Serious oil price problems from 2012

[mooncliff]

This is what many people have said for more than a decade.
Gasoline will be sky high, paralyzing the US economy, which will at best be no growth. The only way is to outrun the problem by drastically improving efficiency.

From WikiLeaks cables:
Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices
US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...ated-wikileaks


Steve Chu wants to get the cost of photovoltaics down by 75% by 2020, but I think that might be a little late.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011...paign=top_news

LEDs are FINALLY showing up on Amazon, but I would still just by only one to try out. They are rapidly getting better, more energy efficient, and cheaper.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

This is what many people have said for more than a decade.
Gasoline will be sky high, paralyzing the US economy, which will at best be no growth. The only way is to outrun the problem by drastically improving efficiency.

From WikiLeaks cables:
Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices
US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...ated-wikileaks


Steve Chu wants to get the cost of photovoltaics down by 75% by 2020, but I think that might be a little late.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011...paign=top_news

LEDs are FINALLY showing up on Amazon, but I would still just by only one to try out. They are rapidly getting better, more energy efficient, and cheaper.

I figured that it was the turmoil in the middle east causing the rise in the top end of the standard deviation confidence interval that the EIA put out a few days ago...maybe it's multiple things: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/steo_charts.pdf

[jtabeb]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

The balloon has finally gone up on this. (it's official now and out in the open, we've got 10 years folks till we hit 1980's level of oil production, that it)

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/did...00-billion-bar

[touchring]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

there goes the suburban sprawls, permanent decline.

[bpr]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco's 12.5m barrel-a-day capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.According to the cables, which date between 2007-09, Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12m barrels a day in 10 years but before then – possibly as early as 2012 – global oil production would have hit its highest point.

He's since changed his outlook.

From a September 2009 interview:

Sadad: Saudi Arabia has a very credible and professional record in terms of declaring capacity and meeting its production targets. When the Kingdom announced a target of 12.5 million barrels of capacity, they actually committed funds to develop that capacity and we’ve seen them now commissioning those: 250,000 additional barrels in Shaybah; 1.2 million barrels in Khurais; 500,000 in Khursaniyah; 900,000 coming on stream in a couple of years in Manifa. So these are real projects and real capacities. I don’t think there is an issue that Saudi Arabia can deliver the oil it says it can deliver. The question is, what about the rest of the world? Is the rest of the world able to make up the difference?

...I don’t think the problem is Saudi Arabia. I think the problem is the rest of the world.

From the Guardian:

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

An October, 2009 interview confirms that our ambassadors are getting the same information that the general public has been getting, from the same sources, nonetheless.:

Question: In the past you’ve mentioned that world oil reserves are overstated by as much as 300 billion barrels. Sadad: It’s very important to adhere to proper reserve definitions when we’re talking about oil. Oil is money in the bank. If you are very loose in terms of how you define it, you can go off and make assumptions that are unsustainable. The current numbers published—I call them “declared reserves”—are something like 1,200 billion barrels. On top of that there are another 150 billion of extra-heavy crudes and 150 billion Canadian type of bitumens. So that would lead you to believe that we have roughly 1,500 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. In fact, those are hardly proven. There is a lot of speculation. If we go back to the SEC type of definitions, that number drops way back, maybe down to 900 billion. I think it’s important to be precise about the definitions if not the actual estimates, because that’s the only way we can decide how much can be delivered on a timely basis. So yes, I think I would say 900 billion proven, perhaps 1,200 billion probable and potential. But that’s about the limit.

Not saying anything about Peak Oil or anything, just that this doesn't differ in substance or source from what has already been made public. The only news item here is that US officials might actually be listening.

[ggirod]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

The only news item here is that US officials might actually be listening.

Sorry, but when you consider that all branches of the military are engaged in preparing for peak oil as the biggest threat of the 21st century, it can't be said that the US officials aren't listening. They just aren't responding, aside from groups like the military. Were they to try to respond with something constructive or even an informational campaign, the peak oil denial army would creep out of the woodwork and invade TV screens throughout the country to calm down the sheeple. Wikileaks just reveals what we all knew for years but lacked the media stage. Now it makes the media stage in a sideshow and, like the bearded lady, peak oil will dominate the conversation outside the sideshow booth until the topic returns to something more appropriate, like Hollywood personalities gone bad.

[Shakespear]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

EU is preparing also.

The new energy efficient Mercury Bulbs will me mandated in the EU eliminating the regular light bulbs which if broken on your floor can safely be swept up. To make the madness of the EU Madness yet better, they are more expensive, give off wrong wave length light and with/on off use do not necessarily last longer.

Energy savings for benefit of Phillips like companies producing this crap.

Oh, and you have nothing to say about it, in the EU Camp.

[gnk]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

Anyone remember Robert Hirsch?

http://www.energybulletin.net/storie...-robert-hirsch

oil man: - What happened after you published your 2005 report on ‘peak oil’ for the US Department of Energy (DoE) ?

The people that I was dealing with said : « No more work on peak oil, no more talk about it. »


People that were high in the administration hierarchy ?

The people that I was dealing with were high in the laboratory level. They were getting their instructions from people on the political side of the DoE, at high levels.

After the work we did on the 2005 study and the follow-up of 2006, the Department of Energy headquarters completely cut off all support for oil peaking and decline analysis. The people that I was working with at the National Energy Technology Laboratory were good people, they saw the problem, they saw how difficult the consequences would be – you know, the potential for huge damage – yet they were told : « No more work, no more discussion. »


That was in 2006, under Bush administration. Has anything changed with the Obama administration ?

It has not changed. I have friends who simply won’t talk about it now. So I have to assume that they are receiving the same kind of instructions.

[coolhand]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

USA is preparing. There are only 2 big uses of oil the US can cut that would make a difference: Passenger car & Heavy duty truck. In pass car, right or wrong, 8% of our oil now comes from corn-based ethanol, & GM 2 days ago announced electric hybrid engines will soon be standard eqpt, & the Senate yesterday announced a $7500 tax credit for electric car purchases.

On heavy truck, the US gov't has put in several different regulations that will have effect of cutting 10%+ of heavy truck capacity & forcing that tonnage to the rails, where the US gov't is providing large loan amounts building out/improving intermodal infrastructure.

[touchring]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

electric hybrid engines will soon be standard eqpt,

the rare metal joke.

[coolhand]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

the rare metal joke.

I have been a skeptic on electric car penetration hitting targets I've seen laid out, but I am curious as to what thoughts you have there...thx!

[touchring]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

I have been a skeptic on electric car penetration hitting targets I've seen laid out, but I am curious as to what thoughts you have there...thx!

electric cars and hybrid use loads of rare metals. can the supply meet the demand?

[Fiat Currency]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

electric cars and hybrid use loads of rare metals. can the supply meet the demand?

Currently, every Toyota Prius uses 2.2 lbs (1 kg) of neodymium in each motor, while the hybrid batteries each pack 22-33 lbs. (10-15 kg) of lanthanum (another earth metal in short supply).

[gnk]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

It might be too late. We have China and India ramping up big time in the auto market. Your suggestions may have needed to have been implemented 20 years ago for a smoother transition, IMO.

Our energy and transportation policy is created the same way our banking and monetary policy has been created. A hodgepodge, piecemeal, sloppy combination of competing and vested interests that look after themselves for the short term. Our auto industry's main objective is hitting quarterly revenue goals, and satisfying stockholders. How else can you explain the SUV phenomena the past 10-15 years? Americans needed an SUV to fit all the crap they needed to buy for their McMansion that was 45 minutes away from work. That's the system we have. There's no long term thinking - just short term profit. This is fact, not opinion. If you want economic growth - you need to consume more. That's our entire economic system.

[Sorry - I meant for this to be a reply to coolhand's post]

[flintlock]

Re: Serious oil price problems from 2012

there goes the suburban sprawls, permanent decline.

Actually I'd argue "there goes the central business district". Way too many people now to cram them all downtown. I live 45 miles from downtown Atlanta and most of my neighbors work less than 15 minutes away if they actually have to leave home at all. Even a 20 mile commute in an economy car @ $5 gallon only means about $100 month in gas. Hardly a deal breaker for most people. Major corporations are moving OUT to the burbs due to lower taxes and cost of living. Not to mention the corruption, crime, and shakedowns they get in the city. The advent of work at home technical capabilities means more and more of us don't need to commute. With the decline of industry in American came the decline of the need for all of us to show up at one place to work. Just look at how we use call centers half a world away now.

What WILL be affected is the cost of goods we buy. Those are not being trucked in 40mpg vehicles from only 20 miles away! And yeah, the day of the huge SUV is probably behind us. We will probably see less driving on shopping excursions and to relieve boredom. People will better learn to combine shopping trips with their commute on the way home. But suburbs are not going to become dystopian wastelands. Perhaps those on the fringe, but for the most part, these have basically become mini cities in their own right. I don't know a soul who works in downtown Atlanta. Its just not that kind of city anymore. The "suburban" town I grew up in now has a population of over 100k. Or about the population of London at the end of the reign of Henry VIII. It's not going to disappear.

I'd be much more worried about life inside a major city in the future. Today city dwellers in most major cities outside of NY, Chicago, and a few others fall into two categories. Those who are too poor to live anywhere else and lack transportation, and those who can afford to live in very expensive, very secure neighborhoods. The way I see it, we'll see more of the former and less of the latter in the future. We'll probably see an influx of the poor to cities, maybe a slight increase in the rich, and an exodus of the middle class. Cities are in decline. Have been for decades. This is unlikely to change in my opinion.