Would just add one thing. At a quarter of a tank and with no gas stations in sight you either look at other cars as a source of gas or as a source of a possible ride---depending on the state of social cohesion.
arthur -----Original Message----- From: Thomas Lunde [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 2, 2003 2:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Too much demand for oil Hi Keith: I followed oil and gas for a couple of years which does not make me an expert - still one small metaphor made brilliant sense to me. When your car is full of gas, there is no need to be concerned about where you drive. When the gas gauge shows half a tank, there is a nudge from memory to be aware and start looking for a fill-up. If the gauge gets down to one quarter, the prudent driver makes a serious effort to get gas - never know when you are going to be stuck in a traffic jam. From the one quarter position to empty is a state of increasing anxiety and the driver may find himself interrupting his trip and increasing his expenses to find a filling station. Now in the world of reserves, my best info is we passed the halfway mark around the year 2000. Even though there may still be plenty of oil, there is a physics exchange in how much energy can you expend to get energy. Much of this energy will take more energy to get the oil leading to a net loss - obviously uneconomical. The current political situation of GWB, in my opinion is the realization that we have passed the halfway mark and he is looking for a gas station to top up his tank - i.e. Iraq. However it is costing him more energy than anticipated which means his tank is moving down to the one quarter mark - crisis. Once the general populace becomes aware that we are below the one half tank mark, there will start to be panic which will make the owning and control of oil and gas the maximum currency for power. GWB is determined not to let that power opportunity go to anyone else - hence his frantic efforts to tame Iraq and Afganistan. His problem is he is spending his reserves in the hopes of refilling the tank. It is a curve with a time element and if it costs to much to secure the new energy, he will be bankrupt before he achieves his goals. As to the rest of us - go suck a lemon. The trickle down theory will become the dominant model and if you are not where the trickle is - freeze, starve, and die. Some thoughts. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde ---------- >From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [Futurework] Too much demand for oil >Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 11:40 AM > > When oil and gas production peaks -- in about 10 years' time and onwards, > according to a recent study -- then there won't be a sudden collapse in > supply. It will be a long, slow decline lasting, maybe, another century or > more. But that's not really the issue, as is pointed out below. It is that > the demand will still be growing steeply and exceeding any amount that the > world's resources can supply. Hopefully, American and European trade will > integrate even more closely with China than now, or else I can envisage > America and China coming to blows in ten years or so. > > Keith Hudson > > <<<< > OIL AND GAS RUNNING OUT FASTER THAN EXPECTED, SAYS STUDY > > Charles Arthur > > World oil and gas supplies are heading for a "production crunch" sometime > between -- 2010 and 2020 when they cannot meet supply, because global > reserves are 80 per cent smaller than had been thought, new forecasts suggest. > > Research presented this week at the University of Uppsala in Sweden claims > that oil supplies will peak soon after 2010, and gas supplies not long > afterwards, making the price of petrol and other fuels rocket, with > potentially disastrous economic consequences unless people have moved to > alternatives to fossil fuels. > > While forecasters have always known that such a date lies ahead, they have > previously put it around 2050, and estimated that there would be time to > shift energy use over to renewables and other non-fossil sources. > > But Kjell Aleklett, one of a team of geologists that prepared the report, > said earlier estimates that the world's entire reserve amounts to 18,000 > billion barrels of oil and gas -- of which about 1,000 billion has been > used up so far -- were "completely unrealistic". He, Anders Sivertsson and > Colin Campbell told New Scientist magazine that less than 3,500 billion > barrels of oil and gas remained in total. > > Dr James McKenzie, senior assistant on the climate change programme at the > World Resources Institute in Washington, said: "We won't run out of oil -- > but what will happen is that production will decline, and that's when all > hell will break loose." > > Present annual oil consumption is about 25 billion barrels, and shows no > signs of slowing. That would suggest a "production crunch" -- where > consumption grows to meet the maximum output -- within the next couple of > decades. > > Dr McKenzie said that on this topic the argument split between economists > and geologists. "The economists think it will just force the price of oil > up, which will mean it will become economic to extract it from all sorts of > unusual places, such as tarry sands or deposits which are 90 per cent rock > and 10 per cent oil. But the geologists say "You tell us where the deposits > are and we'll find them. We've looked and we can't." > > One side-effect of having lower oil reserves might be that the worst > predictions of climate change would be forestalled -- because there would > be less fuel to bum, and therefore less carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, > produced. > > The Uppsala team's estimates are lower than any considered by the > International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose minimum estiimate for > the total reserves was 5,000 billion barrels. > > But Nebojsa Nakicenovic, an energy economist at the University of'Vienna in > Austria, who headed the IPCC team that produced the reserves forecasts, > said the Swedish group were "conservative", and that his team had taken > into account a wider range of estimates. Dr Nakicenovic added that, if oil > and gas began to run out, "there's a huge amount of coal underground that > could be exploited". > > Dr McKenzie said: "We have to accept the fact of oil and gas production > peaking, and get concerned with substitutes. It's not when will we run out, > it's when will production be unable to meet demand. > > "And 97 or 98 per cent of transport depends on it. You can use coal to make > methanol to power your cars or buses. But the reality is that it's all > about where the oil is." > > The Gulf countries -- Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and > the United Arab Emirates -- produce about 25 per cent of the world's oil at > the moment, and hold 65 per cent of the world's oil reserves. > > "That's why we went to war in Iraq," said Dr McKenzie. "Gas might have > comparable reserves to oil, but it's not in the right place and we don't > really have the infrastructure to transport it." > >>>> > Independent 2 October 2003 > > > Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, > <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk> > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
