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Approaching the Olduvai Cliff?


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#151 Mind

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Posted 29 May 2004 - 10:14 PM

I would say nobody is doing anything because there is no economic pain. $2.50 a gallon gas in the U.S. is not enough to push people into solar or nuclear or whatever. Once oil hits $5 or $10 per gallon..you will see some awefully fast changes. The majority of the people will not change until it smacks them in the face. Being so well informed here at Imminst (thanks to Advanced Atheist) should give us ample time to prepare for the changes. Now, where can I buy some solar panels?

#152 Lazarus Long

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Posted 30 May 2004 - 03:38 PM

Mind the market has been artificially propped up in this country for decades and the results of the shift toward rational pricing are going to result in political unrest domestically, open revolt abroad in poorer countries, and spiraling inflation.

The physics and economics of solar cells are too little too late.

Supply & demand are going to be important factors but not the only factors in play as the scarcity driven exploitation is also going to create power struggles as wealth consolidates and whole nations like China bring their competitive labor pricing into a global dynamic of competition to compete for resources in the open market that we are trying to close by military means.

Already I am hearing more talk of stockpiling and this is not a solution at all but just indicative of a fall back to a siege mentality.

If you really believe what you are saying why shouldn't government act responsibly by taxing gas ahead of global market pricing and use the windfall for buying up larger amounts of fuel to stabilize pricing by being able to release it strategically?

Oh yeah the Strategic reserve isn't supposed to be about market fluctuations; Right?

{Read heavy sarcasm in that last remark please}

There are plenty of places to buy Solar Panels if you are really looking. Many of them are now owned by Petroleum Corporations like BP and are being sold at exorbitant prices.

BTW, are you bothering to look closely at al Qaeda's targets in this last hit in Saudi Arabia yesterday?

It was intended to not only target production directly it was targeting markets. They are working hard in their own way to drive the prices up too. I consider this an unholy alliance of interests myself.

Hostages Released After Standoff in Saudi Arabia

Alternative Energy Resources

#153 Mind

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Posted 30 May 2004 - 07:45 PM

Laz:The physics and economics of solar cells are too little too late.


I suppose I should stop buying energy efficient light bulbs too.

{Read heavy sarcasm in that last remark please}


Now that the sarcasm is over with, let me say I would rather personally take steps to help the situation by being more energy efficient than just sit back and gripe. If we take steps now to help people become more energy efficient the less there will be a need for oppressive government regulation and control. As a student of history Laz, you must know that the worst totalitarian governments arise from economic misery of the masses. People over react. If an oil crisis hits the world, there will likely be more misery, war, and death (as if we didn't have enough already). Wouldn't you rather help the world avert crisis than sit back and be the cynical one?

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#154 Lazarus Long

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Posted 30 May 2004 - 10:17 PM

I didn't say do nothing Mind, or that buying solar cells is a bad idea. But confusing these with real solutions at this juncture is misleading. I am not being cynical, except to say stop the tokenism and help turn the system around in a serious manner.

I'm not whining. I have been building and working toward this end for decades. I am no johnny come lately like the Neo Cons to Nation Building and humanitarian reform. The misery quotient is do to rise drastically along with the price of oil.

When many of us starting in the late eighties (actually in the early 70's) said we should be incrementally nudging up the price to reflect diminishing supply and the need to stimulate efficiency and conservation well ahead of the onset of the worst problems, as well as to bank the profits in larger strategic reserves and investment in alternative transportation both public and private, we were shouted down as hysterical. Now you suggest I'm cynical. Well from where I see it, I am realistic and pragmatic and most people are just self serving when not in simple denial.

My glass is half full on this one. At least I have been conserving, not ignoring the problem and I am getting ready ahead of the majority. My mortgage is paid off, how many can claim that?

You are making suggestions to me that have been SOP for twenty five years. I think it is just wonderful that you are all finally getting with the program. I already have structural surface areas built and waiting for the right solar cells to apply there.

#155 advancedatheist

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Posted 30 May 2004 - 11:17 PM

http://www.chron.com...outlook/2599066

May 29, 2004, 2:44AM

This world is running on empty

By LLEWELLYN KING

The late M. King Hubbert was a visionary in the world of oil and, accordingly, he was either revered or reviled. Then he was forgotten. Now, in a time of oil shortage, some economists are taking a furtive look as his work.

A geophysicist at Shell Oil and later at the U.S. Geological Survey, Hubbert had the temerity back in 1956 to suggest that the days of plentiful oil were numbered. He more or less accurately predicted when production in the contiguous 48 states would begin to decline, and he was skeptical that the world could go on consuming oil indefinitely.

Hubbert was discounted by some in oil who believed that the industry, unfettered by government restraint, could produce domestically and internationally an almost infinite supply of oil.

Conservative economists of the supply-side school had no time at all for Hubbert. They believed that oil supply was a function of price and government restriction and that if the price was right and governments were held at bay, oil would gush.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it appeared that they were right, as new fields came on line and improved technology increased the extraction rate. The Southern Hemisphere began to yield some oil, while the North Slope of Alaska and the North Sea were small but rich bonanzas. Hubbert seemed to have gotten it wrong.

But the same new technologies that have produced two decades of plenty may, in fact, be pushing us to the peak of Hubbert's pimple. Three principal technologies have changed the oil world: They are 3-D seismic, which makes the location of oil reserves more certain, deep drilling and horizontal drilling.

Until recently, a single shaft was sunk into the ground and the oil was pumped out. New technologies enabled horizontal penetration at the bottom of the shaft, making extraction more complete and more efficient.

Then there is the so-called bottle-washer: a device that spreads out tentacles at the end of a horizontal pipe to suck up even more oil. The trouble with these technologies is that they deplete the oil reserve even faster than was contemplated 25 years ago.

After geology, there is geography. Most of the world's proven oil reserves lie under politically unstable regions: the Middle East, Russia, the Caspian Sea region and parts of Africa. Sixty-five percent of this oil is in the Middle East.

M. King Hubbert told me often in the 1970s that his analyses, done without regard to domestic or world politics, would not do anything to prevent the resource base from disappearing. Had he lived to see the new technologies, he would have predicted that we would just start down the slope of his pimple faster.

At the time of the 1973-74 oil crisis, the possibility of China becoming a major oil consumer was in the realm of future shock. Now it is at hand.

Supporting Hubbert's gloom is a minority view in the oil industry that production from the world's two largest oil fields, both in Saudi Arabia, may be close to peaking or have already peaked.

Oil is a commodity and its price fluctuates with demand. But it is unlikely that prices will again fall back into the trough where they languished for two decades.

In the long run, the world needs to get off its dependence on oil for transportation. And in the short run, we can expect high prices to be the norm.

Note to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan: The price of oil pushes up the price of everything that moves by aircraft, train, truck or ship, which is everything.

King is chairman and chief executive officer of the King Publishing Co. (www.kingpublishing.com), publisher of White House Weekly and Energy Daily.



#156 Mind

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Posted 30 May 2004 - 11:28 PM

I didn't say do nothing Mind, or that buying solar cells is a bad idea. But confusing these with real solutions at this juncture is misleading. I am not being cynical, except to say stop the tokenism and help turn the system around in a serious manner.


You are making suggestions to me that have been SOP for twenty five years. I think it is just wonderful that you are all finally getting with the program. I already have structural surface areas built and waiting for the right solar cells to apply there.


You are right. I confused your political cynicism with a "do-nothing" attitude.

What is SOP?

#157 Lazarus Long

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Posted 31 May 2004 - 01:40 AM

Standard Operating Procedure = SOP

I have well over a thousand square feet of collection surface available for retrofit on south face and equinox exposure already built.

Political cynicism?

Hardly.

Political experience is more like it. Never met a politician yet that could be trusted and I have been involved intimately with the process. Don't confuse pragmatism for cynicism. I am justifiably skeptical but I still work to make the system do the same; work that is. I don't blame the leaders for the system. I hold We the People of a democracy responsible.

However we still don't have a true democracy anymore than a truly free market.

#158 advancedatheist

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Posted 01 June 2004 - 02:26 AM

http://www.dfw.com/m.../8805642.htm?1c

Posted on Mon, May. 31, 2004

Output boosts a long way off

By Glenn McKenzie

The Associated Press


LAGOS, Nigeria -- Leading oil exporters outside the Middle East have pledged to boost production to offset soaring world prices, but it could be months or years before Russia, Nigeria and Mexico really manage to open their taps.

Those three nations are the world's Nos. 2, 7 and 9 oil exporters, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

In all three countries, some projects to clear pipeline bottlenecks or boost production capacity are not even out of the talking stage.



#159 advancedatheist

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Posted 01 June 2004 - 02:31 AM

Of course, this economic argument assumes that these companies won't waste a lot of resources drilling dry holes or trying to extact oil and gas that can't pay for themselves thermodynamically. (There's that annoying EROEI business again.)

http://www.businessw...23/b3886047.htm

JUNE 7, 2004  

NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

The Bright Side Of $40 A Barrel

Oil and gas companies finally are hiking exploration and production budgets

Just when you think commodity prices can't go higher, the market proves otherwise. In the past week, crude oil prices rose to a record high of $41.74 a barrel, before settling back to about $41. Natural gas, too, stands at triple the average price of the 1990s. While prices are expected to recede, most pundits agree that strong demand and tight supplies have raised the floor on which they'll fall. "I think we're in new territory as far as oil and gas prices are concerned," says legendary energy magnate T. Boone Pickens Jr. "I don't see prices dropping to $30 a barrel again."

There's a silver lining to this costly cloud, however: The stubbornly high prices are finally encouraging companies to explore, develop, and produce more oil and natural gas. Ultimately, that should help bring prices down. Like Pickens, most analysts expect oil prices to remain above $30 and natural gas above $5.50 per 1,000 cubic feet through next year. And that means a host of new opportunities for prospecting could open, including some that were economically unfeasible before. "Clearly, a lot more projects are producible at these higher prices," says John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute.



#160 advancedatheist

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Posted 02 June 2004 - 06:33 PM

http://www.csmonitor...01s02-usec.html

USA > Economy
from the June 03, 2004 edition

Why oil prices are stubbornly high

OPEC is likely to announce Thursday that it will increase production, but traders may wait until they see the oil pumped.

By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK – Show me the oil!

That, in essence, is what the markets are likely to say about OPEC's professed intention to increase production in an attempt to lower oil prices.

In the past, mere words from OPEC ministers were enough. Oil prices shuddered and fell at the merest hint of opened spigots.

But no longer. As the 11 oil-producing and exporting nations meet Thursday in Beirut, a different factor is in play: Spare production capacity is now at one of its lowest points since the early 1970s.

Tight inventories and rising demand in parts of the world, most notably China, have forced the world to operate on an unusually low margin. And any disruption could have serious consequences.



#161 advancedatheist

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Posted 06 June 2004 - 03:29 PM

http://www.thisislon...id79072?source=

Oil supplies: we're on a knife-edge

Dan Atkinson, Mail on Sunday
6 June 2004

OIL supplies are now so tight that just 1.5 million barrels of oil a day - less than 2% of global production - is keeping another potentially devastating surge in energy prices at bay, experts have warned.

In the wake of Thursday's smaller-than-expected production increase by the 11-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), supply and demand are so finely balanced that the smallest disruption could send prices even higher.

World consumption of 80 million barrels a day is met with production of about 81.5 million barrels. The spare 1.5 million barrels are needed to cover everyday snags such as late tanker deliveries.

Were this 'float' to disappear in the current fevered oil-trading climate, the price would 'go into orbit,' says Axel Busch of Petroleum Intelligence Weekly. By coincidence, 1.5 million barrels is the daily amount exported by Iraq.

The good news is that one big producer has extra daily capacity of 1.4 million barrels that could be brought on stream if Iraqi exports were halted. But the bad news is that this producer is Saudi Arabia, scene of last week's terrorist attacks which sent oil prices to new highs on fears that oil production from the desert kingdom could be disrupted.



#162 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 01:28 PM

http://news.bbc.co.u...ess/3777413.stm

Last Updated: Monday, 7 June, 2004, 07:41 GMT 08:41 UK 

Is the world's oil running out fast?

By Adam Porter
at the Peak Oil conference in Berlin 

How long will the oil keep flowing?

If you think oil prices are high at $40 a barrel then wait till they are four times that much.

How will you pay to run your car? How will you get the children to school? How will you heat your house? How much will transported food go up in price?

How will we pay for plastics, metals, rubber, cheap flights, Simpson's DVDs, 3G phones and everlasting economic growth?

The basic answer is, we won't.

This is the message from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO).

The group of oil executives, geologists, investment bankers, academics and others has been warning the world of high oil prices, and the ensuing fallout, for some years now.

The end of cheap oil

It includes a diverse range of oil industry insiders.

People like Ali Bakhtiari, head of strategic planning at Iran's National Oil Company (NOIC), Dr Colin Campbell, a former executive vice president of Total-Fina, and Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker and adviser to the controversial Bush-Cheney energy plan.

They are united by one idea, that global oil production is about to peak, which in turn will signal the permanent end of cheap oil.

And they warn that this is the foundation of the current rise in oil prices.

Who hurts when prices explode?

"Oil is far too cheap at the moment," says Mr Simmons.

"The figure I'd use is around $182 a barrel. We need to price oil realistically to control its demand. That is because global production is peaking."

Large new oil fields are ever more difficult to find
"If we price oil correctly," Mr Simmons says, "it could give us time to find bridge fuels, fuels to fill the gap between an oil economy and a renewable economy. But I don't see that happening."

The adherents of the peak oil theory warn the decline of world oil output will force oil prices higher for good, and that the knock on effects could be catastrophic.

"In my opinion, unfortunately, there will be no linear change," says Iran's Ali Bakhtiari. "There will only be sudden explosive change."

"The people who will be least affected will be the super poor, who already have no access to energy, and the super rich who do not care if oil is $100 a barrel."

"It is everyone who is in the middle who will be hurt the most," says Mr Bakhtiari. "When the crisis comes there will be enormous changes."

Oil rationing?

Dr Campbell says endless growth is not possible

Much of ASPO's predictions stem from the calculations of Dr Campbell.

His work on oil reserves has long suggested that many official oil data are either flawed estimates or at worst downright lies.

Scandals like the 23% of 'lost' reserves at Royal Dutch Shell have helped to boost interest in his work.

False reserves threaten the security of energy supply, just as do bombs under pipelines.

Dr Campbell's conclusion: oil production and consumption should be regulated by governments.

"Many reserve figures are highly questionable," says Dr Campbell.

"Many great oil fields are increasingly old and inefficient. But I don't think oil is easy to produce with a sniper behind every palm tree."

"The way to increase energy security is to reduce demand," he says.

'Difficult times'

At ASPO's recent conference in Berlin, companies such as BP and Exxon and men such as Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, began to talk to the proponents of the peak oil theory.

Whilst they may not agree with Dr Campbell's theories, their attendance highlighted ASPO's emerging importance in the oil debate.

In public, Mr Birol denied that supply would not be able to meet rising demand, especially from the buoyant economies in the USA, China and India.

But after his speech he seemed to change his tune.

"For the time being there is no spare capacity. But we expect demand to increase by the fourth quarter (of the year) by three million barrels a day."

He pinned his hopes for an increase in production squarely on troubled Saudi Arabia.

"If Saudi does not increase supply by 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year we will face, how can I say this, it will be very difficult. We will have difficult times. They must invest."

Can Saudi deliver?

But even Mr Birol admitted that Saudi production was "about flat".

Three million extra barrels a day would mean a huge 30% leap in output in just a few months.


North Sea oil production is in decline

When BBC News Online followed up by asking if this giant increase in production was actually possible rather than simply a desire he refused to answer. "You are from the press? This is not for you. This is not for the press."

Asking other delegates - admittedly supporters of the peak oil theory - whether such a steep increase was feasible, the answers were unambiguous: "absolutely out of the question," "completely impossible," and "3 million barrels - never, not even 300,000."

One delegate laughed so hard he had to support himself on a table.

Some recent figures tend to back up ASPO's outlook.

North Sea production is declining at an increasing rate, having peaked in 1999.

Not at the predicted flat rate of decline of 7%, but gradually accelerating from 7% to 8.5% to 11%.

And the number of major new oil fields discovered around the world fell to zero for the first time in 2003, despite an obvious increase in technological expertise.

"We need transparency with the figures," says Dr Campbell.

"This avoids profiteering from shortages, the collapse of poor countries and it will stimulate alternatives."

"Consumer countries need to be able to audit fields, but at the same time 'flat earth' economists who believe in endless growth need to change their ideas."

And Dr Campbell has a dire warning: "If the real figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets, in the end that would suit no one."



#163 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 01:32 PM

http://www.mercuryne...ess/8861045.htm

Posted on Mon, Jun. 07, 2004

East Asia Makes Plans for Oil Emergency

TERESA CEROJANO

Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines - Facing runaway oil prices and security fears, East Asian officials meeting in Manila will make emergency plans that included creating oil reserves and finding alternative sources for their energy imports.

Energy ministers from Japan, China, South Korea and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, will emphasize the need for oil stockpiling, with Japan and South Korea providing technical help, according to draft documents for the Manila meeting obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

"We recognize the importance of oil stockpile for supply security," said a draft of a joint statement, expected to be issued Wednesday.



#164 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 June 2004 - 01:48 PM

http://www.businessw...87040_mz011.htm

JUNE 14, 2004
 
NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

Oil Anxiety Hits A Slippery Slope

The prospect of more attacks in Saudi Arabia will keep the markets on edge

....

OVER A BARREL
There is certainly plenty for the markets to be nervous about. With inventories tight and world demand for oil soaring, there is little production capacity to spare -- perhaps 2 million barrels a day in an 80 million bbl. per day market. Although OPEC ministers helped knock prices down by nearly $2 per barrel on June 2 by saying that they will temporarily increase production, few can pump out more except Saudi Arabia. It is ramping up output from about 8.3 million bbl. per day to over 9 million bbl. per day. Any serious disruption in Saudi output could send the markets into panic.



#165 advancedatheist

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Posted 12 June 2004 - 02:25 AM

http://www.time.com/...-646348,00.html

Monday, Jun. 14, 2004

10 Questions For T. Boone Pickens

By T. BOONE PICKENS; JULIE RAWE; JYOTI THOTTAM

His name sounds as if it belonged to a blues singer, and this Texas oilman has made plenty of executives cry. The hostile-takeover artist, 76, was targeting CEOs 20 years ago for caring more about their salaries than about their shareholders. (Sound familiar?) TIME's Julie Rawe and Jyoti Thottam talked to the hugely successful hydrocarbon investor about our latest oil troubles.

DO YOU THINK GAS PRICES WILL HIT $3 A GALLON IN THE U.S.?

They could go beyond $3. We're pretty close to peaking on what the oil industry can produce worldwide. It's hard to add production, and we're also dealing with decline curves on some of the big fields. All the refineries around the world are running at full capacity. You have demand going up, and you don't have the refinery capacity to take care of it.

WILL OPEC'S DECISION TO RAISE ITS OIL PRODUCTION MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?

I think that there's not much more production to come from OPEC. They're basically maxed out. They keep saying they're going to produce more oil, and it doesn't make that much difference.



#166 advancedatheist

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Posted 12 June 2004 - 02:48 AM

http://www.nytimes.c...print&position=

June 12, 2004

An Oil Enigma: Production Falls Even as Reserves Rise

By ALEX BERENSON

For six consecutive years, ChevronTexaco has had good news for anyone worried that the world is running out of oil: the company has found more oil and natural gas than it has produced. Over that time, ChevronTexaco's proven oil and gas reserves have risen 14 percent, more than one billion barrels.

But near the bottom of ChevronTexaco's financial filings is a much less promising statistic. For each of those years, ChevronTexaco's wells have produced less oil and gas than the year before. Even as reserves have risen, the company's annual output has fallen by almost 15 percent, and the declines have continued recently despite a company promise to increase production in 2002.

ChevronTexaco is not the only big oil company whose production is falling despite rising reserves, though it has the largest gap. As consumers, economists and governments around the world wonder if oil supplies can keep pace with rising demand, production trends at the industry's publicly traded companies are not promising.

Collectively, they paint a picture of an industry that has depleted nearly all of the world's easily exploited reserves outside the Middle East and that is now struggling to sustain production, much less increase it. Fears about supply shortfalls and rising demand have already caused prices to climb about 20 percent this year, hovering around $40 a barrel. The four biggest companies own only about 4 percent of the world's reserves, which are mostly government-held, but they offer a unique glimpse of supply trends because they must disclose their reserves and production each year.



#167 advancedatheist

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 02:50 AM

http://afr.com/artic...7065081052.html

Americans guzzling the gas

Jun 15
Russell Gold  |  Wall St Journal

While crude-oil prices are calming down, natural-gas prices in the United States are poised to stay strong. And unlike with oil, there are no big natural-gas producers who can fix the problem.

The economic recovery and proliferation of natural-gas-fired power plants continue to rev up demand for the fuel.

But energy companies are not keeping up. In fact, they are struggling just to maintain supplies, which may make natural gas vulnerable to an unprecedented price increase in coming months.



#168 Mind

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 07:07 AM

I just found these articles recently. They are the flip side to the oil debate. Bruce Bartlett argues that there is more oil than anyone knows about and that more efficient technology will keep oil flowing. The second article is by George Will. He basically makes the economic argument that if the price of oil goes sky high, people will rapidly and naturally switch to other sources of power.

Discovering oil
Bruce Bartlett
June 10, 2004

Predictably, the recent rise in oil prices has the usual doom-and-gloom crowd, which has consistently been wrong for 30 years, out saying once again that this proves we are running out of oil and that severe curbs on gasoline consumption must be imposed to preserve what little is left for future generations.  They need not worry.  There is growing evidence that oil is far more plentiful than we have been led to believe.

The prevailing theory of the origin of oil is the dead dinosaur hypothesis and dates back to the 18th century.  Its originator was a Russian scientist named Mikhail Lomonosov, who put it this way in a 1757 paper, "Rock oil (petroleum) originates as tiny bodies of animals buried in the sediments which, under the influence of increased temperature and pressure acting during an unimaginably long period of time, transforms into rock oil."

However, in the 1950s, Russian and Ukrainian scientists developed a new theory about petroleum's origins called the abiotic or abiogenic theory.  According to this view, oil is fundamentally inorganic and has no relationship to dead plant or animal life.  Rather, oil originates deep in the Earth's crust from inorganic material that is part of the planet's origin.

Full article here

The future of oil
George Will

June 13, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Oil produced the modern world -- its ways of work, warfare and recreation -- and soon, we are told, the end of cheap oil will produce abrupt, wrenching changes in the way we live. Changes, certainly, but not convulsions, because the modern world responds to price signals.......

..........In 1971, a year before Texas output passed its peak, U.S. production was more than two-thirds of the nation's needs. Today the nation imports 54 percent of the oil it uses. M.A. Adelman of MIT notes that in 1971 non-OPEC countries had about 200 billion barrels of proven reserves. In the next 33 years they produced 460 billion ``and now have 209 billion `remaining.''' Note Adelman's quotation marks. To predict actual reserves would require predicting future exploration and development technologies.

    However, the rate of discovery has been declining for several decades. Of course, oil supplies are, as some people say with a sense of profound discovery, ``finite.'' But that distinguishes oil not at all from land, water or pistachio nuts.

Full article here

#169 advancedatheist

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 03:24 PM

I just found these articles recently. They are the flip side to the oil debate. Bruce Bartlett argues that there is more oil than anyone knows about and that more efficient technology will keep oil flowing. The second article is by George Will. He basically makes the economic argument that if the price of oil goes sky high, people will rapidly and naturally switch to other sources of power.


I find it interesting that apparently none of the Hubbert deniers have never made any real money in the oil industry, while some of the individuals who have been successful in the energy business are sounding the alarm about Peak Oil, like T. Boone Pickens and Matthew Simmons. Seems like this would put the free-market religionists in a conceptual bind. They are always telling us that businessmen are the smartest people around and that they can solve any seemingly intractable problem, especially regarding resources. But what do we do when the businessmen themselves throw up their hands and say, "Sorry, there's nothing we can do about the energy crisis"?

#170 Lazarus Long

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 03:34 PM

The science of the article on the origins of oil also has some holes you can drive tanker trucks through. It sidesteps entirely the aspect of having to go deeper and further into more hostile environments to obtain the remaining oil and to do so at much greater expense; even if it is ever found to be there.

It offers an alternative *hypothesis* that conveniently meets the expectations of the authors but ignores the demand for scientific validation. True the article is in a magazine for political review, not a scientific or trade journal but it is not consistent with a large body of evidence that is out there for review.

What I will say is that we may still have some questions about the *process* by which oil is created. What we do not have is evidence to support the view that somehow there is an unexpectedly large amount of it laying just hidden from view of our sensors and extensive geophysical surveys that have been analyzing planetary resources for decades now since the theory was formulated.

In reviewing the book's reviews found here:
The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels

I find no mention of some basic science that could shed light on the topic.

First the fact that deep core samples are often sterile and second the easy ability to date oil sources through Carbon 14 dating methods as well as strata. It is all well and good to offer an alternative hypothesis to current dogma but is it invalid to offer an alternative strategy based on that unsupported hypothesis without a lot more effort at validating any of its claims. The authors seem to be reversing the strategy of those that argue against Climate models and this is no small irony IMO. They are doing what they claim is invalid when they are confronted by the very same strategy of climatological models that should be treated first with rational skepticism before becoming the basis of strategic planning.

#171 Lazarus Long

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 03:59 PM

To emphasize my point about the actual science behind the abiotic theory of oil formation here are some general research and discussion links.

The Environmental Literacy Council - Abiotic Theory of Oil
http://www.envirolit...e.php/1130.html

Debate on Abiotic Oil
http://www.questions...4/peakoil1.html

A WORD ABOUT ABIOTIC OIL

There is some speculation that oil is abiotic in origin -- generally asserting that oil is formed from magma instead of an organic origin. These ideas are really groundless. All unrefined oil carries microscopic evidence of the organisms from which it was formed. These organisms can be traced through the fossil record to specific time periods when quantities of oil were formed.

Likewise, there are two primal energy forces operating on this planet, and all forms of energy descend from one of these two. The first is the internal form of energy heating the Earth's interior. This primal energy comes from radioactive decay and from the heat energy originally generated during accretion of the planet some 4.6 billion years ago. There are no known mechanisms for transferring this internal energy into any secondary energy source. And the chemistry of magma does not compare to the chemistry of hydrocarbons. Magma is lacking in carbon compounds, and hydrocarbons are lacking in silicates. If hydrocarbons were generated from magma, then you would expect to see some closer kinship in their chemistry.

The second primal energy source is light and heat generated by our sun. It is the sun's energy that powers all energy processes on the Earth's surface, and which provides the very energy for life itself. Photosynthesis is the miraculous process by which the sun's energy is converted into forms available to the life processes of living matter. Following biological, geological and chemical processes, a line can be drawn from photosynthesis to the formation of hydrocarbon deposits. Likewise, both living matter and hydrocarbons are carbon based.

Finally, because oil generation is in part a geological process, it proceeds at an extremely slow rate from our human perspective. Geological processes take place over a different frame of time than human events. It is for this reason that when geologists say that the San Andreas fault is due for a powerful earthquake, they mean any time in the next million years -- probably less. Geological processes move exceedingly slow.

After organic matter has accumulated on the sea floor, it must be buried by the process of deposition. In geological time, in order for this matter to be a likely prospect for hydrocarbon generation, the rate of deposition must be quick. Here is an experiment you can conduct to get an idea how slow the rates of deposition are. Place a small stone on the bottom of a motionless pond. Take another stone of about the same size and place it at the mouth of a small stream, a stream where the current is not so great that it will sweep the stone away. Check both of these stones yearly until they have been buried by deposition. You might see the stone at the mouth of the stream covered over within a few years, but it is unlikely that you will see the stone in the pond buried within your lifetime.

It is a simple geological fact that the oil we are using up at an alarming rate today will not be replaced within our lifetime -- or within many lifetimes. That is why hydrocarbons are called non-renewable resources. Capped wells may appear to refill after a few years, but they are not regenerating. It is simply an effect of oil slowly migrating through pore spaces from areas of high pressure to the low-pressure area of the drill hole. If this oil is drawn out, it will take even longer for the hole to refill again. Oil is a non-renewable resource generated and deposited under special biological and geological conditions.


On going discussion;

http://boards.quotet...7094&Main=27074

Petroleum Research

#172 advancedatheist

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 04:01 PM

Here is an audio interview with petroleum geologist Dr. Colin Campbell, made last month during the meeting of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil:

http://www.globalpub....2005-05-27.mp3

#173 kevin

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Posted 15 June 2004 - 08:27 PM

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Link: http://www.fortune.c...,644252,00.html


ANDY SERWER
Oil Prices Are Spiking—Has Supply Hit Its Peak?
The rate of oil discovery worldwide has been in decline for decades.
June 14, 2004

In 1956 a grouchy, iconoclastic Shell Oil geologist named M. King Hubbert forecast that U.S. oil production would peak by the early 1970s. The general reaction to his prediction was disbelief and ridicule—until, that is, the early 1970s, when he turned out to be right. Disciples of Hubbert, who died in 1989, have continued his work and are producing more bell-shaped curves that resemble his initial chart, which is known as "Hubbert's peak." Only now Hubbert's followers are plotting worldwide production, and in doing so have come to an uncomfortable yet oh-so-logical conclusion: We are running out of oil sooner than conventional wisdom would have us believe. Indeed, peak worldwide oil production may be at hand.

Before you dismiss the Hubbert crowd as fringe-element doomsayers, remember that the same label was attached to Hubbert himself for decades. Hubbert's science is real enough, and of course it is unassailable that at some point we will run out of petroleum. What's disputed are estimates of supply, consumption, and undiscovered oil. Some call Hubbert's analysis simplistic. That's fine by Princeton professor emeritus Kenneth Deffeyes, who once worked with Hubbert at Shell and is the author of Hubbert's Peak. "Use the simplest hypothesis that fits the data," Deffeyes says. "Hubbert's hypothesis fits the world data quite well, thank you. 'Simplistic' is a virtue."


Geologists long believed that oil consumption and oil discovery would continue to grow at the same rate forever. Hubbert was the first to make the obvious point that that would eventually prove false. In his new book, Out of Gas, Caltech professor David Goodstein shows that Hubbert's calculations explain how once the rate of discovery slows, it's possible to extrapolate where production growth ends. And the rate of discovery worldwide has been in decline for decades. Bottom line: The folks in the Hubbert camp generally believe that the total amount of oil that was ever on planet earth is two trillion barrels and that we have gone through nearly half of that—which puts us close to Hubbert's peak.

Yes, it's true that tabulating world oil reserves is a fuzzy business. OPEC countries, for instance, tend to overcount so that they are allotted higher production quotas. And oil companies fudge to please investors (as the aforementioned Shell Oil Co. has). Also, technology improvements make more oil economically accessible, which adds to the count. All that, Goodstein points out, may delay Hubbert's peak. But what's important to note is that the Hubbertians believe the crisis comes not when the last barrel of oil is pumped but when the peak is attained. That's when the price shock hits (as in the '70s).

One of the scariest points I've seen made in response to Hubbertianism is the line that there's plenty of oil out there because little exploration has been done in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates over the past 25 years. Great! In other words, those countries will hold even more sway over our future energy needs!

Oil may not stay at $40 a barrel forever. But Deffeyes and Goodstein, among others, argue that America needs a new, forward-looking energy plan to furiously explore and develop other energy sources and models. Hubbert himself talked along those lines in a 1978 AP interview. As usual, he was a few decades ahead of his time: "The federal government has to go all-out on a program of solar energy—on the magnitude of what we did in developing an atomic bomb or the space program," Hubbert said. Is weaning our economy off oil—particularly imported oil—as important as winning World War II or sending a man to the moon? You don't need to be an iconoclastic grouch to believe that today.

#174 advancedatheist

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Posted 16 June 2004 - 02:22 AM

Interesting. BP, which now explicitly identifies itself as "Beyond Petroleum" in its U.S. commercials, wants to reassure the world that it is finding plenty of oil. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on June 12 (scroll up this page for an excerpt from the article) that while oil companies' reported reserves continue to rise, actual production is falling!

What is going on here?


http://news.ft.com/s...d=1087295119777

World oil reserves up 10%, says BP

By James Boxell in London
Published: June 15 2004 22:36 | Last Updated: June 15 2004 22:36

World oil reserves rose by almost 10 per cent last year, providing enough to last for 41 years at current rates of production, BP's chief economist said on Tuesday.
 
The recent surge in oil prices had nothing to do with the threat of depleted reserves, said Peter Davies, introducing the oil company's yearly statistical review of world energy. He said the world had proved oil reserves of 1,150bn barrels in 2003.

"There is no global oil resource or reserve shortage," Mr Davies said. "Oil production continues to be replaced. The challenge is to invest adequately in this base to develop future production capacity." BP's new figure comes against a background of intense scrutiny of reserve estimates after the recent scandal at Royal Dutch/Shell. The Anglo-Dutch energy group has been forced to downgrade its proved reserves four times this year.



#175 advancedatheist

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Posted 19 June 2004 - 04:03 AM

http://www.channelne...w/90637/1/.html

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 18 June 2004 1537 hrs


Oil market balanced on a knife's edge in absence of Iraqi crude

PARIS : The recent sabotage of Iraq's oil pipelines has raised fresh concerns about production capacity and room for maneuver in case of a crisis amid firm global oil demand.

A wave of attacks in Iraq this week paralysed the country's exports from its southern sea terminals.

The southern oil fields had produced 1.6-1.8 million barrels per day before the spate of sabotage around Basra, 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of Baghdad.

Repairs to the pipelines are expected to take five days.

But meanwhile the oil market has suddenly found itself deprived of a substantial amount of crude.

And with global oil demand on the rise due to strong economic growth in industrialised countries and China every little bit of oil counts.

The International Energy Agency currently calculates global daily oil demand reached about 79.7 million barrels per day in the second quarter.

The Paris-based organisation expects demand to rise to 80.6 million bpd in the third quarter and 82.6 million bpd by the end of the year.

But as demand mounts, the crude producing members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries have less and less extra supply to make up for any loss of Iraqi output.

Commerzbank analyst David Thomas said it was becoming increasingly difficult to find a country with spare production capacity to make up for Iraq's output.

All producers are already pumping close to full capacity in order to calm soaring oil prices.

OPEC said Wednesday that it would contact non-member producers about increasing output. But Russia and Norway, the two biggest oil exporters after Saudi Arabia, already said they coud not pump any more. Angola, Mexico and Oman are also already at full capacity, according to analysts.

As for OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which is considered to be the only producer with significant capacity still available, it has already promised to pump more under an OPEC agreement to raise the cartel's production ceiling by two million bpd as of July 1, followed by another 500,000 bpd a month later to a total of 26 million bpd.

Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported Wednesday that the kingdom has a large-scale project to develop two oilfields to boost output capacity by 800,000 barrels per day, bringing the country's total oil production to more than 11 million bpd.

But even Saudi Arabia -- long considered as central banker of the oil market, increasing liquidity when needed -- no longer enjoys the industry's total confidence in its spare capacity, according to the director of the Arab Petroleum Research Center, Nicolas Sarkis.

Doubts have arisen about the country's ability to increase production as much as it claims it will and maintain output at those levels, Sarkis said Wednesday at a press conference here.



#176 advancedatheist

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Posted 19 June 2004 - 04:05 AM

http://cbs.marketwat...gle&dist=google

Good news now, bad news later
Commentary: Benign Fed no match for oil worries


By Paul Erdman, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 12:43 PM ET June 17, 2004 

HEALDSBURG, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- This week Alan Greenspan pulled the rug from under those who have been suggesting that the Fed was convinced that we were on the edge of major surge in inflation, and that a series of drastic increases in interest rates would follow in short order.

As the Financial Times put it: "Alan Greenspan sounded a reassuring note on the outlook for inflation and interest rates, wrong-footing the market traders who had been anticipating faster rate hikes."

With the core inflation rate at only 0.2 percent and with job creation still relatively sluggish, despite the overall vibrancy of economic activity in the United States, the Fed is most likely to adjust rates 25 basis points at a time.

This good news coming out of Washington would "normally" be sufficient to light the fire under a modest summer rally -- with stock prices rising and bond prices at least holding their own.

But unfortunately, the American economy cannot prosper indefinitely on the benign intentions of the Federal Revere alone. We need both cheap money and cheap energy, in particular oil and its derivatives. The problem is that we can print our own money in any quantity the Fed deems sufficient to keep the economy humming along. But we can only provide 40 percent of the oil we must have from domestic sources. For the rest we are dependent upon such major petroleum exporters as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Nigeria.

All five of these sources which we depend upon for oil are becoming more unreliable by the day.

Iraq -- which we were told would be contributing over 3 million barrels a day of the 80 million barrels the world now needs -- today supplies zilch as a result of a series of attacks on the pipelines, port facilities and refineries that are integral pars of its oil industry.

Venezuela is in total political turmoil, with its anti-American pro-Castro president trying to escape a recall that has been organized by the discontent masses in the country. Its oil industry is in such a mess that this oil rich-nation is today forced to import gasoline to keep its cars and trucks running.

Nigeria verges on the edge of political chaos.

Iran is in the process of isolating itself and alienated itself even further from the United States by moving rapidly forward on multiple projects designed to produce nuclear weapons within two years.

All of the above pales when compared to what could happen in Saudi Arabia, which today provides the entire world with 10 percent of the oil it needs. Terrorists attacks there are increasingly and the targets are changing. Right now they are designed to frighten the foreigners who now run that industry for the Saudis into leaving.

Next step will be attacks on the oil industry's infrastructure, as is already happening in Iraq. The ultimate target is the House of Saud and its overthrow. If and when it goes, the terrorists will completely cut off exports to the West at least temporarily in order to prove to the world that they are now the Masters of the Universe.

Compared to all this, what happens this June 30 in regard to the Fed's decision on short-term interest rates and the granting of (limited) sovereignty to the Iraqi governing council will barely deserve even a small footnote in future history books.



#177 advancedatheist

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Posted 24 June 2004 - 03:13 AM

http://quote.bloombe...gvraNg&refer=uk

U.K.'s Natural Gas Supplies May Fail to Satisfy Winter Demand

June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Natural gas supplies in the U.K., western Europe's biggest market for the fuel, may be short during the next three northern hemisphere winters and prices may surge, a government report has found.

A House of Lords investigation found short gas supplies compounded the vulnerability of the nation's import terminals to terrorist attack. The U.K. relies on shipments through terminals at St Fergus, in Scotland, and Bacton, south east England. A simultaneous terrorist attack on these sites could create an emergency.



#178 advancedatheist

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Posted 04 July 2004 - 02:40 PM

http://www.guardian....1253545,00.html

China's growth flickers to a halt

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Sunday July 4, 2004
The Observer

It looks like the set of a Spielberg science fiction epic. At night, deep in the heart of Sichuan province, miles and miles of vast, silent darkness suddenly give way to the glare of hundreds of spotlights, the frenetic activity of cranes and tractors, and the roar of millions of tonnes of water thundering out from turbines the size of cliff faces.

This is the world's biggest hydroelectric plant - the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river - which was rushed into operation last year to meet China's seemingly insatiable appetite for energy. Engineers are now working around the clock to finish the final stage of the project, which will eventually generate 18,000 megawatts of electricity.

This is supposed to satisfy a tenth of the nation's power needs - one of the main justifications for a scheme that was pushed ahead despite concerns for the river environment and the welfare of hundreds of thousands of people who were forced to move before their homes disappeared under the waters.

Even this mega-project has not been enough to prevent the worst power shortages in more than 20 years. A summer of cuts, partial blackouts and restrictions has now prompted experts to warn of an energy crisis with global implications.

The world's most populous and fastest-growing nation is eating up a growing share of the planet's oil and coal, pushing up international energy prices and increasingly being forced to look beyond its borders for supplies. In the next 15 years, demand is expected to double, which would bring about a change in the balance of power - not just in terms of electrical supply, but diplomacy, security and finance....

'It's a long-term crisis, and one that will deepen,' said Andy Xie, Asia-Pacific chief economist for Morgan Stanley. The strains are evident through the chain of energy supply. Despite a rise in production by 25 per cent, coal stocks are at their lowest level in more than 20 years. Many power plants have been forced to cut supplies or switch to diesel.



#179 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 July 2004 - 12:14 AM

Interestingly, someone with impeccable credentials in free-market economics, finance and libertarian ideology is sounding the alarm about Peak Oil:

http://www.guardian....1253093,00.html

Indiana Jones and the China crusade


Jim Rogers, investment guru; co-founder of Quantum Fund with George Soros

Nils Pratley
Saturday July 3, 2004
The Guardian

The American dollar is a flawed currency and will collapse in value before the end of the decade, taking with it the prosperity of the American nation. Investors should be buying commodities - platinum, lead, wheat, sugar, oil, the sort of assets that haven't been fashionable for a quarter of a century or more. While you're at it, teach your children to speak Mandarin, the coming language of the 21st century. And don't encourage them to do an MBA: "Tell them to be a farmer and do a real job."

Such advice, if given by your regular financial adviser, would probably provoke a complaint to the ombudsman. The speaker, though, is Jim Rogers, a legendary Wall Street name. The Indiana Jones of finance - a nickname earned by virtue of two round the world trips in the name of grass-roots investment research - has become a multimillionaire by backing such views with hard cash....

His central argument is that a new bull market has started that will match the fireworks seen in the dotcom-fuelled stock markets of the late 90s. This time, though, the bull market will be in commodities not shares. Rogers' reasoning is straightforward: raw materials are running out.

"There has been no great oil discovery in the past 35 years," he argues. "The North Sea has peaked. Alaska is in decline. Mexico is in decline. All these great oilfields are in decline. To anybody who thinks I am lying about this, I would ask: where is the oil going to come from?



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#180 advancedatheist

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Posted 07 July 2004 - 03:59 PM

http://washingtontim...24658-8344r.htm

China's oil imports to increase

Beijing, China, Jul. 7 (UPI) -- China's oil imports will increase by 30 percent this year, and high demand over the next two years will help keep world oil prices high, energy experts said.

A Chinese oil official said the country's oil needs had been revised upward from a government estimate only two months ago, Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday.

Tian Chunrong, senior engineer at state-owned refining company Sinopec, said the country's oil imports could reach 120 million tons in 2004, while oil consumption would top 300 million tons.

Energy experts told RFA that Beijing's heavy investment in infrastructure would continue to fuel oil needs, and efforts to cool the economy would not decrease oil demand in the next year or two.

China's domestic oil production has not kept pace with its expanding economy, forcing Beijing to import oil. Power shortages have created demand for diesel generators and fuel to run them, and a surge in private ownership of cars has increased demand for motor fuel.






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