http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=21159

 

Peak Oil Passnotes: $80 Here We Come

 

By Edward Tapamor

30 Jun 2006 at 11:01 AM EDT

 

PARIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- To follow on from what we were talking about last week, it would be a brave man to bet against $80 later this year. In fact $80 will be an easy target if we get anything out of the ordinary happening, and most times ordinary is bad enough.

 

In 2005 we would not have had $70.85 oil if it had not been for Hurricane Katrina. Katrina spooked the markets higher than they otherwise would have been. But remember that when Hurricane Rita came onshore to the east of Houston and Galveston later in the year oil did not hit $70.85 again. A second massive hurricane narrowly missed the heart of the Texan oil business, blowing rigs around like confetti in an April churchyard, yet $70.85 could not be reached.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-06-30/news/17300479_1_oil-field-oil-industry-crude

Fiscal crisis for Mexico as oil starts to dry up

 

Cardenas, Mexico -- Gonzalo Rodriguez has an unenviable task as the boss of a major oil field -- ripping out a large part of the pumping and compressing machinery that collects the output from scores of wells.

"Unfortunately, we don't need this capacity anymore," he said. "This isn't like the old days, and they aren't coming back."

 

Like much of Mexico's giant oil production apparatus, this area, known as the Bellota oil field, is in an apparently unstoppable decline. At current extraction rates, the nation has only 10 years of proven oil reserves remaining. And as Mexico prepares to vote in Sunday's presidential election, the leading candidates disagree bitterly about what, if anything, can be done to halt the impending collapse of the industry that forms the backbone of the national economy.

https://aspo-ireland.org/Newsletter67.pdf

 

726. The airlines admit to Peak Oil too

 

The July issue of Airways, which is the journal of the international airline industry, carries a lead article entitled Peak Oil – The Collapse of commercial Aviation. It is a long, perceptive and well informed article by Alex Kuhlman, suggesting that the industry must plan a profitable decline. The Middle East national airlines are identified as likely survivors, noting that Emirates Airlines have recently bought 43 Airbus 380s, a very large aircraft with a low fuel-burn per seat. Meanwhile airports are being expanded in many countries based on the false assumption that the past growth in traffic can continue.

 

###

Those crazy Zionists...

Crude closed at $75.19 on the Nymex today (also a record for closing price).  Like one poster said earlier...for some reason I find myself rooting for the price to go higher.  I know it's not a nice thing to do, but I want others to see the terrible situation that we're about to be in ASAP.  It seems like the American public just needs to be shaken up a bit in order to get the point across. 

 

Maybe it's because I'm living downtown now and see our system of living from the inside-out rather than the outside-in like so many people do.  I can't believe that peak oil isn't bigger news in the main stream media.  I found out about it a year ago and have been reading everything I could get my hands on ever since.  Conversely, I can't believe how so many people are unfazed when I describe the issues to them.

^But how am I going to be able to drive my Hummer 2?! I can barely afford the payments and insurance as it is!! *sarcasm*

I heard that much of the crops in the united states are dumped by the farmers and go to waste; has something to do with price regulation.

Yes, they're called price supports. And sometimes farmers are paid to not grow crops. The whole system is goofy.

Wow, that was alot of reading. (insert sweating emoticon)

I do not think we will, or even should, ever rely wholely on ethanol, but is feel it is fine as a supplement.

 

My turn: The Providence Journal

http://www.shns.com/shns/scrippsnews/index.cfm?action=detail&pk=BIOFUELS-07-10-06

 

U.S. focus on biofuels is foolish

 

By JULIA OLMSTEAD

The Providence Journal

10-JUL-06

 

SALINA, Kan. -- There's been a lot of talk lately about the promise of biofuels _ liquid fuels, such as ethanol and bio-diesel, made from plants _ to reduce our dependence on oil. Even President Bush beat the biofuel drum in his last State of the Union speech.

 

Fuel from plants? Sounds pretty good. But before you rush out to buy an E-85 pickup, consider:

 

The United States annually consumes more fossil and nuclear energy than all the energy produced in a year by the country's plant life, including forests and plants used for food and fiber, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Energy and Cornell University researcher David Pimentel.

http://www.startribune.com/168/story/535007.html

 

Drying up of oil could mean sticky problems

 

The world is at its "peak oil" production, some say, and it's time to think of running an economy on what's left.

 

H.J. Cummins, Star Tribune

Last update: July 05, 2006 – 10:15 PM

 

In the category of worrisome developments -- probably sometime between avian flu and an asteroid striking the planet -- will be the energy turning point futurists are calling "peak oil."

That is when the world's oil production hits its highest point -- when the bell curve of supply tops out for good, and then keeps dropping until there is no more.

 

Prognosticators see everything from doomsday to good, old human ingenuity saving the day. There is also plenty of disagreement among them on the timing of the global oil peak, including: 1995, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2040 and beyond.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

Why are there no fully electric cars?

I saw an interview with the director of this movie.  He was an leasee of this GM electric car and had it mysteriously reclaimed when he took it in for some routine maintenance.  Apparently no explanation was given, but he was given an offer to buy one of Saturn's quality automobiles.  I guess it chronicles many people's similar experiences.  Sounds like a good flick if your in the mood for conspiracy thoeries.

Looking at the website, most of his claims seem to be legit.

Happy Daniel Yergin Day everyone!   :drunk::clap: :drunk::clap:

 

A petroleum geologist at www.theoildrum.com, has deemed today the first "Daniel Yergin Day" in honor of the energy analyst who so often appears on TV and in print claiming that oil will be cheap and plentiful for years to come.  He was quoted in Nov. '04 claiming that crude will be selling at $36/bbl in Nov. '05.  Of course, he wasn't even close.  Today, crude is at $76 (twice what Yergin prediction), and therefore, he gets his own day named after him.

 

http://energybulletin.net/18111.html

Citgo to stop gas distribution to most U.S. stations

 

 

Citgo Petroleum Corp. said it will stop supplying gasoline to stations in 10 states, including Ohio and Kentucky, and cut back shipments to stations in four remaining states.

 

The move will affect about 1,800 independently owned stations in all, including at least a dozen in the Tri-State, which will have to find other fuel suppliers. The shift will be completed by March 2007.

 

According to a Thursday report in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Citgo's parent, the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, decided it will only sell gasoline in the United States that is produced by its three U.S. refineries, located in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois.

 

http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2006/07/10/daily42.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Check this out... On the New York Mercantile Exchange (one of two market places in the world where oil prices are determined--London is the other), oil contracts for upcoming months have topped the $80 per barrel mark for the first time ever. If they remain that way for the next month's oil delivery, that will equate the highest-ever oil prices from the 1970s, after inflation.

 

This is from the http://www.nymex.com/lsco_fut_csf.aspx

 

Contract    Last                     

Month      Price

                     

Aug 2006    77.83                     

Sep 2006    79.30                     

Oct 2006    79.93                     

Nov 2006    80.35                     

Dec 2006    80.64

Jan 2007    80.79                     

Feb 2007    81.12

Mar 2007    81.00

 

^ So I take it you won that bet with your boss that crude would be $80 by the end of the year!

 

FYI...the new record is $78.40 for the month ahead contract.  It's getting easy to keep track of the record prices.  All you need to do is look at the daily highs, they're the same.

 

  The Citgo article is interesting. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't Citgo serve markets in out-of-the-way places?

 

  Of the possible scenarios, I am leaning toward one where rural areas lose their oil supply first, and cities hold on longer. Think of those combination gas stations and general stores that still use old style pumps that you see on trips to the small towns.

^ So I take it you won that bet with your boss that crude would be $80 by the end of the year!

 

Only if the month-ahead price hits $80. I've got $1.60 and more than five months left. My bet is looking pretty good.

 

   The Citgo article is interesting. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't Citgo serve markets in out-of-the-way places?

 

They might, but they are also in major cities in the northeast, including Cleveland.

 

   Of the possible scenarios, I am leaning toward one where rural areas lose their oil supply first, and cities hold on longer. Think of those combination gas stations and general stores that still use old style pumps that you see on trips to the small towns.

 

More independent gas stations seem to be in rural areas, and the independents are the ones that get shorted first of gas. That happened right after Katrina, especially in the south.

 

  Here's a link to a resource I just came across on the web. It's the classic oil production curve up to the present that we have all seen before, but this one is large, available in poster form.

 

  The scale of oil use throughout history and by region is startling.

 

    http://www.oilposter.org/

Check out this month's Harper's Magazine cover story--an essay by Bryant Urstadt entitled "Imagine There's No Oil: Scenes from a liberal apocalypse."  I was especially surprised (although I shouldn't have been) when I read the first sentence... "On a Friday last fall, I headed to Yellow Springs, Ohio, to learn more about oil depletion and the imminent collapse of idustrial civilization."

 

I doesn't look like the article is online yet...hopefully Harper's will post it eventually.

 

The MSM is starting to pick up some peak oil stories lately.  This one is from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

 

For those interested in reading more about the Saudi situation, I highly recommend Matthew Simmons', "Twilight in the Desert".  It may be a little dismissive of secondary and tertiary recovery methods, but it provides an interesting look at how the Saudi oil situation got to where it is today and where it may go from here.

 

 

 

http://www.energybulletin.net/18474.html

Published on 21 Jul 2006 by Atlanta Journal Constitution. Archived on 23 Jul 2006.

 

Saudi Arabia's Oil a Huge Question

by Michael E. Kanell

 

From the Saudi Arabian sands pour more than 9 million barrels of crude oil each day, more than 10 percent of the world's production pumped from what is believed to be the largest pool of recoverable crude on Earth.

 

For three decades, it has been Saudi Arabian oil that poured into the market to dampen rapidly rising prices and Saudi cutbacks that pushed prices back up when they were abnormally low.

 

Not anymore.

How is it up to the Saudis to decide how cheap oil is? Citgo stations are owned by Venezuela and the prices of gas are pretty much the same no matter where you go.

And here's one about the second largest oil field in the world, Cantarell in Mexico.  From the LA Times nonetheless.  Slowly, but surely, the gravity of this situation seems to be seeping into the MSM.

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pemex24jul24,1,6754747.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

Will Mexico Soon Be Tapped Out?

A rapid demise of Cantarell, the country's chief oil field, could pose a serious economic threat.

By Marla Dickerson, Times Staff Writer

July 24, 2006

 

 

MEXICO CITY — Output at Mexico's most important oil field has fallen steeply this year, raising fears that wells there that generate 60% of the country's petroleum are in the throes of a major decline.

 

Production at Cantarell, the world's second-largest oil complex, in the shallow gulf waters off the shore of Mexico's southern Campeche state, averaged just over 1.8 million barrels a day in May, according to the most recent government figures. That's a 7% drop from the first of the year and the lowest monthly output since July 2005, when Hurricane Emily forced the evacuation of thousands of oil workers from the region.

Excellent article. I posted another article earlier this year about a new refinery proposed to be build near Yuma Arizona which has received its environmental approvals to start construction. The refinery is to receive oil from Mexico.

 

However, construction is not certain because the refinery could not get a commitment from Pemex that it would receive oil.

It's official.  President Bush says that we're addicted to oil...I'm addicted to Peak Oil.  It's fascinating to watch it all unfold.  I originally thought that it would take years until we passed the peak before we could see it, but at the rate these declarations are coming, we may be getting the resolution we need right now.  Take this statement from Mexico's Energy Secretary and piece it together with all of the other claims about the state of the Saudi fields and China's growth...

 

 

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=34502

Mexico's Deepwater Wells May Double Costs     

AFX News Limited      Tuesday, July 25, 2006 

 

 

Mexico may have to spend twice as much to find and extract oil in coming years as the country is forced to turn to smaller deposits and search in deep water, energy officials said Tuesday.

 

The changes are due to the decline of the huge Cantarell field in the southern Gulf of Mexico, where production has started falling by an average annual rate of 5 to 6 percent, officials said.

 

"The era of easy oil is over in our country," Energy Secretary Fernando Canales told a news conference.

 

  Even if ANWR is developed, our total oil production will STILL decline because ANWR will be offset by declines in our other oil fields. ANWR will do nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; we will use all of the oil available to us no matter where it comes from. 

 

   

 

  Even if ANWR is developed, our total oil production will STILL decline because ANWR will be offset by declines in our other oil fields. ANWR will do nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; we will use all of the oil available to us no matter where it comes from. 

 

 

IMHO we need to save that oil for other things besides being burned in our gas tanks.  People forget how much our live depend upon petrochemicals. 

 

 

One of the things that bothers me a lot is that even people who don't consciously subscribe to the born-again Christian fundamentalist movement seem to be living witn an end-times mindset. If they believe that they will have several generations of descendants, how can they squander the earth's resources for their own immediate gratification without concerning themselves about the legacy they're leaving for future generations, in energy and raw material depletion and in environmental degradation.

^----  People don't believe they are squandering the earth's resources. They don't understand how the system works. It's not hard to understand; they just don't NEED to understand it. Instead of associating the light switch with a coal mine in Kentucky, for example, the typical person associates the light switch with his energy bill, which he further associates with his paycheck. As long as he is employed, he will be able to afford electric light, he thinks. He thinks he EARNS the ability to turn the lights on. In reality, natural resources are a gift. Our money system only sorts out who gets what. Money does not produce natural resources.

 

    The surprising thing is the unexpected short duration of the oil age. Granted, 200 years is a long time, but it can be measured in generations.

 

Gas supply kept tight

Any disruption could be problem

BY NICOLE GAUDIANO | GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

 

WASHINGTON - The oil-refining industry might have helped create a gasoline market that's so tight that some industry experts and critics say any hurricane, pipeline break or other disruption is likely to cause price spikes.

 

During unprofitable times in the 1990s, some refiners' internal memos show they wanted to reduce refining capacity to boost profits. The industry dismisses those memos' significance - and the notion it tightly controls supply - but ultimately, its investments in refining capacity haven't kept pace with the growth in demand.

 

Today, there are fewer refineries and fewer, but more profitable, refining companies.

 

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060729/BIZ/607290329

Wow!  Groundbreaking change on the Peak Oil front this weekend.  The Chicago Tribune featured a special pullout section right behind the front page.  Here's the link...

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-oilsafari2-htmlstory,0,3163462.special?coll=chi-homepagepromo440-fea

 

What does it take to quench America’s mighty thirst for gasoline? Pulitzer-winning correspondent Paul Salopek traced gas pumped at a suburban Chicago station to the fuel’s sources around the globe. In doing so, he reveals how our oil addiction binds us to some of the most hostile corners of the planet—and to a petroleum economy edging toward crisis.

 

There are videos and lots of content on the sidebars as well. 

Here's a connection I didn't expect.

 

Yesterday evening, I bought a room-sized rug at Lowe's. When I went to the area where I had always found carpet padding, there wasn't any. I asked an employee, and he referred me to a supervisor, who flagged down the store manager. The store manager said that there's a shortage of carpet padding, and they couldn't just sell me padding by itself. When I showed him the 8 X 11 rug on my cart, he went to the warehouse area in the back of the store and emerged a while later with the padding. He said he couldn't find one piece big enough, but he sold me a couple of remnants that I was able to piece together to get the job done.

 

I googled "carpet pad shortage" and found a couple of references. From what I read, it looks like the petrochemicals used to make the foam are in short supply (oil supplies & refinery capacity being diverted to gasoline & diesel?), and what foam is available is being shipped to China because that's where all the furniture manufacturing has been outsourced.

 

It's putting a crimp on builders and remodelers.

Here's a connection I didn't expect.

 

Yesterday evening, I bought a room-sized rug at Lowe's. When I went to the area where I had always found carpet padding, there wasn't any. I asked an employee, and he referred me to a supervisor, who flagged down the store manager. The store manager said that there's a shortage of carpet padding, and they couldn't just sell me padding by itself. When I showed him the 8 X 11 rug on my cart, he went to the warehouse area in the back of the store and emerged a while later with the padding. He said he couldn't find one piece big enough, but he sold me a couple of remnants that I was able to piece together to get the job done.

 

I googled "carpet pad shortage" and found a couple of references. From what I read, it looks like the petrochemicals used to make the foam are in short supply (oil supplies & refinery capacity being diverted to gasoline & diesel?), and what foam is available is being shipped to China because that's where all the furniture manufacturing has been outsourced.

 

It's putting a crimp on builders and remodelers.

 

Sure, everyone worries about my SUV, but I bet they all have carpet!!  No one NEEDS carpet, they could just have hardwood and buy a Swiffer....  Oh wait, that would mean cutting down trees!!

 

Maybe we should all go back to dirt floors!!!!

 

    There are some who say that conventional oil peaked in late 2005, and that the best grade, light sweet crude, peaked in 2004. In any case, if oil hasn't peaked yet, it's close.

 

    Yet, Americans are buying more gasoline than ever! Gasoline production is up over last year.

 

    There is some evidence that other uses of petroleum, such as in making foam padding, have declined enough to make up the shortfall. Another use of oil is for boiler fuel for all kinds of industry, including generating electricity. Some anecdotal evidence that I saw the other day is a paper company in New York that burns a combination of scrap wood, bark, sawdust, and fuel oil for power. They are now burning scrap wood, bark, sawdust, and TIRES! The environmentalists are watching it closely.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0608020179aug02,1,5113794.story?coll=chi-news-hed

 

Americans' love for cars on the skids

 

Associated Press

Published August 2, 2006

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

 

 

< :speech: > Some writers touch upon the relationship between oil and food supplies, but very few have the balls to flatly state that earth's population far exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet, and only the abundance of non-renewable energy resources has made it possible to grow and temporarily sustain that population without even more widespread deaths from starvation and exposure to the elements.

 

For various reasons, religious zealots of differing stripes renounce any talk of limiting population growth. Many exhort their followers to multiply like rodents so that their one true faith can dominate all others.

 

Economists of the breed that has proliferated over the last couple of generations see continuously growing numbers of people with continuously expanding material desires as essential to economic stability. That flies in the face of even the most basic comprehension of the realities of existence in a limited physical space.

 

Either we work to reduce population levels through relatively painless gradual attrition, or we deal with the alternatives of resource wars, widespread famine and pandemic disease.

 

</ :speech: >

Very well said, Robert. Feel free to opine anytime.

 

  Have you been reading Malthus, Rob?

 

   Have you been reading Malthus, Rob?

 

Probably, at some time in the past. I'm glad I got my education out of the way a long time ago, before there was so much stuff to learn :wink:. A lot of the experiences that created images and shaped my thinking haven't stayed in the foreground in detail.

 

Probably one of the more influential things I read in my late teens was Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy. I had sort of naturally evolved some socialist leanings on my own, but they weren't defined or named in my consciousness, and that book helped give them form.

 

A little later, probably in my late twenties, The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. Almost forty years ago (1968), Ehrlich was aware of the trends that are becoming visible to many people now.

 

I believe it's Kunstler, in one of his recent books, who writes of the impact of over-population on world resources, and of the ways expanding population and declining energy resources may interact.

 

 

http://dennisbyrne.blogspot.com/

 

Monday, August 07, 2006

Key to energy reform: Let our oil prices soar

 

It will take tough love and market realism to spur alternatives to America's dependency on petroleum

 

By Dennis Byrne

Chicago Tribune

 

I'm rootin' for higher gas and oil prices.

 

And honest environmentalists would admit that they are too.

 

Am I insane? No more insane than folks who would wait until the oil gauge is on empty and gasoline is at $80 a gallon. Having higher oil prices now is the only way to brake oil consumption and develop other ways to fuel America. No amount of government decrees will do it. No recycling or conservation. No appeals to give up Humvees and other rolling tanks. Money being the biggest economic motivator, $5- to $10-a-gallon gasoline would be crippling now to a world economy built on oil. But it would be the only way to set off an energy revolution of the sort that changed American in the mid-1800s when we began our oil dependency.

Gas skyrocketing in price is not something anyone should look forward to or encourage. It's certainly not going to help our economy. I don't like how the blame is being put almost entirely on the consumer. The consumer shouldn't have to suffer while opec is making giant profits because of their geographical advantage. Not everyone can live next to a light rail. You can't be a realtor or pizza delivery guy and make your deliveries by walking in 100 degree weather or riding a subway or bus. When I was 16, before I got a car, I worked until 11:30 at night and buses only ran one an hour through Montgomery Road. One time it was the dead of winter and I was freezing my ass off, literally thought I was going to die and the bus driver passed me up, so I had to wait a whole hour later to catch the next one. If you work sundays or past midnight, forget about it. Sure, even if people REDUCE the amount of driving they do in cars, it helps, but that's what they're trying to do with Hybrids. Personally I think hybrids are great because it's getting people used to the idea of electric cars. You have to start somewhere.

 

Also, I don't know if you've noticed but efficent cars of the past have been designed to look extremely lame. It almost looks intentional. The only people I know that intentionally have big SUVs are people that can afford it. SUVs became popular in the mid 90s when gas was like 1.60 a gallon--very reasonably priced. Not many people are trying to go out and buy a H2 at the moment, that's why dealerships are using them as prizes for sweepstakes. GM made a huge mistake by promoting SUVs as of late (and they know it) but sometimes bad things have to happen before people can follow those trends. Consumers are really sensitive to gas prices and the people that criticize consumers don't seem to acknowledge that.

The big problem is it's happening so quickly. While the warning signs have been around for a long time, we've chosen to ignore them. We in the U.S. have developed an oil-dependent economy and oil-dependent cities over the last 50-60 years. Our cities (and to a lesser degree Canada's cities) are truly unique in the world and in world history, in terms that density and walking are discouraged, and that food sources are transported an average of 1,000 miles to U.S. consumers. The surrounding countrysides no longer provide a substantial amount of food for each U.S. city.

 

But we don't have 50-60 years to transition back to a modern day version of the pre-WWII urban model. As it stands now, we would be very fortunate have to 20 years to make that change. And, as history has shown us, swift change often causes more severe consequences rather than relative discomfort resulting from gradual change. And I use the word "relative" because even the U.S.'s transition in the post-war years to more sprawling, car-dependent cities caused great turmoil in our cities in the 1960s. The coming transition could pose similar upheavals, and possibly worse, depending on how fast it happens and our ability to manage it.

 

As we watch it unfold, and place doubt on our future as a society, it would be best to keep things in perspective. Remember that these kinds of changes in society have happened before. Read about past transitions and learn how people coped with them. It will help us prepare and keep the fear at bay.

A good article on the world's most dominant oil field, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, and its tenuous reliability...

 

http://theendofcheapoil.blogspot.com/

I have seen the future. Here's a parking lot.

 

 

  Let's see, the United States has some 150 million cars on the road. Let's see what happens if we try to replace them all with horse drawn vehicles.

 

  At 5 acres of pasture per horse, that would take 750 million acres, or over 100 million square miles, just to feed them all...

 

    Ohio has 44,000 square miles...

 

    It would take 2000 Ohios, all in pasture, to keep the horses alive...

 

    Um, I don't think horse drawn vehicles are going to replace cars.

 

    The scale of the problem is just unfathomable. I don't think conventional, gasoline powered cars are going to be replaced by hydrogen, hybrids, ethanol, electric, or horse drawn vehicles. Sure, there might be some, but in the big picture, I can't imagine cars being replaced at any scale at all. 

 

    By the way, I can estimate perhaps 15 horses in that photo. Rob might have a better idea since he was there. The total power, therefore, is literally 15 horse power. That's about the power of a riding lawn mower.

 

    The numbers are very sobering.

 

   

     

So why doesn't the author sink an abiotic oil well and retire? ....

 

 

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3785

 

Blog: Science

Petroleum: Why We'll Never Run Out

Michael Asher - August 14, 2006 6:34 PM

 

There's no shortage of scare stories about looming oil crises -- Don't believe 'em

 

[Washington] ...The President has signed legislation creating the Federal Oil Conservation Board, to ration dwindling supplies of petroleum...a recent report from the US Geological Survey has indicated oil supplies may be gone entirely within six years...

Last week's newscast? Actually, it was 1924, and the President was Calvin Coolidge. An interesting story that proves little, except that scare stories about oil shortages have been around longer than any of us.

 

My first experience with oil scares was in grade school in the mid 1970s, where legions of well-meaning teachers taught us the planet had "30 years" of oil remaining. Those years have come and gone, and oil reserves have actually grown larger -- fifty years worth or more. So much, in fact, that doomsayers have been forced to fall back on discredited old theories such as "Peak Oil." -- a topic I'll save for another blog.

So why doesn't the author sink an abiotic oil well and retire? ....

 

 

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3785

 

Blog: Science

Petroleum: Why We'll Never Run Out

Michael Asher - August 14, 2006 6:34 PM

 

There's no shortage of scare stories about looming oil crises -- Don't believe 'em

 

[Washington] ...The President has signed legislation creating the Federal Oil Conservation Board, to ration dwindling supplies of petroleum...a recent report from the US Geological Survey has indicated oil supplies may be gone entirely within six years...

Last week's newscast? Actually, it was 1924, and the President was Calvin Coolidge. An interesting story that proves little, except that scare stories about oil shortages have been around longer than any of us.

 

My first experience with oil scares was in grade school in the mid 1970s, where legions of well-meaning teachers taught us the planet had "30 years" of oil remaining. Those years have come and gone, and oil reserves have actually grown larger -- fifty years worth or more. So much, in fact, that doomsayers have been forced to fall back on discredited old theories such as "Peak Oil." -- a topic I'll save for another blog.

I guess they let anyone write articles these days. We NEED to reduce our depedence on oil. Atleast for environmental reasons. He doesn't give proof that global warming is a hoax.

That rant about abiotic oil is from a blog, isn't it? I followed the thread far enough to realize that it was mostly a bunch of people who probably believe in "creation science," too, who gang up to shout down anyone who tries to offer an intelligent, informed comment.

 

On another topic:

 

 

   Let's see, the United States has some 150 million cars on the road. Let's see what happens if we try to replace them all with horse drawn vehicles.

 

   At 5 acres of pasture per horse, that would take 750 million acres, or over 100 million square miles, just to feed them all...

 

    Ohio has 44,000 square miles...

 

    It would take 2000 Ohios, all in pasture, to keep the horses alive...

 

    Um, I don't think horse drawn vehicles are going to replace cars ...

 

Whoa, Casey!  :wink:

 

What I implied with the photo was mostly tongue-in-cheek. I completely agree that we could never replace all the cars with horses. What we need to do is reduce the person-miles traveled. That's both easy and difficult.

 

It's easy to show that urban density and walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented development can reduce the demand for oil and the negative environmental consequences of burning it.

 

It's difficult to get across to people who equate 4,000 square feet and a three-car garage on two and a half acres, fifteen miles from any jobs or services, with the fulfillment of the American Dream, that those things aren't the inalienable right of every red-blooded American Patriot, or even desirable compared to more realistic, far-sighted alternatives.

 

I keep coming back to responsible land-use policy.

 

There's still a place for animal power in agriculture, but that's a horse of a different color.  :-D

    ^---- I know. I'm just horsing around with numbers.

 

    It is commonly said that the automobile replaced the horse and buggy. I would add that normal people didn't ride around in buggies. Prior to the industrial revolution, most people couldn't afford a horse, and walked. Furthermore, most people spent their entire lives within 50 miles of where they were born. There is simply no comparison.