Tower Hamlets Canoe Club

With petrol and diesel topping £ 1 a litre in this country and oil heading for $ 100 a barrel, there is a question about whether global energy demands are going to force the costs even higher.

The following ITN news story sums up the situation:-

 YouTube - ITV News warns on oil supplies

I would predict that the trend is going to be that oil prices will go up substantially over the next few years, unless there is a big world recession.

The long term implications for the Club might be that it will become much more expensive to drive long distances for white water trips, and that the cost of plastic kayaks will increase as well!

 

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

I envisage us paddling from london to north wales in wooden open canoes in order to go down the tryweryn...

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Dimitris

You cyclist are already ahead of the game. The rest of us should plan to cycle more in the future. Perhaps the club should investigate one-kayak bike trailers?

BTW: (It is said that ...) US hit peak oil many years ago, UK was a few years back and many models put the world peak at around 2012 ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Ian, thanks for filing under gloom!

Glad to bring a welcome dose of gloom, despondency and despair!

Maybe we should also bring 'Global Warming'  Flooding and 'Peak Food' into the mix to cheer everyone up a bit!

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

Martin,

You have way to much time and energy. I will most surely nominate you for one of the openings in the committee if you are interested.

Btw, Brazilian company Petrobas found oil, maybe a lot, yesterday.

Cheers,
Matt

Well you started it with your reference to the more expensive white water trips! 

Maybe we should cut down on the journeys by relocating the club to North Wales?

Ian Higgs:

You cyclist are already ahead of the game. The rest of us should plan to cycle more in the future. Perhaps the club should investigate one-kayak bike trailers?

“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”—H. G. Wells, 1904

I look forward to the day when we see a mix of technologies, old and new, aiding our survival on the planet, but we also need governments that can think more than just 4 years into the future and a degree of political co-operation internationally that seems not to exist.

"To jaw-jaw is always better that to war-war." - Winston Churchill

Matt Stromberg:

Martin, You have way to much time and energy. I will most surely nominate you for one of the openings in the committee if you are interested. Btw, Brazilian company Petrobas found oil, maybe a lot, yesterday. Cheers,Matt

  If I ever get back to work properly, then I doubt if I'll have so much time and energy. I've been a bit of a shirker these last few months, but I'll have to get my nose back to the grindstone soon!

Aren't there any more established Members standing for Committee?

I would like to help out, but would rather get to know people a bit better, and vice versa.

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

Matt,

At it's peak the new oil find may only produce less than half a percent of the world oil production and provide only 14 weeks of world oil consumption! This is despite it being the biggest find in 20 years!

In my brief foray into the World of Seismic Surveying and Seismic Data Processing our methods were very crude, I remember punch cards and computers with tapes wizzing around. I worked for Seismograph Service (UK) in Kent in a year's placement from Uni. The processes used to predict likely places for oil were complex relying on intuition and experience. I'm sure that modern techniques and computing power will find oil that we couldn't find in those days, the only problem being these finds are difficult to get at.

For more discussion of the Petrobas find:-

 The Oil Drum: Europe | Tupi, the new kid in town

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

Modern methods for finding oil usually involve sending a highly-trained cocker spaniel out into demarcated search areas. When it comes to offshore prospecting this becomes more difficult as the cocker spaniel needs to fit into a special diving suit which affects its sense of smell, so results are less reliable.

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Lars
THCC Treasurer

Lars,

I think you'll find it depends on whether they are looking for gas or oil. True, cocker spaniels are used for oil prospecting. The cocker spaniels used for finding oil are less highly trained than they used to be, due to shortages in good trainers, so their results are poor to say the least! They use canaries for gas, a dead canary means you have gas, though canaries can only dive to 5 cm depth, and can only hold their breaths for 2 minutes. No one has successfully made a diving suit for a canary or cocker spaniel that is capable of taking either to a depth of 2 miles or deeper.

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

I always thought eating baked beans means you have gas, guess that was just wildcat talk.

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Lars
THCC Treasurer

http://www-static.shell.com/static/aboutshell/downloads/our_strategy/shell_global_scenarios/shell_energy_scenarios_2050_2008.pdf

Two scenarios for our energy future, from the CEO of Shell.

For 'Scramble' read 'more oil wars'. 'Blueprint', a planned global energy policy - unlikely ?

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

Since I first posted this oil has gone up from just below $ 100 per barrel to $ 135 per barrel (and down a bit since then). With other prices going up and the economy and housing market having an uncertain future I am sure there are implications for the Club.

A good article on the latest situation regarding oil:- The Oil Drum: Europe | The Month of the Psychological Shock (Over Oil) in America?

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler Brilliant US Based invective laden doom mongering, by the author of "The Long Emergency"

 The Automatic Earth Links and commentary on stories of economic gloom, bursting bubbles, collapsing banks and economies. Click links for the full articles.

 The Oil Drum | Discussions about Energy and Our Future Leading collection of Global Peak Oil sites: Articles and links on Oil and Energy, mainly technical, some economic, but reading through the Comments requires some masochistic time wasting.

 Money As Debt Entertaining 47 minute film that explains how the banks create money (debt) and answers the Question "What is Money". It's tenets have been disputed by many, but it seems to make sense and other research into the subject appear to confirm it's analysis.

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O London, see
Swelling with naval pride, the pride of thee!
Wide, deep, unsullied Thames, meandering glides,
and bears thy wealth on mild majestic tides.

I am disappointed in Lars for not seeing this ecconmic opportunity to highly leverage the club funds and buy Oil futures!

Lars what were you thinking?