Posted on 09/05/2012 7:36:45 AM PDT by Cronos
If Citigroup is right, Saudi Arabia will cease to be an oil exporter by 2030, far sooner than previously thought.
A 150-page report by Heidy Rehman on the Saudi petrochemical industry should be sober reading for those who think that shale oil and gas have solved our global energy crunch.
..The basic point – common to other Gulf oil producers – is that Saudi local consumption is rocketing. Residential use makes up 50pc of demand, and over two thirds of that is air-conditioning.
The Saudis also consume 250 litres per day of water – the world's third highest (which blows the mind), growing at 9pc a year – and most of this is provided from energy-guzzling desalination plants.
...The Saudis already consume a quarter of their 11.1m barrels a day of crude output. They are using more per capita than the US even though their industrial base as a share of GDP is much smaller.
The country already consumes all its gas. (Neighbouring Kuwait is now importing LNG gas from Russia:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Oh God! We’re running outta earl!
WHAT will they export THEN to support their indolent population, profligate upper classes and their Wahhabi “Missionary” efforts???
Camels??
How dare they use their own natural resources. /s
What will they do then? Go back to hearding Camels?
We’ve got vast oil and gas supplies. We should be utilizing our enormous hydroelectric potential and nuclear to power industry so we can be a major exporter and the rest of the world can kiss our butts.
Looks like a good time to significantly ramp up the construction of our domestic nuclear power capabilities.
Probably descend into civil war.
Saudi Arabia produces NOTHING. Even for their oil they have armies of foreign workers to get it out of the ground.
Saudis think they are “blessed” with their wealth and deserved to live in luxury for NO WORK.
And to export islam violently to other countries.
They will go back being poor desert camel humpers the minute their oil runs out.
Spot-on!
A small local city just tapped into the Ohio River for power and is building the plant 60 miles away in Kentucky!
Meldahl Hydroelectric Project
http://www.hamilton-city.org/index.aspx?page=653
The City of Hamilton, Ohio, and its partner, American Municipal Power, Inc. (AMP), together hold a license issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop a new, renewable energy, hydroelectric generating facility, called the Meldahl Hydroelectric Project. The Meldahl Project is located on the Ohio River, approximately 40 miles east of Cincinnati, at Foster, Kentucky, near Augusta, Kentucky.
A couple of thoughts:
1. I have long suspected that the Saudis have been inflating their statements of oil reserves. They have not answered to the cries of the west to “open the tap” to ease the world’s economic situation for the simple reason that they can’t. But I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong.
2. I am always suspicious of doom-and-gloom predictions that come with a date attached. Those sorts of things rarely pan out that far in advance. Who knows? Maybe the Saudis are also sitting atop their own shale oil, and will be able to start extracting it before 2030.
3. Regardless of the above, I also believe that Saudi Arabia will not maintain their status as a leading oil exporter forever, and that is the only source of their wealth. With their repressive society, they will never be a destination point for the world financial markets. They don’t spend or invest wisely as a nation. Once the oil revenue begins to dry up, it will be only a generation before their largesse is largely a thing of the past.
Without oil they will have to fight their own wars.
We even fight their wars for them.
This from Boone Pickens in an email today:
“The main concern is the oil from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States moving through the Strait of Hormuz. About 17 million barrels a day move out of the Persian Gulf. Only about 2.2 million is bound for the United States.
That means our Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force are paying the price to protect the 87 percent of the oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz bound - mainly - for Europe.
If we can get on our own resources and trade imported diesel for domestic natural gas as the principal transportation fuel for heavy-duty trucks, we can say goodbye to those 2.2 million barrels a day and bring our service members home.”
Watch the video:
http://www.pickensplan.com/boonecam/2012/09/04/democratic-national-convention/
Much of worldwide radical Islam is financed by Middle Eastern oil revenues. When those revenues start to decline (which will happen earlier than when oil exports stop), then the radical imams will have to find a day job, the Palestinians will need to find productive work somewhere, and the radical madrasahs will need to close.
They can go back to pounding sand and starving.
One common misconception that I encounter here at FR when speaking abut hydro electric is that it requires huge Hoover dam type projects and it couldn’t be further from the truth.
The Hoover dam is a very specific case of an area with scarce water and enormous amount of electricity to be used over a wide area.
Here in the east, much smaller dams can produce electricity to be fed into the grid and there are hundreds that are feasible electricity producers. Unlike wind, dams don’t stop producing power when there is too much water they simply keep going and dump the excess water. New generator tech makes the small dams very effective energy produces.
Here is a feasibility study for two dams in Ann Arbor Michigan. Both are expected to exceed capacity more than 25% of the time and both are expected to produce 2,000,000 kwh/yr and 3,350,000 kwh/yr respectively.
Don’t make fun of a Saudi’s significant other.
Whew! Had me worried there for a minute. Then I saw it was Lord Doom’n’Gloom’s (aka AEP) column. Nothing to worry about, then.
And they are “green!” Imagine that! ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.