The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Don't fall for the shale boom hype > Comments

Don't fall for the shale boom hype : Comments

By James Stafford, published 28/12/2012

Economist Chris Martenson thinks that the unconventional oil and gas resources have been oversold.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
I find it strange that a bloke with so much insight into these things failed to make anything of the burgeoning world population.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Friday, 28 December 2012 9:40:18 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well argued case, which by the way did mention population growth!
In as much as we need to shift from an economy which depends on population growth, to one which relies only on prosperity.
Something which many others have argued for, for years!
When resources are finite, we need to borrow from nature and endlessly recycle them.
The best and most efficient way for this to occur, is through profit sharing cooperatives!
And a great idea for rust belts, with regional economies experiencing their own regional specific, Great Depression.
Look, 50% of something is way way better than the 100% of nothing, they're earning now! And govts do need to get involved, as opposed to, endlessly doling out demeaning hand outs.
We need to stop putting energy into waste, just to process it, before pumping trillions of tons of the stuff into our oceans, with great detriment to the entire marine ecology.
Instead, we ought to be extracting energy from it.
Every household produces enough waste, to sustainably power them, and produce endless free hot water in the process; adding food scraps/wastage, produces a saleable surplus.
Given a two tank, two process, closed cycle digester system; the thoroughly sanitized by products include, a carbon rich fertilizer and water with enough nutrient, to prosper oil rich algae production and recycled water!
Just this much change would revitalise the domestic manufacturing economy!
Storage Batteries?
Perhaps we would do better to store electrical energy as compressed hydrogen; and then convert it as needed, to on demand electrical energy?
Yes I know, currently, there is at least a 20% energy loss/cost in this process.
However, the addition of a cobalt catalyst, in the initial electrolysis stage, halves energy input, for the same hydrogen production. [ Patented.] And yes it defies Newton's law!
[Well, so did flying?]
And the sound barrier couldn't be broken either!
And melbar particles, whiz round the cosmos, routinely breaking through the impossible to break, light speed barrier!
These so-called rules/laws reflect our current scientific knowledge, rather than what's actually possible!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 28 December 2012 11:29:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Don't fall for the shale boom hype
James Stafford,
No need to tell us, tell the morons in Government !
Posted by individual, Saturday, 29 December 2012 7:20:22 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Morons in govt, individual?
Well, one supposes we could be forgiven for assuming that, based on some of their more seemingly obtuse decisions?
However, there could be different explanations, that puts personal or party political interest ahead of the national interest?
Why, i.e., are we importing 80% of our oil, and or, locking away reserves, which in use, create 75% less carbon emission!
Can a handful of green votes be that important?
Or are our green advocates so thick as to believe, that locking up great swathes of the reef, effectively protects it?
From what?
Carbon emission?
It simply beggars belief how anyone except the most moronic cretins, could actually believe, that preferring fully imported non reef oil, that in comparison, produces 75% more carbon emission, would do less harm; than reef sourced oil, which produces 75% less total carbon emission, from well head to you, than that which we currently import!
If the real goal is to destroy what remains of the reef, as well as our energy manufacturing base?
Then the so-called green advocates, are doing a really splendid job!
We will always require and use energy! Surely then, we should be choosing that which produces far less total carbon, or none!
And surely we can't seriously contemplate locking away a comparatively low carbon hydrocarbon resource, that some industry experts suggest, may well rival or even eclipse the entire known reserves of the entire Middle East.
And locked away at a time, when the powder keg that is the Middle East, is becoming increasingly volatile!
If the Middle East erupts in the flames of war, and that then forces the price of oil through a $200.00 ceiling? Whose interests would that serve? Ours of the fossil fuel industry/oil barons?
Well, we won't be richer, and its London to a brick, most western style economies, would be plunged into an oil shock caused, deep dark recession, that could make the Great Depression, look like a Sunday picnic in the park!? [And won't green advocates/Labour collaborators be popular then!?]
Don't read this and then say, you had no warning!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Saturday, 29 December 2012 10:55:11 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Martenson says: "When I talk to people who are in the oil business, they say, "Oh, no, no, we've known about those shale deposits, we've been drilling into and through them for decades. We've had horizontal drilling for decades; we've had fracking for decades. What we haven't had is $80-a-barrel oil reliably enough to support us going into those with those technologies."

To me, this is the key to the conundrum. Those of us with a mining industry background understand that there are just huge resources of hydrocarbons - secondary and tertiary oil, coal, lignite, shale oil, shale gas, tar sands etc. More than enough to meet our needs for many hundreds of years. The issue is what are the RESERVES - that portion of the resource that can be economically extracted at a specified price.

The alternative projects tend to be capital intensive and it is difficult for anybody other than the oil majors to fund their development. For reasons that might be obvious, the oil majors do better if supply is kept a bit tight. There are many projects owned by smaller companies, but those companies struggle to secure financing. The reason is that back in 1990, when alternative projects were developed after the first oil shock, oil oversupply resulted in the price dropping to US$10 per bbl which saw many of the projects facing financial difficulties.

So when Masterson reports his oil industry colleagues saying "what we haven't had is $80-a-barrell oil reliably enough" they are right. But there lies the solution. If the US (or any other country) is really concerned about energy security and oil supply, all they have to do is to guarantee suitably qualified emerging projects a, say, US$100 per bbl oil price for, say, 20 years. That will allow those projects to be developed, and supply will be assured. In fact, oversupply will develop giving lower prices. But the projects with guaranteed US$100 per bbl will be doing fine. To be continued.......
Posted by Herbert Stencil, Saturday, 29 December 2012 2:17:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
.....continued:

In fact, there are many large scale consumers of oil who would be happy to enter into hedge arrangements for part of their requirements. Done properly, it is likely that the government can offset its entire obligation through hedge sales to industry.

Seems to me that it would be useful to explore discussion along these lines.
Posted by Herbert Stencil, Saturday, 29 December 2012 2:19:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Relying on private industry has created the supply line we have now.
We know that there are 5-15 billion barrels of sweet light crude in the comparatively shallow Townsville trough.
An off the shelf oil rig would set us back around a billion.
Extraction rates of around 300,000 barrels per month, would pay back the outlays and fund two more rigs, inside a year.
The others located a little further out in deeper water, where there are some interesting anomalies, that are also likely to be oil bearing.
Albeit, containing significantly larger reserves, at least ten times as large!?
Nearby gas reserves, would allow costless treatment of the sweet light crude with fairly basic chill filtering, all that's required to produce a superior sulphur free diesel, from traditional Australian sweet light crude.
This lack of refining, produces a product, that from well head to exhaust, produces 75% less carbon emission, than fully imported fuel!
Given the fact that these reserves are relatively close to tectonic plates, active fault lines and movement.
Simply leaving them there is not an option, particularly the possibly massive gas reserves. That would do 21 times less harm to the environment, if extracted and burned.
Waiting for someone else to do it for us, is likely to result in more of the same, huge reliance on foreign debt, massive profit exodus and monumental tax avoidance.
None of which serves us!
Current mineral extraction, is subject to the law of diminishing returns, and a point beyond which any further extraction becomes uneconomic, say in around thirty years or ten Parliaments?
Not very much lead time to convert our economy to an endlessly sustainable and prosperous one!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Saturday, 29 December 2012 6:30:34 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Our problem in particular is that neither of the major parties are
prepared to acknowledge that there is a problem.
Even when a government body, BITRE study 117 warns that our oil
security is at risk the governments response is to quickly remove it
from the government web site.
It is believed that Minister Martin Ferguson well understands what our
true situation is but he has been silenced by cabinet.

The report fortunately was downloaded by a French journalist and so got
propergated around the world.

Here is the report itself which the govt does not want you to read.;

http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/References/Bruce/BITRE-Report-117-Oil_supply_trends-2009.pdf

The government refused to acknowledge the report in parliament.

http://tinyurl.com/b5aq249

This attitude is very similar to US & other government attitudes.
Probably too hard and after the next election.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 31 December 2012 6:33:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
If you are interested in just what is the situation with the shale oil
business, here is a long and technical article that sets out the future
of these shale deposits.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9748#more
Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 2 January 2013 4:33:01 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well this thread may be dead, but here is an article that shows how
temporary shale oil and gas is as a supply.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-01-15/crude-by-rail-does-it-really-make-sense

Not worth building a pipeline !
Posted by Bazz, Wednesday, 16 January 2013 7:14:36 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy