CFACT paper on Climate, etc.

[nautonnier]

Aug 12, 2010 10:42:10 GMT steve said:

Nautonnier,

Initially I found a graph to 2005. When asked, I looked again and found another graph to 2009. Inflation from 2005-2009 was quite low, so it all comes out in the rounding - the point remains that there have been oil spikes which we've survived, so lets not get too het up too quickly about "fiendishly expensive" energy.

Currently the price of energy available from oil has dropped from the futures market forced peak of ~$150 down to almost half of that. At $80 - $100 extraction of oil from the vast shale oil deposits becomes economic. As soon as the price is going to be reliably above $90 I expect such extraction in the Colorado and Wyoming shale oil fields and in the associated Bakken oilfields will ramp up.

"Estimated U.S. oil shale reserves total an astonishing 1.5 trillion barrels of oil – or more than five times the stated reserves of Saudi Arabia. This energy bounty is simply too large to ignore any longer, assuming that the reserves are economically viable. And yet, oil shale lies far from the radar screen of most investors."

dailyreckoning.com/oil-shale-reserves/

So your concern :

"The cost of oil has gone up by a factor of 4 in real terms in the past decade. Is it fiendishly expensive? What if it doubles or quadruples again?"

is baseless - energy from oil extracted from oil shale and other more difficult sources will become economic.

However, at no stage will wind/solar energy be anything other than an expensive adjunct to reliable methods of energy generation. They only exist because they are subsidized and their environmental effects are being given a free pass as they are 'green power'.

That is not to say that energy should not be conserved and sources of power that are effectively boundless such as thorium reactors not developed. But a scientific and engineering approach needs to be taken rather than emotionally discarding energy sources out of hand.

[steve]

nautonnier,

Mainly, you are missing the point which is that predictions of doom due to rapidly rising energy costs are alarmist based on the fact that oil costs have previously jumped without global catastrophe. These doom-laden predictions are put forth to undermine alternative energy sources.

On the other hand you are presuming that we are just one step away from a wonderful new energy resource on the basis of the production of a measly 1400 barrels in a trial and an investment puff containing an un-audited number of barrels of oil. Come back on this when the practical and political issues have been sorted.

[hunterson]

Getting shale oil is tough expensive and dirty.
for me the optimal future path would be massive development of nuke energy to provide cheap sources of kw's and build a fleet of easily recharged/swapped batteries for much of surface transportation, leaving the liquid fuels for high need areas, like air trasnport.

[stranger]

Fracking shale is a dirty process. Nuclear energy with biomass conversion for lubricants and other necessities would be far superior to the so called "green energy" sources. The thought of storing wind or solar energy as liquid oxygen leaves me cold. As does the thought of pumping the equivalent of Lake Erie uphill in daytime and releasing it through turbines at night or when there is cloud cover.

It is ironic that the United States could convert to nuclear for about one trillion constant value dollars - about the cost of the failed "stimulus package." Had the present lot of children in charge had the wit to see more than tales of sugar plum fairies.

But let me congratulate Steve on his government job. Since the bureaucrats and academics are almost the only ones in the US who have not been hit hard by the current economic disaster.

Stranger

[hunterson]

Aug 12, 2010 21:43:02 GMT stranger said:

Fracking shale is a dirty process. Nuclear energy with biomass conversion for lubricants and other necessities would be far superior to the so called "green energy" sources. The thought of storing wind or solar energy as liquid oxygen leaves me cold. As does the thought of pumping the equivalent of Lake Erie uphill in daytime and releasing it through turbines at night or when there is cloud cover.

It is ironic that the United States could convert to nuclear for about one trillion constant value dollars - about the cost of the failed "stimulus package." Had the present lot of children in charge had the wit to see more than tales of sugar plum fairies.

But let me congratulate Steve on his government job. Since the bureaucrats and academics are almost the only ones in the US who have not been hit hard by the current economic disaster.

Stranger

We will know the pushback is for real when government jobs are no longer paying a total package about 100% of private industry.
We will know the pushback is really serious when Congressional pensions are dissolved retroactively and all Congressional pensions adjusted to social security. And when Congressional pay is locked to SS and financial responsibility indicators.
But getting this country of people who believe in UFO's, astrology and CO2 controlling the world are not likely to make the decisions to go nuke.

[scpg02]

Aug 12, 2010 22:43:12 GMT hunterson said:

Aug 12, 2010 21:43:02 GMT stranger said:

Fracking shale is a dirty process. Nuclear energy with biomass conversion for lubricants and other necessities would be far superior to the so called "green energy" sources. The thought of storing wind or solar energy as liquid oxygen leaves me cold. As does the thought of pumping the equivalent of Lake Erie uphill in daytime and releasing it through turbines at night or when there is cloud cover.

It is ironic that the United States could convert to nuclear for about one trillion constant value dollars - about the cost of the failed "stimulus package." Had the present lot of children in charge had the wit to see more than tales of sugar plum fairies.

But let me congratulate Steve on his government job. Since the bureaucrats and academics are almost the only ones in the US who have not been hit hard by the current economic disaster.

Stranger

We will know the pushback is for real when government jobs are no longer paying a total package about 100% of private industry.
We will know the pushback is really serious when Congressional pensions are dissolved retroactively and all Congressional pensions adjusted to social security. And when Congressional pay is locked to SS and financial responsibility indicators.
But getting this country of people who believe in UFO's, astrology and CO2 controlling the world are not likely to make the decisions to go nuke.

Ain't that the truth? They are more interested in American Idol or Dancing with the has beens.

[hunterson]

has beens, wannabes or neverwuzzers, lol.

[stranger]

Chuckle. Hunterson, are you familiar with a necktie party at Roswell about 135 years ago? A thief was caught, tied to one end of a passing vaquero's riata, and shoved off a 60 foot high railroad trestle.

While I generally oppose the death sentence in all but the most extreme cases, the current crop of Congress Critters has so far exceed the bounds of reasonable and proper behavior , I suggest an 80 foot rope and a 120 foot drop for the lot of 'em. Give 'em time to contemplate their sins.

Stranger

[sigurdur]

Stranger:
Only an 80' rope? Gee my dear fellow, wouldn't you at least want to give them time to contemplate at least 25% of their sins? The rope would have to be at least 1,000' long......with a 2,000' bottom.

[hunterson]

I think the conversation about and the work of reform are not enhanced by casual talk of mass executions, even in obvious jest.

[sigurdur]

Good point hunterson.