Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

All so true
you begin to wonder if the Quakers are as "nutters" as I have been told they are (not that I have met any, so I still reserve my opinion of them).

I quite like Quakers. Not as nuts as you might think - basically just people who believe in peace, harmony and the word of God. They are so crazy that they believe that different people can experience this in different ways - not just their way. They accept you for what you are and make no judgement. I couldn't be a Quaker - but I learned to respect them.

If i ever go to usa thats one place i would like to see

Just been talking to my Uncle who worked up on oil rigs up north along the coast years ago as a geological surveyor or what not.... apparently over the span of 5 years in the 80's they drilled and capped 24 out of the 25 oil wells along the coast heading north from Geralton. It was estimated that each well contained enough oil to supply Perth for 7 years. He basically said that that oil will be kept under raps until the middle east runs out... then we sell it to them at a tidy profit... we have to suffer from high petrol prices while the Gov sits on its little nest egg.

He basically said a lot of places do this and the peak oil crisis is way off. It is all media hype... however this is no reason to stop developing alternative energies now....

Tim, still not that much really, if one could sustain perth for seven years then say 10 could sustain the whole of australia for seven years. 25 would give us say 25 years (just ball park figures). BUT once the middle east "runs out" the price will be set by what OTHERS are willing to pay, and as we're going to sell it for a tidy sum, it sort of irelevant becasue we'll be paying the same prices. Know what i mean?

Thats why peak oil is about the PEAK, not "running out". The point where more is wanted than CAN be produced in a given year. $$$$$$$$

Thanks for the info.....sneaky us, hiding oil wells!

I thought it was quite clever... worst thing at the moment is us selling gas to China for pennies and we have some of the most expensive gas in perth city....

i read a report that china is buying up OIL COMPANIES up, lock stock and barrel so that that they can secure their energy security........and that america is cracking the shits with them for not "playing nice"

Hey, when shit hits the fan i'm sure no one will be playing nice. Atleast chinas up front about it!

I'm sure China isn't growing as fast as it is with a heap of morons at the helm. Those guys are in control.

I'm going to bite my tounge incase our friends from the northern hemisphere get offended

no I didn't mean anything by that, only that there's obviously some forward thinkers in their decision and policy making ranks

If you look at Chris Screbowski's oil well database, which covers all oil wells on the planet, it does seem from this evidence that that peak oil will occur around 2011. Chris is from Assoc for Study of Peak Oil and gas - APSO.

If well over half the existing oil fields are in a decline phase, this means that in order to beat an ireversible decline overall a large number of million barrel per day oil fields need to be discovered.

The sheer size of the rate of decline of large numbers of fields at one time means that the replacement volume of new oil must involve the discovery of another Saudi Arabia tomorrow - but this hasnt happened for over 30 years..

Sure, there have been planty of oil discoveries, but no million barrel per day fields have been found for decades.

This size of field is what are in terminal decline all around the world. They cant be replaced by say a 100,000 barrel per day field. But plenty of oil guys talk up small fields to say that they can - but they havent come good with the figures to back this up...

The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia (biggest in the world) is currently running at 55% water cut and rising - that is 55% of the liquid volume output is pressurised seawater. It was running at 30% water cut in 2003 and 55% today...

This is a classic sign of an oil well in a deep decline phase. All oil wells follow exactly the same growth and decline production curve. Saudis vehenently deny all this, but there is a fair bit of evidence now to whow that rapidly increasing levels of water cut in Ghawar is indeed a reality.

Theres lots of oil guys telling us that there are undiscovered fields, capped fields etc, they do exist, but invariably these are quite small in he overall scheme of things and would not do much to reverse a peak, they just havent got the oil barrell per day capacity to do this. - pure weight of numbers.

But because theres a buck in it, oil companies tell us otherwise.

However the real issue is that because the demand/supply equation is tightening. While is is true that we wont be in a full blown peak oil situation - we wont have to be in such a thing to be in trouble.

Tightening demand/supply means that production has to continue without terrorist incident, natural disaster or accident. In fact it only takes 3 adverse situations at once to interrupt oil supply in a way which adversly affects the economy.

Consider President Mahmoud Armedinejad of Iraq who is by all accounts a controversial political figure.

If he decided that he didnt like the West for any particluar reason and blocked the Strait of Hormuz - it would be between $2 and $3 per litre here overnight - plus a big recession as well or maybe worse. This would also involve big interest rate rises too - big trouble in an overheated property market bubble like Australia...

Indeed oil blackmail of the West and Oil Wars are big concerns of the USA right now.

I expect interesting things to occur following the withdrawl of the US from Iraq - which may well occur in the next couple of years, unless a way of getting the voters to accept the war as being won - which I think is doubtful..

i was told by a farmer in the south west, that part of their agreement with the company purchasing their produce, was they were at no stage allowed to sell/ trade to locals at a lower prices. what was happening was the produce was transported up to perth then back down south to grocery stores at high prices. basically the large companies were buying these small farmers out and controlling the local market. the times where farmers supply locals with produce directly are running out. this is a real shame because it is the local market that really brings the community together to minimize waste and maximize sustainability.

evil $ worshipers destroying off communities to feed their greed.

imo ap is a way out of this madness. if everyone one had an ap setup in their backyard then we would be well on our way. of course you need a backyard. damn monopolized land price hikes.

sorry about the rant but this trend worries me.

They're inseperable today, inpart due to our "food / material miles" $3 per litre would be tough on us, but that means that the transport cost of EVERYTHING would more than double too. Double whammie

The Aust government only manages the oil market first for the benefit of big Business then consumers come a long second.

Consider Hythane. All conventional petrol cars can be converted to LNG. This conversion allows running on LNG or Hythant (LNG and 20% H2) or straight H2.

The company involved in this is run by an australian. a subsidiary - Eden pty Ltd - is listed on Aust Stock exchange in Perth and is involved in Hythane projects in India and China.

So the Chinese buy our gas at 9 cnts per litre, then have an aussie company helping them to use it for transport purposes to reduce Mid East oil depndancy while Aussies get nothing at all.

While they do nothing, our level of dependancy on Mid Eastern oil is 50% and rising in 2010.

One could say that the Free Market approach here is one that is dangerously exposing australian people to serious economic risk.

It need not be this way of course. If we had a govt concerned about its citizens a bit more than at present - there would be a level of industry intervention to get Hythane and other alternative fuels into the marketplace - so there is genuine and substantial fuel choice at your local service station.

Another point - Hydrogen production.

Solar power cells now run at around 4 to 500 suns to make their power. there is also a facility available that can electolyse water - say saline groundwater that would otherwise poison the land with salinity - This creates lots of H2 - which could be stored and used to either power the solar power facility at night or be used as a transport fuel. so theres plenty of different ways to make alternative fuels, especially in Australia.

Call me a cynic, but I'd bet that probably the only thing GW Bush has done right for the US is to have replenished the nations reserves hidden away in the mountains, in fact I'd bet they're at 100% capacity to help buffer just such a scenario.

No coincidence IMHO that the very first act of the "invasion" authority was, with the shameless help of the UN, to secure control of Iraq's oil supply.

Have now had control of that supply for nearly 5 years...

One of the biggest producers in the world, a producer that could bring huge supply to the market to the point of driving the price down to low levels has been almost dormant and non existent in the market place and the oil price has soared...

I guess someone has to pay for the military occupation and history is very clear that the good old US of A has always demanded payment for military action