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Posted: 9/27/2005 7:58:39 PM EDT
Way back when (late 60s early 70s), Saudi Arabia
The new figure was about 260 billion barrels. Fast forward 30 years. Saudi Arabia has been pumping a good 8-10 million barrels a day since. They don't have the technical skill to explore for new oil, and haven't announced any major discoveries in years (perhaps ever). Their biggest oilfield (Gawahr?) is over 20 years old. Today, Saudi Arabia claims it's oil reserves are STILL 264 billion barrels. Yet the fun is about to begin! Full story: news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article315546.ece Excerpt:
Saudi oil reserves are a state secret. I think they're running low and are scared of what would happen if the world found out. I'm not a peak oil chicken little, but I certainly don't think we should expect the Saudis to bail us out, even if they wanted to. Drill the ANWR, drill the Gulf, drill off of California. Accelerate tar sand / oil shale recovery technologies, then build NEW refineries to handle the growing capacity. Build them in Berkeley, CA. 
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:01:17 PM EDT
[#1]
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:04:15 PM EDT
[#2]
Nuke it first. |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:05:30 PM EDT
[#3]
Then foul the earth with salt! |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:11:17 PM EDT
[#4]
I thought that by overstating reserves that countries can then sell more under opec; I think that greed will be their (economic) downfall.
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:12:42 PM EDT
[#5]
No, that's stupid. What possible interest would they have in saying their reserves are far lower than what they are? Price is a function of supply and demand, so they'd be screwing themselves when they could command higher prices for their crude.
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:31:09 PM EDT
[#6]
They just slow output to inflate the price and it takes forever for the price to come back down.
In other counties the price of gas is so high because the liberals tax it to death and inflates the price to 4 a gallon. |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:50:54 PM EDT
[#7]
I think the Saudi's problem is that their capacity is restrained by theiroil infastructure, ie they don't have enough facilities to pump crude out of the ground fast enough.
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:56:23 PM EDT
[#8]
... Fuck it. There are times I almost welcome the drying of oil wells in the world. You only go through life once, it would be a damned interesting experience coping with it.
... Life sucks if there ain't some real challenges in front of it. ... 
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Posted: 9/27/2005 8:58:52 PM EDT
[#9]
Reserves are what you can reliably pump. And yes, reserves CAN increase, especially with modern directional drilling, advanced seismic mapping and tertiary recovery techniques. Most fields in Saudi Arabia are still free-flowing.
Big GoM fields like Atlantis and Thunderhorse have been reclassified as far as reserve potential even before they have started producing. Atlantis was first billed as a 180,000 BPD but now is at 220,000. |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:04:43 PM EDT
[#10]
Even if we can burn oil for another 1000 years... look at what it does to our health, and the health of the planet. I'm not a wacko liberal, but I do see that oil will eventualy lead to the downfall of our civilization if we don't switch to other energy sources. They are there, the technology is there, but most of the USA is to brainwashed to see it. and the CEO's of ford/chrystler/chevy have to many congresmen in their pockets, they get on TV and say "we do't have the technology... BS!!!!!!!.
The fricken technology has been there for 50 years... did you know that if you inject WATER into an internal combustion engine it doubles milage per gallon,a nd increases your torce?!?!?! the germans figured that one out in 1935, USA's WW2 fighter planes used it too, and the chemistry was figured out and proven and published just a few years ago... WTF I'll have asthma for the rest of my life, because I was born and lived the first year of my life in Los Angeles during 1977. It has recently been proven that smog does permanent damage to the lungs of babies, and for the rest of their lives they will have problems breathing... so THANKS!  Our country is built off the assumption of infitite free energy.. we ship grain from kansas to canada to grow cows to ship back to texas.. this is stupidity. and based on (almost) free enery. WE ship grain from minnesota to florida to get packaged into chips that get shipped to california. some day it will end, and many of the poeple here are to hard headed and stuborn to see it... "I can do whatever the hell I want to , and nobody can stop me, becasue this is america, and I have freedom..." Rant mode off... wake up! |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:05:45 PM EDT
[#11]
We will always be slaves to the oil . The terrorists will pretend they are running low, we make more efficient cars, they lower the prices. After a but they go abck up. If we try for alternative souces they will just lower their prices lower than what the alternative will go for.
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:07:08 PM EDT
[#12]
That cant be proven. |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:09:30 PM EDT
[#13]
So either
1) they were lying but are now telling the truth - so we can go back to $0.89 per gallon, or 2) they were telling the truth, but are now lying, and gas will soon hit $10 per gallon - paving the way for ethanol, alternative oil extraction methods, and alternative power sources. Either way, it oughta be interesting. <---hoping for option #1, but strangely intrigued by Winston_Wolf's proposal....... |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:11:20 PM EDT
[#14]
It's always good to add a few spelling errors, for dramatic effect, when typing out such a rant. <---golf-clapping for santanatwo 
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:16:55 PM EDT
[#15]
I think they lied 30 through their burkas 30 years ago and are making up an unimaginably immense whopper of a lie now. But I agree, this will be interesting to see how it plays out. |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:32:33 PM EDT
[#16]
I like this... I for one follow the 'life sucks' theme in general. Everyday basis of course and not just for special occasions. It's amazing though how folks will always come up with alternative methods to do something when the old ways stop working. Eventually the earth will force our hand when she stops giving us oil. I'd kinda like to be there and see what we do next myself. I like the hydrogen fuel idea. It's not like it hasn't been around for 30 years, just the oil companies keep us on oil like drug addicts almost. Scary aint it. |
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Posted: 9/27/2005 9:35:18 PM EDT
[#17]
... You don't fool me |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 4:40:36 AM EDT
[#18]
The Saudis are in serious trouble because their men are too lazy/stupid to work their own oil infastructure.
 That's why all the good jobs are going to foreigners working for Halliburton.
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Posted: 9/28/2005 4:47:09 AM EDT
[#19]
tag
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Posted: 9/28/2005 4:49:29 AM EDT
[#20]
But do not, I repeat DO NOT look into alternative or renewable energy sources. That would be foolish. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 4:49:49 AM EDT
[#21]
I grew up in LA (lived there for 19 years) and no asthma |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:05:58 AM EDT
[#22]
LOL, yep, gotta agree with that. Ships, 18-wheelers, trains, etc. will never run on vegtable oil, or some other outlandish idea that the liberals think will work. That is Star trek nerd thinking. Scott |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:11:21 AM EDT
[#23]
No, they'd be keeping the market from shifting to alternatives. If oil gets too high priced, people will look for other solutions. Cant happen fast enough I say. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:13:59 AM EDT
[#24]
The water is for cooling exhaust temps on super-charged or turbo-charged high performance engines. If it doubled mileage the EE would have a seperate H2O section. Also did you walk from Cali or ride. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:18:07 AM EDT
[#25]
I was actually being sarcastic. Point is, as long as we pump money into the Saudis, we'll have a nasty terrorism problem. Get as far away from oil as possible as soon as possible. This isnt' about environmental or economic problems, oil is a MAJOR factor in national security. The faster we get out, the safer we'll be. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:20:41 AM EDT
[#26]
I'd imagine that the truck and train fleets would be easier to convert to H2 fuel cells than passenger cars (less vehicles, less infrascructure, higher vehicle cost to absorb the fuel cell cost, less people to train in fueling, etc). Build some new nuke plants to make the H2 and reduce the burden on natural gas, and we can at least call it forward progress. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:30:10 AM EDT
[#27]
some 18 wheelers already run on 'vegetable' oil (bio diesel). there is a place not far from where i live that was pumping bio-diesel at less than the inflated price of normal diesel and they did not run out when many of the local normal gas stations ran out during the katrina panic.. of course it takes a lot of fruits and nuts to make 1 gallon of biodiesel... and don't worry about running out. the world is over in 2012 according to the mayan calendar and the bible codes.. not sure whether its gonna be a 60 mile long asteroid or the yellowstone caldera though... |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:31:05 AM EDT
[#28]
If it was that easy, don't you think that someone would already be doing it? Like maybe the oil companies? They are in business to make money. That is their only purpose. These comspiricy theories are usually laughable. On the other hand, I worked on a project last summer that was going to Saudi, it was a steam injection system. The project engineer told me that the reserves over there wern't recharging like they had in the past, and this demonstration project ws to see if they could up production. If you read between the lines enough, you might actually find what is really going on. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 5:44:12 AM EDT
[#29]
Simple. There using water injection to boost production. It was said Gwahar production has a 30% water cut. Thats a really bad sign. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:02:07 AM EDT
[#30]
I've talked to the people running a couple stations selling biodiesel.
One of them is just a stand-alone place that mixes B20 (20% biodiesel, 80% petroleum diesel) right there on the spot. He said sales are going great. The other is a truck-stop selling B20 near Amarillo, TX. He said they can barely keep their tanks full. When I got there to fill up, he said the fuel truck had just left- they had been empty. There was a semi parked there that been sitting since 1am... the guy wanted biodiesel and this was the only one until Tennessee or something, so he just parked and waited, rather than just filling up with normal diesel. The guy working there said they have plans to start selling B50 and B100 in the near future. In 2004 I think there was about 30million gallons of biodiesel sold in the US. A drop in the bucket. This year, at least three new biodiesel refineries are being built with capacities of about 30million gal/year each. I guess that's four drops in a bucket, but it's three more than last year. I remember reading a couple years ago that if we had as many diesels as Germany (about half of miles driven are diesel miles), we could theoretically stop importing from Saudi Arabia. Switch half of those to even B20, and we're importing even less. But the problem with alternative fuels is the fact that oil is still cheap. Sure, biodiesel is competitive at current prices... but if they felt threatened, they could cut the price of oil in half, and biodiesel and the like would be forgotten. Anyway, I'd love to tell the middle east to FOAD. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:02:08 AM EDT
[#31]
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:10:27 AM EDT
[#32]
The asteroid strike will set off the Yellowstone, and all other volcanoes on earth. In true arfcom fashion, we will have BOTH! I read about it in a book, so it must be true. 
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:26:28 AM EDT
[#33]
Well water injection mainly prevents detonation in high compression ratio engines. It does not do much for the efficiency in and of itself, it just allows higher compression ratios to be more safely used. Higher compression rates make more power or efficiency, depending on the particular engine design and tuning. Also by using water injection on a high compression engine you can use lower octane fuels that would ordinarily cause detonation. http://www.rallycars.com/Cars/WaterInjection.html |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:26:46 AM EDT
[#34]
I love the idea of biodiesel and have made some myself. But don't forget that even the big names in the biodiesel field say there's not enough tillable land mass in the US to grow enough veggies to replace our petro oil needs. That said, more power to the BD people -- it's good for America.
We need to be building nuclear reactors RFN!!! It's the right thing to do for the economy, for the environment and for national security. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:37:35 AM EDT
[#35]
Ditto. Gas at $6/gal for about 2 years would do wonders for this country. Despite the fact that it'd be a little uncomfortable for a while, in a decade we could tell OPEC and their little cartell to fuck off and die. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:40:47 AM EDT
[#36]
roxorz!!!1 I'm going to fill half my tank with a garden hose... I just saved a bunch of money with water!!!1  p.s., is torce French for torque? |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:41:00 AM EDT
[#37]
The problem with most of the bio-energy/fuel cell type technology right now, is the amount of energy required to produce the fuel is higher than the energy output of the fuel.
Not so with crude. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:50:18 AM EDT
[#38]
Check this out: Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae Excerpt: "Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals." |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 6:54:44 AM EDT
[#39]
So, where do we get the land? Cut back on cattle farming? Cut back on grain? Cutting back on grain, would cut back on cattle, because it takes grain to finish cattle. That would drive up food prices. The envirowhackos would have a field day with this one. Is algae/biodiesel as an alternative fuel a positive or negative as far as energy required to produce it? |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 7:10:30 AM EDT
[#40]
According to an NREL study (joint Department of Agriculture and DoE), "Biodiesel uses 0.3110MJ of fossil energy to produce one MJ of fuel product; this equates to a fossil energy ratio of 3.215. In other words, the biodiesel life cycle produces more than three time as much energy as it uses in fossil energy." They also point out there is room for much improvement because a large part of the energy used is the natural-gas derived methanol use in refining. If they can find a more efficient source of methanol or ethanol, it will be even better. Note that the same study determined that the amount of energy required for crude IS higher than the energy output. Crude is just dirt cheap, so nobody cares(until it gets harder to find). |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 7:23:56 AM EDT
[#41]
I don't think anyone is suggesting that we all switch to diesel cars and run them all on biodiesel. This was merely an attempt to show how little land it would really take to do it... about 2% of farming land, or 1% of grazing land. And how much land is out there where farmers are getting paid NOT to grow anything? That could be 2% right there. Combine many options- biodiesel, nuke plants that can charge hyrbids and/or electric cars(or make hyrdogen if that works out), maybe run some cars on ethanol... it all adds up. IMO, Biodiesel is by far the easiest and cheapest answer out there- but it's not the only answer. I know one thing that isn't the answer, and that's to wait until oil/energy supply is critical and then start worrying about it. If you run out of gas in your car, you can call a tow-truck... when we run out of oil, where's the tow-truck coming from? Everyone says "we're ingenious people, we'll come up with something." Well, we already have- in fact, we've come up with several somethings. So why push our luck? |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 7:32:47 AM EDT
[#42]
I couldn't agree more, jq. I get a bit tired of hearing the nay sayers dis the value of hybrids and fuel efficient vehicles. Personally, I feel that the more efficient autos coming onto the market are a real advantage in terms of both saving money and conserving oil resources, but even if the nay sayers are correct and these technologies are not going to help that much I feel that the larger reality has transended these concerns. Even if a new hybrid auto does not save one very much money out of one's personal budget, it still pretty dramatically has changed the allocation of dollars spent. The financial transaction has moved money away from the Middle East and the oil companies and towards the Japanese economy (a country with whom we've had FRIENDLY relations for over sixty years) or back into our OWN economy (provided that Detroit can get its ass off the eight ball and crank up manufacture of some new technology cars). I feel this is important. I'm no longer young enough to be much use carrying a rifle, but I can at least do something to lower my own personal need for foreign crude oil. I think it's past time for more people to start thinking like this. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 7:41:19 AM EDT
[#43]
I've looked into algae-based biodiesel and it has some promise, but is not the answer. One advantage is that it can be produced on land that otherwise has no agricultural value, as long as there is ample water supply.
Biodiesel, in any form, is low hanging fruit that should be exploited. But above all, we need to get some nukes under construction NOW! |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 7:57:41 AM EDT
[#44]
Well, Winston, if you're between the ages of birth and 60, in all likelihood you will live to see the day come. Congratulations. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 8:29:28 AM EDT
[#45]
Water injection is for engines that use high boost turbos or superchargers. The sole purpose is to prevent detonation. So, if you are advocating that everyone now should get 3.5L turbocharged V8's that make 500HP, im all for it, but it won't be very fun in traffic Not to mention your standard Turbo system cost $3-5k or more. Then you need better($) engine parts and a water injection system($), now your spending way more than you would save. |
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Posted: 9/28/2005 9:59:50 AM EDT
[#46]
Listen to this man! |
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