Posted on 07/23/2007 2:25:59 PM PDT by redwill
Technology to draw oil from rock in Rocky Mountain states and other unconventional sources is getting another look from companies and the government as the demand for energy increases and supply tightens, especially in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
It will cost more to bring "process oil" to market than pumped oil. On that we agree (or at least I'm conceding, for the sake of argument - truth is I don't really know, because what if once the infrastructure's in place, the overhead goes down...?). But I think what I'm missing is why that's relevant? or perhaps, what question that's relevant to?
If somebody wants to pay a dollar a gallon more just to have process oil they probably also stop at Starbucks every day.
Huh? Of course no one would "pay more for" the resulting oil from shale. Why would they? But again: how's that relevant?
To use simple numbers, say that pumped oil costs 1/gallon to bring to market and shale oil costs 9/gallon to bring to market. If the market price of oil is 8/gallon, then no one would bother with shale oil. But if the market price of oil rises to 10/gallon, then there is a profit to be made from shale oil.
So whether shale oil "beats" pumped oil matters not a whit, that I can see.
Unless pumped-oil folks can fill the entire world demand at a price that makes process oil unprofitable, your point, while correct, is not relevant. Higher cost production (including shale) will continue to increase (as long as the polar bears aren't more important than people) until the price is driven down to the risk rate of return on the marginally most costly production alternative. This is, of course, confounded somewhat by time lags. But the market will push in that direction.
bump
Way ahead of you - the big coal and shale areas are probably locked up/sold/leased/whatever long ago..
There is probably not a single twenty year period in the history of the oil industry where this would have been true.
Indeed, it is just a vapid worry, as long as a free market is allowed to function. Even today, when you can have all the gasoline you want to buy at $3.00/gal, the industry could not meet the demand if government forced the price down to $1.00/gallon.
So we should look for the left to quit blaming BIG OIL and start blaming BIG SHALE......
—IIRC, Mobil has owned what was known as the Milliken Ranch property since the 1920’s—about when shale was first looked at as an energy source—
Yes, and the so-called “gigantic” domestic oil companies like Exxon-Mobil and such are not even in the top 10 companies competing with Saudi Arabia Inc, Mexico Inc, Russia Inc, Nigeria Inc.....
Environazis won’t allow us to do anything to break free from their Islamofacist allies oil. They don’t even like wind turbines because they kill a few seagulls.
what if the microwaves are powered by reactors or wind?
Yeah, I wondered about that too (won't the price just rise till they equalize?), but I interpreted that statement of his in an expansively charitable way - i.e., that he was just saying that the extrapolated demand curve will exceed the (known) supply curve... after all, the article says the same thing ("demand will exceed supply by 13 million barrels per day by 2030"), which makes equally little sense unless you interpret it like I had to.
Or concentrated sunlight or BIODIESEL!.......
I am perfectly aware that not all oil comes from Saudi Arabia. The fact remains however that the world economy is highly dependent on a commodity over which dangerous and unstable regimes have an undue influence. We are very capable of reducing our exposure to this risk by building large numbers of nuclear, coal, and other power plants in the US.
the rest of the world still would (oil is sold on the world market, not just to the U.S.), and thus would still fund our enemies.
If the US obviously had enough domestic energy assets to limp along without oil imports this would give us tremendous leverage not only over our enemies in the middle east but over Europe and China as well. Oil fields and refineries are big fixed targets. Notice the fit the Saudis threw when Bush mentioned reducing our oil usage in his state of the union address a couple of years ago? They know the score and don't want us to take away their "oil bomb."
maybe it's not that the leaders are out of touch, but rather, that you've overestimated just how much "public rage" there really is over gasoline prices.
People care about things that personally impact them like gas prices, far more than they care about the war in Iraq, ANWAR, and global warming. Unfortunately, the media and politicians within the "beltway bubble" are able to set the agenda in this country with little reference to what the actual man on the street cares about. A prime example of this was the shamnesty debacle. Why do both the President and Congress have historically low approval ratings if they are so in tune with people want?
Some would say there's no "lack of action" at all, given our ongoing attention to security issues in the Middle East.
Iraq is not about oil except in the fantasies of the moonbat left. The action that is needed today is the same that was needed during the oil crisis of the early '70s: More nukes, more coal, more hydro, more anything that is domestic or in friendly countries, more efficiency. Less regulations, taxes, and other roadblocks. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Regan, Bush #1, Clinton, and Bush #2 have all dropped that ball.
Ain't that the truth. "Environmentalists" are not so much pro-environment as anti-human. 21st century Luddites...
You could make the argument that they are misanthropic.
In Hitler’s Germany they used process oil because there wasn’t enough pumped oil. With that they were forced to rationing and they still ran out. Even if price were no object process oil will never produce to meet cheap oil.
Hmm. Well, I guess it varies.
The fact remains however that the world economy is highly dependent on a commodity over which dangerous and unstable regimes have an undue influence.
That's true. And that fact would remain even if we ourselves weren't to use a drop of this commodity from those regimes, which was my point.
We are very capable of reducing our exposure to this risk by building large numbers of nuclear, coal, and other power plants in the US.
Okay, now you're talking more sense: we'd be reducing our exposure to the riskiness of oil prices (due to the unstable-regime factor, etc.). We wouldn't be "reducing our dependence on Arab oil", but reducing exposure to risk of oil's price fluctuations caused (in large part) by those regimes. Correct.
People care about things that personally impact them like gas prices, far more than they care about the war in Iraq, ANWAR, and global warming.
Hmm. I'm not so sure. I see very little "rage" about gas prices (which do affect people) than I see about the Iraq war (which largely isn't affecting most people, and the rage seems to be inversely proportional to the effect anyway). But again, it probably depends where you look/who we're talking about. *shrug*
Unfortunately, the media and politicians within the "beltway bubble" are able to set the agenda in this country with little reference to what the actual man on the street cares about.
See, do you have real hard data that the "actual man on the street" cares as much about gas prices as you're saying he does?
And if so, do you have correlative data showing that this same man on the street is willing to let folks drill in ANWR? (Because if he's not, I really doubt how much "rage" he actually feels)
I don't doubt that most people would answer "Yeah, sure" to a question like Are gas prices too high. That's easy. However, when the rubber meets the road are large numbers of Americans clamoring for us to expand nuclear, open ANWR to drilling etc.? And is the gas-price concern really high on peoples' radar compared to hot-button issues like Iraq? If so, I don't see it. Do you? Where?
A prime example of this was the shamnesty debacle. Why do both the President and Congress have historically low approval ratings if they are so in tune with people want?
I think it's clear they weren't in tune with what the people wanted on that, and realized it.
I still don't think "the people" really want to open ANWR etc. though. (I wish they did!) The (R)s tried this and look at the reaction it got: they were demonized, as usual, for wanting to "rape" "pristine" land.
Iraq is not about oil except in the fantasies of the moonbat left.
I think it's about oil to some extent. I think we don't want terrible, fanatical and/or power-mad people to gain control over such a large proven oil deposit (and the revenues it would generate), and I think that's a big reason we can't afford to take a laissez-faire approach to who rules Iraq. In that sense, it's "about oil".
Of course this is meant in a much different sense than lefties mean, most of whom seem to have a cartoon story in their head according to which when we invade or use military in one of these countries, it's "about oil" because in doing so we can somehow end up "taking" their oil or something.
The action that is needed today is the same that was needed during the oil crisis of the early '70s: More nukes, more coal, more hydro, more anything that is domestic or in friendly countries, more efficiency. Less regulations, taxes, and other roadblocks.
Can't disagree with any of this.
Not while there is cheap oil. Of course, gov't subsidy could equalize process oil and pumped oil, but until then nobody would choose shale over oil reserves if he had a choice. An oil company might do some pilot plant work just in case gov't subsidies come along later.
This doesn't have anything to do with anything. Hitler was running a costly war-machine, not a free-market economy, and it ran out of resources because it was bent on waging war. This doesn't prove it's impossible to get those resources (if that's what you're saying - it's not clear what you're saying). Shortages - of rubber, metals, etc - are common in wartime but this does not somehow prove that rubber, metals etc are impossible to bring to market.
Even if price were no object process oil will never produce to meet cheap oil.
Price is certainly NOT no object. Price is basically the only object. But the price (of oil) just has to be high enough (and it was you, not I, who insisted the price would keep rising indefinitely) to make shale oil worth producing; if it is, then (absent other barriers like regulations, etc.) one assumes people will do it. If you think not, you haven't explained why.
That said, I admit I don't know whether process oil will ever "produce to meet" cheap oil, because I don't know what one thing "producing to meet" another thing means. (I doubt it really means anything.) But who cares if it "produces to meet" (whatever that means) pumped oil? Again, I'm puzzled as to what you think that has to do with anything.
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