[kublikhan]

Rockman - The wiki capacity data still looks off. It looks like it is pulling data from multiple different sources. You have to be careful when doing this as you might be comparing apples and oranges. If you go straight to the EIA data, it doesn't show anywhere close to a 20% increase in capacity. In the decade between 2000-2010, capacity increased less than 1%. Data for 2011 is still preliminary, but if you add the increase for that year capacity increased just over 1%.
Annual Energy Review

Full data for 2012 and 2013 that has been compiled into the historic data is not available yet. But it appears the trend of retiring coal capacity has sharply increased from previous years, setting new records of capacity retirement and far outpacing coal capacity additions.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')lant owners and operators report to EIA that they expect to retire almost 27 gigawatts (GW) of capacity between 2012 and 2016. The 27 GW of retiring capacity amounts to 8.5% of total 2011 coal-fired capacity. The coal-fired capacity expected to be retired over the next five years is more than four times greater than retirements performed during the preceding five-year period (6.5 GW). Moreover, based on EIA data, the approximate 9 GW of coal-fired capacity retirements expected to occur in 2012 will likely be the largest one-year amount in the nation's history. The record is, however, expected to be short-lived as almost 10 GW of coal-fired capacity are expected to retire in 2015.

[ROCKMAN]

k - I'm sure your instincts are correct. Difficult to find concise and complete data. And Wiki isn't known for great accuracy but it's easy to find. I appreciate all your digging. I agree that our regs will stifle coal-burning expansion here. But regs can be quickly changed when the public goes into a panic. I'm sure I won't be around but when NG prices get high enough and the economy begins to struggle for any and oil energy resources I have no doubt society will accept the downsides of coal consumption as a means of maintaining itself.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', 'I')'ve asked repeated of the cornucopians how this is good news for the vast majority of US citizens and they are nonresponsive.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')paringly titled “Oil and the Debt,” the focus of the report is on making the case against the “drill, baby, drill” approach to federal energy policy. The critical factor is that the report covers oil dependency, period, not just dependency on imported oil.

"…the negative impacts of high and volatile oil prices for households, businesses, and public agencies would remain largely unaddressed by an energy strategy focused strictly on increasing domestic oil production." If that sounds familiar, it’s the same economic rationale underlying President Obama’s energy initiatives: the petroleum market is global.

To cap it off, the report refers supportively to another analysis that positions “a transfer of wealth to oil exporters” as one of three key ways in which dependency on the global petroleum market imposes costs on the US economy, along with a “deadweight” loss of GDP from higher prices and losses resulting from disruptive price spikes.

[ROCKMAN]

k - And not just dependency on oil foreign oil exporters but domestic producers also. Granted there's some benefit to portions of our economy from domestic production but at the end of the day there's still $300 billion year transferred from all other segments of the economy to just one...the oil patch. Good for us...not so much for the other 90%+ of the nation.

I hope our moderators don't mind the redundancy but I'll repeat what I posted earlier under Peak Oil News. I figured I would let folks decide what they wanted to be proud of:

There are all kinds of metrics a country might brag about. If one cooks the numbers right maybe the US exceeds Russia and the Saudis in total “oil” production. Of course Russia can brag that they receive about $230 BILLION from other economies they sell oil to and the KSA is selling about $340 BILLION of oil to other economies. And current the US economy is sending about $260 BILLION per year to foreign economies for its oil imports.

So as far as having bragging rights who would you rather be:

A) The country with the highest “oil” production and sending $260 BILLION per year to other countries for oil
B) The country with the second highest oil production receiving $340 BILLION per year by selling oil to other countries
C) The country with the third highest oil production receiving $230 BILLION per year by selling oil to other countries

And here’s a bonus option:

D) The country spending $620 BILLION per year (3X what it was spending just 10 years ago) for all the oil it’s consuming.

Some folks really do have to struggle to come up with something to brag about when it comes to the US oil situation, eh?

[kublikhan]

Yeah that's the point the “Oil and the Debt,” report was trying to drive home: It's our entire domestic consumption that is the problem, it doesn't matter if it's foreign or domestically produced.

Here's another article discussing the same idea from the world's perspective:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t should not be surprising to find that there is a close tie between GDP growth and oil supply growth. While it is possible to substitute away from oil in some situations, or to find more efficient ways of using the oil, we have literally trillions of dollars of machinery in the world that uses oil right now. Because of this, the rate of substitution away from oil is necessarily very slow.
...
A person wouldn’t expect the two types of growth rates (oil supply and real GDP growth) to be exactly the same. The GDP growth rate would likely be higher than the oil growth rate because the oil growth rate is theoretically depressed for several reasons: continued switching from oil to cheaper fuel (often electricity); improvements in energy efficiency; and a gradual change to more of a service economy. (Services use less energy per unit of GDP than the manufacturing of goods.) If we compare the two fitted growth rates (world oil consumption and world real GDP), this is what the comparison looks like:

Graph: World Oil Supply Growth vs GDP Growth

We can also look at what theoretically would happen if world oil supply starts declining (but here we are on shakier ground, because of many follow-on effects). If oil supply declines by 1.0% per year, the regression line in Figure 12 would suggest that world real GDP can be expected still be expected to increase, but by only 1.2% per year. If world oil supply declines by 2.0% per year, the model would suggest world GDP can be expected to increase by only 0.4% per year. If world oil supply declines by 4.0% per year, the model would suggest that world real GDP can be expected to decline by 1.0% per year.

These are very tentative amounts. Clearly, if world oil supply or world real GDP starts decreasing, there will be many follow on effects, including political changes, and these may have effects of their own. Also, if it is clear that we again have a serious oil problem, there will be a mad dash to eliminate unnecessary use, and this may have a favorable impact on real world GDP. But it is clear from these calculated amounts that we are entering a very challenging period.

[sparky]

.
@ Kubilai , I found your estimate on the depletion side a bit optimistic
a one for one relationship between crude growth and GDP growth seems closer to the truth
GDP include some credit activity , one can discount about 1% of economic growth as pure financial churning
also the population increase must be discounted as not really "growth" except as a burden

[Anvil]

Just another thing to add to the many sins of the militant USA.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sparky', '@') Kubilai , I found your estimate on the depletion side a bit optimistic
a one for one relationship between crude growth and GDP growth seems closer to the truth
GDP include some credit activity , one can discount about 1% of economic growth as pure financial churning
also the population increase must be discounted as not really "growth" except as a burden

[ROCKMAN]

Pstarr – “The study ignores the cause of America's improving oil-trade deficit”. I was going to ask over what time span but then I see you mention a quadrupling in oil prices so I assume you mean over the last 10 to 12 years. If by the improved oil-trade deficit you mean how much purchasing imported oil adds to our trade imbalance here are the numbers: oil-trade deficit about a dozen years ago = $110 billion/year. Oil-trade deficit today = $260 billion/year. We are importing less oil by volume but are spending a great deal more money for oil imports than when we were importing more oil. We would be spending more for imported oil if we were importing as much but only if oil prices had increased significantly and we didn’t increase domestic production. But we did increase domestic production because oil prices did zoom up. If oil prices hadn’t zoomed up we would be importing more oil. So far a rather well behaved feedback loop.

Likewise we’re producing more domestic oil but at a cost about 3X as much as when we were producing less domestically. But I think you already know these stats.

[Graeme]

North American oil will grow even if price shrinks, analyst says

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')orth American oil production is showing no signs of slowing down and will likely continue growing unless prices fall to around $60 a barrel, more than $40 below today’s price, an analyst said at a Houston conference Tuesday.

Tony Scott, manager of oil and gas analysis for Bentek Energy, said the $100-plus price means high returns for oil companies. With companies cutting their costs and improving their production methods, their work probably will remain lucrative at far lower prices, he said.

U.S. benchmark light, sweet crude ended up 46 cents at $103.49 a barrel Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“We’ll see a slowdown at $80, but it’s not going to be a dramatic slowdown,” Scott said at the Platts Commodity Week conference held at the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston.

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr - I'm continually amazed over the lack of vocal outcry over oil/fuel prices in the US. I easily recall the days when much smaller increases led to a lot of public chatter about hanging us geologist up by our balls. Maybe it’s because so much else is going nuts in the world and in D.C. As you point if the US is paying 3X as much for oil as it was not that long ago then the average consumer is paying 3X as much. Lots of press about Canadian oil sands, pipeline permits, oil spills in the GOM frac’ng destroying water supplies, etc. And when was the last time we heard a big public outcry over oil prices? But almost daily headlines about the US becoming the biggest oil producer on the planet. When was the last time you saw a story about those mysterious “speculators” that are responsible for high oil prices?

I just babble on mostly to tease the cornucopians amongst us. I don’t think Joe6Pack would hear me if I were shouting it in his ear. Perhaps it’s just a case of the Mother of All Denials.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '
')To be honest sometimes I wonder why I should have to point out the obvious.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN ', 'I') just babble on mostly to tease the cornucopians amongst us. I don’t think Joe6Pack would hear me if I were shouting it in his ear. Perhaps it’s just a case of the Mother of All Denials.

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr - OK ... we know your limits. Rotting toes...OK. Rotting nuts...not OK. LOL. I appreciate your words though. I've gotten use to cruising around on my "polio crutches" (as my hands like to call them) even when I'm on a well site. And I automatically reach high with my left arm because of rotator cup problems even though I'm right handed. And it's true: I can't remember the last time hearing anyone complain about gasoline prices. And know all the news stories are about how much cheaper fuel has gotten lately.