Gasoline Madness;When to Stop

[W8EJO]

From 5/23 WSJ:

Oil Industry, Lawmakers Aim To Lift Bans on Drilling
By Russell Gold Ben Casselman and Stephen Power

"Mounting concerns about global energy supply are fueling a drive by the oil industry and some U.S. lawmakers to end longstanding bans on domestic drilling put in place to protect environmentally sensitive areas."



Over 200 billion barrels of known untapped oil in the U.S..
Hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of untapped natural gas.

OF COURSE THESE ARE ALL IN FEDERALLY MANDATED HANDS OFF ZONES. NO RECOVERY ALLOWED.

WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN & SENATORS! TELL THEM TO OPEN UP THIS LAND.

[W8EJO]

Oil Shale:"While oil shale is found in many places worldwide, by far the largest deposits in the world are found in the United States in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.2 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable; however, even a moderate estimate of 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. "

Tar Sands:
"United States, tar sands resources are primarily concentrated in Eastern Utah, mostly on public lands. The in-place tar sands oil resources in Utah are estimated at 12 to 19 billion barrels."

http://ostseis.anl.gov/index.cfm

OF COURSE THESE ARE ALL IN FEDERALLY MANDATED HANDS OFF ZONES. NO RECOVERY ALLOWED.

WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN & SENATORS! TELL THEM TO OPEN UP THIS LAND.

[W3SLK]

Interesting, just recently the gas co around here, has been offering land owners decent money for drilling rights on their properties.

[N8LGU]

I'm gonna buy a Vespa ... and a raincoat.

[KA1ZGC]

Thom. My parents also worked very hard for what they have. My father died 4 years ago so there gos half of his pension. When my 86 year old mother tries to stay warm this winter, and it costs $800.00 + to fill the tank, the last thing on anyones mind here is Exxon/Mobile shareholders. Sorry.

My folks have to pay the same price for gas and oil that your mom does, Ed. Sorry.

If your mom's retirement fund had a large portion of oil stock in it, you would care. If congress was threatening to limit profitability of companies whose profits your mom was depending on for her survival, you sure as hell would care.

The fact of the matter is there are thousands upon thousands of retirees who own stock in these companies, and that's where those profits that you seem to think are so evil are going. Real, hard-working men and women who have done their part for our country and are now having their retirement money threatened by some hair-brained communist philosophy overtaking congress. You want a real economic downturn? Let the goons in congress have their way and limit the cash flow through the oil companies.

There are studies that were done some years ago that tell us the outcome of these plans; but they're a bit difficult to understand because they're written in Russian.

p.s I have no problem with anyone making money, but there are always the consequences.

Are you saying my parents (and hundreds of thousands of retirees) deserve to have their small retirement fund cut in half, or worse, just so you can pay a few cents less per gallon of gas?

How about I take money from your mother's retirement fund because I don't like the price of corn? I have no problem with her having money, but there are always the consequences.

--Thom
Kraft Advertisement One Zesty Grated Cheese

[WBear2GCR]

Hillman Minx anyone?

I have been told that if you live in 3 land and happen to have gas come out of the ground when you drill (for water, whatever...) that you can't use it??

            _-_-bear

PS. if you could I'd give some consideration to moving out that way... "free" power, eh?

[Sam KS2AM]

I'm gonna buy a Vespa ... and a raincoat.

Thats a sure-fire way to relieve the sting of high gas prices.

[WBear2GCR]

Thom,

Ur anger is focused in the wrong direction.

Any "retirement fund" that is so narrowly invested, and not sufficiently diversified so that a change in the fortunes of any one industry segment has a significant effect on the return of that fund isn't properly managed.

IF your parents invested their own money in this manner, then the outcome (good or bad) is their sole responsibility. Imho, if that is what happened, then they made a risky choice, and don't bitch when the dice come up the wrong way.

Regardless, anyone who does a long term investment in any non-governmental based "instrument" (read: "worthless paper") or is the person(s) who determines said investment is responsible for the outcome based on the contents of said "portfolio". Put another way, if a professional organization made lousy choices, I'd string them up, or go live in their house if things went seriously south...

Besides, Oil is up now, so IF this is where your parents are sitting, I'd tell them that NOW is a good time to hedge their bets...

               _-_-WBear2GCR

[W8EJO]

Over 200 billion barrels of known untapped oil in the U.S..


Oil Shale:" estimate of 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Green River Formation is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. "

Tar Sands:
"United States, tar sands resources are primarily concentrated in Eastern Utah, mostly on public lands. The in-place tar sands oil resources in Utah are estimated at 12 to 19 billion barrels."

I just did a little quick math. Based on our 20 million barrel a day use, these known reserves would give us about a 160 year supply of oil.

Now add a quadrupling of our nuke plants & clean coal electric plants & the daily oil usage drops  several million barrels a day giving us an even longer supply - like 200 years. By then we will surely have alternatives ramped up.

Problem solved - go get it!

[Bill, KD0HG]

Terry, there are a number of major hurdles with respect to these potential resources.

1. Extraction from oil shale and tar sands takes enormous amounts of water. The areas that you cite are desert. The necessary water doesn't exist. As it is, Lakes Mead, Powell and others in the Colorado River Basin that supply water to millions of western residents (Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc) are at historic lows and they're scrambling for water as it is. My point is, it's a desert. There is no available water to extract the petroleum with. We currently don't have the technology or resources to get at the oil. Exxon, Shell and others already own enormous mineral rights in the areas that you cite. There is no legal impediment to extraction of oil from shale on their privately-owned land.. But they simply can't do it until they figure out how to.

In the early 1980s, the oil companies shut down their early mining of shale because it wasn't feasible. That was called Black Tuesday here, when towns of residents lost their jobs. They gave up. It wasn't regulation, envirokooks or anything human in the way; it's simply not feasible to extract that petroleum with our technology. Additionally, enormous amounts of electric power are needed to cook the oil out of the rock. It's been projected by some that a half-dozen nuclear or coal power plants would need to be built to provide this power. I love nuclear power myself, but we're talking $250-$400 a barrel for this untapped oil. At least. If they can find the water and power.

If we're gonna build all of those power plants to extract the oil, we might as well just use them to power electric or hydrogen cars.

2. Digging out that oil soaked rock is going to destroy hundreds, maybe thousands of square miles of the west by strip mining it. And because it's an arid desert, reclamation is going to take a thousand years. You can still see the tracks of tanks that practiced in the area during WWII. I have to ask you, would *you* want your state to be part of a national sacrifice zone? How about a thousand square mile strip mine there in the middle of beautiful Michigan?

So you see, it's not quite so simple.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

"They" said we could never send a man to the moon too. You give up far too easily.

[WA5VGO]

Actually, while gasoline certainly isn't a bargain, when the 1955 average price ($0.29/Gal)is adjusted for inflation, it comes out to $2.21/Gal. That's a far cry from $4.00/Gal, but not as grim as some would make the situation seem.

Darrell

[W8EJO]

Terry, there are a number of major hurdles with respect to these potential resources.

I agree it's difficult & I would be against long-term enviromentally damaging methods.  OTOH there are still well over 220 billion barrels of known, readily recoverable oil & tar sands available right now that are in federally mandated no drill zones. That works out to a 30 year supply in known reserves today & they are finding more all the time. Shell in it's Alberta, Canada Athabasca Oil Sands Project is already doing the tar sands.

OIl Shale is tougher I agree but it can be done in an enviromentally clean way. The "In Situ" method holds promise. It uses a lot of water but water is recyclable & Shell is aquiring the water rights to make it happen.

[Bill, KD0HG]

"They" said we could never send a man to the moon too. You give up far too easily.

Indeed, Steve. But my point is that it's not feasible and tremendously damaging to recover most of that petroleum with *today's* technology. So whatever is out there isn't going to be helpful with our short-term crisis. If it's possible to do so in the future (whenever that is) and overcome the drawbacks I cited, there's no reason not to go for it.

I'd be totally behind a national energy research effort on order of our efforts to get to the moon.

BTW, Denver's oil refineries are mostly fed with Canadian tar-sand oil now. A straight rail shot south from Alberta. But Canada has the water that we don't and you can reclaim land if you get decent precipitation, which they do in Alberta, but we don't here.

I have to reiterate something- If we need to build gigawatts of generating capacity in order to extract our rockbound western oil reserves, then we ought to consider just building the power plants, forgetting about the oil, and use them to power our transportation fleet with electricity or hydrogen. We need to sharpen our pencils on this one.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Today's technology is almost always insufficient for tomorrow's problems. Any new technology is "too costly", "too limited in supply" and "too hard to do" in the beginning. That's just the way it is. Accepting the status quo is not the answer.

I don't see the current situation as a crisis. Politicians want to call everything a crisis these days. It helps them demagogue the issue and then take action that would otherwise never be accepted by the electorate. It's an age old sales pitch - create a sense of urgency in the prospective buyer. Don't fall for it.

The reality is that there is no quick solution for the current situation. Where we are now has a 20-30 year tail. Thinking we can get out of it quickly defies rational thinking.

[W8EJO]

Politicians want to call everything a crisis these days. It helps them demagogue the issue and then take action that would otherwise never be accepted by the electorate.

In this case the politicians created the problem and are continuing to exacerbate it through their "Just Say No" policy to U.S. energy dvelopment.

[K6JEK]

Today's technology is almost always insufficient for tomorrow's problems. Any new technology is "too costly", "too limited in supply" and "too hard to do" in the beginning. That's just the way it is. Accepting the status quo is not the answer.

Aren't better batteries the only technology we need ?  I don't think we're waiting on any technology to produce a lot more electricity. There's nuclear. There is solar thermal. There is wind (Google T. Boone Pickens wind).  If we subsidized these the way we subsidize fossil fuels we'd have watts galore. The only thing missing is the batteries.  Everything else is here now.

I read somewhere that we taxpayers aren't pouring grant money into battery development while we are spending money on things like hydrogen fuel cell research.  I submit for your consideration that battery development is the single most important area of R&D to get us out of this pickle.

[Bill, KD0HG]

I see that solar thermal is really taking off in CA. Highly efficient, too. But when clouds roll overhead the power plant, they need some of those batteries that you mentioned. Or a big room full of Aerovox capacitors..

The scale of those solar plants is impressive. The one at Mojave is 150 megawatts- wow. Arizona, CA and New Mexico could be North America's electricity OPEC.

Up this way, wind power is going gangbusters. My former employer (the local investor-owned utility) currently has over a thousand megawatts of wind generation available, another thousand in South Dakota and Minnesota. Two megawatts is a substantial amount of power. They have contracted for 7,400 megawatts in Colorado alone in the next 12 years. That's roughly the outpoot of ten large coal plants.

The fuel is free. No wonder they're liking it in this energy environment.

[K1ZJH]

I see that solar thermal is really taking off in CA. Highly efficient, too. But when clouds roll overhead the power plant, they need some of those batteries that you mentioned. Or a big room full of Aerovox capacitors..

T

Clouds, or other short term shortages, can be easily handled by mechanical storage devices using flywheel technology.

http://www.beaconpower.com/products/EnergyStorageSystems/index.htm

Peter

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Wind farms are ugly and spoil the view. There has to be a better way.

[Opcom]

maybe it's a silly idea, but if half the state of New Mexico was covered with PV panels, wouldn't that make enough electricity for the continental USA? The figures being thrown about vary by an ordr of mangnitude.. some claim about 20 square miles of PV panels=1000 MW electrical generation plant
Others claim 150 square miles for the same 24x7 1 gigawatt powerplant output. (http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/07/just-how-much-land-does-solar-power.html)
 If the generally cloudless and mostly uninhabited desert were done checkerboard style with "large" PV installatyions, it might help. ?

[K6JEK]

maybe it's a silly idea, but if half the state of New Mexico was covered with PV panels, wouldn't that make enough electricity for the continental USA? The figures being thrown about vary by an ordr of mangnitude.. some claim about 20 square miles of PV panels=1000 MW electrical generation plant
Others claim 150 square miles for the same 24x7 1 gigawatt powerplant output. (http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/07/just-how-much-land-does-solar-power.html)
 If the generally cloudless and mostly uninhabited desert were done checkerboard style with "large" PV installatyions, it might help. ?

There was a recent Scientific American article that said just that, except I think it was Arizona desert they proposed for the thin film solar panels.  The article assumed further reductions in $'s/watt.  Meanwhile, the solar thermal guys say they can do it now.  The main page of the Ausra website (www.ausra.com) has something like that as the banner.   But you can't generate all the power for the US of A in Nevada and Arizona unless you want to put in some big honking transmission lines. They propose DC.  Why DC?

The flywheel storage is extremely neat.  I mean spinning something in a vacuum and so fast that you have to make it out of some special material so it doesn't fly apart -- how cool is that?  The solar thermal guys, however, say they can just store hot liquids in big tanks underground.

But we still need the batteries for the cars & trucks.  How about an F-250e that could go 100  miles on an overnight charge then used a little on-board gas generator like the Chevy Volt to keep going? 

[Tom WA3KLR]

Part of the equation for the gasoline price in the U.S. is the demand.  It seems to me that the citizens could cut down on the demand if they wanted to.  I drove home today from the Akron area and gas out there is $3.99, diesel fuel $4.75. 

I drove back on I-80 with cruise control set at 65 mph.  Most cars and tractor-trailers were doing faster than me still.  I got 39.5 miles per gallon in my 1997 Camry.  The tractor-trailers that passed me uphill sure don't get that.

Interestingly, I talked with one ham in the Akron area while I was out there who is familiar with the trucking business due to being a part-time engineer with a major tire company in that area.   Besides the fact that the trucking company could save money on fuel, the orchestration of the arrival and departures at the trucking terminals is tightly controlled.   Food supplies and other items at the stores these days all follow that Just-in-Time concept, which means the stores can run out of stock, as there is almost no regional stock buffers anymore.  He said we are in deep do-do for food if something were to happen to the shipping/distribution system we are now relying on.

It’s a shame the railroads have been run in the toilet.  Seems like they could be a help here now.  We may need to get out of the rat race and settle back to doing things the way they were done in the 40’s and 50’s; with the focus on long-term results rather than the short-term approach.

[ka3zlr]

Hello Tom,

 I'm glad that guy let you know that alot of folks don't understand it and how it works, box trailer outfits are nothing but rolling warehouses, that's why the demand was to increase lengths to the size they are today, but there are warehouses and distribution points located through out the country, there is buffering on dry and can goods, it's the perishables that's very critical.

 Another thing that fella say anything about Nitrogen replacement in Tires that would also aid in Mileage both fuel and wear, alot of folks don't understand that improvement, where's our Tire Companies on that idea...never seen it mentioned on the Toob, except maybe on one of those tech car programs..

 "This Country wastes in a day what some people could live on for a lifetime..." if no one believes that statement walk in back sometime Lowe's, Home Depot Wal Mart Your Food Stores and Look at those Hydraulic Packers and Look in there or watch what's thrown away I do that daily at Home Depot I watch while I'm delivering there and i have One Food Distribution warehouse i go to twice a week, you would be as insulted as I am what I watch sometimes...and every time i say something like Hey You throwing that away give it to me man..give it to somebody... and "No" we're not allowed it's company policy...I understand that I just don't agree with it..there's alot on need in this country...

And we're bitching about Gas...Gas isn't the Problem it's Us... Look at the Silly Amalekans yo buy vely big auto mo bilies...yo Need Flesh air..yo flighting wars in lands of oil and yo ask for more...go drill holes in yor land or we charge yo plenty for being so silly...

So Said Saudi Arabia to the Bushman...

[W8EJO]

Part of the equation for the gasoline price in the U.S. is the demand.  It seems to me that the citizens could cut down on the demand if they wanted to. 

The citizens have cut down on the demand.

For the 4 month period (1/1 - 4/30) of 2008 the consuption of petroleum products in the US is down 2.4 million barrels (MB) - (82.94MB in 2007 to 80.55MB in 2008). We are even down 1.28MB from 2006 when we consumed 81.83MB in the first 4 months of that year.

The wasteful American consumer is a myth.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/cfapps/STEO_Query/steotables.cfm?periodType=Monthly&startYear=2004&startQuarter=1&startMonth=1&endYear=2008&endQuarter=4&endMonth=12&tableNumber=3