US Officials Cut Estimate of Recoverable Monterey Shale Oil By 96% 411
First time accepted submitter steam_cannon (1881500) writes "The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA.gov) is planning to release a major 96% reserve downgrade to the amount of oil and gas recoverable from the Monterey Shale formation, one of the largest oil/gas reserves in the United States. After several years of intensified exploration the Monterey oil shale play seems to have much less recoverable oil and gas then previously hoped. This is due to multiple factors such as the more complex rippled geology of the shale and over-hyped recovery estimates by investors. By official estimates the Monterey Shale formation makes up 2/3 of the shale reserves in the US and by some estimates 1/3 of all crude reserves in the US. Not a drop in the bucket. Next Month the EIA.gov will be announcing cutting it's estimates for Monterey by 96%. That's a huge blow to the US energy portfolio, trillions of dollars, oil and gas the US might have used for itself or exported. Presently the White House is evaluating making changes to US oil export restrictions so this downgrade may result in changes to US energy policy. As well as have a significant impact on US economy and the economy of California."
Keystone XL (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder if this might change the Obama administration's calculus and their continued delays on the proposed pipeline.
Keystone XL won't do a damned thing for the taxpayer at the gas pump. It's designed to take the dirtiest most corrosive form of oil from American-leased fields in Canada to refineries in Texas so they can be shipped overseas for more profit. If they REALLY wanted to use the oil in the US, they wouldn't be piping it to Texas. They'd be piping it to refineries in the north.
Re: (Score:2)
As far as the XL pipeline, you bring up a point, maybe this report came out on purpose [of course bought and paid for by the ole trusty oil/gas industry] in order to try and bluff the Administration into building this idiotic pipeline.
:: begin conspiracy theory ::
The first step of rehab is removing the addictive substance (in a controlled manner in the case of those things that kill you if you go cold turkey). Let's tell the world that all the oil has disappeared to aliens, and for future energy needs we MUST stop depending on dead dinosaur fuel.
Re:Keystone XL (Score:5, Interesting)
Obama is looking to the future of death by oil carrying rail car.
Seriously I work in oil and gas. There pipeline will do NOTHING to hinder or advance the state of green energy. People have product and will sell product and there are plenty of people who want the product given it is sold at an incredible discount to standard oil. One way or the other the oil will get to its customers.
And the result is:
2008: 9500 railcar loads of oil in the USA.
2014: forward estimates indicate 650000 railcar loads of oil in the USA.
No that wasn't a typo. [fas.org] If you're going to transport oil you may as well do it safely. If Obama wants to actually push an environmental agenda then do so economically rather than playing with people's lives and potential oil spills.
Re:Keystone XL (Score:5, Interesting)
pipeline's leak lead to bigger spills.
Every drop of oil that goes through the keystone pipeline will be refined and then shipped to Europe. The companies behind the pipeline have stated as much.
The overall effect on of the pipeline is something like .05% of the world's demand. it isn't but a drop in the bucket.
Smart people would drain the oil away from the middle east first and save the Canadian oil for when things get bad in 50 years.
Re:Keystone XL (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Keystone XL (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite a few smart people, including me, are profoundly disturbed by the safety problems with nuclear fuels and by their limited reserves. Refining U-235 is quite expensive to fuel grade is quite expensive, and quite toxic. Moreover, the current reserves will only supply about 200 years of energy _at current rates of consumption_. That's currently roughly 12% of world energy production, for roughly 6 billion people, with many in dire poverty and quite low energy consumption.
If we assume that nuclear consumption grows by a factor of 4 due to increased population and increased reliance on nuclear fuels, and reduced by a factor of 2 by switching to breeder reactors and improving efficiency, it's still only a 100 year supply. And as reserves drop, it's going to become much more expensive to mine as the more accessible reserves are consumed,
Fusion has _never_ worked as a fuel source. The main sources of the requisite deuterium and/or tritium are the ordinary fission reactors. Given the limited availability and difficulty of refining the necessary deuterium and/or tritium from any natural source, it is unlikely to ever _be_ an effective fuel source. Even the cold fusion experiments, if successful, promised no solution to providing the necessary fuel source. So one should not rely on fusion ever being useful for energy until it is either able to use plain hydrogen. (Yes, the sun uses plain hydrogen: no, it's not a method that can fit in a normal Earth based fusion reactor.)
Perhaps, in theory, one could refine fusion fuels from solar wind, which is unusually rich in such isotopes. But if one has a large collecting surface in orbit to gather solar wind, why not use that as a direct solar mirror and gather the much higher density and safer optical energy for ordinary solar power? A 100 meter diameter solar mirror gathers approximately 40 MW of power. With typical American energy consumption at approximately 1 kW, that is enough energy for roughly 40,000 Americans.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's currently roughly 12% of world energy production, for roughly 6 billion people, with many in dire poverty and quite low energy consumption.
I teared up a bit.
But hey, lets propose solutions that don't exist yet rather than one that's already offset more CO2 contribution than we can hope solar and wind will in the next 10 years. Gathering solar wind? Yeah, lets do that while many are in dire poverty.
We need realistic and practicable solutions that we can afford. There are plenty of ways to keep the nuclear fuel supply for hundreds of years. By then, maybe we'll have your solar windmill.
Re: (Score:3)
the current reserves will only supply about 200 years of energy
How long will fossil fuels last? How much less carbon will be pumped into the atmosphere by reducing fossil fuel usage, supplanting demand with nuclear?
100 years ago we didn't have an electrical distribution grid. 200 years ago we didn't have electric generators (Faraday invented the dynamo in 1831). I'm willing to bet fusion will be old hat before then.
Re: (Score:3)
So you're saying that you support expensive energy, and further with that creating misery for those who can't afford cheap energy? .
No, he said Obama does. He didn't make any judgement.
Re:Keystone XL (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying that you support expensive energy, and further with that creating misery for those who can't afford cheap energy?
He's saying that "cheap energy" is a delusion - one fostered with temporary geological realities and utter lack of regard for any externalities - and that the sooner you snap out of that delusion, the better for everyone involved.
Re:Keystone XL (Score:5, Insightful)
If that truly was a concern for the pro-petroleum folks then why do we export so much of our gasoline and keep our domestic price high? FYI, the Keystone XL pipeline goal is to move the crude oil to refineries on the gulf coast for export.
If we want to take the long view and lower the cost of energy for everyone we need to spend more money toward finding alternative and more abundant sources of energy. This short-term strategy of keeping the status-quo and using the current stock of "cheap energy" does nothing but make petroleum investors rich, further damage the environment, and delay the inevitable to the point where the poor will suffer even more than they supposedly do today.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, making things expensive is one surefire way to ensure that people use less of it, which is something that the U.S. drastically needs to do. Humanity as a whole has gotten a lot of mileage from cheap (i.e., fossil) energy, but I think we have to grapple with the notion that we can't afford to do that forever. If energy prices rise, there's tremendous pressure to use less
Who the heck (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who the heck (Score:4, Informative)
The important point is, they are cutting the estimate by 96% of recoverable oil.
Wow, it says that right in the title. I guess headlines are too much trouble for me tonight.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't worry, you're on the forefront of slashdot's latest trend: not even reading the headline. After the long-held tradition of no one reading the article, we migrated in recent years to no one reading the summary, and now we are finally achieving are long-awaited goal.
Don't worry, you're on the forefront of Slashdot's ugliest trend, where Poor Impulse Control and the desire to push out smart-ass remarks takes over other cognitive functions. For an additional empty hooty-laugh the comments are 'further refined' so that they resemble compliments at first glance.
Like a blacksmith who is beating out misshapen horseshoes with full knowledge that his shoddy product will only disturb the beast's gait and cause discomfort and injury -- the final act is one of omission, where th
Re: (Score:2)
After the long-held tradition of no one reading the article, we migrated in recent years to no one reading the summary, and now we are finally achieving are long-awaited goal.
Well, perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove. ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Well he's right. Fracking technology is moving along at a good clip. I'm sure these unrecoverable reserves will soon become recoverable.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the submitter just displays complex/rippled grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Re: (Score:2)
Proofread this horrendous summary?
Have a little chat with yourself.
What I do is read past the mistakes and be thankful that I know what they're trying to say. That's the only thing left man has over the machines, and you want the Slashdot editors to take even advantage away?!
Talk about kicking an ape when he's down.
Incoming conspiracy. (Score:4, Funny)
I predict that before a week has passed, someone will be claiming Obama personally rigged the study as part of a deliberate attempt to sabotage the oil industry.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Scary but true; from my current point of view it's already in the next comment !?!!!
(http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5187683&cid=47063651)
This could actually be good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
This makes me wonder: if enough heavy industries sign on to using wind power, they can become a flexible load to balance the variable supply of wind? For instance, if Dutch railways has 10,000 cars moving around, and the output of wind drops by X%, could they slow their cars down by Y% to help compensate? Inversely, if there's a sudden surge in wind, could they speed th
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
So would I. It would be kind of nice to be alive past 2200AD to see that.
Re:This could actually be good news (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Per capita energy use in the US is ~300M BTU, or 90k kWhr, there are ~330M people in the US giving a total energy usage of ~30,000 TWhrs. Average solar insolation without tracking in Albuquerque is ~6.4kWhrs/m^2/day or 2.336 TWhrs per km^2 per year, at 10% efficiency you would need to cover 128,424 km^2 which is a bit more than 1/3rd of the land area of New Mexico.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this mean that we will need to find some other means of energy rather than burning dead dinosaurs? God forbid.
While this may impact the future economic situation to some degree and CA, it is not like the oil had been extracted and then taken away. The money was never there, it was only the assumption of future money.
I would also point out that the vast majority CA residents are strongly opposed to shale extraction off the coast of CA.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Only under two assumptions - Investing at the risk-free rate of return, or losing ground against inflation.
In any other scenario, yes, you can compare the future value of two similar risk investments, but failing to factor in different levels of risk commits a grievous error that will leave you begging in the street while your boring neighbor's inflation+1% diversified bond portfolio has him retiring
Re: (Score:2)
Does this mean that we will need to find some other means of energy rather than burning dead dinosaurs? God forbid.
Yes, nuclear. Let us know when you're ready.
Re: (Score:3)
Nuclear won't help either. Even if we started to build nukes like there's no tomorrow (not that we can afford it) it wouldn't fix anything. The energy trap has closed. 40 years ago was the time to act.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The energy trap has closed. 40 years ago was the time to act.
That would only be true if it would take more that 40 years to replace all of a countries electricity generation by nuclear.
And we know that's not true, it can be done in 26 years.
(In 1974 France decided that it would transition to nuclear for electricity generation. The first new reactor came online end 1981, the last of 58 came online in 2000).
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, braino, the first came online in end 1977, (Fessenheim), not 1981.
Decide go nuke in 1974, first working plant December 1977, second March 1978, tell that to the kids of today.
Re: (Score:2)
When we moved into our house a few years ago we got a information sheet from the local government about what to do if Fessenheim blows up. The school has anti-Fessenheim posters in it. So do the creche, the kindergarten, the town hall and probably the its printed on the toilet paper of the mayor too.
So just to be clear, your educators and government are against it, but you think it's wonderful that we have no long-term viable plans to deal with our waste?
Re:Wait.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The stupidity of ignoring nuclear fission never ceases to amaze me. Fusion is still a long way from practicality, will always expensive and isn't the clean dream - the massive neutron flux just makes even more radioactive waste. The oil & gas are going to run out one day, be it in 5 years or 50. Renewables are unreliable, expensive and the quantities of rare earths required make for horrible mining pollution as well as covering the landscape with ugly windmills and solar collectors.
High activity nuclear waste is a small volume storage problem and if we hadn't wasted the last 30 years we would have modern fission plant designs far safer than any of the chemical polluting shit we have now.
Fricken' ridiculous.
Re: (Score:2)
They still need to make a shift from high output reactors to low output safer reactors. The focus needs to be on reducing energy output, extending fuel life and using many reactors, with fuel lasting the life of the smaller, lower temperature, simpler reactor. The biggest problem with today's reactors is trying to squeeze to much power out of the reaction, which requires refuelling and hugely increases risk as a result of high temperatures.
Re: (Score:2)
Close to ITER, the main fusion research place in Provence, the entire countryside is littered with "Iter-Boom!" graffiti. The greens are already up in arms.
Re: (Score:2)
So what you are saying is that on paper the problems associated with nuclear are small, yet in the decades we have been using it we have completely failed to solve them? Sounds like a practical solution to me, the kind of thing investors will be willing to throw money at instead of the rapidly expanding alternatives. You should put together a business plan.
Re: (Score:3)
When it comes to "big money" (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, I will say I have read "Twilight in the Desert" by Matthew Simmons, was an ardent follower of The Oil Drum [theoildrum.com] petroleum web site - was more active there than I am here.. That site was full of petroleum engineers and field guys - and I trusted their insight far more than I trust words from any investment advisor sitting behind desk whose job it is to influence my decisions of how to allocate my retirement savings.
And Third, I will say I swallowed the "Peak Oil" paradigm hook line and sinker. Apparently messed up my retirement savings big time by investing in the energy sector as I believed with all my heart that we were in serious decline.
Suddenly fracking made the scene and all the investment buyers saw energy as plentiful again. And the price dropped, And many of the smaller guys sold out.
I cannot help but wonder if all this panic talk is them yet rounding up another round of panicky people and investors to make a poor investment.
I can't help but remember all this talk about how dire our energy situation was coming from our leaders. Then there is no energy crisis, Then there is.
Almost sounds like Donovan singing about petroleum. First there is a crisis, then there is no crisis, then there is.
We pay countless taxes into our government, and countless well-paid bureaucrats are supposed to be leading us, but does anyone up there really know what's going on?
So far, they seem to rank about as reliable as an ouija board.
How in the hell can anyone make rational decisions when no-one seems to take this stuff seriously? It seems lately all our government has wanted to so is snoop. 96% is a helluva big number.
I believe special interest tie guys have the government release all these "facts" in order to manipulate the market.
When I saw fracking, I was and still am concerned that was equivalent to "blowing the gas cap" on a dying oil well as once we relieved the subterranean pressure that was helping to push what was left of the liquid oil to the surface, we were draining the last "fart" from the earth before there was no longer enough energy recoverable from the lift effort than we were able to recover from the oil lifted. It meant the show was over.
I remain very concerned this whole fracking "happy days are here again" thing has been nothing more than a ploy to get control of the remaining oil reserves at a bargain basement price.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Suddenly fracking made the scene and all the investment buyers saw energy as plentiful again. And the price dropped, And many of the smaller guys sold out.
I cannot help but wonder if all this panic talk is them yet rounding up another round of panicky people and investors to make a poor investment.
Sigh. You're underthinking this. Predictable, in someone caught out by them already. They're not just looking for new idiots, they're also looking for new laws. Fracking is bad, mmkay? They wouldn't have been allowed to do it without a peak oil scare.
Re: (Score:2)
Suddenly fracking made the scene and all the investment buyers saw energy as plentiful again. And the price dropped, And many of the smaller guys sold out.
I cannot help but wonder if all this panic talk is them yet rounding up another round of panicky people and investors to make a poor investment.
So an unpredictable change happened, a new energy source was discovered and changed things. At this stage we don't know how long it will last exactly, and of course there is no way to predict if any other new sources will come along in the future. In any case this new wonder fuel isn't so wonderful really, so it is bit premature to call the long term trend.
In other words you can't really draw any conclusions, other than that you were unlucky but may yet recover.
Re: (Score:2)
Fracked shale gas will not remain cheap. It will stay that way until a certain level of global dependency is reached. At that point, supply flow increases will slow or stop, and wild price fluctuations will ensue, with a steady rise in average price over time.
There is plenty of oil and gas supply, yet look at the prices they can demand due to the dependency of the transportation sector. That's how our whole energy sector will eventually look.
Re:When it comes to "big money" (Score:4, Interesting)
And Third, I will say I swallowed the "Peak Oil" paradigm hook line and sinker. Apparently messed up my retirement savings big time by investing in the energy sector as I believed with all my heart that we were in serious decline.
Distinguishing local and global maxima of functions may be difficult, but in itself it does not negate the existence of global maxima of functions as such. We started oil production at one point in time, where the immediate production was zero. At one point in time in the future, it will be zero again, even if we manage to pump everything there is, simply because it's a finite amount of it. So that's zeros in two points with non-zeros in between. My math skills may be rusty, but I vaguely recall that a such a continuous function necessarily has a global maximum. That's not a "peak oil paradigm", that's basic logic. The fact that you mistook a local maximum for a global one is irrelevant.
Then/Than (Score:2)
I'm not a native speaker and I still often make mistakes in English, but I cannot understand how people can mix those up : then/than, your/you're, its/it's, there/their/they're.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/m... [theoatmeal.com]
Re:Then/Than (Score:5, Insightful)
It's because the majority of Americans don't really get taught proper English in school any more, and they pretty much ignore what teaching they do get. But they still get to pass classes and graduate, because it would hurt their feelings to do otherwise.
I used to work at an outfit where the majority of my co-workers were immigrants, as well as a large proportion of our customers. The worst at English spelling and grammar in both groups by far were the people born and raised in the U.S. I never really knew whether to laugh at that or be depressed by it.
Re: (Score:2)
Mod parent up. Same here - the immigrants' English is better than the natives'. Oh and math and Science too.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not education, it's simply that native speakers learn to speak before they learn to write. If there is an educational fault, it might be the introduction of "phonics" and the idea that actual spelling is secondary. And there may be some truth to that... if spelling were so important, then how does the world survive with both the American, British, and other variations of English?
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's easier for a native speaker to make these sorts of mistakes, particularly if they're not prone to writing. If you learn a language principally by sound, the distinction between "then" and "than" can start to look like a variation on the same word; it's not like English isn't polluted with words with two very different meanings depending on the context.
Of course, comprehensibility in any language comes, in part, from being able to anticipate what structure is being built just as it's being built
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because 'your' and 'you're' are pronounced identically, as are the there-their-they're triplet. If you're writing as you speak, it's a very easy mistake.
Amen. (Score:4, Interesting)
The potential ecological disasters created by such a massive shale extraction operation just ain't worth it. Monterey is surrounded by one of the most beautiful and ecologically diverse coastlines in the world, and they want to jeopardise it to get some short-term, supporting an industry wihich is basicallty like America's crack dealer, and every year seems to report record profits. Wat?
It's the 21st century and we're still having these sorts of conversations about oil? Christ almighty, find another source of energy already, or consider slgihtly changing your behavior. If for nothing else, do it for the children.
Monterey is a Global Treasure (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of fracking here just makes me wanna stop driving. I can't believe this project has been moving forward all of this time with FALSE DATA from the lying scumbag pigs that want money from resources no matter what the long term cost to the planet. This terrain is the result of tectonics for billions of years, and all some folks can appreciate is that the fault line makes it easier to dig, and the bay makes it easier to transport. In a thousand years there will be nothing worth remembering about this era except for the beauty that was spared from human destruction. Every one of us will be dead in a century, why is that momentary presence so arrogant as to exploit everything possible just because we can.
Life will go on without sucking the Monterey Shale out of the ground so that some people get rich selling old technology to the "free" market. Somehow, I'm sure they can just move along to some renewable energy to sell when the fast easy bucks dry up. Good thing we found out it is already dry here, before they poisoned the golden goose.
Mistakes in article? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I'm confused, but there seem to be a couple of problems in the article, regarding distance and location. One paragraph says, "The problem lies with the geology of the Monterey Shale, a 1,750-mile formation running down the center of California roughly from Sacramento to the Los Angeles basin and including some coastal regions."
In the article's map, the northernmost formation point is south of San Francisco, way south of Sacramento. And even if the Monterey Shale went all the way up to Sacramento, it's still way less than 1,750 miles from Sacramento to LA.
Also, according to http://oilshalegas.com/montereyshale.html, Monterey Shale is just that one large section that's about 1/4 the length of California. Monterey Shale doesn't include the smaller costal regions.
I'm not trying to be critical, but if the article has mistakes regarding distance and location, I wonder if it might also have a mistake regarding volume of oil.
Bubble, bubble... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this is a sign that the rumoured Shale bubble is beginning to burst.
Re: (Score:3)
Only a tiny percent of US shale production is on the Monterrey Shale. And the very reason for this downgrade was that they were using recovery figures determined from the other shale plays, when the actual recovery rate from the Monterrey Shale is much lower than them due to its highly faulted geology and will take new technology to be recoverable at current prices.
Which you'd have known had you actually read the articles.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
More tax breaks for the oil companies next year? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wonder how much more of a tax break the oil companies will get because of this. My understanding is that they get a write-off as they deplete a reserve. It is sort of like a capital depreciation. I wonder if the reserve estimate will change that calculation resulting in larger tax breaks since they will have a depleted their asset at a faster rate than previously expected.
Distributed Solar (Score:2)
Curious claim about shale oil reserves (Score:3, Insightful)
By official estimates the Monterey Shale formation makes up 2/3 of the shale reserves in the US and by some estimates 1/3 of all crude reserves in the US
What about the Green River shale formation which is estimated to have 3 TRILLION barrels of oil? I don't get how that 13.7 billion barrels originally estimated in the Monterey formation comprised 2/3rds of the shale reserves, when we have a 3 TRILLION barrel reserve. By my count, it's around 1/3rd of 1 percent.
Re:Curious claim about shale oil reserves (Score:4, Insightful)
The green river shale is a different kind of thing. The monterray and Bakken shale formations contain actual oil, the Green River formation contains kerogen -- a waxy substance that will turn into oil if you heat it to several hundred degrees for a period of years (yes years).
The best analogy I have heard to put this into perspective is that the Bakken is something like a rock that has been left soaking in a bucket of oil for a while and the oil has seeped into the pores of the rock. The green river shale is more like a brick that has had candle wax dripped on it. Both contain energy which can be extracted, but one yields oil directly whereas the other is merely a feedstock to make oil.
The last I had heard, no one has ever made a commercially successfull attempt to convert kerogen into oil. It can be done, just not anything like economically, and the environmental costs of doing so would be massive. Now of course the "free market" folks will say, "well the price will just rise until the kerogen is extractable", and they are right, the price will rise to something like 1000 dollars per barrel, and then we will have lots of that "cheap" green river shale oil available on the market, something like 3 trillion barrels worth.
-AndrewBuck
Re: (Score:3)
The pipeline has to be heated to keep the "oil" from congealing:
"Uinta’s black wax crude must remain above 95 degrees and yellow wax above 115 degrees or it’s liable to congeal."
The proposed pipeline would cross several of the watersheds where those that live along the Wasatch Front get their drinking water.
So the question is, what is more important, a stable supp
Re: (Score:3)
Although I largely agree with the sentiment you are expressing, there is a similar confusion here as well. I read through the article you linked and what they are talking about transporting is normal crude that has a high paraffin wax compnonent in it. This too, though, is different from the kerogen bearing rocks in the green river shale. There are a couple clues throughout the article that this is what they are talking about, but the most telling is this blurb from the last paragraph...
"For better or wo
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL wut? You must live outside the US.
This announced change on estimated US (slash) California reserves will have little to no impact on the markets. It certainly might have an impact on the CA economy in the long term - but for the rest of us...not so much.
Re: (Score:3)
the road are in good working order. What freeways aren't being repaired?
Re:Good. (Score:5, Funny)
The point is moot. Libruls don't want even 1 drop of it removed from the ground..
FTFY
Fixed the fix (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The point is moot. Liberals don't want even 1 drop of it removed from the ground.
I'm not sure why people "favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform" should have any such opinion.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why people "favouring individual liberty, free trade, and moderate political and social reform" should have any such opinion.
That is not what "liberal" means in American English. In America, a liberal is what Europeans would call a progressive or a social democrat. What Europeans call a liberal, would be a libertarian in America. In Australian English, "liberal" means conservative.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not what "liberal" means in American English. In America, a liberal is what Europeans would call a progressive or a social democrat.
While that is technically true, it's mostly just used as a curse word now for those conservatives who have no concept of compromise and do not understand the difference between opinion and fact. It's one of about a dozen words that mainly serve to make these stupid conservatives angry, a list that also includes words like "socialism" and "taxation." Sadly there are few words that actually make them happy, since that generally runs counter to the goal of conservative media with the obvious exception of schadenfreude. Their media go to great lengths to prolong anger and extract pleasure from the misfortune of those they call liberals. For example, they are still talking about the tragedy in Benghazi since, even though it obviously isn't working with swing voters, it keeps their base nice and angry and pliable.
Or, as Orwell called it, DuckSpeak. Why think about complex issues when you can slap around labels as fast as you can quack them?
Just get some Big Brother figure to chant the appropriate terms over the visi-screen or whatever.
Re: (Score:3)
/checks his progressive membership card.
I think you need to stop listening to YOUR side tell you what I'm for, and listen to ME tell you what I'm for.
I am not opposed to free markets. I am opposed to unregulated markets. Everyone needs to play fair. I support freedom of religion, despite being an Atheist. You can believe whatever stupid thing you want as long as you don't push it on me. Keep it in YOUR head, and in your house. Keep it out of mine. I own a gun. Yes, I support Unions, because the alternat
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
It's not just the names that changed. And the NAME of the party of the North during the civil was was the Republican party. The relation of that party to the current Republican party is historical rather than ideological. Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The luddites think its icky and we can all just use windmills. Don't ask me how they think they'll ever get a jet off the ground using solar, but I don't think they've even thought that far into it.
This isn't about ludditism. This is about what year is it? We can fly the planes on biofuels, but we should replace all air within a nation with high-speed rail. Which we should fucking have already, because what year is it? We should be running our planes on biofuels already, because what year is it?
We've had solar panels since the 1970s and they could repay their energy investment in seven years back then. Now it's three. What year is it?
Re:Good. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's easy to see why most individuals haven't done this - they haven't done the cost-benefit calculation themselves, there are large (relatively) one-time costs for installation, and so on. But what about industry? Why hasn't every large factory in Arizona put solar panels on their roof yet? Surely they have accountants and technical staff who are capable of accurately calculating the benefits and arranging for the installation. Either all these people are wrong (rather hard to believe), or solar panels have not actually yet reached the point of commercial viability.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that sure answers why people don't want it on their roofs.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh yeah, Mr. Smarty Pants? Then when haven't you been able to answer the question of what year it is??? If you don't know, you should just not post a response.
Re: (Score:3)
"Repeating an italicized catch phrase doesn't make a cohesive argument."
For Brutus is an honorable man.
Re: (Score:3)
We can't even get a Concorde off the ground anymore.
The thought of Egyptian pyramids immediately come to the discerning thinker's mind: "awesome but impractical and expensive" seems to work on people in every millennium.
Re: (Score:3)
Money is irrelevant... (Score:2, Troll)
The goal is not to make money for a few, but to produce wealth for the people. That requires energy, which fossil fuels will be incapable of providing in the future no matter the cost. There is no intrinsic value in money, and markets/legislation do not produce energy.
There is an unfortunate disconnect between business/economics and reality which desperately needs to be bridged. Only sane energy policy based in reality can rescue us from a truly dismal future. (Sane is recognizing that wind and solar ar
Re: (Score:3)
That requires energy, which fossil fuels will be incapable of providing in the future no matter the cost.
We have enough existing coal reserves to produce the current US annual energy consumption for several hundred years, all by themselves.
Regardless of whether you like coal -- it does have its down side -- statements like "we're running out of energy" are simply false.
Re: (Score:3)
There is a lot of coal, but apart from the coal industry, there is a universal sentiment that we don't want to continue mining or burning it. In fact, a significant number of coal plants are being closed in the US and replaced with gas, which is not nearly so plentiful. The price of natural gas is highly volatile, and we will see a steep increase along with demand. Prices may be low today, but once new export terminals are operational, it will pour out into the global market, and be rapidly depleted while
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. This is in California? It's less likely to be recoverable than ANWAR, if only because the greenies would never let it be tapped because of NIMBY.
It is already being tapped. California produces more oil than any other state except Texas and North Dakota. It is even slightly ahead of Alaska. Here's the data [eia.gov].
Re:Good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't bother. Republicans live in a world in which no drilling occurs during a democratic administration. That's why we still hear how turrible Obummer is to the oil industry. How he's ruined that resource for the US even though we're producing more oil now than ever. We're now a net exporter of oil; but Obama ruined it. Can't squeeze a single drop of oil out of the ground with Obummer in office.
And the constant mentioning of ANWR by Republicans again shows how shortsighted they are. Republican, the part of security and homeland defense. They'll keep us safe, but they want to tap a moderate resource for oil and gas (mean estimate of 10.6 bbl) which won't effect the market in any noticeable way instead of preserving it as a strategic resource so when the shit hits the fan we have 10.6 bbl to ourselves. Right now every drop of that 10.6 bbl goes on the market for Indian and China. Republicans, just thinking about you.
Re:Presentation of math (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA :
The reserves were downgraded by 96 percent, from 13.7 billion barrels estimated by a government-funded report in 2011, to just 600 million barrels, the EIA said.
Absolute values help put things into perspective.
Or do we need more perspective? For those who prefer the typical journalistic approach to understanding numbers, it's a reduction from 872'000 Olympic pools to just under 37'200 Olympic pools.
This is slashdot, geek units please (Score:3)
This is slashdot
kilo barrels
Mega barrels
Giga barrels
Tera barrels
Please!
; )
Re: (Score:2)
It's a reduction from about 2740 Library of Congress to about 120 Library of Congress (assuming the approximate volume of all three LoC buildings).
Re:Irrelevant for the common man (Score:5, Informative)
Where does this myth of slave labor pay in the oil industry come from? I live on the gulf coast in the middle of the U.S. petrochem region and the recent resurgence of U.S. oil exploration has lead to insane levels of job growth and prime pay for those lucky enough to work in the major petrochem plants. I was recently shocked by the reality of this at an extended family event at Easter, where I saw one of my wife's cousins, he is 23 years old, married with 2 young kids, and has a 2 year degree from local trade school and he makes over $100,000 per year doing shift work as an operator at one of the plants.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, good. You just displayed the typical hype as well as indicated the source of his question: politics.
To answer your vague and innuendo ridden series of questions: as many as he wants to, higher than most industries (he does actual, physical work, unlike say, IT), same as everyone else in the area (you know, the waitresses, pastors, etc), as long as his health allows, same thing everyone else does after their primary occupation, something else. You seem to purposefully avoid that he has a two year degre