Re: Are nukes the answer to global warming?

From: owl (owl_at_moonlite.com)
Date: 02/15/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:31:23 -0500

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 23:57:59 GMT, Dan Bloomquist
<EXTRApublic21@lakeweb.com> wrote:

>
>
>owl wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 20:15:45 GMT, Dan Bloomquist
>>
>>
>>>Consider they get their numbers from the oil industry. The value
>>>of the oil industry is based on reserves. Therefor the oil industry is
>>>going to publish the best estimate of reserves and future discoveries
>>>that they can.
>>
>> Boy, have you got that one wrong. There's already a current thread
>> here about reserves estimates and their swings.
>
>I'll cut to the chase. Where is here? I'm posting from sci.energy. Maybe
>in your part of the world numbers are a matter of opinion.

You're a time-waster.

>From James thread in alt.global.warming:-

Are we really running out of oil?
 (Filed: 12/02/2005)

It will take another 30 years for the needle to sink to half empty,
says
Christopher Hope

If you weren't worried before, then there's been enough news in the
past few
days to make you nervous. Some of the world's biggest energy companies
are
saying that they can't find enough oil to replace the barrels they are
pulling out of the ground for us to burn.

Last week Shell, which is already in hot water for managing to "lose"
a
third of its proven oil and gas last year, said it had only managed to
find
between 30pc and 40pc of the oil it had pumped in 2004. For BP, the
declared
rate was just 89pc.

In America, ChevronTexaco has warned that its reserve replacement rate
was
likely to be poor (some analysts say it could even be zero).
ExxonMobil and
Total will tell investors about their 2004 reserve replacement rate
next
week. Meanwhile, analysts at Wood Mackenzie say that Shell has 9.4
years of
production left, while BP has enough to last 14.1 years.

At these rates, they will already be scraping the barrel by the time
of the
2012 Olympics. So is that moment, long forecast by the hair shirt
brigade,
finally on the horizon? Are we running out of the black stuff?
Contrary to
the appearance of impending doom, the answer's no.

According to the US Geological Survey, which spent 100 "man years"
surveying
128 provinces between 1995 and 2000, the world was endowed with 3,021
trillion barrels before production began. And that was just
conventional
light crude, which is easy to sell.

The USGS reckons there was probably the same amount again of
"unconventional" hydrocarbons such as the oil that is bubbled out of
sand in
Canada. Added to that there was another 2,500 billion barrel
equivalent of
natural gas. We are not even half way through it yet. The USGS says we
have
used up just over 1,000 billion barrels of the 3,021 billion total.

If global consumption keeps running at 28 billion barrels a year, the
USGS
says that it will take until 2036 for the world to have used half the
total.
By then, new technologies will almost certainly have turned up more
viable
reserves. Already, the Russians think the Americans are too
pessimistic,
putting the total at 11,000 billion barrels.

As Adam Sieminski, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, says: "Only God knows
how
much oil and gas there is and that has not been revealed yet in any of
the
scriptures."

So why do the companies seem to be in such dire straits? Sieminski
continues: "What people don't realise is that reserves are like milk
on the
shelf at Tesco. A grocer does not order one month's worth of milk to
meet
two days of demand. As they sell it they get in more.

"For years that is what the oil industry has done. It only makes sense
to
carry 10 years' worth because that is the length of time it takes to
do a
project. Shell's reserves won't go to zero. There is as much oil in
the tar
sands in Canada as in Saudi Arabia, - it is just harder [and much more
expensive] to get out. But if you put the price up then, by golly, you
will
have it."

But if the oil and gas is in abundance, why are reserve replacement
rates so
low? The answer lies in the rules governing reserves' disclosure, laid
down
by the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission nearly 30
years
ago.

Under these regulations, which were originally set up so America could
be
certain of its oil and gas supplies in a shortage, companies can only
record
"proven" barrels of which they are 90pc certain. Conceived with the
best of
intentions, this ruling is making a nonsense of Big Oil's reporting.
This
week BP reported an 89pc reserve replacement ratio under SEC rules.
Under UK
rules the figure is 106pc. The difference - about 300m barrels - flows
from
the SEC rules on Production Sharing Contracts.

PSCs are arrangements whereby companies earn a return from selling
barrels
of oil that is capped at an agreed level. If prices are high, the
company
can earn that return from fewer barrels, thus cutting its share of the
field.

In other words, if the oil price goes up, the booked reserves figure
falls,
even though the amount of oil that can be economically recovered
rises.

Shell has also run foul of the rules. Its Peace River field in Canada
in
2004 produces less valuable heavy crude but uses expensive gas to get
it
out. Because of a pricing quirk at the end of December, the field was
judged
uneconomic under SEC rules.

Malcolm Brinded, Shell's head of exploration and production, says: "We
reduced proven reserves from 164m barrels to zero even though
production
continues and we see potential for producing over one billion barrels
of oil
in the long term."

Derek Butter, analyst at Wood Mackenzie, says: "It is counter
intuitive that
as the oil price goes up, companies' reserves go down. This looks a
bit
crazy and it does not tell investors what they want to know - how much
oil
does a company have?"

BP's chief executive, Lord Browne, says: "It is rather like comparing
Centigrade and Fahrenheit; they are the same thing, measured
differently.
You can measure reserves in any way you want, as long as you abide by
a
consistent set of rules.

"Asking me which I prefer is a bit like asking how I would like to
read
Shakespeare - in English or in French. I think it would depend on
whether I
am French or English and naturally, because this is a UK company, we
prefer
the English rules."

Despite the confusion the SEC's rules are causing, it says there are
no
plans to change them. A spokesman says: "There is no proposal before
the
commission in this area."

Others have plenty of ideas for reform. Sieminski suggests taking an
average
oil price over the past two years rather than using the year-end price
when
calculating production sharing agreements. JJ Traynor, a respected
independent analyst, suggests that the SEC figures should in some way
be
forward-looking as well, while others suggest that the SEC could allow
probable as well as proved reserves to be booked.

BP and other oil and gas companies have funded a study into reserves
accounting by the respected Cambridge Energy Research Associates in
the US,
which will report in the next two weeks. Says Lord Browne: "The
industry is
thinking about whether or not there is something that can be talked
about
with the SEC generally."

BP decided last year for the first time to publish its reserves
figures
under both US and UK rules in its annual report so that investors can
make
up their own minds.

This week it said that under SEC rules it had 20 billion barrels of
proved
reserves, or 57 billion barrels on its preferred calculation.

As Wood Mackenzie's Derek Butter says: "The simple question is 'Are
the oil
and gas companies running out of reserves?' The answer is plainly
'no'."
>
>> You're not making a case, just claims. Your solutions are impractical
>> if not down-right counter-productive.
>
>What claims? If you are going to dispute the mainstream numbers, address
>it directly.

You never showed these 'mainstream' numbers but continually said it
proved the world.

You come up with garbage insults about the way the world works and
daydreams about solutions.

>And, as I've offered no solutions, I'm beginning to wonder about your
>motives.

Who cares what you wonder about? End of replies.

>Best, Dan.