Oil - movin on up

[GForce]

Oil without a doubt is a finite energy source. Booming economies in India and China drove up the demand and the price along with a weak dollar equaled great pain at the pump and the destruction of the RV industry.
So we would have to reduce our dependance on foreign oil to what percent before we could have any affect on prices.
Unless China and India start doing their share to stop or curtail pollution it will not matter much what other countries do in that regard. I read that the millions of cows in India along with their shitty diet pollute more than all of the cars in the US.

[NobleSavage]

It is just a matter of time before somebody gets serious about finding other sources of motive power. Sure oil will be around for a lot of the other derivative products but if we found alternate fuels for motive power and electrical production it would have a huge impact on the oil industry.

This is the prevailing view, that technology will save the day. I love technology and I'm hoping for it, but I remain skeptical about this for two reasons.

Energy Return over Energy Invested (EROEI)... How much energy do we have to expend to get a unit of energy out? With oil and fossil fuels the EROEI is quite high like 200/1 – 50/1. You drill a hole and oil comes out. All alternative fuels to date – have a much, much lower EROEI.

The scale of the problem. Say there is a 3% decline in global oil production. Just to make up for that the world would need to build (combined):

156 Coal fired power plants

49,275 Commercial wind turbines

78 Nuclear power plants

6 Hydro plants the size of Georges dam.

138,375,000 Solar panels.

Now consider that the US uses 20% of the global oil production, is the US ready to make up even a fraction of that in alternative fuels? We are not even close and we will fight about it for 20 years before we ever do shit.

I'm getting the above numbers from here.

[FrozenJag]

gas at the pump has been going up noticeably around here lately.

Yeah were up to about 2.85 per gallon here right now.

Been steady at that now for a couple weeks.

I dont see our economy getting any better whatsoever if fuel gets up to 4 dollars per gallon again.

[GForce]

Energy independence with an emphasis on reducing petroleoum usage through whatever means should be the agenda of all US political parties. The government can do this through favorable tax credits, research funding and any and all other available means.

Of course the oil companies will be the losers since they have all of the infrastructure in place to extract, pipe, refine, distribute and retail the black gold.

I would think that the first priority would be electrical generation done by phasing out any oil or gas using generation plants.

This all will take generations to accomplish, but unless the federal government makes it its mission it is doubtful that any single billionaire philanthropist is going to do it on his own. Just an opinion.

[DamageX]

Energy independence with an emphasis on reducing petroleoum usage through whatever means should be the agenda of all US political parties.

And lose the campaign contributions from big oil?

[GForce]

Just read today that lobbying spending by oil companies is way up. They want to make sure they educate the politicians that becoming less energy dependant on oil is harder than they think.

Well I guess if we really wanted to we could revert to the days of old and not use electricity and read by candlelight and ride horses to work. But then all of the candle smoke and horse shit would probably cause global cooling or some shit like that. We are doomed!

In medieval times when overpopulation became a problem plagues took care of the problem by wiping out a good chunk of the population. Along with weather and war that is one of the biggest ways to eradicate man/woman from the planet. Swine Flu anyone?

[AmateurFlix]

Well I guess if we really wanted to we could revert to the days of old and not use electricity and read by candlelight and ride horses to work. But then all of the candle smoke and horse shit would probably cause global cooling or some shit like that.

When horseless carriages (automobiles) were first invented, they were advertised as a way to end pollution of horse dung in the streets

[GForce]

It just goes to show you that there is simply to many of us inhabiting this planet. Just the right amount of humans and mother nature takes care of healing the damage we do. Too many of us and we thrash the planet.
Now if they can get the chinese and the folks in india to to stop reproducing in the numbers they do then we may have a chance as a species. I believe in China you are only allowed to have one child, this is probably relatively new and may take generations to impact the population and the environment.

Here is another interesting thought. Most college educated couples barely reproduce to replace themselves, while the people that should not reproduce do so at much higher numbers. Now these less intelligent folks usually tend to reproduce offspring that are not much smarter than they are. So as generations come to pass if you extrapolate this thought there would be a major imbalance of smart people versus not so smart people. (I know this may not be politically correct, however, I have seen this phenomenom on my own.) So if this is true I wonder what the world would be like in a 100 years - would computers rule? or would we be picking lice off each others heads?

[Spence]

It just goes to show you that there is simply to many of us inhabiting this planet. Just the right amount of humans and mother nature takes care of healing the damage we do. Too many of us and we thrash the planet.
Now if they can get the chinese and the folks in india to to stop reproducing in the numbers they do then we may have a chance as a species. I believe in China you are only allowed to have one child, this is probably relatively new and may take generations to impact the population and the environment.

Here is another interesting thought. Most college educated couples barely reproduce to replace themselves, while the people that should not reproduce do so at much higher numbers. Now these less intelligent folks usually tend to reproduce offspring that are not much smarter than they are. So as generations come to pass if you extrapolate this thought there would be a major imbalance of smart people versus not so smart people. (I know this may not be politically correct, however, I have seen this phenomenom on my own.) So if this is true I wonder what the world would be like in a 100 years - would computers rule? or would we be picking lice off each others heads?

Hehe, they made a movie about it 'Idiocracy'
YouTube - Idiocracy - Trailer

[GForce]

Glad to see that I am not alone in this line of thinking. I guess it is just a matter of time.

[GForce]

EIA - Petroleum Basic Data

Check this site out if you are into statistics and other info on oil.

[GForce]

Oil has gone down in the past three days. Gasoline prices are expected to drop. I guess all of the world economic indicators do not sustain the higher prices at this time.

[NobleSavage]

Oil has gone down in the past three days. Gasoline prices are expected to drop. I guess all of the world economic indicators do not sustain the higher prices at this time.

Right now the market is in contango. When the price is ready to take off the futures chain will whipsaw.

[NobleSavage]

The Energy Information Agency Report came out yesterday.

EIA - 2009 International Energy Outlook

There is a good article in The Nation about it

Every summer, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy issues its International Energy Outlook (IEO)--a jam-packed compendium of data and analysis on the evolving world energy equation.

Very simply, it indicates that the usually optimistic analysts at the Department of Energy now believe global fuel supplies will simply not be able to keep pace with rising world energy demands. For years now, assorted petroleum geologists and other energy types have been warning that world oil output is approaching a maximum sustainable daily level--a peak--and will subsequently go into decline, possibly producing global economic chaos. Whatever the timing of the arrival of peak oil's actual peak, there is growing agreement that we have, at last, made it into peak-oil territory, if not yet to the moment of irreversible decline.

It's Official--The Era of Cheap Oil Is Over

[Spence]

The Department of Energy is a bloated piece of crap that absorbs taxpayer money like a sponge. Their main directive was to ease our dependance on foreign oil, and here we are 32 years later more dependant than ever.

Anyway, just sayin'

[NobleSavage]

The Department of Energy is a bloated piece of crap that absorbs taxpayer money like a sponge.

Spence, I'm wondering what you are basing this on?

[GForce]

The same can be said about any government Department. However, it is merely an opinion if you disdain government. I could say the same thing about the Department of Motor Vehicles in California but I wont.

See that is where people can get sued for defamation about someone. If you post a statement as fact you can be liable. If you say in my opinion Joe Blow is a terrorist then it is not actionable. Yet we make factual statements all of the time based on our feelings or opinions based on an experience.