As gas and grocery prices continue to climb, everybody seems quick to identify a scape goat and propose a popular and simplistic solution. Case in point, the media attention given to that bloviating bucket of bullshit called “The Donald” who ignites the illiterati by proclaiming we can go back to buck a gallon gas by telling those fuckin’ arabs what we’re willing to pay for their oil, rather than what the world market dictates, or solving our insatiable demand for chinese goods and hard currency by saying, “hey, motherfucker, I’m gonna tax you 25%.”
Here’s a great read on natural resource demand trends, price fluctuations, and economic growth projections. It’s a lengthy article but, for those with an interest in such things, well worth the read.
There are certainly analysts with different points of view, but Jeremy Grantham has been around the block and presents a pretty solid case. I’d be interested to hear from those who disagree with his conclusions.
We want a scapegoat, we just need to look in the mirror. I’m as guilty of it as the next guy, and, quite frankly, all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. I thoroughly enjoy that I’m a “crackpot” for my views on energy, but I don’t value other folks’ opinions all that much anyway.
This article is an oldie, but a goodie, and pretty much tells the story. Good luck seeing this shit on Faux News, National Propaganda Radio, or the Commie News Network:
US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015
I first became acquainted with P.O. around '02. It’s bad news all around, mostly because the alternative energies are almost all net energy losers.
Dave, I don’t give this thread long before some bozo who’s still nuzzling the propaganda machine’s tit brings up the fact that “we have more oil than Saudi Arabia, them damned environmentalists won’t let us drill”. :rolleyes:
Folks, the domestic shit has an extremely, unbelievably low EROEI, is filthy disgusting, is labour and cost intensive, and lacks the on-line infrastructure to refine, and get into the market.
We weren’t drilling 7 miles below the surface of the earth just for the party of it.
Light Sweet Crude is a lot like freedom; what little there is of it left has become scarce, and everyone wants to take it from you.
Bingo. This recent jump in price has everything to do with inflation and devaluation of the dollar, caused 100% by government policies.
Given the new fed policies allowing banks to earn interest on mandated reserves the geniuses in DC figured inflation would be the answer to get banks lending money.
A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity.
While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall
might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed
worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and
failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on
both China and India. At best, it would lead to periods of harsh economic adjustment. To what extent
conservation measures, investments in alternative energy production, and efforts to expand petroleum
production from tar sands and shale would mitigate such a period of adjustment is difficult to predict.
One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought
economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.
By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in
output could reach nearly 10 MBD.
Not all potential domestic sources of oil, which are currently locked up by politics, is heavy filthy disgusting oil that no one can refine. You are as simplistic in your pronunciations as those your deride.
For example, there is a lot of oil up in Alaska that is pretty good oil by all accounts, that people are anxious to drill for. .gov blocks it.
The current spiking in oil is not caused by demand issues or supply issues. It is caused by devaluing of the dollar.
Long term trends to higher average prices probably have other roots, like demand, supply, etc.
Obama constantly blocks the drilling here then tells foreign countries to increase supply
EPA just blocked 5 years and $4 billion worth of work from Exxon in the Arctic Ocean by denying them air permits because they “wanted to protect local inhabitants” When the closest inhabitants were 70 miles away and are a village of 250 people. Awesome
I’m not going to argue that the CURRENT situation in regards to the uptick in commodity prices is totally, and completely based upon Chairsatan’s unlocking the “cheat code” for infinite money.
Right now, yes.
All that being said, over the long-term, the laws of physics, quite simply, will catch up with civilisation. The model of infinite-growth, once we’ve been able to circumvent said universal constants, can resume full-speed, but not until then.
If you’ll forgive me for being skeptical, I’m not going to be breaking out my kazoo over ANWR or unconventional domestic oil recovery/production until some results are shown.
U.S. Liquid Fuels Consumption. Total consumption of petroleum and non-petroleum liquid fuels increased by 380,000 bbl/d (2.0 percent) to 19.1 million bbl/d in 2010 (U.S. Liquid Fuels Consumption Growth Chart). Projected total U.S. liquid fuels consumption increases by 210,000 bbl/d (1.1 percent) in 2011, and by a further 160,000 bbl/d (0.9 percent), to 19.5 million bbl/d, in 2012. Transportation fuels (motor gasoline distillate fuel, and jet fuel) account for about 75 percent of the growth in total consumption in 2011 and almost all of the growth in 2012.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates 896 million barrels of conventional, undiscovered oil and 53 trillion cubic feet of conventional, undiscovered non-associated gas within NPRA and adjacent state waters. The estimated volume of undiscovered oil is significantly lower than in 2002, when the USGS estimated there was 10.6 billion barrels of oil. The new result, roughly 10% of the 2002 estimate, is due primarily to recent exploration drilling indicating gas occurrence rather than oil in much of NPRA.
My grammar-school arithmetic, is that, even if that oil was in full-production, and we could hypothetically erect the refining infrastructure to immediately handle the reserves in ANWR next Thursday, and, since we’re all high on pixie dust, and riding Unicorns, ANWR can pump to the extent of current domestic daily consumption, the reserves at ANWR would be drained in 46.91099476439705759162303664921, or 47 days, give-or-take.
For what it’s worth, the entire domestic refining capacity is roughly 18m bpd. So we’d also need to build a couple of refineries, since we’re wishing on magical stars, I dunno, next week, and allocate those 100 percent to processing the flow outta ANWR. :rolleyes:
For a whopping, at current consumption rates, 47 days worth of driving back and forth to the grocery store.
I’m not pushing blood in the streets, dogs and cats living together, or Godzilla coming out to gobble down Cleveland; I’m insinuating that the age of cheap, easily-processed, and recoverable oil is over.
The problem is, to shore up the dollar, we’ve got export something other than Facebook. We don’t produce anything anymore, other than worthless toiletpaper notes, and exotic financial instruments.
I like how the left wants to act like creating tax breaks for new manufacturing facilities is “lost money”. There was a recent interview with the CEO from Intel that was extremely enlightening.
Basically, the mentality is that, rather than give new manufacturing plants a five year tax break, the gooberment would rather cut off it’s nose to spite its’ face. Thusly, said company will take said manufacturing facity to somewhere a little more pro-business.
Quite frankly, this whole country is in a fucking mess.
That is not what he said. The $4 billion is already spent on developing the fields, not the value of the fields.
According to one report, the US Geological Survey estimates that the fields now abandoned contain an estimated 27 BILLION barrels of oil.
Using your math, that is enough to solely fuel the US for almost 4 years. (And it would not be the sole source of liquid petroleum so it would last a lot longer).
While Grantham’s article certainly stabs the “grow into prosperity” argument in the heart with the energy and material resources constraints of a finite world, all is not gloom and doom.
From the article:
[i]The U.S. is, of course, very well-positioned to deal with the constraints. First, it starts rich, both in wealth and income per capita, and also in resources, particularly the two that in the long run will turn out to be the most precious: great agricultural land and a pretty good water supply.
The U.S. is also well-endowed with hydrocarbons. Its substantial oil and gas reserves look likely to prove unexpectedly resilient, buoyed by improving skills at fracking and lateral drilling. And, by any standard, U.S. coal reserves are very large. All other countries should be so lucky. Second, we are the most profligate or wasteful developed country and this fact, paradoxically, becomes a great advantage. We in the U.S. can save resources by the billions of dollars and actually end up feeling better for it in the end, like someone suffering from obesity who succeeds with a new diet.
The slowing growth in working age population has reduced the GDP growth for all developed countries. Adding resource limitations is further reducing it. If our GDP in the U.S. grew 2% for the next 20 years, I think we would be doing very well. Dropping to 1.5% would not surprise me, nor would it be a disaster. In the past 28 years, we have increased our GDP by 3.0% per year with only a 0.9% increase in energy required. That is, we increased our energy efficiency by 2.1% without a decent energy policy and despite some very inefficient pockets like autos and residential housing.
This would suggest that at a reduced 2% GDP growth rate, we might expect little or no incremental demand for energy, even without an improved effort. If in addition we halved our deficit in energy efficiency compared with Europe and Japan in the next 20 years, then our energy requirements might drop at 1.5% a year. Given the plentiful availability of low-hanging fruit in the U.S., this is achievable.[/i]
Those who cling to the notion that what ails america can be fixed by changing tax rates and exchange rates are delusional; they’re short term solutions to long term problems. As someone noted previously, it’s about physics, not economics.
Fair enough. Then disregard my analysis on this particular situation.
That is not what he said. The $4 billion is already spent on developing the fields, not the value of the fields.
According to one report, the US Geological Survey estimates that the fields now abandoned contain an estimated 27 BILLION barrels of oil.
Using your math, that is enough to solely fuel the US for almost 4 years. (And it would not be the sole source of liquid petroleum so it would last a lot longer).
The problem is, unless the oil becomes nationalised, we have no say of who the oil company sells it to, which, of course, will be the highest bidder. The way the Bernank is firing up the presses, I don’t see us being the high bidder on anything.
To set the record straight, I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’m holed up in a bunker, beating the bishop to stock footage of A-bomb tests. I wholeheartedly disagree with the direction the country is headed, and, given the track record of both the government and the large institutions here, I’m not exactly waiting with bated breath for any of the nitwits in the district of corruption to make a decision that directly benefits the American people. I’m not postulating that we’ll all be scratching a living off of rocks next year, but I’m not holding much hope for any improvement to the situation(s) we are facing. All I see is business-as-usual.