“President Obama may think gasoline is the “fuel of the past,” but for families facing record prices, it’s very much a today thing. Unfortunately for them, Obama has no credible ideas for getting prices down tomorrow.”
Investor’s Business Daily editorializes:
…Saying the U.S. can’t do anything about world prices is false as well, resting on the phony claim that we have only 2% of the world’s oil. In fact, we’re awash in oil, with enough to meet all our needs for 250 years if the government would stop roping so much of it off.
Having a president who’s willing and eager to deceive the public is bad enough. It’s made all the worse when Obama offers his own ridiculous energy proposals, not one of which will make a dent in energy costs today, tomorrow or in the foreseeable future…
You forget a little history post-Carter….
1) Non-OPEC supply dramatically increased via Prudhoe and the North Sea…. The Bakken is nice field but it is nowhere in the class of either….
2) There was a one-time gain from replacement of power plants based on oil to those fueled by NG….
3) The Tar Sands are a remarkable resource, however, it is simply not possible to ramp it up more that another 2.5 mmbpd….As it is now, it utilizes 25% of Canadian NG production….
It is about flow rates, not reserves…. the difference between Q and dQ/dt
The game is very different
Not only does he have no credible answers to get gas and oil prices down, he doesn’t have any short or near term alternate energy solutions to alleviate the problem. Heck if Red Algae, was viable and up and running next year – no issue, but we certainly don’t have that.
Obama’s only answer is to “conserve” and higher prices will cause people to do that naturally. Of course all this conserve, and alternate energy stuff was tried by another famous Democrat President, Pres. Carter, and that certainly did not work. Why do we think it will work this time?
I’m not saying who, but someone around here isn’t sounding much like an “all of the above” kind of guy/gal like our President requires. Personally – and we’re certainly talking opinion only anyway – I give an equal if not greater chance to commercially develop kerogen before algae. But for the present, drill, drill, drill, mine, frack, nuke and drlll. Especially off the shores of California. They can use the money and derricks are prettier and fewer than turbines.
How much oil does the US get from the ME?? Not nearly as much as you think…
As I said below, the number is based on the kerogen deposits….. Think of really crappy coal…. It is disingenuous to call it oil or any thing resembling a source of energy….
As far as coal goes, the US currently exports ~5% of production, what happens if you ramp up a CTL plant to produce ~1,000,000 bpd? That would be roughly 12% of current US imports, and would cost a cool 100 to 150 billion in CAPEX (based on SASOL) and take 10 years to build…That coal reserve isn’t going to last as long as you think…Put together a toy Excel model and play with growth rates and reserves, to be realistic you should use a logistic function to model the resource extraction….
Is the US a current net importer of NG, yes or no? The answer to this question should give you an idea of the merit of NG for all but the most special of cases….
Sulphur is not as big a problem as you might think… The problem with the crap oil from the Tar Sands is the assay and the amount of energy you use to crack th e goo….
Yes… that is the big lie, the “oil” that is being referred to is kerogen…. It is not oil, it could have been oil in a few million years provided that the pressure and temperature was high enough to cook it out… This the crap that Chevron, Shell and XOM walked away from…(XOM was a few years back)….
This is a classic example of misinformation used to fool the American people….
Oh, and 97% of this “oil” is on public lands….
PS DL cites the Institute for Energy, I have no idea who or what these guys are…
Flakmeister, you may not like the messenger at this link but he does cite IEA figures to show we have many years of oil left
http://townhall.com/columnists/davidlimbaugh/2012/03/09/big_lies_on_big_oil
Having access to and bringing this to market can only drive prices down.
I suspect the 250 year statement is based on merely replacing imports from certain ‘enemy’ countries like the ME. If you take Mexico and Canada as ‘friends’ and maybe leaven it a bit with some South American oil, the the 250 year time frame does not seem too outlandish. Consider also coal-to-gas. We’ve got massive coal deposits. If you also replace certain oil-as-fuel applications with NG then it stretches the horizon even more. Their number is a bit outre, but possible.
Our major issue is sulphur. However, I was reading a back issue of Scientific (un)American and there were some great articles on newer cheaper means of sloughing off the high sulphur in many of our (and Cananda’s) crudes. I should go research the current state of the technology as it would convert these to nearly ‘sweet’ crude fairly cheaply.
The comments above would make for a very interesting book. Flakmeister seems to know what he is talking about.
Well, if you use arguments of the type ‘someone once said “we are going to run out of oil”‘ you brand yourself as either an uniformed person or someone with an agenda….
I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt….
Since we agree that there are resources that will be forever unexploitable, we can therefore agree that the premise of the IBD editorial is a crock, and in this case, most definately someone with an agenda….
Hydro fracking is not a time/development issue in the Bakken, deep horizontal drilling is. And yes price is a factor also. Source rock and reservoir rock? Yes there are lots of formations that are economically unusable at any price the same hold true for coal or any other mineral. No more “lessons” thanks, you taught me one very valuable one; the arrogant “expert” with all of the high sounding knowledge cannot see any further into the future than any one else.
Lay off the strawmen and other argumentative fallacies, ‘kay?
You understand that their is difference between source rock and reservoir rock? The Bakken is where the two are the same: the oil is trapped because of very low permeability. The Green River formation, aka 1.7 trillion barrels, consists of immature source rock, there is no oil per se. The kerogen must be retorted to produce any liquid,,,
Now hack and shills have been pumping these kerogen deposits for a long time (since the 70’s), they were always supposed to be profitable “around the corner, “when oil hits 40” etc… Chevron has walked away from the leases, and Shell just gave up on some crazy idea to microwave the kerogen (after a $100 million of so)…. This resource is chimeric, the country would be far better off if it never existed..
As for hydro-fracking, it is old technology (first done in 1949. admittedly improved), read up on the Austin Chalk deposit in Texas and the Eagleford shale… The Bakken is being drilled because oil is 100 bucks a barrel and it is the only game in town for those guys that do not have $500 million to drop on poking a new hole in the GOM….
The current glut of natural gas is from the smaller players desperate for liquid rich share wells,,,
Would you like any more lessons?
The quote was from a radio program but was a widespread prediction that we woiuld be out of oil by the end of the 20th century. You ask a terribly hard question about shale. Shale oil comes from oil shale. Oil shale is the sedimentary rock that contains oil. Perhaps you should consult a geologist and have him explain what “sedimentary rock” is. Leases are allowed to expire or are reapplied for according to market and the technology available to recover oil. The Bakken formation oil reserves were well know over 30 years ago but the technology to recover that oil was not developed until recently. No one knows what the future holds and to categorically claim knowledge of it down to 0.000000 is stupid whether it is five years or 250.
ooops…. please should read plead…
Could you provide an attribution for that quote?
Maybe you should take it up with Hubbert….Lets play a game, let us compare his predictions for supply 30-50 years in the future with those of CERA for about 5 years in the future….I’ll give you a hint, CERA would have to please nolo contendere….
AB, maybe you could inform us about the difference between shale oil and oil shales? Or maybe about the recenf news about Chevron letting leases expire?
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20061466?source=rss
You are aware that kerogen is not oil, are you?
Flashback Flakmeister: 1970s “By 1984 the last oil well on earth will have pumped it’s last drop of oil. It will all be gone.” Did these brilliant “scholars” need a “lessonin petroleum geology?”
Hilarious….
250 years of oil? Not even in Rex Tillerson’s wildest wet dreams does the US have 250 years of oil.
Well, maybe at a production rate of 5% of the current rate…
Maybe the IBD guys need a lesson in petroleum geology…