PeakOilSchmeekSchmoil. Man, I thought I was negative sometimes.
BTW -- there is no evidence that oil is finite. Remember, somehow it was made and there is no evidence that the earth has stopped producing it. The recent Brazilian find underneath 5,500 feet of water, 6,000 feet of rock, and 9,000 feet of salt is casting doubt on previous theories about how and why oil is formed. Why would you think that suddenly the earth has stopped producing oil? We haven't scratched the surface of the earth yet regarding oil exploration. Remember, so much is off-limits at the current time.
You may be confused between human and geologic time scales. On a geologic time scale, you are correct that oil will keep being produced. However, this is over thousands to millions of years. Unfortunately, we are using the soil up about 1,000x faster or more than it is being produced. The oil fields that have been capped have only re-filled a negligible amount. For all practical purposes, it is a finite resource. Sure we should drill in the off-limit areas, but that won't get us out of this. If you do the research, you'll see that the world is consuming 85 mbpd. ANWAR and our coasts won't do much to add to that, especially when oil fields are declining in other parts of the world. The ONLY way out of this is to move to alternative energies. Otherwise, we're going to just have to buck up and live a much simpler life style.
I think a much simpler lifestyle is the answer. Create bicycle "highways" and parking areas so that anyone that lives within 10 miles from work can ride a bike there. Leave car driving only for bad weather days. Improve public transportation and so on.
I understand that and I'm not talking about it being made as fast as Kool-Aid. The bottom-line is that scientists don't know long it takes. Also, please remember that many of these fields are interconnected at various depths, so it proves nothing that one isn't recharging because there could be another that is @ lower depths.
Also, (again and again), nobody is saying ANWR only; we need to open up all fields of opportunities. Interior, outer continental, tar sands, shale, .... , everything until these other sources can come online. We have a national security risk by depending on 60% of our needs.
You need to re-consider how much proven reserves we have. We have enough to be sufficient for hundreds of years when the shale/tar/sands mixture is thrown in. We have the technology *now* to develop it on site.
Originally Posted by redviking
You may be confused between human and geologic time scales. On a geologic time scale, you are correct that oil will keep being produced. However, this is over thousands to millions of years. Unfortunately, we are using the soil up about 1,000x faster or more than it is being produced. The oil fields that have been capped have only re-filled a negligible amount. For all practical purposes, it is a finite resource. Sure we should drill in the off-limit areas, but that won't get us out of this. If you do the research, you'll see that the world is consuming 85 mbpd. ANWAR and our coasts won't do much to add to that, especially when oil fields are declining in other parts of the world. The ONLY way out of this is to move to alternative energies. Otherwise, we're going to just have to buck up and live a much simpler life style.
I understand that and I'm not talking about it being made as fast as Kool-Aid. The bottom-line is that scientists don't know long it takes. Also, please remember that many of these fields are interconnected at various depths, so it proves nothing that one isn't recharging because there could be another that is @ lower depths.
Also, (again and again), nobody is saying ANWR only; we need to open up all fields of opportunities. Interior, outer continental, tar sands, shale, .... , everything until these other sources can come online. We have a national security risk by depending on 60% of our needs.
You need to re-consider how much proven reserves we have. We have enough to be sufficient for hundreds of years when the shale/tar/sands mixture is thrown in. We have the technology *now* to develop it on site.
Cyclone - no, we don't know EXACTLY how fast they recharge, but we do know that it is generally negligible on a human time scale. That is all we need to know.
As for new oil fields, these are already being developed. Certain people seem to have the idea that we aren't doing any new drilling. We are. The problem is that the new drilling is offset by declining oil fields in other parts of the world. The rate of new discoveries doesn't even come close what we are using (85 mil. barrels per day). Oil shales, tar sands, blah, blah, blah. We are already developing those, but that only prolongs the inevitable because these are also finite. They also require much more energy to extract and refine and shales require a lot of water. Comparing this to light sweet crude isn't a fair comparison.
The ONLY solution is to move to alternative energy as quick as possible. Otherwise, we will be facing mass economic collapse and starvation like our world has never seen. Some of this will happen anyway, but it will be worse if we don't make this the #1 priority worldwide.
When you hear people say "we can't drill our way out of this problem", this couldn't be any more correct. Drilling will only prolong the inevitable and buy us more time to develop alternative energies. However, more drilling has a dark side to it - for one, it provides less economic incentive for alternative energy, unless we take a lot of that oil money and mandate investment in alternative energies (I'm in favor of this). Secondly, you are using the remaining oil up faster. This only brings us to the point of running out of oil (for all practical purposes) FASTER.
I've never seen so much fatalism in my life; it's almost impossible to defeat. I (on the other hand) accept the fact that we have at least 200-hundred years of proven reserves (close at hand) that are off-limits. Off-limits in the interior, off-limits close to our shores, and off-limits further from our shores. You haven't dealt with the national security risk that we have (and is real) and you seem unwilling to bend despite the grave risk.
You haven't dealt with semis that need oil and diesel, polymers that need oil, tractors that need oil and diesel, the 200,000,000 existing U.S. cars that need oil and gas, jets that need kerosene/jet fuel, school buses that need oil and diesel,factories that need oil and grease, not to the mention the multiple dozens of other critical uses that oil is needed for. The need for oil will *NEVER EVER* go away and it's people like you that will drive the world into an economic depression; not me.
Until we can run cars and jets on grass clippings or water, we need oil. Fortunately, the tide is turning and people get it now. It may not come to fruition this election, but for sure -- the next one when gas is $7 or higher.
Originally Posted by redviking
Cyclone - no, we don't know EXACTLY how fast they recharge, but we do know that it is generally negligible on a human time scale. That is all we need to know.
As for new oil fields, these are already being developed. Certain people seem to have the idea that we aren't doing any new drilling. We are. The problem is that the new drilling is offset by declining oil fields in other parts of the world. The rate of new discoveries doesn't even come close what we are using (85 mil. barrels per day). Oil shales, tar sands, blah, blah, blah. We are already developing those, but that only prolongs the inevitable because these are also finite. They also require much more energy to extract and refine and shales require a lot of water. Comparing this to light sweet crude isn't a fair comparison.
The ONLY solution is to move to alternative energy as quick as possible. Otherwise, we will be facing mass economic collapse and starvation like our world has never seen. Some of this will happen anyway, but it will be worse if we don't make this the #1 priority worldwide.
Last edited by Cyclone85; 07-06-2008 at 12:33 PM..
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