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TechnoratiWhen will it end, this crushing rise in the price of gasoline, now averaging $4.10 a gallon at the pump? The question is uppermost in the minds of American motorists as they plan vacations or simply review their daily journeys. The short answer is simple as well: "Not soon."
As yet there is no sign of a reversal in oil's upward price thrust, which has more than doubled in a year, cresting recently above $146 a barrel. The current oil shock, the fourth of its kind in the past three-and-a-half decades, and the deadliest so far, shows every sign of continuing for a long, long stretch.
The previous oil shocks -- in 1973-74, 1980, and 1990-91 -- stemmed from specific interruptions of energy supplies from the Middle East due, respectively, to an Arab-Israeli war, the Iranian revolution, and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Once peace was restored, a post-revolutionary order established, or the invader expelled, vital Middle Eastern energy supplies returned to normal. The fourth oil shock, however, belongs in a different category altogether.
Nothing Like It Before
Unlike in the past, the present price spurt has been caused mainly by global demand for energy outstripping available supply. Alarmingly, there is no short-term prospect that supply will match demand. For a commodity like petroleum that underwrites and permeates every aspect of modern life -- from fuel to fertilizers, paints to plastics, resins to rubber -- "balance" requires a 5% safety factor on the supply side.
At present, however, spare capacity in the oil industry is less than 2%, down from more than 6% in 2002. As a result, the price of oil responds instantly to negative news of any sort: a threat against Iran by an Israeli cabinet minister, a fire on a Norwegian offshore drilling rig, or an attack on an oil facility by armed rebels in Nigeria.
Behind the present price surge, other factors are also at work. Take the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. It flared almost a year ago, drastically lowering the market value of the stocks of banks and allied companies. The concomitant downturn in other equities led investment fund managers and speculators to direct their cash into more productive markets, especially commodities such as gold and oil, driving up their prices. The continued weakening of the U.S. dollar -- the denomination used in oil trading -- has also encouraged investment in commodities as a hedge against this depreciating currency.
The earlier oil shocks led non-OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) nations to accelerate oil exploration and extraction to increase supplies. Their collective reserves, however, represent but a third of OPEC's 75% of the global total. By the turn of the century, these countries had pumped so much crude oil that their collective output went into an irreversible decline.
A mere glance at the oil production table of the authoritative BP Statistical Review of World Energy -- published annually -- shows declines in such non-OPEC countries as Britain, Brunei, Denmark, Mexico, Norway, Oman, Trinidad, and Yemen. Over the past decade, oil output in the U.S. has declined from 8.27 million barrels per day (bpd) to 6.88 million bpd.
The exploitation of the much-vaunted tar sands of Canada -- expected to cover the global shortfall -- only helped to raise that country's output from 3.04 million bpd in 2005 to 3.31 million bpd in 2007, a mere 10% in two years.
In the 1990s, overflowing supplies and cheap oil had led to an overall decline in oil exploration as well as under-investment in refineries. These two factors constitute a major hurdle to hiking the supply of petroleum products in the near future.
In addition, new hydrocarbon fields are increasingly found in deep-water regions that are arduous to exploit. The paucity of the specialized equipment needed to extract oil from such new reserves has created a bottleneck in future offshore production. The world's current fleet of specialized drill ships is booked until 2013. The price of building such a vessel has taken a five-fold jump to $500 million in the last year. The cost of crucial materials -- such as steel for rigs and pipelines -- has risen sharply. So, too, have salaries for skilled manpower in the industry. Little wonder then that while, in 2002, it cost $150,000 a day to hire a deep-water rig, it now costs four times as much.
Static Supply, Rising Demand
While the oil supply remains essentially static, worldwide demand shows no signs of tapering off. The only way to cool the energy market at the moment would be to reduce consumption. Luckily -- from the environmentalist's viewpoint -- soaring gasoline and diesel prices have begun lowering consumption in North America and Western Europe. Gasoline consumption in the United States dropped 3% in the first quarter of 2008, when compared to the previous year.
When it comes to energy conservation, there is a far greater opportunity for saving in the affluent societies of the West than anywhere else in the world. An average American uses twice as much oil as a Briton, a Briton twice as much as a Russian, and a Russian eight times as much as an Indian. It was therefore perverse of U.S. energy secretary Sam Bodman to focus on the way the Chinese and Indian governments subsidize oil products to provide relief to their citizens -- and to urge their energy ministers to cut those subsidies to "reduce demand."
It is true that China and India, which together account for two-fifths of the human race, are now major contributors to the growth in global oil demand. But it's an indisputable fact that only by increasing per capita energy consumption from current abysmally low levels can the Chinese and Indian governments hope to lift hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty.
In a country like India, for instance, half of all households lack electricity, so hurricane lanterns, fueled by kerosene, are a basic necessity. Subsidized kerosene, also used for cooking stoves, helps hundreds of millions of poor Indians. To cut or eliminate the subsidy on kerosene would only intensify poverty.
In truth, when it comes to energy conservation, the main focus at the moment should be on the 30-member Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of the globe's richest nations which cumulatively consumes nearly three out of every five barrels of oil used anywhere.
Among OECD members, Japan provides a model to be emulated.
Japan's Exemplary Performance
When it comes to energy conservation, Japan provides a glaring counterpoint to the United States. Consider what's happened in both countries since the first oil shock of the mid-1970s when prices quadrupled.
That price hike initially led to a drive for fuel efficiency in the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan. It also gave a boost to the idea of developing renewable sources of energy. Ever since, Japan has followed a consistent, long-range policy of reduction in petroleum usage, while the U.S. first wavered and then fell back dramatically.
Under the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the U.S. modestly improved the fuel efficiency of its vehicles, as stipulated by a federal law. President Carter also announced a $100 million federal research and development program focused on solar power and symbolically had a solar water heater installed on the White House roof.
During the subsequent presidency of Ronald Reagan, when oil prices fell sharply, energy efficiency and conservation policies went with them, as did the idea of developing renewable sources of energy. This was dramatized when Reagan ordered the removal of that solar panel from the White House.
In the private sector, utilities promptly slashed by half their investments in energy efficiency. President George H.W. Bush, an oil man, followed Reagan's lead. And his son, George W. (along Vice President Dick Cheney, former chief executive of energy services giant Halliburton) has done absolutely nothing to wean Americans away from their much talked about "addiction to oil."
Even now, instead of urging Americans to cut oil usage (and putting a little legislative heft behind those urgings), politicians of both parties are blaming soaring gas and diesel prices on "speculators," conveniently ignoring how thin a line divides "speculators" from "investors."
In Japan, on the other hand, the government and private companies have stayed on course since the First Oil Shock. Despite the doubling of Japan's gross domestic product during the 1970s and 1980s, its annual overall levels of energy consumption have remained unchanged. Today, Japan uses only half as much energy for every dollar's worth of economic activity as the European Union or the United States. In addition, national and local authorities have continually enforced strict energy-conservation standards for new buildings.
It is, again, Japan that has made significant progress when it comes to renewable sources of energy. By 2006, for instance, it was responsible for producing almost half of total global solar power, well ahead of the U.S., even though it was an American, Russell Ohl, who invented the silicon solar cell, the building block of solar photovoltaic panels, which convert sunshine into electricity.
What to Do: Medium-Term Solutions
Worldwide, over half of all oil is used for transport. Though we instantly associate a car or truck with an internal combustion engine (ICE), it was not always so. At the turn of the twentieth century, cars were also powered by steam engines or batteries.
Now, our salvation lies in finding a way back to the pre-ICE era. It is incumbent upon the automobile companies in rich nations to accelerate the process of divorcing vehicles from the internal combustion engine. Cars of the future can be powered by batteries, hydrogen cells, or solar panels -- or a combination of the above.
Typically, Japanese companies are in the forefront of research and development on this. It was Toyota which first introduced a "concept" hybrid car in 1995, combining batteries with the internal combustion engine, and began mass producing them some years later.
This June, Honda set up an assembly line for producing a hydrogen-powered car, the FCX Clarity. This model already can travel 280 miles on a tank of liquid hydrogen. But it will go into mass production only after there is an infrastructure of liquefied hydrogen stations in place in Japan and in California, which will take time. So far there are only 13 hydrogen stations, funded by the government, in the Tokyo area. Meanwhile, aware of the enormous cost of its product, it is initially planning to lease the FXC Clarity to drivers for $600 a month.
Another Japanese corporation, Mazda, has come up with a hybrid car using hydrogen cells as well as an internal combustion engine.
As the mass production of non-ICE cars takes off in rich nations, the cost will fall, and such models will find markets in the fast expanding (yet comparatively poor) economies of China and India.
Medium-Term: The Nuclear Option
Besides powering transport, oil is a major source of fuel for electricity-generating plants. With even Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer conceding publicly that we are nearing peak oil production (after which oil reserves will decline irretrievably), attention is increasingly turning, in the West, to coal and nuclear power as medium-term solutions.
The very mention of nuclear plants revives nightmarish memories of the partial meltdown of a U.S. reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, and the catastrophic burning of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine in 1986. On the other hand, nuclear stations now provide 79% of France's electricity and have, so far, been accident-proof. That country's leading nuclear company, Areva, expects to sell 100 power stations, fueled by third-generation Evolutionary Pressure Water Reactors (EPWR), worldwide by 2030.
Areva also heads a consortium that is building the first nuclear power station in Europe in more than a decade -- in Finland. On nuclear waste management and safety, the Finnish nuclear authority Posiva seems to have found a workable solution. After twelve years of public debate, it has allowed the construction of a $3.5 billion nuclear plant equipped with an EPWR reactor, on an offshore island.
The new plant is designed to last 60 years, twice the average life of a nuclear power plant today. If its control rods should fail, triggering a core meltdown, a special basin of concrete will be there to hold the debris, thus theoretically preventing the release of radioactive material. The nuclear waste will then be set in cast iron, encased in copper, and dropped down a borehole, half a kilometer deep, which would, in turn, be saturated with bentonite, a kind of clay. According to Posiva's metallurgists, under such conditions the copper barrier should last a million years.
Once this station is commissioned, nuclear-fueled electricity will rise from 27% to 37% of the total on the Finnish national grid.
So acute is the demand for electricity in India that three nuclear power stations are to be commissioned this year. Once on line, however, these plants will make but a marginal difference in meeting Indian energy needs. Only coal, which abounds in India, can help meet exploding demand, as is true in coal-rich China. There, an electric plant fueled by (dirty, conventional) coal is being commissioned every week.
Medium-Term: Cleaner Coal
In the hydrocarbon family, coal is the least efficient energy source, providing only half as much energy as oil, while producing twice as much carbon dioxide (CO2). But coal has the longest history of supplying energy to modern societies, and as the twenty-first century began, it was still one of the leading fuels for power plants worldwide.
Today, coal provides 28% of electric power globally, only marginally less than in the 1970s. Countrywide, percentages vary widely -- from 20% in the United States to four times as much in China.
Because coal isn't going away any time soon, the challenge is obviously to burn coal more efficiently and, at the same time, capture its CO2 emissions before they reach the atmosphere. One possible solution to coal's polluting problems lies in producing de-carbonized coal -- that is, in converting coal into petroleum products, thereby also reducing demand for crude oil. A hybrid technology involving de-carbonizing natural gas or coal already exists. In a coal-fired integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) facility, coal is broken up, extracting the hydrogen and leaving behind the carbon. Next the hydrogen is burned, emitting heat that drives the electricity-generating turbines, while carbon, in the form of liquefied CO2, is stored underground or under the seabed.
But, at the moment, an IGCC station needs one-fifth more coal as fuel than a conventional plant just to produce the energy needed to power the carbon-capturing mechanism. The price of the electric power thus generated would be a third to a half higher than that from dirty coal.
On the other hand, according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the CO2 capture and storage (CCS) system could someday provide up to 55% of the emissions reduction needed to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Last month, the G8 energy ministers, meeting in Japan, called for the launch of 20 large-scale CCS projects globally by 2010. Soon after, the British government invited four leading European companies to submit tenders for such a project in the United Kingdom.
At the recent oil summit in Jeddah, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that his country would work with Saudi Arabia on perfecting the technology for carbon capture. The United States and Australia are already committed to advance this technology with public funds. As it gets cheaper with frequent application, it will become affordable by countries like India and China.
With oil supplies peaking in the coming years and uranium following a similar path as the present century unfolds, the weight of humanity's needs will increasingly fall on coal. It is coal, for better or worse, that will provide the energy to sustain higher living standards for a growing segment of humanity, even as the search for, and development of, renewable energies proceeds at a faster pace. Last week, recognizing this reality, the G8 summit renewed its commitment to advance carbon capture and storage systems with all due speed.
This, in a nutshell, is the global energy future in the medium term. It is the reality we face.
Dilip Hiro is the author of numerous books on the Middle East. His most recent book, Blood of the Earth: The Battle for the World's Vanishing Oil Resources (Nation Books) is a vivid history of how oil has revolutionized civilian life, war, and world politics over the last century, as well as of alternatives to oil, including renewable energy sources.
© Copyright 2008 Dilip Hiro
45 Comments so far
Show AllQuote from MiMiCcS:
"As for our increasing population due to lack of birth control. Our fertility rates have been at or below replacement levels for over 30 years. Our growth is entirely related to legal and illegal immigrants, and the children these immigrants have while in the US.
What have you been smoking?"
MiMiCcS, I think YOU have been smoking some good weed.
Immigration to the US is a big part of US population growth, but is actually less than one-half of it. The fertility rate in the US, which is quite high compared to other developed countries, combined with "population momentum", is causing just over half of our population increase.
Check out the facts via the Census bureau, or, refer to this link:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3761/is_200212/ai_n9157094
From that link:
"In the United States, natural increase- more births than deaths- accounted for just over 60 percent of population growth between 2000 and 2001. Net migration-more people moving into than out of the country-accounted for the remaining 40 percent of the growth."
I feel we still have work to do right here in the US, in promoting more birth control, at least until our natural, or non-immigration, population increase drops to zero. OVER HALF of US population growth is due to births exceeding deaths, rather than immigration.
gotov: "$4 gasoline is here to stay"
You guys got it good with $4 gas... don't expect it to stay there... $5, $6 even $7 is not an unreasonable assumption. Frankly, anything that'll get the soccer moms out of their SUVs into something more environmentally friendly, is a good thing.
Thad Stone: Thanks, and good luck to you as well.
Good luck to us all.
drill
conserve
develop alternatives
peak oil and $4 gasoline is here to stay ...
New Oil Discoveries:
1960s: 47 BBbl/year
1970s: 35 BBbl/year
1980s: 24 BBbl/year
1990s: 14 BBbl/year
2000s: 4 BBbl/year
THAD STONE writes:
"Oh great, 'Your comment is awaiting moderation.'."
Thad, I've noticed that this happens when you include more than two hypertext links in your post.
Assuming that this is what has caused your post to be queued - where it will remain till the day you die! - break up your post into several smaller posts, including in each post a maximum of two hypertext links :)
SPECULATION OR DEMAND?
For those claiming the oil price rise is merely speculation, they have to explain why there is no stockpiling of oil. Where is all the oil being hidden?
Saudi Arabia relies entirely on oil for its economy. Once its oil is gone, that's it for Saudi Arabia. Demand has increased significantly over the last two decades, so Saudi Arabia might now be managing its oil reserves with the upmost care, keeping as much oil in the ground as reasonably possible, so as to have oil to sell for "long" into the future.
So, although there may be enough supply to meet demand, matching demand will require depleting oil reserves at a faster rate than in the past, and countries like Saudi Arabia, solely dependent on oil sales, must respond to this situation.
MimiCcS: I can guarantee you that, if allowed to run it's course, China will continue to produce less green-house gas per person than the USA. What you refer to as being 'brown' is NOT carbon dioxide as I hope you know, but the other pollutants that result from a lax clean air policy which comes from Friedmanesque economic plans and a totalitarian state able to maintain that framework. Such pollutants, while certainly very bad, do not (currently) threaten the entire planet with the kind of problems that will be wrought world-wide by C02 production.
Taiwan does not have a totalitarian state and it therefore is not a big surprise to me that they do not have a non-C02 pollution problem. I do not know Taiwan's population growth figures off hand but if they too have a one-child policy (which I rather doubt) then they would certainly be even 'greener' than China.
The USA went from 220million people in the 1980 census to 330million people in the 2000 census. I am absolutely certain that we did NOT import 110 million immigrants in that time. Perhaps, you are referring purely to the replacement rate of WHITE births? I have heard this many times but surely this is rather irrelevant if the population of the USA continues to increase largely by live births, which it most certainly is.
Ultimately my point is that we are all very good at identifying one side of the problem, over-active consumption by the West. But not very good at admitting that the greenest thing you can ever do in your life is to decide you will have one less American child. If you do this then unless you own and use your very own Gulf-Stream jet you have likely done your lifetime's bit to save the planet. The third thing we can do is to give money to the aid agencies that still promote and educate people regarding safe sex and birth control of all forms. The other things that most of us are already doing are also good....pestering congressmen, reducing our own energy consumption in significant ways, demanding development of renewable resources.....
I'm just saying that we cannot solve this planet-wide problem without honestly addressing ALL sides of the issue. And population is one of the BIG issues. I maintain it is the BIGGEST simply because it is largely unidentified and even denied as a problem by both the left and the right (though more often by the right who seem to think the head-in-the-sand approach has a great merit when applied to any problem).
It is painful to be told that a totalitarian and polluting country is actually much better at part of the problem than the USA, but I maintain that is part and parcel to our own ignorance and arrogance...two other problems from which many Americans suffer.
It really is too late, no matter what the press or even our climate scientists say publicly. We will pass peak oil soon, (if we haven't already) we will be unable to curtail our CO2 emissions in time (because the political leadership to do it was needed about 8 years ago), and therefore we will burn every scrap of carbon on the planet we can find.
The only question is merely how fast do we burn it.
Can we slow it down enough to mitigate the coming changes?
At the moment I am not confident.
wolf123:"India is messed up big-time and can't handle their sudden prosperity in terms of regulations."
If it is any consolation to you :the 'sudden prosperity ' has since vanished into thin air. Inflation rages @ 11 % plus .The USD which ,until a few months back ,was around INR 38 has surged well past INR 42. Forecasters have it that by the end of the year the USD will hit over INR 46. The final nail: India's sovereign rating has just been significantly down graded .
Instead of singling out China and India as the villains of the piece ,and reading them the riot act , why don't Westerners focus ( as they really should be doing) on reining in their consumption . Surely the Westerners' 'right' to continue to with their profligate oil-guzzling lifestyles aren't sacrosanct - or somehow 'divinely ordained'. ( Or at least one would hope not.)
Given the sheer volumes Westerners guzzle ,even a marginal decrease could make a significant impact on the overall Supply - Demand situation.
The West has always held the cards. It is perfectly capable of yanking the rug -certainly from under India's feet- any time it chooses.
India might well be a pushover . However the Chinese and the Brazilians might well prove far harder nuts to crack.
physics citizen says "And also, as usual, only about 1 in 10 posts mentions, usually circumspectly, the problem of increasing population and the fact that the USA actively encourages everyone to have as many babies as you can so that they can consume and starve....... Indeed China is already green for this exact reason, they have a population control policy."
Thanks for the laugh. Man. Having lived in Greater China and China for 25 years I can tell you China is NOT GREEN. It is BROWN. The air in many places is so thick with pollution you can taste it and feel it. It has substance and weight. From the sky looking down all you see is a brown blanket. Taipei is an exception and is much improved, but part of that is it's manufacturing has moved to China, but it has bult up a decent train system and prohibits plastic bags and has daily garbage pickups where people have to dump the trash directly into the garbage truck and not leave it on the sidewalk. Hong Kongs air has gotten worse, mainly due to it's proximity to China and the diesel burning trucks coming over from China. It is now a rarity to see blue skies. I had to change jobs after the last 5 years that were split between Shanghai and Hong Kong that had me coughing chronically and short of breath. Much improved after leaving for greener pastures. In Shanghai and Beijing you pretty much need an oxygen bottle, more so in the winter and spring (in the spring the dust storms due to deforestation that has caused huge desertification hit Beijing. They are now a state secret and are so extensive they affect the air as far away as Korea, Japan and Taiwan)
As for our increasing population due to lack of birth control. Our fertility rates have been at or below replacement levels for over 30 years. Our growth is entirely related to legal and illegal immigrants, and the children these immigrants have while in the US.
What have you been smoking?
China Green--- what kind of definition do you have for green?!
Sometime after the 70's oil problems I read with relief that we had enough oil for 2-300 years. I guess someone goofed on the math.
I have never understood world politics until I read
The Secret of the American Empire: the Truth About Economics, Hit Men, Jackals, and How to Change the World.
I think we all need to know how we really got into this mess inorder to get out of it. Read the book. It will change your world view.
Oh great, 'Your comment is awaiting moderation.'.
That kills any utility for a Comment.
How many people read old threads the next day or two ?
Finally, SallyUUKent, some mention of personal choices in energy use…
In a world faced with monstrous collapse, and in a country where the wise are Cassandrized and neither of the princes with a shot of winning the job of temp god has a plan with any hope of averting that collapse, what should we do? It's a tough question with no right answer, but what I'm doing is continuing to vote and contribute Green, while I continue to change my own life to
1. reduce my harmful impact on the ecology and economy, and
2. be ready for coming chaos so I can be an island of quiet order.
For those who say voting Green is a wasted vote I say look at the last 2 presidential elections. Did anyone waste their votes more than Democrats, voting for someone who spent hundreds of millions of dollars reiterating and reinforcing the insane jabberings of the king before flouncing uselessly off stage center-right? Or this last midterm election, voting for people who would overthrow the king, restore rights and bring the army home from the crusades--how'd that work out for ya?
Our votes don't count much; the princes have made sure of that. Our money is our voice, and our time is our vote. I'm spending mine on solar, wind, water self-sufficiency, helpful/practical job training and regrowing nature, not so I can go off the grid and hide in my bomb shelter but so I can become a power plant pumping out benign peak-hour watts, an oasis people can bring their camels to, and a balm for those in need when New Orleans becomes the world.
Who wants to join me on this bike ride to that left turn ahead, and who wants to keep arguing about whose fault it is and who did what to whom? Or maybe you can do both…
It is true there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that i am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use. Louise Gluck, October
And... there's the Messiah complex which takes 3 basic shapes:
1. Jesus will come to save us (believers)
2. The government will deal with it.
3. Science will solve it.
Translation? I can keep doing EXACTLY what I am doing now, no radical change in lifestyle nor leap of consciousnes is required of me.
We are at the end of the Piscean Age, and Pisces happens to rule (among other things) sleep, dreams, delusion. deception and escapism. We ARE at the transition zone into Aquarius, a sign that respects the uniqueness of each individual and the eternal verities, i.e. Truth. The challenge is to raise dreamers into an awakened state... and the media's hypnotic trance and constant food for thought in the form of willful deception makes that initiative all the more difficult and often daunting.
WEBWALK: I frequently think about the points you raised... have you noticed that if you bring up these factors people get very uptight as if there's a lockdown on inconvenient truths of varied sorts? Sometimes I think the New Age movement has done a disservice by enabling people to think they really do control their reality to the exclusion too often of unpleasant facts.
"Unlike in the past, the present price spurt has been caused mainly by global demand for energy outstripping available supply. Alarmingly, there is no short-term prospect that supply will match demand. For a commodity like petroleum that underwrites and permeates every aspect of modern life — from fuel to fertilizers, paints to plastics, resins to rubber — "balance" requires a 5% safety factor on the supply side."
The author should get stuffed. The price of oil increased 140% in 1 year despite slack demand due to weak economic growth, going from 60 dollars to 145 dollars after the Dubai Mercantile Exchange opened and the London loophole was opened.
Also, who controls the safety factor. Big Oil. Monopolies and Cartels are very careful to keep supplies tight. This is man made. The world has 1.3 trillion of proven reserves, enough for 40 years. But the bucket ain't close to being empty yet.
The world uses 33 billion oils of oil per year. Here are some oil discoveries in the past year.
2008 Petrobras' most recent oil finds off the Brazilian coast are of the same order as the massive and newly discovered Tupi field, the chairman of Brazil's state oil company said in an interview published on Sunday. Tupi has estimated recoverable reserves of 5 to 8 billion barrels.
2007 Kuwait could potentially boost its oil capacity to 4m bpd by 2012 after recent finds, eight years earlier than a previous target of 2010, Reuters reported quoting oil minister Sheikh Ali al-Jarrah al-Sabah. Kuwait's existing capacity is around 2.8m bpd.
2007 An oil researcher in Iraq said that Iraq has approximately 530 geological complexes of potential oil reserves and that up to one hundred and fifteen sites have recently been drilled for that have reserves of around 311 billion barrels of oil, Iraq Directory reported.
He went on to say that in addition to this 415 locations which are yet to be explored are thought to have an estimate of around 215 billion barrels.
2007 PetroChina Co.'s (PTR) recent major oil discovery in Jidong field, Bohai Bay, China, is estimated to contain probable reserves of 2.2 billion barrels, a government official said Tuesday, and is expected to produce 200,800 barrels a day of crude oil within three years, a source close to the field's operations added
2008 Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said on Sunday that Iran has discovered a new oil field in the southwest province of Khuzestan with in-place reserves of 1.1 billion barrels. The field, which is located near Andimeshk in Khuzestan, holds an estimated reserve of 233 million barrels of recoverable crude oil, state television quoted Nozari as saying.
The oil discovered in the new field is light crude with an API gravity of 33 degrees, the Iranian oil minister said.
2008 Iran's Central Zagros region may contain up to 50 billion barrels of oil, the oil ministry's official Shana Web site reported Wednesday, citing a senior oil official. Fereydoun Salehi, who manages exploration plans for the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company, said seismographic and geological studies show the Central Zagros region as having numerous large oil fields, Shana said. Salehi said the region also has several oil traps with a projected capacity of 50 billion barrels of oil, according to Shana.
2008 The Bakken oil play stretches across Montana, North Dakota and into Southeastern Saskatchewan. We're talking about some potentially massive reserves of oil, too. The amount of oil in place has been estimated between 271 billion and 503 billion barrels of oil. Although that is only referring to total oil-in-place, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) field report released on April 10, 2008, estimated there are up to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil on the U.S. side of the Bakken.
[earlier estimates by Leigh Price of the USGS, who died in 2000 suddenly despite being in his 50's and in great shape, was said to have been much higher, and oil was at only 20 dollars a barrel so his recovery rates would have been lower. But his report was pending peer review at the time and the USGS refused to issue his draft due to rules that only reports that have completed peer review be released]
I am getting tired of reading these fairy tales.
People we are at PEAK OIL now.
All the oil left in the ground in the entire world only accounts for 37 years at current rate of use (source "The Long Emergency") Resource wars have begun (Iraq & Afghanistan)
This is the end of the American dream in many ways. How are untold suburbs to be sustained when oil is either to expensive or none existent.
Time to change the way we live dramatically or perish.
Solar, Wind, Tidal & Alcohol fuels are to be part of the solution but what must be done is to reduce our energy footprint drastically.
I hope this is not going to be the end of the great human civilization experiment but it very well may be if we continue to slumber into the near future.
CC
staying_sane_in_an_insane_world July 17th, 2008 6:27 am
OK thanks, I will try.
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Spinoza July 16th, 2008 4:16 pm you're welcome.
You reminded me, I wanted to see DiCaprio's documentary (The 11th Hour), I'm getting it now :-)
Good luck to you and your wife in the coming decades.
Lester Brown has been warning of an approaching Food crisis for years (drawdown on global grain reserves, ground water depletion, China now importing much more, etc)… He's a smart guy.
FYI, if you are in a state that has the proper electric meters (can run backwards), I hear there are now companies that pay the entire cost of putting solar electric panels on your roof (they retain ownership and maintenance) and take as payment only what you would have otherwise been giving to the Utility burning natural gas or coal or something. I liked this idea when I heard it: they do all the applications for State, Federal rebates, they do all the financing, they do 'economies of scale' by doing many, many roofs, and in the end more solar panels are up and working, and people only have to make monthly payments as they already were (I'm not sure if prices are locked, that would be an added benefit as utilities will be raising rates as fossil fuels get more and more expensive…)
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funky p July 16th, 2008 5:04 pm
GM is trying the electric car again: (actually, an electric car which can be plugged in, but also takes gasoline, for an engine that is only used to recharge the batteries - no connection to the wheels).
http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/
http://gm-volt.com/
I think it comes out late 2010, when the Li-Ion batteries are fully tested and guaranteed.
Those big energy shills who pretend that solutions are in "more of the same" technologies are either delusional or paid... or both.
I am guessing that you do not have a nuclear waste dumpsite in your backyard that nobody wants to responsibly clean up?
And clean coal? If we need a definition of "oxymoron"... that would be my pick.
Focus upon and promote sustainable alternatives. That's the only way to fuel the market force behind supply and demand... and most importantly, innovation and competition.
We find ourselves presented with an opportunity of historical significance. The last time this cycle presented itself, we did not learn ANYTHING. Try not to make the same mistake.
The US used to have the best public transportation system in the world until it was dismantled by Big Auto and Big Oil lobbying to get rid of it, and now that we need it more than ever, it's no longer there for us. Millions of miles of railroads have been converted to hiking trails - now, don't get me wrong, as an avid hiker, I truly appreciate this creative reuse of old railroad cuts - but still, we could use those old rail routes now to help people commute to distant jobs instead of clogging highways with daily rush hour traffic and in turn, contributing to global warming.
I'd love to be able to take the train to work instead of driving, but we don't have passenger rail service out here in the Midwest anymore. Only the east coast corridor between New York and Washington has anything resembling a regular passenger rail service, but that's only due to the high population concentration on the east coast in a relatively small geographic area. Public transportation makes it attractive to live in areas that have good service. Those that don't aren't as attractive, and as a result, Ohio is losing millions of jobs and has been for some time now, because we have so little mass transit in small to medium sized cities. Even larger cities have, in recent years, been forced to cut back their mass transit systems due to budgetary constraints.
We can begin to combat this current "oil shock" by returning our country to its once former first class mass transit status, but it's going to take a lot of work, investment and the will to do it. Please encourage your legislators on the local, state and federal level to support public transportation legislation. Together, we can bring back mass transit and once again be the envy of the world for our superb public transportation system.
http://www.publictransportation.org/
Spread the word.
Oh, and as for this current so-called "oil shock", it's being caused by the deregulation of runaway speculation on energy commodities futures. Can you say, Enron? There is positively NO reason for the price of a barrel of oil to have tripled in the space of just one short year. That's just plain out bogus. We're being taken to the cleaners by some very rich fat cats who are laughing all the way to the bank while the rest of us scramble to figure out how to get where we need to go and still be able to afford to do so.
Check out this web site for facts on speculation and what we can do to put a lid on it and return prices back to something resembling affordable again:
http://www.stopoilspeculationnow.com/
Pass it on.
America seems to have an inflation gap but I'm sure the GOP will fix it.
Zimbabwe's official inflation rate has escalated to 2.2m%, driving the cost of a loaf of bread to about one-third of a teacher's monthly salary.
However, independent economists were quick to dismiss the government's figure, saying the true rate was actually several times higher and rising faster than ever.
Man does not live by bread alone nor it seems by bread at all.
Or milk or eggs or meat or...
As usual there are about 50% of the posts here which are realistic and the other 50% are simply unappreciative of just how much coal we already burn so that you can take that light switch for granted.
And also, as usual, only about 1 in 10 posts mentions, usually circumspectly, the problem of increasing population and the fact that the USA actively encourages everyone to have as many babies as you can so that they can consume and starve. (apologies to dmgreenaz, loved your post!) We are not a Nation that consistently advocates birth control and to do so both within and without our borders would be a phenomenal help to future energy policy. Indeed China is already green for this exact reason, they have a population control policy.
I find it incredulous that we would do anything other than dig ALL the coal we have out of the ground and burn it. We have a government that simply WILL NOT pay to have a solar panel installed on every roof (as if that matters since the power profile is unstable) nor do I see any possibility of a Democrat-dominated government doing this either. And even if they did, the average roof of a US home, given that solar panels are only 20% efficient at best, would only meet about 1/3 of it's energy output...this could easily improve to 1/2 and less easily improve to 2/3 with severe efficiency improvements and the installation of solar hot water heaters but again, the investment would be staggering. Something like 10 or 20 CEO's would have to forego back-dated stock options for a couple of years to fund this. And it produces energy only during the day.
Hydrogen is great if you want to lose the ozone layer. No one is studying the effects of the inevitable leaks that a hydrogen economy would produce and what effect all that escaped hydrogen would have on our upper atmosphere. Maybe we should think about that BEFORE signing on to that pipe dream with 800 million vehicles eh?
So this leaves us with Milton Friedman's wonderous market forces to do the work. Which WILL work, but will also leave hundreds of millions destitute.
I am sure the West will do fine in the end. What we are talking about is a very painful transition along with an inevitable shift in the Earth's climate.
These are hard pills to swallow, I know, but it is likely already too late.
Let's try to change the culture to 2 children AND energy conservation. These two factors alone would do so very much and they are easy for anyone in the west to do all by themselves. Then anything we manage to get over and above this is a serious bonus for us and our future.
We also need to look beyond Peak Oil and confront the prospect of Peak People. How many can we sustain at what level consumption?
If a lily pad in a pond doubles in size every day, on what day will it fill 1/2 of the pond? The second to the last.
penscot said it well.
"But it's an indisputable fact that only by increasing per capita energy consumption from current abysmally low levels can the Chinese and Indian governments hope to lift hundreds of millions of people out of grinding poverty."
Energy being the sole means to alleviate poverty is most certainly NOT an "indisputable fact". Two of many societies that demonstrate the opposite are Kerala province, India, and the socialist society of Cuba. These societies have achieved milestones of human health and economic efficiency, stability and resilience with low energy methods that are miraculous when compared to energy-glutton societies, especially the USA. The conventional "wisdom" in the USA fails to subtract the externalized costs of fossil energy, and the societal friction and inefficiencies that develop out of the corruption of Friedmanite capitalism. It fails to account for the social and health benefits of self-directed human labor and the efficiency benefits of organic and permaculture food/material production methods, preventive healthcare, and modesty in healthcare sector wages. Total reliance on fossil fuels to drive prosperity becomes a self-fulfilling addiction when natural elements such as these are ignored.
"Cars of the future can be powered by batteries, hydrogen cells, or solar panels — or a combination of the above."
These are apples and oranges. Solar panels convert energy, while batteries and hydrogen cells store energy. Hydrogen cells are a wildly expensive substitute for batteries. Such pursuits are driven by a "make work" ethic with "let's invent something new", "let's create/capture a market" and "let's grow the economy" overriding "let's seek the most benefits for the least costs" (max value). The search for max value stops at the turbo-diesel engine with manual transmission for highway and turbo-diesel with electric transmission for city streets.
Max value means full costs of fuel production and energy conversion are minimized. Full costs include all of the environmental and social costs, opportunity cost on resources and the resources themselves. The opportunity costs on most fossil and hi-tech rackets are spectacular - instead we could eradicate hunger and poverty worldwide.
Full costs are much higher with the hi-tech approaches such as hydrogen and photovoltaic panels than with the lower-tech alternatives that have been available for at least a century. If we're not discussing max value and full costs, it's extremely difficult to accurately compare approaches.
"Because coal isn't going away any time soon, the challenge is obviously to"
Promoters of fossil fuels and all of the other capitalist rackets are forced to rely on "entrenchment" as their central argument. The full costs of coal are far higher than those of renewable energy sources. This has been widely discussed. About the only illuminating information in this article has been the energy efficiency policies in Japan. Congratulations to the Japanese.
I thought as I read this I must be confused; this guy sounds like a Republicon/petroleum shill.
There is so much misleading information in this article it's hard to know where to start.
I reject nuclear and coal out of hand. The damage/risks to the environment are too great.
Maybe people do not know, but U.S. auto companies have been working on such things as hydrogen/fuel cells and electric cars. Their engineers have worked long and hard to develop and perfect these, but people running GM thought mass producing Hummers made more sense. They were clearly wrong, although the Limbaugh's of the world cheered and urged SUV drivers to flaunt their blatant waste of energy.
Someone said we should have started in the 70's. We did. President Carter understood (he was a nuculer engineer) and put solar panels on the White House.
Then came Reagan with his 'tear down those panels' philosophy and subsequent deregulation of the energy industry and here we are.
Now GM is crying. They should. They screwed up. Toyota understood. Honda understood. American car companies just blundered on making more trucks and SUVS.
I would highly recommend the Rocky Mountain Institute and Amory Lovins if you want to see the path of the future (at least for the smart countries of the world) and it ain't coal or nuclear.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid113.php
and a brief quote from E08-xx
During 1975–2006, the U.S. made a dollar of real
GDP with 48% less total energy, 54% less oil, 64%
less directly used natural gas, 17% less electricity,
and two-thirds less water
ï‚¡ Despite stagnant light-vehicle efficiency for >20 years, and
perverse incentives rewarding electricity sales in 48 states
ï‚¡ Nobody noticed: we haven't paid attention since the mid-1980s
â—Š Full use of today's best end-use efficiency techniques
would deliver the same or better services but save:
ï‚¡ half the oil, at a sixth of its price
ï‚¡ half the natural gas, at an eighth of its price
ï‚¡ three-fourths of the electricity, at an eighth of its price
â—Š Investing to achieve those savings over several
decades would cost 6× less than buying the energy,
and would make energy prices lower and less volatile
â—Š Proper pricing matters less than barrier-busting
There was a farmer who owned a fair piece of land, but had gotten lazy in his old age and didn't farm any more than he had to. Each day he would take his new $1500 automatic shot gun and walk a mile down the road where he would jump the fence of his neighbor's farm and start hunting for pheasant. He would eventually bag one or two and then walk back to his house and prepare the pheasant for dinner.
One day, his son who was visiting, asked his old-man, " Pop, why do you go to so much trouble to take pheasant from your neighbors farm when you could easily raise them right here on your own property?" The old-man looked at his son incredulously and replied, " Where's the fun in that?"
This is the parable of the US energy policy. If we had started back in the 70's like so many suggested to begin a program of energy independence, we would be there now and it would have costs us very little compared to the trillions we have lost to maintain our right to "jump the fence". But, "Where's the fun in that?".
Thad Stone--thanks for a spot-on commentary.
My impression is that, slowly, more progressives are finally starting to "get it" and accepting geological limits as being the basis of our energy difficulties. But a good many still need to catch up, and, while they keep pointing fingers in the wrong directions, they only worsen the problem instead of being part of the solution.
But that isn't to say that those in the peak oil movement are all right on target. For example, many "peakists" are, I think, too quick to embrace the notion of inevitable civilizational collapse. That may indeed happen, but I think the years and decades ahead will see a complex mixture of grassroots, government, and business efforts to fashion new societies. The pragmatism shown by Dilip Hiro will be just as indispensable as idealism.
The process won't be easy--there will likely be more failures and sacrifices than successes and breakthroughs. Suffering will increase, and some places (likely the U.S.) will become more authoritarian as an adaptation to scarcity. But, no matter how bad things get, we must always act in allegiance to higher, noble values.
There are many things we can do right now. For example, my wife and I are reducing our consumption levels as much as possible, and we're encouraging others to do the same. We also bought a bunch of DVDs of "The 11th Hour" and distributed them to other folks, asking them to pass them along to still more people, and so on. I've joined a local sustainability "task force" that is trying to address these problems at the community level. Other people, of course, are doing far more than I am, but these are some things a person can do if they're wondering where to start.
If you're looking for something to read to get yourself oriented to energy and sustainability issues, I would suggest "Plan B 3.0" by Lester Brown and "Worldchanging," edited by Alex Steffen. Then, for a good dose of philosophical/spiritual inspiration, you might appreciate Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy."
It's not the end of the world, but it is the end of business as usual. The sooner we accept this and honestly confront the challenges before us, the more likely it is that we will still be able to craft a meaningful future for our grandchildren.
Concerning a post Peak Oil world, I recommend Julian Darley's
http://globalpublicmedia.com/
http://postcarbon.org/
I met him once, he's a great speaker (with a strong London accent), I liked his book on natural gas peaking (luckily, a few decades after oil) and he has put together some nice Web resources (and real world institutions as well).
—————-
And to some posters:
yes, population growth is another *huge* problem.
This century will be a 'decision zone' for Humanity - it will likely have a huge affect on the next 1000 years of History.
"NATIONWIDE regular gas prices AVERAGE $4.10 a gallon. That average is the result of red states getting it for $3.80 and blue states paying $4.40."
Source please?
Get a horse!
And what kind of "shock" would occur if everything we bought had the actual cost reflected in price?
Well, www.lawnstogardens.com is monetizing itself.
Want to make money during Peak Oil and this oil crash? We are converting lawns into active soil-food webs that can grow food or feedstocks for making small scale alcohol fuel. People lease us the lawn space, we do the labor and turn their once fertilizer-soaked grass pads into lawns full of microbes that chomp-chomp-chomp on worm poop.
People's yards will keep turning into Freedom Farms! At least until the bankers kick them off the property. I hope the elites will allow them to remain stewards of the land and keep the houses up as the financial system crashes.
And *NO*, we're not using corn as the ethanol feedstock, thank you very much. Something much, MUCH better.
Keep your eyes out for Lawns to Gardens!
Oregon is a blue state and gas is $4.13 per gallon at the station nearest my house. But if you have a 'Safeway Card' then it is discounted by three cents to $4.10.
the optimal personal transport vehicle - the bicycle- has been around for a 100 years or more.it is self powered, non polluting,inexpensive, easily repaired and easily stored. for those without stamina, it can be powered by a 1 horsepower motor, to aid in propulsion. for stability, a stability wheel can be attached or it be made into a tricycle.
in any scenario drawn over 10 years,there is no other conceivably environmentally responsible way to fuel 500 million or more personal vehicles weighing over 2000 pounds each, to drive to work or for groceries.
this will have a 5 mile range, suitable for most personal transport.
what we need is bono to push its manufacture and angelina to make it glamorous!
NATIONWIDE regular gas prices AVERAGE $4.10 a gallon. That average is the result of red states getting it for $3.80 and blue states paying $4.40.
Show me a service station selling fuel for $4.10 a gallon in a blue state and I will show you a line of cars stretching six blocks or more.
Peak Oil is definitely close.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2693#more
People that think it is 'speculators' or 'monopolization and manipulation of supply' focus too much on the people aspect of the oil business. The very real historical turning point approaching is a 'peak' in daily production of 'liquid fuels' (crude oil, coal to liquids, biofuels, natural gas to liquids, etc). The media always talks of NEW discoveries, new sources of oil (hey, we found a big new field in the Gulf of Mexico ! and one near Beijing ! and Venezuela has a huge amount of thick, tarry oil by the Orinoco River !) but they do not mention the aging, declining oil megafields. Existing fields, after they peak, decline in production every year. They need to compensate for that big loss, *plus* bring more into production, to increase the 'liquids' per day production. Globally, that production has been flat for three years.
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Peak_Oil_June_08B.pdf
It takes awhile to figure out what is going on, but when you do, you will realize that there will be severe shocks to the global economy - timing is everything. There are no 'magic bullets' like threatening Saudi Arabia to double production, or arresting Wall St. 'speculators' or drilling in ANWR. The key players know what is going on, and irrelevant policy hand wringing will change *nothing*.
Study what is happening, or you will be blindsided. This is a crucial concept: it underlies the invasion of Iraq, and the threatening of Iran, for instance; whether China emerges as the next Superpower; whether the U.S. economy crashes. Ignore it at your peril.
_________________
norman_conquest July 16th, 2008 2:13 pm
Unfortunately, he stopped short of actually mentioning the real "elephant in the room": PEAK OIL.
Well, he *did* write:
"With even Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer conceding publicly that we are nearing peak oil production (after which oil reserves will decline irretrievably)"
and
"With oil supplies peaking in the coming years and uranium following a similar path as the present century unfolds"
It seems bizarre to me that we analyze particular "problems" - like the price of oil - as if each "problem" were isolated from our other "problems".
Human activity on the Earth has disrupted the basic systems of the living Earth. We are living a massive transformation, the evidence of which is everywhere - climate fluctuation, cascading extinctions, ecosystem degradation, agricultural failures, etc etc etc.
How is it possible for our minds and society to continue to compartmentalize and analyze "problems" like energy pricing as if we could assume that the underpinnings of the living Earth which supports human life and human economics will remain basically stable? We all know it is destabilized!
i think we do not actually "assume" continued stability of the living Earth, we "pretend" it, because we simply cannot allow ourselves to look at the full picture of what is actually unfolding.
I think some oil speculators are in for a bad day or two. History repeats itself, and these wildly fluctuating prices means the prices are about to drop. How long they stay there is another question that no one knows the answer to. But this much is sure: If oil stays over $100 barrel, long-term demand will decline as the overal economy heads south. The Chinese have already scheduled phasing out their gov. subsidies of gasoline, and their citizens are howling about it. This should keep demand in China relatively stable, as their growth will demand more but the higher price of gasoline will temper that demand from lower-income groups.
India is a different story. Their demand is skyrocketing, but they have no environmental policy or emmissions regulations. India is messed up big-time and can't handle their sudden prosperity in terms of regulations. This is one of the reasons their cases of cancer, lung disease and other horrible disease related to gross pollutants is also skyrocketing. So they will either have to start taxing petrol to pay for health bills, or just continue to ignore their poor and sick people, who are dying by the thousands each day.
Excellent article, the author covered the expanse of the energy situation and considered the realistic alternatives very clearly. Unfortunately, he stopped short of actually mentioning the real "elephant in the room": PEAK OIL.
An interesting analysis except it's far too rosey on the alternatives. The author refers to the potentials of "someday" and what "can" be done in the future with alternatives, and all sorts of things that industry could do as soon as certain conditions are met. It's a pleasant religion, and one to which I aspire.
While all of the medium term "solutions" may be needed, all of them together plus a half dozen others thrown in for good measure don't amount to a "solution" in the short, medium or long term.
As for hydrogen, aside from the obvious dangers of self-igniting explosions,, tank corrosion, distribution expense and leakage, it still takes far more energy to manufacture hydrogen than the hydrogen itself produces.
Wether or not coal surpasses uranium as a longer term energy source is debatable by many experts. But, the cleanest coal is still really dirty and is the greatest source of toxic air pollution and contributor to global warming. It destroys the landscape and poisons the groundwater of huge areas where it is mined.
Hiro opens his article with "When will it end, this crushing rise in the price of gasoline, now averaging $4.10 a gallon at the pump? The short answer is simple as well: "Not soon."
The real answer is even shorter and simpler: "never."
We have to do everything he suggests and more. The 'more' being a rapid restructuring of society and all out emergency efforts at rebuilding the infrastructure which houses feeds and transports people.
The computer and monitor you are using to read this discussion required cheap oil to build and maintain, and cheap oil has vanished into the mists of history.
Reality is still that, compared to the rest of the world, we consume in buckets what they consume in thimbles. We need to move into the new reality, whether or not people want to. Simpler lives, whether or not you want to live them.
Oh good God. This author is a complete DUMBASS to think that this is a mere "oil shock" when in fact, gas prices have been rising this entire decade unlike any other. Back in 1980, after the 1970s energy crisis, if Mr. Hiro had actually gotten his facts straight, he would have been smart enough to point out that all America did was simply "borrow" oil from the MidEast and try to procrastinate. The so-called "oil glut" of the 1980s and even the 1990s was nothing more than a bloopity blob of BORROWED OIL called "Oil Capital". When that was coming home to roost, BIG GOVERNMENT propped up lies to wage a war on Iraq for its 3rd largest oil reserves to AGAIN procrastinate. And of course, it went out of its ways to allow Big Business to manufacture fuel INefficient technologies and promote wasteful consumer spending with all those "goody tooshy points for every dollar spent" crap just like the Orwellian 1980s and 1990s. Except this time, it's all failing big time. In the mean time, not only has America written off solar and wind for the most part by buying into the lies of it not meeting them high energy demands most of which could be corrected by rewarding conservation and make technologies more fuel efficient, they're even willing to DROWN themselves into more desperate ideas such as offshore drilling based on incorrect numbers on the amount of oil, regardless of quality, that can possibly be tapped or even going nuclear which is just as dangerous and resource hungry. On the other hand, neither the far right or even the progressives and liberals want to come to grips with the fact that a harmless plant such as hemp can completely replace petroleum and that instead of engaging in more expensive and dangerous oil drilling which could prove even more costly now that crude oil, the good type, is getting harder to find, why not give hemp a chance to be grown and put to 26000 environmentally friendly industrial uses for a change?
http://www.votehemp.com
"Unlike in the past, the present price spurt has been caused mainly by global demand for energy outstripping available supply."
Faulty premise, leading to faulty analysis and prognosis. Look instead at monopolization and manipulation of supply (Enronization).
physicscitizen and MimiCcS,
Taiwan does not have a one-child policy. Taiwan's education and social systems have improved such that Taiwan, like Japan, has a declining population. In fact, the birth rate has declined so much that the government has begun to encourage people to have more babies! Those that have had the babies, however, are complaining because governmental encouragement does not include any financial support...