But, but, but…9/11!

Hey Hugh, if you insist on hitting yourself in the face really hard, let us help you.

No fair! The facts have a well known liberal bias!

I keep seeing ads for “Hugh News” at Balloon Juice*. It’s no news that Hugh is an idiot.

*Another ad constantly showing up announces that Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser promises to teach us what “going John Galt” means in the blogosphere. I’m sure it’ll be the funniest thing since Airplane…

Everyone, including (especially) those of us in the oil industry, know that there is no way that expanded drilling can have any impact on oil prices for a decade or more. US production has been declining since 1970 and is on an irreversible downward trend. If we were to drill everywhere there is a chance of finding oil in the US and all the wells came in, it might make a minimal change in the rate of decline.

What your graph indicates is the dominance of demand on the price of oil. Last spring, oil production approached or hit the maximum possible rate. (i.e., Peak Oil.) Since there was no elasticity in supply (i.e., OPEC could not “open the tap,” even if they had wanted to), there was an uncontained rollup in pricing.

This, in combination with the home financing crisis, triggered a global recession (even if it is not an “official” one.) Demand dropped rapidly and prices followed.

This graph clearly shows the way to keep prices down – REDUCE DEMAND! I think (hope) President Obama is wise enough to realize this and concentrate on growing new industries dedicated to improving our efficiency and use of energy, while growing the economy.

“Drill, baby drill!!” is a formula for catastrophe.

Shorter Entire Rightwing from now until we die: George W. Who?

I don’t really grasp the logic of how a new discovery in Brazil (the famed pre-sal) means that we should drill more here. Then again, I’m not a GOP blowhard.

here’s the site for the latest baker-hughes US Rig Count .. if you’ll note .. the oil boyz are drillin’ for natural gas .. out of 1992 active rigs .. only a bit over 400 are drillin’ for oil .. the rest are drillin’ for natural gas ..

i don’t know how to do a hyperlink on this site .. but here’s the URL:

http://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/

Which, as someone who grew up in the Oklahoma oil fields, everybody in the business knew since the mid-70s. My father was an engineer for an oil company and spent the late 70s and 80s working on alternative sources.

Maybe earlier than that. Back in the late Sixties I befriended some roughnecks in Alice, Texas, by way of shared enthusiasm for drinking too much and fist fighting. They told me that oil was becoming played out and that the smart money was on natural gas.

I’m honing up on my full throated belly laugh to direct at every and all right wing toolbag that thinks I won’t have the Bush record to throw back in their face at every waking moment.

Looking forward to abject ridicule.

-G

It’s this kind of thing that somewhat dissuades me from moving back home to Alberta. Knowing the US oil biddness, the chances of the sons of bitches forcing an assault on Fort McMurray scare me to death.

Eh.

This is a common misconception about oil & gas supplies. The current proven reserves (an economic term for the forecast of how many years’ supply we have) for oil and natural gas are roughly the same at about 35 years.

[This is a perpetual number, meaning that next year it’ll be about 35 years, too. This will be true until they stop finding viable oil/gas wells.]

If we up our use of natural gas, though, and reduce our use of oil, the proven reserves of natural gas will decrease dramatically. I think my own math worked out to be about 15 years’ difference. That essentially means that we’ll run out natural gas a lot faster, and would have to go back to using oil anyway.

Natural gas is cleaner and extraction is a little less horrible for the environment, but it’s still a fossil fuel. We have limited supplies of it, no matter what those oil company commercials tell you.

-Your friendly neighborhood chemical engineer.

Oops, dropped the response line the first time. See my post @ 13.

Another possible factor in the drop in price(short term, to be sure), is that the credit crunch has reduced the amount of capital available for speculation. I saw some congressional testimony on C-Span(don’t remember which commitee)which said that 20-30% of the oil price was due to speculation. That seems pretty reasonable, given that the drop in price has coincided with the reduction of available credit. Just sayin’.

Selah.

The game I want to play is what the cost of a kWh is for electricity generated by solar, wind, or other non-polluting source, now vs. 2012/2016.

Today, industrial-sized solar electricity costs roughly 21.35 cents/kWh, compared to 9.44 cents for conventionally generated electricity on average. If we see the solar number drop by 40% by the 2016 (relatively speaking, adjusted for inflation, etc.), then I say Obama wins, and the cost of oil will matter a lot less (once we all have those panels on our roofs, you know).

Cheers, and hopes for a speedy TBogg recovery.