If one listens to the MSM one will believe that the world is going to run out of oil next week! Everything will come to a grinding halt. The economy will crash… everything will end! Typical “Chicken Little” stuff.
Well, I don’t believe it.
I haven’t gotten around to researching whether oil is a renewable resource or not. Some say yes… while others say it is not and, that the supply of oil is finite. I simply don’t know… yet. I haven’t researched it.
In the meantime I did find some interesting info over at the "National Center for Policy Analysis". You can visit them and take a look at the info they have posted there, which seems to bolster the fact that we are no where near depleting our oil supply. Visit them at:
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg/bg159/index.html#c
I gleaned some interesting tidbits such as:
"Oil shales may hold another 14,000 billion barrels of crude oil -- a 500 year supply."
Did that shock you?
Well check this out from the web site of the "National Center for Policy Analysis":
“Scaremongers are fond of reminding us that the total amount of oil in the Earth is finite and cannot be replaced during the span of human life. This is true; yet estimates of the world’s total oil endowment have grown faster than humanity can pump petroleum out of the ground.16The Growing Endowment of Oil.Estimates of the total amount of oil resources in the world grew throughout the 20th century [see Figure III].
In May 1920, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the world’s total endowment of oil amounted to 60 billion barrels.17
In 1950, geologists estimated the world’s total oil endowment at around 600 billion barrels.
From 1970 through 1990, their estimates increased to between 1,500 and 2,000 billion barrels.
In 1994, the U.S. Geological Survey raised the estimate to 2,400 billion barrels, and their most recent estimate (2000) was of a 3,000-billion-barrel endowment.
By the year 2000, a total of 900 billion barrels of oil had been produced.18 Total world oil production in 2000 was 25 billion barrels.19 If world oil consumption continues to increase at an average rate of 1.4 percent a year, and no further resources are discovered, the world’s oil supply will not be exhausted until the year 2056.”
There is much more info on this site. For instance:
Additional Petroleum Resources.The estimates above do not include unconventional oil resources. Conventional oil refers to oil that is pumped out of the ground with minimal processing; unconventional oil resources consist largely of tar sands and oil shales that require processing to extract liquid petroleum. Unconventional oil resources are very large. In the future, new technologies that allow extraction of these unconventional resources likely will increase the world’s reserves.
Oil production from tar sands in Canada and South America would add about 600 billion barrels to the world’s supply.20
Rocks found in the three western states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone contain 1,500 billion barrels of oil.21
Worldwide, the oil-shale resource base could easily be as large as 14,000 billion barrels — more than 500 years of oil supply at year 2000 production rates.22
Unconventional oil resources are more expensive to extract and produce, but we can expect production costs to drop with time as improved technologies increase efficiency."
(From the National Center for policy Analysis)
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg/bg159/index.html#c
There is lots more info the inquiring mind can chew over on that site.
I suppose, if anything, this should give us all pause to re-think our Gas Shortage. It is being sold by the MSM as a crude oil shortage when in fact we have plenty of crude. What we don’t have in the US are refineries! We need two, or three, times as many as we have... and soon. But, unless Congress steps in and forces the EPA to back off some of it’s hamstringing rules so the petroleum industry can build new refineries then we have only begun to feel the pinch at the pumps!
Longstreet
As far as oil being infinite, they just don't seem to be making dead dinosaurs as fast anymore..... that's why it is called fossil fuel. As far as running out of oil, no just running out of the cheap accessible oil. Let me give you some personal background, since I am a Lib. and you guys would call us liars before you listen to reason. I love muscle cars, I can't quite get one yet, but I do have a '75 dodge charger. I put in some Go-fast goodies so believe me, I looked into this with the hopes that gasoline would someday be $.99 /galon again..... Unfortunately I don't see it anytime soon for a lot of reasons, one is what is called "Peak Oil Production" Google it, there are a buch of reports on it. The other is, the way it is traded as a commodity with speculation running out of control and too many milionares and billionares running the prices up for profit. I think pulling energy off of wall street and letting the price be determined by real world occurances would lower it $20.00 to $30.00 / barrel on the first day. We are paying high prices for a war with Iran that hasn't happened yet and it may not, not to mention wait fot the first tropical storm to come off the West Coast of Africa, we'll be $80.00-$90.00 a barrel before it hits land or shifts course and nails England.
ReplyDeleteAnd also refining.... But you see refineries can be built ion the site of existing ones and be "grandfatherd" in. Also there used to be independent refiners until the big oil companies bought them all and CLOSED them to control the flow of gasoline. It isn't the EPA so much as it is localities everyone wants more built until the proposed site is their backyard. I heard that from an oil exec. and dept. of energy secretary on crossfire and on kudlow and company..... see I guess I did check into it if I listened to turtle faced kudlow.
ReplyDeleteAt home: A declaration of dependence
ReplyDeleteThe countries of the European Union have decided to strike the best deal that they can with the Russians now while they tax and invest in solar, wind and nuclear projects to reduce their future dependence on Russia for natural gas. So, for example, Portugal, hardly one of the richest countries in Europe, requires utilities to pay 0.31 euros -- about 37 cents -- a kilowatt hour for electricity produced from solar projects. (Electricity costs in the United States run about 10 cents to 14 cents per kilowatt hour.) Germany, Italy and Spain have similar programs. The immediate pain is worth it, European countries like these have concluded, to get rid of these bullies.
And the United States? Government policy is a dreadful combination of the laughably irrelevant with the downright dangerous. On Earth Day, President Bush touted hydrogen-powered cars as a future solution to our oil addiction -- and his administration has requested $5 billion over the next five years for hydrogen research that may result in a marketable hydrogen vehicle someday. Meanwhile, the administration has proposed a fiscal 2007 budget that would slash funding for research to improve energy efficiency -- today -- by 20% from 2006 levels.
And to get angry drivers off their backs, Republicans in Congress have proposed sending out $100 checks so drivers can keep buying gas to fill their cars at the pump.
That will sure fix these bullies. Raise gas prices to $3 a gallon, huh? Well, we'll pay that. And we just dare you to raise it some more.
It's a message oil bullies -- old and new -- will certainly understand. It's just not the one that we ought to be sending.
I've never been much for buying the "peak oil" deal. There are too many data points in contradiction. That, and the idea that we could convert that shale into years of unfettered oil.
ReplyDeleteWe have a lot of capped oil wells in Texas. Why dont we open them?
ReplyDeleteThe problem is the environuts/Democrats have been fighting the Oil Industry about increasing our domestic oil production.refining and storage which is why we are currently so dependent on foreign sources of oil. We have plenty of reserves in this country if they would stop interferring.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is the environuts/Democrats have been fighting the Oil Industry about increasing our domestic oil production.refining and storage which is why we are currently so dependent on foreign sources of oil. We have plenty of reserves in this country if they would stop interferring.
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The problem is the oil companies and as stated above localities not national laws or even the EPA. The oil companies want high prices, our RRepublicans allow it.... Look at Venezuala $0.12/ galon gasoline funded by, you guessed it taxes on the oil companies, we could do it here, but no, we have to protect TEXACO, and EXXON MOBILE from the consumer.
" Look at Venezuala $0.12/ galon gasoline funded by, you guessed it taxes on the oil companies, we could do it here, but no, we have to protect TEXACO, and EXXON MOBILE from the consumer."
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Hugo Chavez is a socialist dictator. He is nationalizing the gas and oil companies there. As soon as the Socialist Democrats take over in the US, ya'll can do the same thing. Then you can forget about searching for and discovering new sources of oil and the economy will collapse and we will all suffer equally. What a wonderful utopian dream!
I personally don't own an oil company, I personally don't care what we do to them I personally do love to drive and "cruise" around alot and want the extra cash flow cheap gasoline would put in my pocket to do it! Our economy will collapse from these high energy prices before they will from low ones! I think the Dept. of energy should run the oil companies. What is wrong with a society where the workers who keep the economy running (by consuming) get somthing for their tax dollars instead of billion dollar industries? Why should they get all the perks on the backs of consumers? Not to mention the extra cash would allow me to buy more of that covetted American Freedom.
ReplyDeleteGeorge W. favors himself a facist dictator the only difference is who makes out..... The individual or the corporation.
ReplyDeleteI continue to run into this sort of thinking among the younger generations. Apparently, our schools, and universities, no longer teach capialism.
ReplyDeleteWe are a capitalist society. The country was designed that way. The business of the country IS business.
When the government owns the business and doles out the "profits" to the "workers" that is socialism and Ameica is not yet socialist. Emphasis on YET! (Even the word "WORKERS" smacks of socialism.) In a capitalust society they are known as "employees".
Under a socialist system the "workers" have no incentive to better themselves. No chance of ever getting ahead, no chance of bettering themselves and a general depression sets in. It saps the national will.
Granted... it SOUNDS good on paper, but as nation after nation has proven it fails everytime it is tried.
America went straight to the top of the world econimic heap when the founders set us up as a capitalist country. We remain there as a result of capitalism. The day we turn our backs on it, the general decline, and econimic fall, of America is assured.
But... I cannot agree that GW is a facist. he doesn't fit the definition.
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If you won't post it at least read it yourself...
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
this sounds like Bush's Credo:
ReplyDeleteThe American Heritage Dictionary instead describes it as "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
"If you won't post it at least read it yourself...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
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Frank, I went over and took a look at the site you recommended. I found only three things I thought were in error. (That is, if one buys the basis for article… which I don’t.) Seems to me, reading the article, that any political party could fall within the definition of a fascist party if one held to the identifiers put forth in the article. I think the writer is WAY off base, however. But just for the fun of it, I read it and found only four items with which to take issue. See below:
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Fraudulent Elections: There weren’t any… unless the Democrats losing counts as a “fraudulent election”.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: This is a fact of politics… period… No matter which party is in power. The State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon, all are running over with political hacks placed there by administrations prior to this one. (As well as those placed there by this administration.) Those who win elections get to put their people in place. That is the way it is from the city halls to the White House. I have called for a purge of those departments and I maintain that they should be purged down to the bare bones then built back up conservative hacks! HA!
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Hell, I have no distain for those people. I AM one! But, I reserve the right to disagree with them when I think they are wrong… which is a lot of the time!
Controlled Mass Media: The Mass media in America is anything but controlled!!!! As a former (near 30 year) veteran (now retired) of the mass media, I can tell you, from first hand knowledge, that the MSM has lost all sense of responsibility to the country. They answer to no one and they run rough shod over the 1st Amendment. With every freedom there comes responsibility. The MSM has chosen to avoid that responsibility and as a result has elevated itself, in it’s own collective mind, to a fourth branch of the government. It needs to be reigned in. And it will be. I do not expect a Republican administration to come down hard on the media. Personally, I would.
"this sounds like Bush's Credo:
ReplyDeleteThe American Heritage Dictionary instead describes it as "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
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I swear, I don't know what it takes to get you folks on the Left to understand that Bush is not on the extreme right. Heck, he's not even a CONSERVATIVE!!! He's a MODERATE! As was his father.
I guess you guys have not seen the extreme right in so long that you no longer know what it is or what it looks and acts like.
Lemme see: The Klan... thats extreme right.
Skinheads... That's extreme right.
Hitler... That's extreme right.
Joe Stalin... That's extreme left.
Hugo Chavez... That's extreme left.
You see, that has been the problem from day one between Conservatives and the Bush administration. He has not been nearly as conservative as we would have liked! We have fought him tooth and nail and continue to do so. We won on the Supreme Court judges, but it sure looks like we are going to lose on the illegal immigration thing because we don't have enough conservative Congressmen and Senators to get the job done.
Frank, do some research... some independent research. Don't take my word for it and don't take the word of the folks on the left. Dig for yourself in history books, encyclopedias, and such. You're a bright man. You will see how the right amd the left have distorted the definitions of both sides to suit themselves and to use as a blunt object to get us to bash each other with.
I lived thru Hitler, Mussolini , Stalin, and FDR. I saw the Left and the Right at it's worse. I saw us defeat the right extremist on the battlefield and I watched as we very nearly lost our country to socialism under FDR. We are still, today, digging ourselves out from under FDR's socialist programs. We came so close 'til it still frightens me when I remember it.
I respect you, Frank, I know you believe you are absolutely correct in your view of the Right and the Left. But, I would ask that you do some independemnt research for yourself and see, for yourself, how those who manipulate the "public will" have used those terms to keep us at each other's throats for decades now.