| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
27 Aug 2006 09:33:03 PM |
| Object: |
HOW MUCH LONGER? The End of the Oil Era Looms |
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,426728,00.html
August 24, 2006
HOW MUCH LONGER?
The End of the Oil Era Looms
By Alexander Jung
Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today.
The search for natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult and
prices are soaring. But future growth of the world economy depends on
these natural resources -- and some will soon disappear forever.
Five minutes before he was scheduled to speak, leading geologist Marion
King Hubbert was summoned to the phone. His employer was speaking,
someone from the headquarters of the Shell corporation.
He was urged not to present his forecast, Hubbert later revealed. But
the scientist with his little Clark-Gable-style beard stuck to his guns,
as he has often been known to do. When he appeared at the spring 1956
meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, he presented
exactly what he had prepared -- a theory as simple as its implications
are dramatic.
Hubbert claimed that the exploitation of oil resources always follows
the pattern of a bell curve: first it rises, then it flattens out, and
finally it declines -- irreversibly. According to his calculations, the
United States would soon reach the peak of the curve -- around about
1970, according to his estimate.
His prediction could hardly have been more accurate: In fact, it was in
1971 that the US's oil extraction reached its maximum level. Ever since
then, oil production in the US has declined.
Hubbert's curve was discovered exactly 50 years ago and is still
considered part of the basic knowledge of every geologist. The rise and
fall of the curve presents a scientifically precise description of
something everyone knows, just as everyone wants to deny it. Petroleum
is a finite resource. The supply shrinks every day, every hour, every
minute. Once the supply is used up, it's gone for good.
Other important energy sources -- natural gas, coal and uranium -- are
subject to the same relentless process. They are constantly consumed,
but never replaced.
The supply of metals and minerals isn't unlimited either, just as it
isn't replaceable. Iron ore doesn't reproduce itself, and neither does
gold -- none of these resources replace themselves. But how many people
really think about how unique these resources are?
Enormous quantities are consumed, processed or often simply burned up by
citizens and by industry. Every second, an average of about a thousand
barrels of oil turns into smoke across the world. The average German
consumes about 225 tons of coal in his life, along with 116 tons of
petroleum, 40 tons of steel, 1.1 tons of copper and 200 kilograms (440
pounds) of sulphur. It's clear this can't go on forever -- even though
it has already been going on for what seems like an eternity.
Human beings have made use of natural resources since prehistoric times.
They produce tools from iron and copper, heat their living quarters with
coal and natural waste, build houses from sand, plaster and stone. But
it was only industrialization that caused demand to increase
dramatically -- trade in metals, minerals and fuels became a global
business phenomenon. Humanity has consumed more resources since the end
of the Second World War than during its entire previous history.
Now China has entered the international market -- a country with an
unusually rich supply of natural resources. But it consumes even more
than it has, as the price changes of recent years reveal: gold now costs
almost twice as much as it did four years ago, and platinum is more
expensive than it has ever been. Even junk metal has now become a good
source of revenue.
Resources, of all things -- commodities that investors paid little
attention to not so long ago. The word "resources" evoked images of mine
workers, dust and sweat. It sounded like the 19th century --
economically irrelevant and anything but glamorous. Bits and bytes were
considered the modern resource -- immaterial and in abundant supply.
It's only since the "classic" resources have become so expensive that
people are becoming aware of their importance again. No computer chip
can be produced without silicon, no plastic product without petroleum,
no catalytic converter without platinum or palladium. Digital technology
and the information economy are both well and good -- but the economy
still fundamentally depends on steel and cement, and it's driven by oil,
gas and coal. But for how much longer?
The future of many industries depends on the answer to this question, as
does the development of the world economy itself. Rising prices are
usually an indicator that a commodity is growing scarce and that demand
for it is rising. So does the rise of resource prices mean that supplies
are running out? And if the answer is yes, then how much time remains
before the supply will run out?
If the predictions made by Dennis Meadows in his 1972 report for the
Club of Rome think tank had been correct, then humanity ought to have
reached the limits of growth by now. Meadows was a young scientist at
the time, not yet 30. He and his colleagues at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology fed a supercomputer with vast amounts of data.
The results shocked the world.
The resources contained in the earth's crust would soon be used up and
the scarcity of resources and foodstuffs would paralyze global economic
growth -- that was the conclusion the scientists arrived at, and it was
a bitter pill to swallow. An economy constantly oriented towards growth
was bound to collapse as a result of natural resource supplies being
exhausted, the scientists argued. Their report, published in book-form,
sold more than 10 million copies and was translated into 29 languages --
but the economic collapse they predicted never happened. Nonetheless,
there is an audience for apocalyptic predictions again. According to
American journalist James Howard Kunstler, a fierce struggle over
resources and foodstuffs will break out and the leading industrial
nations will whither away. Kunstler paints a panorama of horrors whose
dimensions are almost Malthusian, predicting that the entire world faces
a historical era of negative growth, unrest and conflict.
Then there are the notorious optimists. They claim that the world's
resources are still far from exhausted and that enormous reserves still
exist -- around the North Pole, for example. What's more, they argue,
industry has always succeeded in extracting more than expected thanks to
innovative methods.
The calculation presented by these optimists is simple. They divide the
quantity of known resources by the annual consumption of resources.
According to this calculation, conventional petroleum will last another
40 years. Natural gas will last for more than 60 years, and coal will
last for a full two centuries.
The figures sound reassuring. The only thing strange about them is that
they've hardly changed during the past 50 years.
The reason is that the calculation has more to do with economic logic
than with geology. When the price of gold rises, the extraction of
smaller or less easily accessed deposits becomes profitable. Resource
deposits that were previously ignored suddenly enter into the
calculation and the quantity of resources automatically rises.
There is another variable in the calculation: New technologies such as
those of multidimensional seismology, which allow for locating even
small pockets of petroleum or minor ore deposits, and changes in
consumer habits. For example, the demand for copper has declined
substantially in the field of transmission technology, since copper has
largely been replaced by fiber glass. Now the demand for quartz is
declining, because fiber glass technology is being displaced by
satellite technology. Such unpredictable influences strongly qualify the
validity of the consumption-supply relation; the formula is inadequate
as an instrument for predicting future developments.
And yet there are serious answers to the central question: "How much
longer?" They aren't easy or simple answers - they vary from one
resource to another -- and they are far from conclusive. How long a
resource will last isn't decided by fate. It depends on human action.
The most reliable predictions are those about petroleum supplies --
thanks to the discoveries of geologist Hubbert. The picture that is
emerging is worrying even to the sober-minded observers at Germany's
Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), which is
based in Hanover. "We're closer to the peak of resource extraction than
we would like," warns geologists Peter Gerling, an expert on fossil
fuels.
The so-called "depletion mid-point" will be reached within the next 10
to 20 years, according to Gerling's most recent study. The depletion
mid-point is the point at which half of the total quantity of petroleum
has been used up.
Gerling is confident the results of his research are accurate. "The
Earth has been explored in detail," he says, adding that the layer of
the planet's crust that contains its roughly 600 petroleum sediments is
known in some detail: "There won't be any major surprises." Gerling's
matter-of-fact statement has dramatic implications. Once the depletion
mid-point has been reached, the end of the petroleum age will begin.
From that point on, when global resource extraction reaches its maximum,
a physical supply gap opens up for the first time in history. From then
on, petroleum production declines, whereas demand is likely to continue
to rise. There's no return to yesterday's heights, and what's worse: The
peak is reached without warning.
Has Saudi Arabia Reached it's Production Peak?
A full 33 of the 48 largest petroleum-extracting nations have already
reached or passed the peak. They include Great Britain and Norway, since
the North Sea has seen its best days. During the past five years,
petroleum extraction has declined there by some 20 percent. Indonesia, a
member of OPEC, and Oman have fallen behind the production rates of
previous years as well.
There, the first signs have emerged of a decline in production even in
Kuwait. The state-run company Kuwait Oil is no longer able to deliver
the usual 2 million barrels a day in the Burgan oil field, the head of
the company recently announced. Burgan is the second-largest petroleum
deposit in the world; it contains more than half of all known petroleum
reserves in Kuwait. Petroleum extraction has gone on in Burgan for more
than 50 years. And it used to be known as a place where oil simply
flowed from the ground. Those days are over.
The world's largest petroleum deposit, the Ghawar oil field in Saudi
Arabia, has been in use for almost as long, since 1951; its daily
production rate is 5 million barrels. All giant oil fields (the
so-called "super giants") have been in use for between 40 and 60 years;
they are the source of about half of the world's oil production. They're
all approaching the point at which production declines, according to
Matthew Simmons, the head of a Texas-based bank that specializes in
energy projects.
Simmons has grave doubts about whether the Gulf states really dispose of
as many resources as they claim. But he hasn't been able to produce
conclusive evidence for his hypothesis. If many in the oil business
share his skepticism, that's because Saudi Arabia promotes speculation
about the extent of its reserves: Ever since the oil industry was
nationalized 25 years ago, the government has denied foreign inspectors
access to the oil fields.
The only thing that is certain is that Saudi Arabian production -- some
10 million barrels a day -- is currently close to capacity; there is
little or no room for expansion. This means that the kingdom is no
longer capable of regulating prices. It can stop supplying oil, but it
can't supply more -- at least not in the short term.
Saudi Arabia would have to double its production by 2025 in order to
satisfy expected demand. Even the former production chief of the
state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, Sadad al-Husseini, recently
declared this goal to be unrealistic. "The expectations are beyond what
is achievable," he told the New York Times in 2005.
Significant worldwide deposits of natural resources
Regardless of whether he's right or not, what is certain is that it is
becoming more and more difficult, on a global level, to discover new
sources of oil. For years now, oil consumption has exceeded the
discovery of new oil sources. The last major oil field was discovered in
2000, in the Caspian Sea. Most new discoveries are minor, and the search
for them now takes place in increasingly out-of-the-way regions such as
the Arctic and the deep sea.
"Exploration isn't just becoming more expensive," says Andrew Latham of
the Edinburgh oil consulting firm Wood MacKenzie. "It's also become more
difficult to achieve success, since the easily accessed oil fields have
already been discovered."
Latham points out that oil extraction is becoming more difficult even in
the Arab region. Sometimes oil companies have to resort to tricks. They
inject water or steam into the ground so that pressure levels don't
decline. Without such measures, many an oil source in the Middle East
would already have been used up.
Dramatic changes are no doubt ahead for consumers and for the oil
industry; corporations are already openly admitting as much. For years
now, "BP" has officially been short for "Beyond Petroleum." Chevron's
new advertising slogan announces that "the era of easy oil is over." And
even Exxon's oil barons, normally known for their brash attitude, now
reply that there are "no simple answers" when they are asked about
future energy supplies.
Natural gas is sure to be one of the answers. The volatile substance is
becoming increasingly important in the mix of energy sources. Exxon's
new chief executive, Rex Tillerson, describes natural gas as
"economically and ecologically attractive." Only 18 percent of the
suspected overall supply has been tapped. As with oil, the largest
reserves lie in areas with a varying degree of political instability: in
Russia, Iran and Qatar. The three states dispose of 56 percent of the
world's supply -- probably enough to last for several decades.
Though physical scarcity is not to be expected, political factors could
certainly lead to a bottleneck. Russia recently demonstrated how acute
that problem could become when it used natural gas as a weapon in its
dispute over gas prices with Ukraine.
Such actions are all the more disconcerting to states that import
natural gas, such as Germany, to the extent that their own natural gas
reserves are dwindling. Roughly a fifth of the methanol consumed in
Germany still comes from within the national territory, but as
consumption rises, these supplies will be used up. And while the
extraction curve for oil is a bell curve, the one for natural gas ends
much more abruptly.
There is more leeway with coal, the most abundant fossil fuel. Coal
supplies are more dispersed than oil or natural gas reserves. Large
supplies can be found in the US, Russia, China and Australia. Scientists
are certain that the supplies of black coal and brown coal (which
provides less energy) could last for at least 100 years.
On the other hand, the consumption rate of uranium, the fourth of the
great energy resources, has been almost twice as high as the extraction
rate for several years. Electricity suppliers can still make use of back
supplies in order to close the gap; in some cases, they also resort to
uranium that has been reprocessed or taken from warheads left from the
Cold War. But these reserves are dwindling faster than expected as a
result of nuclear energy's return to popularity. China alone wants to
build 25 to 30 new nuclear energy plants by 2020.
That's why firms that specialize in searching for energy resources are
focusing on finding new reserves of "yellow cake," as uranium (which has
a golden color) is also called. Years can go by before a new uranium
mine goes into operation. The extraction costs will probably be much
higher in the future; until now, production was limited to a few sites
in Australia, Kazakhstan and Canada.
So it's relatively half-way clear how long supplies of oil, gas, coal
and uranium -- the four raw materials of the energy industry -- will
last. Metals and minerals are another story. They seem to be available
in virtually endless supply.
Precious Metals at precious prices
No one who has looked inside the crater that machines have cut inside
the earth's crust on the elevated plateau of northern Chile's Atacama
Desert will be concerned about the supply of metals and minerals running
out. The crater is three kilometers (1.86 miles) wide and almost 500
meters (1,640 feet) deep. It gets larger every day -- just as the
company at work there, BHP Billiton, gets richer.
The copper mine at the edge of the Andes, where rain never falls, is
called Escondida, the "Hidden One." The reason for the name is that
geologists only discovered the reserves buried there by accident in
1979.
Today, Escondida is the world's largest copper mine -- it supplies 8
percent of global copper demand. The bucket excavators work their way
through solid rock with buckets as large as bungalows, loading raw ore
onto giant trucks (each of them can carry more than 200 tons).
The corporation extracted some 1.2 million tons of copper here last
year, and this year's extraction rate is likely to be similar. In order
to achieve such output, BHP has invested more than $400 million in
Escondida Norte, a new giant excavation area five kilometers (3 miles)
further north that should ensure a plentiful supply for decades to come.
"There's no scarcity when it comes to metals," says Markus Wagner, BGR's
expert on metallic raw materials. "We're still a long way from
discovering all the reserves in the world."
Vast regions haven't been explored yet, including the entire continent
of Antarctica. And unlike oil, with its Hubbert curve, the reserves of
iron, nickel, silver and copper are so large that the overall quantity
cannot be estimated even approximately.
And yet there is a bottleneck even here. It only came about during the
past few years, and it has serious consequences for consumers. A handful
of mining corporations now dominates the entire world market. They are
dividing up the Earth between themselves and fixing the conditions of
trade.
The mightiest iron producers -- Brazil's Companhia Vale do Rio Doce and
the Anglo-Australian corporations BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto -- raised
the price of copper by between 70 and 90 percent this past spring. They
are only able to do this because these three corporations control about
three-fourths of the world's supply of iron ore. This oligopoly makes
even steel giants like Mittal Steel and Acelor look like dwarves. The
market power of the ore suppliers is "virtually crushing," analysts from
Dresdner Bank have noted.
In the gold business, things have changed especially radically and in a
short time. Canadian businessman Peter Munk, who was born in Hungary and
is now 78, first founded the mining company Barrick in 1983. He reports
with some amusement that the company's management consisted of a
"handful of hicks" back then.
Since then, Munk has been following quite an ambitious strategy; he's
been buying up one company after the other across the globe. Recently he
even bought up his old rival Placer Dome for more than $10 billion. In
this way, Munk has catapulted himself to the top of the gold trade in
little more than two decades.
The mining corporations are becoming more and more powerful, and they're
organizing their business with increasing efficiency. A mine now works
like a giant logistics company. Giant trucks are directed to the bucket
excavators by computer. If a bucket gets stuck, the next trucks are
immediately directed to the next excavation site. The trucks, which can
cost up to $2 million, mustn't ever stand around idly. Even when the
trucks are refueled, their engines keep running. One truck consumes
about 10,000 liters (2,642 gallons) of fuel a day.
For such an operation to be profitable, mining companies need to invest
almost exclusively in large sites. The resources have to be easily
accessible and the ground has to contain significantly above-average
quantities of ore. In the case of copper, for example, daily extraction
only makes sense when a ton of ore contains more than five kilograms (11
lbs.) of copper. And a ton of ore needs to contain at least two grams
(0.07 ounces) of gold.
Such abundant supplies can only be found in a few regions of the world,
and excavation is focused on the so-called "three A's": Australia,
Africa and, more recently, the Andes. For example, some 30 percent of
the world's known copper reserves are in Chile, and about half of all
iron ore comes from Brazil. Developed industrial nations are hardly
extracting anything at this point: The last iron ore site in Germany was
shut down in 1995.
The market for precious metals is even more narrow. Niobium is an
especially heat-resistant metal -- its melting point is 2,468 degrees
Celsius (4,474 degrees Fahrenheit). It's an alloy used in pipelines and
turbines; about 75 percent of the niobium supply comes from a single
Brazilian mine called Araxá. Platinum is another example: 98 percent of
global production takes place at four sites; the South African Bushveld
complex alone supplies 66 percent of global demand.
The entire world is dependent on a handful of mining corporations. In
the past, when the prices of raw materials were low, these corporations
made little effort to expand their capacity. They didn't invest in new
extraction technologies, refineries or pipelines. Now they can hardly
keep up with demand.
In the meantime, reserve supplies in the storage facilities of the
London Metal Exchange have shrunk considerably. The prices for ships
that can transport ore have risen drastically, and even the special
trucks used are in short supply. David Hottman, the CEO of the small
mining company Nevada Pacific Gold, paid about $110,000 for one of the
trucks in early 2005. "Today I could sell it for $200,000," he says.
How much effort mining corporations put into the search for new reserves
is ultimately a question of prices. The South African mines are only
profitable when the price of gold is as high as it is now (about $600
per ounce): Some of the mining shafts are a full 4,000 meters (2.5
miles) deep. At the bottom of the shafts, ore is extracted in
temperatures as high as 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The average extraction cost is $350 per ounce of gold.
That's why large mines are not immediately abandoned even when they
don't make their owners a profit. Instead, production is reduced until
prices rise and extraction becomes profitable again.
Such mechanisms are characteristic of how things work in the world of
raw materials. When copper, coal or crude oil become cheaper, the
producers curb production until the quantities available on the market
are so low that prices begin to rise again. The producers wait and then
raise their capacity again. The supply expands, until it exceeds demand
again -- and the cycle begins over again. It's a cycle that can last
years, sometimes even decades.
When the raw material becomes scarce and too expensive, consumers and
corporations know how to help themselves. Home-owners acquire wood
stoves in order to be a little less dependent on oil and natural gas.
Industrialists begin using palladium instead of platinum when producing
catalytic converters or fuel cells.
At the same time, new materials are put to use -- materials which
displace traditional raw materials. The fuselage of the new Boeing 787
airplane is no longer produced from aluminum, but from carbon fiber
composite and fiber glass.
Most importantly, the recycling of precious metals becomes more
important when prices rise. In the cases of iron, steel, copper,
aluminum and zinc, a regular recycling economy has developed. In
Germany, almost half the steel is already produced from secondary raw
materials and junk. Some 240 of the average 535 kilograms (529 of 1,179
pounds) of steel that go into a car are already obtained through
recycling.
That's good for the environment and saves energy. It saves money too:
The production costs are lower than when steel is produced directly from
ore. Eighty percent of the copper that has been extracted until today is
still in use.
Fossil fuels, unfortunately, will never benefit from recycling. And they
are being burned up as quickly as ever. However, following the oil
shocks of the 1970s, oil corporations and countries that import oil have
made great efforts to at least slow the depletion of oil reserves.
Influential US oil expert Daniel Yergin believes that vast amounts can
still be extracted from the ground. His strategy: "Technology is the
key."
To see those technologies in action one need only visit Shell's research
center in Rijswijk, The Netherlands. There, engineers and geophysicists
gather in a darkened room in order to watch how the exploration of the
deep sea is proceeding 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles) away, in the Gulf
of Mexico. Seismographic and electromagnetic data about the ocean floor
is converted to three-dimensional images on a screen in front of the
scientists. In this way, they're able to direct ocean drills through
salt domes and layers of granite with precision.
The simulation of extraction work on "digital oil fields" is only one
example of the remarkable progress that oil and gas corporations have
made. Remote-controlled drills equipped with sensors are driven through
kilometers of sand and rock; during the drilling itself, the porosity,
temperature and solidity of the rock is analyzed. Corporations pump
water, steam, chemicals and even microbes into oil fields -- using
techniques that enable them to extract even the last liters of oil from
sites that would previously have been considered used up. Or they use
high-pressure technology to force liquids into the depths, creating
cracks (so-called "fracs") in the rock. In this way, natural gas
contained in closed pockets can escape and stream towards the drill
hole.
Such sophisticated techniques dramatically raise the costs of resource
exploration. Billions are invested when consortiums build platforms
2,000 meters (1.2 miles) above the ocean floor. From these platforms,
engineers direct countless little satellite pumps below; the curved
drills of these pumps snake through the earth's crust like spaghetti.
Thanks to such technology, it's now possible to extract not just 20
percent of the oil in an oil field, but between 35 and 40 percent, in
some cases more.
BP CEO Lord Browne recounts that when he was still responsible for the
North Sea oil field "Forties" 25 years ago, the expectation was that no
more oil would be available there by the mid-1990s, when 45 percent of
the oil would have been extracted. Now more than 60 percent has been
extracted, and the oil field is still in use. According to Browne, "the
history of the North Sea reflects the overall development of the oil
industry."
Nevertheless, the end is in sight. After oil extraction in the region
peaked in 2000, exploration costs in the North Sea rose by almost half.
The drilling sites will never extract the quantities they used to.
The Canadian province of Alberta, on the other hand, still has its best
years ahead of it. Enormous amounts of oil have been found there, mixed
with sand, clay and bitumen. The discovery of oil sands could prolong
the pre-peak era for years, some believe. All major oil corporations
have a presence in Alberta; even the Chinese are there.
The dramatic rise in oil prices has finally made extraction of oil from
the sticky mixture economically viable. First the bitumen has to be
separated out; then it is liquified with condensate so that it can be
transported through the pipelines; and finally it is converted to light
oil -- a complicated process that requires enormous quantities of water
and energy. In the end, two tons of sand yield a barrel of oil.
Now doubts are being raised as to whether the potential of Canada's oil
sands is really as great as many think. And given that no other industry
emits as much carbon dioxide as extracting oil from oil sands, popular
resistance is growing.
That's why the world's hopes are ultimately pinned to renewable energy
sources -- biomass (organic materials from gall to hay that can be
converted into synthetic fuels), water power (which already plays the
most significant role in the production of renewable energy) and
geothermal energy (the use of the vast heat reserves at the Earth's
core). Presently, these are merely potential alternatives. And they will
probably continue to represent a mere potential for as long as consumers
choose fossil fuels.
High prices for raw materials aren't always indicators of physical
scarcity. Metals and minerals will probably be abundantly available for
several generations. And although regional dependence is increasing,
there is no shortage of coal and natural gas yet either. It's only with
regard to crude oil that things look different: The era of abundance
could soon end.
Maybe it will really take as long as a generation until worldwide
extraction peaks, as oil corporations insist. Or maybe the geologists at
the Hanover-based BGR are right when they speak of 10 to 20 years. Or
perhaps humanity has almost reached the point where we reach the
plateau, as the skeptics warn. Of course, they have been saying this for
years.
But regardless of who is right, crude oil will soon no longer be able to
play the central role in the global energy mix that it plays today. BGR
scientist Gerling says there are no doubts about that.
"We should have started taking this into account a long time ago," he
says regretfully.
/end
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: HOW MUCH LONGER? The End of the Oil Era Looms |
27 Aug 2006 09:45:24 PM |
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On Sun, 27 Aug 2006 19:33:03 -0700, stoney wrote:
Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today.
Yah but copper, boy that's where the money is right now...
--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
"As hip as it is for outsiders to blame New Orleans
for everything bad that happened during and after
Hurricane Katrina, the truth is that the people
who lived here were much more prepared for a big
storm than the federal government that promised
us flood protection." [Jarvis DeBerry]
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V180525DC
"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com
.
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: HOW MUCH LONGER? The End of the Oil Era Looms |
27 Aug 2006 10:09:51 PM |
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stoney wrote:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,426728,00.html
August 24, 2006
HOW MUCH LONGER?
The End of the Oil Era Looms
By Alexander Jung
Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today.
The search for natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult and
prices are soaring. But future growth of the world economy depends on
these natural resources -- and some will soon disappear forever.
Five minutes before he was scheduled to speak, leading geologist Marion
King Hubbert was summoned to the phone. His employer was speaking,
someone from the headquarters of the Shell corporation.
He was urged not to present his forecast, Hubbert later revealed. But
the scientist with his little Clark-Gable-style beard stuck to his guns,
as he has often been known to do. When he appeared at the spring 1956
meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, he presented
exactly what he had prepared -- a theory as simple as its implications
are dramatic.
The realists, often called "doomsayers", are criticized for
pointing out the inevitable. Nobody listens or will listen
until it's too late, and then they'll blame the "doomsayers"
again for not speaking loudly enough.
It's the same old song and dance: the only people responsible
are going to be the ones who didn't cause the problem.
<looooong snip>
Maybe it will really take as long as a generation until worldwide
extraction peaks, as oil corporations insist. Or maybe the geologists at
the Hanover-based BGR are right when they speak of 10 to 20 years. Or
perhaps humanity has almost reached the point where we reach the
plateau, as the skeptics warn. Of course, they have been saying this for
years.
But regardless of who is right, crude oil will soon no longer be able to
play the central role in the global energy mix that it plays today. BGR
scientist Gerling says there are no doubts about that.
"We should have started taking this into account a long time ago," he
says regretfully.
As I've said before, *if* we're still around in 100 years, we'll
be riding bicycles and trains, and the roads will be made of
concrete, and that's only if we stop driving cars now and start
controlling the population.
If we don't, we'll either nuke each other fighting for resources,
or we'll look like beggars living in junkyards and all science
and technology falling into disuse. Then again, that might be
okay *if* the air isn't polluted beyond hope.
Infinite growth is only possible with an infinite Earth, or with
religious crap in your head.
"What difference does it make if we destroy the earth?
Jesus is coming soon."
- James Watt, secretary for the *environment*
under Ronald "McDonald" Reagan.
Bob Dog
Atheist #153 = 1^3 + 5^3 + 3^3
EAC's chief cook and brainwasher
-----
"Our religion is Christ, our politics Fatherland!"
- Hans Schemm, Bavarian Minister
of Education and Culture (1930s)
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a
bit longer."
- Henry Kissinger
"Professor Telhami's accurate depiction of America's non-
credibility in the Muslim world encapsulates the consequences
of a half century of U.S. Middle Eastern policy that moved
America from being the much admired champion of liberty and
self-government to the hated and feared advocate of a new
imperial order, one that has much the same characteristics as
nineteenth-century European imperialism: military garrisons;
economic penetration and control; support for leaders, no
matter how brutal and undemocratic, as long as they obey the
imperial power; and the exploitation and depletion of natural
resources."
- Anonymous, "Imperial Hubris" (2004)
.
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: HOW MUCH LONGER? The End of the Oil Era Looms |
31 Aug 2006 02:07:47 PM |
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On 27 Aug 2006 20:09:51 -0700, wrote in alt.atheism
stoney wrote:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,426728,00.html
August 24, 2006
HOW MUCH LONGER?
The End of the Oil Era Looms
By Alexander Jung
Oil, uranium, gold and platinum are more sought after than ever today.
The search for natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult and
prices are soaring. But future growth of the world economy depends on
these natural resources -- and some will soon disappear forever.
Five minutes before he was scheduled to speak, leading geologist Marion
King Hubbert was summoned to the phone. His employer was speaking,
someone from the headquarters of the Shell corporation.
He was urged not to present his forecast, Hubbert later revealed. But
the scientist with his little Clark-Gable-style beard stuck to his guns,
as he has often been known to do. When he appeared at the spring 1956
meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, he presented
exactly what he had prepared -- a theory as simple as its implications
are dramatic.
The realists, often called "doomsayers", are criticized for
pointing out the inevitable. Nobody listens or will listen
until it's too late, and then they'll blame the "doomsayers"
again for not speaking loudly enough.
It's the same old song and dance: the only people responsible
are going to be the ones who didn't cause the problem.
That's always the case, I'm sorry to say.
<looooong snip>
Maybe it will really take as long as a generation until worldwide
extraction peaks, as oil corporations insist. Or maybe the geologists at
the Hanover-based BGR are right when they speak of 10 to 20 years. Or
perhaps humanity has almost reached the point where we reach the
plateau, as the skeptics warn. Of course, they have been saying this for
years.
But regardless of who is right, crude oil will soon no longer be able to
play the central role in the global energy mix that it plays today. BGR
scientist Gerling says there are no doubts about that.
"We should have started taking this into account a long time ago," he
says regretfully.
As I've said before, *if* we're still around in 100 years, we'll
be riding bicycles and trains, and the roads will be made of
concrete, and that's only if we stop driving cars now and start
controlling the population.
Eternal warfare.
If we don't, we'll either nuke each other fighting for resources,
or we'll look like beggars living in junkyards and all science
and technology falling into disuse. Then again, that might be
okay *if* the air isn't polluted beyond hope.
Infinite growth is only possible with an infinite Earth, or with
religious crap in your head.
"What difference does it make if we destroy the earth?
Jesus is coming soon."
- James Watt, secretary for the *environment*
under Ronald "McDonald" Reagan.
"Our religion is Christ, our politics Fatherland!"
- Hans Schemm, Bavarian Minister
of Education and Culture (1930s)
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a
bit longer."
- Henry Kissinger
"Professor Telhami's accurate depiction of America's non-
credibility in the Muslim world encapsulates the consequences
of a half century of U.S. Middle Eastern policy that moved
America from being the much admired champion of liberty and
self-government to the hated and feared advocate of a new
imperial order, one that has much the same characteristics as
nineteenth-century European imperialism: military garrisons;
economic penetration and control; support for leaders, no
matter how brutal and undemocratic, as long as they obey the
imperial power; and the exploitation and depletion of natural
resources."
- Anonymous, "Imperial Hubris" (2004)
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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