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To: Recon Dad; SunkenCiv

You completely ignore the energy required to extract those “recoverable” resources. Oil used to provide 100 barrels for one barrel of energy consumed in extraction. Tar sands and shale take that to 3:1 to start at best after fracing, heating, forcing it up, roasting in the case of shale, and refining thick gunky low quality crude. When you get down to that, you have to devote 1/3 of your entire industrial capacity to extraction to keep the other 2/3 going. When you get lower than 2:1, you can atill extract it, but the effort requires more than half of your economy. You can theoretically keep extracting until your energy input to output is 1:1 but the result will supply almost no one.

But an industrial economy implodes long before that. In fact, ours is close to imploding now.

It is better to import it from a cheap producer who can at least buy your stuff with the proceeds rather than sinking it in the ground in extraction costs.

Ask anyone with responsibility besides oil company share price self-promotion.


8 posted on 02/25/2012 8:33:34 AM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (REPEAL WASHINGTON! -- Islam Delenda Est! -- I Want Constantinople Back. -- Rumble thee forth.)
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide; Recon Dad

The 3:1 ratio is a worst-case; best case as it sits now is 10:1. The fact you ignore is that shale is entirely in the US, which means jobs here. Sending $2.50 a gallon (42 gal/bbl at $105/bbl) to OPEC — made up of nations which have terrorism as 99% of their export economy — saddles what’s left of our industrial economy with 10s if not 100s of millions of extra parasites.


9 posted on 02/25/2012 9:44:15 AM PST by SunkenCiv (FReep this FReepathon!)
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