Posted on 06/13/2007 5:27:50 PM PDT by xrp
It’s actually a good news/bad news situation. We have other options for producing power, the Middle East has no other options for making money. No more oil=no more funding for jihad.
This is not the first time that this has been predicted. If it happens, the market will produce something else. Meanwhile, I have lots of horses. I will be rich.
About the middle of the century, they say.
According to a "Science" class I took in college nearly 30 years ago, we were going to run out of oil in fifteen years: i.e., 1993.
I have as much faith in this prediction.
LOL, good point!
LOL... The depletion of oil has been predicted since about 1906, so we may only have about another 100 years left.
Thank you for the correction. I search on the thread for “Independent”; I must have misspelled in my search.
I am familiar with methane hydrates. Alaska has a huge quantity of this resource.
If consumption fell 2% per year, present reserves would last forever.
If consumption rises 1.5% per year and no new reserves are found, present reserves would deplete in 30 years - but consumption cannot realistically last at peak rates with reserves diminishing that rapidly.
If consumption rises 1.5% per year for 10 years and is then level for 10 years, the rate at which reserves would have to fall after those 20 years, to last indefinitely despite no new finds, is 3.5% per year.
In fact, however, new reserves are being found about as fast as oil is being used. This is unlikely to continue indefinitely, but it means instead of a drawdown of 2% of proven reserves per year, we are starting from a net drawdown of zero.
If new reserves found levels off right now rather than growing with consumption for 20 years, we will have used up 3.5 years of reserves at the end of that period, and even at the higher rate of use will have 35 years of reserves left. If thereafter use remains level for another 20 years and new reserves found decline by 5% per year, we will use up a little under 8 years in those 20 and have 27 and change left. Which means if consumption then falls 4% per year (and assuming zero added thereafter) the remaining reserves again last indefinitely.
All of which means, even on quite pessimistic assumptions about future discoveries, we easily have 10 and probably have 20 years in which total oil use can grow steadily, after which it can remain constant at that high level for another similar period. If we discover plenty, we can continue indefinitely beyond that. If we do not, we will have to conserve seriously 1-2 generations from now.
We will be considerably richer 1-2 generations from now. In real terms, easily twice and perhaps four times as rich. Technology will be more advanced, alternate fuels more developed, and if there is any shortage and resulting need to economize on the use of oil, price incentives strong.
It makes sense to see $65 a barrel oil as a reason to invest in future energy technologies other than oil. The scale of adjustment or alternatives that will be needed, are on the order of 3-4% of oil demand, a generation or two from now. There is no reason to think any of that is undoable or even particularly hard, provided we lift all senseless restrictions on other fuel sources.
Instead we are galloping ahead with entire rafts of additional draconian restrictions. Why? Because sensible adjustment is not desired, deindustrialization and the overthrow of capitalism are.
The oil sands in Alberta are just beginning to be exploited , now supposedly Saskatchewan’s oil reserve may be as large if not even larger then the one in Alberta. Provided that Canada and US relations remain the same , i doubt seriously the US has anything to worry about when it comes to an oil shortage.
Alberta is only beginning to tap into it’s oil reserves , Saskatchewan’s oil reserve is supposedly equal in size or even greater then Alberta’s. Given US and Canada’s relations , i doubt very much the US has anything to worry about when it comes to an “oil shortage”.
From above.
Try this link:
Lots of industry people and oil field engineers.
Do you have a link with any more information on Saskatchewan's possible reserves?
I think what you are talking about is the fuel we can extract from oil shale. It’s going to be a lot more expensive to produce fuel from that then it is to just pump oil out of the ground and refine it. There are all sorts of methods for extracting this stuff under consideration and all sorts of estimates about what it will cost and they all tend to be somewhere north of $30 a barrel. Startup costs will be enormous, and there are quite a bit of environmental concerns they have to deal with. I think the oil companies are afraid to go all out on this yet because they know that OPEC could just jack up production and severely undercut them on price and they’d lose their shirts. I doubt we see American oil companies going all out trying to develop these resources until they feel that OPEC nations have depleted their reserves enough that they won’t be able to really hurt them in a price war.
Colin Campbell is one of the chief scientists. What does he know, he’s a hockey goon :-p
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Campbell_%28hockey%29
Where’s that bicycle pic from Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls?”
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