The Te Deum

Two vote or not to vote, that is the question

Stoke-on-Trent City Council by-election, Thursday, 26 July 2012

Springfields and Trent Vale Ward

City Ind 370
Lab 245
Lib Dem 152
C 109
UKIP 105  9.9% (2011 15.4%)
Ind 36
BNP 27  2.6%
Trade Unionists and Socialists against Cuts 14
Democratic Nationalists 2  0.2%

May 2011 - Lab 537, Lib Dem 321, Community Voice 277, UKIP 206

City Ind gain from Lab

Swing 3.6% Lab to Lib Dem

Time marches on

Restoring the Credibility of Nationalism　

by Ronald Rickcord

Although at present British Nationalism is in a state of turmoil, it cannot be denied that large numbers of people who agree with the political philosophy and aims of the variegated forms of Nationalism are on the increase. This is obvious from the multiplicity of small nationalist parties that have emerged in recent years. It is a great tragedy that these parties, though largely in agreement on most issues, are unable to unite to create a single party able to provide the credibility and sense of direction to win the support of the confused and politically apathetic indigenous voters. As it is, there are within Nationalism far too many factions, often led by those whose sole motive is self-aggrandisement and the wish to be big fish in small ponds. If I may mix my metaphors, there are too many prima donnas, causing confusion and resulting in too much duplication of effort.

Before I proceed further, I should make it clear that for many, the term ‘Nationalist’ has become synonymous with the derogatory epithet ‘Racist’ that is usually applied to those of us who oppose the never-ending influx of immigrants arriving here. It has to be borne in mind that ‘Nationalist’ is something of a misnomer in this context, since a nation is a purely artificial construct. If our opponents wish to refer to us as racists, so be it. It is one’s race that matters, not one’s nation. For example, to me white South Africans and Americans, Canadians, Scandinavians and Germans belong to the same racial group as I do, no matter where they may happen to live or the nationality ascribed to them. Nevertheless, we must admit that Britain, being an island, has a greater claim to nationhood than most other so-called nations.

A few years ago, the BNP, of which I was for many years a member, had a great opportunity of breaking through the credibility barrier. Unfortunately, its founder, the highly respected John Tyndall, was superseded by the Machiavellian machinations of one person totally lacking the qualities of leadership, motivated entirely by personal ambition, who in the past was involved with various questionable organizations, and who, in recent years, has exhibited the classical symptoms of advanced megalomania. Furthermore, this patently dishonest ‘leader’ cannot be entrusted with the financial control of any organization, has a criminal record, and surrounds himself with toadies of inferior ability who are only too eager to do his bidding.

Despite these problems, it is essential that the present disarray among the various nationalist parties must not be allowed to deter us from renewing our efforts to capture the hearts and minds of our racial kith and kin; this is urgent if we are to avoid racial extinction.

Because Nationalism is in the doldrums, it is not surprising that many of our compatriots, and even some Nationalists, are unaware of the peril that confronts us, and, more importantly, our posterity. It is no use arguing that getting our message across to the British public is a long-term process. We cannot afford to do things in a leisurely fashion. Time is a factor that is not on our side.

Each day that passes without our being in control of our own affairs, is another nail in the coffin of our race. Time is therefore of the essence, so we must make every effort to impress upon our racial compatriots the dire urgency for action now if we are to survive as an independent and distinctive racial entity. Never again must we allow our aims to be impeded by a power-hungry adventurer and his acolytes who brought such shame and ruination on the BNP.

In this article, I shall examine some of the methods we have traditionally used in our efforts to win public support for our policies, and I shall propose some alternative strategies that I think may enable us to make a far greater impact on public opinion than hitherto. I do not claim that the ideas I shall outline are my own or that they are necessarily the only options available to us; nor does the expression of these ideas imply any criticism of the many stalwart patriots who have laboured so valiantly on behalf of the various nationalist parties for so many years.

My sole intention is to provoke discussion among genuine Nationalists in an effort to induce others with more fertile minds than mine into thinking about the steps we should now take to improve our ability to influence public opinion. By applying our thoughts to these matters and discussing them between ourselves should help us to evolve a strategy for success, one that will guarantee the survival of the British Race.

The success of any political organisation or pressure group depends primarily on five elements: Leadership, Planning, Administration, Enthusiasm and Action. It is not my purpose to discuss the first three items here. It is undeniable that where the BNP is concerned, these attributes have been lamentably absent in recent years. There was never any shortage of enthusiasm among the countless dedicated activists and supporters of the BNP, who have now been so disgracefully betrayed. So I shall confine myself to discussing the last-named item on the list - Action.

Activities organised by any radical party have three principal aims. First, to transform society into something that accords with the ideals and views of its members; second to generate the publicity to persuade citizens that the party’s policies are best for their welfare and future of their children; and third, to bolster up and sustain the morale of its members.

There are several ways that these aims can be achieved. The methods most commonly used by Nationalists in the past were mainly in the form of demonstrations, propaganda and electioneering. However, it became increasingly apparent in recent times that these were not having the desired effect, and indeed, caused many of us much disappointment. The antics of some nationalist leaders and the behaviour of unruly elements and scruffiness of the foul-mouthed undesirables and hooligans who so often attached themselves to our events contributed to our lack of success.

In past years, our demonstrations consisted mainly of marches and outdoor public meetings. Long before marches were banned, it became obvious that they had outlived their usefulness and become counterproductive. There were a number of reasons for this, the main one being that they were almost entirely ignored by our alien-controlled media unless they could be used to concoct news in ways that portrayed Nationalists in a bad light. In this, the media were aided by the deplorable hooligan elements I mentioned above, who latched onto these events solely for the prospect of having a punch-up. Unfortunately, many people witnessing these incidents wrongly blamed Nationalists for the ensuing mayhem that occurred.

Another disadvantage of marches was that they provided our opponents with the opportunity of obtaining free publicity at our expense. Often, Nationalists who attended marches had to run the gauntlet of bricks, bottles and other fearsome missiles hurled at us by our enemies; but by clever editing, trick photography and manipulation of the facts, subsequent TV and news reports implied we were the culprits and our opponents the victims!

For these reasons, marches did little to earn any public sympathy for Nationalists; indeed, quite the reverse. In addition, the inconvenience that marches caused to the inhabitants, shoppers, traders, and motorists in areas where marches were held did nothing to endear us with the public, however much they may have agreed with our policies. Even before marches were banned, we had to face the fact that they were considered a nuisance and were generally unpopular. In an article I wrote in 1983, I suggested, to the annoyance of some colleagues, that I felt that marches were having the opposite effect to that which we desired and that we ought to consider other less aggressive ways of gaining public support.

I suggested that instead of marches, serious consideration should have been given to alternative ways of obtaining publicity. It was my opinion that by adopting the tactics previously used by the old League of Empire Loyalists would have been more fruitful. Older readers will remember how the LEL had the uncanny knack of suddenly appearing and having their say at highly publicized functions such as theatres, public meetings, conferences, etc., in full view of the public and media. In this way, they were often remarkably successful in getting their message across before being thrown out. Music lovers and TV viewers may remember how Palestinian protesters twice disrupted the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra during a Promenade Concert last year. This was achieved by positioning the protesters in different parts of the auditorium, making it difficult to silence them. This action undoubtedly upset the audience, but it certainly enabled the Palestinians to obtain widespread support for their cause.

Methods of this sort are ideal for waking people up to the reality of what is going on in our country. Several institutions are ripe for such treatment. In particular I am thinking of the churches, which, during recent years have become little more than agencies for propagating the vile creeds of multiracialism and homosexuality. A few intrepid and articulate Nationalists scattered among the congregations of cathedrals and churches in which sermons were being given by race-mixing pastors and unrepentant ‘gay’ clergy would work wonders. And imagine the publicity that could be gained if such demonstrations were staged in cinemas during the showing of salacious and anti-British films, usually imported and made by foreign directors who, in all probability, have a hidden agenda. The opportunities of these and similar activities are endless.

Stunts like those mentioned above, if well thought out and executed could have a number of advantages. First, they would not require many activists to conduct and would therefore be easy to organize and control. Second, they would stand a very good chance of being noticed and commented on by the media, and, even if ignored, the Nationalist viewpoint would at least come to the attention of members of the public attending those functions and events selected for such treatment. Third, activists would be able to organize similar demonstrations in their own areas at little cost. The Establishment would consequently find itself under frequent attack throughout the country.

As events have proved over many years, elections, and particularly general elections, have not been very successful. Elections are too infrequent and the nationalist message tends to become lost beneath the welter of verbiage on a variety of unimportant subjects dear to the hearts of the other parties, whose policies, in any case, seldom differ very much. In addition, many of the arguments revolve around frivolous and irrelevant matters. In such conditions, Nationalists are scarcely heard above the tumult.

I therefore think that for the time being Nationalists should avoid general elections and contest only local and Euro-elections, and then, only if the various Nationalist parties, having similar policies, join forces under one name, say, ‘Nationalist’. Nothing is more absurd than Nationalists fighting for the same seats under different flags. Apart from confusing voters, it fragments the Nationalist vote that may otherwise be obtained. Unanimity is essential. The above suggestions would provide several advantages. First, they would greatly reduce costs compared with fighting enormously expensive general elections. Second, combining the efforts of the many minuscule nationalist parties would inevitably lead towards greater unanimity. Third, the relative frequency of local elections and by-elections would provide a means of keeping the Nationalist Cause fresh in the voters’ minds at local level and, to a lesser extent, at national level.

It is a well-known fact that the Establishment denies Nationalists access to the mass media by every means within its power. Go into any of the larger newsagents and one will find the shelves therein bulging with leftist and Marxist publications such as Tribune, New Statesman, The New Worker, The Socialist Worker and Fabian Review, etc. For this reason, it is essential that we must create an alternative media of our own. In a very small way, we made a start in this direction many years ago by means of newspapers, magazines, journals and other publications. Nevertheless, these publications were, and where still extant, are, too small, too infrequent and, let us face it, often, except for quality journals like Heritage and Destiny and Spearhead (now, alas, defunct), of poor quality, regarding both presentation and content. To make matters worse, our opponents often make threats of violence against printers, suppliers and newsagents who would otherwise be prepared to distribute our publications. Also, we must realize that printed matter of this sort, however well produced, has only a fraction of the impact on people’s minds and perceptions as that achieved by the internet, TV and radio. We must also realize that we are not now living in an age similar to that which existed in the days of the Tractarians; few people have much inclination to read political pamphlets or dissertations these days.

Now, however, the Establishment’s monopoly of the dissemination of news and propaganda has suffered a serious diminution due to the internet revolution, which it has no effective means of controlling. As not everyone is on the internet, there will still be a need for the written word, and especially by those who wish to study such matters in greater depth. However, at present few Nationalists have sufficient training to exploit the opportunities afforded by either the internet, TV or the press to the full. I hope that we shall overcome this situation in time to come. One way we can rectify this problem is by employing young professionally trained journalists, rather than ancient amateurs (like me), as well as web masters, and computer and graphics experts. To this end nationalist sixth formers and other students should be encouraged to take up these subjects when they go to university. Those of us who have been involved in the incipient nationalist media over many years must encourage and nurture such youngsters, and be prepared to lay down our pens (or keyboards) in their favour when the time comes.

In this article I have touched upon just a few problems today confronting British Nationalism and made suggestions how, in my opinion, we could make greater impact than we now do. Doubtless, some Nationalists will disagree with my views and proposals; but what matters far more than the means we use are the objectives we have in view - and fortunately, there is no argument about what they are! So if this article helps to induce clever young people to apply their minds and abilities to finding better solutions to resolve the problems currently facing Nationalism, then I will not have written in vain.


Ronald Rickcord is a veteran Nationalist and frequent contributor to Heritage and Destiny. A sample copy of the latest issue can be obtained for £5.00 (made payable to Heritage and Destiny) from H&D, 40 Birkett Drive, Preston, PR2 6HE, UK; or by PayPal to heritageanddestiny@yahoo.com.

Griffin and his duff 'science'

Stephen Oppenheimer's bad science

Stephen Oppenheimer is quoted in the Times Online in regard to some comments that BNP leader Nick Griffin recently made about indigenous Britons. From the article titled Nick Griffin's Bad Science.

"Watching Nick Griffin's performance on Question Time last night, I was struck by more than his objectionable views and evasive answers. He also seems to have a distinctly sketchy grasp of science, which he misrepresents to support his idea that Britain belongs to its 'indigenous people'.

"He described white English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish people as 'Britain's aborigines', suggesting these groups are descended from an ancestral population that arrived 17,000 years ago. Scientists, he said, would happily confirm this.

"His comments seem, so far as I can tell, to be based on the hypothesis advanced by Stephen Oppenheimer, of Oxford University, in his book The Origins of the British. This uses genetic data to suggest that about 75 per cent of British ancestry can be traced back to very ancient times, before the Anglo-Saxons, Romans and Celts -- the argument is summarised nicely in this Prospect piece."

Part of Oppenheimer's response:

"About three quarters of the ancestors had arrived before the neolithic. Most of the rest arrived during the neolithic. There’s about 5 per cent from Anglo-Saxons, about 6 per cent from Vikings."

The idea of Paleolithic genetic continuity has been demolished recently, as I detail in Migrationism Strikes Back. Most of the mtDNA haplogroups, thought by scientists to have been in Europe since the Paleolithic, were absent when actual Paleolithic DNA was tested. Genetic continuity must be proven directly, and inferences from modern populations are suspect.

Oppenheimer bases his inferences on age calculations based on Y-chromosome STRs on modern populations, using an extreme evolutionary mutation rate that overestimates time depth by almost an order of magnitude, and leads to even more extreme time overestimates than the evolutionary rate that I criticized recently.

I had been positively inclined towards Oppenheimer's work, and I still consider it superior to other popularizing efforts, because of its data richness and clear effort to synthesize different strands of knowledge. In retrospect, however, it is flawed, as it is based on faulty mutation rates and faulty interpretation:

Oppenheimer's argument is a special case of what Francois Balloux described recently, and Guido Barbujani a long time ago. To make a long story short, it doesn't matter if a certain haplogroup found in Britons is 1,000 or 10,000 years old. Knowing this fact tells us nothing about when the patrilineage arrived in Britain: a 1,000-year old haplogroup may have developed from a British line of ancestors that were reduced to a single man 1,000 years ago, and a 10,000-year old haplogroup may have arrived in Britain only 10 years ago by a group of distantly related immigrants.

Nick Griffin is of course also wrong in inferring that Britons are descended from Paleolithic ancestors. But, he is wrong only in misquoting a date and in building a political case around a belief in Oppenheimer's inferences on Paleolithic origins of Britons.

Oppenheimer's political case is also flawed, however:

"He’s missed the point of the genetics in terms of his perspective that he can determine who is indigenous British. All British people are immigrants. As Bonnie Greer pointed out, the original Britons were Neanderthals. They were exterminated, then the Ice Age left a clean sheet. The modern population is essentially of north Iberian origin. So what’s British?"

Clearly the word indigenous cannot be taken literally and everyone living in Britain is descended from people who arrived there at some point or another. But, this is a gross oversimplification of the situation. Why do people speak of 'native' Americans or Australian 'aborigines'? They do not, certainly, mean that these people emerged from American or Australian soil. What they do mean, however, is that these people are the oldest recorded inhabitants of their homelands, the first people that can be named.

In the case of Britain, there are indeed indigenous people that were named by ancient writers, viz, the Britons and Picts. No traditions for the immigration of these people exists, although their immigration can be inferred on linguistic grounds (Britons were Indo-European speakers). There were certainly other people before them, whose names are lost to memory, but whose genetic trace may persist in the current inhabitants. There are also non-indigenous people that arrived there a long time ago, eg, the Gaels, the Angles, the Saxons, the Vikings, and the Normans, and their arrival was noted by historians. Finally, there are people that arrived in Great Britain more recently, eg, Poles and Pakistanis.

Is there any way to distinguish between all these groups?

Clearly, one possible distinction is chronological: groups that arrived earlier are more indigenous than groups that arrived later. However, this is a relative difference, which does not allow us to make a sharp distinction between indigenous and foreign. 50 generations certainly earns you more "native" points than 2, but no obvious demarcation of indigenousness exists.

However, the main distinction is between groups that developed in situ and groups that arrived from elsewhere. The English are descended from a bunch of different sets of people, but as a people they developed in the country that came to be known as England.

In that sense the English are indigenous to England, not because their genes didn't arrive from elsewhere (they did), but in the sense that they became a people in the land itself. Different people were grafted onto the English over time, but they became English in an ethnic sense by being grafted onto them, and not by simply co-existing with them while retaining their own identity.

Dieneke's Anthropology Blog

The myth of imminent global oil depletion

March 29, 2012

The Real Problem is Not Too Little Oil, But Too Much

The Myth of Peak Oil

by GEORGE WUERTHNER

Each time there is a short-term shortage of oil or the price begins to rise, there is talk of running out of affordable oil, an idea captured by the concept of Peak Oil. Peak Oil is the theoretical point when the maximum rate of oil production is reached and after that time enters into a terminal decline. There is a lot of debate surrounding the Peak Oil theory, with some observers predicting rapid decline in oil production with serious implications for our entire economy and society.

No name is more closely associated with the concept of Peak Oil than geologist Marion King Hubbert. Hubbert was a research geologist for Shell Oil Company and later the US Geological Service. Hubbert is credited with developing a quantitative technique (Logistic Growth Curve) now commonly referred to as the Hubbert Curve, which he suggested could be used to predict the remaining oil supplies (or any other finite resource like gas, copper, etc.) and the time of eventual depletion.

In the 1956 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, Texas, Hubbert presented a paper titled Nuclear Energy and Fossil Fuels where he suggested that overall petroleum production would peak in the United States between the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Since US oil production did indeed appear to peak in 1970, many Peak Oil advocates acclaim Hubbert as a prophet. However, an apparent peak in production does not necessarily represent a peak in oil availability, especially in a global market—something that Peak Oil advocates tend to overlook. In fact, a “peak” may just be one of many “spikes”.

Another point of confusion in the debate over the ultimate availability of oil and gas supplies is the question of “unconventional” fossil fuel sources like tar sands, oil shales, heavy oils, and shale oil. Hubbert did not include these other energy types in his estimates and many of the proponents of Peak Oil today tend to ignore these hydro-carbon sources. However, since there is vastly more oil (and gas) found in these “unconventional” sources compared to “conventional” crude oil and traditional gas sources, the exclusion of them from any policy debate over oil’s demise leads to serious misrepresentation of our ultimate fossil fuel availability.

As Hubbert wrote in his paper, “if we knew the quantity (of some resource) initially present, we could draw a family of possible production curves, all of which would exhibit the common property of beginning and ending at zero, and encompassing an area equal to or less than the initial quantity.” In theory, Hubbert’s basic concept is sound. As a way of thinking about and approaching the issue of declining finite resources, Hubbert was a pioneer. But that does not mean his predictions were accurate.

The problem for anyone trying to predict future resource availability is discerning the initial starting amount of a resource such as oil when one cannot readily see or gauge accurately the resource. This lack of transparency presents huge opportunities for error, in particular, erring on the side of under estimation of the total resource. And time has consistently shown that under estimation of total resource is the most common error, and as we shall see this is exactly the error that Hubbert made with regards to his estimates of our remaining oil and gas reserves. Hubbert can be forgiven because new technology can make previously unavailable resources accessible, even less expensive to exploit. In fact, he even anticipated this to a degree in his paper, another point that Hubbert’s admirers today tend to overlook.

FORECASTING PROBLEMS

Few that credit Hubbert with a successful prediction have apparently actually read his paper. A reading of his presentation demonstrates that Hubbert grossly underestimated total oil supplies, and thus his predicted high point of the bell curve deviates significantly from reality. Indeed, there is good evidence we haven’t even reached the top of the bell curve, much less past it in 1970. He did not anticipate things like the discovery of oil in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay or shale oil like the North Dakota Bakken Formation, among many other oil discovery that have significantly changed total oil supplies.

And because US oil production did peak in 1970, the same time period which Hubbert suggested oil reserves would reach their half-way point and start an inevitable decline, few bothered to ask whether the observed decline in US production might have any other explanation other than declining geological petroleum stocks as Peak Oil advocates suggest.

Predicting future oil and gas supplies is fraught with dangers. Many factors influence oil extraction other than geological limits. A rapid shift to renewable energy, a decline in global economies, new technological innovation, energy conservation, a high oil price that dampens consumer demand, political instability and wars all significantly affects energy production, thus when and how “peak” is achieved. Many believe a more realistic model rather than a bell curve is a rapid run up in production to a spike or series of spikes followed by a long drawn out plateau and production decline with ultimately more oil production occurring after the apparent peak, but less rapidly than prior to the “peak” which of course wouldn’t really be a peak in the traditional sense of the word.

HUBBERT’S ERROR

The first problem with Hubbert’s prediction is that his estimates of total oil and gas reserves are far too low. If the starting amount of reserves are low, than the top of the bell curve is reached much sooner than if there are greater amounts of oil–assuming that a bell curve actually represents what is occurring–which many people dispute. Some suggest Hubbert just drew the curve to fit his assumptions.

In his paper, Hubbert estimated that the “ultimate potential reserve of 150 billion barrels of crude oil for both the land and offshore areas of the United States.” Hubbert’s estimate was based on the crude oil “initially present which are producible by methods now in use.” Using the 150 billion barrel estimate he predicted US Peak Oil occurring in 1965. But to be cautious, he also used a slightly higher figure of 200 billion barrels which produced a peak in oil production around 1970—the figure that Hubbert advocates like to use to demonstrate that Hubbert was prophetic in his predictions. However, by 2006 the Department of Energy estimated that domestic oil resources still in the ground (in-place) total 1,124 billion barrels. Of this large in-place resource, 400 billon barrels is estimated to be technically recoverable with current technology.

This estimate was produced before horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or fracking techniques were widely adopted which most authorities believe will yield considerably more oil than was thought to be recoverable in 2006.

Going back to Hubbert’s paper we find that he predicted that by 1970 the US should have consumed half or about 100 million barrels of oil of the original endowment of 150-200 billion barrels of recoverable oil. And by his own chart on page 32 of his paper if we use the assumption of 200 billion barrels as the total potential oil reserves of the US we should be completely out of oil by now. According to his curve and graph, by year 2000 we should have had only around 27 billion or so barrels of oil left in the US and fallen to zero sometime in the mid-2000s.

Yet the US government estimates as of 2007 that our remaining technically recoverable reserves are 198 billion barrels, and this excludes oil that may be found in area that are off limits to drilling (i.e. like most of the Continental Shelf).

And there are another 400 billion barrels that some suggest could be recovered with new methods (which itself is a subset of total in place oil which future technology may make available at an affordable price).

Obviously if Hubbert were correct, and we had reached Peak Oil in 1970 (point where we had consumed half of our oil) and we started out with only 200 billion, we could not have nearly 200-400 billion still left to extract—and total resources are likely even higher than this figure.

It’s also important to keep in mind that “technologically recoverable” resources are not the “total” amount of oil thought to exist in the US, so the total in-place reserves are much, much larger. It does not take a lot of imagination to predict that many of these oil resources will eventually be unlocked with new technological innovation thus added to the total “proven reserves.”

Another example of his under-estimation of oil is US off-shore oil. In his 1956 paper, Hubbert suggests we had 15 billion total barrels, but the US government now estimates there is closer to 90 billion barrels of oil left off-shore–and we have already extracted quite a bit. (I’m not sure if that figure is just for off -shore currently open to exploration or all off shore–since oil exploration is banned on 83% of the US coastline. If this figure refers only to those areas currently available to drill–then the number may be quite a bit higher if all off shore areas were opened to oil extraction).

Hubbert was even farther off in his estimate for global oil reserves, which is not surprising since in 1956 very few parts of the world had been adequately studied. In his 1956 paper Hubbert wrote that there was “about 1250 billion barrels for the ultimate potential reserves of crude oil of the whole world.” In his paper he estimated that the entire Middle East including Egypt had no more than 375 billion barrels of oil. Yet by 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated that just the “proven reserves” in Saudi Arabia alone totaled 262.6 billion barrels. Similarly in his paper Hubbert uses an estimate of 80 billion barrels for all of South America, yet Venezuela has 296 billion barrels of proven reserves.

By 2000, the point when Hubbert estimated that we would reach global Peak Oil we would have only around 625 billion barrels of oil left. Just the 558 billion barrels of proven reserves known to exist in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela alone (and a lot more in-place resources) is nearly equal the total global oil supplies that Hubbert estimated would remain in global reserves. Obviously once again Hubbert’s global estimates were way too low.

The world has already burned through more than a trillion barrels of oil, clearly demonstrating how far off his prediction of oil supplies were. The estimated “proven reserves” left globally are today more than 1.3 trillion for the top 17 oil producing countries alone.

PROVEN RESERVES Vs. TOTAL RESOURCES

Part of the confusion in the Peak Oil debate is that people, agencies and organizations use different definitions and accounting methods that are often not explicitly acknowledged. For instance, most Peak Oil advocates rely upon “proven reserve” numbers to argue we have limited oil supplies remaining. However, it is important to note the term “proven reserves” has a very precise meaning that only includes oil that has a 90% certainty that the oil can be extracted using current technology at current price. It does not represent total oil that may over time be produced. The total estimated amount of oil in an oil reservoir, including both producible and non-producible oil, is called various terms including oil in place. Due to technological, political and other limitations, only a small percentage of the total “in place” oil can be extracted at the present time. However, proven reserves are the bare minimum amount of oil that reasonably can be expected to be extracted over time.

One of the wild cards in predicting oil reserves is the recovery factor. Recovery factors vary greatly among oil fields. Most oil fields to this point have only given up a fraction of their potential oil holdings—between 20-40%. By 2009 the average Texas oil field had only about a third of its oil extracted, leaving two-thirds still in the ground. Using Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques, many of them not even available when Hubbert wrote his paper, recovery can often be boosted to 40-60%. In essence if EOR were applied to many of the larger US oil fields, we could effectively double the oil extracted, hence “proven reserves.”

Even Hubbert recognized that we may eventually extract more oil from existing fields, though he still underestimated the effect of new discoveries and new technology. Hubbert wrote ”… only about a third of the oil underground is being recovered. The reserve figures cited are for oil capable of being extracted by present techniques. However, secondary recovery techniques are gradually being improved so that ultimately a somewhat larger but still unknown fraction of the oil underground should be extracted than is now the case. Because of the slowness of the secondary recovery process, however, it appears unlikely that any improvement that can be made within the next 10 or 15 years can have any significant effect upon the date of culmination. Amore probable effect of improved recovery will be to reduce the rate of decline after culmination…..”

While no one realistically believes it’s possible to get every last drop of oil from an oil reservoir, new technologies are often able to get significantly more oil from existing fields than was possible in the past. The important fact is that the recovery factor often changes over time due to changes in technology and economics. Since the bulk of global oil still remains in the ground, and any shift upward in price and improvement in technology suddenly makes it profitable to exploit reserves that were previously not included in the “proven reserves” estimate. Thus proven reserve estimates are a minimum, not the maximum amount of oil available.

To demonstrate how technology and price can affect “proven reserves” estimates, just a few years ago Canada’s “proven reserves” of oil were only 5 billion barrels. Today, due to higher prices and improved technology that makes tar sands production economically feasible; Canada now has “proven” reserves of 175 billion barrels of oil. Nothing changed other than the price of oil and the technology used to extract it. Oil companies knew there was a lot of oil in the tar sands, but it took a change in technology and price to move it into the “proven reserves” category. Even more telling is that the total minimum estimate of in place oil for the tar sands exceeds 1.3 trillion barrels of oil. Keep in mind that 1.3 trillion barrels is more oil than Hubbert thought existed in the entire world when he presented his 1956 paper.

People knew all along there were tremendous amounts of oil locked in Alberta’s tar sands. But it took a change in price, along with some technological innovation to make it profitable for extraction. So proven reserves are not a static figure based on geology, rather it reflects economics and technology. Unfortunately too many writing about the presumed Peak of oil in the United States appear to ignore the distinction, and regularly use the “proven reserves” figure as if it were the ultimate geological limit on oil and/or gas supplies.

Although the major point of his paper was the potential depletion of traditional oil and gas reservoirs, he did mention “unconventional oil.” Unconventional oil reserves are oil or hydrocarbons found in geological formations other than a traditional oil reservoir. Examples of unconventional oil include Alberta’s tar sands, oil shales of the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, the heavy oils of Venezuela, and other non-traditional hydrocarbons. There are far more of hydro-carbons in these formations than traditional oil reservoirs—a fact that many Peak Oil advocates frequently ignore. Or if they acknowledge their existence, they dismiss them as uneconomical or technologically impossible to exploit and therefore will never make a significant contribution to global energy supplies.

Hubbert failed to appreciate the potential contribution of these unconventional sources of synthetic oil. For instance, he put the total for US oil shales at around a trillion barrels of oil equivalent. Recently the USGS estimated that the Green River drainage area of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah may contain as much as 4.2 trillion barrels of in place oil equivalent in oil shale deposits. To put this into context, the US currently consumes around 24 billion barrels of oil in 2010, so even if a fraction of these oil shales are exploited it will significantly increase available energy to the US.

With unconventional oils like tar sands, oil shales, heavy oils, etc. included, it seems we have huge amounts of potential energy–even acknowledging that much of that oil may not be extracted until some future date due to cost and/or lack of technology.

NATURAL GAS ESTIMATES

As he did with his estimates of oil, Hubbert also appears to have underestimated natural gas supplies as well. He put total natural gas supplies to be around 850 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and maximum US production would be 14 TCF annually. The Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that shale gas reserve alone total 750 TCF and shale gas is only one source of natural gas.Total natural gas reserves are increasing. Estimates vary about total gas reserves, but they run between 1400 to 2000 TFC. I see no reason to doubt these estimates.

If correct, then his estimate of natural gas was also a vast underestimate. This link shows that gas supplies are increasing well into the future. And new estimates for gas hydrates (methane locked in frozen ice) suggests there may be twice as much energy locked in these resources than all the coal, oil, and traditional natural gas supplies combined. One estimate suggests there may be a 3000 plus year supply of natural gas in gas hydrates. Whatever the ultimate number may be, the important point is that we are not in any danger of running out of fossil fuels in the near future.

OTHER EXPLANATIONS FOR US PEAK OIL PRODUCTION

Was it just coincidence and luck that Hubbert picked 1970 as one of the possible peaks in US oil production even though his starting numbers were way too low?

This raises the question whether declining US production since 1970 is due to depletion of oil fields as asserted by Peak Oil advocates or whether economics explains it better. (This is not to deny that at some point we will see declining production due to real limits–the question of importance however is when that will occur).

Another explanation requires looking beyond the US. Keep in mind that oil is a commodity. Just because we may see a decline in production of some commodity does not mean we are running out of that substance or resource. The Northeast US was once the major producer of timber in the US. Today if you buy lumber in New England, there’s a good chance it was cut and shipped from the Pacific Northwest, not because there are no trees to cut in New England. Rather due to climate, vegetation, and infrastructure factors, it’s less expensive to cut trees in Oregon or British Columbia than to log New England forests. It would be wrong to conclude that because New England imports most of its lumber that there are not enough trees left to provide wood locally.

Similarly attributing declining US oil production to geological depletion ignores the effect of global oil production. Immediately after WWii the US was easily the global leader in oil production. This dominance of global oil markets by US production and companies continued throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Then in the late 1960s and early 1970s oil production in other parts of the world began to increase substantially. In particular, Middle East oil production improved dramatically due to foreign investment and technology. For a variety of factors, once the oil infrastructure (pipelines, tanker ports, oil fields,) was built in these places, it became less expensive to import oil from Saudi Arabia, for example, than to build a new oil field in Wyoming or Texas. Indeed in some cases producing oil wells in the US were capped and retired even though they were perfectly capable of producing more oil. Not only was oil production increasing in Saudi Arabia, but all over the world at this time including Venezuela, Mexico, and the Soviet Union. All of these new fields were producing lower cost oil than one could get from most US oil fields at the time. So could it be that US producers just decided it was a better business plan to invest in and/or buy oil from other oil producing countries? Did this low cost oil cause oil companies to import oil rather than invest in US oil production?

Worse for US producers, except for a few manufactured shortages like the 1973 oil crisis created by OPEC in response to US support for Israel or the War in Iraq, the abundance of relatively inexpensive oil kept oil prices depressed throughout the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and into the early 2000s, discouraging new investment in US oil production.

It takes up to a decade or more to bring a new oil field on line, especially if the field is not located near other infrastructure. For instance, Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay Oil field was discovered in 1968 and it wasn’t until 1978 before the first oil was sent to market. Oil companies will only invest in major new production if they are certain that the prices are stable and will remain at a specific break-even point into the future. This lag time between changes in price or technology and significant production is why the oil industry cannot rapidly respond to short term price increases or politically created shortages.

Peak Oil advocates continuously point to the rise in oil prices during the latter part of the 2000s and suggest that an apparent lack of significant new oil production is due to depletion. However, there is a time lag before higher prices result in a noteworthy increase in oil production. Given the huge investments needed to bring on line new oil production, companies have to first wait for quite a number of years after an oil price hike before they start any new development to make sure that higher prices are going to stabilize, not rise and then fall suddenly as happened in 2008 when oil reached $145 a barrel then crashed to $30 a barrel. Such volatility does not lead to greater oil production.

Nevertheless, higher oil prices in the past few years have started to spur new development in the US and around the globe. The US, for instance, has reduced its import of foreign oil from 60% to 45% due to higher production at home as well as greater efficiency spurred by higher fuel prices. These trends point to continued reduction in imports. However, because of the long delay between start up and full production, there is no quick relief. This is one reason why “Drill, Baby, Drill” is a foolish response to any oil price increase.

From the oil producer’s perspective, there is no advantage in increasing spare production capacity. All this will do is flood the market (global market) with cheap energy. What company wants to reduce its profits by over production? So far global oil production has largely been able to meet all demand, except for short term shortages as a result of political change, wars, and/or price speculation. But none of these reflect a true geological short-fall or serious effect of depletion.

Despite Hubbert’s prediction that we would be just about out of oil by now, the US oil production (and gas) have both gone up in recent years. This is in response to higher prices and new technologies. But according to Hubbert this could not be occurring because we are long past our Peak and indeed, very near our bottom line for oil.

There is no doubt that a finite resource such as oil will continue to decline, and demand will likely grow at least into the foreseeable future, both of which should lead to higher fuel costs. But whether this leads to a long term chronic shortages that cause major economic disruption or even the collapse of civilization as some predict is subject to more uncertainty than perhaps some like to admit. For one thing there is far more oil on the planet than most people recognize, and new technologies combined with rising price for fuels is spurring development of new oil supplies. Rising prices also spurs shifts to other energy sources, as well as greater efficiency and conservation of energy.

Rather than running out of oil and/or gas any time soon, I think the bigger danger is that we have more than enough oil and other fossil fuel energy resources to sustain us for quite a few decades if not centuries. Any efficiency and/or conservation of energy, combined with some replacement of fossil fuel energy with renewables than these finite resources, will extend hydrocarbon resources quite a few additional decades.

The real problem for the planet and human society is not the imminent danger of running out of hydrocarbon fuels, but that an abundance of these energy sources will permit population and economic growth that will gradually diminish the planet’s biodiversity, degrade ecosystems, and disrupt global climate and other systems.

George Wuerthner is an ecologist. He is currently working on a book about energy.

www.counterpunch.org

I am right and Hubbert was wrong

Demise of Peak Oil Theory

by David Deming

Recently by David Deming: The Noble Savage

Peak Oil is the theory that the production history of petroleum follows a symmetrical bell-shaped curve. Once the curve peaks, decline is inevitable. The theory is commonly invoked to justify the development of alternative energy sources that are allegedly renewable and sustainable.

Peak Oil theory was originated by American geologist M. King Hubbert. In 1956 Hubbert predicted that US oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. When production peaked in 1970, it was interpreted as proof that Hubbert's model was correct and that US oil production had entered a period of inexorable and irreversible decline. Unanswered was the question of whether or not US production had declined simply because it had become cheaper to purchase imported oil.

Peak Oil is a theory based upon assumptions. Like other scientific theories, it is subject to empirical corroboration or falsification. Although Hubbert correctly predicted the timing of peak US oil production, several of his other predictions based on Peak Oil theory were wrong.

Hubbert predicted that the maximum possible US oil production by 2011 would be one billion barrels. But actual production in 2011 was two billion barrels. Hubbert predicted that annual world oil production would peak in the year 2000 at 12.5 billion barrels. It didn't. World oil production in 2011 was 26.5 billion barrels and continues to increase. Hubbert was grossly wrong about natural gas production. In 1956 he predicted that by 2010 US annual gas production would be 4 TCF. But in 2010, US wells produced more than 26 TCF of gas.

The flaw of Peak Oil theory is that it assumes the amount of a resource is a static number determined solely by geological factors. But the size of an exploitable resource also depends upon price and technology. These factors are very difficult to predict.

The US oil industry began in 1859 when Colonel Edwin Drake hired blacksmith Billy Smith to drill a 69-foot-deep well. Subsequent technological advances have opened up resources beyond the limits of our ancestors' imaginations. We can drill offshore in water up to eight-thousand feet deep. We have enhanced recovery techniques, horizontal drilling, and four-dimensional seismic imaging. Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm is turning North Dakota into Saudi Arabia by utilizing hydraulic fracturing technology. US oil production has reversed its forty-year long decline. By the year 2020, it is anticipated that the US will be the world's top oil producer.

For at least a hundred years, people have repeatedly warned that the world is running out of oil. In 1920, the US Geological Survey estimated that the world contained only 60 billion barrels of recoverable oil. But to date we have produced more than 1000 billion barrels and currently have more than 1500 billion barrels in reserve. World petroleum reserves are at an all-time high. The world is awash in a glut of oil. Conventional oil resources are currently estimated to be in the neighborhood of ten trillion barrels. The resource base is growing faster than production can deplete it.

In addition to conventional oil, the US has huge amounts of unconventional oil resources that remain untouched. The western US alone has 2000 billion barrels of oil in the form of oil shales. At a current consumption rate of 7 billion barrels a year, that's a 286-year supply.

Nine years ago, I predicted that "the age of petroleum has only just begun." I was right. The Peak Oil theorists, the malthusians, and the environmentalists were all wrong. They have been proven wrong, over and over again, for decades. A tabulation of every failed prediction of resource exhaustion would fill a library.

Sustainability is a chimera. No energy source has been, or ever will be, sustainable. In the eleventh century, Europeans anticipated the industrial revolution by transforming their society from dependence on human and animal power to water power. In the eighteenth century, water power was superseded by steam engines fired by burning wood. Coal replaced wood, and oil and gas have now largely supplanted coal. In the far distant future we will probably utilize some type of nuclear power. But for at least the next hundred years, oil will remain our primary energy source because it is abundant, inexpensive, and reliable.

Petroleum is the lifeblood of our industrial economy. The US economy will remain stagnant and depressed until we begin aggressively to develop our native energy resources. As Harold Hamm has said, "we can do this." What's stopping us is not geology, but ignorance and bad public policy.

9 April, 2012

David Deming is associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma. His book, Black & White: Politically Incorrect Essays on Politics, Culture, Science, Religion, Energy and Environment, is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

LewRockwell.com

Fight on

In great or small station, in Cabinet or in the firing line, alive or dead, my policy is, 'Fight on'.

WS Churchill

Under Griffin those results just keep on getting better

Liberal Democrats win Kingston by-election by narrowest of margins

The Liberal Democrats have held the Grove ward by-election by the narrowest of margins - against a backdrop of a very low turnout. Rebekah Moll defeated her closest rival Conservative barrister Adrian Amer by just 23 votes after a dramatic recount after midnight. But only 25.7 percent of the electorate bothered to vote.

The new Lib Dem councillor said: "It feels great. After the recount it is always exciting and makes the high more dramatic I think."

Conservative Adrian Amer, who came close to breaking the Liberal Democrat's stranglehold on the ward, said: "I feel elated. Very encouraging. A positive result and I am proud of the result."

"I am happy with what we achieved. I am grateful for all those that voted for me."

Labour's Laurie South, whose share of the vote increased as he tried win a seat back on the council for his party, said: "On the doorstep a lot of people were saying we are fed up with this but we don't want a Tory and don't know what to do.

"We need real debate not vacuous throwing around of slang."

Last time, in 2010, the Liberal Democrats had a majority of more than 500 votes.

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative MP for Richmond Park and north Kingston tweeted to congratulate his colleagues.

He said: "It is an enormous victory. You've turned a rock solid Lib Dem seat - in the Lib Dem heartland - into a razor's edge marginal."

Adrian Amer (Conservative) - 687 votes

David Child (British National Party) - 23 votes 1.1%

Ryan Coley (Green Party) - 123 votes 5.87%

Rebekah Moll (Liberal Democrats) - 710 votes

Jonathan Rudd (Christian People's Alliance) - 56 votes 2.67%

Laurie South (Labour) - 440 votes

Michael Watson (UK Independence Party) - 56 votes 2.67%

yourlocalguardian.co.uk

Regrets, he's had a few

Adam Walker: turning Japanese?

Adam Walker is an unpatriotic disgrace. When he went to Japan a couple of years ago, representing the BNP at an international conference, he visited some swine of a shrine that was partly dedicated to the worst Japanese war criminals, who had been responsible for acts of sadistic cruelty against British servicemen during World War Two.

Not satisfied with that, Walker attempted to extenuate the bestial crimes of these oriental monsters by telling the media that "All sides in a war commit crimes" and that "They [viz, the war criminals] were doing what they believed to be their duty", or words to that effect. Typical Griffinite logic. Say anything to get yourself off the hook and the truth be damned.

I say we should have hanged many more of those sadistic swine at the end of the War than we actually did.

Walker deserves to languish in prison for the dishonour he brought on the memory of our brave lads of the Forgotten Army and the dishonour he has brought on the BNP, through this and his other crimes. He and Griffin should share a cell together.

"You too" is no defence

It is no defence to charges of crime and corruption against members of the BNP's leadership team for any of the party's members or supporters to point at the corrupt parties of the Establishment, Lib-Lab-Con, and to say "Look how many criminals they have in their ranks".

It matters not one iota whether these other parties have a greater or a lesser proportion of rotten apples in them than the BNP.

The point is that the BNP should be different, in the sense of holding itself to a much more rigorous code of ethics. The BNP should be so much better than these other parties that the question does not even arise, since the answer to it is so obvious.

But instead of this what do we find? We find the very worst elements within the party promoted to its most senior positions and allowed virtually to run amuck, the only stipulation demanded of them being blind obedience to Mr Griffin personally, rather than loyalty to the party as a whole.

It is amongst the party's most senior officers, to whom the grass roots and activists should be able to look for a good example to follow, that we find the worst behaviour within the party. And for this, of course, the party leader, Mr Griffin, is fairly and squarely to blame. He it is who appointed these men, grossly unsuitable as they are. He, it is who continues to attempt to defend the indefensible by keeping them in their positions and by doing so drags the name of the BNP ever more deeply through the mire.

While it is extremely damaging for any political party to have a senior officer convicted of a serious criminal offence, one that may well attract a custodial sentence, it is even more damaging for this to happen to a party which is sustained almost entirely by the patriotic idealism and selflessness of volunteers.

For those volunteers are voting with their feet and leaving the party in their droves, out of sheer disgust at Mr Griffin's gross mismanagement and proven incompetence for continued leadership. They are joining the nine-tenths of the party, including its best activists and most generous donors, who have already left over the last two years, in despair at Griffin's depredations.

These good people remain dedicated nationalists and only await the right appeal to their patriotic nature to rally to the cause again. But this time it must be to a party that is a worthy representative of that cause, rather than a grubby little get-rich-quick scheme for one man and his family.

New party now!

What will have changed if the new party is launched in the autumn? The answer is that much will have changed since the autumn of last year to improve the prospects of a new party's superseding the BNP. During those twelve months the BNP's membership and electoral fortunes have sunk progressively lower, to the point at which it has become clear to all, friend and foe alike, that it has no future as an effective political party. Its only future now is as a cash cow for Clan Griffin and even that is rapidly disappearing as its remaining members continue to desert it in droves.

Andrew Brons was quite right to have been cautious about founding a new party and to have deferred doing so until it became clear to everyone that there was absolutely no chance of the BNP either recovering, or of its leader being replaced, or of its being wound up by the courts, or de-registered by the Electoral Commission. Since last autumn the BNP has continued  to suffer a net loss of members on a monthly basis and has suffered the worst electoral humiliation in its history at the London Mayoral and Assembly elections in May. At the same time, neither the smaller nationalist and quasi-nationalist parties (the seven dwarfs), nor UKIP, have been able to exploit the BNP's decline in order to make any spectacular electoral progress themselves. This clearly demonstrates that there is a niche in the market and a sizeable one at that, for a new, broad church nationalist party, with the respectability that the BNP, NF and British Freedom lack and the ethno-nationalist platform that UKIP and the EDP lack.

The recent by-election in Kingston upon Thames in which the BNP candidate received 23 votes (1.1%) and was soundly beaten by both UKIP and the Greens, confirms that the BNP is not coming back. And yet all the evidence of survey data tells us that the BNP's policies themselves remain more popular than those of any other party. What is the explanation for this paradox? Griffin claims that the BNP performs better when Labour is in government than when it is in opposition. However, it should be remembered that the party won its first council seat (in 1993) when Labour was in opposition. The more important reason for the abysmal electoral performance of the party is Griffin's profound unpopularity, with both voters and the party's few remaining activists and members. About this he remains silent.

Our people and our country cannot afford us to eschew electoral politics for the next five years as some propose. The recent election results in France and in Greece show that the appetite for a nationalist alternative to the failed neo-liberal orthodoxy of the EU and the British Establishment is there. Our people are suffering and it is our duty to step up to the mark with a political solution and not to shrink from the necessary political struggle, whether that be with the traitors of the Establishment or with treacherous nationalist sell-outs like Griffin and his family business.

Griffin employee is a spiteful thug

BNP activist could face jail after chasing 11-year-old boys

Tuesday 3rd July 2012

By Bruce Unwin, Chief Reporter (Durham)

A BNP activist [the National Organizer, no less] and former teacher could be jailed for driving in pursuit of three boys on bikes whom he believed had been cheeky.

The warning was made to Adam Walker after he admitted dangerous driving following the incident involving three 11-year-old boys in the wake of a St George’s Day march in Spennymoor, County Durham, last year.

Walker, 43, is said to have driven his Land Rover 4x4 vehicle over Tudhoe village green, near Spennymoor, behind one of the boys who was fleeing on his bike.

It followed an earlier verbal confrontation when the boys were ticked off over their use of a bouncy castle outside a pub.

Following the pursuit, all three boys fled into a house for refuge before Walker slashed the tyres on their abandoned bikes with a craft knife [Emphasis added].

He then drove away and was arrested back at the pub, the Green Tree in Tudhoe, an hour later, when he denied involvement.

Walker was subsequently charged with dangerous driving, affray, possessing a bladed article and three counts of criminal damage.

He previously admitted possessing the knife and the three charges of damaging the bike tyres, but he denied the driving and affray allegations.

The case was adjourned for a trial scheduled to start at Durham Crown Court yesterday, where he changed his plea to guilty to dangerous driving.

Walker continued to deny affray, but admitted the lesser public order charge of using threatening, abusive or insulting words and behaviour.

Prosecuting barrister Amanda Rippon said the Crown could accept those pleas.

Mr Morgan asked for background reports to be prepared on Walker by the Probation Service prior to sentence.

Recorder Simon Phillips agreed but said, given the dangerous driving admission, he was minded to impose an interim driving disqualification.

Mr Morgan asked for Walker, of Winchester Court, Spennymoor, to be allowed to continue to drive until the day he is sentenced.

“He conducts driving duties for a member of the European Parliament [viz, Nick Griffin],” he said.

“His fairly extensive duties extend to driving people, delivering equipment and assisting with visits by that member of European parliament to visit people.

“No arrangements have been made for alternatives to be put in place.”

But Recorder Phillips refused the request. He set a provisional date for sentence of August 13 and bailed Walker.

However, he told him: “In adjourning I make it plain all sentencing options remain open, including custody.”

The exact length of the driving disqualification will also be set at sentence.

Northern Echo