a refreshing look at Obama

[Ben]

Why Paul Krugman should be President Obama's pick for US treasury secretary:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...sury-secretary

[trish]

I second that motion.

[Kire89]

Obama hasn't had it easy. Peak oil for crude was in 2005~ and the net energy is avalanching downwards. The US is using 5 million barrels less every day than a few years back. It's impossible to have economic growth, more jobs and prosperity in such a situation, alas.

Reagan and Bush Senior had it easy with Alaskan oil and North Sea oil coming online.

[Stavros]

Obama hasn't had it easy. Peak oil for crude was in 2005~ and the net energy is avalanching downwards. The US is using 5 million barrels less every day than a few years back. It's impossible to have economic growth, more jobs and prosperity in such a situation, alas.

Reagan and Bush Senior had it easy with Alaskan oil and North Sea oil coming online.

Kire you must be aware in Norway that the attempt to spread hydraulic fracturing across the US has alrready reduced US imports of crude and gas, that potentially it could make the US self-sufficient in hydrocarbons, and that some estimates of the Arctic Region's reserves are somewhere around 25-30 billion bbls. With new reserves being discovered in other parts of the world, albeit at a smaller level than in the golden age of the 20th century, the concept of 'peak oil' is still contested. Ironically as I am sure you know, Hubbert applied it to US supplies which he said would peak in the 1960s -he was wrong about that, and I don't know if 'Peak Oil' is a valid concept globally as you would need to compute a range of indicators on production, consumption and predictions of reserves yet found, and so on.

That doesn't mean we are all safe, that hydrocarbons are here for our lifetimes, but the profile isn't so clear either and the development of technological and storage capacity in renewables is crucial for the fuel-mix of the future.

Small point -I think Alaskan and North Sea hydrocarbons came onstream in the 1970s, not online!

[Kire89]

You know fracked oil and gas wells have a lifespan of something like 5 years before they hardly produce BTUs enough to heat a kettle of tea? Conversely, a conventional gas well in Russia might produce high-quality stuff for 30 years. Fracking is a net energy mess and has been known for half a century. It can't beat the conventional stuff of the past.

The Arctic might hold a cubic mile of oil (30 billion barrels~), but that just adds another year of consumption to the reserve base. Not exactly something to write home about.

Hubbert correctly assessed the US peak to be in 1970-71. You were the Saudi Arabia of oil for a very long time. Cumulatively you might produce more than Saudia Arabia ever will, but your conventional reserves are down to ~20GB.

To me peak oil isn't so much an issue (ie. the total liquid volume) as the total net energy that's available from day to day. That's what's killing America's and Western Europe's wealth. 5 million barrels less a day means less oil to refine into the $3-4/gal gas you're so fond of, fewer flyer miles, less domestic industry, less consumption und su weiter.

Anyway, I feel for Obama, the energy situation is grim for the US and the world at large.

As for the North Sea, it took quite a while for production to ramp up. And we sold most of it at $10-20 a barrel. What utter waste.

[robertlouis]

You know fracked oil and gas wells have a lifespan of something like 5 years before they hardly produce BTUs enough to heat a kettle of tea? Conversely, a conventional gas well in Russia might produce high-quality stuff for 30 years. Fracking is a net energy mess and has been known for half a century. It can't beat the conventional stuff of the past.

The Arctic might hold a cubic mile of oil (30 billion barrels~), but that just adds another year of consumption to the reserve base. Not exactly something to write home about.

Hubbert correctly assessed the US peak to be in 1970-71. You were the Saudi Arabia of oil for a very long time. Cumulatively you might produce more than Saudia Arabia ever will, but your conventional reserves are down to ~20GB.

To me peak oil isn't so much an issue (ie. the total liquid volume) as the total net energy that's available from day to day. That's what's killing America's and Western Europe's wealth. 5 million barrels less a day means less oil to refine into the $3-4/gal gas you're so fond of, fewer flyer miles, less domestic industry, less consumption und su weiter.

Anyway, I feel for Obama, the energy situation is grim for the US and the world at large.

As for the North Sea, it took quite a while for production to ramp up. And we sold most of it at $10-20 a barrel. What utter waste.

Good post, Kire. And I couldn't agree more with your final point. By allowing free market capitalism to dictate the finances of North Sea oil and gas, rather than treating it as a strategic resource, we have knowingly blown a golden opportunity to rebalance the UK's long-term energy approach and potentially society as a whole. Like you, I'm rather eager to see what will follow in capitalism's sorry and discredited wake.

[Stavros]

You know fracked oil and gas wells have a lifespan of something like 5 years before they hardly produce BTUs enough to heat a kettle of tea? Conversely, a conventional gas well in Russia might produce high-quality stuff for 30 years. Fracking is a net energy mess and has been known for half a century. It can't beat the conventional stuff of the past.

The Arctic might hold a cubic mile of oil (30 billion barrels~), but that just adds another year of consumption to the reserve base. Not exactly something to write home about.

Hubbert correctly assessed the US peak to be in 1970-71. You were the Saudi Arabia of oil for a very long time. Cumulatively you might produce more than Saudia Arabia ever will, but your conventional reserves are down to ~20GB.

To me peak oil isn't so much an issue (ie. the total liquid volume) as the total net energy that's available from day to day. That's what's killing America's and Western Europe's wealth. 5 million barrels less a day means less oil to refine into the $3-4/gal gas you're so fond of, fewer flyer miles, less domestic industry, less consumption und su weiter.

Anyway, I feel for Obama, the energy situation is grim for the US and the world at large.

As for the North Sea, it took quite a while for production to ramp up. And we sold most of it at $10-20 a barrel. What utter waste.

Small point -I am in the UK. I dont disagree with much of what you say, and I am not sure at what pace the development of the Arctic will proceed, probaby slower than currently assumed -more and more developments of a declining resource is, however, the way the industry is going, as it is still profitable to do so; fracking appears profitable right now, that seems to be what is driving a lot of it in the US. Human ingenuity will have to come up with some solutions in the next 25 years, and usually does at the level of technology, so soner rather than later we may be using completely different forms of fuel for domestic, industrial and military uses from the fuels we know of today.

[Odelay]

You know fracked oil and gas wells have a lifespan of something like 5 years before they hardly produce BTUs enough to heat a kettle of tea?

Kire, I'm really interested in this comment that you made. Do you know of a couple of sources for this? I hadn't heard about the short lifespans of fracked wells, but I have read that there are many, many frackable (is that word?) reserves dotted all around the world. Based on what I've read their cumulative volume is huge.

BTW, coming at this from another direction, peak oil can also be thought of as a useless concept because if we burn even half of our remaining reserves, the carbon released will have disastrous consequences on our climate.

[Stavros]

Odelay if I might interject, having an interest in this subject, I have linked some scholarly articles that might help you, although the precise data on the life-span of the average well seems to be obscure. From the first source on the list it would seem that five years is a good lifetime for a large reservoir, suggesting that in smaller ones two years might be the maximum life of production, although complicating factors could shorten the life of any conventional/unconventional reservoir.

1. Hydraulic Fracturing and Shale Gas Production: Technology, Impacts, and Policy
http://www.gliccc.org/wp-content/upl...s_Polic....pdf
-from the Department of Energy (US) clearly written, well-illustrated introduction.

2. HYDRAULIC FRACTURING AND SHALE GAS EXTRACTION
http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitst...pdf?sequence=5
-master's thesis which is also well-written if a bit superficial

3 Life cycle analysis of water use and intensity of oil and gas recovery in Wattenberg field, Colo
http://cewc.colostate.edu/wp-content...-of-Water-.pdf
-although a technical paper it offers documented use of the huge volumes of water that are used in fracking, which in turn raises questions in rural areas about the priorities that water use demand -food production or gas?

4.Untested Waters: The Rise of Hydraulic Fracturing in Oil and Gas Production and the Need to Revisit Regulation
http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/theste...20Fracking.pdf
-Hannah Wiseman's paper is from 2009 but ranges across some controversial topics and is worth reading if you are into the details of policy making in science.

[Ben]

It'll be even more frightening when someone further to the right than Obama becomes President.
But, at present, most Americans, sadly, support the Drone program... because they see it as better than sending in soldiers...

DOJ Memo Justifies Drone Strikes and Targeted Killings of Americans: