A carbon tax would bypass picking individual winners/losers, like Solyndra. Thanks for the example.
We are actually. That is my point.
Renewables are coming into parity with other sources for electricity, and that will be a game changer.
Efficiencies of scale are already here, and some serious money is flowing into them.
I would like to see a bit of a push in that direction, to accelerate an existing market process.
I believe I posted a link to the USGS report that says we can do this now with existing technology.
No time like the present to get started.
But, we are vulnerable. And, frankly, I'd rather be vulnerable while we work our asses off to supplant our imports from that region of the world than to be vulnerable waiting for magic alternative technology to be developed.
So, "Drill here - drill now!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPECAccording to Mikael Höök, who researches the life cycles of oil fields, despite technological advances that increase the productivity of oil wells, the rate of decline of oil fields will eventually increase as time continues.[34] Energy policy expert Joyce Dargay accuses OPEC, along with several other ins utions, of drastically under predicting future oil demand by 2030 by more than 25%, a difference of 28 million barrels per day (4,500,000 m3/d) or about twice the current amount supplied by Saudi Arabia.[35]
RG, no one is arguing that oil is a finite resource or that alternative energy is bad.
That was written in 09
"technically recoverable" does not mean "economically recoverable".
How much oil would you buy at $1,000 per barrel?
You don't seem to be understanding either what you are posting, nor are you bothering to read what I post.
I have other things to do than to spoon feed you economics and reality.
This statement is made in the context of a Wikipedia article about OPEC. Could he be referring to those fields and not the vast reserves, now discovered and waiting to be exploited here?
I think it's a legitimate question.
I don't know who is Mikael Höök but, the footnote is a paper he co-authored and the le doesn't indicate whether or not he's even referring to domestic oil reserves and their capacity to produce over the next decade or century.
According to the USGS, "technically recoverable" means recoverable with technology available and in use today.
Care to source that $1,000 per barrel nonsense?
And, I'd rather pay more for petroleum based fuel than to keep pouring money down every Solyndra that comes along.
And the bit about Russian oil production was from 03.
Russia's oil production is on the decline, on par with most oil production. They are seriously under-investing in their infrastructure and it is catching up to them. Their ing over of BP didn't help their FDI in that regard either.
Given this, and the likelihood that OPEC has been inflating its reserves for quite some time, there is a good chance that supply will decline a uva lot faster than most scenarios predict.
We'll see, I guess.
All the more reason to ramp it up here at home.
I am done explaining anything to you for the day.
Suit yourself. You've really not explained anything except you have a unusual affinity for Wikipedia that's not receiving the usual condemnation and ridicule this forum typically reserves for such dependence.
Last edited by Yonivore; 12-14-2011 at 03:31 PM.
Wiki what?
Wikipedia. Are you doubting the occurrence of the Iran hostage crisis?
Whereas I used the link to bookmark a timeline of when something occurred without relying on any of its content to make a point -- other that one I thought was universally accepted, you repeatedly used Wikipedia to pretend to validate points that are the very reasons Wikipedia is generally eschewed in this and other forums.
If you like, I can find another link that confirms Iranian revolutionaries attacked and occupied the U. S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979.
Again, who is Mikael Höök, what makes him an authority, and precisely to which oil fields is he referring in your cut and paste from Wikipedia?
RG's performance today is extremely sub-par...
I've never been impressed.
I don't depend on Wikipedia to teach me economics. You do.
The economics I needed to know I got in the three dozen college credit hours I have taken in the subject. , I brush up on the stuff for fun with my old textbooks.
I don't depend on Wikipedia to teach me about oil topics. You do.
The links are not for my benefit. They are for yours.
Regardless, you won't read whatever link I do post, so why should I try very hard to give you information needed to fill in the holes in your knowledge base?
What exactly do you want?
Your OP didn't make sense.
Again, if you like, I can message scott, and I am pretty sure he will back me up.
An oil pipeline from Canada will simply make us MORE vulnerable to foreign supply disruptions, such as the referenced Iranian threats, not less.
The only way to prevent this is to wall off the US oil producers and tell them that they can't sell oil in the world markets.
If you want to be less vulnerable to global oil supply shocks, then simply wean your economy off oil.
From a security standpoint it seems like a no-brainer. I hesitate to really monkey any more than is necessary with free markets, but when it comes to security, I think it is probably an acceptable cost.
The least intrusive way to reduce our vulnerability is a general tax that simply "sets the rules" for the market, then let's the market figure out the best solution/company.
I'm not sure I can put it in any simpler terms. The underlying issues are complicated, but that is a fair summary.
I know.
There are some things though that one has to keep in mind.
"easy oil" is gone. Light sweet, easy to pump out of the ground, was some of the first to be used up. What is left will cost more in terms of time and money to get out of the ground. In the end, using it faster than we find it means that supply WILL get harder to come by.
Oil will not be extracted until it is economical to do so. Yoni's point was perfectly valid, if a bit optimisic, when one delves into what is involved in unlocking shale oil. Technology can, and does, bring down costs. It can even find new reserves, has found some large reserves, and will in the future.
"Technically recoverable" is not the same is "economically recoverable". If it costs more in water, energy, etc. than it takes to get out of the ground, it won't be pumped, nor should it.
The form of the reserves is important. One large formation, such as the one the Suadis pump from, doesn't require as much effort or as many drills as the same oil in two medium formations, or in five small ones. The same amount of oil in five small deposits generally requires five rigs to produce the same level of output as one massive gusher.
Renewable costs have been coming down, and the same technology curve that drives down the cost of oil extraction drives improvements in renewables.
Oil is a fairly mature technology. It is a lot harder to make the easy leaps in mature technologies. You can plug away in the iterative process, but your biggest gains are almost always at the beginning of the process.
The there are big jumps in terms of how much energy people proportionally use per capita when their incomes rise, and that includes oil energy.
Here is a fascinating talk by a Swedish economist on the subject:
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_roslin...g_machine.html
(seriously, take the ten minutes to watch it, it is entertaining and informative)
All of these things factor into how we will use and view oil.
Renewable costs will come down, and even if the costs come down at a slower rate than they have in the past, will get cheaper than oil/coal.
Oil/coal due to the complex nature of their depletion, will get more expensive. Demand will be going up from the 3 billion people whose incomes are rising 3 times faster than ours, at the same time supply will be harder to get.
Meh. I think we would be better off getting farther down in this process as soon as possible.
It will happen, through simple market factors whether we do anything or not.
The countries that do get farther down the renewables curve sooner will have an edge over those who don't, as they will not be fighting over a difficult, limited supplies of fossil fuels.
It isn't the "envirowhackos" that will force us to be green. It will be the hard core capitalists.
I would like to get the capitalists cracking on it quicker.
All that will happen in due time...and I too am a firm believer in renewable energy and walk the walk...as an example I am currently installing a solar water heater at the ranch and have been using pv cells for various functions...
At the same time,technology has not come up with a viable replacement for oil/gas and I don't see one in the near future...it simply comes down to portability...
A unilateral carbon tax (done to manipulate markets and create another revenue stream for the federal government to piss off) would be a major job killer and put the final nail in the coffin of american manufacturing...
Repugs lying about jobs, XL is really about enriching the oilcos, not about jobs
Just How Many Jobs Would The Keystone Pipeline Create?
by Tamara Keith
One of the major sticking points between the House and the Senate as they face off over end-of-year legislation is the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The bill the House passed Tuesday contains a provision forcing President Obama to decide on the pipeline within 60 days.
Republicans say this project should move ahead quickly because it will create thousands of jobs. But just how many jobs would be created is a matter of contention.
House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, described Keystone XL as being "as close to a shovel-ready project as you're ever going to see."
Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman said it would create "more than 100,000 American jobs."
And earlier Wednesday on the Senate floor, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas said the project "promises 20,000 immediate jobs and 118,000 spin-off jobs."
They all appear to be getting their numbers from the same source: TransCanada Corporation, the company behind the project.
Alex Pourbaix, an executive at TransCanada, told a House subcommittee earlier this month that the project would create 13,000 construction jobs.
"On top of that there are 7,000 manufacturing jobs associated with this project," said Pourbaix. "Twenty thousand jobs in all."
What he fails to mention is that the jobs numbers are based on "person years," meaning the number of people employed could be much lower.
"That may be in some cases one person working six months and another person working six months," says Ray Perryman, president of an economic research firm based in Texas. "Or it could be if one person works two years, that's two job years."
Perryman was hired by TransCanada to look at the broader economic impact of the project. And if you're wondering where Huntsman and Hutchison got the 100,000 jobs-created figure, look no further than Perryman. He adds up all the jobs at all the contractors and manufacturers and suppliers and restaurants and hotels along the way.
"That money gets spent and circulated through the economy so ... the 118,000 jobs is the ulative total of all that during the construction phase," says Perryman.
And that's also measured in person years.
"It's unsubstantiated," says Sean Sweeney, who directs Cornell University's Global Labor Ins ute. He co-wrote a paper that found the numbers to be exaggerated.
"I'm not sure where 20,000 comes from," adds Sweeney. "We know the direct construction jobs are nowhere near 20,000. We know the steel, or a portion of it, is not produced in the United States; so where are the jobs?"
Perryman describes the Cornell paper as "advocacy."
A recent State Department study said the construction workforce would be 5,000 to 6,000 workers. And once the construction phase ends, almost all of these jobs, however many are created, would go away. [Copyright 2011 National Public Radio]
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolit...e?sc=17&f=1003
Are you a smarter economist than Milton Friedman or Walter Williams? Yet, I would bet you disagree with them on economics. I don't know about this specific point, but I'm certain you and they do not jibe on some pretty significant economic principles...and, I'd love to see you throw "three dozen college credit hours" in Dr. Williams face. God, that would be a beautiful thing.
The point being, economists also disagree on economics. Being an economy-phile, as you claim, doesn't make you right. And, linking to Wikipedia to make points on the economy doesn't help you.
And, I didn't link to Wikipedia, you did.
And onto what?
What if the market decides to plow your carbon tax back into petroleum discovery, recovery, and refining? Because, as hard as you think it is to recover oil from the ground -- your carbon tax will go further in developing new ways to get it than it will to finding some holy grail of alternative fuel.
Cosmic Cowboy makes a good point. Giving the government more money to squander on green energy is foolish.
Russia isn't on the decline if they keep claiming the oil fields in the Arctic.
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