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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Dec 05, 2001, 10:11
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Hi Grufty I was reading the info on the latest production cuts in non-OPEC nations and wondered what you make of all this. some of it is here http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1693000/1693156.stm How much the world has changed when Russia bows to pressure from a group like OPEC; I can remember the days when they would have got a kick out of doing just the opposite. It's about time that cartels such as OPEC were told to go fuck themselves by the rest of the world. Abhorant price fixing at it's very worst.
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Dec 05, 2001, 21:49
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eh up! did someone call me name? WARNING! unrestrained speculation and rhetoric below... actually FourWinds i was just surprised that the Russians took so long to cut production. the attacks on america on september 11th were, i believe, used by a lot of companies as an excuse to make the cutbacks that the shrinking economy had been demanding for months previously. airlines went bust, and those that didn't slashed the number of flights they made. large companies laid off tens of thousands of employees; presumably as a result of falling demand for their products and hence falling production at their factories. all in all, as with any recession... we are basically seeing a fall in the demand for oil. without production cuts, this means a production surplus and a consequent fall in the market price. russia's budget for the 2002 fiscal year is predicated on getting 23 dollars per exported barrel. the price is currently just below 20 dollars and will remain there while there's surplus production. of course, if they are getting 23 dollars each for less barrels then they have problems too... but that'll even out when demand for oil increases again and there's a period of production shortfall when the prices will head back up towards 30 dollars a barrel. according to geologists Richard Duncan and Walter Youngquist, russia will probably retain surplus oil capacity until late in this decade. this means that they can effectively negate small cuts in OPEC production through making consequent increases in their own. that's not - of course - to say that they could have anything but a minor effect on market prices if OPEC decided to do something truly drastic. as it is, OPEC have made a relatively small cut, and it's in russia's best interests to play ball - the OPEC cut isn't enough to raise prices in itself, so russia gains nothing through increasing production except to sell more of their oil at a low price. i firmly believe that the next 8 to 10 years or so will be the last in which the world has access to cheap oil (note: there's still plenty of oil, we've probably yet to use up half of it in total, the issue is the fact that we are reliant not on oil, but on *cheap* oil, and that will be what disappears when production starts to drop off, as a lot of geologists think will happen at the end of this decade). until that day, however, the oil market is not a "free" market in any sense, and the world's few producers can manipulate the price of the stuff easily and effectively. i think we'll soon see the sort of polarisation that occurred in the cold war... except this time it'll be the emergence of an islamic superpower in the gulf region that precipitates it. the saudi regime is by-and-large pro-American. when (i don't think it's a case of *if*) they get replaced by a strong, pro-Arab government then they will (with half of the planet's remaining oil) be a power to rival the US. in such a polarisation, i predict that russia would see itself more aligned with the US than with islam. but that's yet to happen, and til then it's in russia's best interests to keep the price of oil above 20 dollars a barrel. them's my thoughts anyways.
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Dec 05, 2001, 21:54
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Thanks for that. I agree about the possible 'polarization' of power thingymajiggy. Your reply was quite enlightening. Thanks again
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Annexus Quam 926 posts |
Dec 05, 2001, 22:56
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"i firmly believe that the next 8 to 10 years or so will be the last in which the world has access to cheap oil (note: there's still plenty of oil, we've probably yet to use up half of it in total, the issue is the fact that we are reliant not on oil, but on *cheap* oil, and that will be what disappears when production starts to drop off, as a lot of geologists think will happen at the end of this decade)." does this prediction include undrilled places like alaska? One of the few things I remember from school is that the US was reserving their own oil for themselves alone and for moments like the one you point out. that would mean, they would be allowed to fuck up the planet at ease, delaying green technologies, while the rest struggle to make a living in a basically ultra-backward 1950s oil dependent economic system. in other words, will the system ever be forced out of oil addiction? I don't know where I got this one from but Master Morfe left a link one day and I made it into a document. Here's a quote: """The general, unspoken consensus of opinion amongst the hidden heads of the paranoid’s shadow government was that the Earth was royally and irredeemably fucked (as befits such a cosmic whore), and so—these “heads” reasoned—they may as well go on fucking her, while she’s still good for it. If this seems an overly vulgar way of speaking, we are simply endeavoring to illustrate as best as we are able the manner in which such hypothetical world-controllers, dedicated to the great indulgence as they would be, are likely to have perceived it themselves. At the same time as this merciless plundering and perpetual violation was continuing, then, the eyes of the future were being cast heavenward, towards that great, unexploited land beyond the sky. In other words: the great fucker’s dick was still in the whore, but his mind was on the virgin."""
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Dec 06, 2001, 03:13
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i'm often accused of being a pessimist. essentially this is because my reading on the issue of oil depletion has led to a lot of unsettling revelations that haven't yet begun to filter into the media (indeed an energy mailing list i'm on that keeps track of such things heralded the first segment to cover oil depletion on the US Public Radio Network just last week). i feel too often like a crazy doomsayer at worst, or the bearer of extremely bad and unwelcome news at best, which is why i've considered writing a book and then shutting up about it - let people who want to know read the book, the rest can find out at their own pace. on the specific point you raised, however, regarding the Alaskan reserves; it might be natural to assume that the USA has been keeping quiet about a massive oil reservoir so it can outlast the rest of the world. but that's just not the case. Alaska isn't even another North Sea, let alone a new Saudi Arabia. besides which, globalisation has a nasty sting in the tail for US-led market capitalism... if the rest of the world goes tits-up, America can no longer expect to isolate itself and survive. we've all become too inter-dependent these days. the planet is a sphere. a solid shape with spatially defined boundaries. that means, clearly, that it can't hold an infinite amount of anything... granite, iron, uranium, cheese or oil. articles in The Economist which discuss oil reserves make the strange assumption that we can simply increase oil production whenever we want by investing in more wells. essentially, the entire world is running on the belief that we can make oil out of money. this is just madness. so rather than ask economists how much oil we have left, i asked a few geologists (figuratively speaking... i read a lot... though i have lately entered email correspondence with a couple of petroleum geologists who appear to know their stuff). unsurprisingly they tend not to agree with the assessment that there'll always be oil so long as we're prepared to pay for it in cash. so opening new areas to production; be it the Caspian, Alaska or the South China Sea (which will probably be the last great oil rush) is simply delaying the inevitable. what i admit to finding scary and very surprising is just how soon "the inevitable" is predicted to arrive, and just how little effect new fields will have on the decline in production... simply put, when the Middle East production peaks, then the world's production peaks (and begins declining). cos they make up such a huge proportion of the total. Alaska or no Alaska. i'd be glad to discuss this at greater length with anyone who wants to email me privately (you should be able to link from my name, above), and recommend "further reading". but i'll not get all rhetorical and ranty here in public, as i do so hate to fulfill the "apocalyptic freak" archetype in too blatant a manner. groove on.
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Dec 06, 2001, 09:43
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>> the planet is a sphere. a solid shape with >> spatially defined boundaries. that means, clearly, >> that it can't hold an infinite amount of anything... >> granite, iron, uranium, cheese or oil. What no cheese!! When is this shortage due?? Sorry, but I do so love a nice piece of Wensleydale !!
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Dec 06, 2001, 12:06
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oh i wouldn't worry too much about a looming cheese shortage... ODEN (Organisation of Dairy Exporting Nations) will be scaling back their production quotas early in the new year. They've finally realised the importance of conserving their dwindling supply of Gruyere, Wenslydale and Parmesan and have taken action. besides which, the research into alternative cheese sources continues apace. it wouldn't surprise me if we see cheap, plentiful, renewable cheeses being developed over the next couple of years.
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Annexus Quam 926 posts |
Dec 06, 2001, 12:06
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apocalyptic freak? doomsday scenario? I hope your right! Bless you! The sooner the better! """"What “the public” fail to realize, says the paranoid, is that, in the present-day political climate, they themselves are the enemy. The enemy of the state is of course the individual, he who makes all government redundant. Hence the lie of “the mass” was invented, for “the mass” does not—or at least did not—actually exist: it is a hypothesis, a fallacy, a conceit. And if the mass did exist, there would be no conspiracy, no secrecy, no tyranny, no government, no war; it would be a simple matter to herd the people en masse like cattle, into slavery or into slaughter. But Man is not a herd animal: he is not made in the nature of the lemming or the ant, but rather that of the star—he is a solitary being. Paranoid awareness states, however, that it is up to the individual man and woman to realize this—obviously, we cannot be herded into independence. Hence we are set the test of paranoid awareness by the tyranny of ignorance."""
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Dec 06, 2001, 12:29
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> apocalyptic freak? doomsday scenario? > > I hope your right! Bless you! The sooner the > better! > i'm not so sure, AQ. the issue as i see it our reliance on cheap oil. i'm not sure many people (who've had better things to do than spend two years reading about this depressing, obtuse subject) are aware of how major a disaster it would be if humanity runs into permanent severe oil shortages without an alternative in place. how do the 8 million people in london survive when the costs of food production and distribution push the prices in the supermarkets into the stratosphere? indeed, where do we get all that food when we've run out of the raw materials to produce nitrate-rich fertilizer? and what do we package it in when the plastic is all gone? and where do the people who worked in plastics now find jobs? these questions are the first off the top of my head... there are thousands more where they came from... oil is such a precious resource (truly... just because humanity has squandered it and used it to pollute half the planet isn't a comment on petrochemicals, just on our species stupidity). it is the abundance of cheap oil that has allowed our population to reach the heady heights of 6 billion. the studies which have been done to assess the potential "carrying capacity" of mother earth when the security of cheap oil is removed from the equation do not make comfortable reading. of these studies, one in particular by a chap named Pimentel, i think - though i'll have to dig out the paper again to be sure it was him - made a lot of sense to me. he took the total surface area of the planet, worked out how much energy arrives here in the form of solar joules, and based his "carrying capacity" calculations on that number. this means that whether you talk solar panels, windmills, biomass or whatever, the law of conservation of energy tells us that we can never produce more energy from renewables than is "beamed down" by the sun. he arrived at a top-end maximum figure of 2 billion people living at sustenance level if we make efficient use of all the energy falling from the sky. more comfortable numbers around half a billion would allow those people to live to a decent standard. with an expected 8 billion people on the planet by the time the oil shortages begin, i'm not entirely sure the future is going to be a nice place to live to be frank (hence the accusations of pessimism). the "solar carrying capacity" calculations leave out nuclear energy, which is like fossil fuels in that it stands a little outside the solar cycle (though even oil is originally a solar fuel... just millions of years worth of stored solar, rather than part of the constant solar cycle). however, uranium-mining is about as energy intensive an operation as you can get, and that's not even beginning to think about the waste issues. plus, you might be able to generate electricity using solar, but that still doesn't replace the thousands of other applications for oil. if technology is to save us, then i believe we need to be looking at nuclear fusion technologies to generate electricty, and conserving the remainder of our oil for uses other than burning it in personal vehicles. but with every day that passes that the issue is ignored, it gets less and less likely that some wondrous solution will be made available in time to avert a catastrophe.
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Annexus Quam 926 posts |
Dec 08, 2001, 14:52
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Thanks for that lengthy chain of 'enlightening' details. Interesting, the point about energy that you've touched. A few points... 1. The oil companies, I am sure you will agree with me, already are aware of this impending disaster (?) What's (or what'd be) their next game? 2. 'the abundance of cheap oil that has allowed our population to reach the heady heights of 6 billion' Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that overpopulation has little to do with wealth, when we consider that most overpopulated countries are poor. Or perhaps you are referring to overpopulation in rich countries during the industrial revolution, in which case I'd say the opposite has happened in the long run. Overpopulation'd be a factor which quickly recedes once the country develops. 3. '...he arrived at a top-end maximum figure of 2 billion people living at sustenance level if we make efficient use of all the energy falling from the sky. more comfortable numbers around half a billion would allow those people to live to a decent standard' But isn't this 'nightmare scenario' already among us? Only a small percentage of the world is living at sustenance level! Shouldn't factors like WASTE be taken into account too? Of course, I doubt that a totally non-oil-dependent economy would be sustainable for 6 billion people (supposing they all get 'rich' in the next, what, 50 years?!) living the way we live now. There are also huge differences in the amount of energy we use among various countries, the US 'using' (or should I say, 'wasting') double the amount per capita as other developed rich nations. Energy efficiency is the answer (?) - even with renewable sources the 6 billion+ would live at ease? Perhaps (aaah, utopia) the very same rich countries who are talking of impending disaster should start introducing measures so as to save instead of waste, lest more and more arguments in favour of nuclear energy begin to crop up again, as is happening in California right now. No-one sees the root cause of the problem - waste. I doubt that the catastrophe would have the same effects if an energy efficient policy was introduced. Saving 50% of energy would certainly be a different scenario! I'd appreciate your comments on this, Mr GJ. I am in need of arguments against energy cynics and corporate puppets. I'm also talking from a layman perspective.
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