There less oil than we think - Wikileaks

[Joenavy85]

Squeezing Oil Out of Stones in the Rocky Mountains : NPR

this would be a good idea if the tree huggers would stop freaking out.

[roflwaffle]

Well, economists too. Getting oil out of rock isn't exactly cheap or efficient. The owner of the process can go on about $20-$30 per barrel oil till he's blue in the face, but if it was really that cheap companies would be all over it.

[redneck]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

Well, economists too. Getting oil out of rock isn't exactly cheap or efficient. The owner of the process can go on about $20-$30 per barrel oil till he's blue in the face, but if it was really that cheap companies would be all over it.

Not necessarily.

Companies like to own the rights to the technology, and not have to pay royalties.

Case in point. A couple of independent engineers developed a led that put out warm light several years ago. However the independent engineers wanted $.01-$.015 cents royality per led. SYLVANIA and other large companies balked because they said they would develope their own warm light technology. Besides that, they are presently heavily invested and producing other means of lighting that would then become more or less meaningless.

As far as independent oil companies go,not many are that brave or stupid. All it takes is for the big boys to reduce the price enough to squeeze them out of existance. Then buy them out for pennies on the dollar and shelf it till they are forced to use it, if ever.

All this talk about peak oil is bull$hit.

The truth is...

It's all about control.

>

[Frank Lee]

I do believe oil, for our purposes, is a finite resource and therefore subject to exhaustion. It won't be (as alluded to on pg 1) cut off suddenly like someone threw a switch; it'll be a "slowly boil the frog" thing, with prices rising as it becomes necessary to spend more to extract/refine it.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

Moving from the US to Japan is basically a microcosm of what it would be like in the US if energy stopped being cheap.

I pay 3x what you people pay for electricity, which is pro-rated to charge more if I use lots, 2x for gas, 2x for natural gas, have to buy trashbags to throw out my trash, etc etc on and on. No big deal though.

When people get used to having 90% of their money to spends on things they don't need, that's where problems arise, in my opinion.

True in some sense but Japan is so totally different than here you won't see a move to Japanese life in the US even if energy becomes impossibly high, instead you will see systematic failure. We won't prepare our society, instead it will fail and then we will change but probably for the worse.

Japan started way ahead of us in every way, they were already used to small spaces, communal living and extreme obligations to the state, in fact its their heritage more or less. If I may, its not even too tough to walk across Japan in the right season with the right path.

Here in the US we are so BIG and have such poorly setup societies that we simply cannot operate like Japan without tearing down everything and starting over, we are just that far behind.

Also our mentality here is not compatible with how Japan lives.

I might and others here might not be too affected by massive shifts in energy costs (and we likely wouldn't mind the changes) but other people will likely be starving on the streets until the 30 years or so pass that it takes for society to restructure. (and I mean that, our society will not restructure safely overnight) Regardless of how prepared personally we are, that doesn't mean our society will be compatible with us for a long time and we might get displaced as special interests are grappling for their lost money/power/influence.

A cold dose of reality, we can be idealistic but lets face it, like Dodge we will keep doing the same thing until it kills us.

Cheers
Ryan

[redneck]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I do believe oil, for our purposes, is a finite resource and therefore subject to exhaustion. It won't be (as alluded to on pg 1) cut off suddenly like someone threw a switch; it'll be a "slowly boil the frog" thing, with prices rising as it becomes necessary to spend more to extract/refine it.

I agree.

Predicting peak oil, is almost like predicting peak technology. Neither can be done.


>

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by redneck

Not necessarily.

Companies like to own the rights to the technology, and not have to pay royalties.

Case in point. A couple of independent engineers developed a led that put out warm light several years ago. However the independent engineers wanted $.01-$.015 cents royality per led. SYLVANIA and other large companies balked because they said they would develope their own warm light technology. Besides that, they are presently heavily invested and producing other means of lighting that would then become more or less meaningless.

As far as independent oil companies go,not many are that brave or stupid. All it takes is for the big boys to reduce the price enough to squeeze them out of existance. Then buy them out for pennies on the dollar and shelf it till they are forced to use it, if ever.

All this talk about peak oil is bull$hit.

The truth is...

It's all about control.

>

So true. This is not about oil reserves being depleted or squeezing oil out of shale. It's about monopolizing markets and squeezing money out of consumers. It's also about worldwide demand for oil. And SHHH! Let's not mention that the market supply is largely controlled by OPEC, an international cartel.

[vacationtime247]

People will pay whatever they're charged for something they want or need. It's like when people said, "I'll quit smoking if a pack of cigarettes costs $5!" You hear the same thing from people regarding fuel.
VT247

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by redneck

Not necessarily.

Companies like to own the rights to the technology, and not have to pay royalties.

Case in point. A couple of independent engineers developed a led that put out warm light several years ago. However the independent engineers wanted $.01-$.015 cents royality per led. SYLVANIA and other large companies balked because they said they would develope their own warm light technology. Besides that, they are presently heavily invested and producing other means of lighting that would then become more or less meaningless.

As far as independent oil companies go,not many are that brave or stupid. All it takes is for the big boys to reduce the price enough to squeeze them out of existance. Then buy them out for pennies on the dollar and shelf it till they are forced to use it, if ever.

All this talk about peak oil is bull$hit.

The truth is...

It's all about control.

>

Do you have a link to your story? I think a cent or two per bulb is a far cry from ~$60+ less per bbl, but as with most things I'll believe it when I see it.

[ChazInMT]

I think biofuel from algae is waiting in the wings. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see the beauty in that stuff. I think like many others have said here, it is just a matter of maintaining the status quo, everything is in place to pump petroleum outta the ground, process it, distribute it, and burn it up in our cars. Until that runs out, I don't think competing technologies will be allowed to emerge.

I like the comment on Nuclear Power, it is obscene that we do not reprocess the nuclear fuel from our plants in order to use it all up. The fact that we don't reprocess and that all the spent fuel from all the nuclear reactors remains on the site of the nuclear plant from which it was pulled, leads me to believe some truly moronic people are behind these policies. America is mega ignorant about what is reality in the nuclear industry. If the public to know more, and understood it, we'd have nuke plants providing all our electric needs, and reprocessing would require the disposal of only a small amount of high level waste with a few hundred year half life instead of the few hundred thousand year half life of the current "spent fuel" waste.

Ya had to get me started didn't cha???