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Why We Have To Kiss Off Big Carbon Now
mdsolar writes When the fossil-fuel divestment movement first stirred on college campuses three years ago, you could almost hear Big Oil and Wall Street laughing. Crude prices were flirting with $100 a barrel, and domestic oil production, from Texas to North Dakota, was in the midst of a historic boom. But the quixotic campus campaign suddenly has the smell of smart money.
One of the biggest names in the history of Big Oil – the Rockefellers – announced last September that they would be purging the portfolio of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund of 'risky' oil investments. And that risk has been underscored by the sudden collapse of the oil market. After cresting at more than $107 in mid-June, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate dipped below $50 a barrel in early January. The crash carries big costs: Goldman Sachs warned that nearly $1 trillion in planned oil-field investments would be unprofitable – even if oil were to stabilize at $70 per barrel.
One of the biggest names in the history of Big Oil – the Rockefellers – announced last September that they would be purging the portfolio of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund of 'risky' oil investments. And that risk has been underscored by the sudden collapse of the oil market. After cresting at more than $107 in mid-June, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate dipped below $50 a barrel in early January. The crash carries big costs: Goldman Sachs warned that nearly $1 trillion in planned oil-field investments would be unprofitable – even if oil were to stabilize at $70 per barrel.
As fracking destroys water supplies and replaces them with barium-laced debt fluids.
Sounds like we need another huge government bail out of these poor rich guys.
only an idiot thinks prices will stay this low.
seriously, this happened in 2008 as well.
...and put all my money into bitcoin! Oh wait...
And here's the problem with free market capitalism. Now we have abandoned wellsites that nobody wants to cleanup, unemployed oil workers & related fields, and bankrupt communities that were struggling to build infrastructure during the boom now have empty roads & schools. Give it 10-15 years and we'll start the cycle all over again. This carries across to other markets, we've seen it before with the steel belt turning into the rust belt.
Yes, the free market fixes it, but not until the damage is done. You end up with an economic system where capital is rushing from one end to other at the expense of labor. It's like some new era of hunter/gathering nomads; you have people following the buffalo around.
Global warming is a just another method of control, albeit much less effective than the war on terror.
Denial of reality vs. denial of fake wars.
You know, you have to pick and choose these things, not just deny things because you don't like it.
So, what's going to happen to the oil sands (aka tar sands)?
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or if you really are an actual retard.
Greed breeds myopia. Always has. Did people investing heavily in oil really think it would either keep going up, or sustain at the price peaks it was at for years? At those prices, it's all but strangling the economy. It started to actually effect just how much people drove!
And there's the problem. Oil is still king of the economy. From home energy, to the dinner table. Oil is still king. I think a good many investors forgot who just has the real power in the world. Guess the Saudis thought they should remind them.
The frustrating thing with this though, is that we still won't see the prices drop at the grocery or market, even though it's cheaper to ship goods and produce. Why pass savings onto the consumer, when you can pad the profit margin for the quarter, and stock-holders. I think a lot of people forget that, milk, bread, fruit, etc... should all be a little cheaper at the moment. It won't be.
In the long run, it will fade away because most of the grouwth has already been consumed. That being said, trade is chaotic in nature, and short term prediction is difficult ("especially when it's about the future"), but in the long run, the trend is well known.
Sometimes, I like to think that the "Limits to growth" report will be regarded in some distant future as our epoch's Eratosthenes calculations.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
The many thousands of wells that are/were planned for completion will simply be postponed until the market responds more favorably, but don't kid yourself, they will become feasible again at some point.
Lower energy costs will fuel the self same economic recovery that will drive World prices back into the realm of profitability.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
As fracking destroys water supplies and replaces them with barium-laced debt fluids.
I hope this is an attempt at a joke...
There is zero proof that fracking does anything bad to water supplies beyond using some of it (about 40,000 Gal/well). Fracking takes place well below domestic water supplies and is no more of a hazard than the drilling was in the first place. People who think otherwise are mis-informed or lying.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/19/pennsylvania-fracking-study_n_3622512.html
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
1) By definition, there is a finite supply of non-renewable energy.
2) And we use tons of it.
3) And for the good of humanity you want the price to be HIGH
Reasons you want the price to be high for fossil fuels:
1) Conversation of the resource. Airplanes must use fossil fuels the way they are designed now. Cars = no. You can have electric cars.
2) When the price of fossil fuels is low, they get wasted. Your neighbor who drives alone and isn't a farmer buying a huge truck is NOT how non-renewable energy should be used.
3) Complacency about alternative energy because the price of gas is low isn't a positive.
I am sure there are a lot of "lefty partisans" who are enjoying this because they dislike Big Oil -- and to that extent, it more proves that it isn't about results with partisans, it is about their "team". If the price of oil drops like a rock, there is a bit of financial relief but what really happens is consumption sky-rockets.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Make sure you are an informed investor, though. The reason oil prices dropped is because of a massive new increase in supply. At least some of it can be profitable at $40 a barrel (shale drilling techniques have rapidly gotten cheaper).
The last time oil had a drastic drop in price due to new supply was in the 80s. Back then, it was nearly two decades before prices came back up, as increasing Chinese demand started to max out the supply.
Now is not the same as the 80s, either. Technologies are being developed that can drop demand by 40% or more. As electric cars become more and more common (and there's every reason to believe they will), oil usage will drop accordingly, and oil prices will drop as well. In some scenarios, it could be a century before oil prices return to what they were.
Or maybe not. But you should know what the risks are before you make any investment (and don't believe it just because some loudmouth like me said it on Slashdot, go investigate it yourself. Take responsibility for your investments).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
already did it
my Ferrari is gonna blow the door off your Prius
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or if you really are an actual retard.
Are you an environmentalist? Do you drive a car, fly on jets for vacation trips? Do you drive cars on road trips? If so, then you do not practice what you preach. If you believe carbon credits in any way benefit the environment then I have a bridge to sell you.
Live your life the way you preach to others before you preach.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"$70 per barrel ought to be enough for anybody" - Colonel Willie Sharp (Armageddon)
read the sig. he's either retarded or it's a real honest-to-god shtick.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
The Rockefeller's are selling, not giving their stock away. They made a dirty profit! They will have carbon on their hands forever! I am happy to be a buyer. Stock prices are low. Dividends are solid. They are excellent investments. The benefits to the economy of cheap oil outweight the negatives 3 to 1. America loves cheap gas. We have all had $200 per month raise! I used it to buy a bigger car. You treehuggers can go bugger off.
an ill wind that blows no good
Some of us are doing quite a lot ourselves, actually. Starting a couple years ago I actually started refusing to commute to do work that can be done just as well over the internet. Sure, it meant turning down some jobs, but it also cut my total miles driven per year (at low speed in stop-and-go traffic no less) by thousands, and my total gasoline consumption by a factor of over 90%, and though I didn't plant a tree (I don't own any land to plant it on), I did plant an herb garden on my balcony.
I am not a greenie and I don't tell others what they should or should not do but...
I don't consider myself a "greenie" either honestly, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that you totally just did tell us all what we should and should not do. I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying we should and should not do either, I'm just saying you did tell us exactly that, and you're not the only one doing it. There are lots of us, and the numbers are quietly growing. The telecommuting revolution is long overdue.
The best reason to stop burning oil is because it's so useful for other things. Very little oil is needed to make the dashboard in your car, or the case for your phone, or lubricants, etc.
they've already sunk the costs into producing large tracts of oil sand
the production costs going forward are low
the issue is the wells they're fracking in Texas and North Dakota
they only have a lifetime of about a year and they ain't gonna frack no more till the price comes back (which it will)
Plant a tree, move closer to your work, sell your car and instead use car sharing services and transit. Stop telling "us" what to do and make definitive changes yourselves. I am not a greenie and I don't tell others what they should or should not do
</fail>
The reason is not as simple as "increased supply". The reason that there is that increase in supply is because the Saudis and OPEC want alternative methods of extraction, such as the U.S.'s hydraulic fracking, to be unprofitable.. and it is, with oil prices this low.
Saudi Arabia is trying to bankrupt the oil shale producers to get rid of potential serious competition. (Remember the stories of more oil than Saudi Arabia being found in the Dakotas?)
lol.
i work from home. i haven't 'commuted' for years and years. i don't drive. my kid gets jogged into school. i garden and buy food from the farmers' market which is about 200 feet from my house, and the rest comes from a store at the end of the block. i don't go on vacation places.
so i guess in spite of not considering myself to be a "greenie", i have earned the right to call you a fucking retard.
congratulations! you're a fucking retard.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
Grow up, and learn how the world really works.
Nobody is going to come back with a half way narrative, a compromised view of global warming for you to sign up to. Nobody is going to say: "Oh I see you won't agree that 5 degrees of warming is too much - let's say 7.5 degrees is the acceptable limit, deal?" Neither is the issue just going to quietly go away if you ignore it for long enough. It's a simple, brutal fact - the warming just keeps getting more and more obvious.
Grow up, get over it, and get on with it.
Otherwise, you can wait for us to get angry enough to sue you for the damage you've caused, take your stuff, and use the funds to make the necessary changes.
How bout them apples?
I do not see where he was denying anythng. Perhaps you are confused and think that anyone who does not toe a line in the most favorable way possible for the position you hold dear equates to denialism. But reality works differently. Nothing he said was untrue. Both are a lot about control.
You CAN'T be a greenie because you eat hamburger, lady
Don't kid yourself. We may not all be pool-in-backyard-trip-to-Europe-every-year rich, but most readers of Slashdot are very firmly rooted in the middle class. This has little effect on us at all, we're neither investors, nor are we so destitute that the fuel bills are threatening to throw us to the curb. The smug, conceited "welp, I drive a Tesla S and think everyone should" is completely uncalled for, the poor drive shitwagons, all of which *gasp* run on petroleum. This will very much work in their favour, keep your electric car, but don't be a smug prick just because you can afford it.
I just absolutely LOVE this anti-green rant. It embodies everything that needs to be embodied about this type of person.
You play the greenies? Heh.
I believe the blame is people like you: "Who are the ones that we kept in charge, Killers, thieves and Lawyers" as professed by the great Tow Waits.
God's away, God's away, God's away on bidness....bidness...!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5X4N2exOsU
PS: This post makes more sense than yours....
I wondered when Saudi Arabia decided not to cut production, dooming OPEC to low prices and ticking off the likes of Russia and other producers with marginal economies, if they where not actually working a long term strategy here. Why are they not cutting production?
First, they repress many of the world's trouble makers by dropping prices to 1/3rd their original. Yes, they hurt some emerging producers who are good guys, but these are pretty small. Russia's economy is in free fall due to this and this will greatly diminish their military and economic ability world wide. Other "bad guys" are getting hurt too.
Second, The will succeed in jumpstarting their largest consumer's economy. The USA has suffered under the burden of higher taxes and higher fuel prices (which amounts to a tax on just about everything.) Yea, there will be segments that suffer, energy production companies and those who own the production facilities will be hurt, but over all your average consumer will have more to spend and moving goods will be cheaper as fuel prices drop.
Third, energy production companies who where looking at $100+ oil for as far as the eye could see just 6 months ago, are now looking at $45 or less. Much of their production is now netting below production costs so NOBODY will be drilling new wells and a whole bunch of companies will be hurting. For the most speculative of them they will go bankrupt in fairly short time. This will greatly depress the USA's ability to develop these resources and reduce future supplies and take years to rebuild the industry.
I'm not saying this is what the Saudi's are up to, but the theory does fit the pieces I'm seeing fall together..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I would tell people to enjoy the oil drop while it lasts. This may be long gone by Memorial Day. Why? A few reasons:
1: China is a very thirsty nation. They are also extremely rich and about to embark on infrastructure improvements that make the US's highway structure look like building a McDonalds. So, the demand for oil will be from them. Yes, US demand is in the 1990s levels... but with China guzzling the oil barrels, total demand is a lot higher.
2: Venezuela leaders and others are in Russia today. People forgot about 1972 and 1973 and the US oil embargo, which destroyed the economy until the 1980s. This can easily happen again. OPEC tends to get the prices it wants, and even though fracking might have increased supply, most of the wells done this way are depleted or near depletion, so the "golden" era of this is ending, especially with states like New York banning it wholesale. So, supply will go back down, and OPEC will ensure it stays down.
3: China is building their own canal across the Americas. This way, they can get their oil from Venezuela a lot more easily, completely bypassing any influence from the US.
4: Congress changed. Already, the solar subsidies are on the chopping block, and in January 2017, it won't be a surprise when the next President yanks the solar panels off the White House. Big Oil is now firmly in control of the US again.
5: The Keystone XL pipeline and a repealing of the ban on selling US oil overseas are pretty much guaranteed to happen. This means that any US oil will be trading at world prices.
6: As always, we are always one incident from price spikes. Should someone have a heart attack at a refinery, prices for crude will be back in the triple digits.
7: Alternative energy has grown, but most people's cars are still fueled by gasoline or diesel. If we had more electric cars, they effectively run on solar, wind, coal, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, or many sources. However, internal combustion engined vehicles require fossil fuel to run, and barring a major battery development, will continue to do so.
To, tl;dr... it is nice to have gas prices as low as they are, but they are going to be back to what they were in 2008, if not to $5-$6 a gallon by the summer. Oil prices are controlled by supply and demand, and demand is high due to a thirsty China, and supply is easily removed from the market.
"This is good news," said Duke University scientist Rob Jackson, who was not involved with the study. He called it a "useful and important approach" to monitoring fracking, but he cautioned that the single study doesn't prove that fracking can't pollute, since geology and industry practices vary widely in Pennsylvania and across the nation.
Here's a tip: if you post a URL to a story, read it first.
One is about the IR absorption properties of carbon dioxide. What you choose to *do* about certain undesirable consequences of that piece of physics, that can be about all kinds of things. But global warming itself is just about radiation transport.
This is all about OPEC producing more oil. Not some moronic campaign to divest portfolios of oil stocks. None of this will affect oil production.
The reason that there is that increase in supply is because the Saudis and OPEC want alternative methods of extraction, such as the U.S.'s hydraulic fracking, to be unprofitable
How much has Saudi Arabia and OPEC increased production? If you can't answer that question, then you don't have a point.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The reason oil prices dropped is because of a massive new increase in supply.
The current oil glut is a deliberate move by OPEC, they are trying to put Iran out of business.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
gravity is just another form of control! it's the liberals trying to keep us close to 'mother earth'. it's bullshit Gaia-ism if you ask me.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
In these same terms there's also zero proof that smoking causes lung cancer, but honestly the circumstantial evidence in both situations is fairly overwhelming.
To, tl;dr... it is nice to have gas prices as low as they are, but they are going to be back to what they were in 2008, if not to $5-$6 a gallon by the summer.
If you were here sitting next to me, I would happily put money against you on that bet.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You aren't thinking clearly there, or at least you haven't written your thoughts clearly. Iran is part of OPEC, I highly doubt they want to put themselves out of business.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
eh, cows eat grass. that's green as it gets
The story was factual.... I don't usually go with their opinion pieces...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
we will never run out of petroleum And it is glorious.
Did you read the link? Look, there is ZERO connection with Fracking and contamination of ground water.... They've looked for it, and haven't found it. But it's hard to prove a negative...
So, do you have an example to show us?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I hope you are right and I have missed some factor, but I just don't see how a trillion dollar industry will let itself be "beaten" with prices out of its exact control, just because fracking was able to get more oil on the market than was expected. OPEC controls the vertical and horizontal when it comes to oil prices, and all they have to do is slow down production at their whim, and prices will be back up, if not more. Non-OPEC countries will end up just following, and even if they continue to produce, they don't produce enough to significantly influence the market.
The fracking boom is in gas not oil. They were fracking oil 80+ years ago. Oil boom is coming from shale, sands and tar where the issue is extraction cost.
Venezuela and Russia can't afford an embargo, there might be supply disruptions related to revolutions though. The reds run truly is finished.
The new canal will never be completed and is not about oil in the first place. That is capital desperately looking for something productive to do. Two canals would both operate at break even. One can run at a profit. The 'money' will likely figure that out.
It would take a major incident to get oil back up to $100. Nothing happening at any refinery could do it. Refineries use oil as an input.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
read your own article more carefully. Technically, in this particular case, the fracking did not cause the contamination. the contamination was caused by the well shafts that were drilled to extract the fracked petroleum. That is a subtle difference at best. The fact remains, the fracking sites, listed in the link you provided, created contaminated groundwater.
Here's a tip....
Post an example of where Fracking has destroyed a water supply...
I recognize that it is impossible to prove a negative, but the scientific evidence is all pointing the other way here. Not to mention common sense if you understand how this process works..... Fracking takes place thousands of feet down, below impermeable rock, well below any water supply. What gets pumped down there is not coming back up except though the well head it went down. Anybody telling you otherwise has no proof, that I know of anyway.
Do YOU have any evidence for your position beyond the wild claims of the environmentalists who started this lie?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Nothing is stopping you...
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Some of us are doing quite a lot ourselves, actually. Starting a couple years ago I actually started refusing to commute to do work that can be done just as well over the internet. Sure, it meant turning down some jobs, but it also cut my total miles driven per year (at low speed in stop-and-go traffic no less) by thousands, and my total gasoline consumption by a factor of over 90%, and though I didn't plant a tree (I don't own any land to plant it on), I did plant an herb garden on my balcony.
Awesome! Only 6,999,999,999 humans to go!
Until it breaks down or catches fire in a few kms, as Ferrari's are want to do. Then Mr Smug can drive by and give you the finger
We understand way less about economics than about climate change. Predicting what the price of anything will do in the future is really, really hard. A few years ago it seemed like oil prices would keep going up forever. Now they're going down and someone immediately says, "They'll keep going down forever!". But really we have no idea.
But we have a very good idea about what burning oil will do to the climate. If you want to argue for phasing out fossil fuels, do it based on the good arguments: they're destroying the planet. Don't bring in bad arguments based on wild guesses about what might or might not happen to oil prices over the next few years. That just weakens your position.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
In 2000, Sheikh Yamani, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia, gave an interview in which he said:
"Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil - and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil." - http://www.nasdaq.com/article/...
...damn, we all better stop using computers!
Seriously, though, cheap energy (in absolute terms, not massaged by the heavy hand of regulation), is a good thing. Great, so we don't invest in more oil drilling...until consumption goes up, prices go up, and it becomes profitable. This is a *feature* not a bug.
Prices are momentary signals, not eternal mandates.
Did you read the link? Look, there is ZERO connection with Fracking and contamination of ground water.... They've looked for it, and haven't found it.
In one single well in Western Pennsylvania. The Duke University scientist quoted in that article- that *you* posted the link to and are yelling at people to read- specifically notes that "the single study doesn't prove that fracking can't pollute, since geology and industry practices vary widely in Pennsylvania and across the nation," which proves you haven't read your own link yourself! See how easy it is to prove a negative?
My family did pretty much the same stuff. And since we're really not exceptional in any way, I have to assume that there are more people doing the same thing.
And, there are infinitely more Teslas on the street than there were just 10 short years ago.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Every well (vertical, horizontal, fractured) is drilled through the water table. Every one.
Most of the time, done properly, well casing protects the ground water table from contamination during the recovery of carbon products.
But. If only 1-2% of the 500,000 U.S. wells were completed improperly (with the rather ubiquitous human error factored in) that's a good deal of water fouling.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Solar and wind weren't this far along in 2008.
Neither were Republicans...
When they gain even more power in coming years, they will end the subsidies unnaturally fueling solar and wind power boondoggles.
Solar power will become healthy on its own eventually but for a lot of reasons will not displace carbon based energy (it's amusing to see electric car advocates claiming they will be charging a massive battery in the electric car overnight while also thinking they will have solar powered houses...).
Really only nuclear can do away with carbon sources so until we get serious with that we obviously are not serious about getting rid of carbon based power.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, like the 97% of scientists who think that.
You know, that tiny slice of the scientific community, 97%, that are being paid off by Al Gore to pretend they believe in climate change.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The increase in supply has been much smaller than the decrease in price.
There is no "law of supply and demand" when it comes to oil.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That's a good point, I've never traded futures, though. If people are really thinking gas will go up to $6 a gallon by summer, then there should be a good bargain in there.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
That is true. However, I think he was expecting solar, wind, or some other form of energy to take over in the transportation industry.
Well, we have a few electric vehicles, but we are still using oil and gas... and are well past peak oil.
If the demand were easing up, that would be one thing, but one can't even get a plug in Prius in my neck of the woods (central Texas), much less a Tesla (unless buying out of state), so oil is still king when it comes to transportation. Even though the US is still at 1990s consumption levels, if one factors out the price fluctuations due to politics, each barrel of oil coming out is more expensive than the one previously.
Barring Israel dropping nukes on Iran and Riyadh, that will not happen.
Not a chance, unless you think Ben Carson is going to be elected president. Not one of the electable Republicans is anti-solar or brave enough to come out against renewables.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You don't tell others what to do? Did you not write your post? Not read it? Or are you just a unapologetic hypocrite? I'm guessing you're just an idiot.
On the contrary, there is zero proof (except now known fabricated evidence) that fracking does NOT contaminate water supplies. The evidence is in the tested water supplies, the data is available. Embrace science and learn for yourself, instead of listening to propagandists.
This is easily the most simple Google you will ever do. Please inform yourself.
But that 1-2% number of yours is basically the risk of drilling, not fracking. Now if you wan to argue that drilling carries risk, that you can prove easily and I'm not arguing that. I'm saying FRACKING is not causing any increase in risk for an already drilled well. It's a fine point I know, but it's important to make the distinction, because the public doesn't feel that drilling is a huge dangerous health hazard because we've been doing it for more than 100 years and it's not all that dangerous. Fracking doesn't add to the enviromental danger of drilling, it just increases the recoverable supplies from the wells that we drill....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"hypocrites, liars, and communists"? That Venn diagram's damn near a circle. :)
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Saudi Arabia is not decreasing production to allow the price to settle at high prices and instead keeping their output strong to depress prices. Here's a reference for you:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63c7...
Saudi Arabia also has proven reserves to keep this up for a long time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
Unofficially (meaning I can't cite my source, and hence the reason I'm posting anonymously), they have over 200 years of known reserves, or enough to provide all the world's oil for about 50 years at current consumption rates.
The important thing about the current price war is that the Saudis have basically given everyone else the finger and decided that they're going to corner the market as long as they can (or, for the more conspiratorial among us, the US asked them to do it to crush Putin). They can produce it at lower prices than anyone else. More power to them if they take advantage of that. Capitalism at its finest, if you ask me!
Which agrees with my point that FRACKING does not add to the danger of drilling a well. Read what I said carefully because I'm not saying that drilling is 100% without environmental impact, we've been doing that for more than 100 years and although considered safe, there are risks with drilling, even a water well. What I AM saying is that fracking does not ADD to the risks of drilling and should not be touted as some huge risk to ground water when it's not.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
in a world where a producer sees the end of its market on the horizon, then every barrel sold at a profit is more valuable than a barrel that will never be sold. Current Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi had this to say about production cuts in late December: "it is not in the interest of OPEC to cut their production whatever the price is," adding that even if prices fell to $20 "it is irrelevant." Implied, if not explicitly stated, is that Saudi Arabia wants its oil out of the ground, regardless of how thin its profit margin per barrel becomes. - http://www.nasdaq.com/article/...
Yea, so where is a study that proves the link between fracking and polluting ground water? I have one where they specifically looked for it over a year and found nothing.
Here's a hint... I'll be surprised if you can find anything that proves that fracking does anything to ground water... There are a whole lot of theories and a whole lot of people looking, but nobody has found the proof.
Oh, and here's another hint so you can avoid getting tripped up. I'm discussing FRACKING, not drilling, here. Don't get confused by the two operations. Drilling, which we have safely done for 100+ years now, DOES have various risks. Fracking, does nothing to add to the existing risks when drilling a well, it just adds to the cost and possibly what we can extract from the well...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
As I've told others... This is about FRACKING not drilling, so be sure to carefully consider what you read from that Google search. There is inherent risks in drilling a well, Fracking that well does not add to the risks. We've drilled wells for 100+ years now and they are considered safe. Why do we now blame fracking? It's DRILLING you need to blame, it's just that is not as powerful PR tool when you couch it the correct way eh?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
No, they will continue to extract it in order to make plastics and other things out of it instead of fuel.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
As the other poster, I would total disagree with you on your forecast. I agree that oil can go back up, but not for the reasons you state.
1: China is a very thirsty nation. They are also extremely rich and about to embark on infrastructure improvements that make the US's highway structure look like building a McDonalds. So, the demand for oil will be from them. Yes, US demand is in the 1990s levels... but with China guzzling the oil barrels, total demand is a lot higher.
Neutral. China is a very thirsty nation, but their thirst and expected growth is already taken into the current oil price. If anything, their demand is a bit overestimated. Remember, their population growth is stale and the majority are still dirt poor.
2: Venezuela leaders and others are in Russia today. People forgot about 1972 and 1973 and the US oil embargo, which destroyed the economy until the 1980s. This can easily happen again. OPEC tends to get the prices it wants, and even though fracking might have increased supply, most of the wells done this way are depleted or near depletion, so the "golden" era of this is ending, especially with states like New York banning it wholesale. So, supply will go back down, and OPEC will ensure it stays down.
Neutral. Venezuela & Russia do not control the oil price. They are meeting cause the low oil price is killing their revenue streams to keep their people fat and happy. They can't pump more oil, they can't pump less. The former will lower oil price, the later will further kill their economy before impacting the gulf. Don't know what they expect to do.
3: China is building their own canal across the Americas. This way, they can get their oil from Venezuela a lot more easily, completely bypassing any influence from the US.
Lower price. Which would only increase the supply of oil and put pressure to lower the world price of oil.
4: Congress changed. Already, the solar subsidies are on the chopping block, and in January 2017, it won't be a surprise when the next President yanks the solar panels off the White House. Big Oil is now firmly in control of the US again.
Possibly increase price. Congress can do a few things to put pressure to increase price. Increase tariffs & taxes. Give less incentives to create refineries. Up pollution regulations. Lower alternative incentives. Further destabilize the middle east. I don't see Congress doing any but the last two of them. And they are too busy with the whole Obamacare. So their impact if any won't happen for at least 1-2 years.
5: The Keystone XL pipeline and a repealing of the ban on selling US oil overseas are pretty much guaranteed to happen. This means that any US oil will be trading at world prices.
Lower price. Oil trades on the international market in US dollars. This will only lower the cost of production and thus put pressure to lower the price.
6: As always, we are always one incident from price spikes. Should someone have a heart attack at a refinery, prices for crude will be back in the triple digits.
Increase price. Stuff happens at refineries all the time. But one incident is more like an oil spill, deep horizon, or war in middle east. Don't really see this happening soon. Middle East is lowering prices to crush competition. They won't let someone like the US destabilize it any further.
7: Alternative energy has grown, but most people's cars are still fueled by gasoline or diesel. If we had more electric cars, they effectively run on solar, wind, coal, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, or many sources. However, internal combustion engined vehicles require fossil fuel to run, and barring a major battery development, will continue to do so.
Neutral. I don't think oil and alternatives are really that linked. Up or Down. There ar
When I've made all those changes, and you've made none, the Earth won't benefit. When I stop buying oil, the price will drop, so you buy more. That, and even libertarians understand that if you pollute my land, you owe me. The only point of discussion is defining which compounds are pollutants.
Learn to love Alaska
CO2 increases do raise temps. Methane increases do the same. Perhaps not buy a huge amount but at least you agree they do have effect. Water vapor is largely driven by temperature. So the small increase of CO2/methane causes increase in water vapor concentrations....Which causes a large increase as you so deftly note. Now that increase causes more increase. It's called a feedback loop for a reason.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
now there's a political FOX cartoon for you. All 'bad' things in a venn diagram that's a circle, with Obama in the middle!
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
And suggesting that we ALL abide by common sense rules isn't living life the way we preach? We're trying to make sure everybody plays by the same rules. That's usually the argument against doing anything about carbon...that China simply won't play along. Yet here you claim 'we', the greenies, should go first.
Well then, the US should 'go first' to show China the way, right?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The telecommuting revolution is long overdue.
Here here. I've been saying it will basically be another 20-30 years before it really gets mainstream though. Not until todays 20 somethings are in management roles will it start coming to main street.
Though in bigger cities the simple cost of renting office space will hopefully start it a bit earlier.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
There is no "law of supply and demand" when it comes to oil.
Now that's just dumb. I think you have a reasonable thought somewhere in there, but the way you formulated it is bad. Think about it and come up with something more sophisticated.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Stop the 97% nonsense http://www.forbes.com/sites/al...
Actually there won't BE any fuel taxes. As in no gasoline fuel used. The 'gas tax' is dying and needs too. Paying based on your annual mileage x vehicle type needs to be the new metric for funding roads. Even before we get off gas, cars are more and more efficient, reducing the amount of gas used per mile driven. The cost of maintaining the roads is FAR exceeded by the cost of not doing so. When the roads start breaking down, the delivery trucks need that much more maintenance and now everything costs more to deliver. Regular maintenance spending is always cheaper.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
So they didn't increase demand at all. "Not cutting demand" is not the same as increasing demand. That's a mathematical truth.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yeah, and there are people telling us that the recent increase in earthquakes in North Texas is unrealted to fracking. Though, nobody is proving it's cause, and the pro-fracking people are already coming out with the "the quakes are a good thing, many 3.x quakes mean you won't get a big one" line. As if they expect fracking to be blamed. Why would the people that defend fracking expect fracking to be the cause? What do they know that we don't?
Learn to love Alaska
Infinitely? Shit, why are they bothering with the Gigafactory then?
Who has more money. Al Gore or the Koch Brothers? And yet the Koch Brothers can't seem to buy even 4% of scientists? If you're claiming scientists are 'bought', then why exactly aren't they singing the tune of the highest bidders?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Methane
Yes lead by example. YOU are the hypocrite here if you believe greenies ought not to go first. Be the core of the snowball.
Perhaps, but oil and gas in the long run are only going up in price as supplies dwindle. The current increase in production also has very very serious side effects that are likely going to severely curtail it within a decade. Increasing numbers of earthquakes of 5+ magnitude in Kansas? Oklahoma? Guess what's causing that?
5 isn't huge in California, but it's a much stronger effect in solid plate areas as opposed to the edges. And they are much shallower making the tremors yet stronger...right near the depth where the fluids are being injected...funny that.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I wish there was a "-1, Retard" mod option.
Gravity is made up. What holds everything down on planet earth is suction. The earth sucks.
$5-6 by summer? Doubtful. But within 5-10 years, almost certainly. What we're seeing is how much the commodity trading artificially inflated prices. And probably some of the various big hedge funds starting to divest themselves of oil stocks. But global demand from China and India are going to reassert themselves as you suggest.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I guess the summary is "nobody can afford oil anymore, it's getting too cheap and there is too much of it around"!
Perhaps, but oil and gas in the long run are only going up in price as supplies dwindle.
The long run could be a very, very long time from now, especially if demand drops significantly. That's not something you want to make a stock bet on right now, you could be dead before the 'long run' pays off.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Shale is fracking. It's how they are extracting said oil, by breaking the shale with injection wells. It's used for both gas and oil.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Electable Republicans? for President? Hell ROMNEY is considering running again.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Fracking does add to the risk of drilling. The pressures invoived are high and require better well casings. Now, the additional risk is probably small otherwise there would already be strong evidence of issues. But I don't think you can say there is no additional risk.
The glut is significantly due to US increase in production. We're number 2 right now and going to be rivaling Saudi soon. Of course we're pushing max capacity and Saudi can turn it up way over our heads, but the current glut is us.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
F ragile,
E xpensive
R ides
R epel
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People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
gravity is just another form of control! it's the liberals trying to keep us close to 'mother earth'. it's bullshit Gaia-ism if you ask me.
You don't happen to work for SpaceX do you?
Um, then why exactly did the fracking industry get immunity from disclosing the stuff they are putting in the ground? What are they hiding?
Fracking takes place below. Except that fracking BREAKS the rock. It's the entire purpose of it. So cracks form and allow escape routes.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Fracking takes place thousands of feet down, below impermeable rock, well below any water supply. What gets pumped down there is not coming back up except though the well head it went down.
The devil is always in the details. Yes, the fluids go through the wellbore. Which is a steel pipe thousands of feet long sealed with a cement liner. Now, this liner is a complicated thing - it's deep in the ground and hard to see. The well bore / liner also has a number of seals and fail safes. If done correctly, there is very little chance of damage to the rocks from the fracture site to the surface. If done incorrectly, there is quite a bit of chance that liquids will push out and some chance that this liquid will interfere with the aquifer. Or worse (ie, Deepwater Horizon)
Not everyone in the oil patch is competent and compulsive enough to do everything right all of the time. We CAN enforce bore testing and make these sorts of issues very, very unusual. AFAIK, only Texas and Louisiana have strong enough oversight to drastically limit wellbore 'excursions' (obviously, nothing is perfect). The Dakotas, Pennsylvania, NY have very little regulatory control over the wellbore quality.
Thus, you can expect a higher number of failed wellbores and thus pollution. Remember, even in unregulated states this doesn't usually happen, but it can be quite expensive to test and re cement a failed well (ie. Deepwater Horizon). Anyone trying to cut costs is going to let a marginal casing job slide.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
nonsense, cattle only make up 1% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions. It's not worth focusing on that, not when the problem is with many things order of magnitude bigger
Does fracking ruin the scenery?
You do realize that charging a car overnight on solar power is entirely doable...today right?
Come on, how many people realistically have enough land to hold *150* solar panels??? And the multiple hydrogen tanks he's using to cache the power generated... even if you assume a doubling of efficiency (how long will that take?) that's easily fifty more solar panels (and god knows how many hydrogen tanks) than even someone with a large home can accommodate...
And with all that, how much power does he get? The article states 21 kilowatts (I'll assume per day). The Tesla battery today is 85kw!!! So that leaves you terribly short of a full charge even with NO POWER for your house for the entire night.
That article doesn't contradict me, it just shows how incredibly far we are from having both solar power AND fully electric cars... another reason why hydrogen technology in cars is inevitable, so that we can move house power to solar instead of people being held back by electric cars. A side benefit of the article is it's also pointing out out hydrogen fuel cells are coming down in cost and are more widely used over time, key to the use in cars (and power storage for homes).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That is a good point however, consider the following:
- Tight oil fields (ie, the Baaken) need many more wells drilled than 'conventional' oil. Each well increases the risk of bore failure.
- The states where much of the frakking is currently happening (remember we've been frakking stuff for 50 years or so) have a history of poor regulatory supervision of the process. Texas and Louisiana have been bitten bad in the past and have tightened up drilling regulations such that they have very few bad wellbores. The other states, not so much. Why those states didn't just borrow the time tested regulations is an interesting question.
So, you're point that the actually hydraulic fracturing of a given well is unlikely to cause aquifer damage is a good one. It's a bit pedantic since most people consider the entire process as 'frakking'. It's pretty clear that frakking in tight oil plays does increase the risk for aquifer damage. Again, it's really annoying that the bad actors screw things up for everybody. In a way, there are parallels to nuclear power. If done correctly risks are low and manageable. However, doing things correctly yields an economic penalty. Some folks will try to take advantage of that, usually for minimal short term gain. So the entire industry gets pilloried.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There are other studies besides Cook et al. You can debate what you like, but the number of papers that explicitly disagree with the published science are a tiny minority.
Plus I am sure that you know absolutely nothing about the science so go take an undergraduate course on atmospheric physics and come back to the discussion.
The Koch brothers don't need to buy scientists - they bought climate denying politicians. The Republicans then put climate deniers in every environment and science role (and if you don't believe me, look it up yourself - just recently they added anti-science/climate denier Ted Cruz to head NASA and have had a climate denier running the EPA since late last year). I'm not saying jump two feet into cutting all emissions like some nuts on the left, but just give science an effing chance and see if it affects anything. These guys just outright deny it is and can happen.
10 years ago there were no Tesla on the road, now there are a few 1000. N*1000/0 = infinitely more Tesla
There are these people called 'descendents' who would still profit quite nicely, no?
Oil still runs the world. It simply doesn't move without it. Local transportation options are easily moved off of oil. Global shipping? not so much. Demand isn't going down significantly right now, but projected needs with China and India modernizing make the 'long' view not that long.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The problem is that OPEC is just about broken as an international cartel. This is why the Saudis not making any cuts recently was seen as such a big deal in the news. Previously, when other OPEC members were reluctant to make cuts, the Saudis shrugged and made the cuts themselves.
But the situation is different today. Members such as Venezuela or Russia simply can't make any cuts - pumping every barrel they can manage is the only thing keeping their economies afloat. Venezuela went into the latest rounds of OPEC negotiations having taken the position that under no circumstances would it make any cuts, period. (Naturally, the low prices are already giving them a very hard time as well, but if they make cuts and the prices undergo a moderate revival... they're still just as bad off, and increasing production just gets them back where they are plus pisses off the rest of OPEC.)
Why would China cutting a second canal have anything to do with the US? We don't even run the first one anymore. It's only under our control to the extent that our navy more or less has the run of the place, which is also true for -every bit of international waters in the hemisphere- and in fact pretty much anywhere else in the world. We wouldn't have any more problem closing a China-canal than we would the Panama canal, should we decide to do that...
bit of financial relief but what really happens is consumption sky-rockets.
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/i...
you may want to check your facts. oil consumption does not "sky rocket" if price falls. It's not an elastic commodity - it doesn't respond to prices very much at all.
Even if the sale of non-electric cars were banned tomorrow. Half the vehicles on the road would still be gas powered in 2026 (average age of a vehicle in the US is 11 years). As much as I am rooting for Tesla, to think that even a moderate proportion of vehicles will be electric 20 years from now is ludicrous. 0.6% of vehicles sold in the US are electric or plug in hybrid, even if this gets to 10%, or 20% in a decade, the majority of vehicles will be gas powered well into the 2040's. Low gas prices makes this even harder to achieve as it impacts the economics of buying an EV. Low prices also impact the movement to more efficiency and investment in alternatives. when fuel is cheap, people wont invest to "drop demand by 40%" because it isn't economically rational. People fail to realize just how dependent the modern world is on fossil fuels. Fully 80% of the energy mankind consumes comes from fossil fuels. Nuclear, hydro, biomass, wind, solar, everything else is only 20%. The amount of infrastructure we would have to replace to make solar and wind anything more than a blip on the radar is measured in the $trillions
You can't win. 50% of the population will never vote for serious action on climate change, and in a democracy that's what it takes. Unless you plan to overthrow the government you might as well just sit back and watch the world burn (or warm 7.5 degrees)
Actually my biggest objection to fracking isn't benzene getting into well water in states I'll never live in, so much as the leakage of methane around the drill sites. The plumes of methane in these areas are beginning to show up in satellite imagery. Considering the greenhouse effect of methane, fracking might have a greater impact on climate change than burning oil or even coal.
Don't be completely ridiculous. I am an environmentalist, but I don't think for one second that if I stop driving or flying on jets that everyone else will stop and the problem will be solved. That's why we have laws against littering and polluting. It doesn't matter whether I set a good example. People will still say "Screw you, Hippie. I love my Hummer and Gulfstream." It *does* matter how I vote, what I say to my representatives, and how I participate to change the system. Your admonition to "Live your life the way you preach to others before you preach." is quaint but irrelevant in our society. Following current laws while advocating different and improved laws is not a lie, not hypocritcal, and not communist. For someone who has a sig devoted to Jesus, you sure like to call people offensive names. And I don't see how advocating giving all your possessions to the poor and following a homeless man is really the hallmark of a social conservative. Most social conservatives I know would say to Jesus: "Get a job, Hippie!"
Incorrect. China has a far better navy than the US (at least 10-15 years ahead in technology), and the PLA fortifying a canal can mean China can easily run a naval blockade on the Panama Canal and force all maritime traffic through their canal in Nicaragua... at their rates. It also gives them the ability to use Venezuelan oil direct from the source. Great for them, but because the US is cut out of the deal, it means higher prices for the West. Same with Russia. Russia can build a pipeline to China. End result -- easy access for China, money for Russia and Venezuela, tough access for the US, especially if/when China chooses to blockade the Panama Canal.
Think the US would run the risk of a nuclear exchange even if the locks on the Panama Canal are destroyed by shelling? Wouldn't happen.
My family did pretty much the same stuff. And since we're really not exceptional in any way, I have to assume that there are more people doing the same thing.
I'm not a climate change denier or anything, just trying to stress the (probably insurmountable) scope of the problem. Kudos to people who care, and do the right thing, but I don't think there's enough of them, sadly enough.
BOoM
Nice job moving your goalposts. The argument was about wind and solar power -not hydrogen- even if that hydrogen is electrolyzed via solar derived power. Good to see people are trying new things and I support those endeavors, but I just have to call out logical fallacies when I see them. Even if I agree with your sentiment.
I am a different AC from GP, but I feel the need to comment because you are an idiot. First, you're using the words "demand" and "production" interchangeably. Make up your mind as to which one you are interested in. Second, GP never said that Saudi's increased production. He said that there was an increase in supply, and there was: The US increased production. The Saudis had the opportunity to offset this increase in supply by cutting their own production, but they chose not to because they wanted to kill US fracking. Thus, the reason that there was an increase in supply was that the Saudi's wanted to kill US production. Capiche? The Saudis didn't have to up their own production to do this, and GP never claimed that they did.
Of course, you are to busy trying to be a one-upping smartass to care what GP actually said.
China is building their own canal across the Americas. This way, they can get their oil from Venezuela a lot more easily, completely bypassing any influence from the US.
There's a lot of ways to spin the Nicaraguan canal, but this interpretation is just fucking cracked-out. It has nothing to do with Venezuelan oil. The Nicaraguan canal is about making the China-NYC route shorter, it's not going to affect the routes to/from Venezuela at all.
5: The Keystone XL pipeline and a repealing of the ban on selling US oil overseas are pretty much guaranteed to happen. This means that any US oil will be trading at world prices.
Please don't confuse the issue by talking about crude oil and refined petroleum products interchangably.
even in the nuclear industry, we regulate, and monitor - - obsessively. Yet, accidents happen.
In the drilling industry - we're FAR less strict. I think it's almost guaranteed that accidents in fracking are more the rule than the exception.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Again, it's really annoying that the bad actors screw things up for everybody.
Tragedy of the Commons, eh?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Problem is the NVAP program hasnt shown an increase in water vapour.
The slight warming we are experiencing seems to be only from climate sensitivity to CO2 and that sensitivity is on the low side of the models, very very low.
Umm, actually, the combined grant money of all nations currently investing in global warming research has more money than the Koch Brothers.
I don't tell others what they should or should not do
Literally 6 words earlier
Stop telling "us" what to do and make definitive changes yourselves.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Even IF a majority of humans switched to those green methods so as not to be hypocrites and lead by example, you'd still bitch and refuse. You'd claim "we didn't also do X,Y, or Z so we need to STFU". Moving goalposts is your type's "thing".
Embarrassed more like it. As of 22:25 CST, he no longer has a sig. He be trollin, mon!
Nah, the middle would have the frankfurt school crew. obama would be a relatively distant orbit.
You ARE stupid. NO ONE lives their life the way they preach. Humans all assume they, themselves, are infallible and so they *are* leading by example- it's just all the rubes are doing it wrong. You thump that bible. Are YOU sin free? Keep casting those stones.....
The average Chinese citizen uses 1/3rd as much carbon as the average American. So before you criticize China get your emissions down to their level.
Telecommuting is where the cheap laborers find jobs. That is to say, why not just hire someone from India to do the job if they have no value being in the office?
3) And for the good of humanity you want the price to be HIGH Z
Well someone sure is ignoring history!!
Because the cheaper energy of any form has been cheap, the better lives people led. That includes environmentally...
With more power you have more education, more industry, more jobs, more success period. With all that comes more leisure time which means more free time to devote to a healthy Earth.
If you want the best for "humanity" you want cheap energy - from any source.
Renewables will come along, but you can increase viability only so quickly. Until then don't screw people over my artificially limiting their access to energy.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.project-syndicate.o...
A very interesting long term analysis on relationship of oil prices and costs of production. Essentially the argument is that we're now off the monopolist market which oil was for last decade and a half due to growth of China and back to the competitive market where the ceiling of the costs is the costs of shale extraction operations + reasonable profit margins while floor is the extraction costs in conventional oil fields in more expensive points of extraction like Siberia and Arctic Sea.
But China has more than 4 times the population of the US. (1.357 billion in China vs 316 million in US)
Apparently the author of this article is another one of those stupid humans who have very little understanding of the benefits and necessity of oil. Too many stupid humans have this perverted belief that oil and gas make up the largest usage and benefit of oil production. "insert losing sound buzzer here" Take a good look around you right now. Almost everything in your field of view requires oil production. Your car, your computer, your lipstick, earphones, tennis racquets, life jackets, Tupperware, the list goes on. Take a look here stupid humans ---> http://www-tc.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
We have to divest ourselves from these stupid humans who pop up everywhere with their global warming anti humanity ideas. These people are brainwashed itdiots with no understanding of how the world works. They would see you living in caves and eating bugs to save their precious Gaia from their paranoid delusions. Get informed or become victims of stupid humans.
NVAP only started in the 90s. Given that we have definitely seen a plateau of increases in the intervening 20 years it's perfectly reasonable that you wouldn't seen an increase in water vapor. It's driven by temp and thus would stay fairly stable during a time of little warming.
The 'problem' again is that everything has a caveat as you so dutifully noted about NVAP. It's the grander picture that tells the real tale.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Sources please. The Koch brothers are something like 23rd on the global wealth index.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
China passes US as global Carbon emitter
Fucking moron.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
You are partly right, but I strongly suspect they waited too long before trying to do something about it,too many of these technologies are getting too mature.
Apparently the author of this article is another one of those stupid humans who have very little understanding of the benefits and necessity of oil. Too many stupid humans have this perverted belief that oil and gas make up the largest usage and benefit of oil production. "insert losing sound buzzer here" Take a good look around you right now. Almost everything in your field of view requires oil production. Your car, your computer, your lipstick, earphones, tennis racquets, life jackets, Tupperware, the list goes on. Take a look here stupid humans ---> http://www-tc.pbs.org/independ...
We have to divest ourselves from these stupid humans who pop up everywhere with their global warming anti humanity ideas. These people are brainwashed itdiots with no understanding of how the world works. They would see you living in caves and eating bugs to save their precious Gaia from their paranoid delusions. Get informed or become victims of stupid humans.
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
Oil gets HUGE subsidies.
That's because it actually can deliver enough power to provide real utility today, and people rely heavily on that power. I have no problem with subsidies that prop up a technology that isn't aimed to helping a tiny fraction of the populace.
Solar and wind don't have to replace oil to crush oil prices. At best they need to reduce demand by 5% and the market will do the rest.
That's pretty un-realistic. And it doesn't matter if oil prices are "crushed" because there's currently nothing that can realistically replace them on a wide scale. Lets say solar power is suddenly half the cost of oil. No way you can build enough panels (or find someplace to put them) to supply power for even a single major city. No way you are going to replace even 20% of the cars on the road with electric cars in ten years. It would drive some behavior that direction but it's not technically viable as a replacement for fossil fuel on a large scale.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This means an investor took a risk andit didn't pay off!!!
The system is flawed, investors who are already billionaririeries should have a 100% chance to become more rich with each investment!
What comes to mind is "cap and trade" aka the giant carbon scam.
Taxing and quantifying emissions in an effort to widen the gap between the rich and the poor (because it does only that and NOTHING more) and the sheep just keep lapping it up.
The price of oil is set at the whims of the likes of OPEC
Right now, OPEC (well, the scumbag murderers who run Saudi Arabia...but that's all it takes) wants to see the American shale gas industry crash and burn, so they're making oil cheap as hell. The only thing they need to do to push oil back up over $100 is cut their production again.
It might happen tomorrow, or in two weeks, or (most likely) in about six months. What is certain is that It will happen.
Incorect.. global warming is a generic term that encompasses the scientific phenomonom as well as the political solutions and probably a few more things.
The GP was correct and the no true scottsman arguments in order to slander his opinion just fails.
Don't worry about the climate - if we make too much of a mess it will be self correcting over geological time.
Worry about the people who won't have enough to eat as part of the correction. If you don't live on a farm in a very fertile area that could be you.
First, you're using the words "demand" and "production" interchangeably.
Yeah, you're right, I got confused.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
As soon as there's a $20k electric car, you'll see them everywhere on the streets.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yeah, but global shipping is a small part of the total demand.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The technologies may be mature but the financial deals to run them are not and some are only viable at an oil price much higher than is current. If this continues a lot of producers are going to go broke.
However, then the Saudis may get to compete with whoever snaps up the assets at fire sale prices.
More than that, greenies continue to tax the middle class (or what's left of it) to steal our income and allow the Rockefellers, Gores, and Kennedy clans to continue to steal that money from the government. Grow some balls; tax trust funds at 90%.
There's been a few over the last decade and they are now getting turned into products. Among other things it's already been enough to turn the "solar powered light bulb" from a snide joke into a two dollar shop item. It will be interesting to see where things go from here.
Read that as "OPEC as led by Saudi Arabia" and you'll see where he is coming from. Parts of OPEC want to make things very difficult for other parts of OPEC.
It's just not considered "core business" to get that methane and do something about it.
We're acting like Nigeria a few years ago, instead of Nigeria now where nearly all of their electricity is generated using the heat from flaring off the gas from wells instead of just having the flame do nothing like they used to.
It's a useful resource that's just thrown away.
Not an option until some effort is put in to make it so. No bank on the planet will touch it and not many governments are going to stump up the cash for civilian nuclear. Then there's the US nuclear lobby that decided the 1970s stuff is good enough and lobbied to shut down the thorium project and anything else with potential that pops up. If the future is nuclear it's either going to be a Chinese knockoff of 1980s German technology or you'll be getting it from India, and the taxpayers will be footing the ball.
By being sold below cost.
The Saudi stuff isn't going away due to low production costs and being backed by a government if it does end up being sold below cost. The stuff we are discussing is more expensive to produce and has to stand on it's own without the wealth of a rich Kingdom (so strange in 21st century) behind it.
Thus the big carbon producers that were already skating close to the edge financially can be kissed goodbye Enron style if this keeps up.
The others that are sensibly managed but sitting on reserves that cost a bit to extract will take longer.
There's going to be carnage, lots of unemployed in Texas, knockon effects from governments living off oil revenue etc, and the degree of damage depends on how long this goes on.
and
Yup. You do tell others what they should or should not do.
Bah!
Her husband eats hamburger lady.
The problem is that the universities are going to put money wherever it is going to make a return on investment. If the universities do not invest in these companies it probably won't effect them. Someone else will just get the pay out instead.
So what is the point of yet another pointless "moral" stance that accomplishes nothing.
if you want to tackle big carbon, then provide an alternative that isn't a fucking bad joke. Absent that... fuck off.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The reason oil prices dropped is because of a massive new increase in supply.
That's a very optimistic way to put it. The reason we have an apparent oil surplus is that most important economies in the world are stagnating or going through recession (Eurozone, China). The economy is tied to oil consumption, you can't produce stuff without using energy. When production drops, energy drops equally. Hence your surplus, but the big picture is capitalism is facing a hurdle.
Considering we are "good" because the price is going low is really looking at a very small part of the picture. We reached peak oil in 2005, since then the production of oil barrels is decreasing. It only goes up if you lump up additional oil derivatives into the sum. But that's a very dishonest way of counting.
Think of it this way: why are oil prices going down when every day extracting oil is getting more expensive?
So arguing that there is no global warming, that the global warming has stopped, that it is not man-made or that it is a non-issue, because it will actually benefit us, is seen as some way of defending Freedom[tm], and many libertarian leaning people and a lot of conservative ones feel a mission to cast doubt on solid science, because defending Freedom is always good work, right? And because the science itself is quite solid (we can actually measure the heat trapping properties of different levels of the components in the atmosphere, and we have a good way to estimate the amount of carbon dioxide and methane we release in the atmosphere), the doubt is cast either on the researchers (they are accused to have an agenda, they are called liars, they are suspected to conspire against us all...), or on the immediate conclusions. Models are called misleading, every new discovery how to more correctly assess an effect gets hailed as proof that the evil climate scientists are wrong again etc.pp..
Try to separate the science and the politics! And yes, denying the science on whatever level is at first an attempt to politice the science.
nonsense, cattle only make up 1% of all manmade greenhouse gas emissions.
You can get quite philosophical with that statement. Are cow burps "man-made"?
On the other hand, the UN estimates that the whole livestock commodity chain contributes 18 % of all green house gas emissions, which is more than transport. This is an orange to your 1% apple, and the numbers should not be compared. It does however tell us what would happen to green house gas emissions if we stopped (or seriously cut down on) keeping livestock (primarily for meat, dairy, eggs and wool).
Also, you might want to consider that there is more cattle than humans on this planet, and most cows don't eat just grass. They are fed corn, soy, grains, and antibiotics.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
10 years ago there were no Tesla on the road, now there are a few 1000. N*1000/0 = infinitely more Tesla
I'm amazed that nobody here has picked you up on this (indeterminately more Teslas, not infinite) - or maybe the Slashdot crowd are insensate to mathematical trolling.
"There is zero proof that fracking does anything bad to water supplies beyond using some of it"
You are a liar and a faggot for money.
"We" have to "kiss off" "big carbon" because ... there's so darn much of it that it's not as profitable as some investors thought?
Oy ...
I guess this "carbon problem" you talk about is not a big enough problem for you to personally inconvenience yourself, but you are more than happy to have Government inconvenience me for it? Sounds like someone who does not really think carbon is a problem after all.
Either that, or just another fascist who does not realize that he is one...
Well than enlighten us about these "other studies" before you pontificate about the stupidity of others. Otherwise you look like a fool who has no clue.
All of your points are valid in one sense. What you miss is that the price of oil was engineered to be low specifically to smack Russia. That makes your timeline less believable. Prices will rise when America decides that hurting Russia in this way is not viable any longer. Will that be Memorial Day? Could be. No idea.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
This is why I've been pushing to argue in favor of reducing fossil fuel use not from an environmental point of view, but from an economic one. People can bury their heads in the sand when it comes to science, but people always listen when money is involved.
Even though the US imports about a third of our petroleum, that's still equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars per year leaving our economy. If we transition to renewable energies, that money stays around a bit longer.
Renewable energies might have a larger up-front capital cost (but not by much, and it's getting better every day), but the long term costs are overwhelmingly favorable.
With the current crash in oil prices it should be clear that our economy is in the hands of foreign interests. We are hostages to international petroleum markets. Let's develop domestic sources to free ourselves from foreign influence. Remember: There's no reason why oil couldn't have been this cheap all along, and the price only went down right when we were posed to start reducing imports in favor of domestic natural gas production. We're being played!
(Oh, and if we happen to mitigate the environmental damage we're doing in the process and avoid global catastrophe, I guess that'll be a bonus...)
=Smidge=
problem is the idiot climate activists (they are not scientist's by any stretch of the imagination!!) presumed they would all be positive feedbacks .
But reality say's they are wrong, that why the models are way off..
The summary, most of the article and most of the posts here are completely missing the point.
The oil, coal and natural gas need to stay in the ground, regardless of what we are paying for it, $50, $150 per barrel, people still pay for it.
Is civilisation going to end when we stop using fossil fuels? Of course not.
Far better article about global warming:Global Warming's Terrifying New Math
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Take whatever savings the current fuel prices allow you and invest it in renewables and energy conservation right now. The price of oil will certainly rise again, but you won't care.
Why we should kiss off economic prosperity and live a life of energy poverty by switching to renewable energy.
It does however tell us what would happen to green house gas emissions if we stopped (or seriously cut down on) keeping livestock (primarily for meat, dairy, eggs and wool).
What? No, it doesn't, because people would still have to eat.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm not saying jump two feet into cutting all emissions like some nuts on the left,
If you had been listening to those "nuts" back in the 1970s when they were saying the same things they're saying today, except less emphatically because the situation was not yet quite so dire, then you wouldn't have do any "jumping" now. But you decided you were smarter than they were back then, and now a jump is what it's going to take.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
yeah factory meat displacing native ecologies. go ruby retard again. oh how I miss your deranged dementia sponsored rants from technocrat.
A "Law of Supply and Demand" would require equity between demand and supply. No such equity can be shown. There are dozens of reason why the price of something can change that has nothing to do with supply OR demand.
It's not a "law". It's not even a hypothesis or a theory. It's someone's opinion that now gets used as shorthand in situations in which it has absolutely no meaning.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Now that's just dumb. I think you have a reasonable thought somewhere in there, but the way you formulated it is bad. Think about it and come up with something more sophisticated.
The law of supply and demand is not the primary driver of oil barrel prices, and there was no need for you to come on like a hard-on.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
China is a very thirsty nation. They are also extremely rich and about to embark on infrastructure improvements that make the US's highway structure look like building a McDonalds. So, the demand for oil will be from them.
China keeps saying that, but they have whole cities empty because they still don't want to share the prosperity with the general citizenry. That would require more education, and we can't have that in China, can we?
China is building their own canal across the Americas
We'll see.
As always, we are always one incident from price spikes. Should someone have a heart attack at a refinery, prices for crude will be back in the triple digits.
Why should a problem at a refinery raise the price for crude? It should raise the price of products, obviously.
Oil prices are controlled by supply and demand
Obviously they're controlled by market manipulation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Did you read anything beyond the headline in the article you linked us to? Do you understand that the article actually confirms the 97% figure?
Plus, it's not a Forbes article, it's just a blog by a twenty-something who writes "about the environmental benefits of industrial progress." In other words, a shill. And if you read the article, you'll learn that he can't even formulate a simple argument.
For example, this is what he writes in his article about how the 97% number is a fraud:
Well, OK then. Never mind.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not per capita.
Fucking Moron.
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
In other words, the greens want a suicide pact. I'll destroy my standard of living, but only if I can require the government to destroy your standard too. In the meantime, they will consume just as much, if not more than everyone else, but get to feel morally superior about it too because they have the right beliefs.
I will buy your argument when all climate change deniers move to Florida. It is my understanding that beachfront property there will be very inexpensive in the near future.
I was being sarcastic. People who could be bought seldom decide to go into climate science. Not that it's never happened, but it sure is rare.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If you thumb your nose at evidence which has passed scientific rigor by everyone keen to debunk it, yes, you are in denial. That's the difference.
I'm glad at least one person caught that. I don't write these things for my health, you know.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Since low prices lead to waste and even more carbon in the atmosphere, and we're concerned about the Federal deficit, wouldn't *now* (really, 20 years ago) be the right time to put, say, a $30/bbl tax on oil?
Are you serious?
Hundreds of billions have been spent worldwide over the last 20-30 years on climate research. That numbers go up very high if you included alternative energies (however... that is a place I approve of for spending, but done right).
Koch brothers wouldnt spend that amount on disinformation, its impossible.
I'm not saying there isnt any lobbying from the fossil fuel industry, there certainly is. But everytime someone posts anything in disagrement with the Church of Global Warming of later day carbon credits, all we get is "But Koch Brothers...".
I'm Canadian. I dont givash*t for the Koch brothers, your congress or your senate. I just care that here in Quebec, our government is enacting California style laws and carbon taxes, which no one else in north america has adopted yet. But our supreme leaders feel that regardless of our shrinking economy, enormous job losses in the last 2 years and that we are on the bring of a recession, its still ok to gouge us on energy prices.
WE ARENT CALIFORNIA. People freeze to death in winter.
Take your Koch brothers argument, and find a better one.
You can start by showing me a climate model that actually tracks with observed data.
A high price would allow using the resource more slowly, but it does not support keeping it in the ground, in fact, just the opposite. It is clear that the only oil we can still burn is oil that cost very little to produce, so a cap on the price of oil is what is really what would work to keep from burning too much. http://www.nature.com/nature/j...
Indeed. Sweep that under the carpet.
Why hasn't it risen? CO2 has certainly risen. If CO2 went up, than the temperature should have gone up, if that did, Water vapor should be up.
But all of a sudden, your basic laws of 3rd grade physics which is the greenhouse effect, just suddenly don't apply?... they stopped functioning for over a decade. Why?
Because, you lumbering imbecilic drivel-headed baboon faced cocksmoker, the fucking drilling is to enable the fucking fracking.
Without fracking, there is no need to drill. Any impacts from drilling are directly attributable to fracking.
Now go away.
The article is about divestment. It points out that the reasons for divestment are multiplying.
http://www.engineering.com/Ele...
that stat is false. The truth was "97% of scientific studies...by climate scientists..." not 97% of scientists agree. HUGE difference and very (intentionally) misleading when you word it the way you did
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
im pretty sure what he means is that oil prices have nothing to do with supply and demand (within reason) and more to do with speculation.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Posting AC because I am almost ashamed to be replying to this:
This isn't C&C RA2. China has a formidable navy, but the US is still top dog. If they were not top dog, the balance of power in the Pacific Rim would be completely different, and it might even to hot... and trust me, China and Japan gearing up for war would make the Middle East be a joke.
Blockade the Panama Canal? China and the US are linked together. If they tank the US's economy, their economy hits the shitter, and no amount of five year plans would ever help for 20-30 years. China is also a nation of wars by proxy. They will menace smaller nations, but they are smart enough to not overtly do the actions the parent describes.
Yes, China does want oil and trade benefits over their rival, and they have scored some victories. However, this xenophobic anti-Sino stuff that gets posted to Slashdot is getting preposterous.
At which point the power grid will collapse as we add an additional 30% load onto the system
Seems to me that Romney, or maybe Jeb, is as electable as Hilary.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Won't somebody think of the billionaire oil barons! Oh the humanity.
I can't believe the number of people that suggest that long term changes/commitments should be made because "now, oil is cheap". From the morons who think that means we should raise the gas tax to the idiots who think the U.S. Fracking industry can be killed.
Oil prices will go back up. And the second they do, the Frackers will open up shop again/increase drilling. etc. And, of course, that tax that was increased because "oil cost so little now" will make the increases all that much worse.
And the supreme irony is that all those Solar Panels MDSolar endlessly shills for cannot be made without oil. From creating plastics to generating the energy to make the glass to fueling the construction equipment to transport them, etc.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'm not sure what you mean by "immunity from disclosing". The backing ingredients in frack fluid are well known. However, the exact mixture may be protected for intellectual property reasons, as getting it right for a given formation can have a big impact in how successful the well is. Nothing to do with environmental concerns.
As for breaking the rock. It's true that is what fracking does, but it does so well below the water table, with several layers of rock between it at the water table. The potential for water contamination comes from a leaky wellhead casing as it passes through the water table. But that can happen regardless of whether the well is fracked.
Only if it happened all at once. The power grid will adapt to the needs. Also, most electric car charging is overnight, when the grid is generally not very taxed.
Because even at it's most expensive, it isn't expensive enough to justify the price it was getting due to market manipulation. Imagine stock buybacks, but with oil.
Cheap storage VM.
Thats like saying if you drive fast your a racist. The guy never said anything about scienc. He said it is about control and mentioned another buzz word as the same
So when the price of oil goes back up to $120, they will suggest that philanthropists* re-invest? They should be divesting because fossil fuels are screwing up the planet, not because they are not giving the best returns.
*Leaches who take a lot more than their fair share and then think they are good because they invest is shitty corporations and then donate some of the interest to charity.
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I lived trough the majority of the Cold War. I saw the "love" in the managed economies of some countries. They worked just like the good old feudal societies of a 1000 years ago. The "elites" had all of the prosperity of the society, the majority of the people lived at the bottom of the economy and there was a small, nearly untolerated middle class. If you happen to be part of the elite life was good otherwise life pretty much sucked for one reason or another.
If one thinks that by being a Leftist they will be part of the elite of a planned economy, think twice. Planned "societies" end up being more like the world of Hunger Games than they do of the Utopian Society that is in many peoples minds.
RTFA
Are you being intentionally stupid, moron who calls me a fascist? If new laws are adopted, they inconvenience all in the same way, except the law breakers. But go ahead. Keep buying the answers Fox News sells you with those delicious helpings of fear and righteous indignation you so crave. You don't need to study physics to argue with a person who actually has a degree in physics. You don't need to study the climate to disagree with climate scientists. Just listen to Fox News and the paid shills of people who hope to extract 100 billion dollars worth of coal from the earth. They will tell you what to think, and how to vote. And they will tell you the names to call the people who disagree with the talking points you adopted from them. Names like fascist and greenie. Two dimensional profiles of people you can lump together, and not think about too hard. Thinking is inconvenient! Why worry whether you are talking to a nuclear physicist, a patent attorney, or a lightning researcher? Just lump them together as fascists! You don't need to pick which one I am from that list, because you already know: if I'm not a hypocrite, I'm a fascist. See? Fox has the answers. For trolling morons, just like you.
Neither is the issue just going to quietly go away if you ignore it for long enough.
Of course it will. Either global ecological disasters will destroy civilization and much of its historical records, in which case the hotter climate will be the new norm for any surviving species (problem solved). Or nothing will come of these predictions of doom and it will all be forgotten (problem solved).
Expecting other individuals to make sacrifices for your ideals, no matter how well founded those ideals happen to be, is misguided hubris. Lead by example or shut up.
What about fracking induced earthquakes? That's just as bad as contaminated groundwater.
Perhaps you didn't read the study that the pacific has been absorbing the energy causing the seeming 'hiatus' in rising temps. linky So it's quite plausible that the pacific has been redistributing the heat lower into the ocean columns. Eventually though it stops being able to do that and the atmospheric heating continues...now with a warmer ocean to boot.
It's a complex system and we don't know everything but we continue to study and learn. As opposed to your ilk who just say 'nope, no problems' with no evidence to explain the workings of the system.
Much like claiming a snow storm means the climate isn't warming. It IS warming and has been for decades but because of a single blip in the trend you're ready to throw out decades of factual solid data on temps.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
what does per capita have to do with it? Warming isn't 'per capita', it's just warming.
That China has 3 times our population means they are going to be much much bigger in the future.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Guess my filter is off :)
The problem is your sarcastic argument is the exact actual argument used by deniers to explain what they see as lock step ideology of scientists...when it's actually just the rational result of studying the data. (The deniers see ideology because that's what they know)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
If you live in the U.S., you have been lied to and duped by people who stand to make a ton of money only if we continue using oil, gas and coal. Increasing domestic energy production will not harm the U.S. economy, or destroy our standard of living. The U.S. economy has benefited from increased domestic production of oil, gas, wind and solar power. It will continue to boom as long as we produce our energy here. It will get even better if we stop relying on oil and gas, for about a thousand reasons you could easily learn if you had an open mind. I'm sorry for you that you have believed the fear-mongering shills of the fossil fuel industry. They are intentionally lying for their own personal profit, and you are wrong for believing them. I am all for profits, btw. I like driving cars and flying in jets. If you believe the only way to power these things is with fossil fuels, you are willfully blind. You probably value your republican identity and the sense of belonging it gives more than the truth. That is sad. And if you don't like my tone, don't suggest my comments are directed at a "suicide pact" and that my motive is to feel "morally superior". You opened the inquiry into my motives and put words in my mouth to fit your narrative, so I am merely returning the favor.
People freeze to death in winter.
Yep. Weather isn't climate. Irrelevant.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Jeb isn't electable. He was once but the brand is a bit tarnished now.
:) Just that the GOP people aren't.
There was also his book release. The one where he went with the 2010-12 GOP surge and railed against illegal immigration. Only to run smack into fast changing politics on the issue. He actually tried to claim he basically didn't write the book it was so bad.
Never said Hilary is electable
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
immunity from disclosing - The Haliburton Loophole Courtesy of Dick Cheney
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
So because people drive cars they are not allowed to talk about the scientific fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? That's some great logic there.
This volatility is a big economic reason why we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. In 6 months, the cost dropped by half: can a free market ever adjust so quickly? Energy investments tend to be long term but we use fossil fuel capacity so efficiently that a small percentage change in availability can cause huge price differences. It's just as easy for the price to double in six months, or quadruple, on small changes on production or demand. Can you change your car, transportation needs, or home quickly enough to adjust? No. Do you think industry can? No. Do you think power process can? Not a chance.
Given the short term outlook of the free market, we do need governments to think long term to reduce volatility and prepare us for the spikes in both directions.
That doesn't contradict what I said at all. It's not about environmental sensitivity. It's about protecting intellectual property.
I've heard lots of thoughts on both sides of this issue, and seen a number of studies on both sides of the issue (studies always appear to push the group's agenda though -- I have yet to see a study by someone without a vested interest in the outcome they derive in their conclusion).
The summary goes like this though:
As you say, Fracturing takes place well below *current* domestic water supplies, usually in a deep shale bed (the result being that water will no longer accumulate there either, due to the fracturing). So at first glance, there's no problem with poisoning the water table.
Second, as you say, a properly drilled well has to be sealed and lined anyway, so with a properly drilled well, there is no further hazard than you'd get from a leaky shaft pumping crude (which is just as bad for the water table as the chemicals used in fracturing).
The issues with fracturing appear to be:
1) Loosening dormant fault lines (rare, but we've had a few cases documented now)
2) Bad drilling and disposal practices.
The second one appears to be the real issue here; one study that was conducted found that the official site inspections tended to give notice, and the sites inspected generally had proper treatment of the shaft and proper site care and fluid disposal (which makes sense, as the fluids are usually re-used between wells, and it's not in the fracker's interests to have to re-invest in the fluids).
However, a third party who did unauthorized site checks found that the same sites sometimes ended up dumping toxins on-site AFTER being inspected, and that sites that were never visited had flawed shafts and should never have been re-used for fracking -- and often had sub-standard disposal practices as well.
So this seems to be one of those cases where there's reason to be concerned (especially now that the industry needs to cut costs to stay profitable), but the concerns usually aren't the ones that people get up in arms about. The problem isn't so much with the fracking as it is with the well placement, well care, and toxin disposal. If these can all be done responsibly (which is expensive), fracking itself doesn't appear to be an issue.
They used 'intellectual property' to hide the outright pollution. You don't see the amazing coincidence there with Cheney being the driving force to help a company (and industry) he owns millions of stock in?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
What no one seems to realize is that it always takes energy to get oil to market. If it takes the energy of more than 1 barrel of oil to get a barrel to market, it doesn't matter what you charge for that barrel. You are losing money. Extreme tax breaks and subsidies can hide this fact, deniers can obfuscate it but it is what it is. Hence, for over 20 years people have sold oil shale as profitable if oil costs twice as much as it did. Implying that one burns 2 barrels to get one. This phenomena will end the oil economy, without the need for legislation. It's getting closer all the time. Enjoy your lifestyle, then kiss it goodbye.
is that they want investments that only increase in price.
Think about the manipulation that would have to occur in order for that to happen.
is that oil prices have nothing to do with supply and demand (within reason)
That isn't a very clear thought either. Especially when you consider that the way OPEC attempts to manipulate prices is by manipulating supply.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The law of supply and demand is not the primary driver of oil barrel prices
Yes it is
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Agree. I do this all myself, mostly because I dislike waste. I do far more than most preachy environmentalists. It is about personal choice.
A perfect example: I work for a pretty "green" organization. Each year they run a big competition with surrounding businesses to see who can conserve the most CO2 for 3 weeks. The ones that do get little prizes...
I participate every year, but do not really contribute much. The reason? Because it is a measurement of what you would waste VS the 3 weeks of conservation. So if you are the worst offender, and then for a scant 3 weeks to actually try and do something you win. I tried to tell the organizers it was a horrible metric to measure success by, as you are basically awarding the behavior of those that pollute the most CO2 normally.
I bought a house that is a 10min walk from work. As a result it is old, small, and expensive (for size). I could go out to the suburbs and get a new, huge, cheaper (for size) house and drive 20min every day to work, or in the country or another community for a 30-50min commute.
So yeah, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words...
Though not sure about the whole communists comment... :)
A "Law of Supply and Demand" would require equity between demand and supply. No such equity can be shown.
Yes there is, the equity point is directly measurable as the amount of oil that gets sold. That is the equity point.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You're speculating, guessing at numbers, and that is why you are coming to poor conclusions. Go look at what has actually happened to oil supply, look at what has actually happened to the price of extracting shale oil, then you will be able to have informed conclusions.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The oil crash is intentional and temporary (how long, nobody knows). It's intended to cripple certain economies and businesses, and it may accomplish its intent. Eventually the action is unsustainable. Prudent business (and individuals) will take the necessary measures to ride out the storm. Could have serious long term implications however, including shifts in world centers of power (political).
While consumers in the US might be enjoying a respite from excessive gas prices, there could be much deeper, longer damage to the economy, currently unseen. This would not be the case if there had been a slow gradual decrease in oil prices due to increased competition in a free market environment, instead of an overnight price collapse. This current situation occurred by design, not due to market forces - there is a monopoly in oil (OPEC) and excessive involvement by political parities (governments). This would not have happened in a true free market.
Dear asshole,
Planted trees. Bought house close to work. Use public transit 9 days out of 10.
Unfortunately, it's not going to make up for you and your friends using any excess power you can for the fuck of it. It's like you're the jerks who toss their empty drink and food containers out of the car window in our street, for us to clean up.
mark
That brings up an interesting question. What happens when an unelectable candidate goes up against another unelectable candidate? One of them has to win, in which case s/he isn't unelectable by definition. Unless a 3rd party wins, but everyone knows they're unelectable.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Take your first sentence to it's logical conclusion. Ban all things pertaining to fossil fuels. Most people do nothing productive, they can all stay home. Many of those now unemployed can then start work on the all renewable infrastructure. It will require a North Korean style totalitarian government because the sacrifice and deprivation of a carbon free existence will be intolerable to all but a few of the population. Of course those few will gleefully man the guard towers and put aside their fear of guns.
75 x 75 miles square forest = 10 billion tons of CO2 released per year.
Not counting whats buried beneath the forest floor.
(If that included, may be 50 x 50 mile square.)
So conservatively that last 100 years of CO2 emissions
would easily be balanced by a forest 750 x 750 miles square.
Thats a pretty DAMMNED small forest if you ask me.
Nope.
There are too many other factors that enter into the equation of price for you to be able to put "supply" on one side and "demand" on the other and get equity.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How big? Are you sure it's "HUGE"? I'm pretty sure your assertion is purely hopeful.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Nope.
Yes lol. Disagreeing with science doesn't change science, it just means you're wrong.
To see this, think about how OPEC tries to manipulate price: they do it by manipulating supply. DeBeers did the same thing. The supply/demand curve is one of the most well-tested hypothesis of economics, perhaps the only one better tested is mv=pq.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You are welcome on my lawn.
Thankyou.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes it's a feedback loop that has been previously tested in geological time.
If the feedback was so strong as to cause runaway heating the earth would already be Venus. Earth has been warmer before.
So based on knowing basic control systems we can eliminate any proposed model that shows this kind of temperature growth. Because the earth has a geologic record and this is not new temperature territory.
The heat-water vapor-heat feedback math is convergent.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
its apples and oranges. claiming 97% of all scientists agree is simply false.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Actually there won't BE any fuel taxes. As in no gasoline fuel used. The 'gas tax' is dying and needs too. Paying based on your annual mileage x vehicle type needs to be the new metric for funding roads. Even before we get off gas, cars are more and more efficient, reducing the amount of gas used per mile driven. The cost of maintaining the roads is FAR exceeded by the cost of not doing so. When the roads start breaking down, the delivery trucks need that much more maintenance and now everything costs more to deliver. Regular maintenance spending is always cheaper.
I agree we need a way to charge people based on the wear and tear they inflict on the roads (instead of number of gallons of gas they buy), but how do you implement it? Where do you store the miles since last fill up? Where do you store information as to how many of those miles were in which state (or city)? Would that mean a GPS on every vehicle (and loss of privacy)?
Ummm...fracking started in the 40s. Drilling for oil started well before then. Maybe you're the lumbering imbecilic drivel-headed baboon faced cocksmoker,
The drilling industry, a subset of the fossil fuel industry, released a powerpoint prez, surely a mistake, that showed that 5% of wells leak from day one.
In the past few years, we've drilled thousands of frakking wells, so there's your math exercise for the day.
There are both shale formations which are fracked and shale oil formations which are similar to tar sands.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why would I listen to someone who just believes?
http://business.financialpost....
Polar bar populations are thriving. It is the best conservation success story.
From 5000 in the 60's to 25000 in 2013-14.
Read Susan Crockfords article. It shows clearly that the scientists tasked to monitoring polar bear populations are more interested in keeping their jobs than showing the truth.
Its important that we freeze in winter because energy costs are going up, you idiot. Not because it has anything to do with climate.
Your problem and the AGW crowds problem is fighting a "currently" non-issue, due to faked data and faulty science, and that fight is causing REAL WORLD problems right now in the present.
That is one of 53+ and counting reasons theorized for the warming hiatus or pause of the last 18 years.
I'm not saying its false, though there has been many articles pointing out some flaws in some of the data and conclusions on that.
But it is still only 1 theory of many.
Fact is, we dont have reliable data for ocean heat content before ARGO, so what is to say what we are observing is new or not part of the natural cycle?
El nino years create huge spikes in temperatures, its part of the natural process and transfers much heat into the atmosphere, but it does so in a spike, not for 10, 20 years.
So your statement that Eventually though it stops being able to do that and the atmospheric heating continues...now with a warmer ocean to boot. doesnt explain the whole process or even part of it at all.
It is a complex system, and skeptics study it and one of the main skeptics points is that there is much more to climate than just CO2.
"Nope, no problems" is something you just said, not skeptics with science backgrounds trying to get their studies published, but being rejected because it doesnt jive with the IPCC.
Climate is not weather, weather is not climate. We all know that, its funny how this is brought up by people like you for winter, but you all keep silent everytime there is a scientist or when the media brings it up when there is a hot week or warm spell for a short time.
Seems the bias is strong on the warming side in politics and in the media. But thats ok right? Because it fits with your beliefs.
Yes, the number is actually a little higher, if you stick to pertinent fields (excluding social sciences and pseudo-science like economics).
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm glad at least one person caught that. I don't write these things for my health, you know.
All good. Love your sig BTW. This might sound weird, but that's put me in a good mood - nice way to start the day.
First this is a good opportunity because we have decades of natural gas and oil at low prices. Now is the perfect time to do it. I really hope that the west gets going on the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors because if we don't start now we will be buying it from China because they are starting into it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/kirk_sorensen_thorium_an_alternative_nuclear_fuel
http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/86787/kirk-sorensen-update-thorium-story
While I am all in favour of getting cleaner fuel for our civilization to run on I refuse to sell my soul for 30 pieces of silver to the "CO2 controls climate" nonsense.
A question for everyone who thinks that CO2 controls the climate. How long with rising CO2 and flat or falling temperatures before you admit your theory is wrong? 20 years? 30? Never?
All 5 of the major datasets (RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4, GISS, NCDC) show no warming for between 14 and almost 18 years. In that time CO2 has risen 8-10%.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/03/the-great-pause-lengthens-again/
I am highly sensate to mathematical trolling, you insensate clod!
Internal combustion engines can run quite well on hydrogen, ethanol, methane, and any number of other non-fossil sourced flammable gases.
In addition, plug-in hybrid vehicles offer a possible path for oil demand to drop drastically, without requiring any more improvements to battery technology. The vast majority of trips can be powered by electricity, while only longer trips need consume any oil. They need only drop in price.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
But it is still only 1 theory of many.
That makes sense and hasn't been as yet, dis-proven. If it's so bad, that should be easy right?
I'm not saying its false, though there has been many articles pointing out some flaws in some of the data and conclusions on that.
Sources please. And not from 'biased' right wing sites...since you're so concerned with this.
It is a complex system, and skeptics study it and one of the main skeptics points is that there is much more to climate than just CO2.
And one of the favorite go to 'more' reasons is water vapor. You've now come full circle in your reasoning.
"Nope, no problems" is something you just said, not skeptics with science backgrounds trying to get their studies published, but being rejected because it doesnt jive with the IPCC.
Are you denying that climate 'skeptics' stated with "It isn't warming" and have now largely shifted to the position you're now holding that, "Ok, it's warming but we can't prove it's related to us". Talk about moving the goal posts.
And as for being unable to publish? Bull fucking shit. There's a great big internet for them to publish on. If their ideas have merit, they'll be picked up on. Unless they flatly ignore data to make a point...
Climate is not weather, weather is not climate. We all know that, its funny how this is brought up by people like you for winter, but you all keep silent everytime there is a scientist or when the media brings it up when there is a hot week or warm spell for a short time.
Rush Limbaugh is the one who brought it up during the last east coast blizzard.
You know who is also pretty silent in the summer? The skeptics saying "huh, it's hotter this year, might be global warming". You do know that Australia just had a summer so hot, not just warmer than average, but so hot they had to redraw the temperature gauges? So hot they've never had temps even near that range. linky
Seems the bias is strong on the warming side in politics and in the media. But thats ok right? Because it fits with your beliefs.
My 'beliefs' are based on science. Yours seem to be in spite of them.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
It is new territory. There has never been a spike in such a short time as there has in the last 200 years. That a system as vast as the earth doesn't immediately respond is to be expected. But it's still responding faster than any known period previously.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The study used by the EPA to 'approve' fracking in shale was a single well that wasn't in shale rock.
Shale is similar to sand? This should be good. Do tell.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Prove it. We can show water vapor increases temperature, even methane. I have yet to see anything other than "it's obvious" to show co2 is increasing temperatures.
Bad thing was calling it a "greenhouse gas". Greenhouses don't contain CO2 in much of a concentration. They'd be consumed by the plants, obviously. Greenhouses are hot because of other reasons.
Problem is, if you aren't here how do I know you're working on my stuff. I recently had to let go of an employee that was at work and doing other work. I caught her.
Even so, it does piss me off that I have to drive to work when I'd be a LOT more effective at home.
linky
Seriously though, google is your friend. A 'greenhouse' gas is not a 'gas present in greenhouses'. It's a gas that has the same effect as a greenhouse; i.e. trapping heat that enters via solar energy.
It's a simple physical property of the gas which is why you probably see the "it's obvious" reference. It's also a great indicator of the 'controversy'. Many in the climate change skeptic/denier camp have argued against it doing this. Arguing against testable and physical properties that are well proven and understood and conflating the 'unknowns' of a very large and complex system like the earth to sow doubt in the basic physics and science.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
This is unfortunately getting boring because you obviously know nothing on the subject but talking points and really dont care about the subject matter, other than wanting to "win points" for being right.
1. It doesnt need to be disproven, it has not been proven. A very very shaky theory was put forth, seemingly supported by some data. However, it is up to the authors to actually make follow up papers using empirical data from observations supporting their theory or to just drop it.
2. There is no debate from you. All the scientists on the AGW side, follow a mantra, very few argue with each other, they toe the line. The rebuttals HAVE to come from the other side, but you will ignore them BECAUSE... right wing... Which is a term that just makes no real sense outside of the US. You do not care for an actual source.
3. I didint mention water vapor, you did. Do you even "f**king" know what a strawman argument is? You are an example. Everyone of your posts has had at least 1 strawman argument. Look it up.
4. About skeptics and goal posts. Its easy to put everyone who disagrees with AGW theories in 1 basket. When in fact there are 2,3,5, 10 baskets. Yes, some denied it even was warming, some still do. But many of the current prominent skeptics where actually climate scientists who where part of the IPCC in AR1 or 2. They have come to see how wrong the AGW theories are and are trying to show this scientificaly. You wont listen to them, because? Your side is "righteous"!!!
5. Nice one about the publishing. They publish ALL THE TIME on the internet. But you ignore them because its not "peer reviewed". So... re-read your self and lets see if your circular reasoning and idiotic thinking makes your head explode.
6. Rush limbaug?? WHO the... what the fuck...?? Why would you bring that idiot up?
7. So what if Australia had a hot summer, you damn idiot. Weather isnt climate RIGHT??? RIGHT???? Fuck, you cant even follow your own instructions.
8. Considering all the points about, your last sentence is hollow. You have no beliefs, as you are completely ignorant on the matter. You also have no idea which leg to stand on and what kind of shit to fling. Stop debating, start reading.
Your theory of damages is entirely ridiculous. If I burn a mount of coal in Kentucky, then the best you can say is that technically, perhaps, I helped make global sea levels rise. That would suck if you were living in New York or on the coast.
But, let's review the science:
a) CO2 is making sea levels rise and warming the planet and changing the climate. But no mathematical or climate model has been remotely accurate. The models do NOT actually predict climate, and that's really a huge problem. So you can't remove my burning coal mountain, then re-add it, and hold me culpable for anything, with any degree of certainty at all other than your lunatic religion.
b) Any contemplated action proposed by the environmental left, from carbon taxes to transaction taxes, has the effect of creating an enormous economic problem for the poor and middle class. If I 'm poor, I don't care if the coastlines sink. I don't own my building. Landlords do. So screw them! I'll move! Why should I care about your solar panel house in New Jersey with your scenic rich yardwork, when I'm poor in Kentucky? Answer is, I don't. All I see is that you want to make my fuel more expensive, my food more expensive, everything more expensive, when I'm trying to get the basics, and that cuts into whatever savings I have... makes me poorer, and having your cronies take those taxes to build a library for "me" doesn't cut the rusk as some kind of compensation.
So the bottom line is that. If you really want to save the planet, then go right ahead and invest your money in whatever it takes to make green stuff. If it is cheaper, I'll buy it. But if you are going to spend your life making my life miserable to save your beachfront property, when I don't even have property worth saving other than a burning pile of coal and a rifle, then show up claiming you are coming after me, then you're gonna get the rifle, and deserve it!
This is my sig.
You invent externalities as if there is some kind of mandate that "Society has to bear the solution to some problem." Here's the reality. I absolutely do not. You can't argue in generalized terms about the affairs of humans in a digital age where everyone is perfectly capable of understanding their economic interests. If I live on a big hill, I don't have to care if your beachfront sinks. If it is cheaper for me to burn coal to heat with, I'm going to burn coal. It's that simple. Raising the taxes on my energy is really, to me, you screwing up my life so that you can have your fancy beachfront house. It's equally not fair, either way, and there's not so much as the notion of external costs as it is you are looking to raise a rent on the poor to preserve your beach property and fancy solar sailboats while the rest of us try and buy bread. We don't need you. We don't need your coasts. There's too many people already, as your side is fond of saying!
This is my sig.
That a large shareholder would advocate a policy that benefits the company he holds shares in should surprise nobody. But that does not prove your point that this has anything to do with environmental sensitivities.
well looky here linky The oceans have been absorbing heat so fast it 'broke' their chart. And guess what, that WILL radiate to the environment as well.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
And we are supposed to take you seriously when you post this kind of drivel?
Broke the chart? Its childish scaremongering.
The temperature increase is 0.09C, that is why they have converted to using "Ocean Heat Content" instead of temperatures and created an elaborate story to explain why joules (which is meaningless) is their new way to scaring people instead of the actual temperature increase.
1. It doesnt need to be disproven, it has not been proven
Kinda of like your strawman assertion that scientists are 'toeing the line' rather than simply in agreement?
Re: # 2 see above.
3. I didint mention water vapor, you did
If you don't know that water vapor is the MAJOR GHG then you sir are wildly uninformed. If you do know this, and I believe you do, then it's more than relevant since you also know that it IS frequently cited as 'more important' than CO2 by deniers.
4. About skeptics and goal posts. Its easy to put everyone who disagrees with AGW theories in 1 basket. When in fact there are 2,3,5, 10 baskets.
Which goes back to my original post. There are caveats on every single graph, but when they ALL start pointing in the same direction, it's time to stop screaming and listen.
5. Nice one about the publishing. They publish ALL THE TIME on the internet. But you ignore them because its not "peer reviewed".
or perhaps it doesn't pass scientific muster. Science can't be disproven, it's factual yet none of the detractors can prove anything other than what we're actually seeing, which is warming.
6. Rush limbaug?? WHO the... what the fuck...?? Why would you bring that idiot up?
YOU said that 'greenies' always bring up heat as estimates, I brought up one of the right-wing deniers favorites doing the EXACT SAME THING.
7. So what if Australia had a hot summer, you damn idiot. Weather isnt climate RIGHT??? RIGHT???? Fuck, you cant even follow your own instructions.
Indeed. 'A' warm summer is weather. 'A' record breaking summer is weather. 'A' summer that is SO HOT you have to redo your temperature chart...is also weather, but, as noted above, when multiple separate points start aligning, it means something more.
We're done here, obviously.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Obviously.