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Turns out people have been afraid of running out of oil for the last 100 years. Well fear not, there is plenty of oil down there in the earth, and with the latest climate change e-mail theft, you need not to fear that man is causing the planet to warm to a dangerous level. This is all great news for you who have been worried. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112002619.html
Oh yes of course, if the Washington Post says so… it must be true!! Forget about all fact and logic, that one little article puts it all to rest!
Forget the fact that all countries in the world (besides the Middle East, which may as well have too by now) have already reached their production peak and have since declined. They key here is CHEAP OIL, which the world economy depends. You know – gas at $3.00 gallon, oil under $100.. Keep’s the world go round. All that tar sands, Arctic Oil, deep sea deposits – you think its cheap and easy to produce?? If all oil needs rested on those LAST REMAINING SOURCES LEFT, which are so costly and difficult to develop, I could only imagine the price of oil! No, our planet depends on CHEAP and easily produced oil, to keep the economy running and to keep inflation in check. 80+ Million barrels of it a day!! Think about it.. how long can that be sustained?
The moment the “CHEAP OIL” – all the land based, water injected wells – start to decline, then the price of oil will go up, plain and simple. Have you heard of the term EROEI? If not look it up. That plays a HUGE part in oil production and how peak oil is perceived and its effect to the world economy. Its not that there’s no more oil.. its that the cheap, readily accessible, “quick to get outta the ground” oil is running out – and that’s what our economy depends on. OIL IS A FINITE RESOURCE, so to say that it will never run out is plain estupido. Now I hope you don’t start arguing about Abiotic Oil next…
Agreed! Cheap oil is the better term. Oil is a finite resource… And we all saw what happened when oil spiked at $140+… reality raised it’s ugly little head and sent the world economy into a tailspin! And that was just a speculator caused spike! A pretend shortage… or was it a drill to see what would happen?
When the REALITY of oil production and it’s future development cost hit… there won’t be a price retreat back as we saw this time. It will be the new order of things in the world. And folks are NOT going to like it!
Why do you leave out innovation in all this? Do you not think as demand increases oil companies will find new and better ways to get their product to the market?… and no, one article would not end this debate, of course not. There are plenty of factual and logical articles written that disprove your points. Another is here…
“A related argument — that the “easy oil” is gone and that extraction can only become more difficult and cost-ineffective — should be recognized as vague and irrelevant. Drillers in Persia a century ago certainly didn’t consider their work easy, and the mechanized, computerized industry of today is a far sight from 19th-century mule-drawn rigs.”
“Hundreds of fields that produce “easy oil” today were once thought technologically unreachable.”
Oil is finite I agree, I just don’t have the fear that some people have that we will be running out of it anytime soon causing a crazy doomsday scenario where I need to run and hide in Costa Rica to wait out the economic storm.
Why don’t you just appreciate Costa Rica for what it is? Why are there so many conspiracy theories in the minds of those who want to flee from where they live? I understand that you may not like all the rapid government growth over the last 10 years, and the growth still to come, that is reason enough to leave. But all these theories?
You sound just like the scared folks in the 70s, worried that global cooling would bring the world to it’s end and that we would be running out of oil within the next decade.
History does repeat itself. You are afraid of the same things people were afraid of back then.
As the son of an exploration geologist who had been working in the Williston Basin in the mid-seventies, which is now part of the Bakken Formation (N. & S. Dakota to E. Montana, I was prematurely aware of the untapped reserves found in the region and put on the back burner, but which is now accessible due to technology. The current estimates put the total reserves at larger than the entire middle-east combined, right in our own back yard. This, in the conjunction with the deep water finds in the gulf would make the US self-sufficient for over a century, but that would be the continuation of the burning of fossil fuels and not current environmentally palatable, thus environmental impediments have been erected by a minority that impact the majority with respect to extracting this oil. Peak oil has not peaked yet, but based on the current 1-2% annual increase in consumption, the intersection in the graph is possibly 75-85 years off unless a huge increase is efficiency achieved, more alternative energy sources are utilized and/or substitute agricultutral based products for plastics are developed. Current automotive technology has made leaps in efficiency. BMW currently has a hybrid diesel sports car that achives 365 hp, governed at 150 mph and gets 90 mpg. VW is developming a 200 mpg hybrid diesel. The technology is there, just not available to the mass market yet. Alternative sources are ever increasing with wind and solar. Many plastics for the automotive inustry are derved from plant sources, th most hopeful being the algae based products. Jet fuel is being made from this an Bil Gates has personally ivnvested $1 billion in this industry.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Crises, weather real or perceived creates a desparate atmosphere for innovetion.[quote=”Roark”]Turns out people have been afraid of running out of oil for the last 100 years. Well fear not, there is plenty of oil down there in the earth, and with the latest climate change e-mail theft, you need not to fear that man is causing the planet to warm to a dangerous level. This is all great news for you who have been worried. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/20/AR2009112002619.html%5B/quote%5D
Let’s say for the sake of arguement that we aren’t in danger of running out of oil. Our country’s and other country’s political decisions are increasingly driven by oil. This is very scary. Why not use the remaining oil to make sustainable systems that will give us free energy (solar, wind, hydro) where ever we can. This will reduce our dependence on oil and we will then have oil for an even longer time.
Lets say also that there is no such thing as human induced global warming. I am more concerned with global toxicity. I think this is a more pressing problem. What will it matter if the earth warms up if we kill off ourselves and other species in the world by poisoning our environment? If we take action to reduce the polution of our environment, these same actions should reduce greenhouse gases as well.
[quote=”Roark”]
Oil is finite I agree, I just don’t have the fear that some people have that we will be running out of it anytime soon causing a crazy doomsday scenario where I need to run and hide in Costa Rica to wait out the economic storm.Why don’t you just appreciate Costa Rica for what it is? Why are there so many conspiracy theories in the minds of those who want to flee from where they live? I understand that you may not like all the rapid government growth over the last 10 years, and the growth still to come, that is reason enough to leave. But all these theories? [/quote]
All these theories.. Right, so many to list. Like they are my theories… and I made all this up from the top of my head. I am scared and hiding in a cave. Thats what you make it out like I am. In reality I have read the facts and don’t believe technology will save us. Your statement “Why dont you just appreciate Costa Rica for what it is?” – what do you mean by that? Please explain
The difference is, between your beliefs and mine.. if your right, you can continue your polluting life on the earth for years to come until a different devastating even occures. However if your wrong, you will go down with the rest of the sheep thinking, oh crap, maybe I should have prepared. Both ways, given the way you live your life of consumption and pollution, are negative contributions to both the planet, the future, and yourself.
If I am wrong, I will be still be enjoying a life of better living, less impact on the planet, and be thankful for the time we have here. While if I am right, well.. I would be doing the same exact thing.. growing my own food, trying to sustain myself – and will be a whole lot better off then you, and the masses.
As to your comment “Why don’t you appreciate Costa Rica for what it is??”, what is Costa Rica then and how am I not appreciating it?
I am also more concerned with global toxicity. Quit cutting down the forests, plant 2+ tress for everything ever removed and the CO2 sink will take more out of the atmosphere, however, we are centuries off from returning to pre-industrial levels at current pollution levels (see NatGeo’s latest issue). The reality is that you cannot just switch the oil spiggot off and expect people to adopt new technologies in an instant, especially if the cost/benefit is so skewed that it causes an undue economic hardship. Bridging the gap is what I am a proponent of. If global toxicity is a major concern, then something other than silicon wafers must be developed for solar power, for its manufacture is quite toxic; Intel in Heredia has to dispose of byproduct outside of CR’s borders by agreement. Many solar voltaic silicon wafers are the rejects from the computer industry, which can be considered a recycled material. Thin film solar is a relatively new, much less impactive solution. This is just one example how quickly these new technologies can adapt with a consumer demand. What is often miss is the total resources consumed to create the infrastructure for new technologies. If the finite resources used to create an alternative exceeds a more established energy source, then the balance of resource impacts is actually detrimental.
Until the gap is narrowed between petroleum and alternative energies, there are millions upon millions of ships, trains, trucks and heavy equipment that will continue to run on oil for a long time to come. Railroads can haul the equivalent of 250 trucks worth of goods on the same amount of fuel.Your all discussing the wrong topic here if your concern is about survival. I have no idea how much peak oil is left, how severely we are poisoning our environment or whether or not technology can solve those potential problems. But I DO have a strong sense that there are way too many people on the planet and that is what is aggravating the above issues.
Theories put the maximum sustainable population at between 7 billion and 14 billion inhabitants, depending upon how much technology can mitigate.In other words,at the lower estimate, 7 billion, nasty consequences begin manifesting. You can imagine what those would be. Put too many rats into a cage and you can watch how nature resolves overpopulation.
The superstitious religious and the nut job right wingers don’t like the more humane and pragmatic solution which is forced birth control BEFORE conception, such as the Chinese practiced. Instead, these people talk about god’s mandate to multiply or how we have unlimited room and resources. You can identify both from their slogan “drill, baby drill” .
Problem with China is that there are now way to many males than females in their country because of their one child policy. 126 males to about 106 females. It is a foolish policy that is having horrible consequences. Population is not the problem, the lack of free markets around the world is.
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