were not extremely understated in light of what happened since the estimates were made.
Continue reading “How long to hit a million barrels a day in North Dakota oil production?”
Bazhenov.
That’s the name of another oil play to put on your radar screen. I’ve seen several articles this week on it, so it’s probably time to mention it.
Continue reading “Bazhenov oil field. Another name to watch.”