Peak oil a thing of the past

[Verily]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Why didn't they pay attention to themselves and put a little money into the oil market?

I'm sure quite a few did. And you have no evidence otherwise, so why make a spurious statement meant as a bizarre attempt at slander?

[RouterJockey]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

[opebo]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Why didn't they pay attention to themselves and put a little money into the oil market?

Being right doesn't mean you have any money to 'invest'.

[Franzl]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

Oh yes, that would be the solution to everything....Just great.

[Ban my account ffs!]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

Too bad conservatives blocked taxes on record oil profits in order to provide relief to consumers.

[cannonia]

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

And off the California coast, and in the Gulf...

Too bad conservatives blocked taxes on record oil profits in order to provide relief to consumers.

Which wouldn't provide relief to consumers.  But hey, if we think those companies are BAD, let's PUNISH them, right?

[opebo]

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

And off the California coast, and in the Gulf...

All of which would put off the peak by about 20 minutes...

[Ban my account ffs!]

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

And off the California coast, and in the Gulf...

Too bad conservatives blocked taxes on record oil profits in order to provide relief to consumers.

Which wouldn't provide relief to consumers.  But hey, if we think those companies are BAD, let's PUNISH them, right?

I never said hte oil companies were inherently bad.  I just think it is fair to use the record profits they are making at the price of a declining economy and hurting Americans to provide relief both in the short and longer term... perhaps offsetting the amount of revenue with a cut in the federal gas tax...

[Albus Dumbledore]

Those of us living in north america and Brazil are going to get 1-3 decades of economic pain for this. Europe and developed east asia may not fully recover for half of a century. The third world... well I don't want to talk about it since it's too depressing.

[Eraserhead]

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

And off the California coast, and in the Gulf...

All of which would put off the peak by about 20 minutes...

[DanielX]

Bullsh**t. Just because Saudi Aramco won't pump more, doesn't mean they are running out (and yes, its Saudi Aramco and other government-owned oil companies that control ~90% of reserves - heck, ExxonMobil is even starting to look into alternative fuels now!).

This isn't "running out of oil" - the world will not run out of oil this century. It may run out of "sweet, easy to get to/refine" petroleum, but the amounts of sour oil and alteratives are HUGE. People also overestimate the difficulty of getting alternative fuels into production in higher price environments - if $3-4/gallon were continued indefinitely, never mind any increases, biodiesel and biogasoline could be produced at a price competitive to petroleum-based fuels.

You want a solution to this "high energy prices" business? Here, I proposed one myself not long ago:

Solutions:

1. Additional drilling and, more importantly, refineries. Gasoline refining is a large bottleneck currently, and there has been little construction. Also kickstart drilling in ANWR, the Dakotas, and other sources.

2. Change U.S. emissions regulations, which at the moment harshly penalize diesel fueled vehicles.  New diesel cars are lightyears ahead of their earlier counterparts in terms of quality and cleanliness; diesel itself generates slightly better fuel economy than gasoline. Fund biodiesel - which can be made from, among other things, manure and crop wastes.

3. Nuclear power. Shoot the morons who halted nuclear development in the 70s-90s, and start building new nuclear power plants, and refurbishing and updating older ones. This will reduce energy prices overall, replace oil burning (and coal burning, allowing coal-to-oil conversion), make hydrogen production and plug-in hybrids cheaper, and other nice stuff. Also build more hydroelectric plants, and solar/wind/geothermal where it can be done reasonably.

4. Process garbage using anaerobic digestion, plasma arc disposal, gasification, or other methods that can coax fuel and/or electricity out of garbage. These methods have the added benefit of reducing the load of garbage that has to be dumped or incinerated.

5. Relax tariffs on cars imported from European, Australian, or Japanese factories, as well as work to regularize safety standards with the EU, Japanese, and Australasian safety authorities. Basically, make things easier for smaller cars to be sold in the United States. Note that a lot of this is public perception - also true for diesels - that small cars are undesirable.   

Note that this doesn't count hybrids - potentially useful, particularly "mild hybrid" technologies that aren't much more expensive than plain gasoline but add things like regenerative braking.  Or the plain fact that new cars could easily shrink over the next few years, and are - sales of compact and subcompact model cars are skyrocketing, and automakers are rushing to bring out new models (thus my concern about small cars being undesirable is weaker than it used to be). Suburbs won't collapse just because fuel will be at $4, 5, even 6 dollars a gallon -  the British have suburbs too, you know, and they drive (in spite of ludicrous anti-car policies and a far better transit network than most of the US); Australia also has high gas prices and they drive as well. You'll just see fewer Chevy Suburbans and more Chevy Aveos.

[Franzl]

Those of us living in north america and Brazil are going to get 1-3 decades of economic pain for this. Europe and developed east asia may not fully recover for half of a century. The third world... well I don't want to talk about it since it's too depressing.

Hate to say it buddy, but Europe is in a far better position in a world with limited oil.

[Bogart]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

Too bad conservatives blocked taxes on record oil profits in order to provide relief to consumers.

Or, give money to R&D on alternatives. Consider that even if we develop a viable alternate technology and the auto makers find a profitable way to sell it, you still have a huge investment to be made in creating a nationwide distribution network as we now have for gasoline. Who do we think is going to make that initial investment? The auto manufacturers? The energy companies?

[Albus Dumbledore]

Those of us living in north america and Brazil are going to get 1-3 decades of economic pain for this. Europe and developed east asia may not fully recover for half of a century. The third world... well I don't want to talk about it since it's too depressing.

Hate to say it buddy, but Europe is in a far better position in a world with limited oil.

North America hasn't run out of Energy, just cheap energy while Europe has more or less run out of energy for the most part and is forced to import from outside. Also, Europe has a much stronger green/luddite movement. Also let's look at the demographic problems of aging and failing to digest immigrants which will hurt Europe even more. Then there's the taxation issue which is already driving a few euros out.

[opebo]

Those of us living in north america and Brazil are going to get 1-3 decades of economic pain for this. Europe and developed east asia may not fully recover for half of a century. The third world... well I don't want to talk about it since it's too depressing.

Hate to say it buddy, but Europe is in a far better position in a world with limited oil.

North America hasn't run out of Energy, just cheap energy while Europe has more or less run out of energy for the most part and is forced to import from outside. Also, Europe has a much stronger green/luddite movement. Also let's look at the demographic problems of aging and failing to digest immigrants which will hurt Europe even more. Then there's the taxation issue which is already driving a few euros out.

You're mixing together a lot of issues here.  As far as the collapse of the oil-fueled transport paradigm, it is going to do a lot more damage to the US economy than the European one.

[dead0man]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

Too bad conservatives blocked taxes on record oil profits in order to provide relief to consumers.

Or, give money to R&D on alternatives. Consider that even if we develop a viable alternate technology and the auto makers find a profitable way to sell it, you still have a huge investment to be made in creating a nationwide distribution network as we now have for gasoline. Who do we think is going to make that initial investment? The auto manufacturers? The energy companies?

Unless it's electricity which has a much better chance than most of the rest of the alternatives anyway.  (or a much less likely, but hippies like it, water)  Granted that if we do switch to electrical power for much of our transportation needs, we would need to make a lot more electricity, but that's a pretty small hurdle compared to the one you guys want to build with ethanol or hydrogen.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Those of us living in north america and Brazil are going to get 1-3 decades of economic pain for this. Europe and developed east asia may not fully recover for half of a century. The third world... well I don't want to talk about it since it's too depressing.

Hate to say it buddy, but Europe is in a far better position in a world with limited oil.

North America hasn't run out of Energy, just cheap energy while Europe has more or less run out of energy for the most part and is forced to import from outside. Also, Europe has a much stronger green/luddite movement. Also let's look at the demographic problems of aging and failing to digest immigrants which will hurt Europe even more. Then there's the taxation issue which is already driving a few euros out.

You're mixing together a lot of issues here.  As far as the collapse of the oil-fueled transport paradigm, it is going to do a lot more damage to the US economy than the European one.

Oh yes it'll do alot more damage to our economy in one blow while we lack their demographic issues(both aging and digesting immigrants) which makes it be more of a problem for them. Your issue is that you act like peak oil is the only problem that exists. No part of the world is going to have a wonderful near future but north america and Brazil are going to do the least bad.

[Bogart]

$137 a barrel oil is a symptom of peak oil. Too bad no one paid attention years ago when liberals were talking about peak oil.

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

Too bad conservatives blocked taxes on record oil profits in order to provide relief to consumers.

Or, give money to R&D on alternatives. Consider that even if we develop a viable alternate technology and the auto makers find a profitable way to sell it, you still have a huge investment to be made in creating a nationwide distribution network as we now have for gasoline. Who do we think is going to make that initial investment? The auto manufacturers? The energy companies?

Unless it's electricity which has a much better chance than most of the rest of the alternatives anyway.  (or a much less likely, but hippies like it, water)  Granted that if we do switch to electrical power for much of our transportation needs, we would need to make a lot more electricity, but that's a pretty small hurdle compared to the one you guys want to build with ethanol or hydrogen.

Not only would it require producing much larger quantities of electricity/storage alternatives, but you would still have the distribution problem. The benchmark right now is being able to produce a viable alternative to being able to make a cross country trip.

Really, there are several promising options, but we need to move forward on one to make it work. This issue isn't going to be solved by the market the way we decided in favor of VHS over Beta.

The government has to have a role in that decision.

[cannonia]

Too bad liberals blocked increased domestic production such as ANWR.

And off the California coast, and in the Gulf...

All of which would put off the peak by about 20 minutes...

And Colorado oil shale...

[opebo]

And Colorado oil shale...

Yes, I've heard of that stuff.  Is it feasible at $120/barrel oil?  Even if it is, that means a massive decline in standard of living.

[dead0man]

Massive decline in standard of living?  What's oil at this week?

[cannonia]

And Colorado oil shale...

Yes, I've heard of that stuff.  Is it feasible at $120/barrel oil?  Even if it is, that means a massive decline in standard of living.

I've seen estimates that it's cost effective at anywhere from $70 to $95 a barrel.  But it's sure nice that government is looking out for the corporations to prevent them from making a potentially bad investment!

[Albus Dumbledore]

Europe has an arguably higher standard of living than the US despite living on only a fraction of the energy the US does. And this is at current tech levels not more advanced future technology with better alt-fuels/alt-energy/electric powered vehicles.

[dead0man]

Europe has an arguably higher standard of living than the US despite living on only a fraction of the energy the US does. And this is at current tech levels not more advanced future technology with better alt-fuels/alt-energy/electric powered vehicles.

You need to factor in the distance between our population centers versus theirs.  We're always going to use more energy per capita than Euro's will.  (obviously that doesn't count for all of it, Americans currently waste a lot of energy)

[Albus Dumbledore]

Peak oil will kill the current non-urbanized living arrangements so that won't always be a factor.