[extropy-chat] Debate on Peak Oil

[Samantha Atkins]

On Apr 25, 2005, at 7:33 AM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>
> --- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Apr 24, 2005, at 9:37 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>>
>>> Peak Oil exists for certain nations and certain oil companies,
>> based on
>>> who has the rights to certain oil fields and which fields are being
>>> allowed to be developed by governments. The world is nowhere near
>> any
>>> sort of impending oil shortage. We have a minimum of 100 years of
>> oil
>>> available at todays market prices.
>>
>> Produce your evidence or withdraw this claim.
>
> It was clearly stated previously the years that the exploitable
> reserves of different oil companies would peak out at. This isn't
> something that is open to dispute. Peak Oil just doesn't count reserves
> that are to date unexploited for other than economic reasons.

Not to my knowledge.  Where does this come from?

> The
> Spratlys reserves were unexploited for reasons of international tension
> between four nations. ANWR is unexploited purely for environmental
> reason.

The amount of reserves there is barely worth the hassle.   Even 19 
billion barrels (many including many working for oil companies expect 
half of that) is not a whole lot of oil and thus has negligible effect 
on when we reach the Peak.   We don't have any really large untapped 
known fields of easily economically exploitable crude.

> California and Florida reserves (which are far larger than you
> state) are closed of purely for the sake of tourists and waterfront
> property owners not seeing oil derricks (much as Kerry and Kennedy got
> the wind power project off Cape Cod cancelled).
>
>>
>>>
>>> The Canadian oil tar sands contain more oil (over 3,000 billion
>>> barrels), as do Venezuelan tar sands, that the idea that we are
>> running
>>> out of oil is simply ludicrous.
>>
>> Except for the unfortunate fact that we have no means to economically
>> (today's prices) and environmentally sanely extract and refine such
>> oil.
>
> Not true. Prior technology could safely and not so cleanly extract the
> oil at $60.00/bbl. New technology does it cleanly with steam treatment
> and water remediation at under $30/bbl. I happen to know of a company
> that just built the pilot plant in Alberta.

It is not that clean and easy.  If it was I would be totally invested 
in the relevant companies.  Are you?   I do have some Canada plays 
actually for precisely the hope that these projects will pay off.  but 
they certainly are not in production at such a low price and in good 
quantity today.   Your insinuation that they are is not useful.

>
>>
>>> In the
>>> shorter term, China, the Phillipines, Vietnam, and Indonesia are
>>> sitting on 19 billion barrels under the Spratlys, while the US has
>> an
>>> equivalent amount sitting under ANWR, plus additional reserves
>>> elsewhere. The oil and gas fields of Wyoming, I am hearing are
>> seeing a
>>> boom-time.
>>
>> US oil production peaked in the 70s (as predicted by Hubbert).  Do
>> you think we are dependent on Mideast oil just to amuse ourselves
>> with the attendant complications and costs when we actually have
>> everything we need right here?
>
> Yes. Political forces want high oil prices for several reasons. One is
> to get America off of its consumption economy, to depopulate the rural
> area further and congregate in cities so as to be easier to control,
> another is to trigger a recession in preparation for a Chinese dollar
> bomb attack prior to their retaking Taiwan (and assisted by JP Morgan).
> Luddite goals which extropians should not let themselves get sucked
> into.

I can't do anything with conspiracy theory stuff of this kind.

>
> The resulting economic depression will force the US government to hand
> over title to federal and state parks and forests to the UN's World
> Biosphere Reserve program, so as to fully collateralize the World
> Bank/IMF. The point of this is to enable the WB/IMF to fully monetize
> the UN budget at low government bond rates independently of member
> nations, turning the UN into a truly federal world government,
> independently sovereign from its member nations, much as the US states
> transitioned during the Civil War and Reconstruction period. Combined
> with their measures to turn the high seas into UN territory, so they
> can raise taxes from international commerce, and world government will
> be inevitable if we let it happen.

Are you aware of how much US debt is owned by foreign governments that 
dhave been converting it to hard assets in the US for quite some time 
now?  Our creditors want to be left holding something more than a lot 
of Federal IOUs by the time we finish imploding our economy.   Real 
nefarious of them huh?

Can we drop the conspiracy theory krap and get the discussion back on 
track?

>
>> ANWR is not that impressive to the actual oil
>> companies. To put this in perspective, the world sucks down 77 mbd,
>> call it 100 mbd in round numbers (we expect to reach this level
>> easily
>> with the next 5 - 10 years).  The 19 billion barrels satisfies world
>> demand for less than a year.  Not very impressive.  Also we are lucky
>> to get as much as 70% of the oil out of the ground.
>
> This is the typical lying with numbers that occurs. You are acting as
> if ANWR would be the only oil supplier in the world. Gimme a break. If
> ANWR only pumped 1 million bbl/day, it would quickly increase global
> oil stocks to the point that prices would drop back to the mid $20's
> range. At 1 million bbl/day, that would make ANWR last for at least 50
> years.

No.  I am taking fields you suggest make Peak Oil a lie and showing 
they are inadequate for the job.   Bring the others on and we'll tally 
them up.   ANWR will not pump 1 mbd.  The expectation is for half of 
that.  So less than 1% of daily global consumption today much less by 
the time it comes online.   How is this going to make such a 
difference?   How much current in production sources decline will we 
have suffered before it and the others come online?

>
> Nor will we reach 100 mbbl/day any time soon. It will take till 2020
> before China has even a fraction of the US number of autos. By then
> they will be pumping the Spratlys fields for all the are worth.
>

We are at 77 mbd now.  We are expected to hit 130 within 25 years if we 
get the same percent of our energy usage from oil.  As extropians and 
good hearted people who would like many parts of the world to advance I 
don't think we can find the energy projections that hard to believe.

- samantha