"CRUDE" oil, an absolute must see program !!!

All good but not cheaper than the REAL cost of pumping crude oil, if we just drill more wells so that supply can once again keep up with demand. If we own the new wells (or at least a big bunch of them) then the oil cartel (OPEC) will become irrelevant as well and crude oil prices will return to their more realistic $50-60 a barrel. Then corn oil and all the others don't look so good. That's all I'm saying.

Remember that all of these alternative fuels are still hydrocarbons and still have the same by-products of combustion, namely CO2 and water, in about the same amount ITO Lbs/BTU.

 

One thing to keep in mind with peak oil is the "dynamics of resource depletion". It goes like this... the discovery curve is typically a bell shaped curve (idealised) and the exploitation curve (supply curve) typically reflects the discovery curve transposed by x years. In the case of oil it seems to be about 40 years but don't quote me. So draw or imagine a bell curve as being reflecting our capacity to pump (supply curve if you like) oil. Then overlay the consumption curve which is typically an exponential curve that starts back where the discovery curve began. The point at which the consumption curve and the supply curve diverge is where price pressure drives oil to prices that will encourage alternates giving them competitive advantage. This divergence becomes pronounced at the peak of the supply curve which is about 50% resource exploitation. The thing is that the exponential nature of the demand curve means that the peak of the supply curve actually occurs at about 90% of the time to resource exhaustion. So while it say took 90 years to use the first 50% of the resource the second half will be exploited in say 10 or so. There have been a number of studies looking a populations of various creatures using various resources and it seems the dynamic is loosely the same. You can argue that the various curves should be draw in different places because of factor x or y but the scary thing is that it has little real impact on the time line, things move around by a decade or so.

Now it will take us 20 years at break neck speed to wean ourselves of oil at best and we are a sleep at the wheel (maybe $100 oil will shake things up?). We only react to crisis which almost ensures we will have a period of economic pain in transitioning from one major cheap energy source to the next.

Even the wildest optimists would not suggest that we could double our resource base from here and yet doubling the amount of oil would buy surprisingly little time in the great scheme of things because of the above described dynamic (a few decades). So which ever way it turns this is a problem now with most of the data pointing to a 2005 peak, that nice flat spot on top of the bell before the chitty stuff starts up in earnest.

I'm an optimist I think we will solve this problem, keep in mind that every time the human race has had an energy crisis we have come out of the other side with a technology that supplies 10x the potential of the previous technology... then we set about using it, all of it. The next quantum leap is probably coming from quarter that you and I have not considered. Whatever it is, given our history, it needs to be big, very big. Maybe it will be a mix of things but we do always seem to develop a dominant technology. I wonder what it will be? I hope we don't start a war over what is left of the oil in the mean time, ooops, bit late for that, well lets say a bigger war. Wars always seem to happen in these big commodity cycles when push comes to shove over raw material.

The next couple of decades have some MAJOR challenges, energy being first and fore most. May we live in interesting times

 

$100 + is realistic. The Saudis lie about reserves (they never shrink! known as paper barrels in the industry), Ghawar is in decline, the North Sea is in decline, Cantarell is in decline. Demand at the margin is coming from Asia, the US is no longer the pivotal consumer like the Saudis are no longer the pivotal producer. That honor now belongs to Russia and if you think they are shy about using that power think again. The US used $10 oil to break Russia, the Russians remember it well... now they have the oil and the US has the addiction. You think that will end well? The fact is now that supply is so tight that anyone producing more than 1mbpd has power and don't Chavez and the Nigerian Rebels know it. Get used to high energy costs despite the economic contraction it will cause, the paradigm has changed.

 

Anybody want to buy a power boat. It only use 1 ton per day.

 

I did cover that. "The best part of that is that the contents of landfills are a feedstock. Good way to recycle the huge amounts of waste we produce. ... The end product would make a good fuel for diesels." In the US, we generate more than 1/4 billion tons of waste annually. 32% of that is recycled now, with another 12% incinerated. Waste incineraters are permitted as power plants (the only way they are poltically palatable), but the process of burning garbage to make steam and electricity is so inefficient most plants generate not much more than needed to run the plant. The vast majority of garbage goes into landfills, huge pits that are filled with garbage and covered with dirt. Left alone, those landfills will be oil deposits in 50-60 million years. TDP improves that timeline a little bit, reducing it to hours. Turning huge mounds of garbage into useable oil now rather than 50 million years from now is the only advantage it has over pumping the ready-made stuff out of the ground. That and the fact that the oil it generates is #2 grade, ready for diesel use.

 

Sell yer power boat and ya big old SUV or FWD or what ever.. while they are still worth something over scrap.

 

I get my fuel from the back of Mc Donalds. I have to eat 20 bags of chips? (french fies for Americans) every day to keep oil consumption up.

Since I hav'nt took the boat out since April 2007 (hangs head in shame) it doesnt matter. When new fuels start to come in big, and countries cover it by law fuel will be cheap again ,---horaah pip pip.

I have about 600liters on board now that is worth 4 times what I paid for it.

Here comes my Mc Donalds delivery scoff scoff gulp choke scoff,---more salt please. Wowah ,-blood pressure about 180 psi.

 

20 bags, WOW, just plumb the loo into the fuel tank and you can go anywhere

 

oil and energy

The answer to the problem is FUSION, PREFERABLY COLD FUSION. If our government put out a 20 billion-make that 40 billion reward for it's creation we would have it rather quickly--within 8 years. That's my 2 bits on the subject. Stan

 

Jeeeees Frosty, an I tole you about coconut oil... Do not ad to diesel and preheat to 70 deg C and away you go smelling of all that asian cooking & no imported fat! (in your gut)

 

I got FUSION.... Woooops - top secret...

 

Frosty
Beter than superannuation. I estimate five years from now you can scrap the boat and sell the fuel. Probably enough to buy a nice sailing cat.

Also you need to be careful who you tell about the quantity of fuel on board!

Reminds me of the tyre situation in the mining industry two years ago. You could get a new truck delivered inside 12 months. If you wanted it with tyres you had to wait 18 months. Now everything takes more than 2 years and China is only on the first rung of the modernisation ladder. India, Bangladesh and Indonesia are still trying to reach the first rung. (Have you seen the rate of car growth in China?)

I hope all those wells in Texas have plenty of oil to go around.

Rick W.

 

That's the ol exponential demand curve kicking into high gear. Chinas numbers are just staggering without considering India, we in Oz are but a pimple on the butt of this thing!

 

Yeah but its 40' and the wife don't know about it yet.... right?

 

Trouble is it takes time and money to replace 100 years of accumulated oil based energy infrastructure. If we have a viable answer today it will still take 20 years to roll it out.