I think we need oil products for a while. They talk about how we need to do away with it. But we're not getting away [from] it until somebody can make money off the next thing.
He's driving an SUV so we'll "run out of oil quicker." Nice joke, because it's quite true, isn't it? By the way, I remember believing, back in 1972, that all the oil would be gone in 20 years. Did you -- if you were around and mature enough to think about such things -- believe that?
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I went to college in the late 70's. I remember one of my professors that devised a computer model showing the Earth would be completely out of oil by the year 2000, even if we increased exploration and maximized alternative energy sources. This is one of those predictions eventually someone will be right about, though. I can't remember if I took him seriously or not.
We've been a few decades away from "running out of oil" since the 19th century. Make of that what you will. None of them were "wrong", per se, there's just no way of knowing if we'll find more reserves or not. The Skeptical Environmentalist had a good section on this.
Anyway, while we will eventually "run out of oil" that doesn't necessarily mean we'll run out of gasoline. If battery efficiency and lifespan doesn't improve dramatically it may be more cost-effective to produce synthetic gasoline and use *that* instead of switching to electric cars.
Rockefeller's business partner sold out of their partnership because he thought the market for petroleum would expire within 20 years.
"The Prize" by Daniel Yergin does a great job of laying out the history or the petroleum industry. It's a page turner as these things go.
I was still growing up in the 1970's, but my mother who is always on the mark said, 'in thirty years they'll be fighting wars for oil.'
I know conservatives don't want to believe that the Iraq war had anything to do with oil, but considering the fact that when Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003 the only government ministry that we had troops go and protect was the Oil Ministry, and that we've let North Korea (where there is no oil) develop nukes without any opposition, I think my mom had something there.
I heard similar predictions in my 6th grade social studies class in 1978 or 79. I think the textbook or handout said we would run out of oil sometime in the 90's. In the same class, we also had an article about how a Big Mac was going to cost $3.00 in five or ten years. I guess they never predicted the value meal.
Also, it's worth noting that in every other country in the world, fuel efficiency standards are higher than the United States.
Heck, even in China, one of the most notorious polluters on the planet, they are fifty percent higher than they are here. So clearly even the Chinese understand the value of a barrel of oil better than we do.
The late great economist Julian Simon eased my mind regarding the alleged scarcity of all natural resources. He made a great bet with one of the leading scaremongers (Paul Erlich) and was handsomely rewarded when proven correct when the bet became due many years later. There is more oil in the tar sands of Canada and the oil shale in the United States than in Saudi Arabia.
when Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003 the only government ministry that we had troops go and protect was the Oil Ministry
Uh, because the entire Iraqi economy depends on oil? The rebuilding plan depended on Iraq having that income.
and that we've let North Korea (where there is no oil) develop nukes without any opposition
You're on drugs. We used economic and diplomatic sanctions at first, then tried bribing them with oil and food (a dumb idea, of course). We did not use military force against them because military force against North Korea is not feasible. If you care why, let me know and I'll explain.
in every other country in the world, fuel efficiency standards are higher than the United States.
Really? Out of curiousity, what are the fuel efficiency standards for Zimbabwe? I couldn't find them on Google.
As fine and dandy as it may sound that China's fuel efficiency standards are tighter than ours, it really is small potatoes compared to their inevitable growth rate. Their oil usage goes up something like 100% a year, compared to our growth in the single digits to low tens. Soon they will eclipse the U.S. as the single biggest oil producer, and they already do eclipse us in coal usage.
So no, I don't think they necessarily understand the "value" of oil any better than we do, if that is meant to imply that they do a better job of controlling their usage.
Ratcheting up fuel efficiency standards simply isn't an effective "solution" to anything, long or short term, because it just doesn't address the core problem, no matter what you think that problem is. If you think the problem is that we'll run out of oil, then increasing efficiency just prolongs the inevitable; the only solution is to find the alternative.
On the other hand, if you believe the problem is emissions, then address that directly, and let the scientists worry about how to get there. If they can get there without forcing people out of their nice SUVs and into coffins on wheels, why not?
"oil producer" --> "oil consumer" above. Sorry.
Well, there is always, as our good President puts it, nucular. I for one am all for it.
It's a page turner as these things go.
ha! That's a crafty compliment, birkel. Thanks for the chuckle.
Did I buy into the energy shortage crisis of the 1970s? No. I thought then that the gas lines were caused by price controls and that higher prices for crude oil would lead to new discoveries (or new alternatives). Does the fact that I was right back then indicate that I've got super insight into such matters? No. I was in jr. high and high school (graduated in 1977) and was just lucky to have been right. I also did not buy into the then current warnings about the coming ice age. Not because I did not believe an ice age was coming. I just figured we'd use cheap nuclear energy to heat our homes and run our hydroponic gardens. (Wasn't there a lot of science fiction in the 70s based on a premise of the coming ice age? All those cute girls running around in fur trimmed mini-skirts sounded kind of attractive at the time. Still does.) So the warnings did not scare me.
I do notice, however, that many of those who were wrong back then are the same ones who are predicting global warming and energy shortages today. (I'm still not scared. Cheap nuclear fuel can provide a lot of air conditioning.) With their poor track record, why should we (and do we) give them much attention today?
I tend to believe in the abiotic theory of fossil fuel formation. I've written about it several times, here is a post with some good links.
http://gahrie.blogspot.com/2005/09/refilling-oil-fields.html
If that theory is correct, we will never run out of oil.
No one alive can predict our oil reserves. That's not to say that we shouldn't diligently and seriously attempt to estimate and plan accordingly. But we choose instead to politicize bullshit on both the upside and the downside.
If we were going to run out of oil anytime soon, energy companies would switch over to new sources and new business plans. It's not like they're just going to say, "Oh well, no more oil. Guess we'll just give up and not make money anymore."
Markets work, and Miller is right. Energy sources will change over as it becomes more cost effective and logical.
Anyone who believes that we will run out of oil has ZERO understanding of basic economics.
We will never run out of oil until the Earth falls into the Sun.
If Thomas Friedman is right, and using gas is funding both sides on the war on terror, Miller is at the Vanguard of playing both sides on the war he supported! Lots of yucks, there Dennis!
Of course, there will be some solution to the problem of the shortage of oil, but that solution might involve more wars and economic disruption on a massive scale as China and India come on line. The problem is that Americans feel entitled to "their" gas. And as prices go up (part of the "solution"), they will vote for people who won't tell them the truth about how we will have to get those resources. Why not encourage alternatives now?
Eli Blake said:
"Heck, even in China, one of the most notorious polluters on the planet, they are fifty percent higher than they are here. So clearly even the Chinese understand the value of a barrel of oil better than we do."
I think Eli meant to say Americans clearly understand free choice and value freedom more that the Red Chinese.
The sun provides this planet with so much raw energy that we can harvest but the tiniest fraction of it---a tiny fraction, even, of what plants consume---and satisfy all of our energy needs for as long as the sun is alive. I did the math here.
We may or may not be running out of oil iminently. Mobius Duck may be right, or he may not be. The folks I work with in petroleum engineering are not so concerned; indeed, in a seminar I attended today there was some excitement about the recent Gulf of Mexico find. Though frankly they make money either way, whether it is by volume or by price.
But regardless of whether or not oil supply is limited, I am not the least bit worried that we will run out of energy.
And here is a nice piece of news that I sure hope turns into something. It has the potential to make true electric cars, even electric SUVs, as feasible as their gas-powered bretheren are now. And with a fully electric solution, we are given the freedom to harvest that electricity from any source we can develop.
There have been no giant oil fields found since 1967
You havn't been paying attention to the news lately. (and I even linked to an article on the Clinton News Network for you)
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/05/news/companies/chevron_gulf/index.htm
I couple of weeks ago, I was browsing the new Toyota Hybrids...
---just browsing.
(Oh Santa......are you there?)
I just can't see myself in a 'Hybrid'.
I want the car to start. I want some sort of a guarantee.
The Hybrid is an unproven animal.
A nice, good gas guzzling V-8, or V-6, you have some assurance that when you turn the ignition, the thing will run.
No such guarantees with a Hybrid.
Peace, Maxine
The world is burning through 2000 barrels of oil per SECOND.
The US is burning 20,000,000 barrels of oil each and every day. We have 5% of the world population, and consume about 25% of the world supply.
I'm not sure where you're pulling your data from, but it obviously isn't a very high-quality source. 2000 barrels of oil per second gives us a worldwide usage rate of 172.8 mbpd, which would make the US's 20 mbpd 11.5% of world usage, not 20%.
In any case, you appear to be under the impression that this is the first time in world history that we've been burning oil faster than we've been discovering it. In reality that has been the case many times in the past century. There is no reason to believe that *this* time around is the "real" shortage.
Oil shale requires more energy inputs to extract the oil than the energy recovery. It's a non-starter.
It isn't a non-starter. Food requires more energy to produce than *it* produces, too -- does that mean growing food is stupid? Of course not, because food -- like oil -- is energy in a form we can use.
The problem is not energy production. If we want to produce energy, solar and nuclear are the ways to go. The problem is *storing* energy, and we've yet to find any way of storing energy suitable for our transportation needs in ANY form other than chemical.
You could rely on improvements in technology to solve that problem, of course. But why no rely on them to solve the oil shale/sand extraction problem, then?
Oil sands in Canada and Venezuela require vast amounts of natural gas and water to tap the oil.
The wikipedia article on oil sands has a good list of alternate methods for extracting oil that don't require "vast amounts of natural gas and water".
We will have our energy, but at what cost, and for whose benefit?
If it is possible to produce and use energy in a form superior to that of fossil fuels then we will eventually learn how to do so. If it is not then we were always doomed, as a species, to eventually have to use inefficient energy sources. Either way there's no point in stressing about it. Either we're inescapably doomed to not be quite as energy-rich as we'd like, or we aren't.
Did I believe the '70's meme that we would run out of oil within 20 years or so?
No.
Did I believe the '70's meme about overpopulation and increasing food scarcity?
No.
Did I believe the '80's meme about the spread of AIDS to vast numbers of the population at large, the inevitability of a nuclear armageddon, or the superiority of the Japanese economic system?
No.
What can I say? I refuse to become apoplectic about the apocalyptic visions of self-appointed seers, high priests and priestess of pseudo-religions, and their true believer lemmings.
Did I believe in 1972 (when I was in college, BTW) that we would run out of oil by 1992? Not for a minute. For 50 years, my father worked as a drilling engineer for for one of those big bad oil companies. He knew there was plenty of oil to last for a long, long time. It was just a matter of developing technologies and raising prices so that producing the oil is cost effective.
For that matter, the answer today is the same as it was in 1972. It's still a matter of technology and price because there's still plenty of oil available.
downtownlad:Anyone who believes that we will run out of oil has ZERO understanding of basic economics.
Record this day in history: I actually agree with downtownlad. Well done, sir!
Personally, I'm kind of psyched to see what new technology will be developed to reduce our dependence on gasoline for transportation. There's a lot of potential there. It's gonna be cool. (I hope.)
these people have cried wolf before
Crying wolf is all they do. It's not good enough to say, "hey, this is a problem;" it has to be The End Of The World.
Which really is a very clever strategy, because it makes for an easy, exciting story for a lazy media, and it's like some crazy religion where if you don't Believe, well, how dare you!!! And it's also a way for a bunch of scientists who would normally live boring lives to have easy access to grants and get attention. *Bonus* It's another great way to criticize the U.S., as Eli's post perfectly demonstrated. China's standards, indeed. I also hear Castro gives great health insurance. Explain to me how poor people are going to trade in their giant American cars for a nice, fuel-efficient Prius. Oh, let me guess.... a nice fat(ter) gasoline tax. On SUV owners, naturally. Something like that'll work.
The environmental movement has just about every harbinger of the worst leftist bullshit around. Its proselytizers have an awful record for chicken littling, but still get attention from the media as if we haven't heard it all before. And don't get me started on Laurie David! : P
knoxgirl, BINGO!
We will never run out of oil. Never. The late great Julian Simon explains why in The Ultimate Resource II.
Having an education in Geology and having worked in the oil industry (and the environmental industry) for 30 years, I have no fear of running out of oil. Its all about economics. There are places in the world were oil is known to exist (or is very likely to exist) that have not been explored because of cost and/or environmental concerns. Oil sands and shale oil contain massive amounts for the right price.
Basically Miller is right.
In response to the guy who dissed the US because other countries have higher vehicle fuel economy standards: here's another example of someone who doesn't "get" the concept of a free market, and who thinks that things won't change unless government passes a law.
Hey, if you want a vehicle with high fuel economy, go buy one! And if there are others like you, they will want one too, and there will be a market for them, and there will companies that make them. But if fuel prices are relatively low, people prefer to have large cars with large engines and are willing to pay for it. Why should the government forbid that kind of car in the name of fuel economy? When fuel prices get high enough, people will change their preferences. There is zero need for government to involve itself in how fuel-efficient cars are. It can never respond as accurately and quickly to changing supply and demand realities as the marketplace.
So, the ones to feel sorry for are the citizens of countries whose governments don't allow them to make their own choices.
A lot of the commenters have said they heard we had 20 years of oil left in the 70's. Well, let me tell you, that meme lasted a LONG time!
In the early 90's I was teaching 9th grade geography with textbooks written in the late 80's that stated as fact we'd be out of oil by 2000.
I need to correct something... earlier I said China's petroleum usage was near 100%... Well, I couldn't find those numbers now. I now think I confused annual growth rate with some long-term projections.
For example, this projection of total energy usage pegs the U.S. as growing from 98.1 to 133.9 quadrillion BTUs between 2003 and 2030---a 36.5% increase. China is projected to grow from 45.5 to 139.1 quadrillion BTUs---a 205% increase. Worldwide usage grows from 420.7 to 721.6, a 72% increase. Obviously, the bulk of the growth is coming from the rise of the developing world.
But that's a 28 year span. It translates to an annual growth rate of 1.2% for the U.S., 4.2% for China, and 2.0% worldwide. The numbers seem small when you look at them that way.
Anyway, I just wanted to correct the record on that.
As a colleague in the office often states:
"We didn't move past the stone-age because we ran out of stones."
If other countries have greater fuel economy, isn't that a function of the types of vehicles used and government-imposed fuel taxes?
If gas were $6 a gallon and I lived in a densely populated country, I'd probably drive a hybrid or a sub-compact. If I lived in a big city, I might use a moped or a scooter.
But there are drawbacks to those vehicles -- (safety, comfort, ability to haul 5 people and/or stuff) -- which is why most Americans will continue to choose good-sized cars with v6 engines unless forced by government policy not to.
Freder---obviously our oil supply is finite. But we won't just keep using it, just as we do now, until one day the taps run dry. Rather, as supplies dwindle, the costs will skyrocket, forcing changes in behavior---eventually to a complete transition from oil.
Thus I think it is quite reasonable, and indeed correct, to suggest that we will never run out. We'll stop using it first.
[Nuclear power] was always going to be "too cheap to meter" but ended up being the most expensive way to boil water ever invented by man
Meanwhile, back in reality, modern nuclear reactors cost approximately as much as coal-burning reactors on a $/mWH basis and are getting steadily cheaper. And if you believe that global warming exists and threatens to do zillions of dollars in damage to the environment then nuclear reactors are *already* far cheaper than coal-burning plants.
And for some perspective: Wind power costs about the same as nuclear, wastes a lot more land, and is nowhere near as flexible or reliable. Solar power costs three to seven times as much as nuclear and is also nowhere near as flexible or reliable.
In the long run, if we develop decent power storage technology and solar power becomes a LOT more efficient that might be the way to go. But for now, its fossil fuel or nuclear, take your pick.
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