Mike McDowell can't write his way out of a paper bag, but I appreciate his sharing this graph (though not the link thereto—bad blogger!) from BusinessWeek that shows why we don't need to drill, baby, drill... or that maybe we already are:
Global oil supply is currently equal to demand. And note that, after stagnating through the recession-bound second term of the Bush Administration, global oil production is up significantly during the Obama Administration.
McDowell does make the unnecessarily silly and unsourced claim that this graph "puts heavy pressure on the urban myth that we are running out of oil." I can't tell you exactly where the needle is on the global gas gauge, but I will happily stand by the pretty logical argument that every time use non-renewable fuel, we move closer to running out of it. And I will definitely stand by the claim that we are running out of the "easy oil." McDowell touts the "new techniques of recovery and new discoveries" of oil, but the increased effort it takes to find and grab that oil is why we're paying $3.39 at the pump and not the $2.50 of Newt Gingrich's fantasy world.
We will run out of oil, Mike. We'll run out of affordable oil even sooner. Instead of cheering unsustainable supply, we should be using less oil to strengthen our economy.
Update 16:25 CDT: McDowell also fails to acknowledge the externalities of a new golden age of petroleum abundance: increased carbon emissions, increased global temperatures, and humanity's self-destruction.
16:39 CDT: ...and a lot more water pollution than you'll get from any wind farm. One word, Mike: externalities.
Unless when he says "increased effort" he actually means "increased profit (for us)", I think he's lying to everyone.
That said, I trust Michio Kaku's take on it (there's a video somewhere of him discussing alternative energy). Hoping to get rid of oil before we have a real alternative is a pipe dream. Most of our current "alternatives" are either prohibitively expensive or actually use just as much energy to produce as they "save" later. As much as lots of people hate the idea of nuclear fusion, it's the only really promising alternative fuel source we have coming up in the foreseeable future. Once that technology develops and matures, I'd bet my house that we'll see the oil industry come to a more or less grinding halt.
We're bad with planning for the future as a society. We expect scientist cells to figure out the oil, fresh water, even helium (we're more or less going to run out of it in a few decades, which is really bad as it's also a pretty reliable super-coolant for stuff like MRI scanners - liquid helium is one of the coldest things on the planet...and we're wasting a lot of it on balloons) without taking a larger movement as a society unless it affects our bottom line or daily life.
I just hope it doesn't lead to some wacky doomsday scenario.
The helium shortage is almost 100% the fault of the US government, who own almost all the helium in the entire world, and have decided to sell it off at a low, fixed price (because they're stupid, I guess). Maybe we should start a petition to make them stop!
Fresh water certainly needs a societal movement, and it's already starting to get going down in the Southwest. Homeowners in AZ and NM are already replacing their grass with desert-style lawns. A lot of that is due to the high water prices, but if it helps keep the water supply up, then that's great.
When it comes to oil, the problem is that, other than turning off your lights when you leave the room and not driving as much, there's less and less we can do about it. Before computers, we used to have analog everything. Most things ran without electricity. However, everything is powered by electricity now, and since we live in the information age, in what is possibly the information capital of the world, we can't expect people to slow down on their use of computers and other electronics (which use a giant amount of electricity.
Other than oil, almost every other power source is insufficient. Wind turbines, solar panels, etc, are only cost-effective because they're subsidized. If that money ever goes away, so does the power from them. Hydro power is good, but we're somewhat lacking in a giant river in South Dakota. So, alternative energy really is in the hands of scientists. We can help by driving less, but electricity usage isn't going to go down any time soon.
Interesting fact: Grocery stores waste huge amounts of electricity (and millions of dollars) a year by operating open-air refrigerators 24-7. All because lazy people don't want to open a door to get their butter.
Carter, I've felt the same way about the freezers and refrigerators that are open. WTF?! Completely unnecessary.
When I've been in NM and AZ, I've seen very few lawns. Must have been in the wrong part of town. I love that country, but it would not be good for a fan of the color green.
I have seen the occasional golf course. The green tee boxes, fairways and "greens" really look bizarre. Aren't people able to conclude that an overly watered, brilliant green patch is really out of place in that geography and climate?
Wouldn't it be a good thing to run out of oil? Then we would be forced to try something that doesn't work.
Difficult missions take a long time to carry out.
Impossible missions take a little longer.
"Difficult missions take a long time to carry out.
Impossible missions take a little longer."
Stan gets the BF Bumpersticker of the Year Award!
Is that your copyright, man?
If not, I'm stealing it.
LOL.
Stan may be paraphrasing the Army Corps of Engineers from World War II... perhaps paraphrasing French finance minister Charles-Alexandre de Calonne to Marie Antoinette: "Madame, si c’est possible, c’est fait; impossible? cela sefera."
Thad, I think George W. Bush took a similar approach with the federal budget.
Even in the fracking process currently being done in the Baaken there are considerable amounts of oil left after pulling out what has been fracked. One must assume that future technological discoveries in oil extraction will someday go back into long shuttered wells and re-do them.
But like Einstein coming up with E=MC2
OK--finish first CBH-------------someone will come up with something totally never thought of before for energy production and we will all call him a genius. :)
Wiken has been pointing to thorium reactors for several years now. Seems like a great solution to the electricity challenge. And now Honda is coming out with a new car that gets over 100 mpg. The solutions are there, we just have to
kick some asses and get it done. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Time to bust the obstructionists chops. (you know who you are).
No Charlie. Not oil. Get over it, buddy. Not oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium
Bill the young scientists we are graduating today are feverishly working to prove me right and you wrong.
Agree to disagree buddy , or get out of our way. (Electrical generation though is the big dog on the block for manufacturing, home ownership, urban growth, etc. )
And don't start any whining or your delegated to the basement. Heh heh --that was too funny.
excerpt:
Some benefits of thorium fuel when compared with uranium were summarized as follows:[26]
Weapons-grade fissionable material (233U) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from a thorium reactor;
Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste;
The fissionable thorium cycle uses 100% of the isotope as coming out of the ground, which does not require enrichment, whereas the fissile uranium cycle depends on only the 0.7% fissile U-235 of the natural uranium. The same cycle could also use the fissionable U-238 component of the natural uranium, and also contained in the depleted reactor fuel;
Thorium cannot sustain a nuclear chain reaction without priming[27] so fission stops by default.
However, when used in a breeder-like reactor, unlike uranium-based breeder reactors, thorium requires irradiation and reprocessing before the above-noted advantages of thorium-232 can be realized, which makes thorium fuels initially more expensive than uranium fuels.[17] But experts note that "the second thorium reactor may activate a third thorium reactor. This could continue in a chain of reactors for a millennium if we so choose." They add that because of thorium's abundance, it will not be exhausted in 1,000 years.[28]
Charlie, I appreciate American know-how and faith in technology. I love Star Trek in large part because it embodies that boundless American optimism. But I also recognize the fallacy of assuming that we can do anything. I think it was Wendell Berry (you'd like him; he's a farmer, a philosopher, a poet, and a devout Christian) who warned us not to fall for the "technofix" fallacy. Warp drive may be impossible. The speed of light may be a cosmic speed limit, and we may never enjoy regular and easy travel to even the nearest stars. Likewise, all that oil that fracking leaves behind (along with all the brine and chemicals to poison your crops and kids) may not be gettable. The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us there is waste and spillage and friction that no amount of technical innovation can overcome. We cannot fix all broken things. To posit that we don't have to worry about clear and present problems because "someone will do something!" is utterly irresponsible.
Yes, we agree Charlie. Start with electricity. Make it cheap and abundant.
(Charlie's talking about a joke I posted on DWC about when Howie, Sibby, Ellis, Nelson and Randazzo go to the basement to make their videos. That's called a 'whine cellar. LOL.)
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/06/06/2013-honda-fit-ev-lands-new-epa-fuel-efficiency-record-118-mpge/