I don’t usually go for political articles, but this one deserves mention for the wholesale idiocy about energy on display.
Don Monfort writes: Submitted on 2011/10/01 at 10:24 am
Sorry to stray off topic, but I was flabbergasted by something I just read:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html
The most flabbergasting part; our energy policy is based on fantasy:
When it was Mr. Hamm’s turn to talk briefly with President Obama, “I told him of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC. I wanted to make sure he knew about this.”
The president’s reaction? “He turned to me and said, ‘Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to green and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.’” Mr. Hamm holds his head in his hands and says, “Even if you believed that, why would you want to stop oil and gas development? It was pretty disappointing.”
America is still going to use oil in 5 years, but I’d rather it be domestic than foreign, wouldn’t you? Alternate technology takes time to develop and there’s zero chance we’ll all be driving electric vehicles in 5 years.
Obama said this when he was running for office:
Obama pledges to end oil dependency
Friday, August 29, 2008 (KGO ABC7 Television)
“I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years we will finally end our dependence on oil in the Middle East,” said Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.
…
“If he means what it sounds like it means, it’s impossible,” said Stanford University Professor James Sweeney.
I guess we know what he meant by that now.
When the presidential limo becomes an electric vehicle, I’ll take his pledge seriously.
The vehicle fuel consumption is about 8 miles per gallon which on metric system corresponds to around 30 litres/100 km – source specs
Obama & Chu got this claim from some old GM PR from 2007 put out about the then concept Chevy Volt. It was a fanciful claim then, and it’s still a fanciful claim 4-5 years later.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-01-07-volt_x.htm
Mathew,
You sound a lot like David Appell. Anyway your claim that we are exceeding some arbitrary limit of CO2 in the atmosphere is an articicial construct of your social/political pardigm. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been much higher in the past without human input. Also If the CO2 equilibrium in the atmosphere is always so perfectly and finely balanced how do you account for the fact that there is so much carbon sequestered in the ground, which must have originally been on the Earth’s surface and/or in the atmosphere.
So I can’t say anything about the TEA Party, but they can call me every name under the sun? Go figure. Enjoy life on the fringe, morons.
REPLY: Note the WUWT policy page, are you certain your supervisor at the LSEPS would approve of the use of your time to hurl insults? You aren’t even in the USA, so I doubt the Tea Party has anything to say about you. – Anthony
Matthew, Your response barely merits a response, but here goes also:
Science is pretty clear that we are not exceeding the natural capacity of the atmosphere to handle CO2. Concentrations have been much higher in the past, in times of enhanced biodiversity and increased vegetation. There is no evidence that increased CO2 will cause any other outcome. We are currently near a historic low CO2 concentration (geologically speaking). You need more than some hand-waving.
Also, fecal matter is pollution in your drinking water, but is also a natural fertilizer which is essential to the circle of life. Simply pointing out that it can be a “pollutant” in the wrong place, adds nothing to the discussion. Gaia needs it.
“Only 14 out of 54 countries in the world continue to increase production while 30 are definitely past their production peak, and the remaining 10 appear to have flat or declining production.”
That was 2009. Here’s something I posted on another site today:
The production from horizonally drilled and fractured shale has gone from some gas wells in Texas to oil and gas worldwide.
Take Ohio. Oil was discovered in 1860, a few months after Pennsylvania. Production peaked in 1896 at 65,000 BOD. By 2009 it had declined to 14,000 BOD (so much for the symmetrical Hubbert curve).
Chesapeake just completed three Utica shale wells. The initial flow from the three wells is 3,420 bod of liquids and several mmcf of gas.
Meanwhile a thick and rich section of gas charged shale has been found in small corner of England. Estimates are 200 TCF in place, with 10-30% recoverable.
China, India, Poland, are all finding new reserves. We are looking at a total game changer.
Perhaps it is true that conventional light oil from easily defined structural traps, producered for $2.00 a barrel has peaked. That is about as relevant as saying production of ’57 Chevys peaked in 1957
MikeP says:
October 3, 2011 at 9:35 am
*****
You should read the post that prompted my response before posting. The guy claimed that CO2 isn’t considered a pollutant because we breathe it out and plants use it. To quote him, “Second, something you breath out in every breath, and plants survive on and use to create the very oxygen we survive on, isn’t a pollutant.”
Judging from your response, you disagree with that logic, as well, right?
Doug
Fuel is priced based on the marginal cost of production. When you cannot supply sufficient light crude, then heavy oil, very heavy oil, bitumen, and coal to liquids must be called on. etc.
See the marginal cost of production
Especially Fig 8 page 13 in Marginal Oil What’s driving oil companies dirtier and deeper?
taking the figure from the IEA Resources to Reserves 2010
Current marginal costs are already in the $60 to $80 category, rapidly pushing into the $80 to $100 categories. We are about half way through light crude oil ultimate resource which is why the major increases in costs and the scramble to develop alternatives.
If these alternatives are not brought on board in time, then we are facing a major roller coaster downhill economic ride. Despite what thrill seekers say, this will not be pleasant.
We need to face up to the facts that we are strategically dependent on transport fuel, and the critical portion of that is controlled by unfriendly unstable regimes bent on extracting as much value as they can from the West.
Nice chart David. From what planet did they get their data? It shows Canadian oil sands at $80 in 2007, when good companies produced for less than 20.
Have you noticed that oil prices have been been creeping down, while natural gas is staying dirt cheap, as in equivalent to $25 oil? You doomsdayers never quit.
The thing here is that there is rather a lot of history to Obama’s ‘end dependency on Middle East for oil’ – there never was a dependency, America deliberately began buying oil from Saudi in the early seventies by agreement and not caring about its own domestic production in great money game – to make the dollar the world’s reserve currency. It succeeded. From that time oil had to be traded in dollars. Oil prices went up when America decided it was advantage for its own purposes in this, it was ‘held to ransom’ by OPEC.. If you don’t know any of this history quite a lot in this very good piece mainly written pre Iraq, will come as a surprise, I hope it doesn’t shock you too much. The reason for going into Iraq was because Saddam had changed from dollars to euros. As for ‘peak oil’, the US now has total control of the world’s second largest oil deposits, you’re not going to run out any time soon.
Before that move by Nixon, America was the envy of the world, you had all the stuff our common oik dreams are made of, plenty of work and abundance of good life to go with it – in the fifties in England we still had rationing remember..
Since the move to make the dollar the world’s reserve currency your industries are surplus to requirements, your great industrial centres run down now and all that comes with it, because what is best for the people is no longer on the agenda, as England’s industries were closed down from then too, the money game has its own interests. No one can understand their own goverments’ domestic policies in the US or Europe without understanding this money game being played out around the world. Obama isn’t going to do anything to rock that boat for the US. Bear in mind, both the dollar and the euro are controlled by the same people, so don’t take this dollar/euro war as if it matters.. The countries that didn’t understand this, like Greece, have a choice now, sell their country to the big bwankers (through the IMF takeover), or not repay the loan…
reply to: Matthew says: October 3, 2011 at 10:31 am
It seems pretty clear that Matthew did read the post in question, and his reply is exactly right – and you should think things thru more thoroughly before you reply. Perhaps take a biology class or two. Should atmospheric CO2 levels ever become high enough to be directly toxic to animals or humans, or somehow on balance damage plants, or be shown by empirical evidence – not hypotheses and “just so story” computer models – to actually be causing detrimental effects, then and only then can CO2 be classed as a pollutant. So far we appear to be a very very long way away from those sorts of levels. IIRC, submarines are sometimes run with atmospheric CO2 levels in the neighborhood of 5,000 ppm or even 10,000 ppm with zero harm to crew, and toxic levels are far higher than that. Until we hit such levels, all you are doing is polluting the language.
Meanwhile, you want to delve into paleoclimatology to ‘prove’ that CO2 drives global warming, then you had best stop cherry picking and learn enough to recognize that historically, CO2 increase lags temperature increases by approx. 800 years. You’ll also have to explain the 8,000 years in the Emian when temperatures plummeted even tho CO2 levels remained around 300ppm. You’ll have to explain why there were times that CO2 levels were an order of magnitude higher than present day, but we were in an ice age. Closer to home, you’ll have to explain why mankind flourished during the three periods of the Holocene that were warmer than present day temperatures, and struggled in between.
Either you, or some other commentator appeared unable to comprehend CO2 benefits. Try asking any large greenhouse operator. A statement was made along the lines of what good is increased plant growth when humans are harmed – a non-sequitur, as if the two are inextricably linked together. Increased plant growth means more FOOD for all life. Better crop production, higher yields, increased drought resistance, etc., increased forest growth, longer growing seasons, increased plant growth of all types. All of which means more food available for less work, not only for man, but for all life – which of course, means less starvation, less malnutrition. Again, not just for man, but for our livestock, and for wildlife. It means more biodiversity, long lifespans or healthier lives. Plants flourish, and so does pretty much everything else. That includes ocean life as well.
I suspect you won’t bother – you seem to be a CAGW True Believer, rather than someone actually interested in the science involved. But there is always hope that someone like you will decide to actually learn.
LSEPS?
FFS! I wouldn’t have bothered reading any of Matthews screed if I’d known that earlier.
London School of Economics and Political Science!
Want the USA to be totally free of foreign oil imports and see the price of crude plummet overnight?
Reinstate the Oil Depletion Allowance!
David L. Hagen says:
October 3, 2011 at 10:50
David, you need to go back and read the original article referenced
by Anthony rather than trying to sell the propaganda from a green environmental group or the IEA outdated and biased report.
The latest mantra from the anti oil group, since numerous new threatening oil/gas resources have been found, is that the Resources are too expensive and difficult to produce so we need to be alarmed and spend billiond of $$$ on likes of Solyndra and Pelosi’s relatives.
News flash, I worked on a major tar sands project that was justified with oil at $ 12/bbl in the late 70’s. I can only believe that technology has improved since then. If the investors want to risk their dollars, are the enviros really afraid it is a bad investment??? It clearly is a threat.
Read the article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
“Harold Hamm, the Oklahoma-based founder and CEO of Continental Resources, the 14th-largest oil company in America… He came to Washington last month to spread a needed message of economic optimism. With the right set of national energy policies, the United States could be “completely energy independent by the end of the decade”.
“President Obama is riding the wrong horse on energy,” he adds. We can’t come anywhere near the scale of energy production to achieve energy independence by pouring tax dollars into “green energy” sources like wind and solar, he argues.”
” But since 2005 America truly has been in the midst of a revolution in oil and natural gas, which is the nation’s fastest-growing manufacturing sector.”
Hamm was the original discoverer of the gigantic and prolific Bakken oil fields of Montana and North Dakota that have already helped move the U.S. into third place among world oil producers.
“The official estimate of the U.S. Geological Survey a few years ago was between four and five billion barrels. Mr. Hamm disagrees: “No way. We estimate that the entire field, fully developed, in Bakken is 24 billion barrels.”
“When it was Mr. Hamm’s turn to talk briefly with President Obama, “I told him of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC. I wanted to make sure he knew about this.”
The president’s reaction? “He turned to me and said, ‘Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to green and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.'” “I truly believe the federal government could over time raise $18 trillion in royalties.”
“A few months ago the Obama Justice Department brought charges against Continental and six other oil companies in North Dakota for causing the death of 28 migratory birds, in violation of the Migratory Bird Act. Continental’s crime was killing one bird “the size of a sparrow” in its oil pits. The charges carry criminal penalties of up to six months in jail.”
This, while Windmills reportedly kill thousands times as many birds each year.
The Administration is opposed to development of oil, this is hurting the economic development of the USA and the EPA is the weapon.
Doug
Re: “It shows Canadian oil sands at $80 in 2007, when good companies produced for less than 20.” That was an oil company graph.
Note the IEA’s range of $40 to $80.
Can you provide any better references, or links?
“A graph in hand is worth two in the bush”!
Your <$20/bbl That could be operating costs of extraction alone.
However, did you include "upgrading" to syncrude? Does it include paying the loans and the return on capital? e.g. extraction plus upgrading capital is about $100,000/bbl/day, or $270/bbl/year. Straight line depreciation at 20 years alone comes to about $14/bbl.
See Suncor slide 8 for actual ranges for different products.
Roger Sowell
Re Yergin, perhaps you should test the accuracy of his predictions.
Three strikes and you are out by Jeffrey Brown.
I’ll take his prognostications and equivocations with a grain of salt.
Errata: Three strikes and you are out by Jeffrey Brown. http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2011/10/three-strikes/
@ur momisugly David L. Hagen on October 3, 2011 at 6:00 pm
You can believe any old thing you like. Don’t let facts get in your way.
Predicting crude prices is a difficult thing. My point about Yergin’s book, The Prize, stands: it accurately shows the overwhelming strategic importance of crude oil. Do you dispute this? If so, please give your reasons.
The EIA data for US crude stockpiles shows Yergin was correct. Stockpiles did increase to unprecedented levels.
The supply of oil has been more than adequate to meet world demand, so again Yergin is correct.
David, if you gave the complete and fair picture, it would indicate that absolutely no one has been even close at predicting long range the price of crude, and that includes all the high paid experts employed by the major oil companies (you know those who fix prices). The politicians and our Government has been even worse in their predictions.
As far as I can remember back to the late 70’s the predictions have been way off.
$100/bbl was a certainty even back 30 years ago in the predictions when Colony shale was on the boards. Technology developments, speculators, and the nature of OPEC make it impossible to predict accurately long range.
Anyone who puts much faith in the oil price predictions is a fool.
To confuse the issue even more just look at the huge price differential between the NY and mid west exchanges.
Why be harsh on just one of the challenged price predictors?
Who would predict that oil today would be almost the same as 1981??
“The economic incentive for producing oil shale has long been tied to the price of crude oil. The highest price that crude oil ever reached — $87/bbl (2005 dollars) — occurred in January 1981. Exxon’s decision to cancel its Colony oil shale project came a year and half later, after prices began to decline and newly discovered, less-costly-to-produce reserves came online. . . . . oil had become plentiful, with about 8 to 10 million barrels per day in excess worldwide capacity, and the trend in rising oil prices had reversed after early 1981. “