Tapping Shale Reserves, US Would Become World's Top Oil Producer By 2017

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that according to a report by the International Energy Agency, the U.S. will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's leading oil producer by about 2017, will become a net oil exporter by 2030, and will become 'all but self-sufficient' in meeting its energy needs in about two decades — a 'dramatic reversal of the trend' in most developed countries. 'The foundations of the global energy systems are shifting,' says Fatih Birol, chief economist at the Paris-based organization, which produces the annual World Energy Outlook. There are several components of the sudden shift in the world's energy supply, but the prime mover is a resurgence of oil and gas production in the United States, particularly the unlocking of new reserves of oil and gas found in shale rock. The widespread adoption of techniques like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling has made those reserves much more accessible, and in the case of natural gas, resulted in a vast glut that has sent prices plunging. The agency's report was generally 'good news' for the United States says Michael A. Levi, senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, because it highlights the nation's new sources of energy but Levi cautions that being self-sufficient does not mean that the country will be insulated from seesawing energy prices, since those oil prices are set by global markets. The message is more sobering for the planet, in terms of climate change. Although natural gas is frequently promoted for being relatively low in carbon emissions compared to oil or coal, the new global energy market could make it harder to prevent dangerous levels of warming (PDF). 'The report confirms that, given the current policies, we will blow past every safe target for emissions,' says Levi. 'This should put to rest the idea that the boom in natural gas will save us from that.'" The folks over at The Oil Drum aren't quite so optimistic: shale reserves may have an abysmal EROI. And, of course, Global Warming is a liberal myth.

Comments

It's a sad sign of the times

[aurispector]

When the partisan political aspect of an issue is already included in the original post.

Bettter to shut down discussions about AGW before they start! It's settled science!

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[jellomizer]

The problem lies in the fact the issue isn't black and white. Yes fossil fuels cause Global Warming. However we can't get get off the stuff, as Fossil Fuels are a relatively concentrated, and stable form of energy, that can moved and transported and held in long term reserves.
We cannot go off fossil fuels. Alternative energy isn't there yet. In the mean time we need to use it, and if we can get it from politically safer areas all the better. If we don't have to buy oil from the Middle east, we can set back and watch them kill themselves over their petty differences without much intervention from us.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[ByOhTek]

I'm a moderate liberal, but I wouldn't say I hate oil. I would rather say that I would prefer an alternative (def. more in the way of nuclear, the waste, while worse, is more easily contained).

However, I am strongly against drilling for American oil now. I think, when oil starts running really low in other regions, then we should start drilling it. By that point, they'll have exported all their oil at relatively low prices, and we'll be able to export it at much higher prices. It's an investment.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[dave420]

Maybe they didn't like drilling because of the ecological damage drilling causes? If it were gravy they were drilling for, they'd still feel the same. Stop looking at things so simplistically. It's really not helping you look rational.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[Anonymous Coward]

The main thing that holds back alternative energy sources is their relative price. The potential is there, but it would require vast investments of money which won't happen until that investment is profitable. However, if the cost of fossil fuels included the cost AGW causes then the equation would be different. If fossil fuel sources were taxed to pay for increasingly frequent events like Sandy then alternative fuels would have a chance sooner.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[MickyTheIdiot]

What is most sad is because of the captured nature of congress the real discussions (of course happening in the back rooms) is about how this helps or hurts oil companies. Our system has real problems doing stuff for the greater good of all when the internal debate is basically controlled by a group of oil robber barons.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[fustakrakich]

Or it could be we don't like breathing and drinking that crap. I suppose we could come around if the oil companies paid the medical bills, and for the clean up, instead of just passing the costs onto the consumers.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[Joce640k]

The problem lies in the fact the issue isn't black and white. Yes fossil fuels cause Global Warming. However we can't get get off the stuff

Can't? Or don't want to?

Why can't electricity be produced without fossil fuels? A fraction of the current investment in warmongering could build some of those next-gen nuclear power stations that have been discussed here many times. The ones with almost zero safety/waste issues who's theory has been known for decades but none have been built...what's going on there?

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[Psyborgue]

Can we include Canada in that bargain, you antisemitic snow-back fuck. Israel did not ask to be attacked by their neighbors in 48, 68, and 73. The Jews did not ask to be labeled "Apes" and "Pigs" in the 7th century Mein Kampf read every day by Muslims worldwide. Just because two people are fighting and have been at it for a long time does not mean both sides are guilty. Sometimes there is an aggressor and a victim.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[Ambassador Kosh]

And who is going to pay the costs of not getting off the stuff? All this environmental damage is not free and it has a real cost in terms of our health (and the money it takes to fix it) and also in terms of damage done directly to us in the form of stronger storms.

Saying that fossil fuels are cheaper is just a way of externalizing the costs. It is letting large businesses make a fortune while our tax dollars go to clean up the damage and the money spent to repair the damage dwarfs the money made from the fuels.

Also we can eliminate fossil fuels for most uses already right now and we are doing very little of that. About half the energy used in a house is just wasted due to poor insulation. No matter what kind of fuel source you have if you throw away a significant fraction of your power you are going to have problems.

We have also developed better battery technology, building technology for cars to make them lighter and stronger and companies like BP keep buying up the patents on them like on lithium polymer batteries.

Sure we can't go 100% off fossil fuels but there is no 100% solution. We can still use a lot more wind, solar, nuclear and combine that with better insulation, EVs for most normal commuter driving and still get at least 80% or more of the way to not using fossil fuels anymore.

This attitude seems pretty defeatist. Since we can't do 100% we might as well do nothing. The problem is the costs of doing nothing are enormous. Even if all we did was spend the kind of money we do on various wars on insulating houses in America it would still make a huge impact in our emissions and reduce our need for fossil fuels by a lot. That even has a better payback for the society that then wars do.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[fustakrakich]

Opium wars go father back than petrol wars. The nature of addiction being what it is makes it a very important product to control.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[h4rr4r]

And sometimes they switch aggressor and victim role back and forth.

Like when they want to bomb Iran for fun, or just dole out a little collective punishment to the Palestinians. As far as I am concerned they are all as guilty as each other.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[h4rr4r]

When was the last time a retailer leaked hundreds/thousands/millions/billions of gallons of toxic liquid into an environment?

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[aicrules]

You mean that stuff that is already in the environment? But if you really want an example, just walk by an Abercrombie & Fitch.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[h4rr4r]

Some small amount of it in the environment.
We released a lot more than would be natural.

Sure the area will recover, but the immediate economic impact on the people in the area is not acceptable. The economic impact in the short term is for me the biggest problem. The extraction operation cut corners and fishermen were stuck with the bill. That part is not liberal or conservative, it is simple reality. When push comes to shove these companies never pay for the damage they cause those around them.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[sumdumass]

I never did get the wait until everyone else runs out argument.

Eventually, the costs of alternatives like wind and solar will go down (patents and licensing fees will expire, manufacturing materials and costs will lessen with time and mature processing techniques plus increased efficiencies). There will be other discoveries where we can store energy better or extract it from interesting materials or processes not in use today (I like the idea of making hydrogen peroxide then using it to power low temp steam turbines in much the same way compressed air is being used by the storage need is much lower and not geographically limited). This will lead to less demand on oil thereby making the price remain cheaper. There is a somewhat strong global initiative to replace oil because of climate change fears (whether true or not) and we aren't to far from being able to if we didn't care about other things like growing food.

It will be like saving that pound of really good meat for a special day and forgetting it can spoil. Or maybe it's more like those guys who built a time capsule out of an old salt mine and placed a car and other items so they would be in mint condition and valuable when they opened it after 50 just to find a water source infiltrated the cavern and they were all rust.

I say use it, use it now. Get our energy security within the US, spend money on developing alternatives and we won't have to spend on our military to procure and protect foreign supplies and we won't have to swallow out pride and play nice with brutal dictators trying to ensure that oil flows our direction, Because if we save that botle of milk long enough, it won't be worth drinking.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[ShanghaiBill]

The ones with almost zero safety/waste issues who's theory has been known for decades but none have been built...?

Lots of things that are really simple in theory turn out to be rather complicated in practice. Pebble bed reactors have been mentioned many times as a panacea for nuclear problems. But when the Germans actually build one they had lots of problems that the theorists didn't foresee. The Chinese are trying again, but nobody sees PBRs as a silver bullet anymore. Since the beginning of the nuclear age people have put forth "simple" designs that will solve all our problems and make energy too cheap to meter, but reality keeps getting in the way.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[microbox]

Fact is, liberals hate oil.

Some liberals hate oil. The rest of us just love science.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[microbox]

Eventually, the costs of alternatives like wind and solar will go down

Alternative energy will eclipse some traditional energy markets in the next 5 years. (Red-meat conservatives will almost deny that it is happening even as it happens.)

It will be like saving that pound of really good meat for a special day and forgetting it can spoil.

Once oil is used, it is used, and there is carbon pollution in the atmosphere. It will stay there for 1000 years, and there is no sane way to extract it. Burning oil has a negative externality which has /never/ been factored into the cost.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[rhakka]

but external costs are paid via mechanisms that are NOT included in the cost of the fuel.

the medical and pollution aspects of fossil fuel use... to say nothing of the global warming costs and, up until recently, our geopolitical control costs (military)... are all costs associated with oil that we pay for via taxes, insurance premiums, and other mechanisms that don't dissuade oil usage per se.

until those externialities are captured in the cost of a barrel of oil, the playing field against clean alternatives is not level. thus the need for subsidies on clean alternatives. because the free market simply cannot handle external costs in a legitimate way.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[jez9999]

You're right, but why nuclear? Why not something that doesn't have the chance, however remote, of causing armageddon?

Because modern nuclear doesn't have even a remote chance of causing armageddon. The worst crisis in the history of nuclear power gave a few thousand people cancer. The second worst crisis has killed or injured almost nobody, although caused a lot of inconvenience in the area no doubt. No other nuclear failure has caused any health problems worth mentioning, and the ones whose failures were costly to clean up were old, and would not be produced in this day and age.

Nuclear power is the safest energy source per TWh, bar none. Wind power is more deadly.

Modern nuclear can also process existing nuclear waste, which seems like a bit of a win.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[SteveDorries]

What's with all the love for solid fuels in your response, don't forget about MSRs. Thorium based reactors are even safer than their pressurized water Uranium based cousins. Not to disparage them, any nuclear is better than coal or oil, but Th is better than U. Here's a little video about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[xtal]

Why is it those who complain about nuclear power plants never bat an eye at the ~4000 nuclear warheads aimed at people all over the world, ready to do harm with the press of a button, held in place with the same failsafes they deem insufficient?

Burning oil is stupid. We should be developing nuclear technologies as fast as we can. Instead we'll wait for the oil to be gone.. but I hope we don't wait until we need to use those warheads over oil reserves. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony?

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[fustakrakich]

They were given that land, legally.

Oh really?? By whom? Some bald headed old white men who didn't own it? If you mean, by legal, with a big gun, you would be right. And please, don't try to tell me they moved in peacefully. That kind of fabrication goes beyond the pale.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[ColdWetDog]

Chernobyl was caused by techs not reading the failures correctly and a flawed nuclear reactor system. You can not compare a Chernobyl reactor with any reactor built within the last twenty years.

True enough. Nobody else will be batshit insane enough to pull another Chernobyl.

Fukushima was also caused by a lot of human faults (ie building on a fault line, not putting the generators that cool the rods on the roof) not to mention a storm of the century. Fukushima was also not a current gen reactor.

Also true enough. But those self same human faults (economizing, poor planning, poor execution, willful blindness, hubris, arrogance and just plain incompetence) are also seen in the vast majority of other commercial fission plants. Doesn't really have to be - but it is. Reality is a bitch sometimes and until Homo Industrialis can behave a bit better, fission should remain off the table as a major power source.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[drinkypoo]

We have the technology to replace gasoline with ethanol

forget ethanol, ethanol is a scam to put money into Monsanto's pockets. Butanol is a 1:1 replacement for gasoline that is made from any organic material by bacteria. BP and DuPont own a holding company called Butamax which they occasionally use to sue Gevo for having the audacity to try to commercially produce butanol over a bullshit patent they never should have been granted on the basis of obviousness.

To properly use ethanol, we need new engines across the board, every single car on the road. We don't have the resources for that retrofit.

First, that is a lot of horseshit. There's lots of engines out there right now that could run on E100 with an additive. You see them out on the road with a little "flex fuel" icon on the back of them that means they can run on E85, not that you can even get that anywhere, nor should you want to. Second, high-compression and direct-injection engines can be modified by re-jetting or by reprogramming the ECU. And even diesels can be run on E95 (5% gasoline) if their compression is high enough, and they have a turbocharger, with a timing change and some tweaks to the fuel delivery, and of course a lubricity additive. Most any IDI diesel with a turbo will work.

Now, replacing diesel with biodiesel or even straight veggie oil, at least in temperate climates, looks much better. The base fuel is easy to make, engine conversion is relatively cheap, and the fuel can even come recycled from restaurants and food factories.

It looks much better because you haven't done it. Veg oil leads to gumming and coking. Biodiesel is a great solution though, as is "green diesel" which is traditional diesel fuel made from veg oil as a feedstock instead of crude. And you can run on veg if you occasionally run on biodiesel to clean your engine, so it's not actually all bad, it's a real working fuel. But it does decrease service lifetimes of a whole lot of parts, and the blowby (there is always blowby) spoils petro-based crankcase lube over time, and so far I have not managed to locate a source for bio-based diesel-grade engine oil in the USA.

Unfortunately, the "environmentalists" who run California are extremely hostile to diesels.

That is extremely true. They are also fairly hostile to biodiesel; they've recently classified vegetable oil as being something close to gasoline in terms of spill hazard. It's not like it's benign, there are issues, but it's nowhere near that bad.

In any case, you should educate yourself regarding biofuels a bit more before making too many declarative statements about them. You clearly haven't done the research.

Re:It's a sad sign of the times

[cusco]

The real problem is that the banksters make far too much money off of money laundering to ever let legalization happen. Well over a trillion dollars gets laundered through the US banking system yearly (we're the world's largest money laundry), half of that from drugs. At ten to fifteen percent fees for money washing, legalization would present the banks with a loss of $50-$75 billion/yearly in revenue that is almost pure profit. Money laundering is so profitable that the CEO of the Dow Jones Stock Exchange went to Colombia to solicit the FARC's business, and Clinton's Treasury Secretary went directly from "public service" to CitiCorp's 'Private Banking' (money laundering) division.

"Peak Oil"

[argStyopa]

We've heard it before, and we'll hear it again.

"In 1975 MK Hubbert, a geoscientist working for Shell who had correctly predicted the decline in US oil production, suggested that global supplies could peak in 1995. In 1997 the petroleum geologist Colin Campbell estimated that it would happen before 2010. In 2003 the geophysicist Kenneth Deffeyes said he was "99% confident" that peak oil would occur in 2004. In 2004, the Texas tycoon T Boone Pickens predicted that "never again will we pump more than 82m barrels" per day of liquid fuels. (Average daily supply in May 2012 was 91m.) In 2005 the investment banker Matthew Simmons maintained that "Saudi Arabia ⦠cannot materially grow its oil production". (Since then its output has risen from 9m barrels a day to 10m, and it has another 1.5m in spare capacity.)" (and that's just since 1975).

Personally, if the US has these sorts of reserves, we're idiots to tap them today. Use it as leverage to keep the Saudis pumping THEIR oil at moderate prices, and exhaust the supplies outside the US before touching our own.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, if the US has these sorts of reserves, we're idiots to tap them today. Use it as leverage to keep the Saudis pumping THEIR oil at moderate prices, and exhaust the supplies outside the US before touching our own.

Unfortunately that's not how Capitalism works. This would be the definition of collusion or the United States government directing private industry not to make money. We're quite far from China in this respect and that's one area I'd like us to stay away from.

Did you know we get more crude oil from Canada than Saudi Arabia?

Re:"Peak Oil"

[oodaloop]

Almost makes you wonder if the wars were about something else entirely, like terrorism and regional stability, like they said. Almost, I guess.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Personally, if the US has these sorts of reserves, we're idiots to tap them today. Use it as leverage to keep the Saudis pumping THEIR oil at moderate prices, and exhaust the supplies outside the US before touching our own.

Unfortunately that's not how Capitalism works. This would be the definition of collusion or the United States government directing private industry not to make money. We're quite far from China in this respect and that's one area I'd like us to stay away from.

Did you know we get more crude oil from Canada than Saudi Arabia?

You are missing one important point: not all 'oil reserves' are created equal. Some are nice, clean, sweet, crude conveniently buried in relatively uncomplicated rocks at moderate depth. Others are a zillion feet underwater, badly dispersed through some formation that makes geologists cry, or in the form of dubiously flammable shale or tar sands that can be coaxed into releasing just slightly more energy than required for the coaxing if you are willing to put up with ghastly byproducts.

The exploitation of different classes of reserves creates externalities of differing severity. Because markets suck at dealing with externalities, we impose some level of regulation designed either to internalize the externalities or to simply forbid activities that cause excessive negative externalities.

It is entirely possible that, if the US oil reserves are nastier, or if the Saudis need the oil money sufficiently badly to impose the externalities on themselves before we do, we would see a situation where less desirable US reserves remain in reserve until foreign reserves are tapped out.

This would be a situation created by regulatory pressures(which I would argue is hardly a bad thing, if it keeps us from experiencing the... cost insensitivity... that accompanies oil development in places like the Niger delta...); but it would hardly require the establishment of the First People's Patriotic Petroleum Five Year Glorious Plan.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[VortexCortex]

I agree. Furthermore: Burning Oil is BAD -- No, hear me out. We should be using it to make plastics and other neat stuff, not wasting it as a fuel. I agree we need to use it now, but think of the future, when alternative energies are viable -- We'll curse ourselves for wasting all that valuable material used to make everything from medical supplies to computer screens. We won't stop pumping oil until every last drop is gone, even if we stop using it as a fuel.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[i kan reed]

You know, I held the same opinion until I decided to do some research to back up my position, and found that only the heaviest oils in the refinement process are any good for plastics(at least the consumer/industrial grade plastics we're used to). Those heavy oils are also the worst ones for burning for energy, with the lightest ones being converted to jet fuel and gasoline.

I'm also pretty impressed with what we're doing with plant-based plastics these days, which are essentially renewable. Not on par with the oil-based plastics, but getting there.

Suffice it to say, I can't really hold that position anymore.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[crmarvin42]

The First problem with predictions about "Peak Oil", or peak anything for that matter, is that it assumes the current known reservers are all that exist. The Second problem with these predictions are that they don't take into account the ability of price and new technology to change what known quantities of a natural resource even get counted in the reserves.

The known reserves of Oil is higher today than it was during the oil shortages of the 1970's here in the US. This is becuase exploration continues to find new reserves. Furthermore, the Candian oil sands were known about in the 1970's, but excluded from the estimates of global reserves becuase, at 1970's prices and using 1970's technology, it was not possible to extract the oil and sell it for a profit. Both prices and technology changed, and now the Canadian oil sands are included in global reserves calculations. Also, wells are not pumped dry. They are frequently shut off when the costs associated with extraction are greater thant he price the oil can be sold for. As prices go down, producing fields are capped until prices go back up and the field can be operated without a loss. Steam injection and other techniques have made it possible to get more oil out of a well at a lower cost than was possible 40 years ago, and I see no reason to believe that this advance of technology is going to reach it's apex with current technology. The financial incentives to come up with new technologies are just too great.

This is all very clearly discussed in "Basic Economics, 4th edition" by Thomas Sowell. I'm currently listening to the Audiobook during my weekday commute and it is very understandable and quite convincing.

Now, this doesn't address the AGW issues associated with use of fossile fuels directly. However, by using up the cheap easily-accessible oil we will create an economic situation where alternatives that are currently not cost effective (with or without government intervention) will become cost effective at somepoint without increasing their cost per unit of energy. Furthermore, as each alternative technology gets closer to cost effective, investement capital will be injected into R&D to try and be the first to hit the market in a cost effective manner and reap the benefits that come from being first and getting the lions share of the market to start.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[TubeSteak]

You know, I held the same opinion until I decided to do some research to back up my position, and found that only the heaviest oils in the refinement process are any good for plastics(at least the consumer/industrial grade plastics we're used to). Those heavy oils are also the worst ones for burning for energy, with the lightest ones being converted to jet fuel and gasoline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Bunker_fuel
"... bunker oil is literally the bottom of the barrel; the only things more dense than bunker fuel are carbon black feedstock and bituminous residue which is used for paving roads (asphalt) and sealing roofs."

Everything that gets shipped from China arrives on a boat burning bunker fuel aka "Those heavy oils [that] are also the worst ones for burning for energy".

And I don't know where you got the idea that heavy oils are the worst for energy. In the same way that diesel has more energy content than gasoline, bunker fuel has more energy content than diesel. Bunker fuel just requires a lot more pre-treating before it can be used in an engine... which is why it gets sold so cheaply. Nothing smaller than a boat has room for all the extra machinery to heat and filter the fuel.

Re:"Peak Oil"

[i kan reed]

Interesting and informative. I may have to consider my position even further.

Except

[Dunbal]

All these arguments fail to account for increasing US oil demand. They invariably keep demand fixed at today's demand. So while the US could "become the world's #1 producer by 2017", by 2020 it would probably be consuming everything it produces and be importing again. Provided China left any oil for anyone else by then...

Re:Except

[ocop]

Oil demand in the U.S. (and the OECD more broadly) has declined and flatlined following the "Great Recession". Even in light of the recovery, petroleum consumption has remained essentially flat, with maybe even a slight decline from 2009. The economic shock of 2008's oil prices has violently reoriented the economy in some ways, and it's hard to think of a reason that oil consumption will ever tick back up as new CAFE standards come into effect. The use of oil for heating and power generation has been in decline for decades--the remaining demand is for transportation and petrochemicals. EIA US consumption data here: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WRPUPUS2&f=W

Put your money where your mouth is

[Anonymous Coward]

Global Warming is a liberal myth.
 
Ok. So stop being a consumer. It's that simple. Sure, it means paying more and putting up with some things that oil consumers don't have to put up with but if you're so concerned than stop buying what they're selling. If enough people do it and if enough money goes into green tech than you'll be able to end the oil industry.
 
If you're waiting for the government to hold your hand than you're going to wait a long time before they really abandon the oil culture. By a long time I'm talking generations.
 
There's your choices. What's your next move? Grumble and accept your fate at the gas pumps or do you become forward thinking and move on from oil? I can tell you where I'd place my bets.

Re:so let met get this straight

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The idea that the US 'imports' oil is a myth promulgated by isolationists.

We simply 'repatriate' American oil that had the ill fortune to be buried under somebody else's sand.

There is NO SUCH THING as being self sufficient!

[arkham6]

I hate whenever i hear people say "Well, if we drilled more we could be self sufficient from foreign oil and have oil prices come down.

NO, it does not happen that way.

The US government does not drill oil. They lease out the mineral rights to companies such as shell, BP and Exxon who extract the oil and then __sell it on the world market__. Let me say that again. The oil goes into a central market and could be shipped anywhere if the costs are right. Just because its produced here does not mean it stays here.

Another example was Norway after Hurricane Katrina. Their oil and gas prices jumped significantly after the hurricane in the gulf, yet they are a major exporter and producer. Why? Because supply went down after the storm, so prices had to go up. It didnt matter that they got all their own oil, the world markets made the prices go up.

They'd Sell to Other Countries

[GeneralTurgidson]

This post and a lot of comments make it seem like the oil produced would stay in our country and only used by us. Yea right, it would be sold to the highest bidder on the market, which will probably be China in a couple of years. Meanwhile our country is turned into a wasteland from this and fracking.

Re:They'd Sell to Other Countries

[TubeSteak]

This post and a lot of comments make it seem like the oil produced would stay in our country and only used by us. Yea right

That was part of the stink surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline.
The folks who were going to build and run the Keystone XL Pipeline refused to commit to an agreement stating that they would not allow oil flowing through the pipeline to go outside of America.

Those six minutes of video can be summarized as thus:
Keystone CEO: we will not make a contractual condition (for our shippers) that the oil flowing through Keystone should remain in the USA or be matched with equivalent imports

Shale - the next bubble to pop

[FriendlyLurker]

From here

"The second thing that nobody thinks very much about is the decline rates shale reservoirs experience. Well, I’ve looked at this. The decline rates are incredibly high. In the Eagleford shale, which is supposed to be the mother of all shale oil plays, the annual decline rate is higher than 42%. They’re going to have to drill hundreds, almost 1000 wells in the Eagleford shale, every year, to keep production flat. Just for one play, we’re talking about $10 or $12 billion a year just to replace supply. I add all these things up and it starts to approach the amount of money needed to bail out the banking industry. Where is that money going to come from? Do you see what I’m saying?"

Re:Shale - the next bubble to pop

[Anonymous Coward]

From here

They’re going to have to drill hundreds, almost 1000 wells in the Eagleford shale, every year, to keep production flat. Just for one play, we’re talking about $10 or $12 billion a year just to replace supply. I add all these things up and it starts to approach the amount of money needed to bail out the banking industry. Where is that money going to come from? Do you see what I’m saying?"

The money comes from selling the oil. Either the price of oil rises to where extracting it from the shale is profitable, or the world transitions away from fossil fuels and it stays in the ground.

Re:There is NO SUCH THING as being self sufficient

[hamburger lady]

exactly. even if we were to somehow conserve our way to half our current usage and go full-bore with hydrofracking basins (which wouldn't last long, those basins carry a few billion barrels), we'd still pay through the nose unless we full-on nationalized our oil market and kept it all for ourselves.

Did I miss something?

[fearofcarpet]

'The report confirms that, given the current policies, we will blow past every safe target for emissions,' says Levi. 'This should put to rest the idea that the boom in natural gas will save us from that.'

Wait, what? There is an idea that natural gas will curb CO2 emissions? Natural gas may burn "cleaner" and it may have a slighter higher energy density, but that doesn't change the equation: CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O. Are we really so bereft of a basic grasp of chemistry to think that the CO2 released from natural gas doesn't count?

The link in TFA to The Oil Drum questions the whether shale oil can be competitive because of the costs associated with extraction; basically that the oil is too spread out in the shale. Those costs certainly aren't stopping them from trying. Why not put those resources into carbon-neutral energy generation? Fracking? Sure, let's give it a go, I'm like 85% sure it won't contaminate aquifers or cause earthquakes. Deep-water drilling? Sure, I like a good challenge and there's no chance that we'll wreck an entire ecosystem. Shale oil? There's only one way to find out if it's profitable! Solarthermal, biomass, photovoltaic, wind, tidal energy, geothermal? I don't know... sounds risky... and kinda hard... I'm not so sure I can make money with any of those... and I already picked out the paint for my new horizontal drilling rig.

The agency's report was generally 'good news' for the United States says Michael A. Levi, senior fellow for energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, because it highlights the nation's new sources of energy but Levi cautions that being self-sufficient does not mean that the country will be insulated from seesawing energy prices, since those oil prices are set by global markets

Why exactly do we need to ramp up oil and gas production when the prices are set by an international cartel? We start pumping fossil fuels into the market and Saudi Arabia and Russia just turn down the facet; prices rise and they're making the same money as before by producing less. Yay, it was worth raping the environment to have no impact on energy prices because we're "self-sufficient" now!

This headline reads to me like "US Would Become World's Top Phone Booth Producer by 2017." Are we all going to act surprised when that hippie fantasy we call a "green economy" becomes a reality for the EU or China? You know, like we were all shocked that Romney performed exactly as the polls predicted.

Am I missing something here?

Hard to squeeze oil from a stone

[dbIII]

To put things very simply, the largest problem is in-ground extraction of heated shale to get liquid causes expansion, making it hard to get to anything underneath (all the fractures and boreholes squeeze shut and the ground can hump up). Digging it up and doing stuff with it that way is like dealing with very very hard coal but with a lot less energy recoverable from it per unit volume, so almost always pointless since there are oil from coal techniques that would probably give you more for the same effort. Thus the depth of the reserves is fairly meaningless if you can only get to the top layer.
Enough of that, I need to get some sleep so that I can get up early and not see the sun in the morning :)

"may have an abysmal EROI"

[FilmedInNoir]

Why can't they just use solar powered drills?

Re:"may have an abysmal EROI"

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Not as looney as it sounds. You increase the effective net energy of crap hydrocarbons by using renewables as a power source for extraction.

Re:Limited time offer

[camperdave]

i've read that at current consumption rates the US has enough oil to last us a few hundred years

And then what? You've got to stop thinking short term, and look at the big picture.

Re:There is NO SUCH THING as being self sufficient

[need4mospd]

Yes, but the government can make it harder to import/export, and they can "encourage"(subsidize) companies that actively "drill" within our borders.

I'm not saying I'd recommend that or that it would bring prices down, but the government has more than enough power to make it happen if you buy the right congressmen.

You need to look up what Peak Oil means

[dbIII]

the petroleum geologist Colin Campbell estimated that it would happen before 2010

And he was right, because global oil production peaked in 2008 and we are extracting less now than we did in that year.
What, you meant something different? OK then, write something different instead of attaching whatever bullshit baggage you have to a technical term.

Re:You need to look up what Peak Oil means

[Wrath0fb0b]

And he was right, because global oil production peaked in 2008 and we are extracting less now than we did in that year.

Hmm, what else happened in 2008 that might explain why demand for oil dropped significantly around that time?

We're freakin' drug addicts

[BlackPignouf]

We're freakin' drug addicts :
we need our daily dose, and when our shady dealer doesn't play fair, we look beneath the couch.
We find some dirty old bag of crack, and scream "Yeah! We're saved! We solved our problem once and for all!"

Re:We're freakin' drug addicts

[Miamicanes]

> (...snip...) We find some dirty old bag of crack (...snip...)

  "We clear out the trash that's been down in the basement since we moved in, and discover an old, forgotten sub-basement built in the 19th century for coal that's filled with enough dirty old crack to to fill our own habit, plus the habits of the entire northeastern US, for the next 5000 years, and scream "Yeah! We're saved!..."

There, fixed that for you.

What's the rush?

[MaWeiTao]

Currently petroleum is still relatively inexpensive. Why not keep these supplies untapped and in our back pocket for when there is real demand. Rushing to get at these reserves merely to push down prices slightly or reduce foreign dependency seems foolish.

Furthermore, despite the incessant mantra, the majority of our oil does not come from the Middle East.

Re:There is NO SUCH THING as being self sufficient

[serviscope_minor]

. The oil goes into a central market and could be shipped anywhere if the costs are right.

That's a myth.

Refineries are generally built to process oil from a particular field, or a particular class of fields. You can't ship tar sands off to a light sweet crude refinery and expect to actually be able to refine them.

It's particularly bad for the heavier ones, like the sands and shales, since each deposit has a different set of impurities, which mean that different catalyst properties are required to avoid poisioning.

Of course, the end products are interchangable: diesel is diesel and Jet A is Jet A. So a failure in one supply means that the price of end producs goes up, so people can charge more for the feedstocks.

Re:There is NO SUCH THING as being self sufficient

[need4mospd]

You assume they'll label it as a tax. While we might call it a tax, they'll call it the Bald Eagle Investment Bureau for Environmental Restoration Act.

Protecting your ignorance

[microbox]

I'm saying that the very same people who bitch about some endangered fly being harmed by an oil rig don't seem to mind when something they like is built on the same spot.

You will be able to find some wacko that reifies your pre-existing beliefs. Then you can think of /all/ environmentalists as a bunch of wacko hypocrites, and indulge in sick fantasies about how environmentalists really kill people with their stupidity.

And then you feel you know something, and therefore don't need to learn anything about what mainstream environmentalists actually think, and what mainstream science actually says, and also some of the successes of the environmental movement.

Buddhists call this protecting your ignorance.

Re:Protecting your ignorance

[paiute]

protecting your ignorance.

New Slashdot motto?

IEA is a spin machine

[dwk123]

Figures that this would get coverage, but none of the analysis that shows how full of crap this report is. The US production of *crude oil* is only about 6.2 mmb/day - substantially lower than the ~10mmb/day produced by the Saudis. The IEA has included Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) in their numbers to magically claim the significant increase in US production. Given that the US consumes about 17-18 mmb/day of crude oil, it would take nothing less than a seismic shift in either production or consumption to achieve 'self sufficiency'. Not to completely downplay the significance - we are indeed awash in far more natural gas products than in the recent past and that shouldn't be missed. However, there is a lot of evidence that the depletion curves of the shale plays are not favorable, so extrapolating what is occurring now out 10-15 years is a fools game. In other words, this is basically a PR piece designed to assure investors that the oil industry is 'A-OK' - no need to worry and keep pouring the money in. Taking it as actually reflecting anything about reality would be a mistake.

Why did the stone age end?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Did the stone age end because we ran out of stones? Nah, it ended because we found better materials to make the tools, copper and then bronze. Later iron. Then steel.

The age of petroleum, ushered in by the gusher in Titusville Pennsylvania in 1860s, will end with more than half the oil still left in the ground. Oil prices are very unlikely to top 120$ a barrel for sustained periods of time. It might spike to 150$, but will quickly drop back. Shale oil, tar sands oil, oil from coal, etc are all profitable at prices about 100$ a barrel. Solar and wind beat fossil fuels when oil goes above 100$ a barrel.

The only huge problem is energy consumed at fixed points (homes, offices, factories) can be switched to alternative energy relatively easy. But the transportation sector (gasoline for cars, diesel for heavy vehicles, kerosene for aviation) is very heavily dependent on oil. They don't switch to alternative energy easily. But new technologies are emerging. But as the oil price goes up, things will start to change. 90% of the cars are driven less than 60 miles a day. Trucks can stretch the diesel by switching to more efficient diesel-electrics, CNG/LPG and other forms of fossil fuels that are not from Arabia. Arab oil is managed by the big oil companies who know all this. They keep the price to maximize profits without giving a toe hold for the alternative technologies. So it is very unlikely they will let the price spike much above 120$ a barrel. But all their manipulation will just delay the inevitable.

We will leave most of the coal, natural gas and crude oil, in the ground.

Re:Limited time offer

[hamburger lady]

that site conflates materials, as do many. their numbers include kerogen deposits as 'technically recoverable oil'. kerogen makes up the vast majority of their '200 years' assumption.

kerogen is an oil precursor. it's a heavy, waxy hydrocarbon group with a very large molecular weight. essentially, it's 'precooked oil'. it's what the earth turns into oil over the course of hundreds of thousands of years or more.

you stripmine it and process it, similar to tar sands, only you have to process it even more to get anything remotely resembling oil because it's far less similar to oil as bitumen is. it's more of an environmental nightmare than syncrude, and that's saying something.

it's really more similar to coal than anything else, and nobody points to our coal reserves as 'technically recoverable oil' despite the fact that it too can be turned into liquids. it's hell of costly to produce. and it can't be produced in very large amounts at a time because it has to be dug up and cooked.

you don't point to kerogen and call it 'oil' any more than you point at a cup of flour and call it a pancake.

Re:Gas is still affordable so far

[SandwhichMaster]

If it (gas) suddenly doubled in price, our economy might collapse.

This is something that doesn't get noticed enough. You can talk about "Drill baby drill", "global warming is a myth", etc. all you want, but at the end of the day, it is wildly unwise to have our entire economy based around one technology. We are much better equipped to handle change if we're diversified.

We've seen oil prices spike too many times not to know better by now.

Re:Great news

[gestalt_n_pepper]

In fact, I don't shoot from the hip much. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
Move on to here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States
And here: http://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/ (Warning, these may be "political" numbers).
And here: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6

You might also try one of those new-fangled "calculator" things.

By 2100, it's highly unlikely we'll still be using significant fossil fuels.
True, as in "none." That doesn't make it a good idea.

But today, and for the next 20-30 years, we will be relying on fossil fuels, and a lot of it is going to be from shale (and tar sands). Get used to it.
Also completely true. Especially, if the natural gas numbers approach reality and we can transition in time. We will, of course, be paying up the nose for it.

In the long run, it's nuclear and batteries that don't suck, or a distinct drop in our level of civilization.

Re:EROI is bullshit

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I doubt that we can scale renewables up the point where they replace the 160 exajoules or so of energy we use each year - at least not in a timeframe likely to maintain our current level of civilization. The other problem is that petroleum is disproportionately used as transportation fuel. The only viable substitute for this in natural gas, hydrogen (eventually), or batteries that don't suck.

still would import 30% of petroleum

[peter303]

Right now we import 45% of our petroleum. Adding 1.5 million barrels of production to regain worlds largest producer status would cut this to 30%. Optimistic projections are that further production increases plus conservation plus green energy might make US energy independent around 2030.

Re:EROI is bullshit

[rasmusbr]

Sure, doubling time is a valid way to think about it. If we're going to expand our global energy supply fast enough to make the 21st century as prosperous as the 20th century then we need energy sources that scale as rapidly as the ones we used in the 20th century.

However if all we want to do is to replace our existing level of energy supply in the western world then we can afford to use things that scale more slowly. All they need to do is to scale fast enough to replace the energy that we lose because of peak conventional oil or because of a political will to phase out middle eastern oil.

Re:Only one thing left to do!

[Megane]

Um, Venice's problems aren't from ocean level rising, they're from Venice sinking because it's built on mud. Their current problems right now are due to winds blowing in the pessimal direction to cause a surge, which still isn't as high as a surge in the mid 20th century. They're building surge control walls, but those are still about three years away.

Duelling environmentalists

[Quila]

Nuclear is eeeeevil, so it can't be a part of the solution, even if it is safe and effective. So those environmentalists are part of their own problem.

Not Shocking

[T.E.D.]

This really shouldn't suprise anyone. For most of the history of Oil Production, the USA has been the world's largest producer. We only lost the title in the 70's (I was a kid, so yes, I remember us being the largest before). We never left the top three, and the Saudi's never outproduced us by a large percentage.

I even remember back in the 70's being told that we had so much shale that we could easily keep leading the world, but it would probably stay put until we figured out a way to get it more cheaply, or the prices raised a fair amont.

Both have happened, so here we are.

Move our vehicles to Nat Gas to isolate from Oil .

[WindBourne]

By moving our new commercial vehicles and large passenger vehicles to Nat Gas, we can drop the oil imports within 5 years. That was the intention of the Nat Gas Act. sadly, it was killed by idiots that only back oil. With gas/diesel, you have no economical alternative. Even at $150/bl, the ONLY bio-fuel that can compete would be Joules Energy. Yet, we have loads of idiots calling for us to stay with Oil.
But small electric cars combined with Nat Gas larger vehicles that are then switched to serial hybrids using Nat Gas, will bring us Independence quickly. After all, it is the gal of oil that you do not need that is the easiest to solve.

Re:Conservatives take note.

[petermgreen]

Very little electricity in the US comes from oil anyway so adding renewables or nuclear won't in itself really change their vulnerability to oil prices. Afaict the same applies in most of europe.

If we really want to diversify our portable situation we need to either move away from local and inflexible burning of fossil fuels towards more centralised soloutions or invest in technology for converting between different fossil fuels.

Beware overly optimistic forecasts

[elbow_spur]

The headline is based on the latest IEA (International Energy Agency) forecast called the "2012 World Energy Outlook"

Follow the link to a graph of what is being forecast and to the report in question:

http://earlywarn.blogspot.fr/2012/11/iea-us-to-be-worlds-largest-oil-producer.html

Look at the graph: conventional oil and natgas are in decline.
Note the super optimistic growth assumptions for unconventional gas and oil.
What is the methodology behind this extrapolation? That's the question people should be asking themselves.

Natgas price is at historic lows. Low prices mean small profits mean decreasing investment.
These days the unconventional gas industry is facing something of a bust:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/business/energy-environment/in-a-natural-gas-glut-big-winners-and-losers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

How well does that fit with the optimistic growth scenario?

Also, the IEA does not exactly have a sterling reputation for balanced impartial forecasts:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

Just because something is a headline, doesn't mean it's true. Time will tell, of course.