I see what you're getting at but it's no sillier than a hybrid really.
Oil to hit $100 a barrel
- Thread starter Peter 14.7
- Start date
I'm glad we're talking vehicles and not trusts
For those who are interested ;
1 barrel = 158.9873 Litres @ 60°F (when you are dealing with big volumes of stuff that costs alot, yes, you need to get down to the 4th decimal point).
1 barrel = 42 US gallons.....which has nothing to do with the Imperial gallon what we Ozzies use.
1 US gallon = 3.7854 Litres, Imperial Gallon what the Poms and Ozzies use is about 4.54 Litres.
In terms of reducing demand, I firmly believe the Western cultures of the world will never give up their energy needs until they get firmly pushed into a corner. We ain't anywhere near that point at the moment.
We also seem to have forgotten about gas as well in this conversation on oil. Russia and Qatar and just about everyone else (including our little NW shelf) has just a tad of that stuff.
Market Comment .......Some figures on Oil
The world consumes over 80 million barrels per day.
USA consumes 22 million barrels per day
China consumes over 6.5 million barrels per day
Japan consumes over 5.5 million barrels per day
Chinese oil consumption growth rate is 7% pa since 1990 and will hit 20 million barrels per day by mid 2020‟s.
World oil consumption rose by about 1.2 million barrels per day in 2005
World refining capacity for oil is tight with typically only 1-2 million barrels per day spare. (we are at full capacity)
A significant oil discovery for a mid-tier oil company is 50-100 million barrels.
(A cut 'n paste from a broker website, but the figures look sound to me.)
.................................................
Personally, I am unaware of any technology nearing commercial implementation which will produce one super-tanker full of jet fuel or petrol per day which doesn't require 60-100% energy equivalent input, often as natural gas, a process I've heard described as using caviar to make mock crab.
But I come here to learn and therefore await your enlightenment on this wonderous process. Might even find a dollar to invest in it.
As an aside, there are billions of dollars in "green" funds looking for a home, a "worthwhile project" in which to invest so "big oil" cannot kill emerging technologies now. In fact, I believe they would be happy to invest some of their ill-gotten gains in such a way. If only to gain "brownie" points.
Fish.
G'day TC,
You might be able to answer a question I have - related to this...
And, no, I'm not "having you on" - I'm genuinely wanting to understand why plants don't draw Nitrogen from the air.
Regards,
You might be able to answer a question I have - related to this...
With 80% of the atmosphere being Nitrogen (if I've remembered things correctly) WHY do we need to supply Nitrogen fertiliser from fossil fuels?
And, no, I'm not "having you on" - I'm genuinely wanting to understand why plants don't draw Nitrogen from the air.
Regards,
The problem is "fixing" the N as a salt so it can be absorbed by the plant. It is quite an inert element. That must be why so much exists as a pure element, it doesn't oxidize easily.
From my one year at an Ag College I can only remember two ways this can happen naturally. One by oxidization during lightning (the wonderful "greening" after a thunderstorm isn't all in the mind LOL) and the other by fixing in the nodules in the roots of legumeous plants. That is why under the old "small cropping" technique they would fallow fields and grow peas as fodder. Doesn't happen much today.
TC said It's also the food we eat. You could take this one step further and say that modern broad-acre farming is a manufacturing process converting oil to food. Indeed the petro-chemical industries impact on every aspect of our daily lives.
Fish.
Flying back from Sydney I sat next to a business man who nusiness was making plastic bottles for water, food, etc..
His base polymer costs have gone up 22% since the oil rise. He also stated in food grade plastic such as water bottles only 10% or so can be recycled material due to health concerns.
If my business main ingrediant ( staff) went up 22% I woud have raised my prices to clients by 40% or so to break even.
Oil is everywhere.
Peter
SBS had a great doco recently called "Crude Impact" which explained in detail this relationship.
It shows that oil has allowed us humans to pridce more than we should thus we have overpopulated the planet.
It ended with a chilling statment:
After peak oil happens ( predicted by experts to be 2007!) dont worry about the price of a litre of petrol, worry about the price of a loaf of bread!
Peter
Yeah, that's a great question, and one I have pondered over and over. Of course, legumes developed this amazing feat, but legumes have other problems that have ment they haven't made a big impact on feeding the world.
The first thing I can think of is that nature made a monumental stuff up. How on earth could have most plants evolved and not made use of such nitrogen supplies in the atmosphere?
But nature didn't stuff up. I believe that a big reason is that in nature, nitrogen was never in short supply. The plant cycle ment that plants grew, took up nitrogen, they died, and the nitrogen was recycled. Or, animals came along, eat the plants, shatt out a little of the nitrogen, the rest went into their bodies, and then the soil got the N back when the animals died. It was a simple system. The soil was never depleted of N.
Then came along man and agriculture. Agriculture is what allowed humans to grow their population to the billions. All this food comes from the soil. Very little goes back. Subsistance farmers in Africa had to keep moving their farm plots as the soil was depleted. Soil fertility decline caused great famines in Europe hundreds of years ago. The soil was worn out.
Grain removes lots of N.
In a tonne of wheat, is 21 kilos of N.
In a tonne of corn is 16 kilos of N.
In a tonne of rice is 14 kilos of N.
These 3 crops are the basis of the food chain. If I grow an average crop of wheat, Say 4 tonnes to the hectare, I have taken 84 kilos of N from the soil. I have also taken a lot of other nutrients, but N is the biggest by far. My soil, when new was full of N. It grew big crops for 20 years without fertilizer. But then it hit a wall. The N was gone.
I can either put this N on as fertilizer, in my case I use urea, or I can grow a legume for a few years to naturally build the N. A legume crop [like soybeans] will only supply enough N for itself. There will be none left over, as the N leaves in the grain. To build N levels, it needs to be Lucerne or clover, and left for a few years. This then reduces production while the soil is building N. If every farmer had to use legumes for N, grain production would halve.
See ya's.
google 'famine, nitrogen, fertilizer', and lots of stuff come up. Some of it is silly, or extreme, others good.
This one is quite good,...
http://www.anansi.ca/pop_excerpt.cfm?book=238.
So is this one,...
http://www.hydro.com/en/about/history/1900_1917/1900.html
This is one that comes up. It starts well, but by the end this bloke looses the plot. He advocates going back to draft animals!!! Draft animals eat a quarter of the grain they produced. Very inefficient.
http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/159
Whos going to walk behind a drought horse all day to plough two bloody acres? I'd rather starve.
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G'day Les.
I should add that I don't have any doomsday thoughts myself about this subject. Nitrogen fertilizer can be produced from coal as well as natural gas. These two fossil fuels are in a lot bigger supply than oil. I also think that science and technology will come to the rescue before we have to drop the human population back to a billion [which is the figure I calculate a non fertilizer, non fossil fuel world could sustain with organic farming].
See ya's.
I should add that I don't have any doomsday thoughts myself about this subject. Nitrogen fertilizer can be produced from coal as well as natural gas. These two fossil fuels are in a lot bigger supply than oil. I also think that science and technology will come to the rescue before we have to drop the human population back to a billion [which is the figure I calculate a non fertilizer, non fossil fuel world could sustain with organic farming].
See ya's.
Link of interest;
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2325
Analysis suggests that Saudi Oil production (largest world exporter) declined 8% in 2006. The importance of the article lies in the fact that they contend this decline in production is involuntary rather than voluntary.
The Saudi's have indicated that they were going to cut back production to support prices - but this could be a cover for the fact their largest fields are reaching irreversible decline (like the North Sea in the UK and Cantarell in Mexico).
Flash point will be summer peak driving season in th US (June-July). Can the Saudi's increase production to meet rising demand?? If not then I think we could at least see a restest of the highs reached last year..... could be $80+
Things are getting very interesting
TJ
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2325
Analysis suggests that Saudi Oil production (largest world exporter) declined 8% in 2006. The importance of the article lies in the fact that they contend this decline in production is involuntary rather than voluntary.
The Saudi's have indicated that they were going to cut back production to support prices - but this could be a cover for the fact their largest fields are reaching irreversible decline (like the North Sea in the UK and Cantarell in Mexico).
Flash point will be summer peak driving season in th US (June-July). Can the Saudi's increase production to meet rising demand?? If not then I think we could at least see a restest of the highs reached last year..... could be $80+
Things are getting very interesting
TJ
Interesting consider this:
The SBS documentary "Crude Impact" stated all know Country reserves including the Saudi went up significantly over a three year period despite no new finds when OPEC changed the rules to link level of extraction to remaining reserves. A high reserve allows high extraction.
Yet in the USA the rise was a lot less due to transparency in Gov where in places like Saudi and Nigeria where it is a dictatorship, no-one checks the figures..
It stated experts believe both the Saudi and Mexican Fields already pasted their peak in 2003ish and that is why the USA is finally getting serious about bio-fuel,etc..
Not because USA care about the Climate but they know the real story on oil from their biggest supplier.
Food for thought, Peter
The SBS documentary "Crude Impact" stated all know Country reserves including the Saudi went up significantly over a three year period despite no new finds when OPEC changed the rules to link level of extraction to remaining reserves. A high reserve allows high extraction.
Yet in the USA the rise was a lot less due to transparency in Gov where in places like Saudi and Nigeria where it is a dictatorship, no-one checks the figures..
It stated experts believe both the Saudi and Mexican Fields already pasted their peak in 2003ish and that is why the USA is finally getting serious about bio-fuel,etc..
Not because USA care about the Climate but they know the real story on oil from their biggest supplier.
Food for thought, Peter
Seems like the prediction was true but out by 12 months!
If our $ drops we will have a massive outcry.
Peter
If our $ drops we will have a massive outcry.
Peter
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