The oil crash!!!!

popinfresh

Ok, just read this web-site :eek: :eek: :eek:

click here

Appologies if this is better suited to after-hours but i reckon this is very appropriate to world politics. I'd love to hear somebody coming up with a credible dismissal of this site..... I really would

Time Magazine

Welcome to the Energy Crisis....

toiletduck

scary stuff but i've read too many dooms-day books (e.g. the population explosion etc.) to be really moved by it. I, like most people probably, will belive it when i see it happening.

ionapaul

Well, for one you need to think about the human ability to adapt and what we can achieve if we *have* to. A country sent a person to the moon and back, a massive technical achievement, simply in order to gain advantage during the Cold War. If the very same effort (000s of people working for a decade in each of the 50 states) was put into researching another fuel source, think of what would be achieved.

If it suddenly became apparent that our supply of oil was going to run out, do you think we (our governments, international organisations and multinational corporations) would sit on their hands worrying about the end of the world? I am sure that an alternative source of fuel and the necessary technical innovations would be developed in order to move forward. We don't *need* to do this right now (and it is not in big business's interest to do so right now), so it isn't happening right now.

popinfresh

Althogh that article suggests that things are gonna start turning bad (ie economys crashing) in as little as 5 years time. I don't think anyone is prepared for this.

ishmael whale

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Hubbert_theory_criticisms

The article above gives a start to sources out there. There seems to be some dispute over whether oil will run out quite as fast as he predicts, but the essential logic is irrefutable – we use oil a lot quicker than it takes to replace, so it must run out. The short answer is there’s a general expectation that alternative forms of energy will become economic as oil declines. However, this must mean there will be some economic knock-on effect as if these alternative methods were as cheap as oil we’d be using them now.

All this tends to leave to one side the environmental cost of burning all this oil. There would seem to be as much of a case for reducing oil dependence on those grounds, even if there were pools of the stuff left to use. An outside fear would be that oil would be replaced by coal and gas, meaning a continuing environmental issue.

mr_angry

This has been posted here a couple of times before. Its a little sensationalist, but the basic background to it is correct. However, the author totally disregards the adoption of alternative forms of energy production.

My major concern is the latest draft of scientific results on climate change. This is the first time I can recall seeing so many reports agreeing that the climate is changing significantly based upon human interaction. Couple this with the extreme weather conditions in North-East America, the recent flooding in the UK, last year's hurricanes in Florida, and the flooding in central Europe the previous year and you begin to get a fairly scary picture of the realities of climate change. Also - wonder why you're seeing high insurace prices at the moment? Look at the those events, and imagine who's picking up the tab.

Hopefully the adoption of Hydrogen fuel will mitigate the effects, but you have to wonder how much damage will be done by then. Of course, thats assuming Hydrogen production is based upon clean energy sources like hydroelectricity and photovoltaic arrays.

The really worrying thing is that some of the meterologists studying chaos theory like Lorenz suspect that the earth is capable of sustaining only 5 or 6 natural states of equilibria, and rather than slowly alternating between them, the climate suddenly flips between ice age / normal / dramatic greenhouse without much warning. The recent speculation on the halting of the Gulf Stream and the freezing of Northern Europe is a possible symptom of this.

pickarooney

Mine the Moon!

popinfresh

The thing I'm most concerned about is the question of whether or not the world can quietly adjust from being dependant on oil to being dependent on other reserves. I mean, there was a link to this site http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_14458.shtml

Basically the dollar is likely to plummet any time in the next couple of years, and if the USA invade Iran, which they may need to do, we might see WW3

The world economy as we know it is almost entirely dependant on oil, regardless of whether or not there'll be a credible alternative any time soon. And the reserves are getting tight now. Therefore bad times ahead..

Ardent

"The war on terrorism will last 40-50 years"! Convenient.

Moriarty

Meh.

Oil reserves aren't going to dry up overnight. There's massive reserves all over the world that haven't even been touched yet because the oil companys are still taking the 'low hanging fruit'.

A large proportion of oil useage goes towards electricity production. There's viable alternatives to that right now, with the likes of fusion plants about 20 years away. Another large proportion goes on internal combustion engines and there's all sorts of research going into finding the next big thing in that area.

There's already enough technology for the world to move away from oil, it's just not cost effective yet - and that's not just because it's expensive technology, but also that there are many powerful groups around the world that are making fortunes from the status-quo. When those groups find a reliable alternative to oil, watch how quickly prices fall for those technologies.

popinfresh

That's all and well, but we need oil now.. If a country is only importing 90% of the oil needed to run the country, prices will sore and the economy of that country will collapse.. This is a reality we will see in the next 10 years. It's not about alternatives to oil, that's irrelevent. The fact is that the world is unbelevably dependant on oil. A reserve that has passed peak extraction. Even if an alternative is found, the world economy so dependent it will collapse in the changeover from oil form to another form of energy.
The people who are about to be hit the worst by this are the US, hence Iraq.

jbkenn

We have been "running out of oil in 5 years" since 1973
Ah the good old days, sucking up to the petrol pump attendant, like you do to doormen at a night club now, in the hope he would give you 2 gallons instead of one.

jbkenn

Moriarty

popinfresh wrote:

That's all and well, but we need oil now..

And my point is that we have oil now and for the next few decades.

popinfresh wrote:

If a country is only importing 90% of the oil needed to run the country, prices will sore and the economy of that country will collapse.. This is a reality we will see in the next 10 years.

I'd be happy placing money on it not happening in the next 20 years at least, if at all.

popinfresh wrote:

It's not about alternatives to oil, that's irrelevent.

LoL.. It's not irrelevant ffs, it's exactly what we're talking about. Oil isn't a magical substance that's needed for humanity to breath. Oil is pervasive in the industrialised world, but we no longer need it. The world can and will successfuly move away from oil over the next century to a plethora of other solutions. It won't require economic or social breakdown on a world scale to achieve, either.

popinfresh wrote:

The fact is that the world is unbelevably dependant on oil. A reserve that has passed peak extraction. Even if an alternative is found, the world economy so dependent it will collapse in the changeover from oil form to another form of energy.

That's plain FUD. I'm confident the world will be able to successfully migrate from oil when it decides to.

popinfresh wrote:

The people who are about to be hit the worst by this are the US, hence Iraq.

Heh. No, not 'hence iraq'. Bringing Iraq into any of this smacks of oversimplification.

popinfresh

Arf, I hate it when ppl quote everything i say. Very time consuming to reply to

And my point is that we have oil now and for the next few decades.

Yeah but, economical disaster won't happen when oil reserves run out, it'll happen when oil stops being abundant. Which we are beginning to see now.

I'd be happy placing money on it not happening in the next 20 years at least, if at all.

Maybe not to Europe, but to the US... I would make this (absurd) statement based on the fact that it's not looking at all good for the dollar..

LoL.. It's not irrelevant ffs, it's exactly what we're talking about. Oil isn't a magical substance that's needed for humanity to breath.

It is however, a magical substance that economys need to breath. (magic I tells ye!!)

Heh. No, not 'hence iraq'. Bringing Iraq into any of this smacks of oversimplification.

The US is now posed with a drastic comprehension that the world is gonna start dealing in euros as opposed to dollars (that's a likely possibility, not a conspiricy theory). One logical way to prevent this would be to invade the middle east and install puppet governments that would serve the US's need for oil regardless of the power of the dollar. That would make more sense to me than "saddam is the devil, lets get him!!" I would consider the invasion of Iraq to be a financial investment.

The world does not have the reserves necessary to continue the economic growth (stability actually) that we have generally seen over the last 50ish years. Oil produce is past its peak, therefore if (eg: China or USA) is to continue maintaining their economys there is gonna be a struggle for who gets the oil.. and the US are posed with a massive disadvantage (the weakening dollar). Guns a hoi'

Moriarty

popinfresh wrote:

The US is now posed with a drastic comprehension that the world is gonna start dealing in euros as opposed to dollars (that's a likely possibility, not a conspiricy theory). One logical way to prevent this would be to invade the middle east and install puppet governments that would serve the US's need for oil regardless of the power of the dollar.

You appear to fundamentally misunderstand the actual situation. The problem isn't that the US would have to pay for oil in euros per sè, it's that the dollar would no longer be artifically propped up by all major international oil trade taking place with the dollar. The US is busy enough in Iraq for the next number of years, it won't be invading anywhere else of great significance.

popinfresh wrote:

That would make more sense to me than "saddam is the devil, lets get him!!" I would consider the invasion of Iraq to be a financial investment.

I've seen many others say that too, but the specific arguments have never stood up to scrutiny.

popinfresh wrote:

The world does not have the reserves necessary to continue the economic growth (stability actually) that we have generally seen over the last 50ish years.

Care to share how you know that?

popinfresh wrote:

Oil produce is past its peak, therefore if (eg: China or USA) is to continue maintaining their economys there is gonna be a struggle for who gets the oil.. and the US are posed with a massive disadvantage (the weakening dollar). Guns a hoi'

No, certain people are claiming that oil production is past it's peak. Afaik oil industry analsysts or the companies themselves are saying nothing of the sort. I'd be inclined to believe the oil industry/analsysts when I see so much oil still being discovered to this very day.

popinfresh

From the site I posted a link to earlier

Oil will not just "run out" because all oil production follows a bell curve. This is true whether we're talking about an individual field, a country, or on the planet as a whole.

Oil is increasingly plentiful on the upslope of the bell curve, increasingly scarce and expensive on the down slope. The peak of the curve coincides with the point at which the endowment of oil has been 50 percent depleted. Once the peak is passed, oil production begins to go down while cost begins to go up.

In practical and considerably oversimplified terms, this means that if 2000 was the year of global Peak Oil, worldwide oil production in the year 2020 will be the same as it was in 1980. However, the world’s population in 2020 will be both much larger (approximately twice) and much more industrialized (oil-dependent) than it was in 1980. Consequently, worldwide demand for oil will outpace worldwide production of oil by a significant margin. As a result, the price will skyrocket, oil-dependent economies will crumble, and resource wars will explode.

Graph: Dr. C.J Campbell (1996)

The issue is not one of "running out" so much as it is not having enough to keep our economy running. In this regard, the ramifications of Peak Oil for our civilization are similar to the ramifications of dehydration for the human body. The human body is 70 percent water. The body of a 200 pound man thus holds 140 pounds of water. Because water is so crucial to everything the human body does, the man doesn't need to lose all 140 pounds of water weight before collapsing due to dehydration. A loss of as little as 10-15 pounds of water may be enough to kill him.

In a similar sense, an oil-based economy such as ours doesn't have to deplete its entire reserves of oil before it begins to collapse. A shortfall between demand and supply as little as 10-15 percent is enough to wholly shatter an oil-dependent economy and reduce its citizenry to poverty.

For instance, during the 1970s oil shocks, shortfalls in production as small as 5% caused the price of oil to nearly quadruple. The same thing happened in California a few years ago in regards to natural gas: a production drop of less than 5% caused prices to skyrocket by 400%.

If you can rubbish this please do...

Moriarty

Well, world production is still increasing when that graph says we should be on a swift downward slope by now.



Then there's this

Oil for the Future
From time to time, pundits predict that the world will soon run out of oil. In reality, proved oil reserves have doubled over the last 30 years from 500 billion barrels to over one trillion barrels. How can we use so much oil and still increase remaining reserves? The answer is that we keep finding more oil than we consume.

and this..

A primary source for worldwide reserves estimates is the Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ).[1] OGJ estimates that at the beginning of 2004, worldwide reserves were 1.27 trillion barrels of oil and 6,100 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. These estimates are 53 billion barrels of oil and 575 trillion cubic feet of natural gas higher than the prior year, reflecting additional discoveries, improving technology, and changing economics.

The countries with the largest amounts of remaining oil reserves are: Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Russia, Libya, and Nigeria.[1] The largest reserves of natural gas are found in: Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Algeria, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iraq.[1] The maps illustrate the distribution of remaining reserves around the world.

At 2003 consumption levels [2], the remaining reserves represent 44.6 years of oil and 66.2 years of natural gas. Does this mean that the world will be out of fossil fuels in 50 years or so? That theory has been around since the 1970s. In fact, the figures for years of remaining reserves have remained relative constant over the past few decades as the industry has replaced consumption with newly discovered oil and gas deposits and has developed technologies to increase the amount of oil and gas that can be recovered from existing reservoirs.

As noted above, three factors affect the amount of oil or gas that can be recovered from a known reservoir — rock properties, technology, and economics. While the industry cannot change the properties of the rock, it can develop new techniques to remove more oil from the rock. The industry has made significant advances to enhance recovery from known reservoirs, adding to the reserves base. When prices rise, marginal reservoirs can be developed economically, adding to the reserve base.

Reserves will also grow as more oil and gas deposits are found around the world. Continental North America and much of continental Europe have already been explored heavily, and any new discoveries are likely to be small. But many areas of the globe are largely unexplored and many large new deposits are waiting to be found. Companies have experienced major success in discovering significant new oil and gas reservoirs offshore Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, off the western coast of Africa, Russia, and many areas of Asia and the Pacific. These are just a few of the current areas of growth. Most observers agree that significant deposits of oil and gas remain undiscovered in the Middle East.

No one can know for certain how much oil and gas remains to be discovered. But geologists sometimes make educated guesses. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts periodic assessments of U.S. mineral resources. In its most recent assessment (1995), the USGS estimated that the onshore U.S., including Alaska, has undiscovered, technically recoverable resources of 112.3 billion barrels of oil and 1,074 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In a separate assessment of offshore resources completed in 2000, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimated that 75 billion barrels of oil and 362 trillion cubic feet of natural gas underlie the areas off the coasts of the U.S. The USGS and MMS resource assessments make clear that, despite being a very mature producing area, substantial resources still exist in the U.S.

World oil resources to 2025 may be more than two times current reserves, based on an estimate from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) using USGS data. Reserve growth of 730 billion barrels accounts for new discoveries and the expansion of what can be recovered from known reservoirs due to advances in technology and improvements in economics. But EIA estimates that in 2025, countries around the globe will still have more than 900 billion barrels of oil remaining to be discovered. EIA estimates total world oil resources at more than 2.9 trillion barrels of oil.

Oh, and this from shell..

How long are these reserves expected to last?

Although common sense says that reserves are finite and must come to an end, they have in fact been increasing throughout the history of the oil industry.

Technology improvements are likely to outpace rising depletion costs for at least the next decade, keeping new supplies below twenty dollars a barrel. The costs of biofuels and gas to liquids should both fall well below twenty dollars per barrel of oil equivalent over the next two decades, constraining oil prices.

Oil production has long been expected to peak. Some think this is now imminent. But a scarcity of oil supplies – including unconventional sources and natural gas liquids – is very unlikely before 2025. This could be extended to 2040 by adopting known measures to increase vehicle efficiency and focusing oil demand on this sector.

popinfresh

Fair enough, although another factor that has to be taken into consideration is that China and India (a lot of other countrys aswell) are in the process of industrailation. Meaning the world needs to produce more oil. Oil extraction is not able to keep up with this worldwide trend. The thing I was worring about was the rate at which we are accelerating towards the point whereby there's not enough oil for everybody's economy. (Which let me remind you is an inevitability) Ah well, I HOPE you're right

mike65

I'd be careful about quote anything from Shell as they did'nt even know what reserves they had last year...as for the oil - ITS GONNA RUN OUT!

We'll get by though because we will have to, the development of hydrogen cells is leaping onwards you can now power mobile phones with 'em. Plenty can be done on the efficency and savings front. How many lights are on in your house right now and how many do you need? How many devices are on standby which could be turned off fully without causing problems? I bet the thermostat could be notched back a degree or two...well its a start.

Mike.

Ardent

Moriarty

With all due respect, I'd take any facts or figures from ExxonMobil or Shell with a very large pinch of salt!

Moriarty

I'd take the above at face value.. if they were seriously wrong, they wouldn't publish it freely and openly on their corporate website. They have no real reason to lie about world oil reserves when it would be so easy for others to contradict it.

Magnolia_Fan

could be possible that this is a ploy by crude oil to make the prices rise, a theory floating around is that the earth has a limitless supply of oil in the earths crust as it is constantly being produced...who's right?...guess we'll no sooner rather than later huh?

popinfresh

I'd take the above at face value.. if they were seriously wrong, they wouldn't publish it freely and openly on their corporate website. They have no real reason to lie about world oil reserves when it would be so easy for others to contradict it.

The first thing that springs to mind is that maybe they're painting the picture that everything is OK, to please investors.

leeroybrown

Magnolia_Fan wrote:

could be possible that this is a ploy by crude oil to make the prices rise

No. If the 'big' oil companies (Exxon-Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron-Texaco, Statoil and Petrobras) were to set an ideal price for oil it would be constant around the $28 to $30 dollar mark. Given that it costs approx $1 to get a barrel out of the ground in Saudi-Arabia (rising to about $18 in places like Sweden) that's one hell of a profit margin as it is.

Despite all the scare mongering the oil industry (many would say unfortunately) is in great shape. Exxon-mobil posted profits ($21Bn) last year that could buy small countries and Shell despite having to re-state their reserves (they had oil they would not be able to recover in them) are in great shape.

amp2000

Lads, sorry to tell you all but were ****ed, where do I start....

For a start, Peak Oil is very real & it's coming alot sooner than most of you think. If you open your eyes & stop watching the TV & follow current events worldwide you would realise we are on the edge of a major energy crisis!!

mr_angry wrote:

This has been posted here a couple of times before. Its a little sensationalist, but the basic background to it is correct. However, the author totally disregards the adoption of alternative forms of energy production.

The fact is there is no viable alternatives to do what were doing the way we are now.
Hydrogen is bull**** in energy terms. What you need to focus on is the EROEI (EROEI = Energy Returned on Energy Invested)

Moriarty wrote:

I'd take the above at face value.. if they were seriously wrong, they wouldn't publish it freely and openly on their corporate website. They have no real reason to lie about world oil reserves when it would be so easy for others to contradict it.

You have a lot to learn about the real world. I'd quote you & try put you wide but I can see your pretty stuck in your ways believing politicians & the media so I wont try, you'll probably think I'm mad.

I was going to type out a load of stuff here & try convince yous but I'm lazy so I'm just gonna quote something from somebody else.
I know what this person is saying & I'm in agreement, I'm anybody wants to refute some of the points on it I'm all open to debate.

Peak Oil, 9/11, and World War III

Peak Oil, its a subject that has been discussed before on this board and a fact that has been proven. Peak Oil reprsents the future peak of production of oil, and its decline thereafter. This event represents a turning point in mankind, where less net energy will be availible every year, and soceity will no longer be able to grow, but the opposite will occure. This is not a myth, or a theory, but its a fact, based on scientific proof by oil geologists, scientists, and many high members in our government. The facts point to a peak soon before 2010.

Peak Oil is here, it is now. You will experiance its effects within your lifetime, you are experiancing its effects right now. It will change and effect every aspect of your life, the only way to prepare is to arm yourself with the knowledge of survival.


"Crossing the Rubicon identifies key 9/11 suspects - finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government - by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks produced the desired result.

To understand whats going on in this world, and the depth of its world picture - you need to review petroleum, geopolitics, narco-traffic, intelligence and militarism - without which 9/11 cannot be understood.

In reality, 9/11 and the resulting "War on Terror" are parts of a massive authoritarian response to an emerging economic crisis of unprecedented scale. Peak Oil - the beginning of the end for our industrial civilization - is driving the elites of American power to implement unthinkably draconian measures of repression, warfare and population control. Crossing the Rubicon is more than a story. It is a map of the perilous terrain through which, together and alone, we are all now making our way."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=books&n=507846

-Amazon review of Crossing the Rubicon, this book provides 600 pages of facts, evidence and proof of the US's planning, supession and involvment in the attacks. And also addresses the economic and human ramifications of the Peak Oil event, which is due to happen before 2010.



To understand just how big of a problem we have right now, lets understand the Saudi Arabian feild of Ghawar. This is the worlds largest oil feild, it produes about 4-5m/b per day and produces about 5% of the worlds crude.



Saudi Arabia’s promise to increase production to meet US and world economic needs was the hot topic. Much discussion and hard data was devoted to the fact that Ghawar, the largest field in the world, along with all of Saudi Arabia’s other large fields, was old and tired. In recent years both water injection and so-called “bottle-brush” drilling have been employed to maintain production and both of these techniques tend to accelerate decline and damage the reservoirs. They are desperate measures.

With bottle brush drilling, a shaft is drilled horizontally over long distances with a number of brush-like openings. As water is forced under pressure into the reservoir, the oil is forced upwards toward the well heads and extraction is thereby increased. However, when the water table hits the horizontal shaft, often without warning, the whole field is virtually dead and production immediately drops off to almost nothing. This comes as surprise in most cases. As several at the conference noted, this is exactly what had already happened in Oman, Syria and Yemen.

As William Kennedy, a UK observer at the conference noted afterwards, “For the record, Ghawar’s ultimate recoverable reserves in 1975 were estimated at 60 billion barrels – by Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Chevron. It had produced 55 billion barrels up to the end of 2003 and is still producing at 1.8 billion per annum. That shows you how close it might be to the end. When Ghawar dies, the world is officially in decline.”


See the problem water extraction, is that it does not experiance typical decline slopes. Normal wells, which were used in the United States and Russia, pumped the oil from the groud. This was realiable, but it could only produce a certain ammount per year. The invention of the water-injected method does not get more oil out, just increases the ammount you can pump at one time. It increases the pressure in the well and pumps oil, as well as water, to the surface. This extraction technique has experianced different decline slopes then compaired to the traditional wells. It dropped off a cliff. One day the well produces fine, 2m/b a day, and then the next day the water table raises and bam, the feild is dead. This is expected to happen to Ghawar within the comming year.



No one, not even from the major oil companies or the economic camp rose to defend Saudi Arabia’s claim that it could increase production rapidly. The BBC’s Adam Porter nailed the International Energy Agency’s chief economist Faith Birol over his confident assertion that there was still plenty of oil.

In public, Mr Birol denied that supply would not be able to meet rising demand, especially from the buoyant economies in the USA, China and India.

But after his speech he seemed to change his tune.

"For the time being there is no spare capacity. But we expect demand to increase by the fourth quarter (of the year) by three million barrels a day."

He pinned his hopes for an increase in production squarely on troubled Saudi Arabia. "If Saudi does not increase supply by 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year we will face, how can I say this, it will be very difficult. We will have difficult times. They must invest."

Can Saudi deliver?

But even Mr Birol admitted that Saudi production was "about flat".

Three million extra barrels a day would mean a huge 30% leap in output in just a few months.

When BBC News Online followed up by asking if this giant increase in production was actually possible rather than simply a desire he refused to answer. "You are from the press? This is not for you. This is not for the press."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/fr...erlin_peak.html

Our current world spare compacity is about .5%, now if Ghawar suddenly died, like is to be expected, that would take 5% off the market. Where would the extra crude to replace it come from? Well there is none, once Ghawar dies, the world is officaly in decline. The scary part is, it could happen any day. We are depending on Saudi Arabia to make up for the declines everywhere else in the world, and to stablize oil prices. But the fact is Saudi Arabia cant do much more then "promise, and pretend that the world is not heading towards the worst disaster in history".

If instead some of you want some up to date news check out www.peakoil.com they have some pretty active forums there too if you want to debate with people that really know what they are talking about.


Also check out
www.peakoil.net
www.fromthewilderness.com
www.energybulletin.net

Please read the reviews for Crossing the Rubicon at amazon before dismissing what I'm saying here.

P.S. A little hint for anyone that has a variable interest rate mortgage, change it to a fixed rate quick!

Moriarty

amp2000 wrote:

you'll probably think I'm mad.

Probably a fair chance of that, yeah.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Moriarty

In any case, hydrogen isn't being mooted for energy production, it'll be for energy storage and distribution.

amp2000

Moriarty wrote:

Probably a fair chance of that, yeah.

If the sun or the herald don't tell you about it then it's not true eh?

The truth is that it isnt in the media or the politicians interest to tell you. If people knew the truth there would be chaos, you wouldn't see idiots building shopping malls or motorways. Look at the NYMEX exchange today for example, it's still at over $50 a barrel since yesterday http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/

Do you really live in a bubble moriarty or do you realise that China, Russia & Iran are doing big energy & weapons deals with each other in the past couple of months ?? Guess what Moriarty,,, the american economy is about to go bang, they are about to invade iran with israel & then the **** hits the fan. Watch that happens when the chines float the yuan, there is going to be a massive run on the dollar.
Have a guess why were about to enter WW3, I have 2 words, "Peak Oil"

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Moriarty

amp2000 wrote:

If the sun or the herald don't tell you about it then it's not true eh?

So if I disagree with you, I have to be somone who reads the sun or the herald. I see.

amp2000 wrote:

Look at the NYMEX exchange today for example, it's still at over $50 a barrel since yesterday

It's back above $50/barrel in the US again because of 1) a colder than expected winter in europe and the US which necessitates more oil useage 2) a weakening of the US dollar 3) continued high general demand from numerous countries.

amp2000 wrote:

Do you really live in a bubble moriarty or do you realise that China, Russia & Iran are doing big energy & weapons deals with each other in the past couple of months ??

Energy and weapons deals now automatically signal global war. Intresting.

amp2000 wrote:

Guess what Moriarty,,, the american economy is about to go bang,

Ok. Give me a rough date for when you expect the US economy to collapse. You do have a date in mind, right?

amp2000 wrote:

they are about to invade iran with israel

No they're not. I'll place money on that too, if you're intrested.

amp2000 wrote:

Watch that happens when the chines float the yuan, there is going to be a massive run on the dollar.
Have a guess why were about to enter WW3, I have 2 words, "Peak Oil"

We can only hope for an intervention from the Illuminati &/ aliens. OMG WE'RE ALL DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!¬!!!!!!11

amp2000

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

I really feel sorry for you thinking we have that long left before some new invention will save us.

I was hoping the irish would be able to pull through peak oil better than others by going back to farming & community living etc.

****, looks like it aint gonna happen in this country, youre all gonna happily listen to the economists whose job it is to tell you where to throw your money.
Here's a newsflash, economic growth NEEDS cheap oil & natural gas, when oil demand is more than the supply the end of economic growth in the oil age is finished.
It's already happening, look at a map of the world & notice that all major conflicts that are happening now are around either energy supplies or energy transit routes.
****, look at an oil & natural gas map of the world & look at all the countries america has had an interest in the past few decades.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

cdebru

before oil wee had coal we moved on before all the coal was gone befrore that it was wood we moved on before the wood was gone

this is just scare story its probably the same guy that was telling us the world was going to stop because of Y2K what happened to all those guys
no traffic lights no power no water no money and what happened nothing

amp2000

Moriarty wrote:

It's back above $50/barrel in the US again because of 1) a colder than expected winter in europe and the US which necessitates more oil useage 2) a weakening of the US dollar 3) continued high general demand from numerous countries.

Energy and weapons deals now automatically signal global war. Intresting.

Ok. Give me a rough date for when you expect the US economy to collapse. You do have a date in mind, right?

No they're not. I'll place money on that too, if you're intrested.

It's above $50 a barrel because demand is almost meeting supply.
A rough date for the US economy to collapse, I'm not sure, it depends what China does when the US go into Iran.
If I knew you I'd happily bet you money, look at a map of the middle east moriarty, 60% of all recoverable oil is in the persian gulf, 11% of that in iraq, now take a look at Bush's so called axis of evil. Iran is on it & Bush has already started bitching at them about their nuclear program, the exact same as he was before Iraq, which as it turns out the Iraq invasion was based on lies.
As for afghanistan, that was so the US could build a pipeline through it while at the same time ramping back up opium production after the taliban outlawed it.
By the way, the US administration are well aware of peak oil, both bush & cheney have both said that this is a war that will not end in our lifetimes, they werent kidding. Bush's energy advisor Matthew Simmons reckons we have probably already peaked

Also, in the late 70's US president Carter came out with the Carter doctrine which stated that "The oil in the middle east is of strategic importance to the US & we will use our military to defend our access to it"

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Unforunately I can't show how little is left as nobody knows. It just depends who you listen to. Have a look at this for a start http://peakoil.com/images/2004_ASPO.jpg
1 thing I can say that might make some sense is back in the 80's OPEC were coming out with new rules where you could only pump a certain percentage of a countrys total reserves, overnight as if by magic most of those countries reported HUGE increases. It wasnt cos they found more oil, it was purely political.

The thing is guys, when we go for a bank loan or whatever we are told it is normal for the economy to grow by a couple of precent a year. The problem is that there will be chaos when people realise that the economy can no longer grow, millions of people across the world are going to default on their mortgages etc. Now can anyone tell me what benefit there is by telling everyone the economy will start to decline, there is none because there is no upside. I have taken the time to read up on alternatives & the fact is there is simply no viable alternatives.

amp2000

ChevronTexaco Warns of Global Bidding War
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2005/02/15/chevrontexaco_warns_of_global_bidding_war/

Now check this one & bear in mind the expert saying this was Bush's energy advisor!
Expert says Saudi oil may have peaked
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C89E7E-1DE9-42BC-920B-91E5850FB067.htm

Moriarty

amp2000 wrote:

It's above $50 a barrel because demand is almost meeting supply.

Demand is almost meeting the amount currently supplied by OPEC/etc, yeah. That is totally different to saying world oil reserves have reached their peak. The oil companies are investing billions in increasing supplys, as the current infrastructure is at its limits. It's nothing to do with an actual shortage of oil.

amp2000 wrote:

A rough date for the US economy to collapse, I'm not sure, it depends what China does when the US go into Iran.

So you can't even give me a rough date. Great.

amp2000 wrote:

If I knew you I'd happily bet you money

There's no point betting money if you'll continue saying that this crash is just around the corner in perpetuity.

amp2000 wrote:

Unforunately I can't show how little is left as nobody knows.

Compare and contrast to..

amp2000 wrote:

Lads, sorry to tell you all but were ****ed, where do I start....

For a start, Peak Oil is very real & it's coming alot sooner than most of you think. If you open your eyes & stop watching the TV & follow current events worldwide you would realise we are on the edge of a major energy crisis!!

Just as a matter of intrest, what age are you btw?

amp2000

Moriarty wrote:

Demand is almost meeting the amount currently supplied by OPEC/etc, yeah. That is totally different to saying world oil reserves have reached their peak. The oil companies are investing billions in increasing supplys, as the current infrastructure is at its limits. It's nothing to do with an actual shortage of oil.

You have a point there, the infrastructure is at it's limits. What your wrong about is all those companies investing billions to increase supply, what they are doing is merging & buying each other out so they can report reserve increases.

Have a read of this, I can't say how true it is as the author is anonymous, presumably he wants to keep his job.

A letter from oil exploration insider

I work for a major international oil company, in the exploration area. Peak oil is a fact – we are all on the back side of the bell curve.

While this is true, it might be better to term it the “Cheap-Oil Peak”. The US/UK/Western Europe are the entities primarily responsible for using up most of the oil prior to the mid-1980’s. Around that point, Asia and China got into the mix. As their economies heated up – more oil was used. This trend is still in effect.

I followed the link to that “Beware of the Peakoil Agenda”, which I probably shouldn’t have done. The ignorance of most of the world about what we do in oil exploration is amazing. Even the DOE has no idea how or what we really do – they are academics, and exist in their own government-funded bubble.

Provided the world can resist pulling the trigger on our debt, and we can resist pissing them all off in unison, we just might be ok for another 10 years, basically rolling along “as-is” but with higher oil/gas prices. We do have some untapped resources here, but there are some facts that most people do not understand with respect to the exploration industry.

1) We are drilling rig limited – we are at full capacity world wide in the offshore rig market, and even the small number of new drilling rigs they are building will not improve that appreciably. No drilling contractor is going to build rigs rapidly ever again – not after the disaster of cheap oil in the late ‘70’s and ‘80’s. Assuming oil jumped to $100/bbl tomorrow, little in our industry would change, because the drilling infrastructure has been cannibalized for 20 years…..we are already drilling as fast as we can!

2) We are personnel limited – in 1982 there were 1.6 million Americans working in the Oil & Gas sector, and today there are roughly 500,000. Imagine the hue and cry from any other industry at a job loss of well over 70% nationally!! The average age of people like me is 45 years old or older, with a great many facing retirement in the next 10 years. The age bracket between 30 and 45 is basically empty – who enters a consolidating, shrinking field intentionally? We simply do not have the available manpower to ramp-up in response to any stimulus - we are currently each doing the work of 2 or more people as we exist today!!

3) The notion that we are sitting on “capped wells” of oil or gas is utterly ludicrous. We simply do not drill and sit on reserves – they must be produced to pay for the enormous expenditures we have in drilling them, or shareholders would evaporate as our bottom lines became nonexistent. Wells are drilled based on the estimated oil price 6-12 months ahead, and that estimate is very bearish due to what happened in the 1980’s oil bust. Oil and gas actually move through rock – “sitting on capped wells” must have been invented by some environmental nut-basket, because there is no business or geological sense to it, and smart people follow the money.

4) We are finished with most of the “second tier” exploration domestically. What we have left in the ground is either uneconomical due to depth, temperature, technology or “other”. “Other” includes those wonderful people who NEVER want to see a drilling rig anywhere near them (NIMBY) or in their view. Thus we have been essentially “frozen out” of the west coast, the east coast, all of Florida and the Arctic frontier. If we were “turned loose” on all this acreage, it would require well over 36 months for the first drop to get to market. We must find it, delineate it, build a producing structure, and then ship it in states or areas that have no oil transportation or drilling support infrastructure!

5) Many people foolishly believe that higher prices will make the oil as valuable as gold is today. What they fail to realize is this: as liquid energy (oil) prices rise, all associated prices rise! Even if oil sells for $100/bbl, everything built with this $100/bbl oil will experience the same price increases, and likely more. This includes all plastics, steel, transportation and chemicals! We are currently bypassing the drilling of certain wells right now because the cost to get them out of the ground cannot be recovered. If our material costs (what we buy or rent to actually build an oil or gas well) rise with oil prices, many fields will never be produced, as it will always be uneconomical due to the small size of the oil trap.

6) For the most part, the biggest fields have been discovered world wide. What remains is technologically prohibitive (water depth, downhole temperature or sheer depth of the deposit). We are all fighting for the scraps as things exist today, with the exception of the African coast. There, we are fighting for our lives as well as oil. I have personally been shot at during overseas stints, and once held hostage by guerillas as they blew up our rig while we watched. We are not a bunch of sissy-boys in this industry, but we also have wives and children. West African production will never increase appreciably until their governments achieve stability. In other words, West Africa cannot help us in the foreseeable future.

Some numbers for the number bunch to crunch: The average offshore rig cost $24,000 per day to rent in 2003, and today the same 30 year-old-rig costs $40,000 per day to rent due to rig availability. Yes, most of our rigs are 30 or more years old – would you rent a cabin on a 30 year-old cruise ship? Yet this is what we drill oil wells with in the new millennium…..

Multiply that times the average 45 days to drill a “second tier” oil or gas well, you get $1,800,000 just for renting the drilling rig! No other mining industry or industry I know of has such tremendous up-front costs. The average price for a typical offshore well is around 3.7-4 million dollars. A production platform to bring the oil to is easily in excess of $10 million…….and these prices will escalate with energy costs!

It is not a question of “if” peak oil has occurred – it has! The better question might be “when are the crows coming home to roost?” When will we begin to actually experience the shortages and the rising prices? I think we might make a decade, if everybody plays nice across the world. But when has that ever happened when something got scarce?

Just wanted to get that off my chest. I have been maligned and spit on by too many people who drive cars and use electricity, and then bitch about prices or claim some kind of “Big Oil Conspiracy”…. I can tell you that the collective consensus within my business will be “let the bastards freeze in the dark” when the big wail arises.

Respectfully, (name withheld)
http://energybulletin.net/4466.html

Moriarty wrote:

So you can't even give me a rough date. Great.
Compare and contrast to..

A rough date, OK, my guess would be within 2 years & serious oil supply problems in about 2 years.
You also have a point with your compare & contrast to comment, I was getting a bit ahead of myself last night with a few beers in me.
Me or anyone else cant tell you exactly when we are going to peak, it's impossible. If youve been following it you will have noticed Saudi arabia have said on more than 1 occasion last year they were boosting production to lower the oil prices, they have since failed to boost production at all.

daveirl

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Doper Than U

Originally Posted by amp2000
The fact is there is no viable alternatives to do what were doing the way we are now.
Hydrogen is bull**** in energy terms. What you need to focus on is the EROEI (EROEI = Energy Returned on Energy Invested)

Nuclear.

Nuclear and Coal are also finite resources. I did hear a figure recently for 40 years left of Uranium if production goes up much more. Also neither of these are clean, which causes massive problems, as if we didn't already know that. Oil and global warming go hand in hand, (well fossil fuels and global warming do), and replacing oil with another fossil fuel will do us no good whatsoever. Nuclear may have no emissions, but it creates sh*tloads of nuclear waste, which I think we can all agree, is not to be encouraged. Point is, it's time we switched to renewables, solar and wind looking like our only options. Think about it, if each house had solar panels, that would be all clean, free electricity. Unfortunatly, PV (photovoltaic) energy is not "efficient" enough yet. More money needs to be invested in making solar a real, viable option. It will happen, it would just be great if they could get their fists out and do it sooner rather than later.

http://www.energybulletin.net/

Great site. Very informative.

C Fodder

Just sticking my oar in here where its not wanted!

Oil reserves are currently identified and commercially viable wells not total or not currently comercial oil fields e.g. much of the north sea during the first major crisis in the 70's. There's known oil out there that's not in the stats yet!

The total known reserves of natural gas are well capable of supplying energy for 200+ years for the world but maybe not all the industrial applications of crude oil. There are, at last estimate, 400 years worth of coal in the ground give or take an economist or two.

Yes all fossil fuels are running out and many solutions for short and medium term solutions are currently available just not all popular despite how efficient they could be e.g. nuclear fission or wind farms with our own dear An Taisce.

Maybe I'm wrong but when our grandkids are discussing this thay won't be able to understand our concern/worry about dwindling oil reserves as oil may well be replaced by water as a major concern by then and their energy concerns will be beyond our grasp in the same way as our grandparents couldn't understand an oil shortage in their early years.

Gurgle

There is no problem, except the fact that when the oil runs out there'll be billions of useless cars lying around the planet.

Trillions of tonnes of water slosh over and back across a distance of several hundred meters twice a day. Free energy, for when it becomes economically viable to build the power plants, i.e. when the oil runs out.

The oceans are also several degrees warmer than they naturally should be. Heat exchange can reverse that and give us billions of watts of power back.

Its quite possible now to build batteries that a car could run off for days. Again, it would cost the price of a car to assemble the battery pack at current prices but as the potential market grows, competition will get serious and the prices will drop at an exponential rate.

There is no energy crisis, except the one manufactured to keep the oil flowing and make the richest people in the world even richer. You can also be pretty sure that when the next generation of energy production starts to come on line, the oil companies will not let themselves be left behind.

Oh yeah, and diesel cars are already on the roads with tanks full of vegetable oil. I'd guess that within the next decade, there will be cars on the market with engines designed specifically for vegetable oil, making it much more effective than a converted diesel.

Ardent

amp2000: they (the US) are about to invade iran with israel
Moriarty: No they're not. I'll place money on that too, if you're intrested.

Reaction to Sunday's nuclear fuel accord between Iran and Russia varies greatly on opposite sides of the Atlantic, with U.S. officials disapproving and Europeans expressing satisfaction with the safeguards built into the deal.

The deal, signed at Iran's Bushehr atomic plant in the south of the country, calls for Russia to supply uranium fuel and for Iran to ship back spent nuclear materials. Observers say the agreement will facilitate the activation of Iran's first atomic power station perhaps in a matter of months.


The Bush administration had strenuously objected to the accord. One of President Bush's allies in Congress says it takes Iran a step closer to being able to produce nuclear weapons not just nuclear energy, as Tehran insists.

Republican Senator John McCain spoke on Fox News Sunday. "A nuclear-armed Iran is a very destabilizing turn of events and could ratchet up the possibility of conflict in that region. This is a very serious step, because most experts believe that Iran is on the road to acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and they have means to deliver them, as well," said Mr. McCain.

And so it begins?

daveirl

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popinfresh

Ah yeah but I'm sure they'll cock up some WMD-excuse and invade them.
The US have hated Iran far longer than Saddam. Or the US could encourage Israel to attack Iran to destroy nuclear facilities (secretly of course). Iran will inevitably counter-attack Israel then the US invades Iran in order to "defend" Israel.

Easy Peay Lemmon Squeezy. And the US may very well get away with it seeing as how they were "only defending Israel" :cool:. Although TBH, I can't see the US invading any other countries after Iran. That is of course unless other countries become hostile to the US after invading Iran. (China recently signed a $300billion oil deal with Iran)