It was not supposed to turn out like this. The world was supposed to run out of oil just about now and then turn to solar and wind. In the process, we would get them out of their Chargers with Hemis into Fiat 500s. But no, those damn oil companies had to find oil and gas we never knew we even had. Oh well, I am sure we can claim credit for developing fracking technology.

[www.politico.com]

Last week’s Energy Information Administration data came as welcome news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the Obama administration,

Read more: [www.politico.com]

Predictions ALWAYS assume current level of technology and state of the art. Without that, they are referred to as "Science Fiction". There is nothing unreasonable about this.

Dire predictions have an excellent result.. they force the development of new technologies, which then solve the problem.

Club of Rome... we'd all be starving to death in an overpopulated world at .. OMG 5 Billion !. Whoops... Green Revolution, improved irrigation techniques, desalinization, Genetically Modified foods, etc... Starvation is now primarily the result of political acts, not unavailability of foods.

Peak Oil... We'd run out of oil. OMG !... Deep Ocean drilling, tar sands, new exploration areas, etc... Of course those forms of production are WAY more expensive, and are not supported if oil drops below, say... oh, $50 per barrel.

Ozone.... OMG! Hairspray is gonna kill us, Australia Hole in the layer, UV radiation will burn us all to death.... Pollution reduction, CFC reduction, coincidental solar minimum (last decade)..

Nuclear War... OMG ! Nuclear Winter will freeze us all, mutants and CHUD, it's the end of the world.... SALT treaties, USSR goes bye-bye, discovery that 'nuclear winter' is rather silly, etc...


Human creativity has a way of confounding predictors.

"Man will never fly".
"There is no market for more than 3 or 4 computers".
"Everything that can be invented has been invented".

The only reasonable prediction is that the future is truly an Undiscovered Country, and has wonders in it.

i'm not sure what you're refuting.

---

Who said we'd be running out of oil about now? Obviously it's a finite resource. Obviously the overwhelming majority of reserves are in the Middle East. is this some sort of tirade against technology and finding ways to be more energy efficient or find other fuels?

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mattkime
i'm not sure what you're refuting.

Ah, the "who, me?" defense. The last thing Democrats wanted was more oil. They threw every chair and table they had at "Big Oil". Obama's central theme is "green jobs". Gambles on solar and loses, wind needs "credit" to blow and in the mean time out of nowhere there comes an economic miracle in North Dakota of all places. All is not lost though. Let them find oil there. They still have to move it down south through some kind of pipeline. Good luck with that. You have to get passed me first.

you sure know a lot about democrats!

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Avenger

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mattkime
i'm not sure what you're refuting.

Ah, the "who, me?" defense. The last thing Democrats wanted was more oil. They threw every chair and table they had at "Big Oil". Obama's central theme is "green jobs". Gambles on solar and loses, wind needs "credit" to blow and in the mean time out of nowhere there comes an economic miracle in North Dakota of all places. All is not lost though. Let them find oil there. They still have to move it down south through some kind of pipeline. Good luck with that. You have to get passed me first.

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Avenger

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mattkime
i'm not sure what you're refuting.

Ah, the "who, me?" defense. The last thing Democrats wanted was more oil. They threw every chair and table they had at "Big Oil". Obama's central theme is "green jobs". Gambles on solar and loses, wind needs "credit" to blow and in the mean time out of nowhere there comes an economic miracle in North Dakota of all places. All is not lost though. Let them find oil there. They still have to move it down south through some kind of pipeline. Good luck with that. You have to get passed me first.

Being pals with Big Oil isn't something I'd brag about. As for an economic miracle, please. Create jobs in any deprived area with any type of manufacturing process and you'll see a turnaround. Unfortunately it's localized. What this country needs is a turnaround in manufacturing in many sectors.

Do you remember super funds? There is valid reason from every perspective to be cautious. North Dakota has already had to deal with numerous environmental issues from the drilling.

Then of course there are the farmers. Some of whom have had their land for generations. Guess what, they own the land but not the mineral rights below the land. Guess what, mineral rights trump land rights. So Big Oil can swoop in and drill away. Sure they give you some dollars. But you've lost the land you owned, have to deal with the mess, traffic, and noise, and have lost your way of life. Nope. I would not be so gleefully on the side of Big Oil.

Avenger-
This issue was never about 'Democrats and Republicans'. It was made a political football out of the classic rationale.. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

Republicans have also pushed for alternative energy programs. Which were pooh-poohed by the Democrats at the time. Officially the Party Not In Power is the party of "No !"

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Avenger
The last thing Democrats wanted was more oil.

Nonsense. What else are they going to use to cook puppies with?

Eventually, the oil will run out.

Foolish forum posts however, appear to be an infinite resource.

---

Unpaid Social Liaison

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cbelt3
Republicans have also pushed for alternative energy programs. Which were pooh-poohed by the Democrats at the time.

This is news to me. Can you provide any examples?

The high price of oil has made it economically feasible for Big Oil to increase investment in new technologies that will find and extract more of this lucrative product for them.

I think we still have to make an investment in green (i.e. sustainable technologies) for the long term (something shareholders and politicians NEVER seem to look at), because eventually, we're gonna run out of oil (be it in 10 years or 200) and the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels is going to make live extra miserable for billions of people in the coming decades.

Spending corporate $$$$ to extract more oil in 2012 is like investing in CRT monitors in 2008 or traditional hard drives in 2011. It is a dying (albeit cheap) technology that is on its way out.

Yay, we've managed to kick the can down the road another decade! Only it takes a bigger foot every time.

The more innovative the energy source, the more expensive it is. This applies to alternative energy as well as fossil fuels. The only reason we can have a $3 million investment in a single fracking operation, or spend hundreds of millions for a pipeline, is because some people are willing to pay that much for it. We may be able to sustain the supply a little longer, maybe even get a short-term price drop, but like every "boom" in all of human history the cost of the resource won't stay any cheaper in the long run. Expensive energy is the same as no energy if you can't afford it.

The peak oil curve is not about running out. It's about not being able to meet the projected demand. What will our demand level for energy be in 50 years? How expensive will the technology have to be to keep up with that demand? Is "Oh, we'll work it out! SCIENCE will come to our rescue!" really a plan?

On top of that, we're not counting externalized costs, like the clean-up from producing and burning all this new-found oil. Every time someone proposes making the energy companies account for these externalized costs, the companies cry like babies. Here's a clue: just because you managed to poop on your neighbor's porch and run away without being seen doesn't mean the work it takes to clean up your mess never has to take place.

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the_poochies
I think we still have to make an investment in green (i.e. sustainable technologies) for the long term (something shareholders and politicians NEVER seem to look at), because eventually, we're gonna run out of oil (be it in 10 years or 200) and the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels is going to make live extra miserable for billions of people in the coming decades.

Spot on, this is what some people never seem to get. Of course, these people may just be young Earth creationists and thus simply believe that oil is being perpetually produced by 'processes' within the Earth's crust.

Republicans only want alternative energy that's not inhibited in any way by pesky regulations or laws protecting people or wildlife or the environment.

They're all for unfettered development, anything that allows big business to get even bigger, with little or no controls or external oversight.

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[www.giyf.com]

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decay
Republicans only want......

Of course generalizations are only valid when they are applied to the other political party ?

My mother loves wearing her "Conservative means Conserving !" T Shirt to Republican rallies.

Aside from the fact that nobody ever said we'd be out of fossil fuel by 2012, a statement not even worth addressing because it's so silly, the claim that North Dakota is some kind of Miracle is pretty naive. We've known about the oil in North Dakota for decades. We just didn't know how to get it out.
And one last point: the fact that "oil production" is up doesn't mean the oil is now never going to run out, in fact logic tells us it means it could run out sooner since we are now taking more out than we were before. But none of the OP was based on logic to begin with, so my last point is kind of moot.

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The Bakken Boom is the biggest in North Dakota history, but it isn't the first. Just ask Kathleen Neset. A New Jersey— bred, Brown University— educated geologist, Neset arrived at the height of the 1979 gas crisis. Prices were soaring and oil companies were thirsty for North Dakota crude, even though it was costly to extract. Neset met her future husband, Roy, while they were working on a rig near Bismarck, and the couple launched a drilling and geological consultancy to help drillers locate the most oil-rich rock. But then the gas crisis ended, oil prices crashed, and "the state went from 146 active drilling rigs in 1981 to basically zero," Neset says.

In the wake of the bust, Roy, Kathleen, and their two sons sup ported themselves mostly by working on their family farm, which had been homesteaded a century earlier by Roy's Norwegian ancestors. But then, in the late 1990s, their oilfield business began climbing again, and since 2008, it has skyrocketed. Today, the Neset Consulting Service has crews working on nearly half of the state's 200-plus active drilling rigs, and Kathleen Neset is one of the best-known women in the state's oil industry.

On a cold, clear day in February, Neset takes me to visit the farm, just outside the town of Tioga. After driving between golden fields of durum wheat, we reach a small hilltop, where a windbreak of ponderosa pines opens to reveal a white farmhouse. Oil was first discovered in North Dakota only a dozen miles from here, in 1951, and behind the Neset farmhouse is a well that was drilled a few years later. Long since abandoned, the rusty artifact is a reminder that people have been trying to suck oil out of North Dakota for six decades, and its presence raises an obvious question: Why has it taken until now for production to kick into overdrive? "Well, we always knew the oil was here," Neset says. "But to get it out of the ground, we had to wait for the technology to catch up."

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The new techniques have given rise to the current Bakken boom, but there are no guarantees that it, too, won't go bust like those of the past. Even when coaxed with the latest techniques, the formation is stingy about releasing hydrocarbons; for example, while production from a new well in a conventional oilfield declines about 5 to 8 percent per year, the output from Bakken wells declines 65 percent after the first year. Ultimately, even if the most wildly optimistic estimate of Bakken oil reserves is correct—around 200 billion barrels—the amount of oil that can actually be recovered may still be only 10 billion barrels or less.

[www.popularmechanics.com]

---

"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno

Of course the big winner in this is the U.S. government which makes far more money in royalty payments off of every barrel of oil than the oil companies make in profits off of the sale of that oil.

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Pam
Then of course there are the farmers. Some of whom have had their land for generations. Guess what, they own the land but not the mineral rights below the land. Guess what, mineral rights trump land rights. So Big Oil can swoop in and drill away. Sure they give you some dollars. But you've lost the land you owned, have to deal with the mess, traffic, and noise, and have lost your way of life. Nope. I would not be so gleefully on the side of Big Oil.

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North Dakota landowners say the state’s claim to oil deposits beneath riverbanks and lake shores is robbing them of millions of dollars in rent and royalties from a drilling boom that has quadrupled crude production in the past five years.

The state is accused in a lawsuit by private landowners along the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers of “unlawful taking of mineral interests” by improperly applying a public-use doctrine dating back to the state’s emergence from territorial status in 1889.

[www.businessweek.com]

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"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno

[naturalresources.house.gov]

---

[www.giyf.com]

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freeradical
Of course the big winner in this is the U.S. government which makes far more money in royalty payments off of every barrel of oil than the oil companies make in profits off of the sale of that oil.

[citation needed]

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Acer
Expensive energy is the same as no energy if you can't afford it.

I am sure this theory does not extend to wind and solar.

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Avenger

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Acer
Expensive energy is the same as no energy if you can't afford it.

I am sure this theory does not extend to wind and solar.

??

It does not.

What happens of course is another case of the disconnect between a conservative and a liberal economic theory, which is summarized by the common liberal voter statement of "Oh.. the Government will pay for that, so it's free !"

No link.. I just hear that kind of stupid from my young adult children's clueless leftist friends all the time. Fortunately my kids got the lecture of TANSTAFFL, so they usually correct the person for me. All I have to do is smile.

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$tevie
the fact that "oil production" is up doesn't mean the oil is now never going to run out, in fact logic tells us it means it could run out sooner since we are now taking more out than we were before

Everything in this world is finite. We may run out of oxygen too. Problem is every time the doom and gloom people warn that we are about to run out of oil, the industry finds another deposit that is good for another 100 years. As far as I am concerned, something that is guaranteed to last for another 100 years, it is practically "infinite".

One question. Since Obama is so desperate for job creation, will he visit Fargo anytime soon to showcase the economy?

Avenger-
Please refer to posting #2 above.

My theory is that to get cheap oil we just have to wait for National Geographic to come out with another issue proclaiming the end of cheap oil. What they are really saying is that they hope for the end of cheap oil.


"Marion King Hubbert was an American geoscientist who caused quite a stir in 1956 when he predicted that petroleum production in the United States would peak between the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many in the oil industry shouted that it wasn’t true and questioned his methods. But when the theory proved true in 1970, Hubbert’s peak oil theory began to be taken seriously – though not by the oil companies who sought to make sure consumers remain addicted to petroleum for their cars and to the vast array of products made from oil."

2004

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cbelt3
Avenger-
Please refer to posting #2 above.

Yes, I appreciated your post. It was right on the money. I always get a chuckle when we were told that using deodorant in the morning was destroying earth.

And FWIW, I READ M. King Hubbert's Peak Oil. He carefully pointed out that his analyis was based on Current Production Methods. I met the man. I attended a few lectures he gave. He had dinner at our house a few times.

Did I mention he was a friend of my father's ?

The "issue" you refer to is the politicization of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD is used as a tool of control, typically of those with weaker minds, IMHO, by politicians who will happily take only part of the 'truth' in order to engender a specific political response.

In other words, it's all a political Jedi Mind Trick, and you've been snookered into responding that 'these are not the politicians we're looking for'.

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Avenger
As far as I am concerned, something that is guaranteed to last for another 100 years, it is practically "infinite"

It's not enough to last for another 100 years. The Popular Mechanics article I quoted clearly states it's going to amount to about 10 billion barrels or less. That's approximately a year and a half of US consumption at best.


Your "I don't give a damn what happens after I am dead" attitude comes as no surprise.

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"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 02:24PM by $tevie.

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Avenger
Everything in this world is finite. We may run out of oxygen too.

Little wonder why the adequacy of science education in the U.S. is called into doubt...

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$tevie



Your "I don't give a damn what happens after I am dead" attitude comes as no surprise.

Fact of the matter is that every generation has solved its own problems and the day we run out of oil will be no different. When they were burning wood they did not worry what the next generation will do. Guess what? Coal came along. And I assure you there were no coal "credits" to force people to switch to coal. Besides, name ONE natural resource that we have run out of. In other words, something that came out of earth at one point but is now totally gone. Heck, they are still mining fresh gold.

Cryolite.

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"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno

Sure sign that you are at your wit's end.

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$tevie

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Avenger
As far as I am concerned, something that is guaranteed to last for another 100 years, it is practically "infinite"

It's not enough to last for another 100 years. The Popular Mechanics article I quoted clearly states it's going to amount to about 10 billion barrels or less. That's approximately a year and a half of US consumption at best.


Your "I don't give a damn what happens after I am dead" attitude comes as no surprise.

Avenger, it looks like when you went to quote my post, you accidentally left off the first paragraph. An easy mistake to make, I suppose.

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"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno

We consume 10 billion barrels in a year and half?

Yes, we do. Look it up. It's out there on the interwebs for anybody to see.

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"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Brian Eno

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Avenger
We consume 10 billion barrels in a year and half?

Not quite, we do a bit more than that

In 2008, the US Oil Consumption is 20,680,000 barrels/day (20.6 Million barrels per day))

20,680,000 x 365 days = 7,548,200,000 (7.5 Billion barrels per year)

In 1.5 years that is 11,322,300,000 (11.3 Billion barrels)

Source: [roopak330.wikidot.com]

---

You can tell a lot about a woman by her hands...
- For example, if they are wrapped around your throat she's probably slightly upset.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 03:51PM by Ombligo.

Oil is used mostly for transportation.

Via heat engines with terrible efficiencies (IIRC, around 20% for a gasser)

OTOH, electric motors are highly efficient,

BUT we've barely scratched the surface for large-format, high-density (read: lithium) batteries.

So batteries suitable for a vehicle are currently very expensive, with limited capacity.

Progress might be slower than we all would like, but the electrification of transportation is coming.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 04:11PM by Bill in NC.

A tankful of gas weighing mere 100lbs can move a 3000lb car for 400 miles. What can 100lb of lithium battery do? When the technology is ready people will notice. You don't have to get on a table and wave your hands.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 04:42PM by Avenger.

So let me digest this -- a thread based on an opening post that is a bunch of strawmen, bundled in a weird collection of distortions and exaggerations. No, the world's supply of oil was not predicted to run out by now. The prediction was that the supply of easily recoverable (read: cheap) petroleum would be drilled down to its half-way point sometime around now. I would suggest that the truth of this prediction has been demonstrated amply. The corollary of that prediction is the increase in the price of oil from a few cents a barrel to several dollars a barrel to dozens of dollars a barrel. The fact that petroleum has been priced at near a hundred dollars a barrel for much of the past few years is entirely consistent with that model for oil depletion. The fact that oil producers will go after sources that are harder to find and more expensive to extract is also part of that set of predictions and is being demonstrated. Back when crude cost about a quarter a barrel to recover in the Arabian peninsula, it would have made no sense to go after tar sands petroleum. At four dollars a gallon for gasoline in the US, it makes sense.

Or to put it another way, if there is so much recoverable petroleum in the US (as the Republican chant of "drill baby drill" would suggest), then why aren't we recovering it, and why, therefore, is gasoline priced higher than 60 cents a gallon?

But sadly, as I've pointed out in the past, some things actually are complicated, and the incessant right wing approach of making fun of arguments and data based solely on their complexity is depressing.

Grade: D+

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Avenger
A tankful of gas weighing mere 100lbs can move a 3000lb car for 400 miles. What can 100lb of lithium battery do?

Not much in a car. Typical battery packs weigh 600 pounds or more.

But they propel the vehicle much more efficiently with about 20-30% of the pollution per mile (when factoring in both pollution from manufacturing and the pollution from power plants based upon the info from a previous thread on this subject). They don't lose torque during acceleration the way that gas powered vehicles do so taking off from a dead-stop is smooth and quick.

Because of these properties, there's a very good chance that most of the car races in this country will be all-electric in 10 years. Electric cars move FAST. The advantages more than make up for the weight-hit in most kinds of competitions. There have already been all-electric Grand Prix challenges in Europe, many of the Pikes Peak challengers are electric this year and NASCAR uses electric pace cars.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 08:44PM by Chakravartin.

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Ca Bob

Or to put it another way, if there is so much recoverable petroleum in the US.... then why aren't we recovering it,

You didn't even read the title of this thread. The reason we are awash in oil now is because of technology that nobody could forecast in the 60s. The same people now want us to depend on their other predictions of doom and gloom. Obama promised to make fossil fuel so expensive to force people off oil "addiction". North Dakota is his worst nightmare. He may want more jobs for sure but doesn't want them that bad.

Grade: D-

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Avenger
Obama promised to make fossil fuel so expensive to force people off oil "addiction".

Cite?

Well said Ca Bob, Chakravartin and Bill in NC. You've taken this train wreck of a thread and elevated the discussion considerably. It doesn't really matter what the naysayers say, economic and environmental forces will continue to move us inexorably away from petroleum and towards more sustainable and less environmentally and economically destructive energy sources. We can only hope that the republicans don't succeed in delaying the transition so much that too much unrecoverable environmental damage is done by tar sand mining. Here's an excellent, if somewhat depressing, TED talk regarding the environmental disaster that being wrought by the tar sand industry: [www.ted.com]

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"So be proud to be a decent American instead of just a w'anker whipping up fear!" - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2012 09:10PM by davester.

So after 4 years you still need a link to find out Obama is not enamored with fossil fuels? OK.

[www.youtube.com]

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Avenger

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Chakravartin

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Avenger
Obama promised to make fossil fuel so expensive to force people off oil "addiction".

Cite?

So after 4 years you still need a link to find out Obama is not enamored with fossil fuels? OK.

[www.youtube.com]

So you allege that Obama made a promise but can't find a quote from him where he made that promise?

Weird.

He's a popular public figure.

You'd think someone would have at least written it down somewhere when he said that stuff.

I realize that this is feeding the troll, but if we really were awash in oil, the price would be pretty low and the cost of fuel would be proportionately low. We are not and it is not.

I would like to point out to my colleagues on this thread that the title is meant to imply that there is an effort to convince people of something that is not true, and the remainder of the many, many comments by the thread author try to suggest that it is us liberals who are trying to manipulate the public into believing an untruth. I would suggest that the real truth is precisely the opposite, with a right wing noise machine that is little more than a propaganda ministry run by the private sector, with its own strange set of nonsensical claims, including the need to ignore global warming. The idea that market forces may work towards counteracting the economic losses that come with the end of cheap oil is obvious. What is not obvious is why the right wing is so determined to deny observable facts, science, and simple arithmetic.

I would also suggest that the US and the rest of the world can deal with a predictable loss of cheap oil and a predictable increase in the price of oil. The problem comes from having unpredictable swings which kill off technical innovation during the downswings in oil prices. The Saudis used to be able to make this happen -- in fact it was a common joke in their side of the industry that every fourth or fifth year should be a year of cheap oil, so as to drive new technology startups into bankruptcy. They don't seem to be able to do that anymore, which should tell us two things: First, renewable energy is going to develop because it is available in the form of sunlight, nuclear power should be brought back as at least an interim, and the US will make use of its natural gas supplies more aggressively until we start to see something equivalent to peak oil, but for gas. Second, we really have reached and possibly gone past the point of "peak oil," because otherwise the Saudis and their Opec allies would be trying to kill off the solar industry. Instead, they seem to be accumulating record profits because they are available, while being unable to bring much in the way of long term stability to the oil market.

As for the price of fuel the last time we hit $4/gal. crude was like $144/barrel. This time crude made it up I think
$106/barrel. Somebody was really making some really big bucks this time around. Gas is back down around
$3.30/gallon around here, I'm sure that's not weighing in too well with Repubs. they were hoping for $5.00 gas
by election time.

As far as Fracking oil, how long is it going to be before they have start trucking in drinking water due to destruction
of the water aquifers in the new oil fields?

I see crude closed at $82 and gas at $2.65 wholesale today.

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cbelt3
Did I mention he was a friend of my father's ?

You have certainly dropped his name several times over the years.

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Pam
Who said we'd be running out of oil about now? Obviously it's a finite resource. Obviously the overwhelming majority of reserves are in the Middle East. is this some sort of tirade against technology and finding ways to be more energy efficient or find other fuels?

When I was a kid (eons ago) we were constantly taught in school the USA had reserves for only 20 yrs. I remember Social Studies (whatever they call Geography these days) always brought this up. I don't know if someone then really believed the 20 yr figure or it was true. Well, here we are...still finding oil.