[meteorite-list] OT -Oil reserves, the reality

From: Count Deiro <countdeiro_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 17:17:09 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
Message-ID: <20532096.1302308229743.JavaMail.root_at_elwamui-huard.atl.sa.earthlink.net>

As was famously said...Far be it of me to argue with a PHD.
I thank you again, David, for the "little green visitor". It occupies a place of honor in my cabinet.
Regards,
Guido


-----Original Message-----
>From: "David R. Vann" <drvann at sas.upenn.edu>
>Sent: Apr 8, 2011 11:16 AM
>To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>Subject: [meteorite-list] OT -Oil reserves, the reality
>
>
>Thought maybe it was time to change the thread title, and maybe stop this
>non-meteorite thread. In truth, I am responding to correct some factually
>inaccurate statements.
>
>Guido, I respectfully suggest that you investigate the facts before you make
>statements like "We are played for fools by the career politicians in Washington
>who pander to the environmentalists and prevent us from tapping our own reserves
>which are larger and easier to obtain than all the oil in the Middle East.
>That's why we object to increased pump prices."
>
>Politicians are not pandering to environmentalists, they are pandering to
>businesses, I think the events of the last thirty years speak very strongly to
>this; attacks on the Clean Air and Clean water acts, the Great Recession, the
>Savings and Loan disaster, the Energy trading frauds, etc. (I can go on for
>quite a while here, but is not the forum).
>Environmentalists have very little influence on the price of oil, if any.
>Rather, market forces determine this entirely. Examples: in the late '70's oil
>did not skyrocket because of environmentalists, it did so because OPEC was
>flexing its newfound muscle. Oil prices did not jump prior to the Great
>Recession because of environmentalists; it jumped because of speculators and
>because the oil refiners underestimated demand by China and India, resulting in
>inadequte production capacity (there was plenty of crude oil). The cost of oil
>is related to the cost of drilling; I could, again, go on, but this isn't really
>the forum. Suffice it to say, the price of oil is driven by market factors that
>are *not* related to supply, as the supply can be (and frequently is) increased
>to meet demand.
>
>So, environmentalists atempting to reduce drilling are not affecting the price,
>regardless of how one wants to view it. Most recently, the state of Florida,
>under a Republican govorner, decided to limit in-shore drilling to protect the
>states' fishing and tourist industries. They were deemed more valuable (to the
>state) than the short-term gains from onshore drilling - an economic argument,
>not an environmental one.
>
>Our oil prices are lower because we consume so much, getting a discount, and
>because we subsidize the oil companies with tax dollars. Government subsidies
>for profitable companies are not defensible, yet they keep getting them, because
>the politicians are pandering to the industries paying for their reelection.
>
>
>The final inaccuracy, " tapping our own reserves which are larger and easier to
>obtain than all the oil in the Middle East" is the most egregious. This is
>simply wrong. The proven resources in the US are about 22 billion barrels of
>oil; Saudi arabia *alone* has an estimated 270 billion barrels. Although that
>number has been questioned as possibly politically motivated, it is not
>overestmated by a factor of ten. If we take the 1968 numbers (before OPEC), they
>had something like 170 billion barrels, still fabulously more than our reserves.
>
>Our remaining reserves are not easier to obtain (discounting the politcal issues
>related to dealing with the Middle East), as they are increasingly deep water
>reserves (whose difficulty was amply demonstrated last summer) or in shales,
>which are environmentally destructive and energetically and mechanically
>difficult to extract; in fact, to date, there has been no economically viable
>method to extract these (but we will, when gas is expensive enough). The oil
>companies are going for the easy fruit first, as it is the most profitable.
>
>
>Sorry, but I have a difficult time letting false information get distributed -
>much like the NYT article. Plenty of others responded to that, so I'm responding
>to this one. The fact is, the Middle East holds more than one-half of the total
>reserves in the world. North America, including the shale sands in Canada holds
>maybe 16%. The largest reserves are in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and the former
>USSR.
>
>We consume about 6.6 billion barrels per year, so we have about 3 or 4 years, if
>we drilled everything (that we 'own').
>
>The world average consumption rate vs the reserves indicates that we have about
>50-60 years left (at current consumption rates, which are increasing
>substantially each year).
>
>So, to recap this too long message:
>
>Oil prices reflect market forces, not environmentalist obstruction.
>The US does not have more oil, easily obtained or not, than the Middle East.
>
>We complain about high oil prices, not because of politicians, but because it
>means we have fewer dollars left to buy meteorites.
>(that puts it back on topic. Sort of.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>David R. Vann, Ph.D.
>Department of Earth and Environmental Science
>THE UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
>240 S. 33rd St.
>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316
>drvann at sas.upenn.edu
>office: 215-898-4906
>FAX: 215-898-0964
>
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Received on Fri 08 Apr 2011 08:17:09 PM PDT