I never said we should burn all our oil and ruin the planet. Global Warming is a big problem, and we need to address it now and in a big way.
None of that changes the fact that we NOT running out of oil. Yeah, EVENTUALLY, we will hit peak oil production, but adherants have been claiming peak oil was imminent for the last 80 years, and the life expectancy of oil has only gone UP even as consumption has gone up.
The continuing supply of cheap oil will pose a grave danger to us environmentally, as there will be less of an impetus to switch to solar, wind, hybrids, GE crude, etc.
Oil production plateaued for several years because of a glut, which meant there was little reason to invest in infrastructure to get more oil when the price was already so low. It takes time to build new wells and the like, so it will be a while before enough new infrastructure comes on line to make a difference in price.
One of the ways we detect planets (not sure about the HARPS) is the measurement of the wiggle the parent star makes. The more massive the planet and/or the faster it orbits, the easier it is to detect the wiggle. Basically, the star will move either side to side or back forth from our vantage point (depending on the orientation of the orbit compared to our position), and this slight movement is used to calculate the mass, speed, etc of the orbiting planets. If the planet is orbiting side to side from our veiw point, we measure the speed the star moves side to side. For back and forth, we measure the slight doppler shift in light as it moves towards and away from us. Since closer planets tend to orbit faster, most of the planets we've discovered so far are large, close, fast-moving ones.
Again, this is only one way this is done, and I'm not sure about this particular planet. I can't make heads or tails of the HARPS link in any case.
The futures market is going up BECAUSE the price is going up, not the other way around. That's not to say there's not a positive feedback loop going on, where speculation then drives price up. Back in the '70s, OPEC would meet quarterly to review their oil prices, during which they always raised it. Before the meeting, the spot market prices would surge in expectation of higher prices. Then during the meeting, OPEC would use the higher spot market prices as evidence the market could bear higher prices, and so it went. None of those serial increases had anything to do with supply and demand and ultimately contributed to the oil countershock and glut in the 80s.
So speculation is based on the anticipated price of oil, which is expected to go up. Then what reason would distributors have for not raising the price? Investors expect the price to go up, so the market must be able to bear it, so raise your prices. Investors see the price increase as proof they were right and speculate on it going higher. This has happened a few times in the past. And after every surge in oil prices has followed a glut, as the market recovers from the wild speculation and other problems.
would the 2 billion barrels, each day, every day, be going? It's called spare capacity. That's the tankers and other storage facitilies that oil companies and host nations use to hold the oil before they sell it. During the last oil glut, many companies and countries reduced their spare capacity so that they weren't overproducing a commodity that they may not be able to sell, following the Japanese just-in-time method. No one really knows how much spare capacity is out there. In the past the surplus produced was much much higher, so it stands to reason there's room for more.
The oil companies also didn't invest in new infrastructure, additional refineries, new technologies, etc, because the low price of oil didn't warrant those things. Now with high prices, they can't keep up production and refinery, which is one of the reasons why prices are so high.
And refining capacity is NOT fine. It is way behind demand, especially considering how many different types of fuel need to be made. Each U.S. state, and some cities, have their own requirements for fuel, so there is a bewildering array of fuels being produced for the world's number one consumer alone.
So you like math. Here's some more. The current global comsumption rate is 86 million bpd, with the US at the top of the scale at about 21 in 2004. China is the next highest at 6.4 in 2004. The rest of the world pales in comparison to our rates, none of them coming close even to our 1980 rate of 17.5. So if everyone used oil like we do, then yes it would be a problem. Thankfully, this is not so. Also, oil's share in overall energy use is declining and its growth today is much than it used to be, even with China and India's growth.
That's true. One day, we will run out. But not for a long long time. The total oil we have used on earth so far is about 700 billion barrels. There is at least another 1.1 trillion barrels recoverable. Total amount of oil (recoverable, unrecoverable, and estimated) is 7 trillion barrels. Our efficiency of use is going up, the growth rate has been modest (1.6% in recent years) depsite China's rise, and the estimates of reserves will only go up as they have been since the first days of oil wildcatters. ONE day, we will run out, but anytime soon.
Yeah, in Texas, where over 1,000,000 oil wells have been sunk. By comparison, Saudi Arabia has 1,500. Texas was over-welled from the start, so oil pressure was reduced, and the total amount of recoverable oil is lower.
There's no, or very little, spare capacity in SA and around the world because of the just-in-time business model from Japan. This made sense when oil prices were low, but now it's helping to drive prices up. And SA has been neglecting thir oil infracture for years since nationalizing it from the oil companies and are trying to modernize late in the game. They have plenty of oil, as does the North Sea. It's the infrastructure that's lacking.
That's not the point. Peak oil advocates don't take into account increases in reserves due to increase in knowledge and technological advances. Our estimates of oil reserves, in retrospect, have been terribly conservative. Here's one example:
The Kern River field in California was discovered in 1899. In 1942, its "remaining" reserves were 54 million barrels. By 1986, it had produced a total of 736 million barrels and still had 970 million barrels in reserves.
Our estimates today, though better, are still mostly guess-work and very conservative.
That makes no sense at all - if crude supply exceeds demand, then why are prices so high? Speculation mostly. When you hear that a barrel of Brent, WTI, Arabian light, or whatever is at 130, it means its traded at that price based on future prices. The oil market is just like the stock market; expectation of future prices affects current prices. There's also a lot of market psychology.
Congress was just raking some oil executives over the coals recently because market supply indicated a price per barrel closer to 60. The 130 mark is not based on supply and demand, but other factors. Long term price expectations of oil based on supply point to a price per barrel of 18.
Yeah, the old peak oil spectre. Ya know, in the 1920's people thought that we would run out of oil in 20 years. Then there was a glut. People thought we were going to run out of oil in the 1970s. Then there was a glut. The life-index of oil (reserves/production) in 1948 was 20.5 years. In 1973 it was 32.2 years. In 2005 it was 38 years. We are not anywhere near peak oil, nor are we going to begin running out of oil anytime soon, not in our lifetime not in our children's lifetime.
the process really worked they would be commercializing it and completely destabilizing OPEC Saudi Arabia alone produces more than 10 million barrels PER DAY. How on earth do you think these guys are going to compete with, let alone destabilize OPEC overnight? They've got to make some of it before they become "instant billionaires." Sheesh, give em a chance.
Not likely. Oil companies need crude. International oil companies only hold about 8% of worls reserves; they are captial rich and resource poor, being limited mostly by poor host country infrastructure, quotas, and production capacities. If this new crude is available at $50/barrel, why wouldn't they buy it? They've been diversifying for years, getting into solar, natural gas, wind, and other industries.
I don't see anything in TFA about where the difference in input carbon and output carbon goes. I must be missing something. But if it really decreases the amount of carbon we put out, I'm all for it.
There's another problem I see though. More crude. The real problem behind high gas prices isn't a lack of crude, but the lack of refineries. Global production of crude excedes demand by about 2 million barrels per day, but refineries are unable to keep up with demand for gasoline and other by-products. Besides which, we aren't running out of crude anytime soon anyway. By the time we get more refineries online, gas prices will drop, and demand for this kind of alternative "fuel" will drop as well. Until then, they have to figure out a way to refine it using infrastructure that's already maxed out.
Just like the weapons being used against the US troops in Iraq are from Iran. Yup. At least some of them. EFPs, (Explosivly Formed Projectiles) are precision made devices manufactured in factories in Iran, and smuggled to Shiite groups in Iraq, mostly Jaysh al Mahdi and Special Groups. Iran backs a whole host of groups, and has even approached Al Qaeda on numerous occasions. When I was an analyst in Iraq tracking this, we had a saying, "Iran bets on all horses." I'm sorry your political stance precludes you from grasping the truth, but Iran is in fact providing weapons that are used against our troops.
Voice data just CAN'T be securely encrypted. Really? I have a Top Secret phone on my desk, and I can assure you it's pretty secure. (And no, it's not a shoe.)
Cos I don't think any US official gave a flying fsck at that time about Islamic governments Then you'd be wrong. In 1947, the rise of Muslim countries looked like a serious problem, given that just a short time ago they were all colonies. They rejection of Western values also made it harder to secure oil rights from them, as they wanted less Western presence and influence in their countries. It wasn't the threat of terrorism, but the threat of less cooperation in securing oil revenue, especially at the deals they had when they were colonies.
Internal criticism is not international hatred. Well, what do you think they're thinking in Darfur? Oh, please brutal Americans, don't send anyone to help us! Then if we went, the same people who put up Save Darfur signs in their yards would complain we're overextending our military, wasting money, have no exit strategy, just there to steal oil, etc. My original point is that no matter what we do we're hated, and I stand by it. The comment further upthread about propaganda based on truth just proves it nicely. The military reports accurately on what's going on, and they get blamed for propaganda. For people who hate us, it makes no difference what we do.
Of course much of their propaganda is ridiculous - I was referring to what individuals think - I did refer to reading their emails, interrogation reports etc. And those ridiculous beliefs were just the more common ones; there are MANY more more stupid than those. And no, they don't see through the propaganda. This is what they believe. There's a great book called "Why I Left Jihad" where the author talks about why he walked away from a terrorist group; everything he was told was a lie. Try reading it before spreading more.
note they weren't even there to start with, Like this one. It's amazing how quickly we forget how many times the Clinton administration linked Iraq and al Qaeda, not to mention Iraq being on the list of state sponsored terrorism for 20+ years, or how no other country questioned our intelligence leading up to the war. I guess Bush went back in time and fabricated the world's intelligence for the last 20 years.
Absolutely wrong, no one hates on America for not intervening - Really? What about Darfur? Doesn't the left criticize us for not sending a military force to intervene in an internal affair? Boy, I'm sure our popularity will soar after that, just like after Bosnia. BTW, one of the reasons the Arab world hated us was that after WWII we rebuilt Japan and Germany but after the first Gulf War we just left a mess. Many Arabs wanted us to go in and take out Saddam, end the embargo, and rebuild Iraq. And of course, now that we're doing it, we're hated for it. We're criticized for not doing anything about the oppressive regime in Saudi Arabia, but what could we possibly do that wouldn't result in more hatred? Stop buying their oil and ruin their economy? Support a coup?
I would look past Al Qaeda propoganda and look at their real power base and why they have support in many parts of the world. Yeah, I have. May of their complaints are based on misinformation spread through their Arabic-only newspapers, word of mouth, and other media. They believe the Jews perpretrated 9/11 to make the Arabs look bad, that Isreal is called the "State of Israel" because the U.S. wants it as the 51st state, that we couldn't possibly have landed on the moon because that's where Allah lives and anyone who sees Allah is supposed to die immediately, that we invaded Iraq so we can capture the hidden Imam and keep Islam in a state of darkness, ad infinitum. I've actually read their websites, listened to their calls, read their emails, read their interrogation reports, etc. They have, or use, few legitimate gripes against us. Their support base are by and large illiterates. In modern cities with access to real news there is little support.
and is a tactical victory for Al Qaeda That's news to them. We hear them make comments like, "They're making us look like idiots. We really need to find a better way to attack them!" When the government says that AQI is on the run, they really are on the run. Our tactics are working, along with popular support, to defeat AQI.
I voted for Bush, and I support the war in Iraq, so no I didn't keep quiet. That's fine that you disagree on that, but don't lump me in with those who oppose the war and do nothing.
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I never said we should burn all our oil and ruin the planet. Global Warming is a big problem, and we need to address it now and in a big way.
None of that changes the fact that we NOT running out of oil. Yeah, EVENTUALLY, we will hit peak oil production, but adherants have been claiming peak oil was imminent for the last 80 years, and the life expectancy of oil has only gone UP even as consumption has gone up.
The continuing supply of cheap oil will pose a grave danger to us environmentally, as there will be less of an impetus to switch to solar, wind, hybrids, GE crude, etc.
Oil production plateaued for several years because of a glut, which meant there was little reason to invest in infrastructure to get more oil when the price was already so low. It takes time to build new wells and the like, so it will be a while before enough new infrastructure comes on line to make a difference in price.
One of the ways we detect planets (not sure about the HARPS) is the measurement of the wiggle the parent star makes. The more massive the planet and/or the faster it orbits, the easier it is to detect the wiggle. Basically, the star will move either side to side or back forth from our vantage point (depending on the orientation of the orbit compared to our position), and this slight movement is used to calculate the mass, speed, etc of the orbiting planets. If the planet is orbiting side to side from our veiw point, we measure the speed the star moves side to side. For back and forth, we measure the slight doppler shift in light as it moves towards and away from us. Since closer planets tend to orbit faster, most of the planets we've discovered so far are large, close, fast-moving ones.
Again, this is only one way this is done, and I'm not sure about this particular planet. I can't make heads or tails of the HARPS link in any case.
So speculation is based on the anticipated price of oil, which is expected to go up. Then what reason would distributors have for not raising the price? Investors expect the price to go up, so the market must be able to bear it, so raise your prices. Investors see the price increase as proof they were right and speculate on it going higher. This has happened a few times in the past. And after every surge in oil prices has followed a glut, as the market recovers from the wild speculation and other problems.
Spare capacity: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=584711&cid=23808057
Basically, we don't know much there is, but we've used much more of it in the past, upwards of tens of millions of barrels per day. It's quite large.
The oil companies also didn't invest in new infrastructure, additional refineries, new technologies, etc, because the low price of oil didn't warrant those things. Now with high prices, they can't keep up production and refinery, which is one of the reasons why prices are so high.
And refining capacity is NOT fine. It is way behind demand, especially considering how many different types of fuel need to be made. Each U.S. state, and some cities, have their own requirements for fuel, so there is a bewildering array of fuels being produced for the world's number one consumer alone.
So you like math. Here's some more. The current global comsumption rate is 86 million bpd, with the US at the top of the scale at about 21 in 2004. China is the next highest at 6.4 in 2004. The rest of the world pales in comparison to our rates, none of them coming close even to our 1980 rate of 17.5. So if everyone used oil like we do, then yes it would be a problem. Thankfully, this is not so. Also, oil's share in overall energy use is declining and its growth today is much than it used to be, even with China and India's growth.
That's true. One day, we will run out. But not for a long long time. The total oil we have used on earth so far is about 700 billion barrels. There is at least another 1.1 trillion barrels recoverable. Total amount of oil (recoverable, unrecoverable, and estimated) is 7 trillion barrels. Our efficiency of use is going up, the growth rate has been modest (1.6% in recent years) depsite China's rise, and the estimates of reserves will only go up as they have been since the first days of oil wildcatters. ONE day, we will run out, but anytime soon.
Yeah, in Texas, where over 1,000,000 oil wells have been sunk. By comparison, Saudi Arabia has 1,500. Texas was over-welled from the start, so oil pressure was reduced, and the total amount of recoverable oil is lower.
There's no, or very little, spare capacity in SA and around the world because of the just-in-time business model from Japan. This made sense when oil prices were low, but now it's helping to drive prices up. And SA has been neglecting thir oil infracture for years since nationalizing it from the oil companies and are trying to modernize late in the game. They have plenty of oil, as does the North Sea. It's the infrastructure that's lacking.
That's not the point. Peak oil advocates don't take into account increases in reserves due to increase in knowledge and technological advances. Our estimates of oil reserves, in retrospect, have been terribly conservative. Here's one example:
The Kern River field in California was discovered in 1899. In 1942, its "remaining" reserves were 54 million barrels. By 1986, it had produced a total of 736 million barrels and still had 970 million barrels in reserves.
Our estimates today, though better, are still mostly guess-work and very conservative.
Congress was just raking some oil executives over the coals recently because market supply indicated a price per barrel closer to 60. The 130 mark is not based on supply and demand, but other factors. Long term price expectations of oil based on supply point to a price per barrel of 18.
Yeah, the old peak oil spectre. Ya know, in the 1920's people thought that we would run out of oil in 20 years. Then there was a glut. People thought we were going to run out of oil in the 1970s. Then there was a glut. The life-index of oil (reserves/production) in 1948 was 20.5 years. In 1973 it was 32.2 years. In 2005 it was 38 years. We are not anywhere near peak oil, nor are we going to begin running out of oil anytime soon, not in our lifetime not in our children's lifetime.
So what do we have left after the crude is extracted? What's the waste? Some sludge made of dead bacteria?
Insightful, huh? TFA, and even TFS, clearly say they won't be using crops, but agricultural waste.
Not likely. Oil companies need crude. International oil companies only hold about 8% of worls reserves; they are captial rich and resource poor, being limited mostly by poor host country infrastructure, quotas, and production capacities. If this new crude is available at $50/barrel, why wouldn't they buy it? They've been diversifying for years, getting into solar, natural gas, wind, and other industries.
I don't see anything in TFA about where the difference in input carbon and output carbon goes. I must be missing something. But if it really decreases the amount of carbon we put out, I'm all for it.
There's another problem I see though. More crude. The real problem behind high gas prices isn't a lack of crude, but the lack of refineries. Global production of crude excedes demand by about 2 million barrels per day, but refineries are unable to keep up with demand for gasoline and other by-products. Besides which, we aren't running out of crude anytime soon anyway. By the time we get more refineries online, gas prices will drop, and demand for this kind of alternative "fuel" will drop as well. Until then, they have to figure out a way to refine it using infrastructure that's already maxed out.
Maybe winners just like the color red.
Yup, you hit the nail on the head with that one, land lines all the way. Especially the ones on ship.
I voted for Bush, and I support the war in Iraq, so no I didn't keep quiet. That's fine that you disagree on that, but don't lump me in with those who oppose the war and do nothing.