Peak Oil Production, necessary conservation, and alternative necessary energy production sources

Various

[bitt]

welcome.

[TexasTransplant]

little holes in great big alaska, i typed this very slowly cause i know you can't read fast

[deport]

Welcome..... be proud...... fly your state flag

[hellinahandcart]

little holes in great big alaska

LOL

[hellinahandcart]

I'm experiencing deja vu.

[glorgau]

I'm sure someone in Washington is "burning the midnight oil" looking for a solution. ;-)

[RightWhale]

love all things Alaska

Are you in Alaska?

[El Sordo]

As being well informed is the duty of a citizen, I submit a bit of counterpoint.

http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html - The Origin of Methane (and Oil) in the Crust of the Earth

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/daily/heretic110199.htm - More on Thomas Gold

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/596421/posts - The world has more oil not less

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/691074/posts - Potential oil supply refill?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/671542/posts - Oil Fields' Free Refill - More oil than we thought (maybe)

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Energy.html - CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT RECENT PREDICTIONS

OF IMPENDING SHORTAGES OF PETROLEUM

EVALUATED FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF

MODERN PETROLEUM SCIENCE



I'm too bloody lazy to do the HTML. I like to think of this as being more efficient.

[Old Professer]

I bought ten of those gas-saving gadgets last year, for the past several months I've been saving my left-over gas in empty milk jugs.

[El Sordo]

"love all things Alaska"

"Are you in Alaska?"

I think he means that he loves mosquitos and soggy marshland.

[RightWhale]

Maybe. If he likes mosquitos he better get here quick. It has been a fat year for mosquitos, and the dragonflies are in paradise. Dragonflies start out very small and as the mosquitos disappear the dragonflies get bigger and bigger. They are pretty big already this year.

[BroJoeK]

In a previous posting judy willow wrote: "There could be no better or more appropriate time for the ultimate sanction. With just the tiniest bit of guts, we could stop importing oil this very day. We have at least 200 years worth of shale oil in this country and Canada has 1000 years worth of it, and the cost of extracting it has always been given as about $60/barrel."

Perhaps a few facts would help. Using numbers from the June 2004 National Geographic, world oil consumption is about 80 million barrels per day, of which the US produces around 6 million and uses 20 million.

Current US proven reserves of oil represent about 10 years of US production at current rates. Deep water Gulf of Mexico and ANWR, add perhaps another 20 years (again, at current production rates).

Alberta Canada's oil sands, in total, could supply about 200 years of current US consumption. About 10% of that is relatively cheap to extract & process -- $10 per barrel. The rest will, presumably, become increasingly more expensive. But that 10% alone puts Canada in the same proven reserve league with Saudi Arabia, and the total 100% of Canada's oil sands are greater than the entire Mideast by a factor of two.

If I remember from 25 years ago, US western oil shales while in the same general league as Canadian sands, were not considered economical below $40+ per barrel. But that was then, this is now -- I wonder if that question should be reconsidered?

Point is: there will always be "enough" oil, when the price is right to pay for extracting it.

And yes, Mideast oil comes to us with the huge extra "hidden cost" of maintaining a military effort necessary to stabilize the region. But, for sake of discussion, let's suppose the US "eliminated" those hidden costs by eliminating the US military operations in the Mideast. How long do you suppose it would be before Mideast terrorists got the WMD's to make 9/11 look like child's play?

Bottom line: I don't think there is any alternative to defeating international terrorism. In the mean time, the price of oil will rise to where it needs to be to pay for demand -- at least for the foreseeable future.

[RightWhale]

National Geographic has some pictures of oil being produced from tar sands. Looks like the time is now.

[combat_boots]

I am not in Alaska. I have just always loved it, and have had occasion to work and travel there.

Loved the counterpoint, though. Muchisimas gracias.

[BroJoeK]

Of course, there's always a catch -- in the Mideast we have to battle fanatical terrorists. In Canada, as in ANWR, it will no doubt be radical environmentalists.

Not sure which is scarier... hmmmmmmm....

[El Sordo]

I was in Alaska once. I saw what I thought was a Crane Fly. It looks like a very big mosquito (1+ inches long). The AK native that I was with informed me that I was looking at a mosquito and not a Crane Fly. I never did figure out if he was yanking me around or not.

I developed a great love for Dragonflies on that trip.

[El Sordo]

I'd also be willing to bet good money that in our lifetimes, we're going to wake up one morning and oil as a powersource will be obsolete.

One possibilty: http://www.wsunews.wsu.edu/detail.asp?StoryID=2873

Some of the stuff being done now with fuel cells is mind boggling. The main thing that keeps them from being practical is that oil is currently a cheaper resource.

[RightWhale]

In the spring, which is usually in May, the first mosquitoes come out, and they are the same ones that were around at the end of the fall. They overwinter, frozen solid, I suppose, and thaw in the spring. Big, yes, but slow. The spring generation is small and quick, deadly in numbers.

[gcruse]

Newkular power. And there's plenty of time. Hell, according to Gold, oil is continually being made, anyway. Old wells are indeed refilling.