Posted on 01/27/2006 5:23:10 PM PST by LouAvul
Nice analysis.
Anytime from now to ten years from now. Party on!
The problem with alternatives is that they will be expensive. There is no rush to develop alternatives now with oil near $70 a barrel, so we might expect alternatives to cost more than that.
" A better way is to look at the ratio of energy in to energy out. For conventional oil, it is 30. For the oil sands it is 1.5."
Interesting point but your figures are not expressed in terms of a specific ratio. 30 to what? 1.5 to what.
I'm intriqued. Please clarify.
HYDROGEN IS NOT AN ENERGY 'SOURCE.' It is a way to store energy from other sources. This myth, perpetrated by the greens and believed by gullible folks with no engineering background will cause terrible damage if it garners widespread belief.
Hydrogen isn't just laying around to burn. You can't run over to the hydrogen lake and scoop some up. It has to be made. Making it takes a LOT of energy. That energy will come from Nuclear or fossil fuels.
Your basic point is well taken. E.G., Coal to oil is profitable for some huge companies at $35 per barrel (see SASSOL). America is the Saudi Arabia of coal. $60 a barrel oil will bring this, and other approaches to the fore. It will not bring hydrogen to the fore.
I am no expert and could be wrong but I think he means that, in terms of energy consumed, it would take about 30 barrels in for every 100 barrels extracted versus 1.5 barrels for every 100 barrels extracted. Like I said, do not know though.
30 to 1; and 1.5 to 1.
For conventional oil, it takes one unit of energy to get 30 units of energy out of the ground. For oil sands, it takes 1 unit of energy to get 1.5 units of energy out of the ground.
A lot of assertions there. The real secret name of Peak Oil is Peak Easy Oil. When the easy oil peaks, what is left is not-so-easy oil, and not so cheap. $70 a barrel will be seen as the good old days when we are ten years farther down the road. There's an assertion.
Yep. It takes more energy to split water than is released from the comustion of hydrogen. It is like taking electricity to MAKE electricity. It just does not work.
$262 a barrel for oil is a lot cheaper than a nuclear holocaust.
Besides, before oil got that high, several nations would join and attack the Arab nations and take over their oil in a real "war for oil." Of course, if that happened, the left would be able to justify it since it would be leftist nations attacking.
My guess is France would sit it out and complain while expecting the lions share of cheaper oil.
When are we going to stop playing around and start drilling
I agree.
That may be fine for people that live in cities but for those of use that live in the country it will be a killer.
Yes there are huge amounts but the problem is the speed at which these could be scaled up. As background information the US uses 20 million barrels a day of oil and imports about 11.5 million barrels a day. With that context lets look at the tar sands and oil shale.
First, take the tar sands. Currently produced at 1 million barrels a day, production is predicted to increase to 2.7 million barrels a day by 2015 and 5 million barrels a day by 2030.
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/12072005hearing1733/Smith.pdf
Production is currently be powered by stranded natural gas but there is talk about building nuclear reactors to provide additional energy.
As for shale "oil", otherwise known as organic marlstone, we are currently producing about 0 barrels a day from shale. Mining was tried in the past but when mined and then heated the leftover shale is expanded in volume by 20%. In situ conversion is also being evaluted (by Shell) and in a test project they were able to produce 1500 barrels over a course of 10 months or about 5 barrels a day of high quality oil. Great! But in order for that to be beneficial to the US the process will have to scaled up by at least a factor of 100,000. Can that be done? Perhaps. Time will tell.
As a side point, Estonia has historically produced more oil from shale than any other country. Anyone hear of any oil companies rushing to Estonia to get involved in a shale rush?
Soros contiunues his attenpts to control the political process.
The real answer so far is that we can't build more nuclear reactors because half the country is Democrat. Perhaps by the next census that problem will be fixed. The "blue states" are shrinking against the "red" states.
We are drilling to max capacity as I speak. There are no rigs available to drill more right now. That is the big misconception of many people, everything we got is working.
Good. I am glad I am not the only one with that idea.
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