The Oil Myth or We Will Have Oil Forever (Part 2)
Thursday, November 12, 2009 | Written by Jim Beach
Posted under: Energy and Oil |
Tags: abiotic oil, energy, oil myth, oil scarcity, oil shortage, peak oil, running out of oil |
7 Comments
Welcome to Part Two of our lecture called “The Scarcity Myth.” Yesterday, we talked a lot about
some introductory ideas, the idea that we have a long history of predicting the end of oil and we talked a little bit about how much energy we already have here in the U.S. If you refer to our podcast or the posting from yesterday, you’ll see that in fact the United States, and indeed the world, has hundreds, if not thousands, of years of oil left. This leads to a really interesting question “How does oil get created and how could we have so much of it?” How is it possible that we have an infinite supply of oil? I will discuss that tomorrow.
Today, I wanted to talk about points three and four of our agenda (please refer to the slides for the agenda). What do Americans want? We are told by our politicians that Americans do not want us to go and get the oil that we have, that Americans are happy with the situation the way it is. Drilling in the U.S. is out of favor. In fact, 71% of Americans are in favor of increased energy supplies and 75% believe that we should increase our drilling here in the United States immediately. These numbers are contrary to what you hear on the TV or see in the newspaper. Most people here in America believe that we should go and get the oil that we have. 71% of Americans support drilling in coastal areas, even with the threat that there could be a spill. However, let me remind you that in the Prince William Sound in Alaska when the Exxon Valdez crashed, we cleaned it up, and now it is as beautiful as it ever was. And after Hurricane Katrina went through the Gulf of Mexico, not one of those oil rigs had any spills. It seems quite clear that coastal drilling is safe.
59% of all Americans support drilling in Alaska’s ANWR region. We talked yesterday about ANWR. It’s a small tract of 2000 acres in Alaska that would produce years of gasoline for us and with the Prudhoe Bay experience and the Alaska pipeline experience of the 1970s, we have proven that we can very safely get oil out of Alaska. 75% of Alaskans support drilling in ANWR, which is really a quite overwhelming number.
Moving along to other forms of energy, just to get some perspective. 65% of Americans support building more nuclear power plants. As we talked about yesterday, not a single person in the Western world, and I’m including Japan, because they use a lot of nuclear power, not a single person has ever died from nuclear power. Coal causes lots of asthma related deaths or lung. We certainly have gasoline related deaths every year, but not a single person has died from nuclear power, and 65% of all Americans support building more nuclear plants. The question is again, “Why do we not do it then?” Because of the environmentalists, who fight every new plant. There’s that famous expression NIMBY, which stands for “not in my backyard.” Everyone would support a nuclear power plant as long as it’s thousands of miles away from their home.
71% of Americans support more clean coal power plants right now. Coal supplies a huge part of our electrical supplies. The new technologies for clean coal, when waste is trapped the emissions buried in the ground, is a really exciting prospect. The possibility of having super clean coal power plants that provide us the electricity for homes and pretty soon will provide the electricity for our electric cars, such as the Tesla and of course the Chevrolet Volt that are coming out in 2010.
Listen to the Podcast for a long discussion of my views on the environment, and the history of environmental protection. Also, I allude to my next lecture series, which examines global warming.
Agenda point number 4: a word about the environment. Can we drill safely? Yes, offshore drilling is done safely. We have had no major spills since 1980. From offshore drilling there is a .0001% chance of a spill for every well that we have. For every billion barrels of oil that is transported there are just .73 spills, an infinitesimally small percentage. And they’re really good at cleaning those up the few spills. Just remember hurricanes Katrina and Rita that ravaging through the Gulf of Mexico. Two category five hurricanes, back to back, and not a single oil well spill as a result.
Alaska and the ground-based drilling are also done safely. In 1980 Prudhoe Bay had 5000 caribou. Today there are 30,000 caribou. As I said yesterday, I have personally stood on the Alaska pipeline and the animals love it. It does not harm the animals. The animals like it because they can scrape up against it and sometimes when it’s really cold they stand underneath it for protection. Alaskan drilling has been done safely now for the last 30 years and there has only been one major catastrophe and we cleaned it up pretty well.
Here’s the big question: this is what it really comes down to, would you rather have China or the United States drill for oil? If you want to do something interesting, Google Beijing Air and see what you come up with. Or Beijing pollution. You will see that the air in Beijing is some of the worst in the world. The Chinese government has not yet endorsed any sort of environmentalism or any sort of environmental protection. They would drill for oil in a way that would be bad for the environment, but with American safeguards and American technology, we can drill for oil safely and cleanly. So not only is there the terrorist question, the issue of the tax dollars, the issue of us exporting all of our money overseas to governments and religions that hate us, there’s also the idea that if we were to become energy independent and drill for oil right here in the United States, the world would be a cleaner place. The environmentalists don’t go to Saudi Arabia and try to get them to stop drilling for oil. Only here in the United States, which really makes me wonder what their motives are.
Of course, the answer is we should drill for oil here in the United States, where we can do it in an environmentally friendly way.
We are now ready for agenda item 5, and this is probably the most exciting part of this lecture series, but unfortunately we’re going to do it tomorrow. Agenda item 5 asks if oil really is a fossil fuel or not. I will summarize some of the scientific research that says in fact oil is not a fossil fuel. It does not come from decaying dinosaurs and I will explain to you how we actually get it.
Posted under: Energy and Oil | Tags: abiotic oil, energy, oil myth, oil scarcity, oil shortage, peak oil, running out of oil | 7 Comments
Ask for an exact explanation of what the 2,000 acres includes and doesn’t include. It is a good example of deception. It is not 2,000 acres that you imagine. It is 2,000 acres underneath a pipeline. A recent pole shows 80% of the people do not believe the 2,000 acres number
In 2006, a report for members of Congress who were looking at drilling along the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge noted that, despite technological advances, “it is unlikely that full development of the Coastal Plain could be accomplished from a single compact site.” Rather, it said, “development could require a dispersed network of drill pads, roads, pipelines, gravel mines, and other structures,” with impacts potentially lasting decades.
SidSharp,
I think your comment, which I apprecaite, revelas more about you and the Alaskan oil situation. It seems to me very logical that an oil field would include drill pads, gravel pits, pipeline, warehouses, and even roads. No where do I, or anyone else I can find, claim otherwise. Development builds things. But you call it deception. We are not deceiving anyone. Supporters of drilling openly say we want to go in an build infrastructure.
The “decpetion” comes from the other side. They want to stop development at any costs and lie about the consequences of growth. “Oh the polar bears will die.” No, they will be fine. Why don’t you just admit you use anything to stop safe, smart growth?
Then you are saying more than 2,000 acres will be opened? Can you explain just what is included in the 2,000 acres. Cheney said only ice roads would be used. Does that still apply?
Jim,
I believe you’re completely missing the point of the “peak oil” crowd. The issue at hand is not whether or not we’re running out of oil. The issue is that we’ve passed the peak of “cheap” oil and that the Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) for all of the future oil that will be produced will be prohibitively expensive.
Take a look at the EROEI off offshore drilling, tar sands, ethanol and directional drilling with reservoir fracturing – it’s a hell of a lot more expensive than to just drill a vertical well on land like we’ve been doing for the last 50 years.
We’re not going to run out of oil, but the oil that we do produce will get very expensive.
That’s where the problem lies – our world economic growth is largely dependent on energy growth and population growth (do your own regression analysis – you’ll find the correlation to be statistically significant). As energy gets more expensive, economic growth gets more expensive.
Sid,
Oh, the old Cheney did it come back!! Sharp commentary. Did you think of that alone? What does it matter what is in the 2000 acres. Oil stuff. Clean, energy producing oil stuff.
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Will,
Thank you for an intelligent post. Hubbert’s theory was NOT about cost. It was about running out of oil. Oil is cheaper today than ever before. Even at $3.00 per gallon, it is cheaper than what our parent’s were paying in the 40’s. The cost of extraction has been ameliorated by tech improvements, inflation, and new finds. So far, the belief that drilling costs will go up has been proven false. And, we keep finding oil in cheap places. Saudi Arabia has not explored for new wells in 50 years. Think there is cheap oil there? Billions of barrels they haven’t told us about? I do. Why don’t they tell us? Because then we would not pay $4.00 a gallon….
Jim
The 2000 acres figure was devised to try and assuage those in Congress against development. A definition for what comprises the 2000 acres was also originally written but never included in legislation at the time. No current legislation includes a definition of what development does or does not factor into the 2000 acres. Do elevated pipeline supports count? Probably not is the realistic answer. The 2000 acres or 3.14 sq miles is non continuous. It has never been promoted as a continuous block in any ANWR legislation ever. Its not an issue. Oil is where you find it. The 10-02 Area is 1.5 million acres. Of that up to 2000 acres can be used for production pads, gravel pits, production facilities, roads. Most likely the 10-02 will mirror Alpine as accessible only on winter ice roads. Groups of pads near by would be connected by roads but a central spine road would probably not happen due to the 2000 acre limit. To compound things, the native KIC lands may or may not be included in the 2000 acres. This dilemma has never been addressed or solved. That is a battle for property lawyers and courts, not Congress. The 110,000 acres of KIC private property is not addressed in legislation other than the 1983 Chandler Lake agreement implying that ASRC subsurface rights would be not developed until the 10-02 was. It is my impression that it will be included in the 2000 acres and by definition of its surrounds KIC lands couldn’t be developed outside of this regardless. What is known is that ANWR legislation will include a provision for X number of acres chosen by Kaktovik peoples could be set aside as cultural or environmentally special value lands within the 10-02 putting that amount of land (again not contiguous) off limits to the 2000 acres choices. These sorts of things will only be played out by negotiations with ASRC, Kaktovik and BLM folks way down the road anyway. They are not of importance to anyone at the moment.
FYI your Central caribou numbers are out of date. 2009 data indicate 66,000 animals in the Central Herd and roughly 105,000 in the Porcupine. It all goes to show, herd size fluctuate naturally, nothing whatsoever to do with oil development.
Caribousteaks’ information helps explain what should have been explained a long time ago. All to often, there is too much deception. ANWR can be developed safely and efficiently with minimal damage if the developers are forced. I doubt they would do it voluntarily. They do not want to go to the effort and expense up front. The roads, airstrips, pit, pads and other scars would be left like the military installations that dot the landscape. Tell me All infrastructure will be restored to pre-drilling condition and I will support drilling. It can be done cost effectively, but there are some who do not think the ecosystem is worth the effort. I disagree with them.