Oil Reserves Are Increasing

[125gJoe]

Actually, I stand corrected..

And here's some history..

"
1973 On October 17, OPEC member states declare an oil embargo against nations that had supported Israel during its war (known by many as the Yom Kippur War) with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. The energy crisis that followed saw oil prices quadruple and the New York Stock Exchange lose $97 billion in share value, bringing on the worst recession since World War II. "

As for our "infllated" costs now - it's incredible we stand by and put up with it.

Of course there's always Hydrogen as an alternative - but, no real push in that direction..

 

[slipknottin]

Of course there's always Hydrogen as an alternative - but, no real push in that direction..

yet...

Assuming the theory you presented earlier is not true, and we do not find a way to 'manufacturer' oil, then the price rise of gas will force many to find alternatives.

We may find that something like say bio-diesel will cost $3.00 a gallon once you factor in the additional refining, new/redesigned engines to run on it, and the infrastructure costs. So if gas stays at $2.00 a gallon there is no reason to use biodiesel, but as prices rise, it becomes a more attractive alternative.

In any case, hydrogen cars are more like electric cars than anything else. Fuel cells are essentially fancy batteries. Meaning we need to put a significant amount of electricity into making the hydrogen. Though most of our power plants dont run off of oil, it certainly wont lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. Though it does seem that nuclear energy may be making a comeback, and hopefully fusion is on that horizion somewhere.

 

[Raskolnikov]

And in the US we get the majority of our electricity from burning coal, which has an even worse environmental impact than burning petroleum.

Alternative energy needs to be "alternative" right from the source if it's going to be environmentally viable. If all we want to do is lower our transportation costs, then by all means we can start burning coal (the US has hundreds of years worth right here in the ground). To hell w/ the forests and watersheds and anything else that can't survive being bathed in acid and soot.

 

[125gJoe]

yet..... .... .... and hopefully fusion is on that horizion somewhere.

I'm for fusion if it's safer than the nuke plants online now!

 

[slipknottin]

I'm for fusion if it's safer than the nuke plants online now!

Nuclear plants are incredibly safe actually. They have far fewer incidents than conventional plants. We could not have a chernobyl here, our reactors are far more sturdy than that piece of junk they had. If we started reprocessing our fuel rods, we could cut out a huge percentage of the spent fuel rods. Cutting down on both its only real enviromental concern, and giving us more fuel to run in the reactors. Countries such as France get a signficiant percentage of their power from nuclear reactors, with no ill effects. They are far cleaner and safer to the enviroment than any fossil fuel plant could ever be.

Fusion potentially can release much more energy than fission plants, and has no radioactive materials to deal with.

 

[anonapersona]

"Sometimes we find oil in new places with old ideas. Sometmes we also find oil in old places with new ideas. However, we do not find oil in old places with old ideas."

quote from President of Society of Petroleum Engineers around 1980-ish

I've forgotten the name of the guy who said that, but I've never forgotten that quote. My family has been a part of the oil business for 3 generations. My husband has worked on the wells my father drilled, he's worked in fields that were producing when my grandfather was the field manager. As an engineer I have gone back to old fields and increased production by using new methods when justified by higher prices. I have also worked in fields where the product price was not enough to justify paying the men who managed the property and so we shut it down.

We (the general oil industry) often look to buy old properties that were produced to their economic limit and then shut in, for at higher prices, with new technology, we can hope to wring some economic production from them. But, economics are king -- if it costs more to pay for equipment, labor, transportation, than the product brings in, the property is sold or shut down.

So, oil will always be available at a price. That price is determined by the market, and the government, any government, can only do so much to either hamper that market or aid it.

This government is wisely standing aside to allow the economics of production to bring more reserves into play. The funny thing about the economics is that finding costs are so much higher than producing costs. If a lot of reserves are located and started into production now, at higher prices, very few will be shut in for economics as prices fall later. So, today's shortage brings tomorrow's glut.