The looming oil crisis will dwarf 1973. Commentary: Forces converge to create worldwide woes

CBS.MarketWatch.com ^ | Last Update: 8:02 PM ET May 5, 2004 | By Paul Erdman

[johnb838]

Yes, there's no real point in even talking about what the price might do in the future unless you're a speculator. When oil gets too expensive we will develop an alternative and then economies of scale will kick in and we will probably end up getting around cheaper than we do now. But people aren't going to do it because the government and the watermelons say we have to. It's never worked that way and it never will.

[johnb838]

If the Saudies turn into Iran 1979, it's not going to be smooth sailing.

Good thing we've got about seven divisions next door and a Navy offshore in case we need to take action. Not that anyone has the 'nads to send us to secure the oil fields... can't upset al-Queda's sensibilities, dontchaknow.

[johnb838]

So everything that can be known about oil reserves was predicted by Hubbert in 1970? I have news for you Nostradamus beat Hubbert's predictions in like 1550.

Besides, the oil reserves are filling back up.

[johnb838]

what could happen if the insurrection spreads to the entire Sunni and Shiite populations.

Yes, and think what would happen if we learned to teach horsies to fly! We wouldn't NEED the oil any more! Not that it's likely but they're both idle speculation at this point.

[dalereed]

"It was a lack of supply at the pump -- caused by price controls on motor fuels that made it pointless to sell gasoline on the retail level."

There was no supply shortage in 74, it was caused by a consumer run on gas at the stations.

Everyone had been on federal allotmnet since 72 and when the consumers emptied the stations because of a scare article in the LAT, there was a shortage at the pumps caused by the consumers.

The refiners tanks were full and at one time there were 18 tankers in L.A. harbor with no place to unload!

[rustbucket]

Besides, the oil reserves are filling back up.

Aside from isolated cases where a trap may be filling from spillage from a deeper reservoir or a small reservoir is being filled from a large source bed that is at the right thermal maturity to generate significant amounts of oil, this doesn't happen. Not in general anyway and rarely on human time scales.

I wish it did. I have some old oil property that was produced out years ago.

[Eva]

If you read my earlier post, we have been tapping into new, very large oil finds in new places and building new pipelines as well. The only place in the world that might be running low is the US, and even the Alaskan reserves have not proven to be running out the way the theory claimed. The idea that the oil was going to run out is old theory, just like the theory that the earth is getting colder that was popular in the eighties. Like I said the article is pure B S.

Drill the ANWR and make the US immune to oil prices! The answer is so simple.

[Eva]

I don't know if that is the one, was it announced just in February, or is this the one in Kazhastan that they have been working on for few years? Conoco announced a NEW find.

[neutrino]

I have become a firm believer in Hubbert's Peak. So much so that on Feb. 5 of 1999, I invested in the Vanguard Energy Fund. That investment is today worth 2.35 times what it was when I bought it. This suggests that more investors perceive that energy will be worth more in the future...as would be the case if Peak Oil was occurring.

I think that we're going to see oil go a lot higher - and the problem is that everyone focuses on gasoline without realizing the profound effect energy prices have on everything - food, for example. Plastics for another example. Clothing (artificial fiber) for another. The effects of more expensive energy will propagate through the economy and effect us all.

Nor are tar sands a solution. The problem is not merely monetary price - one must look at EREI - Energy Return On Energy Invested. And tar sands may well cost more energy than they produce. Considering the amount of steel and cement in a nuclear plant, along with the cost of refining the Uranium fuel, plus the cost to dispose of the waste - the EREI isn't very good. Coal is available, but the problem is it costs ever more energy to get it out of the ground.

When oil was first discovered in Pennsylvania, the EREI was close to 100 to 1.

Will we solve the problem? Probably. In fact, some fortunes may be made doing it. But we may have some bumpy times getting there.

[kittymyrib]

The environazis were thrilled when Bush's energy department bought up all the Florida leases during his first year in office. So the government now can drill there in a national emergency....very smart.
By the way, if we were in Iraq for cheap oil, why is it now $40/barrel, a new record? The Left never has to say it was wrong, thanks to our partisan media.

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from May 6th, 2004.

Thanks .cnI redruM.

As the price of crude oil keeps rising toward $40 a barrel and beyond, it has become increasingly clear that the world is heading toward a major oil crisis -- in terms of both price and supply... There can be no doubt that the fall of the House of Saud would be thrust the entire Western world into an energy crisis of unprecedented proportions.

Thank goodness that Saudi Arabia can always count on useful idiots.