'Out of Gas': They're Not Making More

NY Times ^ | February 8, 2004 | PAUL RAEBURN

[neverdem]

You should be pleased to know that the NY Times likes to censor itself. I read this book review yesterday and made a note to myself about it because I was running late. Lo and behold, copy the title on the NY Times search function and you can't find it. This is the second time that this has occurred to me with Times' book reviews.

[dirtboy]

Maybe not, Goodstein replies. ''In an orderly, rational world, it might be possible for the gradually increasing gap between supply and demand for oil to be filled by some substitute. But anyone who remembers the oil crisis of 1973 knows that we don't live in such a world, especially when it comes to an irreversible shortage of oil.''

1973 was not due to a shortage of production, but political embargoes against the United States. What a maroon.

[raloxk]

I am too old to fall for this garbage. The writer clearly doesnt understand the economics os the energy industry if he thinks 1973 was a bonifide oil shortage.

I remember hearing back in the 1970s, that we would be out of oil by 2000.

GARBAGE GARBAGE GARBAGE

[dirtboy]

Gave this line more thought:

Maybe not, Goodstein replies. ''In an orderly, rational world,"

In other words, "In a command-and-control economy,"

Looks like our boy is a Marxist at heart.

[Gunslingr3]

We can improve the efficiency of lights, tap solar power with cheap photoelectric cells and turn to nuclear power. The problem is that we have not made a national or global commitment to do so.

Idiots who expect a centrally planned, government imposed solution to alleviate demand don't understand markets.

If the price of oil shifts up in the event of decreasing supply and steady or rising demand, it will provide higher profits and incentive for the creation of alternative sources. If anything, the federal government is delaying this inevitable shift in energy sources by factoring the price of oil into our federal budget. Keep in mind every billion spent to occupy the Middle East is being done to offset a rise in prices that consumers and entrepenuers would interpret as a signal to change behaviour.

[Rodney King]

And what about that technological fix? ''There is no single magic bullet that will solve all our energy problems,'' Goodstein writes.

The whole point of technological breakthroughs is that as breakthroughs, nobody predicted them. It is silly to say that "there will be no breakthroughs".

those advances will require a ''massive, focused commitment to scientific and technological research. That is a commitment we have not yet made.''

Because energy prices are still relatively low. As they rise, more an more research will be focused on alternatives. No planning group of government and scientists decided to replace whale oil with petroleum. Whale oil went up and price, others were messing around with oil to see what it could do, and market forces brought petroleum products to the market.

Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and scouring the energy resources of national lands across the West might help the constituents of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Vice President Dick Cheney's friends in the energy industry, but it won't solve the problem.

So because we are going to run out of oil someday, we might as well just hasten the whole event? There is absolutley no logic to his statement.

Goodstein's predictions are based on a sophisticated understanding of physics and thermodynamics, and on a simple observation about natural resources. The supply of any natural resource follows a bell curve, increasing rapidly at first, then more slowly, eventually peaking and beginning to decline. Oil will, too

You don't need a sophistacted understanding of physics and thermodynamics to understand that. You do need a mildly sophisticated understanding of free markets to know that the profit motive is most likley to solve the greatest threat to our long-term survival. You also need a mildly sophisticated understanding of the energy industry to know that the vast, vast majority of the earth (especially undersea) had not been explored for oil. It may not be profitable to explore and drill at 20,000 feet now, but 20 years ago nobody would have thought that it would be profitable to drill in 7,000 feet of ocean as is now done.

[prion]

Even if we substitute coal and natural gas for some of the oil, we will start to run out of fossil fuels by the end of the century.

Which century? "Start to"? Weren't we supposed to be bone dry by...four years ago?

Hey, I'm all for alternatives. And we'll get them, when oil supplies become tight enough to make them economically viable. If boneheads like this guy don't meddle with the engine of the marketplace.

[discostu]

He also doesn't understand that we're only skimming the surface of the earth with our drilling, we're barely tickling the geography where oil is likely to exist. If we can get another few miles of drilling we're likely to encounter massive quantities of oil to lead us well into the next millenium.

[Mr. Bird]

But those advances will require a ''massive, focused commitment to scientific and technological research. That is a commitment we have not yet made.''

Excuse me, Mr. Goodstein, but you're the physicist and high-falutin vice provost at Cal Tech, not me. Why don't you come out and say it? "Give me more taxpayer money to play with".

[dangus]

The reason US oil production has declined is that everywhere that there is oil found, Congress immediately declares off-limits. Not Just Alaska, but California and teh Gulf of Mexico, too.

[xrp]

Agreed, I refuse to believe that 2-3 billion years worth of fossil fuels have been exhausted in ~150 years.

[Dog Gone]

Even nuclear power is only a short-term solution. Uranium, too, has a Hubbert's peak, and the current known reserves can supply the earth's energy needs for only 25 years at best.

I guess he never heard of a breeder reactor.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

This ignores the new theory of oil "seeps," which suggests reserviors gradually refill themselves.

[Charliehorse]

One of these sources is already known. It is Methane Hydrate which is a "frozen" form of methane under high pressure. It is estimated that there is more energy in these deposits than all other fossil fuels combined.

[Protagoras]

The age of oil is ending, he says.

This part I agree with totally, but not with his conclusions about it.

I also believe that the internal combustion engine is a technology past it's prime. Thus a new method of converting energy to power will come to pass, I predict.

The supply will soon begin to decline

It started the day that it was first pumped from the earth at a rate greater than it was being formed geologically. In other words, immediately. Which does not mean we will run out anytime soon, but he is technically correct it is declining.

[sully777]

NYTimes article is typical enviro-garbage published as doom and gloom truth.

My friends in the oil business tell me oil is so plentiful that it squirts out of the bottom of lakes, seas and oceans. The problem is not the supply of oil; the problem is how comapnies can cheaply extract the earth's supply of oil.

This article is total crap; recall geologists and envirtonmentalists always couching their estimates of oil supply with the term "known sources of oil", they never state the estimated total supply of oil. No one knows the total supply of oil just as no one knows the total supply of any commodity.

My friends say the US depends on foreign oil because it's dirt cheap to extract the oil and gas from third-world nations, cheaper by far than the US extraction process. For example, Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Iraqi oil fields are easy to drill in the sand. Venezuela oil is easy to find off the shallow coast, plus the cost of living of the workers, lax environmental laws, and all the rest keep costs down for oil companies.

My friends suggest there are more supplies of oil and gas in the US than in few other countries. We simply choose to use cheaper supplies across the borders. Sound familiar?

[Petronski]

The reason US oil production has declined is that everywhere that there is oil found, Congress immediately declares off-limits. Not Just Alaska, but California and teh Gulf of Mexico, too.

Well, there is another reason too: when foreign oil is so cheap that domestic oil exploration is not economical, domestic oil exploration will not occur.

As the price rises, further exploration will ensue.

[kaktuskid]

Even if we substitute coal and natural gas for some of the oil, we will start to run out of fossil fuels by the end of the century.

We have 200+ years of coal reserves currently available.

Don't forget natural gas is METHANE, which is also produced by rotting garbage (doubt if we are going to run out of that real soon!)

[yankeedame]

And what about that technological fix? ''There is no single magic bullet that will solve all our energy problems,'' Goodstein writes.

Big deal! So whose expect this -- or any problem -- to be solved with a single solution? That's like saying "There is no single magic bullet that will solve losing those few extra pounds." It's not saying it can't be done, it isn't done, that it isn't being done now, and it will never be done. It's just saying there's no single way it can be done.

[sully777]

"One of these sources is already known. It is Methane Hydrate which is a "frozen" form of methane under high pressure. It is estimated that there is more energy in these deposits than all other fossil fuels combined."

---

Tell me more about this, sounds fascinating. I have heard another hypothesis that the earth's plates ride and slide on the ooze, not just magma. I heard another hypothesis that oil is created by an unknown process, under pressure and super heated within the earth--not related to fossilized/trapped decaying matter.