Fed's OK Commercial Oil Production In Alaska

[Nbadan]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Interior Department on Friday gave final approval to a plan by ConocoPhillips and partner Anadarko Petroleum Corp. to develop five tracts around the oil-rich Alpine field on Alaska's North Slope.

The department's Bureau of Land Management authorized the first commercial development of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, allowing the companies to go forward with developing the tracts, which are located in the northeastern corner of the reserve.

Production from these fields, which together hold more than 330 million barrels of oil, will start by 2006, according to the BLM. They will supplement production from the Alpine fields, which hold 429 million barrels and have a daily oil output of about 100,000 barrels.

<snip>

The petroleum reserve, the size of Indiana, was set aside in 1923 for its energy potential, but until recently it has been ignored in favor of the region to the east, around the giant Prudhoe Bay field. The Bush administration believes the new Congress next year will approve oil drilling in the separate Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which may hold up to 16 billion barrels of crude.

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/15/energy.alaska.drilling.reut/)

Next ANWR?

95 percent of the Arctic coastline (map) is already open to oil drilling and exploration. Consider this: current operations in Alaska's North Slope at Prudhoe Bay are run under the strictest environmental standards, yet there is more than one spill per day of crude oil, refined oil products, or hazardous substances. In 1999, these spills released 45,000 gallons of crude oil, diesel fuel, propane, and ethylene glycol, among other substances.

[Drachen]

DAMN! this sucks, we have to leave our greasy black fingers all over this damned country.

[Yonivore]

DAMN! this sucks, we have to leave our greasy black fingers all over this damned country.
Oh Jeeze!

[Hook Dem]

DAMN! this sucks, we have to leave our greasy black fingers all over this damned country.
Has the Health Dept. been by Saltgrass to check your greasy fingers? :lol

[ChumpDumper]

We're going to drill in all these places, it's just a matter of time.

Still won't keep us from running out someday.

[Yonivore]

We're going to drill in all these places, it's just a matter of time.

Still won't keep us from running out someday.
Okay, before you chain yourself to an iceberg off the coast of ANWR (because there's absolutely nothing to chain yourself to IN the refuge), be advised that drilling will be conducted on less than .01%, that's right 1/100 of a percent, of the total area that comprises the refuge. That's like whining about the amount of space Nbadanallah takes up at when he strolls through Hemisphere Plaza. It's a distasteful thought but, inconsequential.

[Hook Dem]

^^^ :lol ^^^

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

So when Kerry was trumpeting this a few weeks ago it was a great idea, now it's an earthen outrage?

Pot, kettle.

[ChumpDumper]

Okay, before you chain yourself to an iceberg off the coast of ANWR (because there's absolutely nothing to chain yourself to IN the refuge), be advised that drilling will be conducted on less than .01%, that's right 1/100 of a percent, of the total area that comprises the refuge. That's like whining about the amount of space Nbadanallah takes up at when he strolls through Hemisphere Plaza. It's a distasteful thought but, inconsequential.Thanks for missing the point yet again, dipshits. You notice I never said please don't do it. It's going to be done -- it's human nature. And since it's such a miniscule amount (of course you left out all the clearing etc, needed to simply have access to the drill sites) it will make absolutely no difference to actual supply or the timeline for running out of oil.

[Yonivore]

Thanks for missing the point yet again, dipshits. You notice I never said please don't do it. It's going to be done -- it's human nature. And since it's such a miniscule amount (of course you left out all the clearing etc, needed to simply have access to the drill sites) it will make absolutely no difference to actual supply or the timeline for running out of oil.
Okay, the supply has been going to run out in 20 years for the past 60.

[ChumpDumper]

Okay, the supply has been going to run out in 20 years for the past 60.Nah, most of us will be dead when it runs out completely.

But it will run out.

[Marcus Bryant]

Provided a host of assumptions hold, to say the least.

[ChumpDumper]

Provided a host of assumptions hold, to say the least.Which ones?

That we keep using a lot of oil?

That China continues to develop?

I'm not betting against these things. Are you?

[Yonivore]

Which ones?

That we keep using a lot of oil?

That China continues to develop?

I'm not betting against these things. Are you?
Let's start with the assumptions that reserves are finite and non-renewable (refilling reserves in the Gulf of Mexico seem to contradict that) and that all reserves have been located, (it's a big planet).

Then, let's move into the assumption that humans are incapable of devising alternatives when they become necessary; that we've not come this far on our innovative nature and ability to invent.

Finally, let's not forget the assumption that there may be a yet to be discovered alternative.

[ChumpDumper]

Let's start with the assumptions that reserves are finite and non-renewable (refilling reserves in the Gulf of Mexico seem to contradict that) and that all reserves have been located, (it's a big planet).Refilled with what? You do know how long it takes an oil deposit to form, don't you?
Then, let's move into the assumption that humans are incapable of devising alternatives when they become necessary; that we've not come this far on our innovative nature and ability to invent.The sooner the better; we're complacent in this particular case.
Finally, let's not forget the assumption that there may be a yet to be discovered alternative.So ifs and buts are indeed candy and nuts.

As I said, we don't have to worry for ourselves, save the idle bitching about $2.00 gas and the occasional war. So nothing will get done.

[Marcus Bryant]

Assuming that petroleum is even used as an energy source 50 years from now, for starters.

Assuming that refining processes as well as other production processes do not change in their efficiency so as to prolong the useful life of known and undiscovered reserves.

And so on and so forth.

[Drachen]

How about taking all the funding that is going into this project and diverting it towards fuel-cell research?? THAT way we dont have to kill the local fauna and flora in order to get to the oil, AND we dont have to be so dependant on oil, this seems to be a win win situation to me, I fail to see the downside.

P.S. I am against this no matter who suggested it.

[ChumpDumper]

Assuming that petroleum is even used as an energy source 50 years from now, for starters.Of course it won't.

We'll be out.

[Marcus Bryant]

Source? Put up or shut up.

[Marcus Bryant]

You seem to be assuming that proven reserves are the only petroleum left on the planet.

[ChumpDumper]

What's yours?

Put up or shut up.

It's all speculation.

You can find support for any argument.

[ChumpDumper]

You seem to be assuming that proven reserves are the only petroleum left on the planet.Please stick to the "we'll find some other energy source" argument or formally announce a flip-flop to the "we'll never run out" angle.

[Marcus Bryant]

So you have no source. All I had to do was provide some assumptions. You, on the other hand, need to come with something other than your usual delightful bluster.

You are full of shit, per usual.

To get you up to speed, here you go:



http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=497454

Will the oil run out?

Feb 8th 2001
The Economist

Eventually, yes; but by then it might no longer matter

A SHIMMERING pleasure palace rises up out of the sands outside Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. It is surrounded by manicured gardens and extensive grounds in which hundreds of exquisitely groomed camels disport themselves. In this overprivileged spot, the owner, a favourite prince of the ruling family, recently threw a sumptuous banquet for foreign dignitaries. The guest of honour was the custodian of the gooey gold that makes such opulence possible: Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s minister of petroleum. Even Bill Richardson, then America’s energy minister, took the trouble to attend.

But how long will that black gold continue to ensure such prosperity? Mr Naimi has his answer ready. “I am not in the business of forecasting or dreaming,” he says with a wry smile, “but I am certain of one thing: hydrocarbons will remain the fuel of choice for the 21st century.”

That puts him at odds with the growing chorus of those (including the best-known of his predecessors, Sheikh Zaki Yamani) who say that oil’s grip on energy markets may soon start to weaken. The prospective scarcity of oil, the argument goes, combined with the instability of undemocratic Arab regimes, will cause a steep rise in hydrocarbons prices over the next two decades. The voracious demand for oil in the developing world will make things even worse. All this will speed the transition to cleaner alternatives.

Doomsters have been predicting dry wells since the 1970s, but so far the oil is still gushing. Vast sums have been spent and professional reputations staked on trying to guess what proportion of the total amount of conventional oil in the ground mankind has already consumed. The extreme pessimists among leading geologists, such as Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère, argue that depletion is now close to the psychologically important half-way mark. The extreme optimists, such as the experts at America’s Geological Survey, argue that this turning point is still decades away. Most take up a position somewhere in-between. Shell’s Ged Davis expects the half-way mark to be reached some time between 2015 and 2030. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which represents the big energy-consuming nations, agrees that many oil fields outside the Middle East will soon mature, but does not expect a global supply crunch in the next 20 years.

In the past, pundits have rarely got their oil forecasts right. Nearly all the predictions made in the wake of the 1970s oil shocks for oil prices in 2000 were way off the mark. America’s Department of Energy, for example, thought that oil at the turn of the century would reach $250 a barrel (at 2000 prices). Planners at Exxon predicted a price of $100, which was still way out, but at least their forecast for oil demand in 2000 was spot on.

One of the best forecasting records is that of Morris Adelman, a professor at MIT. He has long insisted that oil is not only plentiful, but also that it is a “fungible, global commodity” that will find its way to markets regardless of politics, making nonsense of all the talk about energy security and independence. “Back in 1973, I predicted in The Economist that if the Arabs don’t sell us oil, somebody else will,” he recalls. One reason for his optimism has been the poor quality of information about reserves in most parts of the world. It turns out that there is much more oil hidden away under the earth’s surface than most people imagined back in the 1970s.

Even Exxon says it has learned one crucial lesson from earlier forecasting mistakes: it greatly underestimated the power of technology. Thanks to advances in exploration and production technology, the amount of oil available has increased enormously. Even hitherto uneconomic hydrocarbons such as tar sands are becoming more attractive. Shell’s Mr Moody-Stuart says that such “non-traditional oil will eventually behave like non-OPEC oil or marginal fields do today: if OPEC raises prices too much, these sources will help regulate the price.”

But can this pace of innovation continue? “You must be kidding: we’re just getting started,” says Euan Baird, the boss of Schlumberger, a giant oil-services firm. Mr Adelman, too, accepts that tomorrow’s oil-exploration technology is bound to be better than today’s. That is why he dismisses the idea of an oil crisis in the short to medium term. “Scarcity is still assumed even by reasonable men and middle-of-the-road forecasters, but that is wrong. For the next 25 to 50 years, the oil available to the market is for all intents and purposes infinite.”

Looking for a quiet life

But scarcity is not the only reason why the world might move away from oil. The unnerving volatility of oil prices, together with growing concern about the environmental impact of hydrocarbons, is already spurring the search for alternatives. In time, such investments might well produce innovations that will break oil’s near-monopoly on the global transport market. A quote now making the rounds in the energy business sums up the argument: “The stone age did not end because the world ran out of stones, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

The past few years have provided a useful reminder that price gyrations impose real pain on economies, at both extremes. When oil prices collapsed to around $10 a barrel in early 1999, many producer countries got into dire straits. When prices soared above $30 a barrel last year, consumer economies got squeezed in turn. The worst-hit were newly industrialised countries such as Thailand and South Korea which, unlike the OECD countries, have become far more reliant on oil over the past 20 years.

There have been political repercussions, too. Several West European economies nearly ground to a halt last September as lorry drivers, farmers and other heavy petrol users revolted against high prices at the pump. America’s politicians faced similar fury over heating oil last autumn, just before the elections, prompting the president to release some oil from the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Yet volatile energy prices, however irksome, are clearly here to stay. The world had been lulled into a false sense of security by the decade-long period of low and stable prices following the collapse of oil prices in the mid-1980s (except for a brief spike surrounding the Gulf war). Taking a longer view, however, volatility and unpredictability in oil prices appear to be the norm, as they are for every other commodity. Indeed, they seem worse under the fractious and ill-disciplined OPEC oil cartel than they would be either in a free market or in a strong monopoly. What is more, changes in the oil business in the past few years have had the effect of increasing volatility. According to Michael Lynch of WEFA, an economic consultancy, the decade of stable oil prices that consumers enjoyed until recently was due chiefly to a prolonged glut in production capacity. But that came to an end as demand soared and investment by OPEC producers failed to keep pace. Today only Saudi Arabia has significant spare capacity. And there has been a lot of cost-cutting in the industry recently that has left the oil market with smaller stocks and therefore much more exposed to price spikes. If the world’s thirst for oil is to be met, CERA reckons that oil supply must increase by a quarter over the next ten years, to at least 100m barrels per day. But it calculates that world production capacity today is 6m barrels per day lower than it would have been had there been no price collapse two years ago.

Mr West, the consultant, worries about bottlenecks in the refining and pipelines system. He points out that in America no one has built a new refinery in 20 years, despite strong growth in demand. This is because a combination of low margins, red tape, ever tougher environmental regulations and the NIMBY (not in my back yard) syndrome have conspired to make this part of the oil business thoroughly unattractive.

The green imperative

Asked about their biggest worry for the future, however, most industry bosses will say greenery. At the global level, their main headache is climate change. The clearest sign of change is the progress, albeit in fits and starts, of the Kyoto Protocol, a pact among industrial countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. For years the industry tried to ridicule the sandals-and-beards brigade and dismiss any scientific evidence suggesting that burning fossil fuels might contribute to global warming. Now it has softened its stance.

A summit last November to discuss the Kyoto treaty ended in failure, but many energy firms now accept that national restraints on carbon emissions are likely to be introduced in the medium term. Indeed, a growing band of companies, led by BP and Shell, are already preparing for the day when the price of carbon emissions is no longer zero. Mr Moody-Stuart thinks the Kyoto pact is crucial because it forces businesses to “put their best and sharpest minds on the task” of reducing carbon emissions. Other firms, notably Exxon, publicly scoff about global warming, but are quietly investing huge sums in carbon-related technology.

If oilmen are getting headaches over global warming, they are suffering migraines over local air pollution. Concerns about the environmental harm, and especially the effect on human health, of burning fossil fuels have risen to the top of the agenda in many countries. The rich world is imposing ever stricter emissions standards on refineries and power-generation plants, as well as tightening the requirements to reduce pollutants in petrol. And poorer countries too, as they gradually become better off, are putting pressure on energy companies to clean up. “Concern over the environment will not be linear, but it will be an extremely significant and irreversible force over the longer term, especially in developing countries,” says BP’s John Browne. Like its rival Shell, BP has made a big shift towards natural gas, and placed hedging bets on renewable energy and hydrogen fuel cells as well.

Drowning in oil—and loving it

So are the doomsayers right in predicting oil’s demise, even if they are wrong about the causes? Perhaps, but it might be a long wait. As the old lags of the energy business like to say, “The best substitute for gasoline is gasoline,” and it seems pretty plain that oil will be dislodged only by something that is equally cheap, easy to use and efficient—and less polluting. Even if such a thing can be found, oil could be around for decades yet, so great are the sunk investments in infrastructure, so strong the power of incumbency, so impressive the advances in fossil-fuel technology—and, quite possibly, so vast the remaining deposits.

If still in doubt, visit Al-Shaybah. Flying over the inhospitable expanses of Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter, you will see nothing but a desolate stretch of desert, larger than France; yet tucked away under the striking red sand dunes is one of the world’s largest oil fields. Aramco, the government oil company controlled by Mr Naimi, had to invest a total of $2.5 billion to bring the Shaybah field on stream, but since it opened in 1999, its vast output of over 600,000 barrels a day has already repaid that investment. For the next 100 years, everything it produces will be undiluted profit. And as you stare down on Shaybah, consider that Saudi Arabia could develop another dozen fields of the same size without beginning to make a dent in its proven reserves. Oil may not be tomorrow’s fuel, but today could go on for an awfully long time.

[Marcus Bryant]

Please stick to the "we'll find some other energy source" argument or formally announce a flip-flop to the "we'll never run out" angle.

I'll argue what I like you hard up bitch. Small wonder you live alone.

[ChumpDumper]

My live-in girlfriend is laughing at you.
Crude Awakening
A prominent physicist warns in a new book that the world is running out of oil and we’re not doing anything to stave off the coming crisis
IMG: offshore drilling
Michael A. Mariant / AP
Oil platforms drill for what’s left of the oil off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek
Updated: 3:47 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2004

Feb. 17 - Remember 1973? If you do, there are plenty of reasons to wish you didn’t. Chief among them (right after leisure suits) would be the oil crisis that began in October. The Middle Eastern OPEC nations stopped exports to the United States and other Western nations just as stateside oil production was peaking. The artificial shortage that followed had devastating effects: The price of gas quadrupled in the United States, climbing from 25 cents to more than a dollar, in a matter of months. The American Automobile Association reported that in one isolated week up to 20 percent of the country’s gas stations had no fuel; in some places motorists were forced to wait in line for two to three hours to gas up. The number of homes built with gas heat dropped.

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But that was the 1970s and this is now, right? Not according to David Goodstein. Saudi princes and SUV drivers may do well to read his new book, “Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil” (W.W. Norton), in which Goodstein argues that our oil-dependent civilization is in for a crude awakening when the world’s oil supply really begins to run out—possibly within a few decades. “As we learned in 1973, the effects of an oil shortage can be immediate and drastic, while it may take years, perhaps decades, to replace the vast infrastructure that supports the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of the products of the 20 million barrels of oil we Americans alone gobble up each day,” he writes.

Goodstein’s book is not a happy read, but an important one. In layman’s terms, he explains the science behind his prediction and why other fossil fuels might not do the trick when the wells run dry. Goodstein, a physicist and vice-provost at the California Institute of Technology, recently spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about the fundamental principles of oil supply and demand, and whether civilization can survive without fossil fuels. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: This is scary stuff. You’re saying that oil production will soon peak.
IMG: David Goodstein
Neil France
David Goodstein says facing up to the coming oil crisis is ‘hard and we’re not trying’
David Goodstein: The prediction that it will peak—that is to say the crisis will come when we reach a peak when half the oil has been used up—that prediction quantitatively is unquestionably true. But the quantitative question of when the peak will occur depends on extremely undependable numbers. The so-called proven oil reserves as reported by various countries and companies around the world are often just guesses and they’re often not even honest guesses. Among those who would analyze those figures, some have predicted that it will come as early as this year; others, within this decade. It could possibly be in the next decade. But I think that’s about as far as you can push it.

Let’s start at the beginning. What is oil and what do we use it for?
Oil is hydrocarbons that grew up in the earth when source rock full of organic inclusions sank to just the right depth—not too little and not too much—and got cooked over the ages. It took hundreds of millions of years for the world’s supply of oil to be created. The oil is used to make gasoline obviously, but also home heating oil, diesel fuel but also 90 percent of all the organic chemicals that we use. That includes pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, plastics, fabrics and so on. They are petrochemicals, meaning they originate as oil.

So our demand, regardless of supply, is unlikely to decrease anytime soon.
Well, the need for those hydrocarbon materials has been increasing for 150 years and will go on increasing especially because the world’s population is increasing. The poorer parts of the world want to increase their standard of living, which inevitably means using more energy. Fossil fuels are our principal source of energy.

You used an interesting word: “need.” Do we need the oil or is it something that we have just become dependent on?
We have certainly become dependent on it. This is a habit that will be very, very difficult to break.

Knowing human behavior and how hard the habit is to break, we probably won't, in all likelihood, break it.
I think we will not. One of the reasons I wrote the book was in the hope that enough people will become aware of the problem and we will be a little better prepared.

How do you suggest people prepare now?
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Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil by David Goodstein
Right now we don’t have the kind of leadership that would take us in the direction that would make major changes. As individuals we can do things; I drive a hybrid car, for example. But as a society we have to redesign cities so that people live close to where they work. There are all kinds of measures. We are so profligate in the use of energy that even with the smallest effort we can reduce the rate at which we use energy very significantly, as Californians showed after the last energy crisis. But what we really need is massive infusion of research on all of the possible ways of ameliorating this problem.

You’re talking about researching fusion and fuel cells and —
Fusion, fuel cells, biomass. There are all kinds of possibilities, but none of them are worth a thing unless you’ve shown that it actually works. You’ve got to prototype it; you’ve got to show that it can be scaled up, that it can be done on a large scale. And so on.

You write that the crisis doesn’t happen when we run out of oil, it happens when we reach the peak, the halfway point. Explain that.
We had a peak once before—it was in 1973. The production in North American had reached its peak in 1970 and was declining. Supplies were not available in North America and the Arab countries embargoed the oil; they shut down the pipeline. We had an immediate, instantaneous panic, mile-long lines at gas stations and fear for the future of our way of life. That was an artificial, temporary peak. And it’s just a slight foretaste of what will happen when we reach the real [global] peak and supplies start to decline and continue to decline forever.

So what happens then? Do we revert to coal?
It’s possible for us to revert either to natural gas or to coal or both. Among consequences are the increasing global climate change. But another consequence is, let us suppose you tried to substitute coal for oil. Natural gas is a good substitute and it will last for a while but it will have its own peak one or two decades after oil, so it’s only a temporary solution. If you turn to coal, we’re now using twice as much energy from oil as we are from coal. So if you want to liquefy coal as a substitute for oil in transportation—which is its most important application—you would have to mine coal at a rate that’s many, many times at the rate of what we’re doing now. But the conversion process is very inefficient. So you’d have to mine much more than that. If you put that together with the growing world population and the fact that the rest of the world wants to increase its standard of living, you realize that the estimates that say we have hundreds of years worth of coal in the ground are wrong by a factor of ten or more. So we will run out of all fossil fuels. Coal will peak just like any natural resource. We will reach the peak for all fossil fuels by the end of the century.

You mentioned transportation as one of oil’s greatest uses. Doesn’t alternative technology already exist?
Not exactly, no. We tried electric cars and that was sort of more or less withdrawn from the market. I think there was plenty of demand. But when I tried to buy an EV1 some years ago, they said that the car had a range of 50 to 100 miles, but there was an onboard computer that always told you what your range was and when it was freshly charged, it had a range of about 30 miles. And they only sold them in California and Arizona because they were useless in colder climates. So that’s not the solution. There are advanced batteries—the kind of batteries that we use now in our cell phones and laptops are lithium ion batteries and they have about five times the energy density of the old lead acid batteries. So if you could imagine something like an EV1 with five times the range, that starts to become believable. But nobody is showing that you can scale up the lithium ion batteries to use in transportation.

And another alternative is nuclear.
Nuclear is an alternative, but remember you’re not going to have any nuclear cars and nuclear airplanes. Nuclear is not a substitute for oil. There’s a lot of talk about hydrogen because of the president’s initiative—the governor of California has also announced an initiative. I think what people don’t understand about hydrogen is that it is not a source of energy. You have to use energy to make hydrogen—it’s just a way of storing and transporting energy. And with today’s economics and today’s technology, it takes the equivalent of six gallons of gasoline to make enough hydrogen to replace one gallon of gasoline.

How do we know that all the oil that will be discovered has been discovered?
We don’t know that all the oil that will be discovered has been discovered, and this is a somewhat controversial subject. But we do know that the peak in oil discovery occurred decades ago. The rate at which we’ve been discovering new oil has been declining for decades. That’s one of the arguments that the peak in oil supply must be coming soon because the supply curve follows the discovery curve by a few decades. The United States Geological Survey conducted an exhaustive study between 1995 and 2000 and gave out a statistical output in which they said that the amount of oil that we started with, we could be 95 percent certain, was at least 2 trillion barrels. But they also thought there was a 50 percent chance that there was 2.7 trillion barrels. The difference between those two is 700 billion barrels of oil—that’s the entire reserves of the Middle East. They were predicting discovering the Middle East all over again. That’s pretty implausible. But if you really did add 700 billion barrels to the world’s oil supply, it would delay the peak by about a decade. So we’re not talking about really something that does away with the problem.

And opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska?
It makes no dent at all. It isn’t even worth talking about.

Is there a silver lining here?
I really don’t think so. If the peak comes and we can’t get our act together fast enough to make up for it, you will end up with people all over the world burning coal as fast as they can just for the space heating and primitive industry. And if you do that the effect on the climate is completely unpredictable.

What about solar energy?
Solar energy will be an important component, an important part of the solution. If you want to gather enough solar energy to replace the fossil fuel that we’re burning today—and remember we’re going to need more fossil fuel in the future- using current technology, then you would have to cover something like 220,000 square kilometers with solar cells. That’s far more than all the rooftops in the country. It would be a piece of land about 300 miles on a side, which is big but not unthinkable. But making that area of solar cells one heck of a challenge because all of the solar cells every made probably wouldn’t cover more than 10 square kilometers. This is not impossible. It’s just difficult. It’s hard and we’re not trying.

You’re a physicist by training.
This is not my research field. I do research in a completely different field. I just thought that this was such an important problem that somebody ought to write a book about it. I am not an expert—there is no subject covered in that book about which I know more than anybody else. If you want to know about superfluid helium or certain kinds of phase transitions I may know more than anybody else in the world. I just thought I should lend my pen to this cause.

Have people been calling you an alarmist? A doomsayer?
What people have been saying is ‘listen to what he’s saying. He’s not an alarmist.’
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4287300/site/newsweek/

[Marcus Bryant]

Ah yes, the imaginary girlfriend. Hug that pillow tight tonight, Proud Mary.

[ChumpDumper]

How long will the world's oil last?
As production peaks, economic impact could be dire
By John W. Schoen
Senior Producer
MSNBC
Updated: 5:10 p.m. ET Oct. 25, 2004

HOUSTON - When the modern oil industry was born 145 years ago in Titusville, Pa., few people worried about just how long petroleum would keep flowing out of the ground. But since production peaked in the United States in 1970, a growing number of geologists, economists and industry analysts have been pondering the question of just how long worldwide supplies will keep up with growing demand. And some are predicting that global production may peak as soon as next year.

The outlook is muddied by the data. Estimating oil reserves — how much is left in the ground — is a notoriously perilous endeavor. The task is complicated by the secrecy of OPEC producers, who are reluctant to dislose just how much oil they’ve found.

This year, global demand for oil — currently at more than 80 million barrels per day and climbing — has come closer than ever to exceeding the world’s known production capacity. Disruptions in oil supply — due to wars or market forces like OPEC embargoes — are nothing new. But with producers pumping as fast as they can, there is little cushion for temporary supply interruptions or heightened demand from industrializing countries like China and India.

“We really are close enough to the edge to have no excess capacity. Demand growth shows no sign of slowing and now it seems to be accelerating,” said Matt Simmons, a Houston-based investment banker. “It’s really important to know what the real story is — as bad as it may be.”

Another Great Depression?
No one is suggesting that the world oil industry is close to pumping its last drop. But the question now being raised is whether new reserves can be discovered fast enough to both replace depleted oil fields and keep up with growing demand. Some argue that the world is rapdily approaching the point where the pace of oil depletion overtakes the growth in new supplies.

“The worry is whether there is something worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s waiting for us — particularly that the United States gets heavily hurt because we burn a quarter of the world’s oil,” said Princeton University geologist Kenneth Deffeyes.

Deffeyes is perhaps the leading proponent of the work of the late M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist who accurately predicted, in a controversial 1956 paper, that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970. Deffeyes has applied Hubbert’s work to global oil supplies and has come up with his own projection for peak global production. He expects world production to peak around Thanksgiving of 2005, give or take a few weeks.

But with a surge to record oil prices in recent weeks and gasoline consistently selling in the $2 a gallon range for most of the summer, energy issues have played a surprisingly low profile in the presidential campaign. The reason, experts say, are clear: There are no simple solutions.

“The presidential candidates aren’t going to stand up and say ‘I’ve got bad news.” said Deffeyes. “They don’t want to promise you blood, sweat and tears. So it’s not being debated as an issue on the presidential campaign.”

No more 'cheap' oil
Oil industry officials say there are still promising regions that have not been fully developed, including areas of Alaska and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. that are currently off limits. But they generally agree that the days of major new finds of cheap oil are over.

“There is lots of oil out there,” said Karl Kurz, vice president of marketing and minerals for Anadarko Petroleum. “But it’s a finite resource; we can’t get around that. Eventually, you’re going to get to the point where there’s not any more to find.”

There are skeptics to the production peak theory. Morry Adelman, an MIT economics professor, says there is plenty of oil around as long consumers are willing to pay the price to produce it.

"There are a lot of prospects that were not worth developing before which are worth developing now. And there are a whole lot of prospects which were not found before which are worth looking for and worth developing today.”

A lot depends, of course, on just how much oil remains underground. Many of those who fear a production peak is imminent base their forecast on estimates of what geologists call the “ultimate recoverable resource” of about 2 trillion barrels of oil. But there’s disagreement among geologists on that number. A comprehensive study by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2000 estimated that some 3 trillion barrels of oil will ultimately be produced. Adelman argues that the amount of oil left to be produced is “unknowable.”

Regardless of how much oil remains in the ground, says Deffeyes, the critical bottleneck is production capacity. “I can’t drive into the filling station and say fill her up with reserves.”

Deffeyes argues that production capacity has grown more slowly than demand – based on production figures that are a lot more reliable than reserve data.

“Production is a pretty firm number,” he said. “Oil gets counted twice: once when it gets produced and once when it goes into the refinery. So we pretty much know how much is produced, and my Thanksgiving Day prediction is entirely based on production.”

In theory, higher oil prices should expand supplies, by bringing on line oil that just isn’t profitable to produce at lower prices. But the recent surge in prices and continued growth in demand haven’t been matched by a major boost in oil industry capital spending on exploration and production.

New spending has been constrained, in part, by political instability in parts of the world believed to hold vast potential, such as Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and parts of Africa. But Big Oil is gun shy for other reasons. The sting is still fresh from a major investment boom in the 1990s, when the industry lost heavily when it bet on an oil price run-up that collapsed following a global recession. By 1998, the price of a barrel of oil had fallen to $12.

“I would say the oil companies are right -- those of them that have not made commitments on the basis of $30 to $40 oil,” said Adelman. “Because the price is going to turn around and may turn around quite drastically.”

“Seeing” underground
Meanwhile, technology is expanding the industry’s ability to find and extract oil – in some case finding new fields once thought to be fully exploited.

Horizontal drilling has provided access to pockets of petroleum otherwise unaffordable or unreachable. So-called 3D visualization, in widespread use for the past five years allows geologists to “see” underground formations with a degree of clarity and detail unimaginable a decade ago. Advances in remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are extending the reach of deep-water exploration and production further and further offshore.

“There’s no such thing as limitless, but the limits keep being expanded all the time,” said Adelman. “There are many offshore places that in the fullness of time will get explored. But I don’t know (how much oil) there is there, and in fact nobody does. That’s the kind of frontier you have. It’s disorderly.”

Adherents to imminent peak forecasts point to data showing that the overall pace of new discoveries has been slowing. If increased production isn’t accompanied by expanded discovery of new reserves, all that new technology is simply depleting existing fields more rapidly, said Simmons, the Houston invesment banker.

“Modern technology has created super straws that do not extend the amount of oil by any significant degree,” he said, “but actually suck out the amount you were ultimately going to get a lot faster.”

Economists also argue that higher oil prices will eventually reduce demand as consumers choose more efficient cars and energy producers develop alternatives like wind power. But there is no way to predict whether oil demand will fall fast enough – or alternative energy sources will be developed quickly enough -- to avoid an economic shock like the oil shortages of the 1970s.

'Hard' landing or 'soft'?
The debate over oil reserve estimates and demand-production trends is not just academic; at stake is nothing less than the economic well-being of the world over the next few decades. There are numerous scenarios describing the transition from a global economy based on fossil fuels to whatever energy sources ultimately replace them. The most extreme pessimists – found on Web sites like dieoff.com – foresee a kind of global return to the Stone Age as a world deprived of energy is beset by anarchy and starvation.

And even the most optimistic scientists who believe oil production will soon peak warn that the transition to a post-petroleum world will require an enormous undertaking involving breakthrough technologies and massive amounts of capital.

“If I’m right about the time scale we’ve got a problem,” said Deffeyes. “I don’t think you could reverse the decline. In an ideal world you might stretch the time decline of the curve out about five years. “

In the meantime, many scientists are looking for those alternatives sources. Some have suggested that technologies promoting cleaner-burning coal -– still in plentiful supply in the U.S. -– will help bridge the oil gap. Others have suggested that nuclear power will become more attractive if oil production declines too rapidly. Wind power, more widely used outside the U.S., has a proven track record. More advanced technologies -– like the conversion of coal to hydrogen –- also show promise, but are years from commercial production.

Some are already beginning to sketch out what the world’s energy infrastructure will look like later in this century. The so-called “hydrogen” economy has been widely touted because it relied on an energy source that produces no carbon or other pollutants when burned. But hydrogen requires massive amounts of electricity to produce; it’s also difficult to transport and store in small quantities for use in, say, the family automobile.

Carbon tubes
Dr. Richard Smalley at Rice University thinks the answer may be found in a fundamental overhaul of the global electrical grid. Smalley won a Nobel Price in Chemistry in 1996 for his work in the discovery of fullerenes, a structure of carbon atoms arranged in a closed shell. He’s now working on tiny carbon tubes that could be used to produce a highly-conductive, carbon-based wire that would improve the efficiency of the electrical grid and permit cheaper long-distance power transmission. He also envisions advanced electrical storage devices that would allow homeowners and businesses to smooth out periods of peak power production and demand. But the breakthroughs needed to make that happen will amount to “minor miracles,” he said.

“And at the rate were going, we won’t have anything nearly soon enough,” he said. “Frankly, even if we has the technology right now to supplant to the current energy system with something new and wonderful, it would still take us several decades to do it because its such a big enterprise.”

As a result, Smalley and others looking at the transition away from petroleum say conservation will inevitably play a role – because every gallon of gasoline saved or megawatt of energy not used is the equivalent of producing more.

“At some stage , someone is going to have to stand up and say, ‘We have a problem here and I think we ought to go out and solve it,’” said Smalley. “But at the present moment neither of the people involved in our presidential race have found the words or the motivation to do this.”http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5945678/

Feel free to flip-flop again, little boy.

[Marcus Bryant]

Tsk tsk. msnbc.com? Must've been the first thing google brought up.

[ChumpDumper]

You asked for a source, little boy. And you got it, courtesy of your friends at General Electric.

As I said before, you can find support for any viewpoint. Mine reflects human nature.

[Marcus Bryant]

Awww, don't be mad. Anyways, the most pessimistic projections for petroleum production have halfway depletion as being several decades away and still able to meet various scenarios of ever increasing demand. If perhaps you'd bring something from the EIA, USGS, or from Pennwell then you might be taken seriously.

Until then have fun trying to find someone to argue with you tonight until you hit your cold lonely bed.

[ChumpDumper]

Awww, don't be mad. Anyways, the most pessimistic projections for petroleum production have peak production as being several decades away.Um, no they don't. Try reading the sources you whine about wanting, m'kay?
Until then have fun trying to find someone to argue with you tonight until you hit your cold lonely bed.Don't project anymore, m'kay? My girl is spitting her food out laughing at you.

[Yonivore]

My girl is spitting her food out laughing at you.
I'm not that cheap...but, I'm betting there are people in this forum who've been waiting for you to say something like this...

Have at 'im boys.

[ChumpDumper]

If you are thinking it, why not say it?

Really, if you have to resort to personal attacks, at least get your facts straight.

[whottt]

No matter what I really hope we get off oil soon...I want to get to the flying car era like they show in the Jetsons. I think that would be cool.

[Marcus Bryant]

Yoni, I agree. It is not surprising that she would claim to have a "girlfriend" who 'spits food' well into the evening. Must be a real beaut.

[2pac]

The sooner our homes are 100% Nuclear, the better.

[ChumpDumper]

It is not surprising that she....And there's the ignorance.

Bravo.

[Yonivore]

Nah, most of us will be dead when it runs out completely.

But it will run out.
Yeah, and the sun will flicker out too...

[MannyIsGod]

Marcus, you're all over the fucking place. Just a few months ago you posted an article discussing the real possiblity of peak oil, and now you argue the opposite.

Well, I guess that other article made more sense when you were still backing the libertarian party but once you became GOP stock it didn't seem to fly anymore.

The reality is that this drilling is unessecary and foolish. We have the technology to move away from pretroleum as an energy source as a country and we are chained to the oil companies which allow us no room to move forward.

To say that oil is not going to be used as an energy source 50 years from now is foolish considering that unless Europe and the US pour incredible amounts of money into the Chinese and Indian energy systems, they will use incresingly large amounts of coal and oil.

I'm not going to hold my breath for that to happen.

[Marcus Bryant]

Marcus, you're all over the fucking place. Just a few months ago you posted an article discussing the real possiblity of peak oil, and now you argue the opposite.

Sure, it's a possibility someday. Then we'd still have a shitload of petroleum left. Not arguing the "opposite" at all kiddo.



Well, I guess that other article made more sense when you were still backing the libertarian party but once you became GOP stock it didn't seem to fly anymore.

Awww, are you mad? Perhaps you should turn this anger into something productive, like moving yourself from the "Some College" category into the "College Grad" one.




The reality is that this drilling is unessecary and foolish. We have the technology to move away from pretroleum as an energy source as a country and we are chained to the oil companies which allow us no room to move forward.

Really? Why isn't that technology being commericalized?




To say that oil is not going to be used as an energy source 50 years from now is foolish considering that unless Europe and the US pour incredible amounts of money into the Chinese and Indian energy systems, they will use incresingly large amounts of coal and oil.

What happens when the Chinese and Indians grow tired of ever increasing energy prices?

Also, I didn't say that oil wasn't going to be used as an energy source 50 years from now, just that it is a rather significant assumption to make. Given the demand in the West for "cleaner" sources of energy and the rather obvious commercial possibilities should a cheap alternative source of energy be developed I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that petroleum will still be a major source of energy five decades from now.




I'm not going to hold my breath for that to happen.


Oh no.

[MannyIsGod]

"Really? Why isn't that technology being commericalized?"

See Also - Exxon Mobile , Valero and others.

[Marcus Bryant]

Oh so it's a conspiracy. Chat with danny about that.

[MannyIsGod]

Oh and Marcus, as for my some college, it will be college grad soon. Then I wonder what you'll harp me about then?

Do you really want to make this personal?

[MannyIsGod]

No it's not a conspiracy fucker. It's the oil companies having all the fucking clout. Do you deny that they are a huge obstacle torwards alternative energy????

[2pac]

Oh and Marcus, as for my some college, it will be college grad soon. Then I wonder what you'll harp me about then?

Do you really want to make this personal?

My guess is the ears.

[Marcus Bryant]

Oh and Marcus, as for my some college, it will be college grad soon.

Congrats.



Then I wonder what you'll harp me about then?

Do you really want to make this personal?

Sure, why not? Doesn't bother me any.

[Marcus Bryant]

No it's not a conspiracy

Oh really?



fucker.


Awww, someone's mad.



It's the oil companies having all the fucking clout.

Which of course leads to a conspiratorial claim.



Do you deny that they are a huge obstacle torwards alternative energy????

Sure in the long run they aren't much of an obstacle.

[MannyIsGod]

Ok, then it's a conspiracy, but it's an acknowledged one. Except by you, but well, that doesn't mean much.

Hows the sand?

[Marcus Bryant]

Ok, then it's a conspiracy, but it's an acknowledged one.

Eh? I'll edit my comment when you decide what you wanted to write.




Except by you, but well, that doesn't mean much.

Even if such a conspiracy existed it is not sustainable. If the technology really existed then it would eventually be brought to market.




Hows the sand?

It was good on the coast when I was down there last month.

[MannyIsGod]

I know, conspiracies like that NEVER happen. Thats why the moment seatbelts and airbags were avaiable, automakers RACED to put them in. You know, the economics of the situation demanded it.

[Marcus Bryant]

You really think that if the technology existed for a non-polluting engine which ran on water, for example, and could be priced in the same range as the current gas based ones that it wouldn't happen? Given how the Big 3 have been sucking it up for well over a decade if they had something like that available to them there is no way they are going to sit on it.

What's the incentive for them to not bring it to market? Sure, commercializing the technology would require some incremental investment but it's not like they would have to totally recreate their entire manufacturing and distribution ops. They are losing market share as it is so the status quo isn't exactly that desirable.

As for the major E&P companies, I'm sure they are well aware of this as a distinct threat. Hence more motivation for them to develop their reserves and improve the efficiency of their operations.

If the major auto manufacturers resisted then you can bet that someone else would raise the capital and get it started, given the potential market.

Hence the reason I feel that it is a bit of a major assumption to make that petroleum will still be used as a major energy source half a century from now. Especially with as many consumers becoming more 'concerned about the environment' over time.

[Marcus Bryant]

Also in re seatbelts and airbags, a major problem was that the consumers weren't exactly exhibiting a strong desire for them.

[Opinionater]

IMHO, man will be the ultimate destroyer of the planet because of our disrespect for Mother Earth.

[MannyIsGod]

You prooved my damn point and the sad point is you don't realize it.

Alternative energy sources have never had the same kind of backing that oil based energy has. NEVER, and it's not even close. Why? Because the wind and the sun are not for sale.

Of course there wasn't demand for seatbelts, the general public buys what the corporations want them to buy.

Yes, all things being equal in a society where every citizen is informed about how every decision or purchase they make effects their world, there would be an outcry for cleaner and more efficent engines and alternative fuel sources.

But we don't live in that kind of information utopia and we never will. I don't think the soccer mom who drives an SUV that gets 12 miles to the gallon on a good day realizes that she places an undue burdon not only on the enviroment but also on our dependency of forgien oil.

While a taxes forcing more efficent engines and forcing people to conserve more and use mass transit whenever possible as well as car pooling would actually be a good thing in this country, you'll never see one pass becaue of numerous lobies. The unions would cry bloody murder, the auto makers and oil companies would do the same. Even if there were exemptions to save industries like the airlines and shipping from carrying the burden, they would also cry out.

If the government were to invest seriously in alternative energies, the lobbies would also raise hell.

Private investing? Where the hell is the money going to come from to compete with the Big 3 and the oil comapnies??? Godamn, I listend to the CEO rattle on and on about how they were at no risk from the electric car, and how they were going to take steps to make sure they were secure for years to come. These people don't give a flying fuck about the consquences of their business, as long as they can show the stockholders they are making money.

[Marcus Bryant]

You prooved my damn point and the sad point is you don't realize it.

Alternative energy sources have never had the same kind of backing that oil based energy has. NEVER, and it's not even close. Why? Because the wind and the sun are not for sale.


Doesn't matter. Of course petroleum exploration and production is going to attract greater investment. There's a proven market and a proven technology for turning that petroleum into energy. Now with regards to "alternative energy" there is certainly a potential market, yet the problem is that the technology is not close at all to being commercialized. And don't act as though there isn't a significant amount of research currently underway into making that a reality.





Of course there wasn't demand for seatbelts, the general public buys what the corporations want them to buy.

This is the fatal flaw of your worldview. Corporations ultimately give the consumers what they want or someone else will come along and do it instead. I'm sure many a marketing VP would love to hear that all a company has to do is tell the consumers to buy their product.

Also, if the Big 3 are so powerful why have they underperformed so badly over the last decade?




Yes, all things being equal in a society where every citizen is informed about how every decision or purchase they make effects their world, there would be an outcry for cleaner and more efficent engines and alternative fuel sources.


Oh, I think the public by and large understands that there is an environmental impact from using petroleum as such a major energy source.



But we don't live in that kind of information utopia and we never will. I don't think the soccer mom who drives an SUV that gets 12 miles to the gallon on a good day realizes that she places an undue burdon not only on the enviroment but also on our dependency of forgien oil.


Oh, it's not hard to get those soccer moms concerned about the "environment". But the primary stumbling block is, again, the technology.



While a taxes forcing more efficent engines and forcing people to conserve more and use mass transit whenever possible as well as car pooling would actually be a good thing in this country, you'll never see one pass becaue of numerous lobies.


Yeah, including the lobby of people who don't feel like spending $4 a gallon or whatever to get around.



The unions would cry bloody murder, the auto makers and oil companies would do the same. Even if there were exemptions to save industries like the airlines and shipping from carrying the burden, they would also cry out.


What about the general public? Why must we pay for your hysteria?




If the government were to invest seriously in alternative energies, the lobbies would also raise hell.


And yet it does.



Private investing? Where the hell is the money going to come from to compete with the Big 3 and the oil comapnies???

Where the hell did money come from to compete with IBM, for example? How'd Amazon.com raise money to compete with the major entrenched retail bookstores? Why'd DVDs replace VHS? VCs are always looking for a technology which could capture a market. Size is significant but it isn't the be and end all. What ultimately matters is whether or not you have a product that sells. If the technology existed for a car to run on water and be priced competitively then the money could be raised.



Godamn, I listend to the CEO rattle on and on about how they were at no risk from the electric car, and how they were going to take steps to make sure they were secure for years to come.

Sure, expensive to operate and cumbersome as well. If the technology existed which enabled someone to simply fill up a tank of water and then run much like the current combustion engine model that wouldn't be a problem at all.



These people don't give a flying fuck about the consquences of their business, as long as they can show the stockholders they are making money.

Yeah, I'm sure Ford and GM shareholders are some happy mofos right about now.

[NameDropper]

Perhaps if more rode bikes we wouldn't be in this mess and we'd all be a lot thinner.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Here's a thought I haven't seen posited on this thread yet, and one that CIA experts on Osama have trumpeted time and again:

The sooner the US becomes self-reliant on energy matters, the sooner we can cut ties with the Mideast and not worry about our interests, and implicit in that withdrawal is that a lot of the beefs of the Muslim world towards us will go away.

But this requires too much thought for some of you probably so I'll dumb it down:

We don't need oil from the Mideast, a lot of our reason for being there goes away, we go away, Al Qaeda and a lot of their sympathizers go away.

[Drachen]

OK, I get it, so the sooner we discourage oil companies from focusing on oil, and encourage them to focus on some other energy source, the sooner al-qaeda leaves us alone. I say DO IT!!

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I don't know that I'd say it's all about removing the focus on oil, just a coupling of the drive for alternative fuel sources being balanced out by oil companies looking closer to home for their sources.

We are also aggressively working with Russia on the oil situation - they have several large deposits, as well as many more thought to be still out there, that would allow us to remove our reliance on Middle Eastern oil, and accordingly remove our heavy involvement/presence in the Mideast. I interviewed for a job with one of the Houston oil conglomerates in the spring about a job in Russia (I speak Russian), but had no interest in going from Texas to cold ass Russia.

If we remove our interest in the Middle East (dependance on oil), our reason for having a heavy presence in the Mideast will disappear. Think back to earlier this year when we removed forces from Germany, because the Russia threat (cold war) was no longer there.

Same thing with the Middle East - if we don't need their oil to heat our homes and power our vehicles, etc., we don't need to have a presence there to make sure said supply is not messed with.

I'm glad you understand where this is coming from. There's several very knowledgable folks near the top of our national security structure who have come to this conclusion, and Bush is quietly setting the wheels of change in motion on this.

Of course, you won't hear our admin. come out and say this is what we are doing, because if we did OPEC would promptly jack up prices to capitalize while they could. One day it will happen, and we will be able to breathe a little easier WRT the ideology Osama has brought to radical Islam.

[Marcus Bryant]

What really matters is how much of an impact the ME has on the price of crude, not necessarily if the US relies on that region for its supply.

[MannyIsGod]

And if we don't need them for it, their control over price goes down a fucking hell of a lot marcus.

AHF, I've said that before. If the national mpg average were 33 we'd be self fucking reliant. Yet, there is still no support for a damn gas tax. These SUV's driving down the road with one fucking person are costing us BILLIONS in overseas expenditures but everyone is too damn nearsighted to view it that way.

We'd have to patrol the whole middle east, well, NOT AT ALL. That's a HUGE amount of savings.

Of course, national mpg averages are actually FALLING due to the rush for big engines with little mileage.

[T Park]

of course also the 1.7 BILLION that was allocated to Hydrogen Fuel cell technology is never brought up.

[Drachen]

of course also the 1.7 BILLION that was allocated to Hydrogen Fuel cell technology is never brought up.


Im sorry man, but this is a drop in the bucket compared to dirtier energy sources. Its like people acting all high and mighty about the funding that ALS gets, when it gets 25 Million out of the 52 billion that is spent on medical research. (sorry the example is a little out of left field, but it was on my mind). Also, I hear (history channel) that we are now looking to try nuclear power again. Why do we have to continually have regressive thinking. If we want to reduce our dependence on ME oil, why not think outside the box and try to reduce our dependence on OIL (there needs to be no adjective in front of OIL), rather than just finding another way to uphold the status quo.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

They are trying to bring back nuclear to eliminate the need for heating oil in the north. My brother runs a nuke power plant up about 3 hours from Chicago. The talk is to increase nuclear power production, bury the power lines, and supply heating to all homes via electrical means.

I think the big thing holding back hydrogen is it's a volatile substance.

With all the money floating around out there for energy research though, something will shake out.

[MannyIsGod]

1.7 Billion over how many years Tpark?

It's nothing compared to how much money is spent on oil. Maybe thats why it's never brought up. It's an atempt to patronize the public into thinking there is an attempt to develop it at the pace it should be developed. People like you buy it.

[Marcus Bryant]

If there was really technology which could displace petroleum as a source of energy today then it would be commercialized.

Your oil controls the world conspiracy theory simply because of the magnitude of the E&P industry is naive, at best.

[MannyIsGod]

It's not in the interest of the people who have much to gain by continuing to sell oil. So would it be?

[Drachen]

Heh, Manny, it seems you and I have something in common. Both of us are left leaning moderates (although I must say I am not extremely moderate, but I guess relatively I am) it seems (I say this because we argue points in other forums but not to the point of lunacy), but this particular thread is where we really go much further left than any other subject.

[Marcus Bryant]

So what does that matter? Competition is the name of the game kiddo. If the technology is there to mass produce a car that will run on water and be priced the same as current autos and cost in the same range to operate then it'd be a reality.

It doesn't matter how big the E&P industry is. Large industries have been displaced before.

[Marcus Bryant]

VCs are looking for shit like this all the time. A technology which can create a new market and displace an old one. I don't know where you are getting these conspiratorial ideas but I would suggest you stop believing them.

[MannyIsGod]

You're right, the oil companies are just going to drift off into the sunset Marcus because the consumer will demand it.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/05/ma_375_01.html

Hydrogen's Dirty Secret

President Bush promises that fuel-cell cars will be free of pollution. But if he has his way, the cars of tomorrow will run on hydrogen made from fossil fuels.

By Barry C. Lynn

May/June 2003 Issue




E-mail article
Print article




New Energy Solutions Incorporated
American Solar Energy Society
The Hydrogen Fuel Cell Institute

E-mail the editor


When President Bush unveiled his plans for a hydrogen-powered car in his State of the Union address in January, he proposed $1.2 billion in spending to develop a revolutionary automobile that will be "pollution-free." The new vehicle, he declared, will rely on "a simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen" to power a car "producing only water, not exhaust fumes." Within 20 years, the president vowed, fuel-cell cars will "make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of oil."

By launching an ambitious program to develop what he calls the "Freedom Car," Bush seemed determined to realize the kind of future that hydrogen-car supporters have envisioned for years. Using existing technology, hydrogen can be easily and cleanly extracted from water. Electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines is used to split the water's hydrogen atoms from its oxygen atoms. The hydrogen is then recombined with oxygen in fuel cells, where it releases electrons that drive an electric motor in a car. What Bush didn't reveal in his nationwide address, however, is that his administration has been working quietly to ensure that the system used to produce hydrogen will be as fossil fuel-dependent -- and potentially as dirty -- as the one that fuels today's SUVs. According to the administration's National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap, drafted last year in concert with the energy industry, up to 90 percent of all hydrogen will be refined from oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels -- in a process using energy generated by burning oil, coal, and natural gas. The remaining 10 percent will be cracked from water using nuclear energy.

Such a system, experts say, would effectively eliminate most of the benefits offered by hydrogen. Although the fuel-cell cars themselves may emit nothing but water vapor, the process of producing the fuel cells from hydrocarbons will continue America's dependence on fossil fuels and leave behind carbon dioxide, the primary cause of global warming.

Mike Nicklas, chair of the American Solar Energy Society, was one of 224 energy experts invited by the Department of Energy to develop the government's Roadmap last spring. The sessions, environmentalists quickly discovered, were dominated by representatives from the oil, coal, and nuclear industries. "All the emphasis was on how the process would benefit traditional energy industries," recalls Nicklas, who sat on a committee chaired by an executive from ChevronTexaco. "The whole meeting had been staged to get a particular result, which was a plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels and not from renewables." The plan does not call for a single ounce of hydrogen to come from power generated by the sun or the wind, concluding that such technologies "need further development for hydrogen production to be more cost competitive."

But instead of investing in developing those sources, the budget that Bush submitted to Congress pays scant attention to renewable methods of producing hydrogen. More than half of all hydrogen funding is earmarked for automakers and the energy industry. Under the president's plan, more than $22 million of hydrogen research for 2004 will be devoted to coal, nuclear power, and natural gas, compared with $17 million for renewable sources. Overall funding for renewable research and energy conservation, meanwhile, will be slashed by more than $86 million. "Cutting R&D for renewable sources and replacing them with fossil and nuclear doesn't make for a sustainable approach," says Jason Mark, director of the clean vehicles program for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The oil and chemical industries already produce 9 million tons of hydrogen each year, most of it from natural gas, and transport it through hundreds of miles of pipelines to fuel the space shuttle and to remove sulfur from petroleum refineries. The administration's plan lays the groundwork to expand that infrastructure -- guaranteeing that oil and gas companies will profit from any transition to hydrogen. Lauren Segal, general manager of hydrogen development for BP, puts it succinctly: "We view hydrogen as a way to really grow our natural-gas business."

To protect its fuel franchise, the energy industry has moved swiftly in recent years to shape government policy toward hydrogen. In 1999, oil companies and automakers began attending the meetings of an obscure group called the National Hydrogen Association. Founded in 1989 by scientists from government labs and universities, the association was a haven for many of the small companies -- fuel-cell designers, electrolyzer makers -- that were dabbling in hydrogen power. The group promoted the use of hydrogen but was careful not to take any position on who would make the fuel or how.

All that changed once the energy industry got involved. "All of a sudden Shell joined our board, and then the interest grew very quickly," says Karen Miller, the association's vice president. "Our chair last year was from BP; this year our chair is from ChevronTexaco." The companies quickly began to use the association as a platform to lobby for more federal funding for research, and to push the government to emphasize fossil fuels in the national energy plan for hydrogen. Along with the big automakers, energy companies also formed a consortium called the International Hydrogen Infrastructure Group to monitor federal officials charged with developing fuel cells. "Basically," says Neil Rossmeissl, a hydrogen standards expert at the Department of Energy, "what they do is look over our shoulder at doe to make sure we are doing what they think is the right thing."

As hydrogen gained momentum, the oil companies rushed to buy up interests in technology companies developing ways to refine and store the new fuel. Texaco has invested $82 million in a firm called Energy Conversion Devices, and Shell now owns half of Hydrogen Source. BP, Chevron-Texaco, ExxonMobil, Ford, and General Electric have also locked up the services of many of America's top energy scientists, devoting more than $270 million to hydrogen research at MIT, Princeton, and Stanford.

Such funding will help ensure that oil and gas producers continue to profit even if automakers manage to put millions of fuel-cell cars on the road. "The major energy companies have several hundred billions of dollars, at the least, invested in their businesses, and there is a real interest in keeping and utilizing that infrastructure in the future," says Frank Ingriselli, former president of Texaco Technology Ventures. "And these companies certainly have the balance sheets and wherewithal to make it happen."

The stakes in the current battle over hydrogen are high. Devoting the bulk of federal research funding to making hydrogen from fossil fuels rather than water will enable oil and gas companies to provide lower-priced hydrogen. That, in turn, means that pipelines built to transport hydrogen will stretch to, say, a BP gas field in Canada, rather than an independent wind farm in North Dakota. Even if the rest of the world switches to hydrogen manufactured from water, says Nicklas, "Americans may end up dependent on fossil fuels for generations."

The administration's plans to manufacture hydrogen from fossil fuels could also contribute to global warming by leaving behind carbon dioxide. Oil and coal companies insist they will be able to "sequester" the carbon permanently by pumping it deep into the ocean or underground. But the doe calls such approaches "very high risk," and no one knows how much that would cost, how much other environmental disruption that might cause, or whether that would actually work. "Which path we take will have a huge effect one way or the other on the total amount of carbon pumped into the atmosphere over the next century," says James MacKenzie, a physicist with the World Resources Institute.

Even if industry manages to safely contain the carbon left behind, the Bush administration's plan to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels will wind up wasting energy. John Heywood, director of MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab, says a system that extracts hydrogen from oil and natural gas and stores it in fuel cells would actually be no more energy efficient than America's present gasoline- based system.

"If the hydrogen does not come from renewable sources," Heywood says, "then it is simply not worth doing, environmentally or economically." What do you think?

[Marcus Bryant]

Such funding will help ensure that oil and gas producers continue to profit even if automakers manage to put millions of fuel-cell cars on the road.

So what's the problem? That is simply shocking. "Big Oil" is hedging their bets so if the technology pans out, they can move into the next industry. They are also providing capital for that fledgling technology.

Honestly, re-read the article. It pretty much runs counter to your argument.

[Marcus Bryant]

The bottomline is that you don't need the government involved if the technology is there. The investment will come from other sources.

[MannyIsGod]

Alternative energy pathfinder: Who needs fossil fuel anyway?

By TERENCE CHEA - Associated Press Writer - 11/16/04

Amory Lovins drives a hybrid that gets 64 miles per gallon and lives in a solar-powered house that is so energy-efficient he's able to grow bananas in an indoor jungle high in the Colorado Rockies.

Yet the 54-year-old renewable energy evangelist, who emerged as one of the most influential energy thinkers three decades ago during the last oil crisis, is no anti-establishment foe of the free market.

The United States can end its dependence on foreign oil and make money along the way, he argued at a recent environmental conference in San Rafael, Calif., with the salesman-like flair of a Fortune 500 chief preaching to a hall of shareholders.

Crude prices have hit record highs this year as haggard U.S. soldiers daily meet death in the country with the world's second-largest oil reserves, casualties in an expensive war Lovins would argue it's folly to fight if - as some Bush administration critics charge - it's really all about fossil fuel.

''The United States can get completely off oil and revitalize its economy led by business for profit,'' says Lovins, who runs the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colo. ''Saving and substituting for oil costs less than buying oil. Getting completely off oil makes sense and makes money.''


A new book by Lovins and his think-tank colleagues, ''Winning the Oil Endgame,'' offers a technology-driven blueprint to wean the country off petroleum within a few decades: first, double the fuel efficiency of cars, trucks and airplanes; then replace gasoline with alternative fuels such as ethanol and hydrogen.

The transition to a post-petroleum future will generate jobs, create new industries, reduce greenhouse gases and improve national security, he says.

For now, automakers and energy firms need to adopt new business strategies, and lawmakers need to craft policies that promote this oil-free future. By Lovins' estimates, it will require an investment of $180 billion over 10 years.

-READ THIS TPARK : do you now see why 1.7 Billion is jack shit?

That's less than the U.S. involvement in Iraq will end up costing, and Lovins says it will save $70 billion a year by 2025.

''Right now, the world supply-demand balance for oil is so terribly tight that any little thing just throws the market into a tizzy,'' Lovins said in a recent interview. ''We're not going to drill our way out of this one.''

Many experts agree that the country's oil dependency is unsustainable and encourages economic volatility, global warming and geopolitical instability. Automakers are already developing more fuel-efficient vehicles that run on hybrid-electric engines, clean diesel, biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells.

But Lovins says the auto industry won't move fast enough without the guiding hand of federal authorities. To fuel a quicker transition to alternative fuels, Lovins says the government should spend more on research into fuel efficient technology, advanced materials and alternative fuels.

To pay for such programs, Lovins proposes fees on gas-guzzling vehicles and the opposite - rebates - for fuel-efficient vehicles. In addition, low-income Americans would be assisted financially to buy or lease efficient vehicles.

Lovins' message doesn't sit well with the auto industry.

It's consumers, not think tanks, who determine whether more energy-efficient technologies will succeed commercially, said Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

''Consumers are in the driver's seat,'' she said. ''Many consumers don't want to sacrifice performance, passenger room, cargo space, safety and even towing ability for greater fuel efficiency.''


Even though greater fuel efficeny is more beneficial to the country, consumers are short sighted as proved by industry spokespeople. This is why it is difficult to say that consumers will drive the market in the correct direction on their own.

Other obstacles also block the road to an oil-free future - hydrogen- and biofuel-powered vehicles are years away from becoming mainstream.

Lovins acknowledges the challenges, but is convinced that good sense - along with environmental sustainability - are on his side.

He's certainly never been content to follow convention. Born in Washington, D.C., he studied physics at Harvard and Oxford universities, but dropped out of both to pursue his interest in energy policy.

''I realized that energy was at the root of many security, development and environment problems,'' says Lovins, who gained national attention in 1976 with his Foreign Affairs essay, ''Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken.''

While most analysts were focused on how to secure more oil - what he calls the ''hard energy path'' - Lovins argued for the ''soft energy path'' of boosting fuel efficiency and developing alternative fuels.

Lovins has since authored more than two dozen books, founded the Rocky Mountain Institute in 1982 and advised governments and industries worldwide.

While other environmentalists argue about political approaches, Lovins crunches the numbers needed to win over business executives and policy-makers in Washington.

His plan in brief:

Oil consumption can be reduced by half by doubling fuel efficiency, mainly through ultralight vehicles with advanced materials such as carbon fiber that improve both safety and performance.

''We no longer have to choose between making cars light and safe,'' he says.

Meanwhile, the nation must transition to alternative fuels. Ethanol from corn is now sold in some Midwestern states but hasn't proven economical elsewhere. Lovins advocates making ethanol from plant waste, such as corn stalks, switchgrass and poplar trees.

Another alternative is hydrogen, often touted as the fuel of the future. Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen without harmful emissions. Lovins wants to boost the efficiency of natural gas and use the saved energy to produce the hydrogen.

If his ideas were widely adopted, Lovins calculates that the country could stop importing oil by 2040 and run without oil by 2050.

Long before then, fuel efficient cars and alternative fuels could become new growth industries for urban and rural America.

''We're in that period where one idea is dying and another is struggling to be born,'' Lovins says.

On the Net:

Rocky Mountain Institute: http://www.rmi.org

[MannyIsGod]

I disagree because most people in the consumer base don't understand the benifit that these type of measures would have. The consumer base is short sighted, and I believe this is a case where government intervention is going to be needed.

IN TNEORY, the consumer base should be able to dictate it's needs and demands very well with it's purchase power. But, when the consumer base is not aware of what is in it's best interests it will make decisions that are not in line with those which would be most beneficial.

[Marcus Bryant]

Many experts agree that the country's oil dependency is unsustainable and encourages economic volatility, global warming and geopolitical instability. Automakers are already developing more fuel-efficient vehicles that run on hybrid-electric engines, clean diesel, biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells.

There you go. Automakers have an incentive to develop those technologies and are doing so. That doesn't mean that it will pan out, but they certainly aren't counting on the status quo.

[MannyIsGod]

So what's the problem? That is simply shocking. "Big Oil" is hedging their bets so if the technology pans out, they can move into the next industry. They are also providing capital for that fledgling technology.

Honestly, re-read the article. It pretty much runs counter to your argument.

The problem is that the pollution will continue. You keep saying that these companies will simply fade away if the market demands it but I keep saying that they are doing all they can to stay in place, even if by doing so they harm the overall population.

[MannyIsGod]

There you go. Automakers have an incentive to develop those technologies and are doing so. That doesn't mean that it will pan out, but they certainly aren't counting on the status quo.

Marcus, I'm not saying they are never going to develop them, I am saying they are doing so at a slower pace than they could be doing so do draw out their profits.

[Marcus Bryant]

I disagree because most people in the consumer base don't understand the benifit that these type of measures would have. The consumer base is short sighted, and I believe this is a case where government intervention is going to be needed.


Oh, I'm sure a large and growing number of consumers are "concerned about the environment". If Ford or GM were able to introduce an easy to operate clean running vehicle in the same price range as their current vehicles then they'd be able to actually boost their flagging share prices, to say the least.



IN TNEORY, the consumer base should be able to dictate it's needs and demands very well with it's purchase power.

In "tneory" and practice, consumers do.



But, when the consumer base is not aware of what is in it's best interests it will make decisions that are not in line with those which would be most beneficial.

Oh, I'd say by and large consumers are. Just look at how many products today are marketed as being enviromentally friendly or what not. Starbucks just announced they were going to use like 15% recycled material in their cups or some such yesterday and the share price went up significantly. Why? Because consumers eat that shit up.

Honestly, if you really care about clean energy technology replacing the old, you'd want the government to stay the F out of the way.

[Marcus Bryant]

The problem is that the pollution will continue. You keep saying that these companies will simply fade away if the market demands it but I keep saying that they are doing all they can to stay in place, even if by doing so they harm the overall population.

Then it's a step. I don't really care for the government being involved at all in this. Anyways, if the technology is there for a low or no polluting technology then someone will develop it.

[MannyIsGod]

You give the american public far more credit than I am willing to.

[Marcus Bryant]

Marcus, I'm not saying they are never going to develop them, I am saying they are doing so at a slower pace than they could be doing so do draw out their profits.

The problem with that is that they also face the prospect that another firm will bring a "clean" technology to market quicker. Competition from within the industry as well as from without.

[MannyIsGod]

It's an not a nessecary step. Fuck man, can you just acknowledge that the oil companies are not looking out for the best interests of the entire country?

[MannyIsGod]

Oh, and if the American public is so concerned with the enviroment, why is it that we have so many godamn SUV's on the road with their shitty gas milage and UNSAFE records?

[Marcus Bryant]

It's an not a nessecary step. Fuck man, can you just acknowledge that the oil companies are not looking out for the best interests of the entire country?

Sure, when you can dispell with this conspiratorial nonsense you read in such esteemed publications as Mother Jones and recognize that just because the government funds or doesn't fund a technology, that doesn't mean it won't be commercialized. I mean this is pretty basic shit. It doesn't matter if those firms invest in it or not. If that technology is real then the money will be there.

[MannyIsGod]

When asked to rank the importance of 56 characteristics they considered when buying a new car, Americans ranked fuel economy 44th. This explains why sport utility vehicles, minivans and light trucks accounted for 54 percent of all new cars bought last year.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/05/20/BAGEJ6O54F1.DTL

[MannyIsGod]

Sure, when you can dispell with this conspiratorial nonsense you read in such esteemed publications as Mother Jones and recognize that just because the government funds or doesn't fund a technology, that doesn't mean it won't be commercialized. I mean this is pretty basic shit. It doesn't matter if those firms invest in it or not. If that technology is real then the money will be there.

You are the one spouting off about consipracies Matt. I started off by saying that oil companies are holding back alternative energies because it suits them, and you said that was a conspiracy.

The technology could be real and profitable NOW. But the fact of the matter is that they can make MORE money eaiser on oil still, then make money on the alternative energies later. That is what I am saying, and someone you say that means it's a conspiracy.

They oil companies are going to do what is in their best interests, which is why I suggest the government take steps to do what is in the general publics best interests. The reason things like this don't happen however, is because of the lobbies of automakers and oil companies. Would you disagree on that ?

[Marcus Bryant]

Oh, and if the American public is so concerned with the enviroment, why is it that we have so many godamn SUV's on the road with their shitty gas milage and UNSAFE records?

If the American public was presented with the choice between a SUV which ran on water and one which ran on gas what do you think the response would be? The market potential of such a technology is huge. More and more products are marketed today as being "enviro-friendly" or what not and people eat that shit up, especially consumers with significant amounts of disposable income.

Sorry, the incentive is too great for such technology to not attract investment.

[MannyIsGod]

Read this carefully.

It is attracting investment. Investment from the same people who are providing us with energy. It is not in their interests to develop the technology as fast as possible. They are going to develop it, but only at a rate in which they can retain their share of the market or increase it, while still squeezing every last dime out of oil based energy.

my arguement is that this is not what is in the best interests of the american general public but only of the shareholders in aforementioned companies.

[Marcus Bryant]

You are the one spouting off about consipracies Matt. I started off by saying that oil companies are holding back alternative energies because it suits them, and you said that was a conspiracy.

Because they can't hold it back.




The technology could be real and profitable NOW. But the fact of the matter is that they can make MORE money eaiser on oil still, then make money on the alternative energies later. That is what I am saying, and someone you say that means it's a conspiracy.

Again, because they cannot prevent it from being developed. If they sleep on it then someone else will make it happen.



They oil companies are going to do what is in their best interests, which is why I suggest the government take steps to do what is in the general publics best interests. The reason things like this don't happen however, is because of the lobbies of automakers and oil companies. Would you disagree on that ?

Sure, for a host of reasons, the first being that the incentive to bring such a disruptive technology to the market is too great to dissuade outside investment. You seem to be assuming that only the government and the major E&P companies can invest in such technology.

Secondly, all of your complaints serve as an argument for less government regulation, not more. Your conspiracy theory relies on the use of government intervention to serve certain interests. Well, if the government isn't involved then that is not a problem.

[MannyIsGod]

There is no source with an interest in the industry high enough with the resources needed to go faster than the current investors.

And there in lies the bottom line disagreement between us, you believe there is.

I don't and thats why I advocate government involvement.

[Marcus Bryant]

Read this carefully.

Oh, I've read your stuff more than I should.



It is attracting investment. Investment from the same people who are providing us with energy. It is not in their interests to develop the technology as fast as possible. They are going to develop it, but only at a rate in which they can retain their share of the market or increase it, while still squeezing every last dime out of oil based energy.


Ugh. For starters, where is it written that those firms are the only ones that can invest in such technology? This is the basic problem with your argument. Secondly, there is an incentive for those firms to develop that technology instead of sitting on it. Why? Again, because of the threat of competition from their peers as well as from outside of the E&P industry.

As for the automakers, it's the same thing. Either they continue to innovate or someone else will and they'll be history.



my arguement is that this is not what is in the best interests of the american general public but only of the shareholders in aforementioned companies.

It is in the interest of the shareholders of those firms to see that the company is doing what it can to maximize its value. If those firms don't bring that technology to market then someone else will, either in the industry or without and shareholder value will be lost.

[Marcus Bryant]

There is no source with an interest in the industry high enough with the resources needed to go faster than the current investors.

Nonsense. Simple nonsense.




And there in lies the bottom line disagreement between us, you believe there is.

I don't and thats why I advocate government involvement.


The potential payoff is too great for it to not attract non-E&P company investment. This is pretty basic shit.