Posted on 07/31/2004 1:48:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Chief among the pessimists is the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a group of European scientists who estimate that maximum oil production around the globe will peak in 2008 as demand rises from developing economies such as China... Others believe, like Maugeri, that the number of glasses is virtually limitless. John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, argues that peak oil- production estimates are so far off that for all practical purposes we might as well act as if oil will flow forever. "Ever since oil was first harvested in the 1800s, people have said we'd run out of the stuff," Felmy says. In the 1880s a Standard Oil executive sold off shares in the company out of fear that its reserves were close to drying up. The Club of Rome, a nonprofit global think tank, said in the 1970s that we'd hit peak oil in 2003. It didn't happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
Never say,"We've gone as far as we can."
I'm thinking the same thing, SC. LARGE margin.
W had a comfortable margin in 2000 before the DUI arrest became known. Let's not count our chickens ....
The oil age will last until replaced by the Fusion Age.
Me, I'm for doing all we can to make that happen and not sit back an assume he will win buy a large volume. If every Freeper gets at least 10 people to get out and vote for Bush, we have a better chance. Did you hear that a poll by Newsweek has Kerry ahead now by 10 points. Of course, a Newsweeklib poll is meaningless.
I would have used the MSNBC story, but it's on the List and I don't want FR to pull the thread. ;')Researchers Succeed In Fueling UpThe principle behind fuel cells is not new-it was discovered in 1839... Basically, a fuel cell is a device-think of it as a high-tech battery-that converts the energy of a fuel (hydrogen, natural gas, etc.) and an oxidant (air or oxygen) into useable electricity... There are no moving parts and it produces little noise. Unlike traditional combustion engines that currently dominate the energy market, fuel cells do not produce any particulate matter, nitrogen or sulfur oxides; when fueled by pure hydrogen, they have only heat and water as by-products... To date, hydrogen has been the conventional fuel for a fuel cell. But practical generation and storage of hydrogen has been a problem-it's expensive and inefficient. The model developed by Gorte's team aims to get around this dilemma... Previous attempts to use hydrocarbon fuels to run a solid-oxide fuel cell failed because the electrochemical process that generates electricity caused a buildup of carbon, which ruined the cell. In a solid-oxide fuel cell, oxygen anions are transported through an oxide membrane and react with the fuel at the anode... The Penn researchers were looking for an anode material that did not result in fouling... Eventually, they settled on a composite of copper and ceria. Ceria is an important catalytic component of automotive catalysis, which is why the researchers focused on its properties... Says Gorte, "Running a car is a transient process and you've got to have a pretty big fuel cell to power it, something on the order of 50kw as opposed to a 5kw cell to power a house, for instance." ...At least one major automotive manufacturer is seriously studying this technology... Their work has generated a great deal of excitement and was touted in Nature magazine (3/16/00). Professor Gorte has been interviewed by MSNBC.
by Jane Brooks
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
The end of the oil age may not be imminent within the next few years but the economic development of Asia indicates that demand for power and oil will increase geometrically. China will be a developed economy within 20-30 years with five times the population of the U.S. Many think this is too fast but remember that war-devastated Japan with only half our population, no resources, became a world economic leader in 40 years. And India is not far behind.
Yamani predicts oil price of $10The former Saudi Arabian oil minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani has predicted that oil prices will crash from current levels of around $30 a barrel to $10 by the end of 2001.
by Sophie Barker
Wednesday 1 November 2000
"I would be happy if I am wrong, but I know, as surely as ABC, that it is coming," Sheikh Yamani said in an interview in the forthcoming edition of Forbes Global magazine. His most recent comment comes almost two years after oil prices last plunged to $10. Since 1998, they have steadily risen, reaching $35 a barrel this year.
Sheikh Yamani, who played a key role in the 1973 oil crisis, forecast that the perceived shortage of oil would soon swing into a surplus once increases in both Opec and non-Opec production filter through. On Monday Opec members agreed to boost output by 500,000 barrels a day, prompting the benchmark Brent crude oil contract on London's International Petroleum Exchange to drop 62 cents to $30.52 yesterday.
The Centre for Global Energy Studies, which Sheik Yamani chairs, expects world production to increase by 1.4m barrels a day to 75.7m barrels between the third and fourth quarters this year. He argued that this will send prices crashing. Adam Sieminski, oil market strategist at Deutsche Bank, said Sheik Yamani's prediction was "possible". He said: "You would have to see the global economy slowing down enough to curtail demand."
Deutsche Bank has predicted that crude oil prices will plummet to a relatively modest $20 a barrel by the second half of next year, as Opec countries are forced to cut production to avoid a price crash.
The "Oil Age" as referred to will probably meet an untimely death when Israel nukes the Iranians.
"How Long Will the Oil Age Last?"
Oh until about the time scientists have tinkered with dinosaur DNA and bring them back from extinction then they'll convert Dino-poop into synthetic fuel for vehicles to run on. I know, you laugh now but....strangers things have happened, like M.Moore winning an Oscar. (rolls eyes)
LOL
Peak Oil says we are going over the cliff at full speed in 3 to 13 years; it's too late already to do anything substantive about it. Well, that was 6 months ago, so it is now 2-1/2 to 12-1/2 years to go. The Club of Rome is resisting the idea of developing outer space. They want us to fail.
During the Age of Oil, the pumps are pumping as fast as they can. G_d put that oil there for a reason.
Next, as the Earth turns on its axis, when all the oil has been pumped out, we will enter the Age of Squeek.
Coalbed Methane:Speaking to congressional staffers at a briefing on Sept. 20, Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Department of the Interior, said that coalbed methane is the best source of energy to meet U.S. natural gas demand over the next five to six years... Hydraulic fracturing is necessary in order to extract natural gas from coalbeds... Coalbed methane is the natural gas that lies trapped in coal seams at shallow depths... Coal acts like a sponge, storing six times the volume of natural gas found in conventional reservoirs, Leahy explained... As of 2000, coalbed methane accounted for 7 percent of the total U.S. natural gas production. Recent estimates put it at 9 percent of total U.S. natural gas production. The San Juan Basin in Colorado is the world’s most prolific coalbed play... Conservative estimates put about 700 trillion cubic feet of coalbed methane in place in the United States, of which 100 trillion cubic feet are economically recoverable with existing technology. Annual U.S. production now exceeds 1.25 trillion feet... With the rising natural gas demand, Stark said that the country will need to reach a target of 162 trillion cubic feet of natural gas by the year 2020... According to the EPA draft report released on Aug. 28, underground sources of drinking water are safe from fracturing in coalbed methane wells; the effects of hydraulic fracturing are small and do not merit further study. Despite the fracturing of thousands of coalbed methane wells each year, the report found no cases of drinking water wells contaminated by coalbed methane hydraulic fracturing. To generate methane, coal must lie at least 200 feet below the surface and must be below the water table because the water acts to trap the gas... "In a million wells that have been hydraulically fractured over the years, not one has proven harmful to groundwater," said Christina Hansen of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission at a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) congressional briefing in September.
The Future of U.S. Natural Gas?
by Lisa M. Pinsker
Geotimes Nov 2002
Iran makes giant new oil findIran has made a major new oil find containing estimated reserves of more than 38 billion barrels, making it one of the world's biggest undeveloped fields, a senior oil official was quoted as saying on Monday... Khamoushi said preliminary studies indicated that the Ferdows field contained 30.6 billion barrels, the Mound field 6.63 billion and the Zagheh field 1.3 billion... The crude is of high density, making it less valuable on world markets than most of Iran's 90 billion barrels of proven reserves. Commercially recoverable reserves are certain to prove much less than the 38 billion barrels in place, but the find could still rival the world's two other leading undeveloped fields.
by Paul Hughes
July 14, 2003
The idea behind Peak Oil, or Peak Easy, is not that we will run out, but that oil will become so expensive to produce that the economy will wind down considerably. This will not be a benign event, not here and especially not in the rest of the world. We are in trouble, but they are in such trouble as cannot be imagined.
Peak Oil theory is well developed. Understanding will take time. 2-1/2 to 12-1/2 years ought to make the theory clear to everyone.
Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." Dr. Paul Ehrlich - Stanford Professor of Biology
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