Tax cuts are not going to save you from oil you clowns
Hey folks, delude yourself as much as you like with the promise of National Party tax cuts - but the reality is that the planets oil sources are going through unprecedented shocks and our denial to accept that is equal only to our denial that the planet is warming. The prediction is $200 per barrel before the end of the year, a $50 tax cut ain't gonna do jack - the longer we wait to do something, the harder it will be.
Skyrocketing Oil Prices Stump Experts
Executives from the giant oil companies say it's partly the fault of "speculators" or financial players. Key financial players say it's really a question of limited supply and expanding global demand. Some members of Congress accuse the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for bottling up some of its production capacity. And OPEC blames speculators, wasteful U.S. consumers and feckless U.S. policy. Almost everyone points at China's growing appetite for fuel. Whatever the causes, one of the most dizzying runs in the history of oil prices picked up pace yesterday -- again -- as crude oil prices jumped to settle at more than $133 a barrel, up $4.19 in one day, 18 percent so far this month and more than one-third so far this year. Prices climbed even higher in late electronic trading.
posted by Bomber @ 10:45 pm
9 comments
9 Comments:
Yes we have been at the peak ever since oil was discovered and probably always will be. Haven't you noticed that the peak moves forward one year every year?
http://savethehumans.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/unpeaked-oil.html
What exactly do you propose that we should do?
Bo ber also doesn't seem to make the connection between The Great Global Warming con that him and his mates have been peddling for the last few years and oil and food prices world wide.
I find it highly ironic (and very sad) that fundamentalist AGW extremists like Bo ber, through their scaremongering, using what is proving to be extremely dodgy 'science', are going to be directly responsible for worsening the situation of the 3 billion people who live in poverty world wide.
People like Bo ber, pushing extremist agendas, are the real enemies of poor people.
I only hope that in years to come Bo ber is held directly responsible for the results of his actions.
...
Shhh troll - how is that exxon-mobile funded smear group that twists sceince that you were caught out sucking up too? And you are the only one here claiming global warming is a hoax - you are a joke lego, the grown ups are talking, go skip off and feel big somewhere else
The Optimist said...
Yes we have been at the peak ever since oil was discovered and probably always will be. Haven't you noticed that the peak moves forward one year every year?
http://savethehumans.typepad.com/weblog/2008/04/unpeaked-oil.html
What exactly do you propose that we should do?
I think Optimist the first point is to admit that we are now in a different paradigm with Oil, and start thinking about what $200 a barrael will mean for us this year and start thinking long term how that will change everything - looking at how oil has skyrocketed in this year alone, being optimistic is now a bit flat earth of you.
...and start thinking about what $200 a barrael will mean for us this year
Why do you talk about the $200 barrel mark as if it's a certainty?
Read the following to see why you are probably wrong:
So far, the economies of the “Brics” (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are still growing strongly, but the old industrialized economies are definitely heading into a recession, and they still consume most of the oil.
This recession has not actually been caused by the high oil price; the subprime-mortgage scam is to blame for that. But the recession is likely to drive the demand for oil down far enough to bring the price back down to $100 before long, or even to $85 to $90. Then in 2009 and 2010, as the “old rich” economies recover, it will go back up, probably to the $130 to $150 range.
The price will rise because demand will recover much faster than supply can grow, if, indeed, it grows at all. An allegedly giant new oil field has been found off the coast of Brazil, but even if it lives up to the advertising, it is five to 10 years away from large-scale production.
The world’s largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, admits that there is now not enough spare capacity among the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) producers to make any difference. Russia, the biggest non-OPEC producer, will probably see production fall this year. And practically everybody else is already pumping flat-out.
So once the recession ends, the price of oil will probably stay well above $100 for most of the time from 2010 to 2015. But it won’t hit $200, because there will be a steep rise in the supply of nonconventional oil from tar sands, oil shales, and other sources of “heavy oil”.
Even if the moment of “peak oil” is upon us, that would not mean the end of oil; it just means the end of sweet, light crude. The Alberta tar sands are profitable if the price of oil stays more than $40 a barrel; at $60, the far larger Venezuelan tar sands are a viable economic proposition; at $80, even the oil shales of the western U.S. are promising.
If the supply goes up, the price goes down. There may be little remaining possibility for increasing the supply of conventional oil, but that is not the case with unconventional oil, of which there is a massive potential supply. At a high environmental cost, of course: on average, the equivalent of two barrels of oil must be burned to liberate three barrels of oil from the Alberta tar sands.
In a world with a stable climate, ample unconventional oil supplies would bring the oil price down below $100 again, but that’s not the way it’s likely to play out. By 2015, global tolerance for any process that involves high emissions of greenhouse gases is likely to be very low. Indeed, there is likely to be a good deal of pressure to cut back on the consumption even of conventional oil.
Five years ago, global warming was a distant worry in most of the world, and in North America, where the denial industry had its headquarters, it was widely disbelieved. Now it is a high-priority concern in Europe, in the United States (at every level below the White House, where change is coming shortly), and in China, and a rapidly growing worry everywhere else.
Go seven years down the road and throw in a few dozen more climate-related catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina or the killer heat-wave in Europe in the summer of 2003. What will popular support for burning fossil fuels be in 2015? Not very high, one suspects.
Cutting back on the use of oil—and coal and gas—will not be a rapid or smooth process, because the potential substitutes are either technologically immature or too expensive. But rising demand and the passage of time will change that, and, gradually, the use of fossil fuels will fall. Most serious people everywhere now know that it must if civilization is to survive.
Several billion people live in countries that are now growing very fast economically, so demand will probably keep the price for conventional oil near the $100 level well into the 2020s, but the political pressure to shut down extra-high-emission unconventional oil production may become irresistible. (That’s why the Alberta tar sands producers now want to replace natural gas with nuclear power as the energy source for freeing the oil from the sand.)
In the still longer run—the 2030s and beyond—the demand for oil will probably fall even further, and with it the price. How do we know that? Because if it hasn’t fallen due to a deliberate switch away from fossil fuels, then global warming will gain such momentum that entire countries are falling into chaos instead. There is more than one way to cut demand.
"I think Optimist the first point is to admit that we are now in a different paradigm with Oil, and start thinking about what $200 a barrael will mean for us this year and start thinking long term how that will change everything"
But what do you propose should be done?
"- looking at how oil has skyrocketed in this year alone, being optimistic is now a bit flat earth of you."
Better than thinking the world is going to end.
...
Why do you talk about the $200 barrel mark as if it's a certainty?
Because when Goldman Sachs talks about a $200 superspike within the next 6months, I tend to think they may know what they are talking about - the very interesting peice you write above doesn't dispell the sense of urgency that I'm blogging about, indeed it reinforces it.
Better than thinking the world is going to end.
Ummm, didn't you start this post trying to claim the problem wasn't very serious?
Bomber peak oil is another myth. Control and refineries are the problem. No refineries built in the US since 1977 but many have closed since then.
The US Geological Survey in the last 2-3 years confirmed massive finds in Alaska and the North Western US. BOTH of these seperate finds have an estimated capacity to make the US self sufficient for the next 200 years each. But in Alaska politics prevent drilling anywhere except around Prudoe Bay. Even here they pump millions of cubic meters of natural gas back into the ground every day.
It costs USD$5 for Saudi to extract one barrel of crude from the ground and in Alaska it's only USD$3.
Wake up Bomber.
And Legio X is NOT alone here, AGW IS a massive fraud which is why the IPCC's own revision of new data prompted them to admit AGW has been put on hold until 2015 - 2020. But they assure us that it will be back cause if they didn't say that there would be no further use for them and their ilke.
Gotta go now, my open fire need more coal added.
> I think Optimist the first point is to admit that we are now in a different paradigm with Oil, and start thinking about what $200 a barrael will mean for us this year and start thinking long term how that will change everything - looking at how oil has skyrocketed in this year alone, being optimistic is now a bit flat earth of you.
OK so if I admit that can I still drive my car around? I don't give two hoots about the price of petrol - half of it is tax anyway. Wake me up when it costs $5 a litre will you?
I don't think being pessimistic has got the human race anywhere. It is very easy to just worry and wring our hands at all the problems, and try to take silly ill-thought actions. Far better in my view to ignore the environentalists. After all, Have they ever been right about anything? Chances are they are wrong now too.
The fact is we don't really know if oil has peaked as we have no way of getting honest figures about how much oil is left. Countries have a multitute of reasons to lie about their oil reserves.
A middle-of-the-road educated guess would be it's going to peak in about 10 years.
Granted though, it seems reasonable to assume cheap oil is defnitely a thing of the past, so anyone who buys a big car better have a big wallet to pay for the petrol.
As for global warming, lets stop being conceited, we're too damn small to make any serious impression on global emissions, so who cares?
Post a Comment
<< Home