[VMarcHart]

Welcome to the site, Johny.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Johny_Bloggsy', 'I') believe oil reserves will last for a very long time.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'H')ow close-minded is that?

[Duende]

thuja wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ho wants to feed him the red pill?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'W')hat about the technology fairy would you like people to be open-minded toward?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', ' ')In the meantime, me thinks, the open-minded person is the one that can seize opportunities.

[VMarcHart]

Hi, Ludi.

I'm not putting too much stock on technology, but open-minded to other stuff. Don't ask me what, I don't even know myself. I'm just "obsessed about a solution", as labeled.

I think, though, I ought to listen to other people, whether dumb, educated, smart, aware, unaware, etc. I don't know when or from who the next good idea will come. Food for thought.

[Ludi]

So yours was more a general comment about your own approach, being open-minded, rather than a criticism of a specific other person being closed minded.

Thanks for clarifying.

[TheDude]

Johny - last year we only sold 17 million cars in the US, estimates for 2008 are ca. 14 million and could go lower - and that's without fuel shortages or drastic economic downturns. We have about 135 million commuters in the US - ca. 95 million still drive solo. The initial run for the Volt is 10k in 2010 - same year Nissan were planning to market hundreds (sic) of its PHEV, last I heard. By that point imports of oil from Mexico will have dropped at least 600k barrels per day, and quite possibly much higher. Profits from sale of crude is 60% of Mexican government revenue; you can see where this could lead. The potential for domestic instability there is quite high, there have been provincial rebellions in recent years - you heard about guerillas bombing gas pipelines in the South, perhaps.

All of this aside from the shortfall in US oil imports in the first place. The demand for those electric cars will be so out of control they will only be available to six figure income households, I'd warrant.

Two years ago I'd tell people oil would rise past $100/barrel, or gasoline past $3/gallon, and they'd think I was wholly crackers. You hear the same sorts of stories all over the place, and no one who has given the matter any serious thought thinks electric cars are going to ride into town to save the day anytime soon.

[Hartmann]

Electric car the final solution ?? yes of course,

you only need a lot of nuclear plants, a very good grid of electrical power distribution to plug millions of cars at the same time, and copper, ( copper prices are very high...perhaps another peak).

And the old cars have to be scrapped, melted and recicled, and it requires energy, and the new cars builded, more energy again.
and you need plastics ....


But don´t worry , politicians say that the situation is always good and you can life without any worry about the future, you only have to buy things in the market until it run out off all.

[Micki]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')aybe I'm not sure what you mean by "open-minded" in this context. You already seem to have made up your mind that we won't be "saved by technology," so what exactly are you open-minded about compared to someone else who has made up his mind that we won't be "saved by technology"? Or do you just like to fancy yourself open-minded when you've actually already made up your mind?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Micki', 'I') heard some rep. for Exxon state if we can make technical improvement extracting just another 10% out of each well, we'll be OK.

[ROCKMAN]

Micki,

I've been a petroleum geologist for over 30 years and spent much of that time working on enhanced extraction. The Exxon rep's comment is the same as saying "if frogs hand wings they wouldn't bump their butts". A 10% increase in recovery fact is HUGE.

More importantly, however much additional recover is gained, all enhanced methods (except one) do much slower than the virgin flow rates.....commonly at a rate 90% or slower than originally. The one exception is horizontal drilling. In some circumstances a new horz well might flow more oil then an original completion. But as a result they'll deplete even faster than the original wells.

But don't misunderstand: enhanced recovery methods these days can be tremedously profitable. Exxon has announced they are cutting back on international exploration and going to hit their old producing fields harder. They will make a lot of profit but not add substantially to the total oil flow in the world.

[ROCKMAN]

Hartman,

You hit the nail on the head. WhenI chat with folks about PO most don't seem to have a problem with the general concept. But when it comes to "solutions" they have no sense of the scales involved. Recently in Houston there has been a buzz about trying to use the commercial rail lines for commuter traffic. Seems like half the population lives 25 miles or so from downtown.

They loose their wide eyed grins when I explain that to do so (even ignoring the huge volume of commercial trains running the same tracks) would require passenger cars. And since no one builds passenger cars in the US we'll probably have to get them from Germany or Japan. When I further explain what it would take to ramp up those production lines to satisfy our needs they get depressed.

I'm sure other on this thread have had similar experiences with folks flapping their lips about "solutions" which, at best, would take an intolerable length of time to employ, or at worst could never be physically done at a price acceptable to the public.

[jdumars]

Rockman, you're a great addition to the experts here, and I appreciate your contributions.

You raise and excellent and often-overlooked point: to get "off" petroleum requires HUGE amounts of petroleum. These so-called green solutions or technofixes are going to vastly increase the demand and subsequently cost of oil. So, such endeavors are not only not up to scale, but likely to be abandoned because they cost so much, and increase the cost of everything else.

The answer is consistently that the entire situation is unsustainable. Population, infrastructure, economy, capitalism, even civilization is it is currently designed. If you build something that depends on a resource, and the resource becomes scarce or unavailable, the something cannot continue to exist. Simple as that.

[ROCKMAN]

So true jdumars. It's ironic (given this is THE oil town in the US) that Houston maybe the poster child for the worst case scenario for PO. The city limits cover more area than many counties in other states. I haven't seen numbers in a while but probably more than 300,000 travel 40 miles or more round trip to work every day. There are a few Park and Ride bus lines but I doubt the carry more than 5% of the load.

Back to the scale issue: someone here said all they have to do is expand P&R. Two big problems with that: the existing lots are nearly at full capacity now. New lots could be built fairly quickly but where do you get the thousands of new buses (and drivers) to haul these folks. And when you overcome those problems there's the question of traffic downtown: it's alreadY jammed at rush hour with the existing buses. Even then you have to work d/t to take advantage of P&R: cross town bus service is terrible now even with low ridership.

We Texans truly love driving in our cars by ourselves. And if we have to kill someone to get the gas we need? Well...ask the Comanches how they faired when we wanted what they had.

The only bright side is that oil company salaries are so good we can probably outbid most cities for what supplies will be available. And I actually live one mile from the largest refinery (Exxon) in the US. I can just have the tankers swing by and top me off.

LIFE IS GOOD!

(But I actually do have great sympathy for the folks getting hit hard now and all the more later)

[btu2012]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Johny_Bloggsy', 'T')hank you all flamers and "smartguys". I see there is no room for debate here. You've made up your mind and are totally unwilling to accept a different opinion.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '.').ask the Comanches how they faired when we wanted what they had.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('btu2012', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Johny_Bloggsy', 'T')hank you all flamers and "smartguys". I see there is no room for debate here. You've made up your mind and are totally unwilling to accept a different opinion.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'S')eems like half the population lives 25 miles or so from downtown ... We Texans truly love driving in our cars