Saturday 3 December 2011

The Peak Oil Myth

The estimated global oil reserves in the 1970's was about 200 years worth. (The date of the peak oil theory.)
The estimated global oil reserves now is about 200 years worth.
I predict in 100 yrs time estimated oil reserves will still be 200 years worth.
The relative price of oil will not change very much in the next 100 years.
It will stay in the range $70 to $100 per barrel - US dollar inflation adjusted.
If the oil price is measured in terms of ounces of gold per barrel it has been constant since the 1960's.

Peak oil is a myth and always has been.
It is spread by oil and energy companies who want a high oil price.
It is also used by the US government to persuade the public that the US needs to interfere in the Middle East.
It is also used by arms companies in order for the public to support the US government spending astronomical amounts on the military and for the US government to interfere in the Middle East.
Conflicts in the Middle East and the US interference used to create them, greatly assist US arms companies selling more arms to Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel and across the globe generally.

The record for US oil production was set in 1970 but is about to be broken in about 18 months time.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57538431/u.s-may-soon-become-worlds-top-oil-producer/

The US has a surplus of Natural Gas.
Some sources for the production of Natural Gas in the US are being cut back because the price of Natural Gas is about 20% too low.
A general switch to decrease the amount of oil and raise the amount of Natural Gas used in the US is needed.

There are numerous sources of carbon based energy.

Oil shale deposits in Canada and North Dakota (and elsewhere).

Fracking - extracting natural gas from rocks across the globe.
In the very small areas so far explored in the US and Europe, each have been found to have larger reserves than the Saudi Arabian oil fields (currently officially the world's largest).
In the UK, in the small area so far explored (near Blackpool), the reserves are estimated to be the equivalent of 70 years of the entire current UK usage of Natural Gas.
The energy reserves available from fracking are worth many trillions of dollars. Ways will be found to overcome the current environmental problems when something is worth this much.

New technology to extract more oil from existing fields, mainly new techniques that improve the proportion of oil that can be freed from the rocks.

The oil companies are now drilling horizontally following thin oil seams.
Previously oil companies only drilled into areas where oil has collected in large pools, they are called conventional oil fields.
There are very substantial deposits available from horizontal drilling - no estimates are available (the oil companies certainly do not want you to know).

New oil finds (none of them have been massive but there are more all the time).
E.G. New gas and oil reserves have been found in Greece (from 2006) which are worth $100's billions.

Then we have another really interesting possibility - deep oil.
No existing theory can explain how there is so much oil concentrated in the largest Saudi oil field.
If this field was supplied from a deeper larger geographical source it would explain it.
No existing theory can explain why some fields (e.g. the largest Saudi Arabian oil field) seem to be mysteriously filling up again. If they were being supplied from a deeper source through cracks in the rock it would explain it.
The Russians have had some success with finding oil much deeper than conventional theory suggests could be possible in Siberia.
We will see if deep oil becomes conventional wisdom in the next 20-40 years.


West Texas Intermediate Oil priced in Gold is pretty much constant since the 1950's.
It is only the massive increase in the money supply that causes what "pundits" like to call inflation.



Climate Change

Earth's climate has been warming and cooling in cycles for milions of years.
Well before man could make a difference.
The evidence is in the ice cores.

In the 70's we were supposedly headed for a new ice age.
Now we are warming up.
The Earth was much warmer, than it is now, in the middle ages around 1000AD.

The cycle seems to be about natural variations in the sun's magnetic field - nothing to do with man.
It seems to be about cloud formation and the amount of cloud cover.
(More clouds reflect more of the sun's energy before it reaches the ground and vice versa.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1qGOUIRac0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100102296/sun-causes-climate-change-shock/

But that does not suit the global billion dollar climate change business.
These pseudo scientists tweak their models to come up with ever more extreme predictions - in order to gain headlines and therefore more funding.
N.B. the earth flips magnetic field polarity every few thousand years (north becomes south and vice versa) - the sun also has a natural cycle for the strength and polarity of it's magnetic field.

It is interesting to note that one solution put forward to prevent the Earth from warming up is to seed more cloud cover.
But the connection to that (the amount of cloud cover) being the root cause of climate change is never mentioned in the media.

The other pertinent fact is that C02 levels rise after temperature rises not the other way around - evidenced from ice cores going back 100,000's of years and more recent scientific data.
Liquids absorb less gas when they get warmer.

The Greens have a lot to answer for.
E.G. it will take 200 yrs to get back to equilibrium for the bio fuels initiative - the amount of trees cut down to grow bio fuels vs c02 savings from bio fuels.
The fact that everyone's energy bills are going up to subsidise wind/tidal/solar power.

Bush's directive to grow corn for biofuels was particularly stupid. It is much more efficient to use sugar cane for bio fuels. But you can't grow sugar cane in US.

I do not advocate pollution - so limits on man made toxic emissions shud be made - but not the hysteria of the climate change bozos.
Pollution affects general health.

If there was a serious initiative to move towards renewables we would build a solar power field nearly a million sq miles big in the Sahara and pipe the power to Spain and from there into the general European network. But the Arabs would not like the effect on the price of oil and would object to this construction in their back yard.
Or a huge solar power field could be built in Central Spain or Southern California, or Arizona or Nevada or Texas.
Instead of this we now have Obama subsidizing solar panels in places like Wisconsin and Pittsburgh and putting up everybody's tax and energy bills as a result.

The relative cost of infrastructure to pipe the power from numerous remote wind/tidal locations is huge.
It would be negligible for the Sahara.

N.B. Henrik Svensmark thinks the Earth's temperature reached a peak around 2009 and is now set to start  a period of cooling. We shall see.





Tuesday 29 November 2011

GW Bush and the neocon legacy

Bush's legacy. 

The transfer of relative power to China and Russia.
The loss of US moral supremacy.
The loss of allies (principally Western Europe ex UK, but also Japan is seeking to re-form it's own military and thus greater independence, minor allies in Latin America).
The legalisation of pre-emptive war.
The further dumbing down of US media.

The widening gap between rich and poor (the reverse of which was the key to much of US increased power in mid 20th Century).
The polarisation of public opinion. Has the US ever been so divided since Vietnam? I am pledged to create a government of national unity. Read the doublespeak and weep.

Consolidation of the power of the bankers.
This last one will only last for while.


I do not believe the Chinese will act with altruistic motives going forward and I believe the Chinese leadership is intelligent enough to recognise the power of the Western bankers and will not play ball.

Putin has already demonstrated he is familiar with current circumstances after the disastrous role of US bankers in Russia circa 1998.
Putin has installed a puppet for a term or so and will then take back the reins.


And Obama is changing nothing.
Yes I can
No you bloody well can't and you don't even want to. Didn't take a genius to work that one out in 2008.

N.B. The neocons remain in power, irrespective of which party is voted into the White House.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are all extreme neocons.
The Republican Party is completely controlled by neocons.
The UK's government is controlled by neocons, exemplified by William Hague the Foreign Secretary. 

Like the US, the UK spends about triple what it should on "National Defense".
Both will go broke as a result.