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Whistleblower Claims IEA Is Downplaying Peak Oil
Yesterday the Guardian ran a story based on two anonymous sources inside the International Energy Agency who claimed that the agency had distorted key figures on oil reserves. "The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the [IEA] who claims it has been deliberately
underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves." Today the IEA released its annual energy outlook and rejected the whistleblowers'
charges. The Guardian has an editorial claiming that the economic establishment is too fearful to come clean on the reality of oil suppplies, and makes an analogy with the (marginalized, demonized) economists who warned of a coming economic collapse in 2007.
We might manage to find some more oil if we all stick our heads far enough into the sand, that is basically where it lives...
The answer my friends is blowing in the wind
... I'll have a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster with a side of Plutonium Nyborg
Reality A: No withheld data. Data is disseminated with some initial shock that by 20xx we will have oil shortages. People get a chance to plan accordingly. Private business gets a chance to cash in on better alternatives and more efficient products marketed to the consumer. California starts to look a little less crazy. Gasoline and fuel slowly becomes more expensive over the years as production slows. People adjust.
Reality B: It's 20xx, suddenly there's no oil. Mass panic. People flip out. People die. Fuel shortages lead to water/food/heating shortages lead to war. Private industry doesn't have a chance to adjust. People aren't prepared to buy a new vehicle on the spot. Californians ride the nearest comet to Heaven's Gate. Crime increases, lawlessness arises, civilization breaks down, I'm forced into a Thunderdome with Cowboy Neal for my right to live.
If the IEA is capable of any logic at all, they are not cooking the books or withholding data. What's the motive of retaining data or fixing charts?
My work here is dung.
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington. Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Don't worry though, I'm sure our overlords in the Federal Government will come up with a solution. All we need is more energy conservation and investment in key primary states^W^W^Wethanol to save the day.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Peak oil could reap the oil companies BILLIONS in profits. Don't you think that if any of this were true/reliable, they'd be shouting from the highest peaks?
Error reading device 'Signature'. (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail?
it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
If there is an upcoming shortage, then we WANT to trigger panic buying. That's the way it works. If the supply decreases with no change in demand, the price goes up. If we're about to run out of oil, prices NEED to start increasing, so that the "free market" will force people into the other solutions, like solar, natural gas, and wind, which suddenly aren't so comparatively expensive.
As a point of clarification, the issue is NOT when we will run out of oil. There's enough oil left in the subsurface to last a long time. The issue is how fast we can get it out of the ground. When an economical oil deposit is first discovered, there is a substantial amount of pressure on the oil (think spindletop) and it comes up to the surface of it's own accord. As the oil from the deposit is produced, the pressure drops and the oil ceases eventually coming up by itself all together. After that, you can still get it out of the ground, but you have to pump it and you never get back to the same flow rate.
World population is continually increasing, China and India are rapidly industrializing so demand for oil is going up and up, but the flow rate isn't. This is why we had $147/barrel oil a few years ago, not speculators. It's all supply and demand, but in this case the supply is limited. No amount oil shale or tar sands or deepwater deposits will do us much good because we can't achieve the same flow rate with these deposits as the traditional ones.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
an analogy with the (marginalized, demonized) economists who warned of a coming economic collapse in 2007.
Great. This argument boils down to "Someone who we were told was wrong turned out to be right. Therefore, this other person who we are told is wrong (and by extension everyone who we are told is wrong) must also be right." I have no idea whether or not these whistleblowers are correct or not, but this "argument" by analogy is worse than useless, because it encourages fuzzy thinking.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
These popular conspiracy theories about group X holding back product/information Y are all debunked by a single thought: IF these people are truly smart enough to rule the world (or an aspect of it), they know better than to try to control every single individual in it.
What does this mean? That they are smart enough to follow free markets. They are smart enough to know that they can't predict the future of the stock market, even if they can control an aspect of it. This assumes that these groups do have a level of involvement high enough to control the government, financial and religious institutions WITHOUT being exposed. You really think that a large group of people is capable of holding a secret so large for so long? A president gets a blowjob from an intern and the whole world hears about it. I doubt an army of engineers, scientists and politicians would be quiet about what really goes on in Area 51, killing people with vaccines, peak oil conspiracies or whatever bullshit is popular that day.
So give your conspiracy theories a rest and please report some real news.
Whistle Blowers have agendas too, sometimes. But it's a moot point, because the proper response is the same either way: fast track nuclear plants. There is no other reasonable solution to the inevitable energy problem. We will switch to nuclear at some point or our civilization will collapse.
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington.
Congrats, you just described supply and demand. Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*. Check back in a couple of years or so, and I think you'll find the balance has changed somewhat.
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
*There's also a whole commentary about how smart exactly is was for the US to basically outsource everything. Cost of living is cheap, but the blowback's a bitch.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Oil prices sore today putting transportation at a standstill. Analysts claim that insiders at the IEA admitted to "fudging the numbers" when it came to oil reserves; these bold whistle-blowers are causing the exact market panic that the IEA was trying to avoid in the first place.
Wall Street is getting ready for $10/gallon and bailout 2.0
Isn't it better that we start exploiting our own oil reserves when the prices reach astronomically high levels?
I'm pretty sure OPEC allocates allowed production levels by each country's "known reserves", giving the rulers of those countries all kinds of incentive to exaggerate their reserves.
The medieval Saudi despots and thugs like Hugo Chavez want to grab all the money they can while THEY'RE alive.
That would create an artificial abundance of oil, artificially depressing prices for no other reason to hide the terrible secret of PEAK OIL.
Never let it be said that paranoid loons are confined to the right. The religious left has just as many.
And I can find an editorial in The Guardian that argues Stalinism is better than capitalism. So an editorial in the Guardian aint worth much.
More specifically, speak cheap and easy energy is important.
Right now we have easy access to oil, coal, natural gas, and in some places, hydro- and other power sources.
On the horizon are not-so-cheap but getting-cheaper-and-easier-every-decade sources such as new drilling technologies to recover fossil fuels that were previously infeasible to recover, solar power, wind power, wave power, and other sources.
As long as energy prices rise slowly enough so there isn't a panic, yet fast enough to spur investment in higher-than-current-oil-price-per-gigajoule fuel sources, we should be fine.
Yes, there is a finite supply of non-renewable energy. However, if you are willing to pay the equivalent of $150/barrel for that energy, it's a lot less finite than if you are only willing to pay $75. When it comes to most forms of renewable energy including wind, wave, and solar, there may be a limit on the wattage and transport of that energy, but there is virtually no limit on the number of years we can use it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Why don't I listen to Peak Oilers or read their articles?
Because everything they say is either fantastically basic and self-explanatory, based on armchair assessments of the situation, or purely based on speculation.
Of sayings that fall in the first category, we find "The world will run out of oil" - "some time in the next 10/20/30/60 years we will reach a plateau in the amount of hydrocarbons produced" - "we cannot extract hydrocarbons infinitely" - "people think they can substitute gas, but do we have infinite gas? No we don't" - all of these things I was aware of at the age of 10. There is nothing interesting in it whatsoever, for values of 'interesting' that also include 'new'.
Of sayings in the second category, we find "the world will descend into chaos" - "it will be the war to end all wars" - etc. This is pure speculation. And the reason this is speculation is enshrined in the third point I would like to make:
Nobody knows what will happen. Once we have reached the "peak", how long will it take to actually "run out"? In the meantime, how high will the prices go, and how much will supply be extended as a result of the fall in demand resulting from increasing prices? How will people adapt to a situation where there is limited and rationed hydrocarbons? How will society be reshaped? Will Joe Bloggs pull out a gun and start shooting as soon as he is told? Or will he just get on the bus, along with his children who will never see personal vehicles like today? What will be the cost in living standard of this? How much of the cost can be balanced by what spending on research in renewable energy, what theoretical limits does renewable energy has, and most importantly, in the time to (peak oil plus the duration of the decline), how far can technology come? Furthermore, what attention should we devote to Peak Oil as a threat, as opposed to other possible threats, including global warming, Western aging, migration, raw materials, the state of the global economy over the next year?
If Peak Oilers actually had anything interesting what-so-ever to say on these things, I might actually start listening to them. Because I read with great interest articles on Slashdot about fission and fusion, about energy efficiency, solar cells, etc. So do pretty much everyone with an above average interest in the world, I would say. But very few of them actually bother to buy the books of Peak Oilers or read their articles. This is simply because all Peak Oilers say is "We will reach a point called a 'peak' and it's game over from there and it is the death of everything you know, hurr durr durr [beard scratching, knowing-and-condescending-smirk]". No numbers, no reliable forecasts, no credible and very well-researched and plausible answers to any of the previous questions. Just armchair philosophy and speculation. If Peak Oiler is a job that you can survive on with a good income, then hell - I WANT THAT JOB MORE THAN ANYTHING,
If you're a Peak Oiler who feel a lack of respect, try spending your entire life saying something else than what billions of people already know. Just a hint.
I have no reason to trust to anonymous sources, so why should I?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
By the time that happens we won't have any money left to exploit them with and it will be the Saudi's pumping oil out of the Midwest.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Judging by Brazil's exploits, by actually spending, as Brazil does, some 40 dollars per barrel in operational costs(deep sea exploration), I think peak oil might still be 100 years away. Hopefully big oil's addiction to their own criminal profiteering will lead them to cleaner(more profitable by a factor of 100) alternatives, unless they figure they are rich enough already, and decide to take a "moral" stand to us mere mortals.
Lets just examine this for a moment-
whistleblower alleges that profit oriented entities (oil companys) are engaged in a conspiracy to withold data (hiding current and future shortages of oil) in regard to the future trending of oil markets which would have an effect on todays supply and hence price from now until forever, effectively passing on the profit making panic that would ensue right here and right now and never mind the gouging of 2008 where billions were reaped despite not apparent shortages of supply
if anything, 2008 shows the lengths these entities will go to promote and oil panic where there is none and with wall streets full complicity, what you thought financial derivaties were the only dildo we shoved up the ass of the american taxpayer let alone the suckers in international markets
this is about as sound as obamanomics and of course emanates from the green idiots who cannot seem to understand we dont want to freeze in winter, we dont want to starve in general and we dont want to die in the OR while getting our triple bypass and we dont want any of this for our families, friends, country, city, town etc.
what i look forward to is the massive die off of the greenies when they eschew modern life and retreat to the woods barefoot and naked
Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
You really ought to learn what Godwin's Law is before you start citing it:
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
I don't recall making any comparisons. I used a tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe environmental extremists that won't be happy until mankind reverts to a hunter-gatherer culture or dies out entirely.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If you know a famine is coming, clearly the first thing you should do is slaughter your own herds, plow through your fields with salt and drain your wells. Why wait or, you know, stock up? Krazy talk.
Firstly, the term "enviro-nazi" has become a meme. I would argue that Godwin hardly applies here.
Secondly, because Godwin's Law does not take into account whether referencing nazis is appropriate to the discussion, it's become a half-assed method of trying to avoid any meaningful rebuttal all together -- usually by nazis. You're not a nazi, are you?
sig: sauer
You're not a nazi, are you?
Actually, I am. Bastards get results.
meaningful rebuttal
Yes, let's ignore everything I said except the bit about Godwin.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Here's a tinfoil-hat theory for ya: Leaders know Peak Oil is coming, but they don't want everybody to freak out about it, so instead they make a huge push to address another crisis, maybe one that can appear more urgent: Anthropogenic Climate Change. Environmental treaties are already in place, and there's a proven path to change direction on a global scale out of concern for the environment. Not so out of anticipated future economic issues. And oh, what a nice coincidence, things we do to address Climate Change also leave us in better shape for dealing with Peak Oil. How about that!
Yeah, there's nothing tongue-in-cheek about saying you hate someone, when you hate them.
Invoking the nazis to prove you're right and the other guy is wrong... Godwin said someone would, so it might as well be you.
Changa hates change.
I would argue that Godwin applies perfectly here. That it has been allowed to become a "meme" just means a significant part of the political spectrum have commited Godwin on themselves - and in the usual Godwin way, made fools of themselves.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
There is nothing wrong with breaking the idiotic Godwin's Law.
I quote:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/muslims-feel-like-jews-of-europe-859978.html
Actually I don't quote, I just paste the text in the URL. People draw comparisons with nazism and Hitler and the "final solution" pretty much every day. Invoking Hitler is OK.
10,000 unused domestic and offshore drilling permits exist. That's 10,000 potential wells that the energy industry has permission to "exploit" but chooses not to. Don't blame it all on "enviro-nazis".
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
At current oil prices, yes.
Also, apologies for the Godwin crack. I just love poking people when they get all huffy. "Enviro-nazis"! SNORT!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
that's funny?
Maybe I'm the exception, but gas is a very small part of my recurring bills. If gas prices double or triple, maybe I'll skip a new video game or dinner out every month. Whoop-de-do. And the price of shipping goods will increase. So I'll pay $0.79 instead of $0.59 for a potato. I'm just not quaking in my boots. The biggest overlooked fact of peak oil is that it will be a gradual decline as more oil recovery methods become economically feasible. So over the rest of my life, I suspect there will eventually be a cheaper mode of transportation than gas-powered cars. But for now, I'll stick with the convenience of 400 miles/fill-up, gas stations everywhere, and transportation costs (including car payment) below 15% of my income.
You say "environmental extremeists" as though it's one word.
Environmentalism has a long grey scale that you might be unfamiliar with. And like both current political leanings, there are a lot of other vectors to understand, too.
FWIW, I firmly believe that there's far more oil, pumpable at low cost, than we even know about. The problem isn't exporting oil dollars. The problem isn't exploiting domestic sources. The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Where did you get that figure? I keep track of this daily:
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/
We've been flirting with $80/bbl for quite some time.
I'm all for drilling for domestic oil. The problem is, if we drilled every damned energy positive, profitable will in the continental US and it's territorial waters, it probably wouldn't hold back peak oil a year (figures on www.theoildrum.com)
Granted, a year is a lot, particularly if your alternative during that year is "starvation."
But as usual, the liberal/conservative conflict is just bugs in a jar being shaken so they'll fight. Oil doesn't care. Physics doesn't care. Argue all you want, but the day it takes a barrel's worth of energy to get a barrel out of the ground (the problem we *really* need to watch, not peak oil, per se), it will start to become a remarkably unpleasant day.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
In the future every entity will have an associated conspiracy theory, for 15 minutes.
Proverbs 21:19
Reality A: No withheld data. Data is disseminated with some initial shock that by 20xx we will have oil shortages. People get a chance to plan accordingly. Private business gets a chance to cash in on better alternatives and more efficient products marketed to the consumer. California starts to look a little less crazy..."
Er, what? A "little less crazy"?!? Fat chance in hell there. Sorry if I don't go jumping on any ideas that CA has cooked up. Their financial mess is second only to the Federal Government...Yeah, speaking of Fascinatingly Bizarre Logic, with the bailout clusterfuck, an oil shortage will be damn near the least of my worries for the next couple of generations...
Besides, we're talking about oil here, which the very subject bleeds of greed and corruption, and usually has jack shit to do with tree hugging hippies. The end will likely be much like the beginning with the insanely rich floating away on a Platinum-lined parachute.
And if we knew how to "plan accordingly", we probably wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
By the time that happens we won't have any money left to exploit them with and it will be the Saudi's pumping oil out of the Midwest.....
That's actually a good thing. The Midwest is closer than Iraq, so it will be easy to invade. The locals might even welcome us as liberators!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
At current oil prices, yes.
So under your economic reality it's better for the House of Saud to employ labor under conditions that resemble slavery while pocketing the bulk of the profits (using some of them to finance Islamic extremism) than it would be for American companies to employ American workers for a honest wage while returning their profits to American shareholders?
That's an interesting conclusion that you've reached.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
From an american standpoint that is a wonderful way of WINNING in the long term. What do you think will happen when the middle east runs out and your local resources are intact?
Yeah, thats what I fear. As a peace-loving european hippy.
My understanding of Godwin's law is not that referencing Nazis is bad (after all, they were a part of history). He just observed that eventually, if a fight goes on long enough, someone will make reference to them. He did not opine if that was bad or good.
Personally I think it's rather silly we can't talk about tyrants or their tyrannical governments. Even if I invoke a different tyrant to make my point, like Communist Dictator Nicholae Ceasescu, I still get accused of Godwining myself. It's like a blatant censorship of history, and the willful decision to put blinders over your eyes and deny that governments can, from time to time, be destructive to their own citizens.
Foolishness.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
To the corporations in charge? Yes.
It is amazing how the Guardian manages to scoop everybody else. I've read investigative articles in that paper that no other news source will even comment on, never mind publish.
This is a quick way to make the validity of any point you are making take a backseat to your being an asshat.
Did it ever occur to you that the oil that exists under public lands belongs to the public? If it's true that there is so much oil "under the Dakotas" then why should we pay oil companies for it? You make it sound like all we have to do is put a spigot on all the lovely oil under our feet and we'll never need to make another Saudi rich.
And you say renewable energy is a scam. No matter how you shake and dance, the worst thing that would come from increasing drilling on domestic lands is that people will continue to be convinced that fossil fuels are a free lunch. As the yields on existing fields continue to level off and then decline, and prices inevitably go way way up, it's going to be interesting to hear you cry about why we didn't get off fossil fuels when we had the chance.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You say "environmental extremeists" as though it's one word.
You are reading things into my post that aren't there. I consider myself a conservationist. My problem is (as already mentioned) with the extremists of the environmentalist movement that aren't happy with ANY solution to our current problems. The anti-nuclear lobby is a pretty good example of environmentalists shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how much CO2 wouldn't have been released into the atmosphere if we had continued building new nuclear power plants rather than caving to the FUD back in the 80s?
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
What soot? Modern automobiles have catalytic converters and emit mostly CO2 and H2O. The CO2 may prove to be a problem in the long term but the "soot" issue was solved a long time ago.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What would Rush Limbaugh do?
Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Americans apparently HAVE decided this is so. If they really cared, they would have cut back buying inefficient trucks and SUVs that are, basically, just a fashion statement.
All of that soot is definitely a good thing if you are into making ink and homemade paper.
What's great about something like this is that it's the perfect conspiracy theory. If you *believe* in Peak Oil, absolutely nothing the industry shows you--charts, graphs, sonic measurements, etc.--will convince you that "they" aren't lying and trying to conceal the truth. If you *don't* believe in Peak Oil, the folks who do are still whack-jobs no matter what their latest line is. Bonus points if you credit a *reverse* conspiracy on the part of greenies/socialists/oneworlders/etc. to use a fake crisis to sway public opinion. Sigh.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Yes.
We should save U.S. oil (and coal) until the rest of the world is dried-out (circa 2030), and then sell the oil on the open market at exorbitant prices. We can use that money to pay-off our enormous 30 trillion dollar debt.
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force. A two-front war of the US v China and US v EU could be interesting. But who knows? Difficult to see the future is - always changing it is.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
So we buy cheap oil from them now and sell them expensive oil then. Sounds like an awesome deal to me (for us, anyway.)
So under your economic reality
That's an interesting conclusion that you've reached.
No me, you retard, that's the way it is. You seem to think a few greens and their tame puppets in DC are responsible for most of the mess we're in, and I clued you in that maybe it was a little more attenuated than that, upon which your reply is to accuse me of being an unrealistic daydreamer?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Fine, I'm calling them enviro-facists now.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It doesn't matter if there is more or not. The total determines the price. THe more simply means we'll be the last to fall, assuming an equal rate of use. However we use a lot more oil than other similar countries so that oil is a mitigating factor and if you think it's going to be sold at a discount to those in the US w/o some sort of government intervention then you are going to be in for a rude surprise.
To the corporations in charge? Yes.
Ah yes. The "corporations". It's all their fault. If only the "corporations" would go away we could all love each other and live in a commune somewhere......
You do realize that the bulk of the cost of your gasoline is paid to the countries that the crude comes from and that "big oil" is only a middle man, right?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"Economic reality" is the key phrase in making this conclusion true. Might not be tasteful, but economically, yes, it makes sense.
The reality is that we will NEVER run out of oil! Many people lie, and the rest are too stupid to realise the folly of their words. Still others just want to push their own agenda — but the reality is that we will never run out of oil.
Imagine you're in a big room full of peanuts. And you open the shell, eat the nut, and throw the shell aside. Eventually, it will be harder and harder to find a peanut, because you'll be finding increasingly more peanut shells with no peanut inside.
The same story is with oil. It will just be harder and harder to find the oil, and the price will rise to reflect the increased costs of getting it. But there will always be some oil, somewhere, to be drilled. We will NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL!!!
That's why we must get rid of all the damn boota-bata Arabs and stake our claim to that sweet, sweet oil, to protect America from terrists, 9/11 etc. We could also rescue the abundant Saudi women who are stunningly gorgeous but have to spend their entire lives in the garage, never driven and perpetually covered in sheets like neglected prize Corvettes.
Additionally, we should lock up people like the Bushes and the Cheneys and the Liebermans - we are mighty America and we fight for the country, not for Dick's bonus and vacation home. We do not need to pander to the Jews and the Arabs.
There is more than one version of Godwin's law. You quoted a depreciated version that only applies to Usenet.
Sure he can, and almost certainly does on a regular basis. He'll also tell you that increasing levels of carbon in the atmosphere is a wonderful thing, sure to turn the Earth into a veritable Eden, and anyone who believes otherwise is a greedy "enviro-nazi" who's just raking in the cash from being an environmentalist, unlike the altruistic multinational oil companies who are just trying to do their Christian duty by providing us with fuel for our humvees, humbly expecting nothing in return but our gratitude.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's interesting that many people tend to implicitly accept as true whatever is alledged; provided that it's alledged by a "whistleblower".
I'll have to try this sometime... I'll be the whistleblower who says I deserve a raise and then see if my boss gives me one. Sweet!
Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
The nation that runs out of oil last will wield incredible power - "100 years of global hegemony" as the PNAC put it. Don't worry, all that lovely domestic oil will be used up. Once everyone else has run out.
And here is the other thing. Many of the Big Oil companies are incorporated in the US, no? America may be a net importer of energy, but those billions of dollars are funnelled through American companies, and they sure know how to buy low and sell high - sometimes to the point of piracy.
I'm sorry, but I think you've only served to reinforce my statement. You offered nothing in the way of argument against the premise that many environmentalists act as nazis. Further, you simply repeated the Godwin claim in an attempt to avoid meaningful rebuttal.
Also, the fact that "enviro-nazi" is a meme certainly applies here. The original post could have said "enviro-droids", "envirotards" or "envirobabies" and the argument would have held all the same. Does replacing one meme with a different one change the Godwin status of a statement?
sig: sauer
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington. Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Don't worry though, I'm sure our overlords in the Federal Government will come up with a solution. All we need is more energy conservation and investment in key primary states^W^W^Wethanol to save the day.
The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that....
People complain about the NIMBYs until someone wants to put something in their neighborhood.
"enviro-nazi's"?? Where did you get that name from??
Every environmentalist group that I know of has a goal of basically improving human environments. Clean air, clean water, balanced ecosystem, etc....
Whatever we do to the environment always comes back to us one way or another. It's real easy to be Laissez-Faire when you live in a rich country but it'll only insulate us for so long - that' s assuming we stay rich.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force.
How exactly do you invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and enough firearms to arm every adult citizen, should the need arise?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
This will continue until a reasonable alternative is found. Until then, we are using oil. Importing does not make us use less. Producing it domestically will not make us use more. No matter what, we will continue to use oil. So, until we have a viable alternative, why not use our domestic resources?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
(This is why I pay attention to the folks at The Oil Drum ( http://theoildrum.com/ ) and Energy Bulletin ( http://energybulletin.net/ ), they're well-intentioned academics/educators who are trying to get the world to live more smartly and sustainably...and the faster we do that, the better off we are going to be.)
And we know the whistleblowers don't have large investments in oil futures? Wow this creates a situation where you can't believe either side.
It all starts at 0
Or...as an alternative, perhaps we could finally get off the oil schtick once and for all so we no longer have to deal with NIMBY-wingnuts or politically unstable/unsavoury despots, tyrants, and dictators from halfway across the globe. Just a thought...
Well, to be fair, you'd also argue that the President is really a secret muslim who's not really an American citizen, that the earth was created 6000 years ago and that Sarah Palin is the greatest political thinker since Thomas Jefferson.
You're apparent willingness to argue a point is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I agree, it is still a direct comparison... enviro nazis how is that not a comparison any one who doesnt think so is an idiot.. im sorry how painful it must be to go thru life so stupid
By the time that happens we won't have any money left to exploit them with and it will be the Saudi's pumping oil out of the Midwest.....
Actually, it will be the Chinese, but the same point applies.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
And you say renewable energy is a scam.
I said nothing of the sort. Please link to the comment where I said that or STFU and apologize for putting words in my mouth.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing
Yes. It may kill you, but the reflective soot in the air does counteract the CO2, methane, etc... by "cleaning" the air, we inadvertently made the global warming problem worse. No more soot to seed clouds or stop those solar rays from warming the Earths surface
But as a selfish SOB, I'm still fine with the decision. I like the idea of beach front property, and don't like breathing in soot.
Peak oil is not about "running out" of oil. Yes there's plenty under the ground of the Dakotas, but that's not the issue.
Peak oil is about when the consumption exceeds the discovery of new fields, which means the "warehouse" of oil is emptying out instead of filling. Initially nobody will notice, but soon they will and there will be a drive-up in prices due to the rapidly-dwindling reserve. It's similar to what has happened with Gamecube games. It's still possible to buy brand-new copies of, for example, Mario Sunshine but because no new copies are being made, the price has risen from $30 upto $80 (or more).
Rising scarcity resulted in rising prices, and the same will happen with oil in the very-near future (2011 or 2012). If you've got money to spare, buy oil stock NOW.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
with an agenda might be willing to say anything to further a cause. I'm not suggesting these anon sources are liberals... if anything, I'm suggesting just the opposite. Nothing like peak oil scares to drive up the cost of oil.
I'm pretty sure OPEC allocates allowed production levels by each country's "known reserves", giving the rulers of those countries all kinds of incentive to exaggerate their reserves. This is true. It is also interesting to note that a) The OPEC countries one by one rapidly increased their known reserves when OPEC first got this rule, which is natural since your country would get to produce less when another country claims higher oil reserves if your country don't do the same and b) OPEC oil reserves have remained at those levels since. Think about it, you to from saying you have X to Y reserves in the ground when they decide that allowed production is a factor of known reserves and then pump oil up year after year after year and still have Y, NOT Y-$amount_produced, left in the ground - year after year after year.. does this add up?
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
That's one of the dumbest arguments people sometimes make. The reason they're not exploited is because current oil prices don't justify exploiting them. The deeper, the more isolated, the lower the flow rate, or a whole host of other factors concerning oil in a block lease, the higher the oil price you need to justify developing it.
This administration is so incompetent that they cover their tracks with bigger tracks.
no there's not. there's a shit-ton of shale oil, which is a bitch to extract and turn into light sweet crude.
not all hyrdocarbons are the same, man.
Wow. Just... wow. Here's another meme for you:
Strawman much?
sig: sauer
No me, you retard, that's the way it is
So now we've moved up to personal insults, have we? Funny how I'm the one getting the troll mods.
You seem to think a few greens and their tame puppets in DC are responsible for most of the mess we're in
No, I seem to think that a few greens and their tame puppets are responsible for preventing us from exploiting domestic energy sources. I never claimed that they are wholly responsible for the "mess" that we're in. Thanks for putting words in my mouth though. Goes good with the side dish of insults that you've served up :)
upon which your reply is to accuse me of being an unrealistic daydreamer?
Where did I use the word "daydream"? I challenged your notion that oil isn't "expensive" enough to justify exploiting domestic resources. You've yet to respond to that challenge. Instead you've opted for insults. Perhaps you've learned all of your debate techniques from Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann? Why respond to the point when you can attack the messenger.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Let's grade our (USA) government on:
* Transparency on real unemployment rates
* Transparency on getting into the Iraq war
* Transparency on getting into the Vietnam war
* Transparency on (not) publishing the M3 figures
I could go on, but I'll subjectively assign a grade of "D-"
It may be a cliche, but people are good and governments are usually mediocre at best.
Speculation had a major impact on the last fast oil price rise last year. Your points on energy in to get energy out are correct of course, but you need to research on the other topics of the economic costs.
As to published figures, they are *highly* suspect, from anyplace, the saudis for example always seem to have near the same amount in alleged reserves... for the last few decades. And shell got busted over estimating their reserves in order to keep their stock market valuation high.
Spend a few evenings perusing a lot of the back posts at some place like the oildrum, plenty of good info out there on this subject. The consensus is more "we don't really know" about reserves because all the majors lie about it for various reasons, and that is also the point of the article and the leak.
In addition, now we will be contending with the scam/skim carbon market, as various governments will start insisting on additional stealth taxes on carbon emissions to further enrich the too big to fail boys, etc,(the real reason for cap and trade) so we really don't know yet what the costs will be in the future, other than "much higher than now".
Its a good thing you arent a business person, or maybe you are since you have an uncanny ability to only see a short term time-horizon of your actions.
when would it be more profitable to pull that oil out of the ground?
a) when the market price of oil is $70/bbl... or
b) when the market price is $300/bbl
So, until we have a viable alternative, why not use our domestic resources?
From a strategic standpoint, wouldn't it be better to wait till we've exhausted the oil supplies from everyone else before we start using our own?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
America, with 5% of the world's population, consumes about 25% of its resources. Reason? Single Use Zoning. The silly settlement pattern that puts housing neatly in one area, shopping in another, office space in another, and industry in another, and then forces people to drive between all these areas throughout the course of the day. Okay, it makes sense to zone off industry in certain cases where noise and pollution is an issue. But making it illegal to open a corner store in a residential area? No wonder so many journeys are made by car in the USA, bus journeys in that kind of sprawl take forever and mass transit gets a bad reputation (deservedly so). Induced traffic is another symptom of this problem - roads get wider, developers develop farther out to allow people to take advantage of the faster commute and lower property prices, roads get filled with cars belonging to these new commuters, and we're back to square one again with people demanding that the road gets widened even more!
As long as American settlement patterns are so screwed up, the problem will exist even if we aren't in a state of world peak oil. The problem is a hopeless addiction to petroleum that no magic wand nuclear power solution (mentioned by someone above) will be able to fix.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Yikes! I forgot to add:
* Transparency on the amount of oil that it is economically feasible to produce
What soot? Are you blind, man?
And you think that catalytic converters all are in fine condition, and none of the trucks and trains and airliners in this country exhaust rosewater?
For a moment, let's just say that all of that CO2 and water are healthy emissions. We'll ignore using coal to generate electricity. The long term effects are here.
Would nuclear generation of power be useful? Yes, save we haven't figured out how to deal with the waste products, contamination, and safety issues. I invite a cogent redesign of nuclear power. I'd love it. I'd enjoy better hydro generation. Better and more efficient batteries.
The soot issue isn't solved. Just because you can't see the particulate matter doesn't mean it's not there, and that's only in the case of passenger autos fueled in the North American and Brazilian market by gasoline and ethanol (a better but weaker choice). Diesel autos fuel the EU and Asia, as well as much of Africa. Yes, they're improving, but on the whole, not by very much.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Oh wait, that's free market economics,
See, here is where you are missing something. The 'Free market' isn't the magic bullet that you want to think it is. Oh sure, it will find an equilibrium between supply and demand. Nobody argues that. However, people might die and there might might be economic collapse while its happening, but gosh darn it, letting things take care of themselves gust makes sense!
'The free market' isn't omniscient. It can be blindsided by sudden changes. Those changes can be very bad in the short term. I might point out how the 'fee market' responded to banking deregulation over the last twenty years to illustrate my point. 'The market' has nobody's best interest at heart.
I am not advocating socialism or anything like that. The best system is probably a mixture of elements of a free market and a controlled economy.
You know, the Doomers at The Oil Drum don't exactly have the best record at forecasting oil production.
Contrary to widespread myth, the notion of "imminent peak oil" is nothing new. The same sort of shysters have been hawking it for nearly a century and a half. Kier's Rock Oil used to encourage people in its ads to buy their product quickly, before it was depleted from nature's laboratory.
It wasn't supported then, it's not supported now, and it never will be supported (so long as Fischer-Tropsch exists). The only kind of "peak" we're likely to see is a demand peak.
This administration is so incompetent that they cover their tracks with bigger tracks.
I know someone in the industry and they had this to say when I was talking to them off the record.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Afghanistan: 444 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Yours In Novy Urengoy,
K. Trout
Once we have reached the "peak", how long will it take to actually "run out"?
Forever.
We don't "run out." What happens is that the production decreases, and the price increases, so production heads asymptotically toward (but never reaching) zero production rate. As the price rises it becomes economically feasible to extract harder and harder to recover oil, and production never stops.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You can find some good background reading here: What You Need to Know about Peak Oil.
There seems to be a lot of dispute over when world-wide peak oil will occur (or if it has already). On the other hand, there is consensus that US peak oil has already happened (and that's accounting for shale, Alaska, etc).
Keep it for when it will be worth it. When the USA/Canada will be the last two place on earth with fuel, we will pull back all the money we spent for buying it for all those years in no time, selling the last few drops!
Pretty much everything else I could say on topic has already been posted.
"The world is ending!!1"
"No it isn't!"
"Yes it is!"
While everyone concerned is too preoccupied with their petty PR flame wars and protecting their bottom line, the world actually is getting fucked up beyond repair because of them.
Thats plain dumb: if you deplete the world's reserves using your clout, the last country with oil will be the US. Duh.
NO SIG
Frankly, I hope you're right. I'd like to hear it from some petroleum geologists who seem notably absent from the debate with this exception (http://www.utoledo.edu/as/envsciences/pdfs/NEWSLETTER_Winter-08.pdf).
Seriously, do you know of any petroleum geologists who aren't presently working for an oil major who's talking about this one way or the other?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
We already past the discovery peak way back in the 60's. Peak Oil is about the maximum production *rate*.
There's actually different schools of thought about oil prices. What we've seen in past year is that high oil prices destroy economic growth which destroys high oil prices. Low oil prices and lack of credit destroys oil production capacity (new projects take 5 years to produce commercially; cancel it now, and that's oil we won't have in the future). We'll still have economic cycles, but everybody will be wondering why each recession is worse than the last one.
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage.
A much bigger cause of Carbon Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide, particulate pollution and other nasties is coal burning in power generation.
But that sure didn't bother environmentalists when they ensured that no-one built nuclear power plants. Now they are moaning about global warming caused by the carbon dioxide in their coal power plants. And their preferred solution (wind generation and solar panels) are a pipe dream (that is a consequence of those hippies smoking too much pot).
Environmentalists is the reason why we can't have nice things.
Would nuclear generation of power be useful? Yes, save we haven't figured out how to deal with the waste products, contamination, and safety issues.
You lost me at "safety issues". The worst accident in the history of American nuclear power resulted in zero fatalities. You'll forgive me if I don't see safety issues as a reason to abandon nuclear power.
The waste issue is a real one, but one that can be mitigated by nuclear reprocessing. In any case, if global warming is actually being driven by mankind's emissions of CO2 then I should think that the choice between a few thousand tons of low-level nuclear waste (the only kind that requires long term storage, high-level waste decays on much shorter timescales) and a few billion tons of CO2 should be an obvious one.
Thanks for demonstrating my original point though. As an environmentalist you find every single option that's currently on the table to be unacceptable. That makes for great politicking but horrible engineering.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I haven't seen many articles citing the high fuel prices in 2007 as a factor in the economic collapse. Surely the diversion of $$$ from typical consumer spending towards oil was a factor. It *had* to be a factor. So why isn't anyone talking about it?
Third world scum?
Well, I can see that the US is entering the third world when this kind of talk passes as "argument". I expect that in latinamerica, where we are all frustrated and poor. Not from the first world, that is supposed to be enlightened.
Not anymore it seems.
NO SIG
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
We have spent the past 30 years modifying our automobiles to convert harmful HC and CO waste into harmless CO2 and H2O. Should we go back to the way it was? Sure would get rid of the pesky CO2 problem everyone is worried about. Of course acid rain and such would come back, but at least we wouldn't have to worry about that extra 1 degree temperature spike 100 years from now.
BTW, CO2 is not soot. Soot only happens when the combustion process is not complete. Catalytic converters take care of that problem too.
--fatboy
THats the smallest problem: a rising temperature means a vicious cicle. It increases energy demands, which increases energy production, which increases energfy demands.
NO SIG
Calling people you don't like Nazis in order to smear them when they have nothing to do with Nazism or related ideologues is well within the scope of Godwin's law. It is also a large part of what's wrong with politics nowadays: debate about ideas has been replaced with a competition about of who can fling the most mud on their opponent. Then again, I might be giving past politicians too much credit here...
In any case, you are either a moron who doesn't think what he writes, or a demagogue attempting to crush opposition by flinging shit at them. Either way, don't complain when you get called for it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Are you looking for retired or market analysts? Here's just a random example for you, of Jim Jarrell excoriating Simmons for his utter lack of understanding of even basic physics terms, let alone understanding of oil production.
This administration is so incompetent that they cover their tracks with bigger tracks.
Your statements aren't true. We're neither hippies or pot smokers, or what you believe us to be. We have a radical fringe, just like the Dems and the Repubs. More of us are interested in coal being a problem than nuclear plants. The problem with nuclear plants are that they don't behave well, and leave nasty poo that doesn't become safe for about 300,000 years. Look it up.
That said, you can scrub anything. It depends on how much it costs as to whether it's practical. Coal burning plants are difficult to scrub. Alternatives will, work, but it's the costs that are difficult to surmount.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Well, Fischer-Tropsch capacity doesn't grow on trees. We've spent decades building infrastructure to suck crude out of the ground at high speeds. If all major fields deplete at the same speeds that Cantarell and the North Sea did, then it's highly questionable whether we can scale up coal-to-liquid plants quickly enough to make up for the loss in the old system.
For instance we didn't see CTL/FT balance out the 30->$90/barrel runup we saw after 2004 even though prices nearly tripled. So I'm sceptical that it's the answer to all our problems. That's a heck of a lot of coal you need to convert!
I challenged your notion that oil isn't "expensive" enough to justify exploiting domestic resources.
It's not his notion. It's an economic fact confirmed by the oil companies as they were capping perfectly good working wells not that many years ago. Might still be doing it now.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
So, until we have a viable alternative, why not use our domestic resources?
From a strategic standpoint, wouldn't it be better to wait till we've exhausted the oil supplies from everyone else before we start using our own?
Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. But that logic is not the reason we aren't drilling domestically. The excuse given is almost always environmental issues. We can't drill in ANWR because of the porcupine caribou. We can't drill off the coast of California because of the potential for a spill that has the potential to ruin beaches potentially during a tourist season. We can't drill ANYWHERE because burning oil release CO2.
Still, I don't see a whole lot of American Environmentalists protesting in Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil or any other country that is actively drilling new wells. Personally, I think the REAL reason is that liberals are afraid that someone (evil company or fat cat oil man) will make money off of oil. So much so that they will not consider the idea of taxing domestic oil or using the profits from oil on federal land to investing in green research that could potentially get us off oil for good!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
You patent reality TV and soap operas, then wait for the riots to begin.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yet I always seem to notice that when gas prices reach record levels, the oil companies coincidentally generate record profits. But yeah, they are only the middle man. Right.
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
You're being myopic.
Look to Chernobyl. Look to Japan (which uses the same designs as ones built in the US from Babcock & Wilcox) if you want to find the horror stories. Look at the design failures in Washington State, Three Mile Island, and Southern Indiana.
We would agree that nuclear options are likely the best long term solution. They'd be lovely if we could find the combinations that allow safe spent nuclear fuel and contaminant disposal. No argument there.
And you damn me by being able to compare and contrast. This is your prejudice, not mine. There are more options on the table. You believe that because I claim to be an environmentalist that somehow I can't evaluate. I have. Solar's wonderful but currently expensive. Wind power is useful be requires some work. Hydro is great if you don't kill estuaries and fish (and many kill neither).
Your seeming ease at blind prejudice proves nothing, except that you aren't willing to consider consequences.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
We've gotten half of that stinky, dirty, polluting oil out of the ground! The planet is much cleaner now.
What about the (marginalized, demonized) economists who forecast an economic collapse every year from 1980 to 2000? Even Jeanne Dixon got a few right.
Offer its industry leaders cheap labour, thus tempting them into moving their manufacturing capacity to your country, letting your enemy run up a debt it has no hope of ever repaying, use threats of not giving more credit to force it to devote more and more of its remaining manufacturing capacity to paying you while driving up taxes and weakening social services until the brightest young minds leave it. When it has been bled dry, cut the supply of goods, discard the hollow husk of your enemy, and keep the manufacturing plants they so graciously gave you.
It's working rather splendidly, judging by the financial crisis.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Assume the IEA whisleblower is correct, and that peak oil is approaching far faster than we've been led to believe. Hell, we might even be on the downturn already!
When the rest of the oil in the world is drilled out and used up, what the hell is going to happen to economic progress? What the hell is going to happen to the whole of the industrialized world?
We might get lucky, there might be alternative energy sources made available by then, the whole crisis might be averted. I hope it is. But if it isn't, and the world is still dependent on oil when Saudi Arabia and Russia and South America and everywhere in the world that's currently selling oil run out, we're going to look pretty damn smart for not tapping our domestic reserves until after everyone else has gone belly up.
It's a long-term plan, an insurance policy if you will.
Sorry don't have moderation points. Peak Oil is a situation made worse by human nature. And the reasons for those decisions are completely logical.
Bitter and proud of it.
Oh give me a break. This isn't some terrible conspiracy censoring your free speech. This is reasonable people asking you not to equate everything you disagree with to Nazis and Nazism. Making that kind of comparison to almost anything other than genocide is just mindless hyperbole and reveals that you have no sense of perspective.
If prices rise too high the economy will collapse anyway. The oil doesn't have to completely disappear just become too expensive. You could have bazillions of tonnes of shale oil but if it is too expensive the economy won't function anyway. Endgame.
Bitter and proud of it.
Zerg rush.
We have a radical fringe, just like the Dems and the Repubs.
The radical fringe of the environmentalists composes 80% of the environmentalists. I deeply care for the environment, but it seems like no-one sensible is allowed to call themselves an environmentalist.
More of us are interested in coal being a problem than nuclear plants.
Now you are. The hot topic/semi-religion now in environmentalism is “global warming”. 20 years ago it was nuclear power. The arguments against nuclear power were mostly scare tactics and fallacies of reasoning. The environmental movement (to me at least) lost all credibility after that.
At least the founder of Greenpeace (Patric Moore - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html ) had the intellectual honesty to admit that he and the organisation was completely wrong about nuclear power.
The problem with nuclear plants are that they don't behave well, and leave nasty poo that doesn't become safe for about 300,000 years. Look it up.
Firstly, coal powerplants spew nasty radioactive waste directly into the atmosphere (on the same order of magnitude as nuclear power plants). Oh, and they spew a lot of other nasty shit in the atmosphere too. This causes a lot of unseen health problems (cancer, lung disease). Millions of people die each year because of the effects of coal power stations (and more than 5000 in coal mining accidents alone).
Secondly, you may never have heard of reprocessing of nuclear fuel or fast breeding reactors. With any of these steps the amount of nuclear waste left is minute, and its half-life is about two centuries. But no, they would rather prefer acid rain and global warming.
Unfortunately it seems as if environmentalists want to destroy the economy in addition to the environment with their coal power plants and unfeasible and extremely expensive “renewable energy” pipedreams. Neither wind nor solar are feasible. Their bio-fuel (ethanol from maize or sugercane) pipe dream destroys the environment at such a rate. But they would rather we chop down rainforest to plant sugarcane than to use oil.
That said, you can scrub anything. It depends on how much it costs as to whether it's practical. Coal burning plants are difficult to scrub.
Carbon-Dioxide recapturing in coal power stations is also something of a pipe dream. I suspect that they are only doing it to try and get money from the government.
Oh, yeah. Why do they hate GM foods? Would they rather see people starve? Nobody forces them to eat GM foods. GM maize may just lessen the wholescale environmental destruction that their bio-fuel pipe dreams create.
--- Sorry for the harsh tone, but environmentalists is really one group that (for me at least) is one of the most harmful hate groups of modern society.
Nothing like an anonymous unsubstantiated and false claim being marked "insightful."
Sorry dude. Not even close. Saudi Arabia has more than 12 times the proven reserves of the US, and 1.5 times as much as second place Canada.
Stop trying to back peddle. You made the comparison, and he called you out on it. If you didn't believe it was at least partially apt, you wouldn't have made it.
Go back to your tea bagging parties you inbred simpleton.
See? That's tounge-in-cheek too! (Flame? Troll? What? You can't take a joke! Damn PCers.)
"Assume the IEA whisleblower is correct, and that peak oil is approaching far faster than we've been led to believe. Hell, we might even be on the downturn already!"
OR; we can assume the opposite, as no one really knows where peak oil is. Peak oil is calculated by observing the production bell curve of past and existing well production. It may be an excellent measure of peak oil. But, it may be retardedly bad. I'm not advocating that we ignore the possibility that we are close to pumping the last of the oil out of the ground. But I'm always wary of anyone who makes claims, especially people with an agenda that isn't always obvious. Grinding the current engine of civilization to a halt and re-tooling to use renewable energy is a laudable goal, but it will cost millions of lives. Not money, but lives. Make no mistake. Doing a sudden about-face will not only be a hassle, it will actually be dangerous. I'm not entirely convinced that people who are leading the outcry to make this about-face are concerned with this simple fact.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
Damned Godwin-nazis...
im sorry how painful it must be to go thru life so stupid
Keep fighting the green fight. I encourage you to post comments supporting the movement on as many forums as you can.
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force.
How exactly do you invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and enough firearms to arm every adult citizen, should the need arise?
Uhhh, stop shipping all the goods to fill up their Wal-Marts?
Geologists have 2 questions for the pollyanas who say Gee, there is still a lot of oil like stuff out there:
1) What are the flow rates for new sources? (compare to the 80 million bbl. per day needed currently)
2) When could those flow rates be realized, best case?
That is all. Just get data to answer those 2 questions, and you'll understand the magnitude of the Peak Oil problem.
Some of us do not want the companies to do whatever they want with their own money
To put it bluntly, you prefer feeling good to cheaper oil. Obviously the flaw in your argument is that the price *does* matter. The higher the price goes, the more people will prefer feeling warm to feeling "religious" (because frankly, that's what environmentalism is about, feeling good because you adhere to some "higher morality", not caring about the consequences for other people (like biofuels causing starvation). You know, like Osama bin laden)
current majority of our population does NOT WANT more CO2 producing fossil fuel extracted, while creating a non-trivial mess in the process.
*ahem* the current majority is so rich it prefers the good feeling over cheaper prices. That will change if prices rise. If no alternative energy source is found, environmentalism is doomed. While people prefer nice looking "land", they prefer being alive a LOT more. At some point rising prices will make that choice a very direct one.
Of course, one sometimes gets the impression a certain more-nutty-than-average class withing the greens knows that's exactly what's going to happen and is trying to make sure that if that happens, those people die.
The free market is a means to an end, and that end is a good life with personal liberty etc. The free market itself is not the end.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. Economics do not vanish because you legislate them out of existence. That doesn't work. Only the "free" part of "free market" is a means to an end. "market" is just cold, hard reality, like the sky or the ground under your feet.
"Personal liberty", by contrast, *is* a means to an end. It (for the moment) seems to be the best way to stimulate the economy, making free markets possible. However, don't kid yourself, if what the Chinese are doing, or what the muslims terrorize themselves to do turns out to produce richer economies, personal liberty is doomed. Or if anyone else finds something better (like all the "singularity" folks seem to think we'll find), it will be over.
If there is a better economical system than personal liberty, which does not currently seem to be the case, that will be the end of liberty. That might actually be a good thing, if the alternative truly is better.
Economics and the economy (the "value", not the "money") are eternal, they are as real and definitive as gravity, and they are much, much more powerful than any pseudo-morality and feel-good pseudoscience ever will be, because they are *real*. Please stop arguing otherwise ...
I work on a large oil field that is located in barren tundra, and as a rough guesstimate I'd figure complying with environmental regulations accounts for about 1/4 of the cost to run the field, with taxes taking up another 1/4.
You would not believe how many people are employed as environmental watch-dogs. The gravel roads have to be a certain thickness (generally about 6 ft high) so that, when areas are eventually decommissioned and the permafrost underneath will not have been affected. Buildings are built up off the tundra so animals can walk under them, etc. Before can set foot on the site you must go through an 8-hour training seminar covering the basic rules and regulations. Anybody working in a position that they consider potentially hazardous to the environment. Everything must be reported, including things like spilling small amounts of motor oil onto a concrete shop floor (I'm talking over spill here, a few ounces at most). Does the company get dinged for every little thing? Not necessarily, but still time and effort must be taken to report every single little thing that happens.
One of the quickest ways to get fired is blatant disregard for the plethora of environmental rules, and even you are following the rules but have too many "accidents", you can get fired. It's too high a liability for the company.
You're also ignoring the permitting process - if the greenies have any influence in their LOCAL government, they can fairly easily block new permits for things like drilling and refining. Even if they don't have any influence in government, they can always file lawsuits and submit ethics complaints against officials who are just doign their job correctly. This can and does happen regularly in my state, one of the main reasons our oil field exists at all is because it has been here for decades, before the big green push.
I don't think these environmental protections are necessarily a bad thing, I think in some ways they go a bit too far but on the whole I believe we have a responsibility to protect our environment, so in general I think they are perfectly justifiable.
However, you'd have to be an unrealistic daydreamer to think these environmental protections do not have a significant impact on the viability of an oil field, and whether or not a company starting drilling operations in an area will be able to turn a profit.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
That dinner, how do you think its ingredients are harvested, and possible, with what it is cooked?
You forgot about the fertiliser used to grow it itself- probably made from oil derivatives as well.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
That's why US oil production has been declining since 1970 - too much oil!
And one with the 3rd most adult citizens of any nation.
Ding ding ding ding ding! We have our winner!!!
The economic reality is that peak oil is all bullshit. The MARKET says what the price will be. When supplies become truly scarce, oil prices will rise. Then all those alt-fuel schemes start to become economically feasible and POOF, peak oil is irrelevant.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Why don't you read some history of China. For example the parts pertaining to Japan, which did exactly what you state would prevent an invasion. It didn't. China did the same, arm it's populace, before WWII, and got fucked badly until the US saved their ass.
But in the long-term game, the Chinese are winning. In fact they are somewhat like the Borg, if they were to state "we've heard this before, from many peoples across vast pieces of land since long before the US existed. And now, they're all China", they'd be telling the truth. Even if they were to say "since before Jesus walked the earth", they'd still be telling the truth.
In addition to China itself, vast regions of Asia are de-facto Chinese colonies.
Zerg rush.
Spawn more overlords.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
If you've got money to spare, buy oil stock NOW.
I think that by the time consumption exceeds production in the way you are inferring, oil stock will be complete crap. It will be well known that oil reserves will be drying up and the life cycle of the oil industry is on the downslide.
Just because prices are going up, doesn't mean you should invest in those companies. Perhaps you should consider speculating on crude instead. There was a boatload to be made that way in '08. And then a boatload that was lost doing that, but whatever.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
If somehow the US manage to benefit from the global economic collapse ... and then, the other economies will have to quickly adapt to a world without oil, in which case those vast domestic reserve will be worth nothing.
You need to use the domestic reserve at the right time to make sure that the rest of the world stays hooked to oil, maximizing the US reserve value.
That's what they want you to think. Really, the plan is trick the world into thinking there is plenty of oil, while amassing the largest, most technologically advanced fighting force the planet has ever known. All the while saving up your stockpile of oil and moving all nonessential infrastructure internationally.
When oil runs out everywhere else, the U.S. will still be fully stocked, and when someone else tries to steal it, they will show everyone the military they built on China's dollars.
Oh, and financial crisis? People are making more money off their unemployment checks than most people are in the rest of the world, and we keep extending the benefits on China's dollar. When oil prices skyrocket causing mass inflation, that "huge debt" will be worth virtually nothing, and we'll still be living in the lap of luxury.
Dude! You just said Nazi! You just got Godwinded... Godwindeded... whatever!
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
It's similar to what has happened with Gamecube games.
What a strange car analogy
No one has yet figured out how to extract "shale oil" - which isn't oil at all - without requiring more energy as input than the energy output you get in the crude oil.
Canadian tar sands are a bit easier to extract than shale oil. But for every unit of energy input, they only get about 1.5 units out in the form of crude oil. Fortunately they have lots of natural gas in that area, so that's what they use for energy input.
But they could simply use the natural gas to generate electricity, then use the electricity for electric cars and get a similar energy gain due to the fact that natural gas power plant and electric car have a combined efficiency better than the combined efficiency of an oil refinery and gasoline powered car.
Our current energy policy is costing the lives of soldiers in the desert sands as we speak, and has been for quite a long time.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Yeah, coal designs from the 1800s look horrible too, as do cars from the 1940s. We should totally not use far outdated designs due to the known issues about them.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
I'm not sure of the logistics but when that happened back in '84 we had Patrick Swayze around to save us.
You don't have the first clue what pollution is. Cars were the solution to a big pollution problem we used to have. Our streets were constantly covered in shit and flies from all the horses and mules we had to use. You want to see real pollution worth your tears? Ban cars and trucks and replace them with horses and mules. Then you'll have an actual health issue worth bitching about.
Cars were the solution to pollution. They keep getting cleaner and cleaner as time goes by. Why the hell all these enviro-crybabies keep whining about how good things are is beyond me.
and oil sands, and shale oil, etc
the other issue is that when you are not even allowed to drill to see if there is oil, say off the US coats, then it doesn't even get counted in the reserves, people are sure there is oil there, but as long as no one is even allowed to take a look the people who *want* there to be peak oil, will get their way
Thats very odd, I was logged in, so how did that wind up as an AC post?
-jon
What do you think will happen when the middle east runs out and your local resources are intact?
...
I always knew Karl Rove had a secret plan
It's called Hyperbole, grow up a little, will ya?
OMG! He said Nazi! Godwin! Godwin! Godwin!
Let me help you out with a brief history lesson: In Germany nearly a century ago, things were not so great. They just lost The Big One, and reparations to the rest of Europe completely bankrupted the country. Along comes this group called the Nazi Party, and they promised to fix that. All you had to give them was complete control and they'd take care of it. As they grew to power they turned out to be one of the most oppressive and threatening regimes in the last 100 years, they cared for nothing but German superiority, and as such there was no room for compromise. The only way to stop them was with the combined might of the rest of the world.
So when someone says "enviro-nazi", they are talking about someone who is concerned for the environment at the expense of all else. They are dogmatic in their beliefs, and generally follow an "it's our way or we'll [try to] destroy you" philosophy. No compromise, if you disagree you are wrong and must be eliminated.
There are a number of people who are like that, they generally head various environmental organizations, and the term "enviro-nazi" is very descriptive and only slightly exaggerated.
In other words, quit with the ad Hominem attacks and actually rebutt an argument, or I'm going to assume you simply have nothing rational or interesting to add to these arguments.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Anytime you encounter one of these conspiracy theories, you have to ask yourself, "Why would they do this?" In this case, what incentive would the US Government have to try and suppress oil prices? That flies in the face of the current government economic philosophy, which is to reflate all assets at any cost. Everything the government has tried to do in the last year has been an attempt to raise prices, not lower them. I think the thought is that if they can manage to report a positive CPI number, they can get people and institutions to start releveraging.
You have an odd view of money. Surely the citizens of the United States can scrape up enough steel and expertise in order to drill a well somewhere in the Dakotas.
The expertise will probably be the hard part, but then, there are lots of American drillers, many of them using advanced techniques.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
We have lots of manufacturing capacity in the U.S., but instead of 4 guys manually operating 4 lathes to turn out 4 parts in an hour, we now have one guy operating 4 CNC lathes turning out 8 parts in an hour.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
What we've seen in past year is that high oil prices destroy economic growth which destroys high oil prices.
That's not what happened at all, the oil prices had nothing to do with economic growth, and the oil prices also had nothing to do with supply/demand which would ordinarily govern such things.
The oil prices were artificially inflated by the OPEC cartel, which is unmaintainable. They reset prices before the bubble burst on them (which would be very bad for OPEC), and for a little while oil was priced a little lower than it should have been.
The economic crisis was a completely separate issue, caused by funny business in the housing markets - particularly the insurance markets.
In fact what was remarkable about the period of extremely high oil prices was consumption of oil did not change much, people simply got a little angry, and put MPG higher on their list of "things I want in a car" for their next purchase. A lot of companies used oil prices as an excuse, but for most of them it was a complete crock.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Except you're the crazy one here.
Environmental extremists do exist; and the worst thing is that most environmentalists don't have a bloody clue what is actually good for the environment.
The best, cleanest sources for stable energy we have now are hydroelectric and nuclear. Hydroelectric is hard to utilize any further without disrupting the ecosystem badly, and I haven't seen too many people who call themselves environmentalist without having an irrational fear about anything relating to nuclear power.
The only way to satisfy some environmentalists is to wipe the human race off the planet, because they are going to scream about the current pollution levels and any cost-effective measures to control them.
I'm all for not sending money to the oil cartels but I'm not sure that this is actually correct. Sure, the electric car may seem cheap when you are only looking at the cost to fill it up nightly with electricity. Most of the costs are sunk into the purchase price. I don't think the math is going to add up. (especially since the govt subsidies should be included in the calculations.) I think T Boon's idea about natural gas vehicles is much better.
Just curious, where are standing enviro-nazi armies, the concentration camps, the death camps, the slave labor camps, which nations have they invaded and which governments have they toppled, etc?
It seems we need to mobilize the Allies for World War III, but I'm sure exactly who or where it is exactly we should be directing our combined armed forces to attack.
Hmm, then again, perhaps even this so called slight exaggeration is plain hyperbole. Damn, no substance, just more blathering at the mouth, and I thought we were going to see some action.
Well yes, if you take a percentage of every sale, higher prices will lead to higher profits.
As opposed to what? If they have the power you seem to think they do, why do prices ever fall?
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Before you spout off about Chernobyl, you might want to consider the fact that the type of reactor, shielding, and countermeasure systems used at Chernobyl are over 40 years out of date. Nobody makes reactors like that anymore. Not to mention that Chernobyl only happened because of the incompetence of the staff.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
The funny business in housing can be traced to the Clinton-era HUD forcing banks to make loans to risky poor persons (or else face being drug into court). Then the Republicans tried to rein-in the exploding bubble, but the Democrats blocked it. And eventually when those poor persons couldn't keep-up with their loans (no surprise) the whole thing came crashing down in 2007-8.
Video proof -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5qKYfqALE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnSp4qEXNM
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Check it out: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
So why is everything "Made in China" nowadays?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You ignore the fact that China must purchase US dollars to keep its currency pegged and maintain the advantage of cheap labor. Their wealth is therefore built upon the value of the paper the US gives it. Make that paper worthless and the value of those holdings dissolves. Further, many of those shiny manfuacturing plants will be left idle and the value of goods made depreciates since the chief purchaser can no longer afford them.
The massive foreign holdings of the dollar has made the United States into the equivalent of a "bank too big to let fail." Just like the corporate fat cats cashing in millions while the economy around crumbled, the US continues to happily give pieces of paper to enjoy cheap goods, finance it's wars, and feed its appetite for oil.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Do you realise that it only costs "big oil" around $10 per barrel extracted from the ground. And they are currently selling said barrels of oil on at $79 per barrel. That looks like a healthy $70 a barrel profit right there, before you get to forecourt pricing. In 2007, ExxonMobil made a net profit of $40.6 billion. Shell made $31.3 billion, Chevron made $18.7 billion, ConocoPhillips made $11.9 billion and BP made $20.8 billion.
Yeah, big oil is the middle man, and they're getting fat. Capitalism at its finest, buy low, sell high. What was your point ?
I guess the stuff that is made in China is cheaper to make over there and ship here. "Why is everything made in China?" isn't really an answerable question, as it is based on a false premise.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The Japanese wupped the Chinese because China was backwards technologically. They tried to fight the world's best airplane (the A5M - predecessor to the Zero) with world war 1 biplanes. They were crushed. I don't think you can say the same about the U.S. military being backwards or easily defeated
And yes Americans will fight in hand-to-hand combat using their hunting rifles if that's what it takes. As Churchill said in the last war: "We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
The increases in oil prices could have the long term potential of damaging the economy, but I think your conclusion on the impact of oil prices is correct. The oil prices surged and quickly subsided before they could have any significant effect beyond stirring up anger.
However, I would say the funny business in the housing market was only part of the cause for the current economic debacle. Aside from the games finance, investment and insurance companies were playing with large blocks of risky mortgages was the borrowing of funds from the Fed at very low interest rates and then lending that money to every warm body on the street combined with out of control spending practices of the masses and inflation offset by incomes that had turned stagnant around 2000 and unless you were in the top 10% income brackets was flat until the meltdown where the income quickly dropped to near nil for those who ended up without a job.
Increases in consumer spending and inflation combined with stagnant wages by itself would have eventually been enough to kill the economy. The banking greed only added fuel to the fire. In fact, if wages for the other 90% of the wage earners had continued their rate increase seen in the 1990s then credit would not be as much of an issue as it is today. Banks have money they've borrowed from the Fed that they could lend to individuals, but they wont as most individuals wages are already strapped with debt.
That's true. But they still use them.
Worse, there are five major design schools and perhaps two of them have international blessings for safety over a 50 year life cycle.
Your sense of incompetence of the staff notwithstanding, Chernobyl lay waste to a huge amount of land.... and has caused enormous human toll. We still learn from it. And I'm hoping there's a design that can make fission become successful. Fusion even better.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
You've read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, haven't you?
(mostly posting this because my mouse slipped and I modded parent down - me sorry)
That said, I am still not too hopeful that reasoned argument is going to keep anyone from clinging to the beliefs that allow them to attribute their misfortunes to some evil cabal
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Economically feasible doesn't mean affordable, it just means cheaper than sticking with oil. IE: Oil is now too expensive to actually buy, but so is everything else.
I never metameme I didn't like.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
The US isn't worried about maximizing the return on the SOR. The whole point of the Strategic Oil Reserve is that there are some very critical components of our country that completely dependent on oil right now to work. The SOR is the US' contingency plan for when oil does run out. Access to the public will be cut off far, far quicker then anyone realizes. The bulk of the reserve will be used for running planes, tanks, and anything else considered to be "vital to the interests of the United States."
The general population, IE you and me, are NOT very high on that list for some strange reason.. A government "by the people, for the people" vanished long ago.
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!
Hell yeah, just like a real-life game of C&C!
Chuck
Partisan bullsh!t.
Try again @sshat.
a conspiracy of one?
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
That's not true in the world we're in today; significantly more paper barrels are traded than what comes out of the ground. If it was reported that oil would run out, people would start massively buying tons and tons of paper barrels and inflate the price to $10 a gallon or higher. Also, to clarify something while you are right that people sell oil to the US at certain rates; there's not so much direct trade as it is you buy and sell on the international market. Exxon doesn't make their money by importing foreign oil to sell to the US, they make it by drilling oil and selling it on the international market, of which the US is a customer.
Actually those construction methods have nothing to do with any evil greenies impinging on some poor picked on corporation's profitable endeavors. Construction on top of permafrost presents unique challenges to the long term viability of any project be it roads or buildings. What you are describing are hard earned engineering techniques that were preceeded by many construction failures on Alaska's permafrost and have zilch to do with greenies or environmental protection.
You make it sound like nobody ever died in the US from nuclear accidents. Some have. Nuclear energy is expensive. Thank goodness for old Soviet warheads. It still has a role. Wind and solar will be a big part of our energy future. Spain exceeded the 50% wind power threshold the other day. You don't have to be an environmentalist to use solar and wind if they are cheaper.
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually. Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I'd rather we rush ahead right now and find out we had decades of leeway than sit on our asses right now and wake up tomorrow to find out we didn't have as much time as we thought we had.
Funds acquired by borrowing from those who cannot hope to force the repayment of it is what we used to call being paid "tribute"
Now, don't be a Godwin nazi.
J/K. That sounds like a good plan. Draw up a petition and I will sign it.
sig: sauer
Except its all tar sand of which there is really no economically viable way to mine (in a significant and quick way). Most experts have dismissed the idea that this will circumvent peak oil as the production would not be enough and the environmental effects are too great. The tar sands also produce twice as much CO2. Its an environmental nightmare and to promote this as a solution when there is concern of global mass extinction due to CO2 is absurd!.
You are probably wrong and it shows your lack of education to think that. You somehow think that no one has been looking for oil. The fact is, geologists have pretty much been looking evrywhere for it and the possibility that there could be another very large discovery that could push back peak oil significantly is not that great. Despite increased investment on oil discovery, we are seeing a downward trend on discovery, not because we are not looking, because its not there. The US saw increases in oil exploration in the 80s, oil production which hit peak 1970 continued to decline like nothing happened. Of course there will be more discoveries, the point of peak oil is decreased volume, discoveries wont be able to maintain the supply.
We all know that economics is a guessing game. Calculated guesses but still guesses. So let's say a gov agency has like 20 of these come up with estimates, everyone guessing a different number. so after avging the numbers, the avg case and worst case is far apart. So 2 of these who can't accept that their predictions are so far off everybody else's, started to take their talents to the media. Big deal
yeah fusion... the perpetual power of tomorrow. Wake me up when it's tomorrow.
That is a good point. Plus, we have actually been using a lot of our own supply. Despite major investment in exploration there is simply not a lot of oil in the US left (except for the tar sand which will be impossible to be used practically, which is why no one has wanted to use it, its just to hard to extract and costly to produce). Actual liquid oil supplies are simply not there and fully exploiting these would probably lower gas prices a few cents and do nothing to make the US energy independant. The idea that there are vast pools of oil is a republican fantasy made up by its oil company puppetmasters. its not there.
It's not irrelevant because all those alt-fuel schemes are a lot more expensive (if they are feasible at all on a global scale), so at best the economy will take a big hit, at worst it will take a body blow.
There really is no oil in the dakotas. Its this oil sand that is basically difficult to extract, its not the stick a pipe in the ground and outcomes the oil. The oil sand is not practical since you would have to strip mine a vast area of the state .
um somewhere around 10%of what is burned in cars in the U.S. each day comes from Tar Sands in Alberta. This is incredibly toxic stuff, I've heard numbers like 80litres of burned fuel to each litre that gets sold. But methinks there are some comments here that are very 1970 in their total denial of global warming and belief that oil is the only answer out there.
How about option D: People slowly transition to renewable energy. Oil becomes unimportant. The rich free themselves from it first, at too much expense, but then the middle class finds ways to power houses and cars for free and once free of skyrocketing prices the technology soars.
What's also remarkable about the period of extremely high oil prices was that production of oil didn't change much. High prices are an incentive to invest in production. Biofuels and oil exploration & production (E&P) were in fact a booming business right up until the 2008 crash. Shouldn't that investment have increased supply?
I wouldn't blame OPEC for the flat production. They're ineffective as a cartel, with individual members inflating reserves and exceeding quotas all the time.
Whether it will run out in 20 years, or in 100 years, Oil WILL run out eventually.
That actually isn't true, but the likely outcome isn't a lot better. It's all supply and demand: as oil grows scarce its price will increase, and as that happens (gradually, you'd hope) demand will taper off because of the exorbitant price. Of course this assumes a free market in which all consumers have accurate information, and the scary thing about TFA is that it suggests we don't have accurate information about the oil market - this shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention - so we might be buying oil too cheaply given its current supply. That sort of arrangement isn't sustainable, so if it's true then there will eventually be a supply crisis and prices will spike suddenly. (You know, like the month after we dip below 10% unemployment and think everything is getting better.)
Whether we make the investment to retool our entire civilization now or in 100 years, we WILL have to do so.
I've always agreed with this approach, too. Since we know supplies are limited we should incentivise the creation of compatible alternatives, making oil part of a broader energy market. We seem to be doing that, slowly. Electric cars will eliminate the dependence of some drivers on oil specifically, and if enough people buy them we'll put oil alongside coal, solar, wind and old Soviet weapons in powering the grid. But it's probably not happening fast enough (if this whistleblower is correct). I recommend keeping lots of canned food in the basement.
Thank you. I have been saying the same thing for years. When you're talking about things like public complacency, demagoguery, institutional racism, exclusivist ideology... Um, Nazi Germany is your go-to historical example.
I compare things to the Chinese communist and cultural revolutions too, but I usually have to give a quick little history lesson because Westerners' knowledge of Asian history is pretty fuzzy (I only know it because I studied it in college--don't ask me about Western history, though--I know nothing). Everyone, however, knows well about the Third Reich.
Interesting aside: Talking about Nazis here in Japan gets you nowhere. They don't know anything about it. I saw the most hilarious proof of that a few weeks ago at an Oktoberfest. There was a Japanese guy there--in his 30s, looked pretty normal--wearing a camo-print jacket emblazoned with a Nazi flag on the back. Yeah, guy... Um... You couldn't even own that in Germany. I have wondered if he made it through the day before a German lectured him.
The economic reality is that peak oil is all bullshit. The MARKET says what the price will be. When supplies become truly scarce, oil prices will rise.
The concept of peak oil is based upon the market realities you cite, as well as observations about declining discoveries of oil resources. In a reasonably free market where everyone has good information about supply, this will lead to a gradual price shift as we approach the limits of the supply. We do not have this sort of free market, unfortunately. You're right that this will all become irrelevant once the market for energy has switched to alternatives, but that doesn't mean the price increase won't provoke a major crisis in the short term. And an oil crisis doesn't just affect transportation.
I wonder if Iraq thought the same thing.
No seriously. The IEA and USGS (US Geological Survey) were both formed after the 1970's oil shock to provide us with reliable data about future oil supplies. They idea was to provide us with plenty of time to prepare ourselves for future oil shocks. And they did just that - delivering solid if boring data for 30 years.
The suddenly in 2000 everything changed. Sources hereto though uneconomic were included, assumptions like magic improvements in extraction efficiency were added. And the projections altered accordingly.
Seems Bush put about as much store in solid reliable oil data as he did in solid reliable Iraqi intelligence, or scientific advice on global warming for that matter. He was nothing if not consistent.
http://www.peakoil.net/uhdsg/weo2004/TheUppsalaCode.html.
The pegged Yuan... If the Yuan were properly valued this wouldn't be so much of an issue.
If you want a comparison, I work for a manufacturer in the USA, we gave a price quote to a client of ours for $60,000 in tooling. We also do business in China when our own capacity is maxed out, the quote from China for the same tooling was $9,000... Actually, the quote was $14,000, however the owner of the company forced the engineers to lower the price to $9,000 saying it was too high. We still made the tooling locally as the quality is usually better, but that is an example of the price disparity between the USA and China.
In China it is easy for a company to make tooling and pay 10 workers to fix the tooling using hand labour then it is to take time and make the tooling right from the beginning.
You mean the polluted land with oil pipes transporting oil across Alaska that caused caribou population to increase because they all huddled up next to the oil pipes for warmth and fewer died from the cold?
> makes an analogy with the (marginalized, demonized) economists who warned of a coming economic collapse in 2007.
Hrm... like Paul Krugman, the economic who warned of collapse and yet received a Nobel prize?
All opinions expressed herein are not my own; I haven't had free will since last year when aliens ate my brain.
A few notes, banks are not forced into lending to anyone, the CRA only applies to banks who sign up for FDIC coverage and even then only some banks fall under the CRA regulations. There are ways that banks can work around the CRA and guess what, they did.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/53802.html
"More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions."
"Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year."
"Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics."
"Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance"
"only commercial banks and thrifts must follow CRA rules. The investment banks don't, nor did the now-bankrupt non-bank lenders such as New Century Financial Corp. and Ameriquest that underwrote most of the subprime loans."
"private non-bank lenders enjoyed a regulatory gap, allowing them to be regulated by 50 different state banking supervisors instead of the federal government. And mortgage brokers, who also weren't subject to federal regulation or the CRA, originated most of the subprime loans."
GW Bush was calling for reforms until they arrived...
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24851
Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1461 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005
October 26, 2005 "H.R. 1461 fails to include key elements that are essential to protect the safety and soundness of the housing finance system and the broader financial system at large. As a result, the Administration opposes the bill. "
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=74353
Statement of Administration Policy: H.R. 1427 - Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007
May 16, 2007 "Any efforts to weaken the existing portfolio language contained in H.R. 1427 will threaten the Administration's support for this bill. "
The house actually passed H.R. 1461 but was never cosidered by the Senate and McCain's support for S190 came only after the report of corruption and bad management of Fannie and Freddie came out. And then what did he do? Nada, the Senate let it slide.
There is plenty of blame to go around but this idea that some how the Democrats in concert with lower income earning U.S. citizens caused the current economic crisis is dumb founding idiocy.
Yea, the people who died, died in the 1950's in an experimental army reactor back when it was still in the "can we even make this work" phase.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
What you said doesn't necessarily contradict what he said...
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Throwing out bulk numbers without the volume associated with them is disingenuous. ExxonMobils profit of $40.6 billion was only about a 3% profit. Getting a 3% ROI for investors is pretty measly.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
Come on, that's a great recruiting slogan. You're just jealous that your secret cabal didn't think of it first.
From a strategic standpoint, wouldn't it be better to wait till we've exhausted the oil supplies from everyone else before we start using our own?
Absolutely, that makes perfect sense. But that logic is not the reason we aren't drilling domestically. The excuse given is almost always environmental issues.
So....He makes a good argument against domestic drilling, which you agree with, but you're against it anyway because other people you dislike are for the same thing for other reasons that you consider bogus?
The environmentalist instinct survives in large part because its good for our team. Even if we justify taking good care of our resources using flaky nature worship metaphors, it still amounts to much the same thing. Not completely the same thing. But close enough that if you really believe that we should save our oil so we'll have it later, then you should oppose drilling in Alaska.
Yes, you can give lots of examples of other scandalous things environmentalists have done. But we're talking about whether or not to drill for oil.
Personally I don't care about the wildlife in barren parts of Alaska. But the way we squander oil is ridiculous.
Because most low margin, extremely high volume commodity items are made in China. What is made in the US tends to be some mixture of the following: high margin, relatively low volume(compared to volumes of Wal-Mart crap anyway), high precision, high engineering, etc.. stuff. Caterpillar is a good example. The real CATs are made in the USA. The cheap plastic toy CAT your kid plays with is made in China.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
Even a moderate understanding of economics begins with this: wealth is made in the margins of what people don't know.
To claim that the problem is a lack of good information is to basically claim that markets desire efficiency. That's not even close to true. A good market is inefficient to a certain degree. If it isn't, it will eventually run out of profit because everything will be priced accurately.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Big oil controls roughly 5% of gas and oil reserves. Their profits come from earnings that happen due to changes in production or demand. Big oil cannot control these changes, but they can profit/lose money because of them. From wikipedia:
"As a group, the supermajors control about 5% of global oil and gas reserves with largest supermajor, ExxonMobil, ranked 14th. Conversely, 95% of global oil and gas reserves are controlled by state-owned oil companies, primarily located in the middle east."
And global cooling. And killer bees.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
1. A good portion of our congress is owned by the oil companies
2. These oil companies want to continue to sell as much oil as possible, ergo...
3. These oil companies oppose anything that might reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, so...
4. Any information that might result in an increased sense of urgency to develop alternative energy sources is suppressed, or at least massaged.
Don't believe me? Hey, they did the same for global warming
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
No, GP had it right.
Peak Oil is not the point where new discoveries begin to decline, nor is it the point where production begins to decline. Peak Oil is the point when oil production outstrips the discovery of new oil. Since you can't reliably predict discovery, and since the definition of known reserves depends on being able to extract it economically, you'll never know for sure that you got to Peak Oil until it becomes obvious that you're past it.
On the other hand, TFA (well, the one I read, anyway) talked about predicting the peak in production, which is not the same.
Oil peaks aside, there is no shortage, current or predicted, of natural gas in the US.
You do realise that most accidents happen because of human error, because humans are by nature imperfect?
leave nasty poo that doesn't become safe for about 300,000 years.
Argg, citation needed. No, seriously if something takes that long to decay then it probably isn't much worse than the Carbon 14 and Potassium 40 decaying and bathing your DNA in radiation as we speak.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Godwin was so right.
After reference to nazi the discussion will go so bad that no sensible argument is ever going to appear.
(If you keep on going to call some enviro-nazis, aren't the other group those-who-did-not-deny-raping-and-killing-a-girl-in-1990-antienvironmentalists?)
I remember this from the 1960s, then the 1970s when they showed a boy about 8 years old saying there would be no oil for him when he was 16 and old enough to drive. His son is driving and perhaps his son is driving by now. Another scare in 1983, 1987, 1991, 1999-2000, 2004 and a big one in 2007/2008 just in time for the election which I personally believe was very much intentional. If they keep "predicting" it, it will eventually happen I'm sure. They also stopped making new oil refineries in the US in the 1970s. So it is possible that we will hit peak oil because they won't be able to refine any more due to the environmentalists. More of the same. Nothing to see, move along.
Uh oh, you mentioned rapists. Now, the discussion is over, because once you mention rape, no intelligent discourse can follow.
Ridiculous? Yes it is. So is Godwin's Law.
sig: sauer
Right, because manufacturing outsourcing caused a domestic real estate financial crisis.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Actually our wonderful mega oil corporations are waiting until they hold all the cards
Then the raping will begin
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Not that many of the things encountered in domestic daily U.S. life are made in China. Perhaps you just better remember the ones that are.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
Damn straight I can.
The process of life requires pollution. Not to be graphic, but life literally sustains itself by converting the environment (air, water, food) into pollution. On top of that, creating our comforts and pleasures require additional pollution.
The countries that pollute the least in the world are the countries with the shortest lifespans and the harshest living conditions.
The trick is not to eliminate pollution, but just remove it so it doesn't harm people. We are already quite effective at that. (And when we aren't it's usually due to a lack of property rights)
The longer and more comfortable a human life is, the more pollution is required.
The only way to eliminate pollution is to eliminate life itself.
Mine is Good
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force.
How exactly do you invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and enough firearms to arm every adult citizen, should the need arise?
Generally with tariffs, global bad publicity, and nonbinding resolutions from international organizations that dont actually have any benefit.
The EU doesn't have the balls to take anything by force. China has such resources that it has no need to do so.
On the extreme opposite, you could ignore policy and support a country based on the color of the skin of its most recently elected leader (not that the alternatives were better). Hmm, seems like your signature is spot on. Especially the conservatives and liberals who think we might go to war with China or the EU over oil.
What would be the point of that?
Not that I disagree with you; the US government's economists are cleverer than the Chinese government's. Regardless, this is what countries who own the reserve currency often have done.
...you know times they are a' changin' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens). Personally, I'm lucky enough to have a petroleum geologist for a brother who can debunk all this stuff for me. Only, he actually pointed out the reality of peak oil to me about two years ago. I don't buy into the typical doomer analysis that society will come crumbling down around our ears. I *do*, however, think that cheap oil is behind us. And for the folks who just shrug their shoulders and say "meh, I don't drive, who cares", you really don't appreciate how energy-dependant (and thus oil-dependant) the world economy is. For a realistic analysis, check out Jeff Rubin's book "Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller".
When China converts to Islam, they will simply sell their goods to the Arab world, and Eurabia. In particularly trading manufactured goods for oil
Then you have the big players of OPEC demanding that oil must be payed in USA Dollars. This made the dollar the new GOLD in a sense; but in another sense it made OIL into the new GOLD. The USA can get away with crazy shit because its currency is in a position that never existed before. It also means that Saudi Arabia has more than just 6% of the USA economy it also holds the currency a float. Iraq went to the Euro. bad move. Iran was next on the list and if it were not for the CIA leaked report Cheney might have got his way... (anybody remember how the media was ramping up in the same way with some of the same lines just a few years ago? I often wondered how far it would have gone without the CIA leak...)
As the world moves off oil and is forced to move from oil and the dollar gets weaker-- or even if it gets stronger-- it is already undermined and exploited so that it is quite overvalued. This is going to be a bumpy transition that was likely never contemplated when we were screwed into dumping the gold standard for sort term (generational) gains. War doesn't leave any side unharmed, the economic war the USA has conducted for generations does not come without costs and we are experiencing some now and will much more later on. I don't think most the experts know how to deal with this mess; other than the ones who know how to profit from a predictable downfall and could be contributing to a solution (but they don't get to be successful for doing the right thing do they?) I suppose the USA could become an even bigger casino for mega investors and that could keep things going a little longer?
My bet is China takes the lead. They've positioned themselves quite well so far, they even have been economically invading nations like we used to do-- (see Minegolia, watch Guana become unstable in the next decade...) China's money is strong. The EU is better.. I suppose, but its not china...
As far as the next GOLD, I'd aim for WATER since OIL is on its way out. (I totally think Pickens wanted water rights more than wind power.) Water pollution continues; I expect poor management to be encouraged as well.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I agree with you that there more oil to be found, prospectors have are still finding new source,. but the sources are smaller and smaller on average is time goes on. Once the price gets to a certain hieght, oil shale becomes a economic source, and the world economy could start using enormous ammout of shale available. That would be very bad for global warming, so I hope renewables get phased in rapidly.
Oil Reserves Feed @ Feed Distiller
Most chemical reactions can be run in reverse in some manner.
How about we use our solar energy to mop up all the CO2 and turn it back into fuel?
Oh wait, we already have that. It's called photosynthesis.
Then again....
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
next hundred years.
No matter what anyone does.
Chilling, isn't it? Especially because it will include you, and me.
There are some good side benefits to refusing to exploit local energy reserves until the last minute. As everybody else is fighting and freaking over the last scraps, you just start tapping into the locked in reserves.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Well, at least in Canada they aren't keeping the oil. http://www.rttnews.com/Content/QuickFacts.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1100896%20&Category=Quick%20Facts
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Offer its industry leaders cheap labour, thus tempting them into moving their manufacturing capacity to your country, letting your enemy run up a debt it has no hope of ever repaying, use threats of not giving more credit to force it to devote more and more of its remaining manufacturing capacity to paying you while driving up taxes and weakening social services until the brightest young minds leave it. When it has been bled dry, cut the supply of goods, discard the hollow husk of your enemy, and keep the manufacturing plants they so graciously gave you.
.etc. I.e. economic boom.
Nice theory... now if only it was grounded in reality. The debt held by China is in US dollars. This gives them the following options:
1: Continue to save it
2: Sell it for other currencies (Same effect as saving in the eyes of the US, since the choice is just passed onto the next buyer).
3: Spend it in the US. This is the only way they can turn it into something of value. It also means that there is huge amounts of what basically amounts to economic stimulus flowing into the US. Increased demand = new jobs, new factories, new transportation facilities,
Also on a side note you didn't give them manufacturing plants. They're building them and are staffing them with their own energy and in many cases the products that are the results of their labor are going directly to western consumers. China gets a pretty rough deal. They work hard to manufacture things cheaply to send to you and in exchange you pay them in your own currency (I.e. something whose entire value is determined by you). The only thing they really get out of it is investment and technological transfer.
It's a bad strategy because you assume that money has value in itself, in fact money has only the value that has things you can buy with it.
So if you print paper money, at the end you will have nothing.
That's what happening now.
You may find facts to support your ideas but it's only valid because you are looking only for the short term, I mean thinking in months.
It's a pity that those basic economic facts (Adam Smith and al) seem now only be asserted by Islamic finance and the like and are rejected in the culture where it was born.
"If there really isn't much oil left, then oil will slowly become more and more expensive as the remaining oil becomes harder and harder to extract."
Once the Energy Return On Energy Invested becomes too small a ratio, that is when people truly start to feel the pain of bad things are happening or have already happened.
***
"The running average EROI for the finding and production of US domestic oil has dropped from greater than 100 kilojoule returned per kilojoule invested in the 1930s to about 30 to 1 in the 1970s to between 11 and 18 to 1 today. This is a consequence of decreasing energy returns as oil reservoirs are depleted and as energy costs increase as exploration and development are shifted deeper and offshore (Cleveland et al. 1984, Hall et al. 1986, Cleveland 2004)." quoted from http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/4678
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
I'm terribly worried about peak sun. I mean Sol burns through 4 billion kilograms of mass per second. At this prodigious rate we are doomed to a mere 6 to 7 billion years of energy from this yellow dwarf. What we need to do is focus on finding a planet near a red dwarf (they burn for billions of years at a much slower rate). I think we all need to quit being so short sighted about oil.
There's general agreement in the industry that we're near peak oil. The peak may have happened already, in 2006-2008. The most optimistic view is that the peak will be around 2020. That's not far away.
Prices aren't that good an indicator of availability. Because supply and demand are both relatively inelastic and change slowly. So small variations in supply or demand produce big changes in price. The worldwide recession has cut demand a bit, which brought the price way down. Supply did not increase.
All the easy places have already been drilled. US oil production peaked in 1970. Look at this list of countries where production has peaked.
Then there's France. Back in the 1970s, France decided to go nuclear. France has 59 nuclear power plants and exports electricity. It's good to plan ahead.
Neither wind nor solar are feasible
On the contrary, they are very feasible. We can convert entirely, yes entirely, to wind, water, and solar power, and we can do it in 20 years, and thereby head off further global warming. No need for coal or nuclear. But don't take my word for it. Read about it here.
it seems as if environmentalists want to destroy the economy
Where do you get off repeating stupid, trollish statements like that? Saving the environment is NOT diametrically opposite the economy, but you repeat that lie as if you halfway believe it. Proposals must be carefully considered, and I agree that ethanol doesn't seem a good idea. Managing the environment is like keeping alive and healthy the goose that lays the golden eggs. It is essential for the economy and more that we do so. A big effort to switch to renewable energy would be wonderful for the economy. Lots of green jobs setting up all those windmills and solar panels. And after, the economic good continues as manufacturing enjoys cheaper power, and it will eventually be cheaper. And we get a big Green Dividend from not having to clean up as many messes and health problems, you know, sort of like the Peace Dividend Reagan got us for bringing about the end of the Cold War. Kicks the props out from under the trollish follow on that environmentalists want to destroy the economy.
GM foods is a separate issue, as is the economy. I'm perfectly fine with GM foods. For thousands of years, we've eaten such and been breeding for desirable characteristics. All modern GM does is allow us to select for desirable traits much faster than with traditional techniques.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Then all those alt-fuel schemes start to become economically feasible and POOF, peak oil is irrelevant.
Once the alt-fuel schemes are on the verge of becoming feasible, oil prices will probably drop and pollution will spike - Green Paradox.
price increases. economic recession. Price collapses
economy starts recovering. Oil price increases again
repeat
it's already happening.... Oil peaked in 2005.
Disclosure: long oil. Nuclear. Renewables. Gas. Coal.
Deleted
No, it's OK, he takes out Carbon from the atmosphere by removing the plants and eating them.
Hope you weren't worried.
The Thinking World.
And yes Americans will fight in hand-to-hand combat using their hunting rifles if that's what it takes. As Churchill said in the last war: "We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Funny thing, Churchill said that in Europe. You should visit a major European city and see how well they're defending, both their own (I mean physically) and their own values. Even Churchill's own London. But France, and specifically Paris. Some days you would say it's under siege (you see the flames burning every night in a whole lot of cities).
I hope you're right, that in the US it's not happening everywhere like in Europe.
I seriously doubt Obama will *let* Americans fight though, he'll set the army on the people defending themselves, not on the enemy. At least if the choice is between pretending nothing's wrong while people die and being politically incorrect.
Anyone spotted him at Fort Hood yet ? No ? Oh but at the celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall then ? No again ? At the remembrance of the ardens offensive then ? No ?
He did, of course, defend, even praise, the "tolerant" lack of judgement and general idiocy that made the army ignore all warning signs for the Fort Hood massacre though. But don't worry, Obama's made sure that we'll see more of that tolerance. You know that tolerance that lead to at least 13 corpses.
And if you think it's unfair that shooting is caused by islam, blame the shooter. He FIRST shouted "allahu akbar", then started killing randomly.
Not that there's any doubt all "progressives" will punish me for saying this. It's funny how people who are supposedly comitted to destroying dogma do that. You know, when it violates their dogma.
Our president loves political correctness more than he loves life. Too many Americans "secretly" (ahem) hate our military and in fact support the killing.
--
"muslims love death more than you love life, and that's why we will win"
Major Nidal Hasan - 2007, Walter Reed Hospital. He was making a presentation about how muslim soldiers in the American military must not be forced to fight other muslims. He included the reason : if they didn't "adverse events would happen" (his words, not mine)
Salient detail : this is a quote that was originally made by the (paedophilic thief and massmurderer) muslim prophet muhammad, in a letter to the emperor of the eastern roman empire. Whatever your beliefs are, in this specific comment, history would prove him right.
If you suggest that invading another country requires planning and coherent thoughts about the future, I would argue that you have learnt little from Iraq. Or Vietnam. Or maybe you have actually learnt something, and the military hasn't? I'm getting confused here...
The US strategic reserve (i.e. the not yet pumped reserves on US soil) will probably last longer, as it will be reserved to power the military and a (very) few couple of vital industries. Don't expect the civilian population and industry to be able to access it.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Your point was valid in the 1990s though.
There is no such thing as 'peak oil'. This is the same extrapolationist nonsense that's been spouted in the same breath as 'we're running out of landfills', 'we're running out of fresh water', and 'we're running out of food'. FUD BOLLOCKS.
(And here's a tip: nobody believes you because you've been spewing this same alarmist crap since the late 60's.)
As many people said above, there are trillions of bbls of reserve crude.
As others cogently pointed out, much of this is energetically nonsensical to retrieve.
However, oil is NOT our only source of energy.
As a hypothetical exercise, one could build a nuclear reactor - along with a nearby fast breeder for reprocessing plutonium wastes - and essentially have infinite energy at that site. If electrical energy was not in the format we need (ie until the electric car becomes practical), then that energy can be used to retrieve more oil.
It's very very simple: as supplies for oil become more prohibitive to retrieve, the incentive to develop replacements for it increases. Eventually, oil will probably not be needed at all for energy, only for its use as a source for other raw materials.
For now, all those plastic shopping bags fluttering in the trees down in the street put the lie to any nonsensical fears about 'peak oil'.
-Styopa
Actually, by "you" I meant "pieces of shit Republican bootlickers like you".
I should have been more specific, I apologize.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Virtually everything in a modern home, a modern hospital, a modern medicine cabinet, our modern lives are made from petroleum. The Peak Oil proponents rarely mention that most of the stuff they intend to have us use to "Go Green" is made from Oil. Their fancy CFL bulbs depend on Oil for the components. Most "Green" solutions rely on Oil-derived materials to be manufactured. The very bicycles they want us to peddle, the stroller they push, the mosquito repellant they use to keep their hippy kids free of West Nile, are all petroleum based at one component level or another.
I can't wait for the day the PETA-loving Peak Oil blabbering tree huggers realize the only oil-free option for a new bicycle seat is leather. May as well leave the fur on.
Learned nothing from the recent oil price spike did we? Price goes up, crisis starts, demand drops, price drops, crisis stops. The end of oil's dominance as a fuel source will be slow, not sudden. There are PLENTY of alternatives waiting in the wings for economies of scale to make them as cheap or cheaper than oil.
The people shilling peak oil are just trying to make money off the "crisis" plain and simple - another feature of the market.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
>>>There is plenty of blame to go around but this idea that some how the Democrats in concert with lower income earning U.S. citizens caused the current economic crisis is dumb founding idiocy.
>>>
And yet I hear on the television almost hourly, "The Republicans ruined the economy."
Funny how everyone thinks that's a-okay.
Double standard.
As long as the Dems insist upon attacking me, just because I'm registered (r), then I'm going to strike back. Those videos the Grandparent Poster linked clearly show that the Dems encouraged high-risk loans ("yes som will lead to bankruptcy") and refused to regulate Fannie or Freddie Mac in 2004 when they had the chance. Then they somehow spin that around and say, "Not our fault." Bullshit.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
It has been repeatedly shown that long term economies structurally change to accommodate high oil prices. We live drive less by say living nearer to work. We buy vehicles that are more fuel efficient. Petrol/Gas cost the equivalent of 6.80USD per US gallon at the moment. Much more than it does in the US, but our economy has not ground to a halt because of it.
What is really bad for the economy is changing oil prices. Here the high taxes in Europe cushion us from fluctuating oil prices. The price of petrol today is only 20% higher than it was a decade ago in the UK.
Good. Plant more stuff. That same photosynthesis will breathe, although at night, it's C02. The net sum is that it's a good idea. Eliminating the sources as a concept is a still-better idea.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
So....He makes a good argument against domestic drilling, which you agree with, but you're against it anyway because other people you dislike are for the same thing for other reasons that you consider bogus?
No, I'm against his argument because there are better options. I even proposed one, but I admit I wasn't very clear in doing so. I said:
So much so that they will not consider the idea of taxing domestic oil or using the profits from oil on federal land to investing in green research that could potentially get us off oil for good!
We created a nuclear bomb and sent a man to the moon using 1940's and 50's technology. How were we able to do such monumental things? MONEY! We threw gobs and gobs of money at the technical hurdles and pushed for innovative technological solutions that we would not have been able to otherwise with no guarantee of success.
Oil can give us that money to do it again. There is an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil in ANWR alone. It is estimated to cost about $30/barrel to extract. At $70/barrel, that's $40/barrel profit, or $400 billion that goes nowhere but the government coffers because ANWR is on national land. Of course, that's just ANWR.
Now, of course, there is no guarantee that oil will remain at $70/barrel. It may go higher, it may go lower. Higher is not a problem, but lower can make it all a waste. This can be fixed by placing a tariff on imported oil to make the price at least $70/barrel. This guarantees the profit from government owned oil wells and even makes MORE $$ if the price drops below $70 because of the tax placed on imported oil. It also protects investors who are nervous about drilling because there is no guarantee as to what the price of domestic oil will sell for. Everyone wants to cap oil prices. This never works and leads to shortages. But if you put a floor on oil prices, it insures production and exploration.
Anyway, you take that $$$ and dump into green energy research projects and production and you significantly increase the chances that we will have a green solution before the oil runs out.
Of course, this is not the only option. We could other things like pay off the national debt or feed the world. My whole point was the enviro's won't even consider such suggestions. All they can say is "NO!" even when their reasons for doing so have been disproved or solved.
Sitting on the oil as a strategic reserve for national security purposes is not a bad idea, but in order to do so, we end up paying billions of $$$'s to people who don't like us very much and will gladly use our own money against us. This tends negate the whole national security argument.
Even if the purposes are economic instead of security, it makes little sense to ruin our economy now on the chance that it may help in the future.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Over 600 comments in and no one has mentioned LS9? These folks have found the solution to peak oil: make more of the stuff. Hopefully they can get up to speed quickly; if they can keep costs reasonable, we could have true energy independence...and a fresh source of tariffs on exported petroleum.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Your statement
"If the peak oil doom-mongers are right, in a few years we'll be paying a thousand dollars a barrel."
is incorrect. The price of a barrel of oil will never reach thousands of dollars. What it will happen is this: Spikes in the price of 100% in a short period of time. This will happen when demand outstrips supply. In the post peak-oil world supply won't be increased so a process of "demand destruction" will take place and the price will drop.
This demand destruction will manifest itself in 1st world economies with general empoverishment: Luxuries that were afordable in past years will become unafordable. Basic necesities will eat a bigger proportion of your income. In 3rd world and development countries it will manifest with riots of people who are having hunger because they can cover their families food needs with their incomes.
The spike of July 2008 is the first. There will be more ... Soon.
Ignore "Peakoil" at your peril.
Take a moment to think what will happen to you when/if the oil runs out.
No reason to panic, aside from the obvious losing your car, you'll start riding your bike and also go back to a mode of existence that most of our ancestors took for granted and which is much more in tune with nature, hopefully, due to lessons learned in retrospect. You'll have to make do without your plasma TV, go back to using cotton and rubber insulated cords, everything on store shelves will start appearing without the insane packaging and in glass jars instead of plastic. It'll be locally made stuff or local and organically grown. Hey, most advertising billboards will disappear, nice! It will no longer make any sense to live in the suburbs, so cities become towns and everyone moves back to the towns or countryside. The best jobs will be in the trades - carpentry, masonry, etc. In general, it'll be back to the simpler and less wasteful life, which I'd argue was better anyway.
OH, no laptops, no PC's, thus no slashdot either. OH GOD, kill yourself now!!!
As an environmentalist I WELCOME the day we run out of oil. And I'm ready, already most of the way to reducing my dependence on oil. Regardless of the oil question, I choose not to continue the wasteful inefficient lifestyle.
STFU with your Godwin reference you self important blowhard. Seems like every intellectual wannabe pulls that out of a hat as they look down on someone with disdain. Godwin's Law may be 100% true, but even if it is, so what. He got his point across with his choice of words. I may not agree with him, but his creative use of the word "nazi" definitely did add to the descriptive nature of his post. So why is that a problem with you? Are you such an ass as to think that negates any part of his argument, just because he fell victim to Godwin's Law?
FYI, Godwin's Law just describes a common behavior, it doesn't affect the validity of someone's argument. I think I need to create my own law to deal with stupid people who invoke Godwin's Law to try and prove their superiority.
Actually, by "you" I meant "pieces of shit Republican bootlickers like you".
Fail. I'm not a Republican. I've never voted for a Republican for any office higher than the county level. Good to know that you stereotype people to make it easier to dismiss them though :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
On the contrary, they are very feasible. We can convert entirely, yes entirely, to wind, water, and solar power, and we can do it in 20 years, and thereby head off further global warming. No need for coal or nuclear. But don't take my word for it. Read about it here [scientificamerican.com].
Again, it is a pipe-dream. That is one article that tries to explain this pipe dream. I urge you to look at McKay’s “Global warming without the hot air”. The numbers (and cost) for renewable energy simply doesn’t add up. The only feasible method is hydropower (in certain areas). A nuclear power plant is 1.6GW. How much power does a solar plant generate? Or a wind turbine. (Even the largest solar farms doesn’t come close to one tenth of a nuclear power plant).
Saving the environment is NOT diametrically opposite the economy, but you repeat that lie as if you halfway believe it.
Yes it is. Heavy industry requires large amounts of cheap electricity. (A good example is aluminium smelters). Energy produced by expensive and unfeasible “renewable sources” are too expensive. The result is usually that heavy industry is exported to a country with a more sensible energy policy (e.g. China).
The big lie is Obama (and other politicians’) “Creation of green jobs”. But they say that if you repeat a lie often enough it will be believed.
Lots of green jobs setting up all those windmills and solar panels.
This is the broken window fallacy. Money (and therefore jobs) is removed from productive areas of the economy to “create” the green jobs. The end result is a loss of jobs.
And after, the economic good continues as manufacturing enjoys cheaper power, and it will eventually be cheaper.
There is no evidence whatsoever that renewable energy will be cheaper. Wind turbines uses technology that is almost a century old, and improvements will be doubtful. Solar power is limited by the cost of land and the amount of energy that reaches the Earth. Even if solar magically reaches 50% efficiency at no cost, the area that would be required is about 6400000 square meters to be equivalent to a nuclear power plant. That is about 640 hectares under solar panels. Oh, and it only runs while the sun shines.
If you want to use solar power or wind farms, why don’t you pay for it instead of forcing it on other people? Nothing is stopping you (and other people) from having a dual system (where you pay 10 times the amount for your electricity bill and we pay normal price). If solar and wind farms is so cost effective, **why isn’t there a single one being built without relying on government subsidies**?
We have not even started talking about how the environmentalists destroy the environment with bans on elephant culling or trade in ivory. Then there is still the issue of the hypocrites trying to ban the hunting of Mink whales (by bribing 3rd world land-locked countries). Mink whales aren’t even close to endangered (there are 700,000+ of them).
And then there is also the question of enviro-terrorists-hypocrites attacking nuclear power plants and disrupting industry.
Why don't you read some history. China didn't have nukes in your scenario. We do.
Step down, next challenger!
20 years ago peak oil was put at 2001
50 years ago peak oil was put at 1970
At the start of last centurary it was estimated that there was 10 years left
The key is that for each well we only recover max 40% of the oil using current technology. Predictions on peak oil usually forget about technological advances hence the innacurate asertions.
Furthermore most wells are in the US, we have very few wells in other sedimentary basins.
While oil is dirty it is still plentifiul of we are willing to pollutr and pay for it.
And let's say China/EU or whoever DOES go to war with the US. Everyone one in the world will pour their money into the US just like they did when the stock market collapsed. This is because everyone will think the world is at war, so obviously the US will win and thats the safest place for my money.
We have been investing in military much more than anyone else in the world, so during wartimes, the US is by far the richest nation. Tax rates go up to incredibly high levels during wartime anyway, so the debt wouldn't be an issue.
In an actual war, the US doesn't even have any opponents. Our missiles can take out any other military. Our anti missile system should protect us. We have the only stealth bombers/fighters in service. I.E. it would be over before it begun..... unless someone airbursts a nuke 100 km and takes the entire electricity grid out... but we were planning for that 50 yrs ago, so hopefully there's a plan in place already.
AND environmentalists always say we have to stop burning carbon based fuels.... which I do agree with, but that's not going to happen in time to save the planet. Switching to nuclear power is the only option we have until fusion reactors become feasible and safe, they produce lots of tritium still ( and you thought they didn't have radioactive waste products). So just like Seven Chu says, nuclear power must be a part of our energy production during this century.
And I do agree, three mile island was a great example of how to contain an accident, which was caused by the engineers shutting off water to the reactor, causing it to overheat, very similar to chernobyl. But there was practically no radiation released, the most anyone got was equivalent to smoking 1 pack of cigarettes. But come on, those designs weren't even made with computers, today pebble bed reactors are extremely safe. Toshiba makes a nice mini nuclear reactor perfect for cargo ships, which burn fuel oil, very dirty stuff. Drop them in all the cargo ships, they burn 100,000 gallons of fuel crossing the ocean. I haven't heard of any alternatives for them.
A climate fix is needed to hold us over (we have too much carbon up there, and it's going to take a while until we stop releasing so much), spraying seawater into the air, a dyson sphere to block out some sun, or other creative options will have to be employed to cool off the earth.
We really need some pro nuclear propaganda in this country, we have by far the most knowledge of nuclear physics, and so much if it has been going to waste for the past 30 years.
As far as nuclear waste, I never saw the problem with sticking it in a mountain, unless you believe in mole people or something. The natural uranium mines has huge amounts of uranium in the ground, and it hasn't been a problem for millions of years, so whats the problem with artificially putting hot stuff in the ground. Hell, you really just need a concrete building to throw the waste in, just don't put it on a fault line.
We have something like 10,000 nukes sitting in the silos and building, they are made of dangerous material, and nobody wines about that, yet nuclear waste is somehow completely different?!
Learned nothing from the recent oil price spike did we?
No, the recent oil price spike confirms my point - and yours as well, since we don't inherently disagree on any of the basic features of supply and demand. Where we disagree is on the practical outcomes of supply and demand in the oil market.
The people shilling peak oil are just trying to make money off the "crisis" plain and simple - another feature of the market.
I think peak oil is a valid concept, since we know the production of oil is likely to hit a high point and then decline. That's all "peak oil" means. Your points on alternatives taking over the market as oil prices increase are perfectly true, but they do not contradict peak oil.
As it has happened in the past, someone is plotting a rising demand curve against a presumed insufficient supply, and screams "we're doomed!". This kind of thinking ignores new oil finds, and new recovery techniques which extract more oil from existing finds.
Also ignored are two known Saudi Arabia-sized oil sources -- the tar sands of Alberta and oil shale in the US. At current prices, using these sources isn't economically feasible, but if the price of oil moves up and stays up, we'll see these sources come on line.
Can you name one thing the world has run out of? New technologies, close substitution, and ingenuity driven by economic need have always bolstered and increased the supply of a needed commodity.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
The general population, IE you and me, are NOT very high on that list for some strange reason.. A government "by the people, for the people" vanished long ago.
Wow. I'm sick with what our government has become about as much as anyone else around here, but that's stretching it a bit, don't you think? Are you even aware for how long the SOR would last? According to Wikipedia, only about 34 days.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
In other words your arguments have no credibility and your just acting out in anger. As is evidenced when you repeat claims that the Democrats somehow destroyed any hope of additional regulation of Fannie and Freddie in a response to a post where I gave you the links to GW Bush's response claiming he will not support a house bill that passed that provided for regulation. And while I didn't provide a link I did give you the information you would need to look into McCain's half assed support of the same while in the senate.
And the funny thing is, none of it matters because if you read any of the reports that looked into the meltdown all the nutso news headlines and talking head spin masters are full of shit. Poor people receiving mortgages did not bring down the economy, that has to be the dumbest conclusion anyone from any political party could ever proclaim. Complete idiocy.
Yea see, that's what they're thinking.
Saudi Arabia is REALLY REALLY rich. Like crazy rich, like if you're born there you're guaranteed the equivalent of a U.S. doctor salary just for being a citizen.
The U.S. class of consumer goods doesn't really excite them anymore and they're conscious of the prisoner's dilema situation arising as peak oil becomes a reality.
The last person selling oil makes the most money, and they have enough reserve CASH that they can just stop and wait until they're the last one standing.
Of course all of that cash is in American currency which seems likely to become worthless once people actually look at the breakdown of the trillions of $ of American debt.
I'm not surprised prices are rising, I'm surprised nations that "cash in" on oil are still selling to other nations.
Maybe it's another situation like the one that exists with China, their production pretty much makes America their servant as well.
The Chinese seem to think that American money is going to be worth something into the future, WTF is America investing in? Not themselves, not oil, not money, not education, not military power...
It's Taco franchises and entertainment isn't it... Sigh.... so stupid.
Well if they could convince us that President Hugo Chavez wasn't the nice people serving anti-communist he clearly is (No I'm not being sarcastic, look as his public opinion polls) then at least the CIA would still have a modicum of power.
You think Environmentalists are nazis? (BTW I think the word your looking for is Fanatic, bring out the Nazi's once genetics get involved... like with Zionists).
:P
Take a look at Feminism
You don't need a "purchaser" if you're communist.
There is no bank to big to let fail, look at the Crusades and their attempts to kill all the Jews.
In the short term it is beneficial for China to maintain the U.S. as a consumer of their goods allowing them to purchase resources from countries like Brazil, Canada and Australia. But at some point it will occur to a Chinese worker that he makes 500 iPods a day and can't afford one.
If Chinese knock offs have taught us anything it's that the Chinese saw what happened to manufacturing in Japan, then South Korea/Taiwan and have NO intention of allowing themselves to move into the consumer role.
Maybe they didn't get their message across with the Olympics, it's not a billion faceless uneducated people who are basically the same. It's a billion individuals each of whom is ambitious... couple that with a pretty good grasp of economics and a populace forgiving of human rights abuse if it means prosperity and you have a viable economic machine.
Japan launched itself into the information economy successfully in the early 80s and it was only the timely oil crisis that broke their ability to transition.
I'm glad you see the irony, just wish you'd realize that all the other nations see it as well... it'll be interesting to see what convenient methods the CIA finds to defuse several nations making a move towards becoming the dominant culture at once. Sigh, it's so obvious how this is going to go... wish they'd all calm down and stop racing towards the end game.
No, of course I don't think all environmentalists are nazis -- I never said that. I do, however, think that some environmentalists are idiots. Notice the dufus banging the leather drum. And, you have to wonder what they eat -- if they mourn the death of trees, do they decry the death of all plants? Or, are there certain castes of plants that it's ok to kill? It's obvious that the young one, who forces a primal howl, is a new recruit. Some day, she will become like the wise, older one who marvels at the life of a rock.
Feminism you say? Just like environmentalism, there is good and bad feminism. The problem happened after suffrage, when the new fork of liberal, militant feminism came to be. This feminism, the type that refuses to acknowledge the physiological differences between man and woman; the type that turns a blind eye to the objectification of women as nothing more than sexual machines, has done more damage to feminism than chauvinism ever did.
sig: sauer
What soot?
Why does the snow turn black at the side of the road?
Why do the wheels on my road bike stain my hands black when I change a tire?
Modern cars are cleaner, sure, sometimes you can even taste it when an old beater drives by, but all hydrocarbon based vehicles are certainly contaminating our environment.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.
Drugs are merely cheap:
http://icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=1
It was already easy to dismiss you. I didn't have to make it any easier.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Every source of power has its drawbacks, but your analysis above seems more interested in detailing what is wrong with environmentalists. This is not news for nerds. I do not care so much whether someone calls themselves an environmentalist or not, but rather that they put forward helpful criticism or suggestions.
Wind power is just one possibility which you deride above. I would like to set the record straight. Its a bit expensive, but the costs have changed a lot with the advent of of large lightweight composite materials. Its now possible to make 3 or even 5 mega watt turbines with a life time greater than 20 years. The largest US single wind farm "Horse Hollow Wind Energy" is 735.5MW. Which is slightly shy of 1/2 of a massive nuclear power plant. It requires no 100 mile evacuation plans and sirens, nor does it make nuclear waste... etc.... Its a good thing. It was probably supported by the govt, like many other things, such as the Hoover Dam, nuclear power, bridges, farming, highways, railroads and so on. Not everything supported by the govt is bad you know.
Sometimes the government supports a technology to get it going and then it takes off. Like the internet.
The private company versions of the internet, such as Compuserve, were pretty bad in comparison. Sometimes it takes a government grant to get good things going.
I think you are so bent on insulting enviro-liberal-goverment loving-commie-pinko-satan-worshipping-gays you miss the fact that some of things, that people you hate want, are really good.
Spain exceeded the 50% wind power threshold the other day?
The U.S. still produces the most wind power in the world..... it's not enough.
The largest US single wind farm "Horse Hollow Wind Energy" is 735.5MW. Which is slightly shy of 1/2 of a massive nuclear power plant.
The largest windfarm in the USA is actually Roscoe Wind Farm. You quoted the installed capacity. Because the wind does not always blow at full strength, the wind farm never runs at full capacity.
The generation of a wind farm should therefore be multiplied by a capacity factor. For wind farms, it is usually 20-40%. If we assume (the optimistic case) of a capacity factor of 40%, the wind farm is 5 times smaller than a nuclear power plant. A nuclear reactor’s lifetime is also between 40 and 60 years (two to three times longer than a wind farm). A wind turbine also has the problem of its gearbox that needs constant maintenance. A 1600MW nuclear power plant is also not massive – it is actually pretty small (when compared to a wind *farm*).
It requires no 100 mile evacuation plans and sirens, nor does it make nuclear waste... etc...
Only small parts of the country are suitable for wind generators. This means that incredible long power lines should be laid. Also, because the energy is unpredictable (because of weather patterns) you have to connect far flung regions to maintain a constant supply of electricity. This is no easy task.
Btw, wasn’t there complaints from neighbours about the Horse Hollow wind farm?
China has increasingly become a mixed economy and losing central control for the sake of efficiency and growth. Meanwhile the US is going the opposite way, increasing governmental regulatory power and even taking ownership of key business sectors.
They changed how they valued the Yuan by pegging it 50/50 between the dollar and Euro in 2005. Then when the global markets became shakey last year they returned to weighing more heavily on the dollar. As bad as the dollar has been handled, its still the currency of choice for "safe" investment.
These investments represent a normalization between rich urban and extremely poor rural populations. What remains to be seen is how well the Chinese economy can handle inflation pressure as labor, energy, and raw material costs continue to rise.
These investments more intimately link the Chinese economy to the US, any weakness in the latter will diminsh the value of the holdings of the former.
The Chinese have positioned themselves to take economic leadership, however it can only be accomplished by internal growth rather than unilateral destruction of the United States economy. Neither side can afford to take drastic punative action against the other without putting themselves as great risk.
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China has increasingly become a mixed economy and losing central control for the sake of efficiency and growth.
While that is true, I think it is easy to over-estimate this development. For example, foreign companies AFAIK still can't buy land to build on - they have to lease it from the local government. Many are forced to joint-venture with domestic and/or state-run companies. And about a third of the word force works in state-run factories.
They changed how they valued the Yuan by pegging it 50/50 between the dollar and Euro in 2005. Then when the global markets became shakey last year they returned to weighing more heavily on the dollar. As bad as the dollar has been handled, its still the currency of choice for "safe" investment.
I meant something different (and alas, still couldn't find that book I got the info from) - IIRC they want something bretton-woods-style: the value of the important currencies will only be allowed to fluctuate between specific minima and maxima (but not dependent on the gold value).
My understanding of Godwin's law is not that referencing Nazis is bad (after all, they were a part of history). He just observed that eventually, if a fight goes on long enough, someone will make reference to them. He did not opine if that was bad or good.
I believe the idea was that once Nazis are mentioned in an argument there will be no more useful information imparted. Invoking Godwin's Law is bad from the point of view of having a reasoned argument, but good in that any sane people involved can recognise quickly what is happening and move on.
Godwin's Law also doesn't apply when actually discussing Nazis, only when a comparison is unduly made to Nazis or Hitler.
Most of "us liberals" don't think the amount of oil we'd get domestically is worth destroying the land it's buried under to get to.
I don't have control over Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Venezuela or Brazil. Oddly they haven't seen fit to give me a vote or a representative. But here, things are done in my name, with my tax dollars, in and to my country. this country is MY responsibility as it is all citizens. and racing to the bottom ecologically for a few scant years of cheaper oil doesn't make much sense to me. I'd rather have ANWAR. and if oil REALLY goes belly up... I'd rather have hundreds of years of access to moderately priced plastics than to burn it all up, but if we drill now, we're just going to set it all on fire, because once it's tapped it will always be cheaper to pump out the dregs for fuel than to use something else for fuel, until the dregs are basically a useless amount.
Oil is far too useful to burn it all. I don't want to see it tapped until we've figured out a better fuel source. then our plastics future can be guaranteed practically forever for much less drilling.
Cool. You want to talk tech.
I checked up on Capacity Factor. A nuclear PP, typically has 90% CF. But thats because it must be run as a baseload plant. I remember visiting a baseload gas fired plant in Rhode Island a ways back. It was brand new, and very cool. The gas turbines always running. Right you are, about gears needing maintenance. Except for solar, I thing they all need maintenance. And even solar needs to get cleaned from dust occasionally.
The thing is, what we need most is power during the day and wind happily mostly blows during this time, since it is after all a solar effect. A baseload plant is great, but only about 1/3 of the power is needed at night. No industry, office lights or air conditioning for the mall. Wind, while intermittent, can really help with this. A friend of mine works in short term weather forecasts. The problem of whether the windfarm will be able to supply energy or not needs to be determined at 5am, otherwise (usually) a fossil fuel plant needs to be fired up. With some good computers and weather models, they can tell whether one needs to fire up the oil/gas/coal peak load plant or not.
The thing is, its much better to run a nuclear plant as baseload because of the huge capital cost. But peakload power is more valuable and thats why wind can compete. In some places they run the nuclear all night at full blast and charge up a hydro resevoir. But its a pretty inefficient process.
I think wind, solar and others can play a huge role in supplying the power needed. Especially the peak load power. Hydro, nuclear and natural gas can keep the baseload. Coal and oil should just be phased out because of the expense. It is much better to heat a place with fossil fuel than make electricity.
And of course the Horse Hollow wind farm had complaints. But nothing compared to a nuclear power plant. Even John Kerry tried to stop a wind farm on the Cape. People always want someone else to do their industry and have a pretty landscape. I wish they would just get a painting and hang it in front of their window.
I remember visiting a baseload gas fired plant in Rhode Island a ways back. It was brand new, and very cool. The gas turbines always running.
That is funny. In most countries gas is used as peak power supply since gas is more expensive than coal. (Gas is also often used when the grid is too small – it is faster to build one than a coal power plant).
Except for solar, I thing they all need maintenance. And even solar needs to get cleaned from dust occasionally.
Fair enough. But it is easier to maintain one generator than 1000 mounted on poles (as is the case for wind power).
The thing is, what we need most is power during the day and wind happily mostly blows during this time, since it is after all a solar effect. A baseload plant is great, but only about 1/3 of the power is needed at night.
In many countries, the peak power is reached at night (when people start cooking). Baseload is also higher than 1/3. In many countries there are industries (e.g. metallurgy) that use power 24 hours of a day. Many other industries also run in the night (because of the cheaper power).
With some good computers and weather models, they can tell whether one needs to fire up the oil/gas/coal peak load plant or not.
All of those extra plants is an additional capital expense.
Coal is a lot cheaper than gas. That is why gas generators are usually not baseload generators. Many countries (Germany) do however prefer gas since it burns cleaner than coal. But it is a lot more expensive though. Countries such as the USA, China, Australia, Russia and South Africa have huge reserves of cheap coal. For those it makes sense to use coal power plants.
But nothing compared to a nuclear power plant. Even John Kerry tried to stop a wind farm on the Cape.
A nuclear power plant has much less space – so it directly influences a lot less people. The flexibility in placing a nuclear power plant is much greater than for example wind farms, solar farms or coal power plants.
Opposition to nuclear power usually comes from ill-informed enviro-terrorists.