[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell $30 a barrel is about half of what we have been paying over the past few months and typical of what we have been paying for at least the last 2 years or more. The economy has been improving the entire time during this time so I would have to say - not much really.

[oilmangonegreen]

Why has everyone suddenly started thinking in terms of dollars? All I was trying to say is that there is no point in exploiting tar sands/shales (or anything else) if the energy required for extraction is equal to or more than the energy obtained by extraction. And it doesn't matter whether the energy required for extraction is from oil, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, whatever. It's mad to continue if energy input > energy output ... we'd be better off using that energy directly for other purposes. Whether the value of oil is 10 dollars/barrel (sorry, no dollar sign on my Norwegian computer) or 100 dollars/barrel is irrelevant. But then, I'm an engineer, not an economist.

[ashurbanipal]

No, there are reasons why we might, on a modest scale, wish to continue to extract oil or some analagous resource even if it's a net energy loser. For instance, if by some miracle our agricultural system holds up over the next 2 decades, and we still have a need to ship produce thousands of miles to market, we might sink quite a lot of energy into getting the oil necessary to run the trucks/trains/whatever to do that, even if we lose energy. Now, we wouldn't do this if we could use whatever energy source we used to get oil to transport food. But if we can't, then we would be harvesting shale oil and happily.

But will we try to power all industry with it? Hardly. Dollars are important under both scenarios.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oilmangonegreen', 'W')hy has everyone suddenly started thinking in terms of dollars? All I was trying to say is that there is no point in exploiting tar sands/shales (or anything else) if the energy required for extraction is equal to or more than the energy obtained by extraction. And it doesn't matter whether the energy required for extraction is from oil, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, whatever. It's mad to continue if energy input > energy output ... we'd be better off using that energy directly for other purposes. Whether the value of oil is 10 dollars/barrel (sorry, no dollar sign on my Norwegian computer) or 100 dollars/barrel is irrelevant. But then, I'm an engineer, not an economist.

[Flow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('oilmangonegreen', 'W')hy has everyone suddenly started thinking in terms of dollars? All I was trying to say is that there is no point in exploiting tar sands/shales (or anything else) if the energy required for extraction is equal to or more than the energy obtained by extraction. And it doesn't matter whether the energy required for extraction is from oil, gas, nuclear, wind, solar, whatever. It's mad to continue if energy input > energy output ... we'd be better off using that energy directly for other purposes. Whether the value of oil is 10 dollars/barrel (sorry, no dollar sign on my Norwegian computer) or 100 dollars/barrel is irrelevant. But then, I'm an engineer, not an economist.