Jun 242012
 
 June 24, 2012  Posted by at 1:30 pm Finance


It has long been our position at The Automatic Earth that North America is collectively dreaming with regard to unconventional natural gas. While gas is undeniably there, the Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) is dramatically lower than for conventional supplies. The critical nature of EROEI has been widely ignored, but will ultimately determine what is and is not an energy source, and shale gas is going to fail the test.

As we pointed out in Get Ready for the North American Gas Shock in July 2011, the natural gas situation is not what it seems at all:

The shale gas bubble is a perfect example of the irrationality of markets, the power of perverse short-term incentives, the driving force of momentum-chasing, the dominance of perception over reality in determining prices, and the determination for a herd to stampede over a cliff all at once.

The perception of a gas glut has driven prices so low that none of the participants are making money (at least not by producing gas) or creating value. We see a familiar story of excessive debt, and the hollowing out of productive companies dead set on pursuing a mirage.

Many industry insiders know perfectly well that the prospects for recovering substantial amounts of gas are poor, and that the industry is structured as a ponzi scheme. Still, there has been money to be made in the short term by flipping land leases and building infrastructure to handle gas.

The hype is so extreme that those who fall for it contemplate, in all seriousness, North America becoming a natural gas exporting powerhouse, and a threat to Australian LNG producers, or to Russia's Gazprom.

This concept, constructed from a mixture of greed and desperation (at the lack of conventional gas prospects), is entirely divorced from reality. (See here for Dimitri Orlovs excellent piece on why Gazprom has nothing to worry about.)

Nevertheless, euphoric hype is extremely catching. Given that prices are driven by perception, not by reality, hype has the power to change the dynamics of an industry, exaggerating boom and bust cycles in practice. The hype has resulted in the perception of glut – that North America is drowning in natural gas. The inconvenient fact that this peception is completely wrong does not alter its power in relation to prices.

Natural gas companies gambling on shale gas have been facing prices so low – far below the cost of production – that all of them have been producing gas unprofitably. The financial risk has been increasing dramatically as the companies have been drowning in debt trying to ride out the rock bottom prices that have been the result of people believing the fantasy. Finally, casualties of the financial shenanigans involved are emerging. It is very likely that there will be many more, as companies that have tried to ride out the low prices go under.

Wolf Richter:

Natural Gas: Where Endless Money Went To Die

Alas, thanks to the Feds zero-interest-rate policy and the trillions it has handed over to its cronies since late 2008, the sweeps of creative destruction have broken down. Instead, boundless sums of money have been searching for a place to go, and they're chasing yield when there is none, and so theyre taking risks, any kind of risks, in their vain battle to come out ahead.

The result is a stunning misallocation of capital to the tune of tens of billions of dollars to an economic activity drilling for dry natural gas that has been highly unprofitable for years. It's where money has gone to die. What's left is debt, and wells that will never produce enough to make their investors whole.

But the money has dried up. And drilling for natural gas is collapsing. Last week, there were only 562 rigs drilling for dry natural gas, the lowest number since September 1999…

 


…At $2.53 per million Btu at the Henry Hub, the price of natural gas is up 33% from the April low of $1.90 per million Btu, a number not seen in a decade.

.But even if it doubled, it would still be below the cost of production. And if it tripled, it might still be below the cost of production for most producers. That's how mispriced the commodity has become.

More from Wolf Richter:

Dirt Cheap Natural Gas Is Tearing Up The Very Industry That's Producing It

The economics of fracking are horrid. All wells have decline rates where production drops over time. But instead of decades for traditional wells, decline rates in horizontal fracking are measured in weeks and months: production falls off a cliff from day one and continues for a year or so until it levels out at about 10% of initial production. To be in the black over its life under these circumstances, a well in the Barnett Shale would have to sell its production for about $8 per million Btu, pricing models have shown.

…Drilling is destroying capital at an astonishing rate, and drillers are left with a mountain of debt just when decline rates are starting to wreak their havoc. To keep the decline rates from mucking up income statements, companies had to drill more and more, with new wells making up for the declining production of old wells. Alas, the scheme hit a wall, namely reality…

…The natural gas business is brutal. The peak in drilling occurred in September 2008 with 1,606 rigs. Then the financial crisis threw it into a vertigo-inducing plunge. After last years mini-peak, the plunge continued…

Production lags behind rig count, and while rig count for gas wells has been setting new decade lows, production has been rising month after month to new record highs. But lagging doesn't mean decoupled. And someday…. Oops, it already happened. It has started. Production has turned the corner, and not just in one field, but across the US.

 


Its still just a little notch in the curve. But its a sign that the collapse in rig count is translating into lower production numbers. And when the steep decline rates are beginning to overlap the drop in rig count, production will head south in a dizzying trajectory.

Money has been thrown at the industry, but the notion is dawning that the game is up and that returns will never materialize. The ponzi scheme has reached its natural limit, and investors are waking up to the realization that they have been chasing a fantasy.

Ironically, just as the washout begins, natural gas prices may have bottomed. Conventional natural gas in North America peaked in 2001. Coal bed methane and now shale gas have been revealed to be massively overblown as an energy source. Producers are reaping the consequences of malinvestment and will be going out of business. Demand has been building with the transition from coal to natural gas for power generation. This is an ideal set up for a supply collapse and subsequent price spike.

North America is poised for a huge natural gas shock. Far from being an exporter, North America is going to experience a natural gas supply crunch. Prices will be rising at the same time as peoples purchasing power falls precipitously, thanks to deflation. The structural dependency on natural gas that has been cemented in recent years is going to guarantee maximum pain as prices reconnect with reality.

Home Forums Shale Gas Reality Begins to Dawn

  • This topic is empty.
Viewing 19 posts - 41 through 59 (of 59 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #4303
    jal
    Participant

    Pollyanna!!!!!

    Anyone who has been reading and thinking about our financial situation find that they are called “Pollyanna” or worst, when they mention anything to their entourage.

    My entourage are aware of the financial situation around the world. They don’t want to talk about it. They just want to go on with their daily activities.

    I think that I&S has referred to this as the denial phase.

    The AE is discussing the issues that are confronting the world at a higher intellectual level than other blogs and bringing into the discussion other bright minds.

    Keep it up!

    The two other blogs that are persistently bring out their messages are “The Marker Ticker” and “Zero Hedge”.

    For many here, reading about what is happening, is like watching a slow motion disaster.

    The governments and primary actors, (we are spectators), are doing this on purpose, (Kicking the can down the road), since they know more than us how bad things are going to get.

    “Bad” in this context, means “change”.

    There are times that I feel that I have outlived my usefulness and just want to pack my bags and escape to a tranquil, peaceful corner or the earth.
    Unlike, during the time of cavemen, the next valley is already occupied so I must stay, try to deal with reality and find acceptable solutions for where I am.

    For what its worth …
    Smile and the world will smile with you.

    #4304
    gezelle
    Participant

    RE, has it occured to you that your overt, used car salesman-like approach is actually turning people away from both your posts and the Diner itself?
    Your endless links and clips are a giant turn off and have caused me to simply skip most of your posts rather than bother to sift through the jabber for anything that might be of value….you seem to be of the mind that if you can’t dazzle with brilliance you need to baffle with bullsh!t…that’s really too bad when we need all the lucid thoughts that we all can muster.

    Stoneleigh, that you for another excellent post…as usual It gives me much to think about.

    #4305
    davefairtex
    Participant

    I thought the ECA corporate preso was interesting because it showed a declining cost per MBTU for shale gas from $6 in 2007 down to $3 in 2012. The whys behind the cost decline might be interesting to examine. Technology might be better, or experience might have improved performance. Or perhaps they’re just high-grading the resource. I think the EROEI of shale gas may have improved over what it was back in 2008. Improved enough? I have no idea. Halving of the cost certainly sounds good to me.

    Issues of how big the resource is are of course unaddressed by this 50% cost reduction. Unless someone here is an insider at CHK, ECA, or XOM and they want to spill the story to us, we’ll just have to wait and see.

    #4306
    el gallinazo
    Member

    Re the EuroZone – How to keep score continued:

    Always remember that the end game of the Illuminati is the centralization of every form of power to their leadership. The top of the pyramid (see back of $1 FRN for an illustration) would be the Rothschild clan / cartel. Totalitarian one world control is the end game, but they are currently occupied with centralizing power first into supra-regional power centers. This necessitates the destruction of all forms of national sovereignty in Europe, and most particularly of German.

    We are very close to the greatest fiscal crisis since 2008 and perhaps ever. As Reggie Middleton (the smartest guy in the room) points out, Europe’s giant banks are facing an imminent huge counterparty run. We are going to go into a hypercritical “crisis” shortly which will “force” Merkel and Schäuble to accept the issuing of German backed EuroBonds, despite their intense unpopularity among German voters, under the rubric that the Devil made us do it. (This would be closer to the truth than the media would ever recognize, but the publicly stated intent would be that they had absolutely no choice).

    Once Germany backs the EuroBonds, the slide into total neofeudalistic control of Europe through technocratic and bankster puppets in Brussels will be complete. People like Max Keiser are dead wrong that this is a ploy for Germany to “take over Europe without a shot fired.” The last thing that the Illuminati want is a powerful German national state, even a fiscally imperial one. Germany also will be crushed when they have to make good on their Eurobond backed debt.

    #4307

    gezelle post=3950 wrote: RE, has it occured to you that your overt, used car salesman-like approach is actually turning people away from both your posts and the Diner itself?

    No, that never occurred to me GZ…thank you for pointing that out though. 😛

    Anyhow, Win Some, Lose Some. At least over on the Diner we don’t CENSOR posts and BAN members like Karpatok was here simply for speaking their minds and asking questions, or even just for being persistently annoying either.

    RE

    #4310
    william
    Participant

    My interpretation of a Ponzi scheme
    1. find something valueless
    2. promote it as highly valuable
    3. old investors receive new investors money as dividends showing a return

    So I am doubting this is exactly a Ponzi Scheme. I would also like to know who it is that would believe the US will export natural gas.

    I found it interesting that fracking is destroying capital. But this fits well with my projection of surpassing peak. As resources peak companies have to over state resources available in the field to maintain stock price. As the well produces less investors demand the “rest” of the field be developed (drilled). Each way I project resource extraction I still come against this problem in order to maintain capital the resource sector must lie about the size of the field. To maintain the lie you need to drill needlessly and use up capital.

    One analyst I follow commented that prices of fuel fluctuate to maintain the flow. If one piece of the supply chain has a long break it is likely independent drivers and small operators will leave creating a long break in supply. I would be curious if this also applies to natural gas.

    #4311
    Figmund Sreud
    Participant

    Following, just perhaps, you folks will find of interest – germane:

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2085027&download=yes

    Best title for this gem is, … well, “Idiots on Parade”

    Best,

    F.S.

    #4312
    Nassim
    Participant

    Figmund Sreaud,

    Interesting paper. I especially liked the way they did not mention once the rate at which drilling has to proceed to replace decline. The only reference they made to depletion was as in a financial item “Natural gas and oil depreciation, depletion and amortization”

    #4313
    steve from virginia
    Participant

    Art Berman has been beating the ‘shale gas as a scam’ drum for years now. He became the subject of a New York Times article last year that caused the establishment much discomfort.

    Unlike the gas drillers, Berman’s integrity is impossible to challenge and he has the industry creds:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/us/26gas.html?pagewanted=all

    Gas drillers have been abandoning dry gas plays to seek wet gas (natgas liquids are priced like crude oil). Wildcatters are selling plays to integrated petroleum giants with deep pockets like Exxon.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/business/energy-environment/15exxon.html

    Complaints about fracking fluids in drinking water are making it difficult for drillers. Fracking requires a lot of water, many plays are in areas with little available water so it has to be imported by pipeline … $$$. Pumping aquifers for fracking water distresses farmers who need it for irrigation while waste injection wells contaminating the same aquifers are causing a backlash against fracking.

    https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-finds-fracking-compound-in-wyoming-aquifer

    The sand needed for fracking is found in Wisconsin: residents are up in arms about unregulated sand mining which is of the ‘strip then skedaddle’ variety, leaving the landscape a mess.

    https://grist.org/natural-gas/against-the-grain-fracking-companies-mine-rural-wisconsin-for-sand/

    The ‘solution’ to tight oil formations in the Bakken and elsewhere is for companies to drill thousands of low-flow wells. The average well output in Bakken is -100 barrels per day. A conventional well = 50,000 barrels per day. By comparison, the Macondo blowout was 53,000 barrels per day. A hundred barrels or less is stripper well category.

    Fracking and horizontal drilling costs $6-7 million per well. Multiplied X thousands of wells, the drilling treadmill never stops. What happens when the credit runs out?

    https://marcellusdrilling.com/2011/09/how-much-does-it-cost-to-drill-a-single-marcellus-well-7-6m/

    Since Jimmy Carter and his execrable sweater trillions have been spent to subsidize the various ‘waste’ industries, the largest of which — autos and fuel provision itself — cannot pay for themselves. People do not earn by driving but by borrowing. The debts have been paid for by more borrowing and more borrowing still: the debts are now piled to the rafters.

    The end of the day see conservation: easy way or hard way. The amounts involved are the same: a large percentage of current use. The difference is the amount of unnecessary pain.

    Are we smart enough to make the right choice?

    #4316
    snuffy
    Participant

    I can remember,a good while back, stoneleigh discussing the current natural gas boondoggle and stating this same information in a more abbreviated form.This is good food for thought as I start to make the more serious decisions on how best to approach the ongoing decisions on my “best use”for funds, as well as starting to get deadly serious about “final” preps.

    The spot-on description of how the situation in Europe would/has evolved,as well as the current strength of US currency…the growing world-wide instability in the financial markets,as well as the impending collapse of the euro,were Identified quite a while back by the stone lady,[If you all have been paying attention],all point to a coming inflection point that will trigger massive change in our current civilization/way of life.

    God knows we need it.

    That speech given at the commencement by the the guy who shorted the world,and won…really shook me.His matter-of-fact description of the results obtained by showing that yes,the emperor had no clothes,or perhaps, to put it more carefully…why did old helicopter Ben not see the emperors condition,when he was in-fact ,in charge of the wardrobe?When he spent the money for the ad in the New York paper to publicly ask that question,a lot of people noticed…

    The level of corruption that exists now is such I do not believe BAU can continue much longer. The productive ones,the ones whose belief in “the system”keeps the ball rolling,are starting to wake up to the very real fact that they,have been lied to,and no,your not going to get that comfortable retirement you dreamed of.

    EVER.

    All the sweet dreams about your kids future,the things you wanted…your very reality…is gone down the same rabbit hole the bankers sent your retirement money

    I don’t buy the argument it has always been thus.The was a time that usury was forbbidden,even by law[and the local preacher].I can remember many things about my country,when I was growing up that are not true now.So can you.Some are really bad,like institutionalized racial discrimination.Some are really good,like relativity honest bankers,and believing in Americas,and my own bright future.

    I am not near wise enough to claim that I know of any fixes that would bring back the bright future that I imagined for myself when I was 21,and the world was my cupcake.But the hellish future I can too easily image for my grand kids burns me in a way that is difficult to describe.

    Its like your worse nightmare of a bully who has taken everything in your life you held precious,trashed it,and wants more.The people whose greed caused this catastrophe are walking free,with ill gotten gains filling off-shore accounts.They walk the halls of power now, whispering sometimes and yelling other times that we,the citizen must make more sacrifices to save the system.If this system is so rotten,so corrupt,that justice will not be met to those who have caused this chaos,then it is time for the system to reboot,with different parameters .

    I am not one who thinks salvation will come by changing from the blue to the red in the vetoing booth….it was the excesses of bush[the lessers] administration which set the conditions that have shaped this disaster-in-the-making.Any who think otherwise are still missing the point that we are not part of the club who get to decide how the game is played,and who wins,and who loses.

    Its going to get personal now,soon.How each of us deal with this inflection point will say a lot about what each of our future will be.

    Oh,Kapatok,if you have been here since 08,my guess you have been the same person who has attempted to raise hell here with depressing frequency.Please,just go away.Lots of other forums for you to spend your time on…

    Bee good,or
    Bee careful

    snuffy

    #4317
    skipbreakfast
    Participant

    Reverse Engineer post=3954 wrote: At least over on the Diner we don’t CENSOR posts and BAN members[…]for speaking their minds and asking questions, or even just for being persistently annoying either.

    RE

    The notion that it’s censorship to delete or block comments on a blog is entirely specious. In the democratized landscape of the Internet, one has all the power in the world to take one’s unpopular or downright vile words to a blog all your own. For free. You yourself RE have started your own blog, and it sounds like it’s growing like cancer. That’s the antithesis of censorship, mate.

    When there is CONTROL of limited access to media, then we have the makings of “censorship”–such as when your point of view is refused by major newspapers or when it costs a true fortune to start a TV broadcasting company. Now, of course the State might take your blog down, and try to prevent you from putting the blog up again in another guise. THAT is censorship. You have been muzzled and completely frozen out from the medium of blogging. But in a democratized blogosphere, it’s ridiculous and actually stifling to presume that every forum and every website must accommodate every point of view or operate the way you would have it operate. In fact, such indivudal strictures between blogs are arguably the polar opposite of censorship–it’s actually a form of freedom. Write what you want, and blog to your own rules anywhere else you please. These are not media empires strangling delicate voices who otherwise would never be heard. Each individual is her own empire. Just take your keyboard somewhere else and say whatever you want and accept the consequences.

    When I don’t allow a Golden Dawn Party member into my home, it’s not censorship. It’s just my house. He can go to his own home, and I’m okay with it if I’m not invited as long as I can safely keep mine.

    #4322
    Surly1
    Member

    skipbreakfast post=3966 wrote: [quote=Reverse Engineer post=3954]At least over on the Diner we don’t CENSOR posts and BAN members[…]for speaking their minds and asking questions, or even just for being persistently annoying either.
    RE

    The notion that it’s censorship to delete or block comments on a blog is entirely specious. In the democratized landscape of the Internet, one has all the power in the world to take one’s unpopular or downright vile words to a blog all your own. For free. You yourself RE have started your own blog, and it sounds like it’s growing like cancer. That’s the antithesis of censorship, mate.

    You are mistaken, skipbreakfast. It is EXACTLY censorship. And “growing like cancer? As Ashvin himself might cite in Matthew 24, “By their fruits shall ye know them.” And by the way, I read the thread, and have failed to find the “downright vile” words you cite. Just an insistent, if off-base question.

    You sound like another enforcer of the prevailing groupthink. I have some firsthand experience of my own from being beset by a rabble of brownshirt Republiconfederates on another blog.

    skipbreakfast post=3966 wrote: Just take your keyboard somewhere else and say whatever you want and accept the consequences.

    In a word, no. And nor should anyone on this board. If you are not in favor of free speech for one, you are really not in favor of free speech for anyone. My own take on this is that the banned poster was banned not so much for this instance, but for her history on this page, her “body of work, ” if you will. She asked a somewhat misguided question, which I thought Stoneleigh answered with great poise and patience. And then, *poof!* Into the gulag.

    An action unworthy of this greatly respected and estimable blog, IMO.

    #4323
    ashvin
    Participant

    Is this censorship debate really continuing here??

    Surly,

    There is a thing called trust in this community, and people from SB to Ilargi have it for my moderating decisions. That’s not to say they would have done the same thing, but they respect my decision. Before you start analogizing that to whether we should trust our leaders when they tell us it is in our best interests to suppress free speech, that is not the same situation at all. This is the first time I have had to ban anyone besides a corporate spammer on this forum, and I did it for very good reasons. In fact, you are in a better position to know those reasons than anyone here on TAE. But since you and RE still insist on continuing with this discussion, instead of getting back to the REAL topic at hand (shale gas issues), I will indulge you guys this once.

    This is what Karpatok said on DD (YOUR site) after she attacked me for making Christian arguments over there:

    But the hypocritical coward Ashvin. I just knew that I smelled rottenness with all of his loathsome pontificating. PEEYOUUU. So yes. I just wish he would shut up and keep it to himself. Furthermore, what’s the big F deal at TAE? Are they all 3 fundamentalists? As gadfly for SOC I will not rest until I sting the whole bunch of hypocrits at TAE.

    Umm, OK. Not very long after she says THAT, she shows up on this thread after agelbert and I briefly discuss Christian values in relation to Vandana Shiva’s ideas, and says this:

    So are the originators of TAE, Stoneleigh and Illargi, Christian evangelicals like Ashvin? And is the final objective of this website the kind of proselytizing that Ashvin is engaged in? Or rather is it to play on people’s confusion and fear, perhaps to make a living?

    Now we (I) obviously know what her intentions are with these “questions”, because she told us over on DD. Then I politely explain to her what the purposes of TAE is – to expose deceptions in economic, financial, environmental and energy issues – and tell her to drop her deceptive agenda to undermine TAE. She responds with this:

    What is really behind your tizzy fit Ashvin? Do you feel that YOU have been exposed in some way? I merely asked a few questions? I did not make a statement so how can I have lied? If you are so concerned about the well being of the web site and your employers stake why did you turn it into a scripture spouting site? Are all 756 members evangelicals like yourself and looking for that kind of validation and enlightenment? I am still waiting for a reply from Stoneleigh and Illargi. And by the way, I have greatly appreciated the insights and posts over the years. But I find your Bible thwacking very distasteful.

    Clearly, she is going over the top here to pursue her original agenda. This kind of stuff is not even worthy of consideration or a response. So I told her plainly:

    One more comment like that, Karpatok, and I am forced to ban you.

    Take what’s written here at face value and share your thoughts on these pressing issues if you want. But do not try to come here and undermine the site and its authors with your silly “questions” and ridiculous insinuations.

    One more, and you will be banned for the time being.

    Needless to say, she kept on saying the same crap in her next comment.

    Ashvin P. You are behaving in a very irrational and immature manner. First you had a tantrum and you removed it. Now you are behaving like an asshole. Did your employers feel threatened enough to encourage you to ban me for questioning the agenda of this site? Why would they feel so threatened? And why would you? This kind of censorship implies many unsavory things. For example the allowing of bible thumping like yours but the banning of any conspiracy ideas is certainly the most arbitrary of favoritisms. But then the constant appeal to authority is unsavory in itself.

    Her whole agenda from the very beginning was to imply “unsavory things” about TAE, as should be painfully clear by now, so my deletion of her comments and banning did not change anything about what she believed or her agenda. This last comment reflects unauthentic “concern” about my moderation at its finest. She was trying to use my justified moderation as a means to pursue her original agenda of casting doubts on the site. Therefore, she was rightfully banned for her deceit and her trollish attacks, and that was that. Nothing to hide here, only something that needed to be squashed before it even started.

    So… can we get over this now?

    #4324

    ashvin post=3974 wrote: Is this censorship debate really continuing here??
    ….
    So… can we get over this now?

    No, we can’t.

    I gather you are ticked at Karpatok for talking trash on DD, and also here on TAE at some point in the past though I haven’t seen much here since I joined the Commentariat.

    This is low temperature Napalm Ashvin. You wanna see Napalm, go back to where Surly and I both are refugees from, the commentariat of TBP. You yourself told me trash talk doesn’t bother you at the Poker Table or on the Basketball court, but apparently it does bother you.

    Look, all you had to do was pull KKs posts which you thought were smokish and moved them out to another thread. If people aren’t interested in reading her rants, they won’t read them. However, to muzzle her with a BAN is low class beyond belief.

    How come you can copy/paste all her rants from DD here? Because they are STILL up on the pages of DD. They aren’t CENSOREDthere like they are here. You can go ahead now on TAE and vilify her, but you do not allow her the same priviledge to vilify you here. That is a POWER PLAY my friend, the POWER OF ADMIN, the POWER OF GOD on a website. You wield it like a sledgehammer here when an adjustable wrench would have done just fine.

    Banning members because they don’t like you and pitch some napalm your way is UNACCEPTABLE behavior from an Admin. It’s like a Parent with a Child throwing a temper tantrum taking the child and throwing her out of her 3rd story bedroom window. You gotta have a thicker skin than that if you are Parenting a website Ashvin.

    RE

    #4325
    Babble
    Participant

    I think everyone ignores the Black Swan events. The mainstream media certainly does and it seems that TAE does too, but I understand it. One such event is the advent of very low cost energy from LENR “cold fusion” which is in advanced development now. This may not help with other resources but could be the answer to declines in nat gas, oil and getting rid of coal’s effect on climate change.

    #4326

    RE:
    “ashvin wrote:
    Is this censorship debate really continuing here??
    ….
    So… can we get over this now?

    No, we can’t.”

    Ilargi:
    Yes we can, and we have. This silly waste of time topic is closed, any additional comments will be deleted. Ashvin has made it abundantly clear why he did what he did. Insulting people is not part of what we want here, and neither is discussing it ad infinitum like a bunch of old wives. We also do not need people to tell us what we should or should not do.

    #4327

    Babble,

    I’m afraid we left behind discussions on cold fusion, zero point energy, and more, years ago. They’re pipedreams. Moreover, seeing what damage we have done with the available energy to date, dare we even imagine what we could do with virtually unlimited power sources?

    Man is like any other form of life: when provided with an energy surplus, we’ll proliferate and multiply and use it all up as fast as we can. And well before we’ve used it all, we’ll crash because no organism can survive in a medium of its own waste.

    #4328
    snuffy
    Participant

    Thank you Illagi.

    Bee good,or
    Bee careful

    snuffy

    #4333
    rheba
    Participant

    @el g re: illuminati
    I imagine you are right. But do you really imagine that they could be successful? There must be sneaky old-money types out there who think they can pull off something like a one-world system. Don’t you think, though, that the blood has thinned in that universe?

    IMHO there are all sorts of crackpot groups who will see opportunities to take advantage of this chaos. One of them will eventually cause a lot of trouble.

    I’ll bet there are hackers planning to rob every bank in the world electronically and military types planning violent action.

    My money is on a coalition of military and drug dealer types who are used to dealing with each other and with cash. That is because whatever comes out of this is going to be bottoms up not top down. Central control is going down with the financial system.

Viewing 19 posts - 41 through 59 (of 59 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.