China sees it coming. They're going nuclear, big-time.
--no, it's not. The price is just going to go up--
Peak Oil. Blah, blah, blah. Been refuted over and over again.
If you look at any old books, we were supposed to run out of oil by 1980.
We will see.
Of course oil companies want us to think we're running out of oil, so they can jack up the prices. We've been hearing this same crap over the past 30 years.
One thing all of humanity can be certain of, everything on the planet that sustains human life is in finite supply.
One thing I keep wondering about is what all the crap we bury everyday as today's trash is going to turn into?
WHEN it runs out is the question. Next year, a thousand years from now, a vanishingly-distant moment in the future?
nothing new under the sun alert.
Warmed-over baloney.
The below illustrates a different perspective about the long term availability of hydrocarbon fuels:
"The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy by Peter W. Huber, Mark P. Mills
I actually agree with you here. Even France, the lefties' favorite country, relies heavily on nuclear. We should be starting to build our nuclear power infrastructure of the future now, but as soon as anyone tries to bring up a serious discussion, the usual suspects in America immediately start in with the Three Mile Island crap in an attempt to kill the debate.
No need to worry. Three- and four-dollar gasoline will finally give some "conservatives" reason to conserve. Till then, "mine's bigger'n yours!" and it's Dubya's fault.
What about coal as a US alternative. I thought I read that there are some new developments in the efficiency of coal-fired generation of electricity? That is, less coal produces more energy, meaning more energy at lower cost and with less pollution. Anybody?
What about coal as a US alternative. I thought I read that there are some new developments in the efficiency of coal-fired generation of electricity? That is, less coal produces more energy, meaning more energy at lower cost and with less pollution. Anybody?
What about biomass conversion to crude?
The problems with the Hubbert Peak analysis:
1) The US was never had a large light crude resource base compared to other regions. And US oil reserves were being depleted aggressively before these other areas (Middle East, Venezula, North Sea, Alaska, SE Asia, Russia) came online. We were the fastest growing economy, with the most cars, the most oil heated homes, etc. Of course we peaked early.
2) The peak and downslide coincided with the availability of cheaper oil from overseas. Once that came online the US producers had to compete and the profitability of wells went down. Supply became diversified. Advances in technology have, however, pumped out a higher percentage of oil from the Texas/OK/LA region than has ever been acheived elsewhere.
The economics of oil are changing, but even at $50+ a barrel, the price trajectory is less than milk, soda, or beer over the same time. Moreover, oil is less important to our economy than in the past. Oil has never been important in electrical production, so gas, avgas, jet fuel and plastics are the areas where price increases are felt. China is much more dependent on oil for its economic growth than we are.
Rising prices will cause a contraction, maybe, but so what. Economic contraction will generate pressure to finally change our energy policies. Governments are never forward thinking about this kind of thing. Your job is to understand the economic effect and plan accordingly. There will be lots of money made as the world adjusts.
How important is gas to this whole equation? Consider that a shift in market share from SUVs/trucks to cars or station wagon like SUVs would like drop demand by about 5% in the US. This would likely drop prices by 20% or more. This will happen voluntarily if prices continue upward, and the price will stabilize. No need for the gov't to change CAFE standards. If you don't believe that, then you should review the history of gas prices, auto aggregate MPG figures, and buying behavior during the 70s and early 80s.
Chicken little remains unimpressed.
While I don't fully understand #1, I suspect that the process is still functioning. At what rate I'm not sure. Perhaps we do consume oil faster than new oil is being created (somewhere). Perhaps not! I don't know.
TINFOIL HATS.....ON!
And they are doing the smart thing because they don't have to deal with the EnvironmentalNazi crowd whose real agenda is to bring down the U.S. and promote a Socialist world that they control. It is well known that your standard of living is in direct proportion to your energy consumption. If the environmental crowd can raise your energy costs they can reduce the U.S. standard of living and our ability to maintain our postion as the leader of the free world. I don't want that leadership to fall to China in 50 years.
There are lots of possible alternatives to oil as a portable fuel. Alcohol and hydrogen are the two that are mentioned most often. The problem is you need non-petroleum based renewable energy (and lots of it) to process these chemicals into usable fuel. It doesn't do any good to burn gasoline to generate alcohol (or charge batteries) to replace gasoline.
If we continue to ignore this fact, our grandchildren and perhaps even our children are indeed going to suffer a major standard of living hit. It is way past the time to get the environmental wackos off our back and to get going building nuclear plants to support the generation of alternative fuels.
a group of ultra-conservative Swiss financiers