[Red Badger]

Ping!....

[trumandogz]

Nothing here that the greenest Roustabout on a South Texas rig does not know.

[trumandogz]

For 15 to 20 years, however, it's been possible to drill horizontal wells.

Actually, Directional Drilling has been done much longer than 15-20 years.

[Izzy Dunne]

If I decide that $120/bbl (for example) makes it profitable for me to invest in new technology and get to this oil, what happens to me when the OPEC price goes down?

If I succeed, won't the price go down, because I've just added to the supply?

Won't the sheiks decide they can undercut my price?

So I have a hard time justifying that investment.

[Tahoe3002]

“the national oil companies that control the vast majority of the world's oil reserves...”

Therein lies the biggest key to all of this, not speculators. Look at the member nations of OPEC, almost if not all, are American/freedom hating countries with heavy marxist influences.

Add that the the ding-dongs in Washington, state officials, and yes, the IDIOT in the voting booth next to you, and you have a VERY VERY bad combination.

[catchem]

If the oil companies can’t utilize some of their mass, windfall profits to at least build additional refineries, we need to ‘redistribute’ their ill-gotten gains to the industrial base, and individual taxpayers, of this country to offset the damage. With extreme riches comes sizeable responsibilities.

[RightWhale]

NYMEX crude index 132.25 up 3.27

RBOB gasoline up considerably

Fuel oil up even more

This is no fluke although it might be panic. The recent June contract has just expired and we are now using July as the index.

[LS]

Glenn Beck had a guy named Robert Hirsh on, an oil expert, who claims that, based on geology, we have hit the world peak of production. He FAVORED more drilling, more exploration, etc., but argued that the incredible rapid demand in China and India would offset it, and that nukes, coal, electricity, while all desirable, would not solve the "liquid fuel" needs.

It was sobering.

[Amendment10]

I'm tired of oil politics so I'm keeping an eye on energy options.

Although I don't use this product, since people are starting to use bicycles more, people might be interested in this autoshifting bicycle.

Autoshifting bicycle

Also, I'm keeping an eye on developments in bio-fuel production.

First, the bad news about ethanol. Ethanol fires are evidently harder to control than gasoline fires.

Ethanol fires hard to control 1
Ethanol fires hard to control 2

Hopefully, ways will be developed to make controlling ethanol fires easier.

On the brighter side concerning ethanol, there's now evidence that people might get as much, or more, bang per buck for their gas dollars with gas / ethanol mixtures.

Gas-competitive gas / ethanol mixtures

Also, I was surprised by the introduction of a machine (popularly known as a still) for making home-made ethanol.

EFuel100

In stark contrast to the 1700 gallons of water required to make one gallon of corn-based ethanol as indicated by the OP, the EFuel100 uses only 170 gallons of water to produce 35 gallons of ethanol In other words, the EFuel100 uses less than 1% (about 0.2%) as much water as corn ethanol, under five gallons, to produce one gallon of ethanol.

But also note that the water used in the EFuel100 process does not take into account the water needed to grow the sugar that is used for this process.

And watch out for fines for violating biofuel regulations.

Fines for violating biofuel regulations

Also, progress is being made in the development of other non-corn ethanol production technologies as well.

Non-corn ethanol

Finally, I've also been hearing good things about biodiesel production but need to find some links.

[P.O.E.]

Interesting collection of links about World Oil Predictions.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Seen this?