Off Topic but interesting read

[MarkTTU]

Couple of thoughts/comments...

Until recently the government regulations (environmental and others) made it very cost prohibitive to build a new refinery; old refineries were grandfathered (for the most part) making them much cheaper to operate. This is the same problem California suffered a few years back with electricity production; they had regulated away the ability to build new power plants.

Has anyone gone back to say 1960 and looked at the price of gas? If adjusted that price for inflation over the last 46 years what would the price be in today's dollars? Is this more or less than we are actually paying today? Basically I'm wondering (though don't have the time to do the research) if gas has gotten cheaper or more expensive in real terms.

Kamenges has a good point... The communist system is great in theory, but it will not and does not work in the real world.

As others have stated, the cost to build an all electric rail system in the US would be staggering... As an example of that; when driving from Lubbock Texas to Albuquerque New Mexico you drive along a small two lane road with moderate traffic; off to the side of this road are two tracks, both with heavy use and trains running 80+ MPH. Its nearly 400 miles to Albuquerque and there are about 3 gas stations and nothing else in between...

 

[Voltimus]

1965 was the world peak year of discovery. From statistics, it's known that production mirrors discovery and peak production usually happens 30 to 40 years after peak discovery. The fields in the middle east were discovered in the 30's, 40' s, and 50's. The last great discoveries were made in the late 60's. (Alaska and the North sea) Both have long since peaked and are in irreversible decline. The super giant land based fields were discovered with the naked eye.

The united states crude oil production peaked in 1971, and has been in decline ever since. It was predicted to do just that as early as 1955 by legendary Shell geologist M. King Hubbert. The bell shaped curve that every pressurized oil reservoir exhibits during it's production life cycle has been named the Hubbert curve.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but, the two largest oil finds ever in history were recently discovered in the Caspian sea's Kashigan fields. That was in 2000. Oil production in the US did not peak in 1971, or I would be out of a job, The Gulf of Mexico currently produces more oil than it ever has in any year previous, and there are projects on the books for the next 20 years. The Gulf of Mexico's shelf is dying, but, it's being replaced by deepwater finds, Anadarko sold 312 of it's old properties to invest in 2 deepwater facilities, why? Because two deepwater facilities will produce more oil and gas than the 312 properties that were sold, with fewer cost to produce and less pollution.
Next up, we have "In Situ" technology that Shell is starting to master, which will probably, in the next 10 to 20 years yield more oil in the Rockies than any oil find previous...

But, we're running out of oil......yeah, right...

I believe in peak oil, but, we are nowhere near it, maybe in 50 or 60 years, but not anytime in the next 10 or 20....

 

[elevmike]

Just think. 70% of the planet is coverd by water. So figure that maybe on the outside we've explored 40% of the planet for oil and gas (off shore & on shore). So what does the other 60% hold??

 

[Lancie1]

Voltimus,

Don't forget either the oil up in Northern Alaska. We could drill there in an untapped field and have about a 5 year supply for the US. Someone named this area the "Artic National Wildlife Refuge". What a laugh! I challenge anyone who thinks that area is a wildlife area to go up there and take a look. When I was there, all I saw was hundreds of miles of brown grass, with a few old scraggly elk and some skinny artic foxes. I see more wild animals on my small Tennessee hill farm than I saw in this so-called wildlife refuge. Just because some environmental whacko calls it a wildlife refuge doesn't make it true. Common sense says that, with nothing to eat but tough stemmy grass and 9 months of below-freezing weather, you will not have a very productive wildlife refuge.

500 oil wells could be put up there and nary an elk or artic fox would know the difference, except the elk population would increase because they like to congregate (and breed) around the hot oil pipelines when the temperature drops to minus 60.

Now farther south around Whitehorse, British Columbia, I did see lots of caribou. That reminds me of a question the locals like to ask the tourists in Alaska:

Local: "Do you know the difference between caribou and reindeer?"
Tourist: "No, I can't say that I do know the difference".
Local: "Well, the caribou can't fly".

 

[Lancie1]

Most all electric rail traffic anywhere is short to med. distance commuter rail.

Electric high-speed long-distance trains work well in France. I thought we were tooling right along in out motor coach at about 70 mph. I looked out the window and saw this speeding bullet arrive on one side of the window and go out of sight on the other side. Wow! What was that! Just the 186 mile per hour electric train (Train à Grande Vitesse) from Paris to Lyons. The electric line voltage is 25kv. In 17 years of operations, there have been no fatalities, and only one derailment.

It would not be difficult at all to build electric lines along the US railroad tracks. Many of them had telegraph lines along side at one time anyway. The old telegraph right-of-ways are still there. Having some experience in designing 33kv overhead power lines, I know it would not be that expensive to run a line cross country along the tracks, connecting to the existing local power systems at convenient points. I predict this will be done within the next 10 years.

Who said we are running out of oil? We are running out of cheap, easy to get oil. There is plenty of oillocked up in tar sands and shale deposits. In Canada, there are places where the tar sands are being mined and the oil removed. It will just cost more, thats all.

I remember when gas cost 15 cents per gallon for regular and 17 cents for "ethyl". People still thought it was expensive, although Dad used 5-gallon cans of gas to run the ground hogs out of the watermelon patch. Pour a little into a den, throw in a lighted pitch pine splinter, and watch the ground hog either leave or get blown up. I also remember (from history class) that one of the first anti-trust cases in the US was against John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Rockefeller was accused of selling gas too cheap! At that time Standard oil owned about 90% of the oil production in the US. In 1911 the Sherman Anti-trust Act resulted in the breakup of Standard Oil, and the creation of Texaco and Shell Oil.

 

[LadderLogic]

I still would like, as a counterpoint to the "distance" argument, bring as an example this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railroad Nearly 6000 miles of the railroad track, now fully electrified all along.

Now, I do realize that the idea of economic viability under the Socialist system (hi, Terry!) most likely has nothing to do with the one that makes any sense to us. It is also very likely that the amount of traffic and cargo transported there is significantly lower that what goes through the railroad network in the U.S. (well, maybe yes and maybe not: this is the backbone of that narrow strip of land which is the more or less densely populated Siberia; the rest of which, with few exceptions, is a whole huge nothing).

But as an example: yes, it has been done for a very long railroad. And maybe it still makes at least some sense.

 

[SD_Scott]

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but, the two largest oil finds ever in history were recently discovered in the Caspian sea's Kashigan fields. That was in 2000. Oil production in the US did not peak in 1971, or I would be out of a job, The Gulf of Mexico currently produces more oil than it ever has in any year previous, and there are projects on the books for the next 20 years. The Gulf of Mexico's shelf is dying, but, it's being replaced by deepwater finds, Anadarko sold 312 of it's old properties to invest in 2 deepwater facilities, why? Because two deepwater facilities will produce more oil and gas than the 312 properties that were sold, with fewer cost to produce and less pollution.
Next up, we have "In Situ" technology that Shell is starting to master, which will probably, in the next 10 to 20 years yield more oil in the Rockies than any oil find previous...

But, we're running out of oil......yeah, right...

I believe in peak oil, but, we are nowhere near it, maybe in 50 or 60 years, but not anytime in the next 10 or 20....

Your research is flawed. The two largest fields ever discovered were Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, and Burgan in Kuwait. No field has ever remotely approached the size of Ghawar. It was discovered in 1948. The Caspian sea does have large reserves but not nearly as great as you claim. Many western majors pulled out of that area for a reason. As far as America peaking in 1971? That is a fact. I could go on but I'd rather argue with a wall.

 

[Voltimus]

Your research is flawed. The two largest fields ever discovered were Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, and Burgan in Kuwait. No field has ever remotely approached the size of Ghawar. It was discovered in 1948. The Caspian sea does have large reserves but not nearly as great as you claim. Many western majors pulled out of that area for a reason. As far as America peaking in 1971? That is a fact. I could go on but I'd rather argue with a wall.

Who said anything about research? I know because I was there, the oil finds are mostly owned by OKIOC (the Kazakhstan government oil company) and a conglomerate of other national oil companies (Shell, BP, Agip) We drilled 15,000 feet down and encountered oil in a test well, then drilled another 15,000 feet down and were still in the same pocket of oil. The geology behind it was so secure that they gave it a %20 certainty, whereas every other find in history was only given a %10 chance. If western companies are pulling out of the area, why did those companies pump 4 billion dollars into the local Kazakh economy for the building of roads and housing? Could it be because they expected to stay awhile? It's obvious you don't work in the oil field (like I do)so, I'll leave you to argue with that wall, after all, you both possess about the same amount of knowledge on the subject....

Research...lol

 

[elevmike]

Heres an article on the Caspian sea oil reserves:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0779169.html

 

[elevmike]

Comment:

Authough Bob took a flaiming for his orig post, I'll give him credit for starting what turned out to be an interesting thread..

 

[TimMoulder]

This is the same problem California suffered a few years back with electricity production; they had regulated away the ability to build new power plants.

Yes and no...

California was also the victim of the biggest price fixing scheme in modern history. Enron (which was in the business of reselling power) manipulated prices and orchestrated blackouts to drive prices higher. It has all came out in the trial.

"Any man may steal from a freight car, but a man with a college aducation may steal the whole rail road." - Teddy

 

[rsdoran]

PEAK has a strange definition

Peak, as in the case of US oil, has a 2 parts for definition. One is what is being done to obtain the oil and second is reserves.

The US is capable of and does produce 8 million barrels a day, our consumption rate is over 20 million barrels a day hence we have no reserves. This happened in 1971 and allowed OPEC to take control of pricing.

PEAK does not mean the oil production has declined, yet, but it does mean it will never be greater and we can never provide for ourselves.

The US does have more oil but as mentioned it is not "cheap oil", the costs to get it, at this time, may be prohibiive.

As for the Caspian sea thing why would it be considered a discovery in the 90's etc....looks to me like the USSR knew it was there long ago but had reasons for not developing at the time, as mentioned a lot of development is needed.

Whether oil came from dinosaurs or it is a substance that Earth creates over time, it is not going to be replenished, if it can be, as fast as it is being used.

Whether its 10, 50, or 100 years then its OK..right? That means we, the people of today, can drive our SUVs etc and our grandchildren can go without!!!

That is OK too though, in most cases people do not care about their children either, look at Public Schools and teacher salaries.

The original post would not work and I have no idea what would work, we the people and the government are too heavily dependent upon oil. What ever is to be done by "We the People" must be in majority, a very large majority for it too have an effect.

The problem is that "We the People" or at least many or them believe just as you have seen on this forum that we have plenty of oil, the future means nothing.

 

[MarkTTU]

Yes and no...

California was also the victim of the biggest price fixing scheme in modern history. Enron (which was in the business of reselling power) manipulated prices and orchestrated blackouts to drive prices higher. It has all came out in the trial.

"Any man may steal from a freight car, but a man with a college aducation may steal the whole rail road." - Teddy

True, Enron took advantage (illegally and immorally in my opinion) of a bad situation in Calf. That doesn't change the fact that had the CA government not regulated away most (if not all) of the new power production and cross country transfer lines they could have avoided a lot of their problems...

 

[Lancie1]

Ron,

Many fuel alternatives have been proposed for the United States, but they mostly have insurmountable obstacles. Hydrogen is a great fuel, except it is very dangerous. If people will not observe basic safety rules with gasoline, how could they ever cope with hydrogen? I think that in the future, oil will be replaced by ethanol made from corn or sugarcane. We have plenty of land to grow the crops, and plenty of farmers with expertise in growing corn and sugarcane. There are even a few ethanol producers, as a result of the US Energy department incentives. Archer Daniels Midland is one of the largest ethanol producers.

By government decree, all cars in Brazil now run on alcohol, and no gasoline imports are required. If Brazil can become energy independent with ethanol then the US should be able to also.
In the US, without government control, the price of oil has to become high enough to provide profit incentives to develop ethanol sources. The transition period will be a painful experience.

So which must come first, the vehicles that burn ethanol, the distilleries that produce ethanol, or the farmers growing crops for distillation into ethanol? No company will build a plant unless there is a demand for the product. No farmer will produce the sugarcane unless there is a market. No consumer will buy an ethanol-only vehicle until there are ethanol stations on every corner. Do your part and start buying only multi-fuel or flex fuel vehicles. This, contrary to Bob's boycott, IS something that will work to reduce our dependence on foreign oil imports.

Every US vehicle owner should insist on only buying "flex fuel" vehicles, that can run on gasoline or ethanol and switch between the two with the flip of a switch while driving. They are available now from Ford, with more on the way. If we have vehicles on the road that use ethanol, eventually there be enough demand to make it profitable to build the infrastructure to produce and transport ethanol.

 

[elevmike]

Lancie1,

We are Not in Brazil. The entire industrial & social economic picture is very different from what we enjoy in the U.S.A. and other more developed nations. There's no compairson. In Noth America Hydrogen & ethanol will never supplant oil as an energy source. They are BOTH way too expensive to produce (both in cost $$ & energy), and it's unlikely that enough could be produced here given our growing demands for energy.

My Opinion: The only realistic long term solution to the U.S.energy issue is Nuclear Power & LOTS of it. We must get past the politics of "Not in my back yard" and open Yucca Mountain, and start building Nuke Plants post haste. Nuke power is clean & efficent and could be cheap if we really want it to be. What about the waste? Store it in Yucca Mountain for now and start doing serious research on how to cut the half life.

With enough Nuke Power we can all drive EVs, or produce hydrogen & drive hybreads. Imagine an all electric house. Super low maintenance, and with abundent Elect generated with Nukes, hydro, wind, solar etc.. it could be very cost effective.

There's a solution, we just have to embrace it.