Petrogeddon: The Ostriches Will Not Inherit The Earth
Alan Caruba, Scaring People About Energy
I found this wonderful piece through Google News, syndicated through a few news sites, and it led me to the equally wonderful National Anxiety Center (slogan: the good news is that the bad news is wrong!), founded by Caruba about 15 years ago.
Caruba's great. He really is. A former PR consultant and business and science writer, he's firmly convinced that we're worrying about nothing. A quick scan through his article illustrates just how bad things could be if we took his approach...
Caruba's first point is that we've been wearned 5 times before that the world is running out of oil. I was warned many times as a child that playing in the road was dangerous. The fact that I was never run over does not demonstrate that playing in the road is safe.
The Sakhalin oil fields are given as a point that oil is still being found. Well, true enough. Sakhalin was discovered 30 years ago but only started pumping oil last year. This is in keeping with Hubbert's curve. Caruba fails to mention this. There are likely to be few Sakhalins left now.
And even if there were, US oil consumption is, what, about 20 million barrels of oil a day? So even if Carabua's estimate of the Sakhalin producing 'more than five billion oil-equivalent barrels of energy' in its commercial lifespan was both correct and translated into oil, it would power the US for a whole 250 days. Big freakin' deal. I'm unsure what Caruba's point was, other than the recommendation to drill Alaska.
And then we hit the really good stuff...
As noted, bad news sells.
This is the basis of Caruba's argument, that the media need a scare story to sell their wares. Well, true enough, but it doesn't preclude that it might well be true. I could write off the quagmire in Iraq or even the 9/11 WTC attack as an attempt to increase the sales of newspapers using Caruba's logic.
Americans need to keep in mind that (1) all the oil that exists around the planet has not been found...
Yep. Americans also need to keep in mind that the largest oil fields we know of were all discovered a long long time ago. To find the remaining oil reserves will involve going to the places where oil has not been economically viable to survey and discover, let alone exploit.
The whole worry of Peak Oil is that half the known reserves have been discovered and exploited and that demand will very soon rise above supply. This will drive up prices without increasing productivity, which means that 20 years hence you might well have to make a choice between eating and heating.
...(2) that new technologies will make its extraction possible...
Yep, and once again we're in the territory of diminishing returns. The research, design, prototyping and production of those new technologies will be reflected in the price of the oil from those hard-to-reach reserves.
...and (3) will greatly improve the use of what exists.
Which is wonderful if it happens that way. But once again, we should look at the failure of nuclear power to observe exactly what technology can offer us. 50 years and no solution to the storage of radioactive waste... Or alternatively, the bizarre desire of inefficient SUVs compared to smaller cars - we have the technology to improve the use of what exists, but not the desire or motive to actually purchase it.
Our national energy concern should be focused on oil in terms of the essential role it plays in transportation. Failure to keep our cars and trucks on the road would imperil our economy. Ultimately, all goods move on wheels.
And this is where you start banging your head in frustration. This is exactly why people are worried about Peak Oil, yet Caruba offers no solutions. Instead he criticises Bush for promoting solar and wind technologies, yet if we're generating electricity from these, it leaves a lot more oil to funnel into the transport system.
I dunno, but I find Caruba's piece a hell of a lot more scary than Bush's prior comments.
Alan Caruba, Scaring People About Energy
I found this wonderful piece through Google News, syndicated through a few news sites, and it led me to the equally wonderful National Anxiety Center (slogan: the good news is that the bad news is wrong!), founded by Caruba about 15 years ago.
Caruba's great. He really is. A former PR consultant and business and science writer, he's firmly convinced that we're worrying about nothing. A quick scan through his article illustrates just how bad things could be if we took his approach...
Caruba's first point is that we've been wearned 5 times before that the world is running out of oil. I was warned many times as a child that playing in the road was dangerous. The fact that I was never run over does not demonstrate that playing in the road is safe.
The Sakhalin oil fields are given as a point that oil is still being found. Well, true enough. Sakhalin was discovered 30 years ago but only started pumping oil last year. This is in keeping with Hubbert's curve. Caruba fails to mention this. There are likely to be few Sakhalins left now.
And even if there were, US oil consumption is, what, about 20 million barrels of oil a day? So even if Carabua's estimate of the Sakhalin producing 'more than five billion oil-equivalent barrels of energy' in its commercial lifespan was both correct and translated into oil, it would power the US for a whole 250 days. Big freakin' deal. I'm unsure what Caruba's point was, other than the recommendation to drill Alaska.
And then we hit the really good stuff...
As noted, bad news sells.
This is the basis of Caruba's argument, that the media need a scare story to sell their wares. Well, true enough, but it doesn't preclude that it might well be true. I could write off the quagmire in Iraq or even the 9/11 WTC attack as an attempt to increase the sales of newspapers using Caruba's logic.
Americans need to keep in mind that (1) all the oil that exists around the planet has not been found...
Yep. Americans also need to keep in mind that the largest oil fields we know of were all discovered a long long time ago. To find the remaining oil reserves will involve going to the places where oil has not been economically viable to survey and discover, let alone exploit.
The whole worry of Peak Oil is that half the known reserves have been discovered and exploited and that demand will very soon rise above supply. This will drive up prices without increasing productivity, which means that 20 years hence you might well have to make a choice between eating and heating.
...(2) that new technologies will make its extraction possible...
Yep, and once again we're in the territory of diminishing returns. The research, design, prototyping and production of those new technologies will be reflected in the price of the oil from those hard-to-reach reserves.
...and (3) will greatly improve the use of what exists.
Which is wonderful if it happens that way. But once again, we should look at the failure of nuclear power to observe exactly what technology can offer us. 50 years and no solution to the storage of radioactive waste... Or alternatively, the bizarre desire of inefficient SUVs compared to smaller cars - we have the technology to improve the use of what exists, but not the desire or motive to actually purchase it.
Our national energy concern should be focused on oil in terms of the essential role it plays in transportation. Failure to keep our cars and trucks on the road would imperil our economy. Ultimately, all goods move on wheels.
And this is where you start banging your head in frustration. This is exactly why people are worried about Peak Oil, yet Caruba offers no solutions. Instead he criticises Bush for promoting solar and wind technologies, yet if we're generating electricity from these, it leaves a lot more oil to funnel into the transport system.
I dunno, but I find Caruba's piece a hell of a lot more scary than Bush's prior comments.
posted by deezelboy at 5:40 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home