Posted on 08/17/2010 9:18:08 AM PDT by Faketan
There is an open secret in the oil industry that dare not speak its name: peak oil.
Well, two did speak its name and gained no acclaim for it. One, M. King Hubbert, died years ago. The other and the most controversial, Matthew Simmons, died at his Maine summer home Aug. 8.
The peak oil idea is simple: Oil is a finite commodity, and one day we are going to use up all of it.
Hubbert, a geologist, began speculating on the effects of the gradual decline in worldwide production in the 1950s. He expressed this in a simple graph, which became known as “Hubbert’s pimple.”
He tended to draw the graph freehand, and it looked more like a Rubenesque breast than a pimple. It was so simple that he drew it over and over again to illustrate his points for journalists and politicians. Later, he would draw lines through the pimple to demonstrate where we had been and where we were going, based on the then-known reserves and rate of depletion.
For his scholarship, Hubbert was eased out at Shell Oil Company in 1964. He took a job with the U.S. Geological Survey and continued his speculative research--until he was thrust into national prominence by the oil crisis of the 1970s. Full article at: Peak Oil
BTTT
Question, what will happen first:
Peak oil or Peak Lithium?
We could cut oil imports and reduce “fossil fuel” use if the liberals would allow us to build nuclear power plants again. Nuclear waste has to be dealt with, true enough. But if you want a proven technology which already exists, which produces no greenhouse gases, nuclear is that technology.
It stuns me sometimes how decisions are made in this country. Because of the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and an idiotic Jane Fonda movie about a nuclear power plant, we haven’t been allowed to build a nuclear plant in this country in 30 years.
Three Mile Island was a serious accident, however, all of the back-up systems worked as they were designed to function. There has not been a spike in cancers or any other health problems in that area. I still remember Jimmy Carter put on rubber hip boots and went inside the reactor to learn what happened. Jimmy has not had any ill health effects from what could have been a dangerous exposure.
Nuclear is just one of various energy sources which will help us in the future. It’s not the only solution but it’s a key part of our energy future, if the liberals allow it.
There is a myth, pushed by acolytes of the Church of the Hysteric Environmentalism, it's name: Peak Oil.
‘Because of the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and an idiotic Jane Fonda movie about a nuclear power plant, we haven’t been allowed to build a nuclear plant in this country in 30 years.”
I disagree, we haven’t been able to build a plant because they want energy to be expensive. They don’t want us to have clean energy, that will only add to the problem in their view.
I also disagree that Jimmy hasn’t suffered from his exposure. I mean how can you really tell??
Their plan is to force people to live in cities and make vast tracks of the country into no-mans land. There are already pieces of this in place.
“I am not sure I buy into the Russian “Abiotic” theories. If they are true what is the mechanism or process for oil regeneration?”
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What we do know, based on how much oil we’ve already pumped, and the depth at wich oil is usually found, is that the old theory is absolutely nonsense.
“Peak Oil” like “Peak Government”
We’ll never hit it.
Do you understand oil is found in sedimentary rock, never igneous rock. And do you understand by definition, sedimentary rock was created by sediment from the surface?
About 10 years ago I recall reading some quotes from an enviro-tard that were very telling, and explain the whole “climate change” hoax.
Basically he clearly admitted the “running out of oil” argument was BS, that we clearly had hundreds of years of oil. But since they wanted to end the use of oil, cars and freedom, it was the approach they had been using. He admitted that since that position was bogus, the oil isn’t running out, the environment and climate would be the new approach.
IOW, because the real agenda is Luddite-like Socialism, any argument will do. And when one hoax is exposed, they will simply retool with another hoax. Hence Peak Oil morphs in Global Cooling which then morphs into Global Warming finally morphing into Climate Change.
And in the time before each new hoax is exposed, a few more freedoms are peeled away. If you look at the last 40 years, this incremental approach has been very successful. Even though we have successfully debunked each hoax, we are still losing the war.
This scam started in the early 1920s, after the end of WWI. The oil companies began pushing the idea that America was running out of oil and raised the price to an outrageous level for the time (~$0.25/gal; very high!). That lasted for several months until people finally figured out that we weren't running out of oil. Approximately every 20 years after that, the oil companies would bring it back and raise prices again.
Their best scam was the oil shortage in the 80s when they blamed it all on OPEC holding out on us. What no one knew is that the oil refinery storage tanks were full to overflowing with oil and oil tankers were parked out at sea, over the horizon (so they couldn't be seen) because there was no place to put the oil.
As ANWR and many of the recent huge oilfield discoveries have shown, we have plenty of oil for the foreseeable future. It is endless? Who knows? While I agree that we should bve developing renewable sources (dilithium crystals come to mind) to offset the potential that there really is a finite amount of oil available, we aren't there yet.
But I believe there is "peak cheap oil", and we hit that point some years past.
In the short term, transitioning away from oil as much as possible is a national security issue (i.e. oil is the economic lifeline of our enemies). Actual shortages aren’t a problem in the short term (they will in the long term as the easily-accessed fields are used up, but we’ll have decades to adjust).
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