My recent discussion of Saudi Arabia put me in mind of another of the battle cries of the anti-war left: “No war for oil! No blood for oil!”
It’s got all the makings of a great slogan. All the words are one syllable. It’s catchy, it’s easy to chant in unison, and it captures a certain moral superiority.
The only problem is, that it’s wrong. Wrong and stupid.
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Being wrong and stupid has never stopped the Luny Left. They seem to pride themselves in being wrong and stupid.
People on both sides are totally dependant on oil. I bet if you cut it off the chant would be, from both sides, BLOOD FOR OIL – TREASURE FOR OIL
I know the thought of not being able to get in my car and carry out my daily business would motivate me to spill some blood for oil. Be honest now, wouldn’t you?
The instant it’s publicly announced that we will start replacing petroleum with Substance X is the day that the oil producers will jack the prices through the roof,
Jay,
I think you have this backwards, as your logic goes against simple economics. If there was a threat to the oil co’s profits and their product, through competition or mandate of substance X, the prices would come DOWN. It would be simple supply and demand. Demand would go down, supply would be going up, prices would fall. This would then put pricing pressure on substance X.
Also, I do don’t agree that we desperately need a replacement for petroleum. As you have stated, it is the most effiecient, portable, abundant source of fuel. Even at today’s prices, oil is the best thing going. If that were to change, then a free market based economy would find profit motive to develop an energy source that can compete. So far, nothing can.
oh yeah, and my SUV proudly sports said slogan “No Oil For Pacifists” 🙂
rod
before their oil reserves become little more than useless, sticky, smelly pits of goo.
Here’s a company trying to do that right now. Basically, they run the dead-dinosaurs-and-other-assorted stuff, plus heat, and reduce the time required from milennia to hours.
Trash to oil. Way cool. And our landfills as feedstock!
As a point of fact, Nazi Germany didn’t start looking for sythentic replacements for oil after they lost the Ploesti fields. They had started producing sythetics long before the first shots were fired in 1939. In fact, they knew they’d lose most of their imports as soon a a war broke out. Being able to sythesize it–along with rubber and a few other commodities–was a prerequisite for going to war.
The first reference that comes to mind is John Cornwall’s Hitler’s Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil’s Pact.
RE: joe’s post (August 11, 2005 12:13 PM)
Interesting link you found, joe. Right now they are limited to animal and vegetable fat from poultry farms and taking the residual “long” alkyl chains and reassembling them into oil distillates of some quality. I guess this would be the cream of their crop for energy efficiency. Clearly they still have considerable development to do and we can only hope that they become successful and innovative enough to indeed reprocess much more of our human-derived waste.
The cynic in me questions their energy efficiency claims, but maybe they are accurate. I’m sure investors of the enterprise will insist that experts in thermodynamics and petrochemistry confirm their entire series of processes. Still, I’d just prefer we quit burning so much of the prime crude and develop alternative energies (non-petroleum) first. It just makes so much more sense for the long term.
Nicely done Jay, VERY well stated!
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
Oil. $66 a barrel, at the moment.
Liberals: Can we just take Iraq’s oil already, please? This is horse****… paying $3 a gallon based on SPECULATION.
This company has been around for awhile:
http://www.syntroleum.com/
Gentlemen, the problem is not oil. The problem is refineries and boutique formulations. Each locality has specific requirements for gasoline formulation, and these change sometimes 2 to 4 times each year. Gasoline is not a single entity, but an often changing mix of different distillates.
Come up with three or four different mixes of gasoline. Replace 100 year old equipment. build new distillation plants and gasoline will become plentiful. Once the supply can keep up with increased demand, prices will drop.
frankR:
Nice idea. Good luck getting those refinery equipment changes through the environmental lobbyists.
I would guess all of my indoor plumbing is copper – I think PVC pipe is only used for my lawn sprinklers.
Also on the price of oil, the oil companies would first try to kill new large alternate technologies, then they would try to own them. Assuming this new technology is environmentally friendlier than oil, burnable oil products then eventually go the way of freon (banned and super expensive).
All other points, spot on.
I can see the flames heading my way, but here goes…
I think the liquid fuel you are looking for is already here. Its called Ethanol and sold around the Midwest as E85 (85% Ethanol/15% Gas). I have been running on it for 2 months in my FFV Ford Taurus.
ethanol is an alcohol.
anyways
for power production, we need to take the liberals’ heros France’s example and use nuclear power
some 80% of France’s energy is from nuclear power.
Nuclear power is even more efficient than hydrocarbon-based fuels, tons more powerful and definitely a safe alternative (you think not safe you say? when was the most recent nuclear power incident in America? When was the most recent PETROLEUM power incidient in America?)
If you want extremely safe nuclear power, have the plant engineers trained with the United States Navy. They have the best safety record in the world (what record?)!
I work in the oil exploration industry, so I’d like to add some thoughts. First of all, oil will not “run out” in our lifetime, or our children’s lifetime for that matter. Because Jay Tea correctly states that oil is the foundation of the global industrial economy and much of the materials it produces, it is an issue prone to be made more complex by economics. For example, the Europeans tax the hell out of gasoline not only because they need the revenue, but because much fewer people need to drive. Driving is a relative luxury for those that can afford it, so the beaurocrats can get away with it. One of my friends in Amsterdam has already spent 3000 euro in the process of getting her license! Secondly, the Alberta tar sands and Utah’s oil shale deposits have more hydrocarbons than Saudi Arabia and Iran. Besides, the Saudis have been pumping so fast and furious that some real concerns are mounting, particularly with the Ghawar field. The first entry on a Yahoo search for “Ghawar oil” was this: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ghawar.htm
Although that is only an example from the top one one quick and dirty search, the point seems to be that things aren’t all that rosy for that so-easy-to-extract middle east oil.
Under the radar of the MSM, billions are pouring into research to develop these tar sands and shales. One idea I recently read about in an industry journal suggested that one nuclear power plant, as well as efficient extraction methods develped over the last 5 years, would reduce the costs of tapping the tar sands to the point that it would compete with crude. Don’t even get me started on how much oil is still in the ground, waiting for technology to release it in an economical manner.