Peak Oil 1 year later.

[wulimaster]

Last year on March 15th I posted a one liner asking people to look up "peak oil" on a google search.

http://theoildrop.server101.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000421#000010

Nobody responded so I let it go for about 7 more months before I mentioned it again.

Now that it is becoming one of the hot topics going around the net,


http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=222982004

it is time for a cover story to discredit it so that those who follow only the mainline media are not affected by it and it can quickly be dismissed.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/business/05_03_04_g.asp


Now the politicians can respond to questions about it with the story that all is fine until at least 2052.

I believe the above story will quickly become common knowledge.


Now when you fail to see any movement toward any alternatives in the immediate future you wont wonder why they ( the government) are not acting to do something about it.

Of course the price of gas will continue to rise and be blamed on something else. That darn OPEC cartel is cutting production and costing us.

Plan B (really the only viable plan) continues on its course.

 

[Drew99GT]

Why not develop clean, alternative energy sources here in the US, faze out crude based energy, and watch the Arab world quickly fall into udder economic stagnation (they're already there for 99.9999% of the arab population, thanks to despotism)? Remember, Saudi Arabia is our allie

wink wink.

[ March 09, 2004, 02:24 AM: Message edited by: Drew99GT ]

 

[Mark in NY]

Since I learned of the term - "Peak Oil" I have been careful not to see every sign point to the end of life as we know it. I have watched this same Chicken-Little scenerio unfold during the run up in gold prices, the petro "problems" of 1973 and 1979 etc.

Having said that;

There are a few variables that allow the magical peak oil year to be within a window of a few decades. What appear to be 2 of the largest variables beyond the general state of the world economy is (1) the growing economy of mainland China with its massive population and (2) mistakes in estimates of the worldwide petroleum reserves.
Some interesting news items of late as reported in New York Newsday during March 2004.

The steep runup in US retail gas prices is due not only to concern over the continuing bombings in Iraq, potential for terrorist bombings along the Saudi Arabia pipeline but because of a "surprisingly strong" increase in demand by China's economy in a period of minor growth in the overall world economy.

And today 3/19/04:
(Newsday, as reported by AP)
On top of Shell's stunning 20% downgrade to the size of its world reserves in January, yesterday a total of 470 million barrels were removed from the reserve catgory.


Food for thought.

 

[labman]

The supply of oil is not going to fall off a cliff. Without government intervention, including OPEC insanity, prices will slowly climb causing people to rethink using a 3 ton truck to haul the kids to soccer practice. People may even start deciding it is worth paying more for a house to live closer to work, or take a lower paying job closer to home. No, we are not going to be able to continue to live like we are. Unless the government steps in and messes things up, we will adjust and still live a decent life.

 

[Mark in NY]

Unless of course if you have 2 oil men in the White House and the primary interest is to pump the max to the very last day........

BUT

Forgive my bias but if $3 gas would get all the SUV's off the road, I think I would vote for $3 gas.

OK, I'm crouching low, fire back

 

[Mark in NY]

quote:

---

Originally posted by labman:
The supply of oil is not going to fall off a cliff. Without government intervention, including OPEC insanity, prices will slowly climb causing people to rethink using a 3 ton truck to haul the kids to soccer practice. People may even start deciding it is worth paying more for a house to live closer to work, or take a lower paying job closer to home. No, we are not going to be able to continue to live like we are. Unless the government steps in and messes things up, we will adjust and still live a decent life.

---

Good counterpoint especially since even at $3/gal it is a DISCOUNT compared to what other folks around the world have paid all along. Little wonder we waste so very much.
Judging by what I saw in the 70's it is indeed possible to experience a rapid and drastic change in consumption patterns based on simple supply and demand. This can happen without it being the end of the world.
The single biggest mistake would be for the US government to do everything possible to keep costs low spurring consumption while shunning conservation moves until it really is too late.
As far as getting good info on this topic-keep in mind it is in the best interests of the entire petroleum industry to let this talk of peak oil spread in order to justify higher prices.

Long before the internet - I read very interesting excerpts from the Congressional Record on testimony of oil company executives concerning the "oil depletion allowance" and other issues of tax law that affected them.
Now as then it is in their best interest to have the customer believe the oil is running out within our lifetimes.
Is it really happening now? As much of the printed material states - you know for sure after the fact how much petro really was in a particular well, field, basin etc.
Conservation should be made a priority whether peak is this year or next century.

With the excetion of a sudden non-reversable climate change, I will put my faith in market forces to balance petro supply/demand and spur alternate fuels use without expecting the end of the world.

 

[Gary Allan]

quote:

---

With the exception of a sudden non-reversable climate change, I will put my faith in market forces to balance petro supply/demand and spur alternate fuels use without expecting the end of the world.

---

Well, I think you said it there. I'm sure we can make toasters that consume half as much electricity and cars that get better bang for the gallon ..but until market pressures make these things economically vaiable ..it ain't gonna happen.

I believe that we are sitting on a rather substantial coal reserve. Although I'm sure someone has conflicting data the estimate (naturally by the coal industry) was somewhere along a 200 year supply at triple the current conspumption. I imagine that this figure would shrink a good bit if much of it was processed for "shale oil".

 

[wulimaster]

Exxon has drawn a pretty interesting picture from their perspective. See the following website for a look at the chart from their paper.

http://www.peakoil.net/

or in case the page changes you can

look at the report on page 5 for the green and red chart.

http://www.peakoil.net/Publications/20040201ExxonMobil.pdf

 

[wulimaster]

A little more on peak oil from:

http://www.asponews.org/HTML/Newsletter35.html#263

273. Is this a portent?
The September issue of World Oil reports that Chevron-Texaco plans to dispose of 550 filling stations in the United States; 900 in Asia and Africa; retail and refining operations in Europe, South America, Australia and the Middle East; and exploration and production holdings in North America, the North Sea and Papua. The company evidently does not anticipate expanding throughput to feed its downstream, yet hopes to deliver strong earnings to Wall Street. It sounds like the actions of a company planning a profitable decline strategy, which indeed would be realistic given the pending peak and decline of world production. In the past, the major companies organised themselves to make most money at the wellhead for tax reasons, operating the downstream sometimes even at a loss. But now as their proprietory production dwindles they are progressively forced into the role of mere traders, selling oil purchased from the Middle East. It follows that that have to make the downstream more profitable, so it is logical that they should sell off low performing elements in their empires. The action does nevertheless deliver a broader message.

 

[wulimaster]

Here is mainstream medias take on peak oil.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/w...00&en=01c0aec0bb907816&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

and another

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/21/RESERVES.TMP

Notice how a little rewriting of history about how peak oil was predicted time and time again and didn't come to pass because of this or that. This is not true. During those times of oil price peaks there was never any talk of global peak oil and the reasons were political.

This article tries to play down peak oil. Knowledge of peak oil is spreading to fast via the internet so the soft cover stories are being put out in the mainstream media to calm the masses and disuade them from seeking out any facts on the internet should they be introduced to the topic via friends or other means.

Expect more of the same type articles in the future.

Meanwhile, the price will just keep going up and up.

That part about converting natural gas and oil sands was misleading. LNG will be needed to replace the NG shortfalls in the US and wont be used as a replacement. The sand extraction will be very energy intensive, Canada capped off 900 natural gas wells near the sands to provide readily available cheap energy for the extraction at a later date. This will keep the extraction viable for a time without costs rising to the point where extraction becomes much more expensive in dollars as higher priced LNG has to be transported for the extraction. Without the gas or a nuclear power plant to provide the energy for extraction and conversion the extraction will have to be powered by the oil from the sands. This would cut extraction to probably 1/4 as 3/4 of the energy produced would be used for the extraction and conversion.

[ April 05, 2004, 05:49 AM: Message edited by: wulimaster ]

 

[needtoknow]

Those that think we should just leave this problem to market forces (no gov) will get a solution. But I think that it will be sudden and drastic with little time to compensate. As I posted before if the government developed an overall energy strategy (not Bush's present pork one) with a much higher tax, say $2.00+/gal set to take place say 5 years down the road then we would have some time to adjust knowing a crunch will come. The Peak Oil theory fits with a discussion by the Smalley Group saying this world needs to develope a replacement for oil if it is to survive past about the next 50 years. While Europeans have been conserving for years the US has been wasting that saving.

 

[labman]

The failure of the goverment to have enacted a large tax on oil long before this proves the goverment won't do anything until it is too late. This problem was well known long before Bush was president. Nixon was president when we had our first wake up call. Neither he, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, nor the second Bush has done much. Kerry's proposals are a joke.

 

[wulimaster]

A tax would have an incremental effect throughout the economy. Why give the government more money to give to pork which will increase the cost of all goods and services including the automobiles which will increase prices and blame it on an increase in costs of production to give the consumer a whopping 1-2% increase in fuel economy.

Why not save all that money and just pass a bill requiring new cars to meet 20% better fuel economy or a fixed CAFE of 20% better fleet including light trucks. Then the costs will only be passed to the consumer of new cars. The total costs to the population will be much lower and something that actually helps will have been done.

Stop talking taxes or you will get the worst solution to the problem. Doing nothing would be better.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

We need a way to make clean energy from our greatest natural resource.

Garbage.

 

[blano]

With out Government freebies won by the corn lobby Etanol/methanol is a big loser.

 

[blano]

With out Government freebies won by the corn lobby Etanol/methanol is a big loser.

 

[Shannow]

quote:

---

Originally posted by GROUCHO MARX:
We need a way to make clean energy from our greatest natural resource.

Garbage.

---

Groucho, look up Thermal Depolymerisation Plant

It's one of the most important new developments that the world has seen, I believe.

The first plant at a turkey processing plant is reportedly making 60 barrels a day from turkey guts.

 

[blano]

Id like to see more money being poured into fusion reactors. With a fusion reactor we could have a hydrogen based economy that would be much cleanerand ultimatly cheaper than the current hydro carbon based sytem.

 

[labman]

quote:

---

Originally posted by blano:
Id like to see more money being poured into fusion reactors. With a fusion reactor we could have a hydrogen based economy that would be much cleanerand ultimatly cheaper than the current hydro carbon based sytem.

---

I don't know if we will ever manage to build safe atomic power plants. I see no other way to make hydrogen work.

 

[needtoknow]

Labman,
you are right in that it shows we (voters) want honesty but are unwilling to vote for it. I do think Kerry has no solution under his present policy but if he advocated higher prices or taxes to push conservation then it would be plastered over the airwaves by Bush Campaign. Bush's strategy seems to be to lie low and blame it on OPEC or market forces. In the meantime he and his oil buddies are raking it in.

Wulimaster, I'm only talking policy alternatives. Your idea about higher CAFE even though a good one, was shot down by Bush on the last go-around. Trent Lott said at the time that Americans should be able to drive any vehicle they choose without the gov. dictating CAFE. A tax is not the entire solution only part. I agree that the tax could/would be shifted to pork unrelated to conservation but that is why I posted earlier about dedicated taxes, to keep politicians from using it for re-election bids in their home states. In Europe the cost of fuel relative to taxes is low. That's one reason here taxes are kept lower because the oil corporations have such political clout and they know that people have a price threshold and that they want it for profits not the public good. Corporations do not operate by patriotism, good public policy, borders or world good. They only operate on stock price targets. If nothing is done soon we might as well all just party till we drop and enjoy before the real pain begins.