Cost of the grid compared to solar

Dan Fraser · Jul 17, 2003

$500 for power!!! I live in LA and I never spend over $35.00 a month on
power, even in the summer. And I've never spend over $26.00 for gas in
winter (yes we have a cooler season here).

Mind you I have a car with no A/C but I've been comfortable driving it
to Palm Springs in August (116°) and to Las Vegas (105°). However, I
have installed an extra fan.

at home, it almost hit 100° degrees. I am sitting here without a shirt
on and I have a fan blowing on me. I have 3 other fans going, one for
the cat.

If I get too hot, I sprinkle some water on my clothes and the
evaporation can actually make me cold. Even if the water was hot from
being in the sun.

But $500.00. Is this guy running the A/C 24-7, leaving the shades all
open and running a bunch of stuff indoors making the house hotter? Our
power rates here are higher than in AZ and to spend $500 on power in a
month for a home is pretty extravagant. I bet if this person spent
$500.00 on conservation measures, they could cut their power bill for
the summer in less than half.

--
Dan

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

Check out my electronic schematics site at:
http://www.schematicsforfree.com
If you are into cars check out www.roadsters.com

Ian St. John · Jul 17, 2003

"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F161877.97E23B96@sbcglobal.net...

About running out of oil, please note that in Northern Alberta in the
Athabasca Tar Sands sits more oil than in Saudi and Kuwait combined.
However, it costs $12.00 a barrel to extract compared with under $1.00
in Saudi.

More to the point it is but a trickle compared to U.S. demand. You would
need to invest $100B to get production up to replacing the current Canadian
imports and that would take decades to built the heavy machinery and train
the jobforce. It is a large resource but it is not going to supply the
necessary volume of oil.

In Cold Lake Alberta in the heavy oil deposit there, there is an Iraq
full of oil but it costs $13.00 a barrel to extract.

More liike a Saudi Arabia plus, but it costs $13 a barrel for the stuff that
is at the *shallow* end of a deepening bed. Accessing the more deeply buried
sands to the west will cost more like $17/barrel and because it is heavy oil
and relatively high sulfur it sells for a lot less than 'light sweet crude'
from Iraq.

In Colorado, in the oil shales, there is another entire middle east of
oil but it costs $15.00 a barrel to extract.

Actually nobody has ever extracted oil from the shales on an economical
basis that I know of.

The point is, is that the world is running out of cheap oil.

Not quite yet. It only costs about $1 a barrel to 'produce' Iraqs oil so
cheap oil can be sustained for about 40 to 60 years ( U.S. demand only ) or
about 15 years ( current world demand ). After that, ...

What we're
doing is letting the other countries sell us their cheap to produce oil
first and keeping the expensive to produce stuff in reserve. After they
run out of cheap oil, then we can tell then to screw off while we use
nuclear power to reduce the cost of extracting the oil sands and shales.

Yah. We let OPEC sell us oil at $35 a barrel. This may have been sustainable
with 45% of the oil produced within the U.S, but it is not sustainable once
that domestic production falls off, as it will within a few years.

I have been to the Syncrude plant in Northern Alberta. I was part of the
construction boom for the pilot plants there that supply about 15% of
Canada's oil requirements and about 3% of the US's

However, the vast investment money has to compete with the massive increase
in U.S. national debt which needs to be financed so borrowing billions for
development is getting hard. There have been a number of 'developments'
announced that subsequently fell through.

When it comes to oil. Don't panic. Yes, there is only about 5 years of
proven conventional reserves. There always has been. If you're an oil
company, why bother to find more. Being 5 years ahead in your supplies
is enough considering Wall Street does not look past the next quarter.

Sorry but it isn't a case of not looking for more. They passed the
exploration peak back in the '60s and you are not discovering any major
reserves in the U.S. any more. This sort of "What? Me Worry?" is the
province of Alfred E. Neuman, not rational people.

Besides, as easy to extract supplies dry up, the price rises slowly,
making more and more hard to extract oil economical. Yes, we don't like
the idea of offshore drilling, but there is at least another Saudi in
the deep Gulf of Mexico and another one on each coast on the continental
shelf and the possible oil rich parts of Alaska have barely been
explored.

My. You have a rich fantasy life. I envy you.

Again - DON'T PANIC - The fear mongers have manipulated statistics to
scare you to thinking the way they want you to think.

Actually it is people like you that expect people to be blindsided by a
future they do not bother to examine.

John Mashey · Jul 17, 2003

"Sir Charles W. Shults III" <aichipREM@OVEcfl.THISrr.com> wrote in message news:<lxiRa.1676$d47.164536@twister.tampabay.rr.com>...

Well, John- my point is simple. If you assume that I get a -zero- net bill
at the end of each month by installing this system, the payment for the loan
totals the same or MORE than what I spend on power now. So once again, why
would I bother?

Many of your comments were fairly generic, i.e., not limited to your
exact situation. I described a situation not uncommon out here, in
which, in fact, solar PV installations can mention some important
factors that exist in some places, i.e., like time-based pricing.

I several times pointed out that individual mileage may vary, and that
there are numerous variables, and made no claim that it was guaranteed
in *your* case.

You obviously have zero interest in this for yourself [which is fine,
in Orlando the economics may be less favorable], but much of your post
used the generic "you", and I believe that you were over-generalizing
beyond your own experience. Certainly, what you posted doesn't
apply very well in substantial parts of CA. I tried hard not to
over-generalize, as there are indeed many variables, including even
things like where neighbors' trees are.

Jim Thompson · Jul 17, 2003

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 20:12:59 -0400, "Ian St. John"
<istjohn@spamcop.net> wrote:

[snip]

http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw125.shtml ( note that this was
2000, three years ago ) Some new finds have kept the collapse off but
current reserves are almost gone and there is a growing need to save them
for national emergencies such as war which might cut off imports.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw117.shtml showing how fast the
U.S. is depleting a small resources to avoid importing OPEC oil.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw246.shtml showing how Canada
with no more than 3.5 years production left ) has been overproducing to
help out while depleting it's own resource base at a totally unsustainable
rate, even outproducing Saudi Arabia.
Now refer back to the reserves to production rations and look where Saudi
Arabia stands? They can produce their current output for decades while
Canada is due to be sucked dry and discarded by 2007.
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/es/ener2000/online/html/chap3a_e.htm
Alberta Production is about 75% of 341.7 thousand cubic meters per day or
about 256,275 cubic meters per day.
Alberta Proven Reserves is about 326,900,000 cubic meters. That means that
at current production rates, the oil would last about 1272 days or about
three and a half years.. There are negligeable new finds in the old Leduc
fields. This correlates well with the 5 year reserves/production figures
from the DOE in 2000.

You can verify the facts by the oil industries own figures at
http://www.bp.com/files/10/statistical_review_1087.pdf

It boils down to the U.S/Canada having both huge and unsustainable
production from relatively small reserves and a looming crisis when they run
out. This isn't rocket science.

I'll admit it's unclear to me as to how to interpret this data. If we
(the US) were anywhere close to running out of fuel there would be
political havoc. It's not going to happen. Come back in seven years
and tell me about it again.

As for equating "U.S/Canada" as a unit, forget it. If it comes to a
crisis you're disposable.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| Jim-T@analog_innovations.com Fax

Harry Conover · Jul 17, 2003

"Ian St. John" <istjohn@spamcop.net> wrote in message news:<9vsRa.4763$eP6.714283@news20.bellglobal.com>...

"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F161877.97E23B96@sbcglobal.net...
About running out of oil, please note that in Northern Alberta in the
Athabasca Tar Sands sits more oil than in Saudi and Kuwait combined.
However, it costs $12.00 a barrel to extract compared with under $1.00
in Saudi.

More to the point it is but a trickle compared to U.S. demand. You would
need to invest $100B to get production up to replacing the current Canadian
imports and that would take decades to built the heavy machinery and train
the jobforce. It is a large resource but it is not going to supply the
necessary volume of oil.

Ian, you evidently don't realize how many producuctive wells in the US
were capped during the 1950s and 60s in the face of cut-rate
competition from the Arab nations. On top of this there is the huge
domestic "Naval Reserve" that continues to be protected and reserved
in spite of the fact that the navy today is largely propelled by
nuclear energy.

Evidently you're too young to remember when the nation's cars ran
quite nicely using $0.29 cents per gallon Texas and Oklahoma oil,
enormous reserves of which still exist due to the capping of the
wells.

Add to the the fact that the very large energy suppliers are
increasingly using nuclear energy as a source, and likely to increase
in the near future, and you'll find that domestic oil and gas supplies
(including the huge reserves that remain yet untapped in Alaska and
offshore) are more than adequate to provide transportation fuels for
at least the next 100 years.

Your posts suggent that you have a specific agenda, sadly one that
does not reflect reality.

Harry C.

Jim Thompson · Jul 17, 2003

On 17 Jul 2003 08:35:45 -0700, hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:
[snip]

Ian, you evidently don't realize how many producuctive wells in the US
were capped during the 1950s and 60s in the face of cut-rate
competition from the Arab nations. On top of this there is the huge
domestic "Naval Reserve" that continues to be protected and reserved
in spite of the fact that the navy today is largely propelled by
nuclear energy.

Evidently you're too young to remember when the nation's cars ran
quite nicely using $0.29 cents per gallon Texas and Oklahoma oil,
enormous reserves of which still exist due to the capping of the
wells.

Add to the the fact that the very large energy suppliers are
increasingly using nuclear energy as a source, and likely to increase
in the near future, and you'll find that domestic oil and gas supplies
(including the huge reserves that remain yet untapped in Alaska and
offshore) are more than adequate to provide transportation fuels for
at least the next 100 years.

Your posts suggent that you have a specific agenda, sadly one that
does not reflect reality.

Harry C.

Thanks for the input, Harry. I was puzzled by Ian's references and
did indeed wonder if it wasn't a "plumbed" versus "capped"
misinterpretation.

As for Ian's agenda, it's just that every weenie in the "other-world"
hates Americans because they don't have a piece of the action; and
realize how impotent they are ;-)

I just love it that, in France, tourism is down 30%. And French wine
sales in the US have nose-dived. Perfect justice!

ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| Jim-T@analog_innovations.com Fax

Kevin Carney · Jul 17, 2003

Don't forget about all those capped gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico of the
US coast.

"Jim Thompson" <Jim-T@analog_innovations.com> wrote in message
news:d7idhvssimttgj3pr32ucj98piqaf5apka@4ax.com...

On 17 Jul 2003 08:35:45 -0700, hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:
[snip]

Ian, you evidently don't realize how many producuctive wells in the US
were capped during the 1950s and 60s in the face of cut-rate
competition from the Arab nations. On top of this there is the huge
domestic "Naval Reserve" that continues to be protected and reserved
in spite of the fact that the navy today is largely propelled by
nuclear energy.

Evidently you're too young to remember when the nation's cars ran
quite nicely using $0.29 cents per gallon Texas and Oklahoma oil,
enormous reserves of which still exist due to the capping of the
wells.

Add to the the fact that the very large energy suppliers are
increasingly using nuclear energy as a source, and likely to increase
in the near future, and you'll find that domestic oil and gas supplies
(including the huge reserves that remain yet untapped in Alaska and
offshore) are more than adequate to provide transportation fuels for
at least the next 100 years.

Your posts suggent that you have a specific agenda, sadly one that
does not reflect reality.

Harry C.

Thanks for the input, Harry. I was puzzled by Ian's references and
did indeed wonder if it wasn't a "plumbed" versus "capped"
misinterpretation.

As for Ian's agenda, it's just that every weenie in the "other-world"
hates Americans because they don't have a piece of the action; and
realize how impotent they are ;-)

I just love it that, in France, tourism is down 30%. And French wine
sales in the US have nose-dived. Perfect justice!

ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| Jim-T@analog_innovations.com Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

For proper E-mail replies SWAP "-" and "_"

Get Lolita Out of Debt... Add Three Inches to Your Mortgage!

Ian St. John · Jul 17, 2003

"Harry Conover" <hhc314@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7ce4e226.0307170735.10107f16@posting.google.com...

"Ian St. John" <istjohn@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:<9vsRa.4763$eP6.714283@news20.bellglobal.com>...
"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F161877.97E23B96@sbcglobal.net...
About running out of oil, please note that in Northern Alberta in the
Athabasca Tar Sands sits more oil than in Saudi and Kuwait combined.
However, it costs $12.00 a barrel to extract compared with under $1.00
in Saudi.

More to the point it is but a trickle compared to U.S. demand. You would
need to invest $100B to get production up to replacing the current
Canadian
imports and that would take decades to built the heavy machinery and
train
the jobforce. It is a large resource but it is not going to supply the
necessary volume of oil.

A rough idea of who is using how much.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/ene_oil_con

Ian, you evidently don't realize how many producuctive wells in the US
were capped during the 1950s and 60s in the face of cut-rate
competition from the Arab nations.

Perhaps you are unaware that such wells would be included in the 'known
reserves' and the figures for production/consumption include them. Perhaps
you are unaware that the U.S. has been boosting production to try to
minimize the OPEC oil imports to keep prices low? That Canada has boosted
it's production for exactly that reason to unsustainable levels in excess of
Saudi Arabia? So far you have not shown any huge deposits of idle oil. The
production rate of the U.S. is such that any such wells were uncapped
decades ago.

On top of this there is the huge
domestic "Naval Reserve" that continues to be protected and reserved
in spite of the fact that the navy today is largely propelled by
nuclear energy.

Nope. Nuclear carriers and nuclear subs but a lot of the army, all of the
airforce and a major part of the navy still rely on fossil fuels. Again you
fail to support your claims and seem to be unaware of the actual data. The
A1M2 Abrams main battle tank, for example, gets a half mile per gallon.. And
you don't want to know what a supersonic jet goes through. It's like pouring
it down a sink.

Evidently you're too young to remember when the nation's cars ran
quite nicely using $0.29 cents per gallon Texas and Oklahoma oil,
enormous reserves of which still exist due to the capping of the
wells.

False. Capped wells would still be on the 'known reserves' list. The
reserves/production ratio is still valid and shows only three to five years
of production at current rates. This is NOT your 29c per gallon oil era.

Add to the the fact that the very large energy suppliers are
increasingly using nuclear energy as a source,

No new nuclear facilities have been built in the U.S. in three or four
decades.

and likely to increase
in the near future, and you'll find that domestic oil and gas supplies
(including the huge reserves that remain yet untapped in Alaska and
offshore)

Fantasizing about huge reserves does not produce a drop. No oil has been
'discovered' in the ANWR despite the major hype about theoretical exercises.
And it could do little more than slow down the decline at the rate it can be
produced and shipped if a large reserve were to be discovered.

are more than adequate to provide transportation fuels for
at least the next 100 years.

Fantasy, not facts.

Your posts suggent that you have a specific agenda, sadly one that
does not reflect reality.

Sadly, you manage to avoid all facts and go 'by your feelings'. This suggest
that you are more of a victim of propaganda rather than a student of the
issue.

Harry C.

Ian St. John · Jul 17, 2003

"Jim Thompson" <Jim-T@analog_innovations.com> wrote in message
news:d7idhvssimttgj3pr32ucj98piqaf5apka@4ax.com...

On 17 Jul 2003 08:35:45 -0700, hhc314@yahoo.com (Harry Conover) wrote:
[snip]

snip

Thanks for the input, Harry. I was puzzled by Ian's references and
did indeed wonder if it wasn't a "plumbed" versus "capped"
misinterpretation.

Known reserves are known reserves. The capping of a well would not confuse
the issue.

As for Ian's agenda, it's just that every weenie in the "other-world"
hates Americans because they don't have a piece of the action; and
realize how impotent they are ;-)

Ha ha. Actually we are supporting America by dispelling some of the
illusions promoted by the new Fascists.

I just love it that, in France, tourism is down 30%. And French wine
sales in the US have nose-dived. Perfect justice!

You are obviously more into ego games than facts.

ROTFLMAO!

I'm sure you are. Now dust yourself off and stop rolling in the dungheap.

Ian St. John · Jul 17, 2003

"Jim Thompson" <Jim-T@analog_innovations.com> wrote in message
news:duedhvg13lu28v965d02t6bmroj3rjf2i5@4ax.com...

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 20:12:59 -0400, "Ian St. John"
istjohn@spamcop.net> wrote:

[snip]
http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw125.shtml ( note that this was
2000, three years ago ) Some new finds have kept the collapse off but
current reserves are almost gone and there is a growing need to save them
for national emergencies such as war which might cut off imports.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw117.shtml showing how fast the
U.S. is depleting a small resources to avoid importing OPEC oil.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/facts/archives/fotw246.shtml showing how Canada
with no more than 3.5 years production left ) has been overproducing to
help out while depleting it's own resource base at a totally
unsustainable
rate, even outproducing Saudi Arabia.
Now refer back to the reserves to production rations and look where Saudi
Arabia stands? They can produce their current output for decades while
Canada is due to be sucked dry and discarded by 2007.
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/es/ener2000/online/html/chap3a_e.htm
Alberta Production is about 75% of 341.7 thousand cubic meters per day or
about 256,275 cubic meters per day.
Alberta Proven Reserves is about 326,900,000 cubic meters. That means
that
at current production rates, the oil would last about 1272 days or about
three and a half years.. There are negligeable new finds in the old
Leduc
fields. This correlates well with the 5 year reserves/production figures
from the DOE in 2000.

You can verify the facts by the oil industries own figures at
http://www.bp.com/files/10/statistical_review_1087.pdf

It boils down to the U.S/Canada having both huge and unsustainable
production from relatively small reserves and a looming crisis when they
run
out. This isn't rocket science.

I'll admit it's unclear to me as to how to interpret this data.

It is simple. You have X amount of oil. You are using 0.3X oil per years.
How long will the oil last? Answer X/.3 assuming no cut in production rate.

Very simple math. Public school even. Now the actual producting will not
last three years and then stop. The actual decline will be a tapering off of
production that increases in speed. Currently production decline is about 4%
but the facts show that this is likely to become 10% or more shortly.

If we (the US) were anywhere close to running out of fuel there
would be political havoc.

Ah. I wondered when I would see the "appeal to ignorance' logical fallacy.
There are many out there that are aware of the looming crisis which is
specific to the U.S. because of it's massive needs, but they are talking to
a public that is a lot liike you. Massively ignorant and determined to
remain that way, justifying not listening by the fact that they have heard
nothing. .. hearing nothing because they are not listening..

It's not going to happen. Come back in seven years
and tell me about it again.

So you are going to take the "What? Me Worry?" approach. The problem with
reality is that it is hard on such dimwits as Alfred E. Neuman and his ilk.

As for equating "U.S/Canada" as a unit, forget it. If it comes to a
crisis you're disposable.

I keep telling Albertans that this is the U.S. attitude but they fail to
understand that they will be discarded like an empty pop can when King Ralph
runs out of cheap oil to send south. Some of them think they are doing the
U.S. a favor and will be rewarded. Like P.T.Barnum said... there is a sucker
born every minute.

Modat22 · Jul 17, 2003

Americans aren't "tight on money" (at least the ones that travel
regularly), they're just going elsewhere. (There is *wide-spread*
anti-French sentiment throughout the US right now.)

There are many friends of mine in KY and IL who are now unemployed or
had to take lower paying jobs who cannot afford to travel out of state
as they once used too. So I'd have to disagree with the not being
tight on money above from My point of reference.

Actually, as a high volume wine drinker (probably about 10 bottles a
week) the price of US wines (at least quality wines) has *not*
dropped. I had stopped buying French wines well before the current
animosity... there are much better American wines to drink.

...Jim Thompson

I find many more wine bargains right now than I ever have, My comment
on the wine over supply came from an NPR food series two months past
relating to wine and its economy.

I might not be drinking quality wine, my price limit per bottle is
usually around 12 us dollars per bottle.

Jim Thompson · Jul 17, 2003

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 14:31:04 -0400, "Ian St. John"
<istjohn@spamcop.net> wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <Jim-T@analog_innovations.com> wrote in message
news:duedhvg13lu28v965d02t6bmroj3rjf2i5@4ax.com...
[snip]
As for equating "U.S/Canada" as a unit, forget it. If it comes to a
crisis you're disposable.

I keep telling Albertans that this is the U.S. attitude but they fail to
understand that they will be discarded like an empty pop can when King Ralph
runs out of cheap oil to send south. Some of them think they are doing the
U.S. a favor and will be rewarded. Like P.T.Barnum said... there is a sucker
born every minute.

480)460-2350 | |
| Jim-T@analog_innovations.com Fax

Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun · Jul 19, 2003

In article <duedhvg13lu28v965d02t6bmroj3rjf2i5@4ax.com>, Jim-
T@analog_innovations.com mentioned...
[snip]

If it comes to a crisis you're disposable.

That sounds like what they're saying about Calif Gov. Davis.

...Jim Thompson

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
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http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
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Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun · Jul 19, 2003

In article <7ce4e226.0307170735.10107f16@posting.google.com>,
hhc314@yahoo.com mentioned...

"Ian St. John" <istjohn@spamcop.net> wrote in message news:<9vsRa.4763$eP6.714283@news20.bellglobal.com>...
"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F161877.97E23B96@sbcglobal.net...
About running out of oil, please note that in Northern Alberta in the
Athabasca Tar Sands sits more oil than in Saudi and Kuwait combined.
However, it costs $12.00 a barrel to extract compared with under $1.00
in Saudi.

More to the point it is but a trickle compared to U.S. demand. You would
need to invest $100B to get production up to replacing the current Canadian
imports and that would take decades to built the heavy machinery and train
the jobforce. It is a large resource but it is not going to supply the
necessary volume of oil.

Ian, you evidently don't realize how many producuctive wells in the US
were capped during the 1950s and 60s in the face of cut-rate
competition from the Arab nations. On top of this there is the huge
domestic "Naval Reserve" that continues to be protected and reserved
in spite of the fact that the navy today is largely propelled by
nuclear energy.

Evidently you're too young to remember when the nation's cars ran
quite nicely using $0.29 cents per gallon Texas and Oklahoma oil,
enormous reserves of which still exist due to the capping of the
wells.

Add to the the fact that the very large energy suppliers are
increasingly using nuclear energy as a source, and likely to increase

I haven't seen any cars running on atomic fuel lately. And now
they're talking about taking the nuclear gen stations and
decommissioning the reactors and replacing them with conventional
boilers.

in the near future, and you'll find that domestic oil and gas supplies
(including the huge reserves that remain yet untapped in Alaska and
offshore) are more than adequate to provide transportation fuels for
at least the next 100 years.

One other poiint. There is a lot of oil in certain places, but it
might be expensive to extract as he said, and it might be high sulfur,
which is a real problem for metro areas like L.A. So what it boils
down to is it's all a matter of money. The price of fuel goes up, and
the industry is more willing to tap existing sources, whatever they
may be. If things get real bad, the coal gets dug up and refined into
some other fuel.

Your posts suggent that you have a specific agenda, sadly one that
does not reflect reality.

Seems like it, doesn't it?

Harry C.

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
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@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

Dan Fraser · Jul 28, 2003

Hi Ian:

Much of what you say is a valid view point. It does take 10 years to get a
Syncrude type plant up and running, in normal times. However, if the oil supply
really hit the fan, it could be done a lot faster. Remember that during WWII the
USA built 4 industrial facilities for U235 and plutonium extraction on a real
fast track. From ground breaking to opening in less than a year. These 4 plants,
each were as big an investment as the Ford River Rouge facility or a modern
Syncrude plant. They were handicapped then too as when they started building,
much of the machinery to go into them had not yet been invented.

Of course, now with the help of computers and committees, in the 11 months it
took them to build in Oak Ridge Tennessee, we could not even come to a decision
where to put the parking lot.

Like I said, we are letting the arabs sell us their easy to produce oil first.
After they run out, our currency will fall in value and all they will have for a
heritage is a lot of old infrastructure and rapidly depreciating money.

In the mean time, say oil rose to $60.00 a barrel. This would double gas prices
here, to about the same level as in Europe. I really don't think that European
level prices will devastate us that badly.

Remember it is a rule of economics that the cheapest to produce supplies will be
used first. Then, when those run out (and the run out will be gradual) the price
starts to rise. as the price rise, more expensive supplies will come on line and
higher prices will also make people use less and substitute other resources.

Remember that Europe had an energy crisis over 200 years ago when firewood
supplies were exhausted. Firewood had to be brought in from farther and farther
distances.

As the price rose, people used less and eventually substitutes were found.

If oil gets too expensive, people will use less and technology will find
substitutes. Remember, nothing says we have to always use oil to power our
vehicles. Its only the most convenient way right now. WHen oil gets expensive
enough guys like me, the scientists and engineers, will think of something else
to make our cars go.

Besides, oil is such a fascinating raw material. its almost a shame to burn the
stuff merely for it's heat content.

More liike a Saudi Arabia plus, but it costs $13 a barrel for the stuff that
is at the *shallow* end of a deepening bed. Accessing the more deeply buried
sands to the west will cost more like $17/barrel and because it is heavy oil
and relatively high sulfur it sells for a lot less than 'light sweet crude'
from Iraq.

Actually, what goes down the pipelines from Ft. McMurray and Cold Lake to the
refineries in Edmonton is such a high grade oil that it can be used for some
purposes as it is. You should see the mountains of sulfur all over Alberta from
what they extract from the oil and gas. They'd love it if you could find a use
for millions of tons of the stuff.

In Colorado, in the oil shales, there is another entire middle east of
oil but it costs $15.00 a barrel to extract.

Actually nobody has ever extracted oil from the shales on an economical
basis that I know of.

Yes, why when it costs under $1.00 to produce oil in Saudi or even $10.00 in
Texas. However, when the supply in Saudi and texas wind down, the $15.00 from
shale won't look too bad. However, once the economics make it make sense,
actually extracting the oil is merely a matter of sitting down and inventing
something. The Petroleum Institute at the University of Calgary is on top of it.
Lots of ways have been thought of and we engineers will figure something out.
When the need becomes acute and the economics are there, we always do.

The point is, is that the world is running out of cheap oil.

Not quite yet. It only costs about $1 a barrel to 'produce' Iraqs oil so
cheap oil can be sustained for about 40 to 60 years ( U.S. demand only ) or
about 15 years ( current world demand ). After that, ...

Exactly, so what's the panic? If oil becomes doubles in cost, supplies many
times larger than we have now will become economic. After all, when oil was
$2.00 a barrel, why bother extracting North Sea oil. When OPEC forced oil up,
supplies increased dramatically because previously uneconomic supplies became
economic. It was only a jolt because the sudden cut off by OPEC forced a rapid
price transition while natural economics works more gradually.

What we're
doing is letting the other countries sell us their cheap to produce oil
first and keeping the expensive to produce stuff in reserve. After they
run out of cheap oil, then we can tell then to screw off while we use
nuclear power to reduce the cost of extracting the oil sands and shales.

Yah. We let OPEC sell us oil at $35 a barrel. This may have been sustainable
with 45% of the oil produced within the U.S, but it is not sustainable once
that domestic production falls off, as it will within a few years.

Yes but they spend that $35.00 a barrel and then some. The cash does them no
good unless they spend it and do they ever spend it. Even Saudi is in trouble
for spending more than they take in. However, as domestic production falls the
price will rise and production will become possible in previously uneconomic
areas. However, it would be a big help if our government increased the CAFE by 1
MPG every year for the next 20 years and included SUVs in it. If it was up to
me, vehicles would be taxed every year on an exponential scale if above a
certain size.

Europeans live with 1 Liter cars and so could we. My car is a 2.5L and it has
all the power anyone really needs. The few times I need bigger, I rent
something.

However, the vast investment money has to compete with the massive increase
in U.S. national debt which needs to be financed so borrowing billions for
development is getting hard. There have been a number of 'developments'
announced that subsequently fell through.

When it comes to a true emergency, money will become available. Do you think
that the war bond drives were to finance the war. Hell, they just made up the
money that was needed. The war bond drives were to absorb a bunch of the money
the workers were paid in order to prevent inflation. The workers had money
during WWII and nothing to buy. That's the formula for inflation. By selling
paper to the workers as war bonds, it soaked up enough money to keep inflation
from running away.

Even now, when they talk about the deficit, they always say, "and it excludes
the war in Iraq". If the powers that be deem something to be essential, they
alter the numbers on some hard drives in Washington DC and the money is there.

When it comes to oil. Don't panic. Yes, there is only about 5 years of
proven conventional reserves. There always has been. If you're an oil
company, why bother to find more. Being 5 years ahead in your supplies
is enough considering Wall Street does not look past the next quarter.

Sorry but it isn't a case of not looking for more. They passed the
exploration peak back in the '60s and you are not discovering any major
reserves in the U.S. any more. This sort of "What? Me Worry?" is the
province of Alfred E. Neuman, not rational people.

Why look? It will cost $10.00 a barrel to produce new oil in the US. Yes, the
cheap oil has already been found. It costs $1.00 a barrel to produce in Saudi
so why not use that first. You have to think global and get over the idea that
there is a finite amount of money our there. The money supply in the US grows at
something like 10%+ a year, however fast Alan Greenspan thinks can be done
without triggering inflation. Money is only finite on a micro economic level,
the level we live our lives on. However, in the grand geopolitical level, money
is a flexible concept.

National governments only plead poverty when they don't really want to finance
something or if they are afraid doing so will not accomplish anything the powers
that be hold dear. Like educating all our kids.

Besides, as easy to extract supplies dry up, the price rises slowly,
making more and more hard to extract oil economical. Yes, we don't like
the idea of offshore drilling, but there is at least another Saudi in
the deep Gulf of Mexico and another one on each coast on the continental
shelf and the possible oil rich parts of Alaska have barely been
explored.

My. You have a rich fantasy life. I envy you.

Its there. Actually, we will likely never extract it. When oil gets too dear,
we'll use less and use other things instead. Heck, give me $100 Billion and I'll
have all our vehicles running off biologically extracted methane in 10 years.
However, the political will is not there yet. However, some day it will be.

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy says it all:

DON'T PANIC

Again - DON'T PANIC - The fear mongers have manipulated statistics to
scare you to thinking the way they want you to think.

Actually it is people like you that expect people to be blindsided by a
future they do not bother to examine.

Hell, I'm one of the people that makes the future happen. Right now, I'm
designing products and inventing processes that weren't even science fiction
twenty years ago. When the politicos and bean counters are ready, me and other
men and women like me will make it work.

--
Dan Fraser

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

Check out my electronic schematics site at: http://www.schematicsforfree.com
If you are into cars check out www.roadsters.com

Ian St. John · Jul 28, 2003

"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F24B8EB.FDEB19A6@sbcglobal.net...

Hi Ian:

I gather that I'm the Ian you refer to.

Much of what you say is a valid view point. It does take 10 years to get a
Syncrude type plant up and running, in normal times. However, if the oil
supply
really hit the fan, it could be done a lot faster. Remember that during
WWII the
USA built 4 industrial facilities for U235 and plutonium extraction on a
real
fast track. From ground breaking to opening in less than a year. These 4
plants,
each were as big an investment as the Ford River Rouge facility or a
modern
Syncrude plant. They were handicapped then too as when they started
building,
much of the machinery to go into them had not yet been invented.

True. And when the shit hits the fan I expect 100B in investment in syncrude
style plants, with output probably into the 1.8million barrels a day. A spit
in the bucket compared to U.S. demand. You just are NOT going to expand
supply fast with a REALLY hard to extract resource. One of the advantages of
oil pools has been the speed with which you can extract the oil irregardless
of the cots.

Of course, now with the help of computers and committees, in the 11 months
it
took them to build in Oak Ridge Tennessee, we could not even come to a
decision
where to put the parking lot.

And you are ignoring the difficulties of startups in such an exercise. The
uranium and plutonium extraction plants, by the way, are still toxic dumps
to this day because the nation was at war and risks were relative. Try
selling that to the investors without a war to justify it.

Like I said, we are letting the arabs sell us their easy to produce oil
first.
After they run out, our currency will fall in value and all they will have
for a
heritage is a lot of old infrastructure and rapidly depreciating money.

Some of them are looking for ways to creat a sustainable economy. Iraq was
ahead on that. In some ways the biggest problem is that they don't need
American money at the rate that American need oil. They want to pump the oil
over 100 years of growth while America wants it in a decade or two. There
will be a clash. Iraq is just the first.

In the mean time, say oil rose to $60.00 a barrel. This would double gas
prices
here, to about the same level as in Europe. I really don't think that
European
level prices will devastate us that badly.

If you don't think that energy prices and economic activity track each
other, you are probably not worth educating. Note: At $60/barrel you will
get coal conversion stepping in.

Remember it is a rule of economics that the cheapest to produce supplies
will be
used first. Then, when those run out (and the run out will be gradual) the
price
starts to rise. as the price rise, more expensive supplies will come on
line and
higher prices will also make people use less and substitute other
resources.

Remember that Europe had an energy crisis over 200 years ago when firewood
supplies were exhausted. Firewood had to be brought in from farther and
farther
distances.

Even coal conversion is limited. There is both the problem of global
warming, and the fact that most of the unused oil reserves are unused for
reasons ranging from high sulfur to contamination with metals. They require
special processing. Nope. Most of the easily obtainable and cheap oil that
is to fuel the 'both ends of the candle' economic burn is in the ground and
in the Persian Gulf. After that, the substitutes will allow for a limited
and failing economy. The time to stop eating the fattening foods is while
you can still get out of the house.

As the price rose, people used less and eventually substitutes were found.

Yup. Problem is that there are no cheap subsistitutes for fossil fuels.

If oil gets too expensive, people will use less and technology will find
substitutes. Remember, nothing says we have to always use oil to power our
vehicles. Its only the most convenient way right now. WHen oil gets
expensive
enough guys like me, the scientists and engineers, will think of something
else
to make our cars go.

Probably ethanol and biodiesel. Nobody is saying that there will be nothing
left. Only that the boom time economy that depends on cheap fossil fuel
energy will fail as prices rise, so the time to adapt is before the asteroid
hits.

Besides, oil is such a fascinating raw material. its almost a shame to
burn the
stuff merely for it's heat content.

Gee. Something I might have said myself. In fact I think you cribbed it from
me.

More liike a Saudi Arabia plus, but it costs $13 a barrel for the stuff
that
is at the *shallow* end of a deepening bed. Accessing the more deeply
buried
sands to the west will cost more like $17/barrel and because it is heavy
oil
and relatively high sulfur it sells for a lot less than 'light sweet
crude'
from Iraq.

Actually, what goes down the pipelines from Ft. McMurray and Cold Lake to
the
refineries in Edmonton is such a high grade oil that it can be used for
some
purposes as it is. You should see the mountains of sulfur all over Alberta
from
what they extract from the oil and gas. They'd love it if you could find a
use
for millions of tons of the stuff.

Then you have sustained the cost of refining it already. It points to the
extra costs of semi-refining it still. The point here was the lower profits
compared to the Persian Gulf oil.

In Colorado, in the oil shales, there is another entire middle east of
oil but it costs $15.00 a barrel to extract.

Actually nobody has ever extracted oil from the shales on an economical
basis that I know of.

Yes, why when it costs under $1.00 to produce oil in Saudi or even $10.00
in
Texas. However, when the supply in Saudi and texas wind down, the $15.00
from
shale won't look too bad.

If they could extract it for $15 there would be a 'syncrude' plant
operating. As I said, the evidence is that they cannot extract it for an
economical price.

However, once the economics make it make sense,
actually extracting the oil is merely a matter of sitting down and
inventing
something.

Every problem could fall to the same simple statement. Why don't you start
working on intersolar flight?

The Petroleum Institute at the University of Calgary is on top of it.
Lots of ways have been thought of and we engineers will figure something
out.
When the need becomes acute and the economics are there, we always do.

Something emerges. It is not always what is wanted but it is always what is
needed. That is, the results are the best you can do so they form the basis
of the next step. On the other hand there are many things we have not been
able to do, so some problems ARE insoluble. For example, controlling
hurricanes. Last I heard nobody had managed that one. Of course if the
economics are there, and the need is acute, we'll hide in the basement and
live to see the fucking dawn. Is this a clue for you?

The point is, is that the world is running out of cheap oil.

Not quite yet. It only costs about $1 a barrel to 'produce' Iraqs oil so
cheap oil can be sustained for about 40 to 60 years ( U.S. demand only )
or
about 15 years ( current world demand ). After that, ...

Exactly, so what's the panic?

Exactly! Haven't I been saying that the head up the anus "next quarterly
report" attitude doesn't extend more than the current fiscal year?

If oil becomes doubles in cost, supplies many
times larger than we have now will become economic.

You will have to be specific about what supplies you mean. Creating crude
oil from waste ( "aka the everything to oil process")? It is funny but I
have yet to hear that the market for gold has collapsed because as prices
rose from $1 and ounce the supply grew hundredfold. Some things just have a
natural 'scarcity' and 'limit' to their extent. Expect to keep on pushing
cheap oil to fuel the economy for the next couple of decades but remember
once it is gone, it is gone. The next most expensive resource will be used.
And so on as the economy weakens. The cost of energy is PRIMARY to the
extent of the economy, and it is silly to depend on a limited and
exhaustable supply.

After all, when oil was
$2.00 a barrel, why bother extracting North Sea oil. When OPEC forced oil
up,
supplies increased dramatically because previously uneconomic supplies
became
economic. It was only a jolt because the sudden cut off by OPEC forced a
rapid
price transition while natural economics works more gradually.
Actually they only really started looking when the oil shock on 1970 caused

them to face their DEPENDENCY on cheap crude.
http://www.asponews.org/plots.php?plot=United%20Kingdom
The oil price shock was killing their economy because they were so dependent
on it and tripling the price was putting them at a serious disadvantage.
Tripling the world costs aftert he cheap stuff runs out will also cause a
shock, mostly because the price has no real limit when the supply falls
below the demand. The demand is really what will change. People will learn
to live without oil because it will be priced beyond their means. But oil is
energy. Thing what that means. It means you will hve to mortgage your house
to pay for the dryer... well, maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but while we
will 'adapt', we will adapt to a poorer world, not a richer one.

What we're
doing is letting the other countries sell us their cheap to produce
oil
first and keeping the expensive to produce stuff in reserve. After
they
run out of cheap oil, then we can tell then to screw off while we use
nuclear power to reduce the cost of extracting the oil sands and
shales.

Yah. We let OPEC sell us oil at $35 a barrel. This may have been
sustainable
with 45% of the oil produced within the U.S, but it is not sustainable
once
that domestic production falls off, as it will within a few years.

Yes but they spend that $35.00 a barrel and then some. The cash does them
no
good unless they spend it and do they ever spend it. Even Saudi is in
trouble
for spending more than they take in.

The problem is that, with a nation of tens of million, all dependent on the
oil profits, a lot divided among many is not much.

However, as domestic production falls the
price will rise and production will become possible in previously
uneconomic
areas. However, it would be a big help if our government increased the
CAFE by 1
MPG every year for the next 20 years and included SUVs in it. If it was up
to
me, vehicles would be taxed every year on an exponential scale if above a
certain size.

The main point was that by reducing demand before it was absolutely needed
we would stave off the crisis for decades, while developing and testing
alternatives to make energy more sustainable.

Europeans live with 1 Liter cars and so could we. My car is a 2.5L and it
has
all the power anyone really needs. The few times I need bigger, I rent
something.

You mean somenone who doesn't drive a Ford Explorer, or pays a C note to
fill up half a tank and admits it???? What will your neighbors think? Have
they petitioned to evict you from the neighborhood yet?

However, the vast investment money has to compete with the massive
increase
in U.S. national debt which needs to be financed so borrowing billions
for
development is getting hard. There have been a number of 'developments'
announced that subsequently fell through.

When it comes to a true emergency, money will become available. Do you
think
that the war bond drives were to finance the war. Hell, they just made up
the
money that was needed. The war bond drives were to absorb a bunch of the
money
the workers were paid in order to prevent inflation. The workers had money
during WWII and nothing to buy. That's the formula for inflation. By
selling
paper to the workers as war bonds, it soaked up enough money to keep
inflation
from running away.

You forget the long period of depression prior to the war. In the absense of
the socialist totalitarian military structure, the tendency of the free
market is to maintain the depressed economy. And the problem then was
getting men to work and building an economy, with many idle resources. This
is different from a situation where the decline is DUE to a reduction in
resources.

Even now, when they talk about the deficit, they always say, "and it
excludes
the war in Iraq". If the powers that be deem something to be essential,
they
alter the numbers on some hard drives in Washington DC and the money is
there.

You can only create debt up to the amount you can borrow. By borrowing so
much to finance today from tomorrow, you are sucking all of the free capital
from the economy. This will stiffle investment for generations to come,
including that needed to finance the adaptations to a more expensive fuel
supply. If you just print money, you just inflate the currency and damage
existing investments.

When it comes to oil. Don't panic. Yes, there is only about 5 years of
proven conventional reserves. There always has been. If you're an oil
company, why bother to find more. Being 5 years ahead in your supplies
is enough considering Wall Street does not look past the next quarter.

Sorry but it isn't a case of not looking for more. They passed the
exploration peak back in the '60s and you are not discovering any major
reserves in the U.S. any more. This sort of "What? Me Worry?" is the
province of Alfred E. Neuman, not rational people.

Why look?

Because you have to live on tomorrows oil by discovering it today. It also
helps prop up your stocks because they know you will be around in five
years.

It will cost $10.00 a barrel to produce new oil in the US. Yes, the
cheap oil has already been found. \

Quit waving your fucking arms will you??? The price can go to $10000/barrel
and you won't find any more if there is no more to find. You cannot just say
that higher prices will find more oil. They have LOOKED and given up. The
rate of finding oil has slipped into the negatives where it costs more to
find oil than you get for it. At least in the U.S. and Canada.

It costs $1.00 a barrel to produce in Saudi
so why not use that first.

Exaclty. You do so. It makes big profits to do so. This is why the U.S.
public is being asked to finance a war and the reconstruction of the
country. To make big profits for Exxon, and friends.

You have to think global and get over the idea that
there is a finite amount of money our there. The money supply in the US
grows at
something like 10%+ a year, however fast Alan Greenspan thinks can be done
without triggering inflation. Money is only finite on a micro economic
level,
the level we live our lives on. However, in the grand geopolitical level,
money
is a flexible concept.

More flexible than YOU know. Pushing billion into the hands of the rich does
NOT make them richer for the simple reason that it destroys the consumer
base as the poor now have to pay more instead of buying goods. With lower
production the wealthy find that business collapses, failures, and poor
profits leave then weaker than before the 'tax cuts to the wealthy'.

National governments only plead poverty when they don't really want to
finance
something or if they are afraid doing so will not accomplish anything the
powers
that be hold dear. Like educating all our kids.

You seem to think a fiat dollar can be printed. This is clueless. Printing
money just leads to inflation.

Besides, as easy to extract supplies dry up, the price rises slowly,
making more and more hard to extract oil economical. Yes, we don't
like
the idea of offshore drilling, but there is at least another Saudi in
the deep Gulf of Mexico and another one on each coast on the
continental
shelf and the possible oil rich parts of Alaska have barely been
explored.

My. You have a rich fantasy life. I envy you.

Its there. Actually, we will likely never extract it. When oil gets too
dear,
we'll use less and use other things instead. Heck, give me $100 Billion
and I'll
have all our vehicles running off biologically extracted methane in 10
years.
However, the political will is not there yet. However, some day it will
be.

As I said, you have a rich fantasy life.

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy says it all:

DON'T PANIC

Seems to me the earth got paved over in that book.. However, I can see where
your rich fantasy life comes from. You take advice from the strangest
places. However, the idea was not to panic. It was to start to realise that
the resources are finite. It is time to adapt to a lack of lamp oil *before*
you run out and have to search for substitutes in the dark.

Again - DON'T PANIC - The fear mongers have manipulated statistics to
scare you to thinking the way they want you to think.

Actually it is people like you that expect people to be blindsided by a
future they do not bother to examine.

Hell, I'm one of the people that makes the future happen. Right now, I'm
designing products and inventing processes that weren't even science
fiction
twenty years ago. When the politicos and bean counters are ready, me and
other
men and women like me will make it work.

I am, by nature, an engineer. I get the job done and find ways to do it.
Nevertheless I am not so egotistical to think that there are not some jobs
that are too big. I saw a neat fiction about an undersea subway between
America and Europe with 5,000 mph trains. If they try to sell stock I will
NOT buy in until after we tame our first volcano. Not saying we won't tame
volcanoes some day....

Dan Fraser · Jul 31, 2003

"Ian St. John" wrote:

"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F24B8EB.FDEB19A6@sbcglobal.net...
Hi Ian:

I gather that I'm the Ian you refer to.

True. And when the shit hits the fan I expect 100B in investment in syncrude
style plants, with output probably into the 1.8million barrels a day. A spit
in the bucket compared to U.S. demand. You just are NOT going to expand
supply fast with a REALLY hard to extract resource. One of the advantages of
oil pools has been the speed with which you can extract the oil irregardless
of the cots.

The point here is that the shit won't hit the fan all at once. Sure, there may
another 70s style shock or two again but that one was man made and not created
by a real scarcity. Another one will also be man made except now, we have the
Saudi's so dependent on the flow of money they would not be able to do it again
without the house od Saud going to the chopping block, literally.

The shit hitting the fan will be a 25 year long process. Some say, maybe you,
that it has started already. In a way, it started when the first gusher has hit
in Texas. The beginning of the end.

Try
selling that to the investors without a war to justify it.

They just manufactured one war didn't they?

Like I said, we are letting the arabs sell us their easy to produce oil
first.
After they run out, our currency will fall in value and all they will have
for a
heritage is a lot of old infrastructure and rapidly depreciating money.

Some of them are looking for ways to creat a sustainable economy. Iraq was
ahead on that. In some ways the biggest problem is that they don't need
American money at the rate that American need oil. They want to pump the oil
over 100 years of growth while America wants it in a decade or two. There
will be a clash. Iraq is just the first.

True except Saddam was squandering it all on stupid things like his war with
Iran. Then, he could have come clean about WMD a year ago and still be in power.
I really wonder that if he really had or had gotten rid of his WMD, why did he
keep acting like he still had them?

In the mean time, say oil rose to $60.00 a barrel. This would double gas
prices
here, to about the same level as in Europe. I really don't think that
European
level prices will devastate us that badly.

If you don't think that energy prices and economic activity track each
other, you are probably not worth educating. Note: At $60/barrel you will
get coal conversion stepping in.

They track but the ratio is not 1:1. A doubling in oil price will produce maybe
a temporary 10% decline in economic activity. However, that money has to go
somewhere and it comes back around eventually. Its not like the oil itself,
which, once burned is gone. Once a dollar is created, it circulates forever.

Even coal conversion is limited. There is both the problem of global
warming, and the fact that most of the unused oil reserves are unused for
reasons ranging from high sulfur to contamination with metals. They require
special processing. Nope. Most of the easily obtainable and cheap oil that
is to fuel the 'both ends of the candle' economic burn is in the ground and
in the Persian Gulf. After that, the substitutes will allow for a limited
and failing economy. The time to stop eating the fattening foods is while
you can still get out of the house.

Coal conversion is dirty. I'm thinking more like bio-engineered bacteria for
methane conversion from biomass, coal or anywhere carbon and water can be
found. Even the atmosphere if necessary. The more diffuse the carbon, the more
costly it will be but we'll still drive to work even if its with a 360cc FIAT
burning stewed pig shit.

As the price rose, people used less and eventually substitutes were found.

Yup. Problem is that there are no cheap subsistitutes for fossil fuels.

WHile hydrogen is touted as an alternative, we all know there are no hydrogen
deposits down there. However in the arctic, in the perma frost are hydrate
bearing formations with more methane locked up than we can imagine. In fact the
really big worry about global warming is that these hydrates may thaw out
releasing hugh amounts of methane in the atmosphere. If this happens we will
have to burn them anyway as methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

Plants lock down the CO2 fairly quickly. Methane just stays there until it is
passed through a flame.

Better we extract these hydrates and burn them in our cars than let them be
released into the atmosphere. Sure, they are expensive to extract but when oil
hits $60.00 a barrel it becomes doable.

Probably ethanol and biodiesel. Nobody is saying that there will be nothing
left. Only that the boom time economy that depends on cheap fossil fuel
energy will fail as prices rise, so the time to adapt is before the asteroid
hits.

Yes it is and today another blow to short sightedness. Improving CAFE standards
was put off again. I'm 100% with you on this.

Besides, oil is such a fascinating raw material. its almost a shame to
burn the
stuff merely for it's heat content.

Gee. Something I might have said myself. In fact I think you cribbed it from
me.

So, then, you're an engineer too? I used to live in the oil patch in Canada.
Worked on the down hole motors used to extract oil from the really deep wells.

use
for millions of tons of the stuff.

Then you have sustained the cost of refining it already. It points to the
extra costs of semi-refining it still. The point here was the lower profits
compared to the Persian Gulf oil.

When they extract it, it passes through a gaseous phase. No big deal to clean it
up when they do that. It goes down the pipeline not much heavier than #2 low
sulfur winter diesel. They even burn it direct in some of the heavy equipment.

If they could extract it for $15 there would be a 'syncrude' plant
operating. As I said, the evidence is that they cannot extract it for an
economical price.

The US oil industry won't even consider starting one until they can't get Saudi
oil. The reasons are political and have as much to do with greed as engineering.
The process needed is not a lot different from Syncrudes, just that the oil
carrier is more abrasive and needs somewhat more water in the process.

However, once the economics make it make sense,
actually extracting the oil is merely a matter of sitting down and
inventing
something.

Every problem could fall to the same simple statement. Why don't you start
working on intersolar flight?

Extracting oil is merely chemistry. We're good at that. We have already achieved
unmanned extra solar flight. A bit slow but its a start. We did it in the 70s
too. Now, for the warp engine, some of the newly found sub atomic particles do
look interesting. We cannot be so proud of our progress to date to think we have
discovered everything. Electricity came as a surprise to the scientific
community too, a couple hundred years ago.

Something emerges. It is not always what is wanted but it is always what is
needed. That is, the results are the best you can do so they form the basis
of the next step. On the other hand there are many things we have not been
able to do, so some problems ARE insoluble. For example, controlling
hurricanes. Last I heard nobody had managed that one. Of course if the
economics are there, and the need is acute, we'll hide in the basement and
live to see the fucking dawn. Is this a clue for you?

There is a matter of the energies involved. Even nukes pail in comparison to a
hurricane. However, the issue with hurricanes is that if you do stop one, the
pent up energy has to go somewhere. The side effects of directing enough energy
to stop one may be worse than the damage caused. Instead we cope by prediction,
tracking, hiding hen necessary and insurance to help those hit. After all, in
the US, almost no one dies from hurricanes any more. Compare that to the big
disasters that happened on the Gulf Coast in the early 1900's. I'd say we've al
least learned how to "ride the dragon" because we cannot stop it.

What's insoluble. Pro Choice vs Pro-life. Israel vs. Palestine. Those are
problems that may live to the heat death of the universe.

Exactly, so what's the panic?

Exactly! Haven't I been saying that the head up the anus "next quarterly
report" attitude doesn't extend more than the current fiscal year?

And long term is considered to the next presidential election. Capitalism is not
a good system for long term planning. Communism is better for that but the USSR
proved that communism does not work if human beings are involved.

If oil becomes doubles in cost, supplies many
times larger than we have now will become economic.

used.
And so on as the economy weakens. The cost of energy is PRIMARY to the
extent of the economy, and it is silly to depend on a limited and
exhaustable supply.

Of course its silly to depend on a limited supply. However, its not like the
steel gas tank in a car that has a definite and irrefutable empty mark. As the
price rises, more and more uneconomic supplies are brought on line. Texas was
supposed to be dry by 1970 but we've learned how to keep pulling it out of old
wells. Slower than before but in many fields, cleaning out the upper layers
causes more to percolate up from unimaginably deep depths. Where the empty mark
lies is hard to say because it keeps moving.

rapid
price transition while natural economics works more gradually.
Actually they only really started looking when the oil shock on 1970 caused
them to face their DEPENDENCY on cheap crude.

The oil shock was man made and had nothing to do with no oil being available.
besides, even then European taxes on oil products were so high the functional
price of crude, to the end user was much higher then than it was today.

Even now, here in the USA, oil would have to go to over $60.00 a barrel to be
functionally as expensive as it was then. The recession it caused then was not
that bad, we got through it and we can again except the government knows we are
on to that manufactured crisis. Now they are trying the WMD one and even that
one has run out of steam too.

shock, mostly because the price has no real limit when the supply falls
below the demand. The demand is really what will change. People will learn
to live without oil because it will be priced beyond their means. But oil is
energy. Thing what that means. It means you will hve to mortgage your house
to pay for the dryer... well, maybe that is a bit exaggerated, but while we
will 'adapt', we will adapt to a poorer world, not a richer one.

I don't know about you but tripling the price of oil means retail prices may
double. Instead of spending 3% of my income to run my car I spend 9%. Its not
like the money disappears. It just means it goes through different pockets than
it may have. The actual price of oil itself is actually irrelevant to the total
GNP because the transactions to buy the oil products still count.

Then what do the oil companies do with the money. They don't stuff it down the
hole the oil came from. The earth actually is giving up its resources for free.
All the money goes into people's pockets. The result is just as much GNP. In
different places yes, but the money is not destroyed.

for spending more than they take in.

The problem is that, with a nation of tens of million, all dependent on the
oil profits, a lot divided among many is not much.

Exactly and the House of Saud is terrified of cutting off that money to its
citizens. They need the revenue just as bad as we need the oil. We have them
addicted to the flow of money as bad as a junkie needs his smack.

above a
certain size.

The main point was that by reducing demand before it was absolutely needed
we would stave off the crisis for decades, while developing and testing
alternatives to make energy more sustainable.

Yes, but try to get that past a President from Texas who has oil men in his
cabinet. The VP for crying out loud is an oil man. We could have had Al Gore. I
wonder how much they paid him to finally roll over and not force a real recount
in Florida.

Europeans live with 1 Liter cars and so could we. My car is a 2.5L and it
has
all the power anyone really needs. The few times I need bigger, I rent
something.

You mean somenone who doesn't drive a Ford Explorer, or pays a C note to
fill up half a tank and admits it???? What will your neighbors think? Have
they petitioned to evict you from the neighborhood yet?

When I was car shopping a couple months ago, the dealers looked at me really
strange when I insisted that any car I buy be at least as roomy as my existing
car and have an EPA city rating over 20 mpg. After all, I have a roomy car and
it was getting about 24 mpg in LA city driving. Actually there have been great
strides in efficiency but they have gone into getting more power out of the same
gas instead of in using less gas.

I got so disgusted, I had my engine rebuilt in the old 88 K-Car and now I get 28
to 30 mpg city. Its just so un American.

You forget the long period of depression prior to the war. In the absense of
the socialist totalitarian military structure, the tendency of the free
market is to maintain the depressed economy. And the problem then was
getting men to work and building an economy, with many idle resources. This
is different from a situation where the decline is DUE to a reduction in
resources.

Yes but the reduction is very gradual and they will find money if they have to.
After all, the President wanted himself a way and damn it, even though he had
record deficits, he's finding the money for it anyway. If the politicians really
want something the money appears as if out of thin air. Maybe that is because it
really does come out of thin air.

You can only create debt up to the amount you can borrow. By borrowing so
much to finance today from tomorrow, you are sucking all of the free capital
from the economy. This will stiffle investment for generations to come,
including that needed to finance the adaptations to a more expensive fuel
supply. If you just print money, you just inflate the currency and damage
existing investments.

You only get inflation when the money supply you create exceeds the capacity of
the economy to absorb it. That is when too many dollars chase too few goods. The
US is lucky here because as the world reference currency, it has the ability to
use the entire world's productivity to absorb its money supply growth sins. We
now have a nearly infinity productivity sink in China to absorb a 6% to 10%
annual money supply growth with the big worry here being deflation.

Because you have to live on tomorrows oil by discovering it today. It also
helps prop up your stocks because they know you will be around in five
years.

Wall Street does not think 5 years ahead. However, even though proven reserves
may only be 5 years at current prices, we have really good suspicions where to
find more.

It will cost $10.00 a barrel to produce new oil in the US. Yes, the
cheap oil has already been found. \

Quit waving your fucking arms will you??? The price can go to $10000/barrel
and you won't find any more if there is no more to find. You cannot just say
that higher prices will find more oil. They have LOOKED and given up. The
rate of finding oil has slipped into the negatives where it costs more to
find oil than you get for it. At least in the U.S. and Canada.

Actually, we have found shit pile of oil we can produce but not against current
cheap Saudi oil. When the price rises, the amount available rises too. Again,
its not like a steel gas tank with an absolute empty. There is always a supply
available at a price. And, everyone has a price where they will reduce their
demand, go without or find a substitute. In any economics course they teach this
stuff. Demand is elastic and so is supply. There is not a resource yet we have
run out of. Right now, commodities are hurting so bat with falling prices
because the price increases in the 70's caused supply available to go way up.
Countries all over the world are hurting because we won't buy as much of their
stuff as they want to sell us.

As for oil goes, there is no absolute empty. It will become worthless as a fuel
and only used for making plastics before we run out of it.

It costs $1.00 a barrel to produce in Saudi
so why not use that first.

Exaclty. You do so. It makes big profits to do so. This is why the U.S.
public is being asked to finance a war and the reconstruction of the
country. To make big profits for Exxon, and friends.

Yes, with a VP who's an oil man, what do you expect. Clinton sure didn't start
any wars.

More flexible than YOU know. Pushing billion into the hands of the rich does
NOT make them richer for the simple reason that it destroys the consumer
base as the poor now have to pay more instead of buying goods. With lower
production the wealthy find that business collapses, failures, and poor
profits leave then weaker than before the 'tax cuts to the wealthy'.

The tax cuts do indeed leave the federal government weaker. However, the
billions the rich get do eventually get spent in some form or another. In many
ways trickle down economics is hog wash and not as effective as the government
would like to have us believe but there is some effect.

National governments only plead poverty when they don't really want to
finance
something or if they are afraid doing so will not accomplish anything the
powers
that be hold dear. Like educating all our kids.

You seem to think a fiat dollar can be printed. This is clueless. Printing
money just leads to inflation.

Then how come we are fighting desperately not to stop falling into a Japanese
style deflationary trap. The answer is that China can absorb all the demand the
extra money can produce. Until China revalues its currency about 8 times higher,
China will absorb it all and then some. As long as the US dollar is the world
reference currency we can do this. They tried to make the Euro a new reference
currency. Its working a little but the US dollar is too well entrenched. So the
government will continue to jiggle numbers on the Fed's hard drive at least
until any signs of inflation occur.

How can you worry about inflation when the bank rate is at 1%?

My. You have a rich fantasy life. I envy you.

Seriously the shortage people have been crying imminent doom for 50 years. They
seem to forget human ingenuity. We'll muddle through.

As for the offshore oil deposits. They're there. I've seen the seismic charts
with my own eyes.

Its there. Actually, we will likely never extract it. When oil gets too
dear,
we'll use less and use other things instead. Heck, give me $100 Billion
and I'll
have all our vehicles running off biologically extracted methane in 10
years.
However, the political will is not there yet. However, some day it will
be.

As I said, you have a rich fantasy life.

The research to make the genetically enhanced bacteria we need is being done.
Its more a political decision to use it or not.

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy says it all:

DON'T PANIC

Seems to me the earth got paved over in that book.. However, I can see where
your rich fantasy life comes from. You take advice from the strangest
places. However, the idea was not to panic. It was to start to realise that
the resources are finite. It is time to adapt to a lack of lamp oil *before*
you run out and have to search for substitutes in the dark.

Douglas Adams died before his time. Indeed the earth was destroyed for a
hyperspace bypass or something like that. Quite silly. We all know that Saturn
was the real obstacle but the builders had relatives there.

Of course you adapt before you run out. However, the market signals are not loud
enough for most people to pay attention. Its funny. I'm one of the highest paid
people where I work. I drive a 1988 car that gets 30 mpg. Then we have
production workers barely making more than minimum wage and they have new
Expeditions and Excursions. I'm afraid they're the ones in the fantasy world. I
really don't know how they do it what it takes them about 3 hours of after tax
wages every day for the gas to drive to work when I spend less than that a week.
The market signal is even there and they seem too stupid to take it.

men and women like me will make it work.

I am, by nature, an engineer. I get the job done and find ways to do it.
Nevertheless I am not so egotistical to think that there are not some jobs
that are too big. I saw a neat fiction about an undersea subway between
America and Europe with 5,000 mph trains. If they try to sell stock I will
NOT buy in until after we tame our first volcano. Not saying we won't tame
volcanoes some day....

The big problem with the undersea subway is not in building it but in protecting
it. It would just be too damn big and to easy a target. Even a sperm whale
would be able to take it out. Far too easy to have a 9/11 style hit on it.
Otherwise its just a matter of scale. The other big problem is that is would not
connect enough places. The flexibility we have to serve many different point
with fuel burning winged aluminum tubes seems to work better for us.

As for volcanos, again its just a matter of scale. We have to have a good reason
to do it, one that makes economic sense.

Anyway, we're just fighting minor variations on a similar view point. It has
been fun but I bid this discussion adieu. There will be no further reply.

--
Dan Fraser

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

Check out my electronic schematics site at: http://www.schematicsforfree.com
If you are into cars check out www.roadsters.com

Ian St. John · Aug 1, 2003

"Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'" <alondra101@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.19942a2616faa2d4989b47@news.inreach.net...

Gee. I don't have Dans post in my list so thanks for responding. Otherwise I
wouldn't have seen it as it is missing from my news server.

In article <3F28C23E.25CB9F04@sbcglobal.net>, dmfraser@sbcglobal.net
mentioned...

"Ian St. John" wrote:

"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F24B8EB.FDEB19A6@sbcglobal.net...
Hi Ian:

I gather that I'm the Ian you refer to.

True. And when the shit hits the fan I expect 100B in investment in
syncrude style plants, with output probably into the 1.8million
barrels a day. A spit in the bucket compared to U.S. demand. You
just are NOT going to expand supply fast with a REALLY hard to
extract resource. One of the advantages of oil pools has been the
speed with which you can extract the oil irregardless of the cots.

The point here is that the shit won't hit the fan all at once. Sure,
there may another 70s style shock or two again but that one was
man made and not created by a real scarcity. Another one will
also be man made except now, we have the Saudi's so dependent
on the flow of money they would not be able to do it again
without the house od Saud going to the chopping block, literally.

The shit hitting the fan will be a 25 year long process. Some say,
maybe you, that it has started already. In a way, it started when the
first gusher has hit in Texas. The beginning of the end.

I think it will be something like what has happened in Calif. Two
years ago, when the [artificially created] energy shortage was upon
us, the gov't decided we needed a lot of power plants Real Soon. So
they approved several, and the plants started to get built.

The approval process was streamlined but the main reason that plants had not
been built was that there was a glut of energy and the companies had no
reason to suspect either the sudden population or boom increase. The time to
build ensures a lag between the perception of need and the fulfilling of it.
Note also that Washington/Oregon usually filled in for power shortages using
hydroelectic and the reduced snowpack eliminated this 'cheap backup' just at
the wrong time. As well, the energy companies had to take **15%*** of the
power offline to generate the 'crisis' when normal maintenance is less than
5%. Take ENOUGH power offline and you can guarantee a power shortage no
matter what the potential is. These were the SAME power plants that were
restarted to fill the 'shortfall' at ten to a hundred times the price for
'the last watt'.

Now that the crisis is over, the plants will eventually get finished
and there will be a glut of electric power, but the problem is that
the plants use natural gas, so they have created a new shortage and
higher prices for that gas supply. :-/

Actually.. sorry, but you need to do more reading... the shortfall in
Natural Gas supplies derives mostly from the deregulation. Prior to that the
state imported Natural Gas at 100% of a limited pipeline capacity and stored
it locally to maximize the supply and prevent price spikes. The elimination
of one pipeline and the elimination of local storage means that as demand
exceed current pipeline capacity the prices will spike enormously. This is
purely a 'market failure' due to the fact that the private supplier has no
interest in protecting low prices, by running storage facilities(at his own
cost), as he can 'charge what the market will bear' in a price spike and
make big profits. The price goes up much more than the costs.

Many companies now make their major profits from artificial 'shortages', and
can minimize capacity such that a regular price spike will occur. Do you
think the sudden increase in prices of gasoline every weekend and especially
on long weekends is 'mere coincidence'? No. It is a plan to minimize
refinery capacity to ensure that there WILL be a 'shortage' at each weekend
and thus the 'supply vs demand' market forces will push the prices up.
"What? US??? No. It is just supply and demand...". The company has NO
mandate to take on any 'price spike avoidance' which is why public utilities
( such as electricity ) have been the traditional solution. The public
corporation has, at it's core, a steady and dependable supply as the goal,
not profits.

The natural gas situation has stabilezed somewhat with new capacity and Grey
Davis pushing for more storage and long term contracts.

So what I figure will happen is that when the fit hits the shan, the
planners will have that delay of a few years to get an alternatice
plan going to relieve the oil shortage. During that time, the
consumers will suffer somewhat, like we did during the two crises in
the '70s.

You will likely find big business exploiting 'natural shortages' for quick
profits. Good outcomes usually depend on good planning.

Then that may have some ripple effect. Perhaps people will benefit
from it because the cost of shipping cheap products from overseas will
increase to the point where the domestic products again become
competitive.

Wow. Where did those rose colored glasses come from?? The prices will become
so high that high priced American manufacture will be competitive for what
few people can still afford them? Gee. I'm impressed. Hold the presses. The
Billionaires are saved....

I thought this was about the average joe...

So more people in the country will have jobs. And
fixing a piece of equipment may become cheaper than tossing it and
buying a new one, so there will be more local jobs in the repair
sector. I'm just speculating, no one knows or sure what will happen.
But no doubt things will happen.

Actually you missed the part about higher prices. It means that you will be
in the same situation as the third world. Making products you cannot afford
to buy yourself on slave wages as American manufacturesr try to 'minimise
labor costs' on expensive domestic production for the few who can afford the
remaining resources.

Fixing castoff equipment from the garbage dumps of the wealthy enclaves may
indeed be the only way for the hoi poloi to have some of the conveniences.
Does this sound like paradise?

Ian St. John · Aug 1, 2003

"Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun'" <alondra101@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.19942a2616faa2d4989b47@news.inreach.net...

In article <3F28C23E.25CB9F04@sbcglobal.net>, dmfraser@sbcglobal.net
snip

Some of them are looking for ways to creat a sustainable economy. Iraq
was
ahead on that. In some ways the biggest problem is that they don't
need
American money at the rate that American need oil. They want to pump
the oil
over 100 years of growth while America wants it in a decade or two.
There
will be a clash. Iraq is just the first.

True except Saddam was squandering it all on stupid things like his war
with
Iran.

It wasn't a 'stupid war'. Iraq is a secular governmetn and had an interest
backed by the U.S. ) of stopping the import of the 'Iranian revolution' and
theocracy. You do remember that right? Embassies invaded. Hostages taken?

Then, he could have come clean about WMD a year ago

He did, near as we can tell. The so called 'factories' were clearly shown to
be rubble after the invasion. Not that you fucking idiots care whether he
did or not. While there was no way to be sure without the completion of the
U.N. inspections there was also no evidence to say he was not 'coming clean'
under the inspections. This 'false assertion' has never been shown to have
any foundation in fact.

and still be in power.

Nope. He had thumbed his nose at the moron in the White House who cared not
a turd for what he did, but was determined to destroy him for his fathers
pride.

I really wonder that if he really had or had gotten rid of his WMD, why
did he
keep acting like he still had them?

Did he? What do you mean? That he did not bow, scrape or beg for forgiveness
from the mighty Assholes of the West? Perhaps the concept of sovereign
states has passed you by. He has no reason to prostrate himself in front of
Dumbya. As the leader of a sovereign nation he could not do so without
shaming his people. Would you be impressed if Dumbya went to the Pope and
asked for forgiveness for not defending the country against the Gays???

If you don't think that energy prices and economic activity track each
other, you are probably not worth educating. Note: At $60/barrel you
will
get coal conversion stepping in.

They track but the ratio is not 1:1. A doubling in oil price will
produce maybe
a temporary 10% decline in economic activity. However, that money has to
go
somewhere and it comes back around eventually. Its not like the oil
itself,
which, once burned is gone. Once a dollar is created, it circulates
forever.

Oh. I see. The Great Depression was an illusion. You must have gotten your
economics education off the internet?

Note: The number of dollars in circulation has nothing to do with the GDP.
One dollar may be used in hundreds of transactions and most of them will be
electronic without even a handover of cash.

And if you think investment in something to bank on, I hope you had your
money in Enron and get a good education on the foolishness of such
illusions.

Even coal conversion is limited. There is both the problem of global
warming, and the fact that most of the unused oil reserves are unused
for
reasons ranging from high sulfur to contamination with metals. They
require
special processing. Nope. Most of the easily obtainable and cheap oil
that
is to fuel the 'both ends of the candle' economic burn is in the
ground and
in the Persian Gulf. After that, the substitutes will allow for a
limited
and failing economy. The time to stop eating the fattening foods is
while
you can still get out of the house.

Coal conversion is dirty.

Maybe. Not saying that he Haber Bosch process is perfect. They may develop a
more economical or cleaner one where the excess carbon dioxide is
sequestered in minerals, but I agree it is not clean. The question was not
about clean though.

I'm thinking more like bio-engineered bacteria for
methane conversion from biomass, coal or anywhere carbon and water can
be
found. Even the atmosphere if necessary. The more diffuse the carbon,
the more
costly it will be but we'll still drive to work even if its with a 360cc
FIAT
burning stewed pig shit.

Carbon is not the only source of energy. In fact it is not a source of
energy. It is a store of energy when in hydrocarbons, no different than
biodiesel or ethanol or hydrogen. The energy all, ultimately, comes from
fusion or fission.

As the price rose, people used less and eventually substitutes were
found.

Yup. Problem is that there are no cheap subsistitutes for fossil
fuels.

WHile hydrogen is touted as an alternative, we all know there are no
hydrogen
deposits down there.

Not down there, but we have huge jovian planets with mineable hydrogen. The
issue is a non-sequitor. What store of energy we use is not the issue. All
of the 'fuels' are ultimately energy stores. Only the process of
'extracting' them becomes meaningful. Extracting crude oil is cheap and
easy, but has problems. Extracting hydrogen ( from solar or ..) is more
complex but ultimately more sustainable. The only *problem* with hydrogen is
ease of storage.

However in the arctic, in the perma frost are hydrate
bearing formations with more methane locked up than we can imagine. In
fact the
really big worry about global warming is that these hydrates may thaw
out
releasing hugh amounts of methane in the atmosphere. If this happens we
will
have to burn them anyway as methane is a far worse greenhouse gas than
CO2.

If this happens it will be impossible to burn the methanes except perhaps
with huge areas of suitable catalysts.

Plants lock down the CO2 fairly quickly. Methane just stays there until
it is
passed through a flame.

Better we extract these hydrates and burn them in our cars than let them
be
released into the atmosphere. Sure, they are expensive to extract but
when oil
hits $60.00 a barrel it becomes doable.

On what basis you make this claim is certainly questionable.

Probably ethanol and biodiesel. Nobody is saying that there will be
nothing
left. Only that the boom time economy that depends on cheap fossil
fuel
energy will fail as prices rise, so the time to adapt is before the
asteroid
hits.

Yes it is and today another blow to short sightedness. Improving CAFE
standards
was put off again. I'm 100% with you on this.

Applying CAFE standards to trucks, busses, etc would also be good. The
'loophole' that trucks have no CAFE standard is one reason that fuel economy
for trucks has not made much of an impact, and why the public can 'avoid'
the CAFE standards for cars by buying cars on truck bodies. A more general
Fuel Economy standard would be much more rational. Expecially in trucks
which could certainly benefit in higher efficiency of semi-hybrid designs.

Besides, oil is such a fascinating raw material. its almost a shame
to
burn the stuff merely for it's heat content.

Gee. Something I might have said myself. In fact I think you cribbed
it from
me.

So, then, you're an engineer too? I used to live in the oil patch in
Canada.
Worked on the down hole motors used to extract oil from the really deep
wells.

I consider myself more of an engineer than scientist. The line is a bit
blurred for me. My interest, though, is making things do what I want, not
figuring out what they are doing. I was into chemistry in my early
university work but my talents were elsewhere. Ended up in geophysics,
mostly EM birds, but that is a bit of a niche market right now. Some friends
and family in the oil patch.

use
for millions of tons of the stuff.

If you are going to expand it tenfold, you had better be able to answer the
issue of gas presssure ( they closed a number of wells ) as well as water
usage (http://www.pembina.org/pdf/publications/OilandTroubledWaters.pdf)

Then you have sustained the cost of refining it already. It points to
the
extra costs of semi-refining it still. The point here was the lower
profits
compared to the Persian Gulf oil.

When they extract it, it passes through a gaseous phase. No big deal to
clean it
up when they do that. It goes down the pipeline not much heavier than #2
low
sulfur winter diesel. They even burn it direct in some of the heavy
equipment.

The 'upgrading' is not from any gaseous phase. It is from converting some of
the excess carbon to coke which then remains as a waste material. This does
contain much of the metals and sulfur but it is still a cost of the process,
no matter WHEN it occurs.
http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/osd/docs/PublicationsandStudies/chptr1.pdf note
1.4.3 on the cyclical pricing.

If they could extract it for $15 there would be a 'syncrude' plant
operating. As I said, the evidence is that they cannot extract it for
an
economical price.

The US oil industry won't even consider starting one until they can't
get Saudi
oil. The reasons are political and have as much to do with greed as
engineering.
The process needed is not a lot different from Syncrudes, just that the
oil
carrier is more abrasive and needs somewhat more water in the process.

Profits are not the problem. The profits are much higher with oil pools as I
said. The real problem is the drive to gain profits from other peoples oil
as the profits go elsewhere ) and the lack of local production alternatives
( to maintain price stability and local profitability ).

However, once the economics make it make sense,
actually extracting the oil is merely a matter of sitting down and
inventing
something.

Every problem could fall to the same simple statement. Why don't you
start
working on intersolar flight?

Extracting oil is merely chemistry.

Not chemistry. Usually just engineering.

We're good at that. We have already achieved
unmanned extra solar flight. A bit slow but its a start. We did it in
the 70s
too. Now, for the warp engine, some of the newly found sub atomic
particles do
look interesting. We cannot be so proud of our progress to date to think
we have
discovered everything. Electricity came as a surprise to the scientific
community too, a couple hundred years ago.

The 'technology deux ex machina' is a dead bird. Leave it lie.

Something emerges. It is not always what is wanted but it is always
what is
needed. That is, the results are the best you can do so they form the
basis
of the next step. On the other hand there are many things we have not
been
able to do, so some problems ARE insoluble. For example, controlling
hurricanes. Last I heard nobody had managed that one. Of course if the
economics are there, and the need is acute, we'll hide in the basement
and
live to see the fucking dawn. Is this a clue for you?

There is a matter of the energies involved. Even nukes pail in
comparison to a
hurricane.

Let me know when you can harness a hurricane... ;-)

However, the issue with hurricanes is that if you do stop one, the
pent up energy has to go somewhere. The side effects of directing enough
energy
to stop one may be worse than the damage caused. Instead we cope by
prediction,
tracking, hiding hen necessary and insurance to help those hit. After
all, in
the US, almost no one dies from hurricanes any more. Compare that to the
big
disasters that happened on the Gulf Coast in the early 1900's. I'd say
we've al
least learned how to "ride the dragon" because we cannot stop it.

Adaptation or avoidance is always a choice.

What's insoluble. Pro Choice vs Pro-life. Israel vs. Palestine. Those
are
problems that may live to the heat death of the universe.

Gee. And I thought *I* was a pessimist!

Exactly, so what's the panic?

Exactly! Haven't I been saying that the head up the anus "next
quarterly
report" attitude doesn't extend more than the current fiscal year?

And long term is considered to the next presidential election.
Capitalism is not
a good system for long term planning. Communism is better for that but
the USSR
proved that communism does not work if human beings are involved.

The U.S.S.R was not a Communism ( see defiition of communism ) any more than
the U.S. is a Democracy. It was a Party Oligarchy with a totalitarian
heirarchy. No amount of cold war propaganda should be allowed to change
reality. Expecially the fact that the U.S. is moving towards the same sort
of Party Oligarchy that crippled the U.S.S.R as it stiffles the economy and
freedoms.

If oil becomes doubles in cost, supplies many
times larger than we have now will become economic.

used.
And so on as the economy weakens. The cost of energy is PRIMARY to the
extent of the economy, and it is silly to depend on a limited and
exhaustable supply.

Of course its silly to depend on a limited supply. However, its not like
the
steel gas tank in a car that has a definite and irrefutable empty mark.
As the
price rises, more and more uneconomic supplies are brought on line.
Texas was
supposed to be dry by 1970 but we've learned how to keep pulling it out
of old
wells. Slower than before but in many fields, cleaning out the upper
layers
causes more to percolate up from unimaginably deep depths. Where the
empty mark
lies is hard to say because it keeps moving.

Sure. It isn't a fixed target but we know we will run out of 'technical
fixes' eventually. We are already near the losing side of that as oil
discoveries and improvements in 'known economically recoverable oil' fail to
keep up with the 75,000,000 barrel/day demand.

rapid
price transition while natural economics works more gradually.
Actually they only really started looking when the oil shock on 1970
caused
them to face their DEPENDENCY on cheap crude.

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

MSH · Aug 2, 2003

"Dan Fraser" <dmfraser@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:3F24B8EB.FDEB19A6@sbcglobal.net...

In the mean time, say oil rose to $60.00 a barrel. This would double gas
prices
here, to about the same level as in Europe. I really don't think that
European
level prices will devastate us that badly.

We might, but we are not the only ones in the world who rely on foriegn oil.
When their economies go, so will ours. Think WORLD view. We also have many
oil-sharing agreements.

Yes, why when it costs under $1.00 to produce oil in Saudi or even $10.00
in
Texas.

Not quite yet. It only costs about $1 a barrel to 'produce' Iraqs oil so
cheap oil can be sustained for about 40 to 60 years ( U.S. demand only )
or
about 15 years ( current world demand ). After that, ...

From what I have been reading, both of those costs to produce are very
wrong. Do you have some data to support those figures. I read $5 to produce
in Iraq, $10-13 in Saudi Arabia to produce the equivalent product.

MH

What we're
doing is letting the other countries sell us their cheap to produce
oil
first and keeping the expensive to produce stuff in reserve. After
they
run out of cheap oil, then we can tell then to screw off while we use
nuclear power to reduce the cost of extracting the oil sands and
shales.

Yah. We let OPEC sell us oil at $35 a barrel. This may have been
sustainable
with 45% of the oil produced within the U.S, but it is not sustainable
once
that domestic production falls off, as it will within a few years.

Yes but they spend that $35.00 a barrel and then some. The cash does them
no
good unless they spend it and do they ever spend it. Even Saudi is in
trouble
for spending more than they take in. However, as domestic production falls
the
price will rise and production will become possible in previously
uneconomic
areas. However, it would be a big help if our government increased the
CAFE by 1
MPG every year for the next 20 years and included SUVs in it. If it was up
to
me, vehicles would be taxed every year on an exponential scale if above a
certain size.

Europeans live with 1 Liter cars and so could we. My car is a 2.5L and it
has
all the power anyone really needs. The few times I need bigger, I rent
something.

However, the vast investment money has to compete with the massive
increase
in U.S. national debt which needs to be financed so borrowing billions
for
development is getting hard. There have been a number of 'developments'
announced that subsequently fell through.

When it comes to a true emergency, money will become available. Do you
think
that the war bond drives were to finance the war. Hell, they just made up
the
money that was needed. The war bond drives were to absorb a bunch of the
money
the workers were paid in order to prevent inflation. The workers had money
during WWII and nothing to buy. That's the formula for inflation. By
selling
paper to the workers as war bonds, it soaked up enough money to keep
inflation
from running away.

Even now, when they talk about the deficit, they always say, "and it
excludes
the war in Iraq". If the powers that be deem something to be essential,
they
alter the numbers on some hard drives in Washington DC and the money is
there.

When it comes to oil. Don't panic. Yes, there is only about 5 years of
proven conventional reserves. There always has been. If you're an oil
company, why bother to find more. Being 5 years ahead in your supplies
is enough considering Wall Street does not look past the next quarter.

Sorry but it isn't a case of not looking for more. They passed the
exploration peak back in the '60s and you are not discovering any major
reserves in the U.S. any more. This sort of "What? Me Worry?" is the
province of Alfred E. Neuman, not rational people.

Why look? It will cost $10.00 a barrel to produce new oil in the US. Yes,
the
cheap oil has already been found. It costs $1.00 a barrel to produce in
Saudi
so why not use that first. You have to think global and get over the idea
that
there is a finite amount of money our there. The money supply in the US
grows at
something like 10%+ a year, however fast Alan Greenspan thinks can be done
without triggering inflation. Money is only finite on a micro economic
level,
the level we live our lives on. However, in the grand geopolitical level,
money
is a flexible concept.

National governments only plead poverty when they don't really want to
finance
something or if they are afraid doing so will not accomplish anything the
powers
that be hold dear. Like educating all our kids.

Besides, as easy to extract supplies dry up, the price rises slowly,
making more and more hard to extract oil economical. Yes, we don't
like
the idea of offshore drilling, but there is at least another Saudi in
the deep Gulf of Mexico and another one on each coast on the
continental
shelf and the possible oil rich parts of Alaska have barely been
explored.

My. You have a rich fantasy life. I envy you.

Its there. Actually, we will likely never extract it. When oil gets too
dear,
we'll use less and use other things instead. Heck, give me $100 Billion
and I'll
have all our vehicles running off biologically extracted methane in 10
years.
However, the political will is not there yet. However, some day it will
be.

The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy says it all:

DON'T PANIC

Again - DON'T PANIC - The fear mongers have manipulated statistics to
scare you to thinking the way they want you to think.

Actually it is people like you that expect people to be blindsided by a
future they do not bother to examine.

Hell, I'm one of the people that makes the future happen. Right now, I'm
designing products and inventing processes that weren't even science
fiction
twenty years ago. When the politicos and bean counters are ready, me and
other
men and women like me will make it work.

--
Dan Fraser

From Costa Mesa in sunny California

Check out my electronic schematics site at:
http://www.schematicsforfree.com
If you are into cars check out www.roadsters.com

Cost of the grid compared to solar

Dan Fraser

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