Oil hits $100 a barrel

[iluvlamp]

I also agree that the environmental concerns are way overblown. There are technologies in place nowadays that limit what damage is done by construction. It's also not about just ANWR. There are billions upon billions of barrels of oil sitting off Florida that we refuse to drill for. Meanwhile, China is drilling off Cuba. That makes no sense whatsoever. I am all for alternative fuels but feel the private sector should take care of that end. They are working on it. It's insane that this country isn't creating it's own wealth from it's supplies. On another note, in the future the US will begin buying more of that shale oil from Canada. Hopefully that will help because they have what looks like unlimited amounts. I think it's called shale oil...slate oil? You don't have to drill for it, it's more like a quarry. Oh, and the US also has that but does nothing with it.

[Blazer25]

Quick supply and demand lesson FTJ...

 

Dude -- That's exactly what I said. -- "sold to the US if the US was the highest bidder."

You did indeed suggest that China and India would have to buy the oil from the world oil market. You did fail to notice however that the increase in world oil supply would cause the price to come down.

 

 

Simplistically you are right of course, however you are over looking some key significance issues.

 

Now in the Alaska area -- there is supposed to be between 4-10 billion barrels. If we consume 20 million barrels a day, and we used exclusively the Alaskan oil we would tap it dry in about a year.

Why would we use exclusively Alaskan oil? First of all new oil fields aren't capable of pumping out 20 million barrels a day more like 3-5 million. Second the USGS estimates on the low side that the ANWAR supplies would be a viable source of oil for 20-25 years. There would still be a need to go outside our own supplies to supplement our needs. Our outside needs would however, be substaintially less and thus a greater worldwide supply which= lower price.

 

 

Will it increase supply? -- sure. Enough to make a substantial dent in the world market -- very unlikely.

You can't really believe this can you? When one refinery in the US gets shut down gas and fuel oil prices go up by $0.25. You really believe that years worth of oil won't have any effect on the price of oil worldwide? Com'on now FTJ.

 

I didn't have you pegged as an emotionally driven environmentalist.

[TooLiveBrew]

Environmental concerns? Have you seen the area that they would drill?

 

Come on though, it's the ecosystem to be concerned about, not if the drill will literally cut apart some animals/organisms. And I made sure to mention the precedent that such an awful decision would set. This country has damaged and neglected its environment enough, thank you much.

 

EDIT: ibtl...http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[danzig6767]

First of all, not drilling in Alaska for oil is just plain dumb. Why pay other countries billions, maybe trillions, of dollars for a resource we have plenty of? At least by drilling our own oil, it will buy time for the private sector to develop better alternative fuel sources.

 

This brings me to my second point. Governments, federal and state, have no business mandating fuel sources, i.e. ethanol. If the product is that good, the market will find a way to make it work. Also, a big reason for higher gasoline prices is all of the boutique gasolines that are mandated. What are there, 16 different types used in the midwest, or something like that. If everyone used the same gas, prices would be much lower.

 

Finally, we come to ethanol. Does it make sense to use a staple food product as a source of fuel? It just creates shortages of corn which leads to increased prices of food and fuel. Eventually, they may come up with a viable alternative to corn, but even then, it shouldn't be mandated. Takes more energy to create, has lower gas mileage, and is bad for many car engines. Great idea to require its use.

 

It's a great idea for politicians when campaign contributions/bribes and votes from high corn producing states get factored in

 

[craigharmann]

I'm completely surprised that no one has really brought up alternative fuels. Ethanol, sure, but that hasn't proven to be cost-effective. I remember 20 years ago, back in grade school, reading my Weekly Readers that there was all this talk of solar cars, electric cars, etc. What has happened over the last 20 years? The more dependent we can be on alternative fuels, the less oil we consume. The less oil we consume, the more fuel prices go down. The next time I'm looking to buy a car, which is a ways down the road, I will be looking strongly at something that uses alternative fuels.

[davebobn]

Can you imagine driving a solar powered car during the dead of winter in Wisconsin?

[Fatter than Joey]

You did fail to notice however that the increase in world oil supply would cause the price to come down.

 

Fair enough -- however, that was largely because the ANWR oil reserve is not significant enough to change the price of oil significantly.

 

Why would we use exclusively Alaskan oil?

 

Certainly we wouldn't -- The reason I used that illustration, (that if we used 20 million barrels per day the ANWR reserve would last about 300 days) was to help frame it in some perspective.

 

Second the USGS estimates on the low side that the ANWAR supplies would be a viable source of oil for 20-25 years.

 

Well this means nothing. I have 1 gallon of Non-fat ice cream in my freezer -- that is a 20 year supply in our household, not because a gallon is a lot -- but because no one will eat it.

 

The USGS has found that there is at least 4 billion barrels (at least = 95% certainty) and there could be 10 billion barrels (could be = 5% certainty) -- the mean figures out to be about 7.5 billion barrels. There are about 1300 billion barrels of oil reserves in the world -- so the 7.5 billion barrels in ANWR represents about .6% -- which I find to be really insignificant. Will it increase supply? sure. Will it drive the price of the barrel down? possibly. Will we notice it at the pump? No. Is that worth drilling in a preserve? IMO No. Now, if there were 170+ billion barrels in the ANWR (like there is in Alberta) I'd be singing a different tune.

 

There would still be a need to go outside our own supplies to supplement our needs. Our outside needs would however, be substaintially less and thus a greater worldwide supply which= lower price.

 

Let's do some math -- Overall -- world oil consumption is about at 85 Million barrels per day. If the good people at the USGS say we have a 25 year supply -- which I have no reason to doubt -- based on their most likely estimate of 7.5 billion barrels -- over 25 years that means the ANWR would produce about 820,000 barrels a day into a market that currently consumes 85 million barrels -- that is about a .9% increase in daily production -- I fail to see that as significant, especially when you consider that in 2030 the consumption is supposed to be around 118 million barrels per day.

 

You can't really believe this can you? When one refinery in the US gets shut down gas and fuel oil prices go up by $0.25.

 

Yeah -- I can't believe this -- I know when the Alaska pipeline shut down in 2006 gas went up 2-3 cents (when it was about 3$ gallon) -- Gas skyrocketed when some refineries when down after Katrina -- but gas was already at a premium because of the storm -- and that was like 9 refineries that went down, so unless you are speaking to Katrina related gas spikes, I think you are making up that $.25 figure. Refineries are really a whole other subject though, a refinery getting shut down has nothing to do with the crude supply. If a refinery gets shut down (e.g. Katrina) that is almost never a function of there not being crude to process.

 

I didn't have you pegged as an emotionally driven environmentalist.

 

And I didn't have you pegged as a shill for the oil supported politicians.

 

I have never discussed environmental reasons in any of my posts.

 

I do think that if a country decides to drill in wilderness preserve -- there better had be a good payoff. If there were 174 billion barrels in the ANWR (like there is in Alberta), I'd certainly be sympathetic to your point -- the reality is there is most likely only 7-8 billion barrels.

 

Now, if you have a lot of personal investments in oil drilling companies then I would certainly find it reasonable to support ANWR drilling -- At $100 per barrel there is a lot of money (.75 trillion) to be made for investors and oil concerns. However, that has nothing to do with the overall world market.

 

In short -- If you tell me that you want to drill in ANWR because you are invested in oil concerns, I think that is 100% reasonable, if you tell me that drilling in the ANWR will lower (significantly) the world market -- I'd tell you the math says you are full of beans.

[pogokat]

well this was fun...

 

any more insult exchanges or referring to a political/corporate agenda will result in a lock...

 

btw, if the government didn't mandat fule regulations, your escalade might run on coal or something...t a minimum, leaded fuel...

 

abtw, the feds have raised the cafe standard to 35 mpg by 2020, which should force chevy to make lots of aveos, even if they don't sell them...

[Crazyk1294]

TooLiveBrew[/b]]Environmental concerns? Have you seen the area that they would drill?

 

Come on though, it's the ecosystem to be concerned about, not if the drill will literally cut apart some animals/organisms. And I made sure to mention the precedent that such an awful decision would set. This country has damaged and neglected its environment enough, thank you much.

EDIT: ibtl...http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

How environmentally conscious do you think Venezuela and these other countries are when it comes to drilling? If the US drilled in Alaska there would be so many environmental regulations and the drilling would likely be very clean. It would be irresponsible to allow these other countries to continue to damage the environment by not doing something we could (and should) easily do much safer.

[TooLiveBrew]

For me it's more important to keep our status quo of protecting national wildlife & forest preserves than it is to take on some 'moral high-ground leader of clean drilling' role.

 

It would be irresponsible to allow these other countries to continue to damage the environment by not doing something we could (and should) easily do much safer.

It's not like us doing that is going to stop other countries' poor form, instead we'd just be adding to our destruction of our dwindling wilderness. Unless we found some kind of global oil-drilling police, there's no way anything we do or don't do will stand in the way of countries who rely upon the oil as a factored element of their GDP from getting ahold of said oil. We have no responsibility to police them, nor would we have any real influence if we could.

[mothershipconnection]

there was all this talk of solar cars, electric cars, etc. What has happened over the last 20 years? The more dependent we can be on alternative fuels, the less oil we consume.

 

Electric is kinda a catch-22. I think it's very viable, but people would need to be on board with cheap nuclear power, which many people view as being the ultimate evil energy source, because they watched too many sci-fi movies.

[Crazyk1294]

TooLiveBrew wrote:

---

For me it's more important to keep our status quo of protecting national wildlife & forest preserves than it is to take on some 'moral high-ground leader of clean drilling' role.

 

It would be irresponsible to allow these other countries to continue to damage the environment by not doing something we could (and should) easily do much safer.

It's not like us doing that is going to stop other countries' poor form, instead just adding to the destruction of our dwindling wilderness. Unless we found some kind of global oil-drilling police, there's no way anything we do or don't do will stand in the way of countries who rely upon the oil as a factored element of their GDP from getting ahold of said oil. We have no responsibility to police them, nor would we have any real influence if we could.

 

No, but it would lower the demand if one of their largest customers (the United States) became more oil-independent.

 

What about off-shore drilling? Shipping large amounts of oil from other countries on massive ships that pollute (including the occasional oil-spill) can't be more environmentally friendly than a few oil derricks.

 

TLB is probably removing my quote from his signature as I type...http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[homer]

but people would need to be on board with cheap nuclear power, which many people view as being the ultimate evil energy source, because they watched too many sci-fi movies.

 

Or they read The Washington Post articles about guards napping on the job http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010304442.html

[TooLiveBrew]

Again, crazyK, I'm moreso concerned with the precedent that would be set in allowing the drilling to commence in a protected wildlife area. Instead of throttling every last drop of oil from the earth/U.S./Alaska, the time and money would be better spent further working on other energy solutions. Any way you slice it, oil's a non-renewable energy source, and we're already at least 25 years behind in terms of alt. energy.

[OglivieHomePerm]

Link

 

Seems like a promising possibility for a biofuel source. Switchgrass can be grown in less than ideal conditions, so that it won't complete with other crops for prime farmland. Also, it's a perrenial, so there isn't the annual use of fuel to plant the crop being used to make fuel.

[jazzytrav]

After reading some of the alternative fuel ideas on here, I think there are a few more factors that need to be taken into account.

 

First of all, when talking about a barrel of oil, that doesn't mean this is specifically what goes into your car. According to this:

http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/whats_in_barrel_oil.html

roughly half of the oil we get goes into finished gasoline. Those numbers are from California and from 2004 (can't find anything current), but I'm sure they're not too far off. The reason that I mention this is that there are other ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. If we can produce other products without necessarily needing oil, then the oil we actually get can go more into gasoline.

 

The problem with alternative fuel sources right now is something that was alluded to earlier...people aren't willing to wait if they don't see results at the pump. Right now all we can do is be patient. There are some pretty crazy technologies that are coming out, but they will take some time. At this point it costs more to use these technologies than the amount that it would save. As they get more efficient with these processes, those two things will switch around and we'll be on our way to being largely independent of oil.

 

Probably the craziest possible future energy source was one I heard about just a month or two ago, meaning it's in the very earliest of stages and not something to count on anytime soon. The implications, though, are enormous. A scientist was working with salt water trying to find more efficient ways of de-salinization when, by complete accident, he started the salt water on fire. They are trying to see if they can get the fire hot enough to use it as an energy source. I realize this isn't solving anything by talking about it, but my point in using that example is that there are plenty of alternatives out there, but we didn't start working on them until it was too late. Now that it's all in the works, all we can do is sit back and let modern technology do it's thing.

 

If I can find the link to the article about the burning salt water, I'll post it here. No luck as of right now.

[jazzytrav]

Can you imagine driving a solar powered car during the dead of winter in Wisconsin?

Yes I can.

 

If I were to take a solar-powered car out for a drive right now, I wouldn't be using solar power that I'm getting at the same time. This isn't like an old Texas Instruments calculator (man I hated those things). The idea is that you harness the solar power and store it so that you can use it during the dead of winter in Wisconsin. Also, solar power doesn't require heat, just solar energy. So the fact that it's winter in Wisconsin would have no bearing. If it's sunny and freezing, you can still harness power from the sun.