A meandering blog with no clear topic. You will find me talking about knitting, building, kids, social and economic issues, Alaska, and lots of other stuff.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Uh Oh

So, there are several current event type blogs and websites I look at on pretty much a daily basis. Some environmental ones, such as grist, some natural resources ones, such as energy bulletin and the oil drum, some economic, such as the automatic earth.
Well, I was reading the automatic earth today, and today's post really alarmed me, so I feel a need to pass the word.
Please, please read today's (Tuesday's) post over at www.theautomaticearth.blogspot.com.
The first part is just them attracting notice to their speaking tours and cd. The second part includes several graphs that seem to indicate the direction this "recovery" is taking. Short answer- it's not up, and it's not good. But it is sort of what I've been suspecting. I am very afraid that things are going to get very bad, economically speaking.
I've also noticed that the stock markets are getting increasingly volatile recently, which I think means even Wall Street is getting jittery.

Here is a link to that specific post:
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/10/october-5-2010-800-pound-gorilla-on.html

- Posted from my iPhone

Saturday, October 2, 2010

North Slope oil declines

Back in July 2007, I looked at the production declines in North Slope oil. At that time, it appeared that production was declining at about 9% per year. Oil production for fiscal year 2007, which ended on June 30, 2007, averaged about 738,000 barrels per day. If oil continued to decline at about 9%, then in fiscal year 2010, which ended on June 30, 2010, oil production would be about 556,000 barrels per day. The most recent figure available on the state website today was for the month of May. In May, there was 19.2 million barrels produced, which is about 619,000 barrels per day. That isn't an average for the fiscal year, so it isn't an exact comparison, but I think it works for an estimate. So it may be that oil production is only declining at a hair over 6% per year, which gives us about 3 or 4 extra years to figure out what to do when there isn't enough pressure to keep the pipeline going.
The good news is that local politicians are starting to talk about it. I am pretty fed up with politicians of all stripes, but they are the only ones that can make the necessary plans on a statewide level. I don't know if an extra 3 or 4 years is enough time, but we will see. This is crucially important, since 89% of the state's revenue comes from oil royalties.
The bad news is that it doesn't seem to be on very many people's radar yet. How can people prepare for changes if they don't know the changes are coming?