Re: More Reasons "Peak Oil" is a Crock
- From: Mitchell Jones <mjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 09:18:39 -0500
In article <ErydnVpSY7nLiNXbnZ2dnUVZ_sWdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Bob Cain <arcane@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Mitchell Jones wrote:
***{"Peak oil" is the theory that mankind has already extracted and used
up half or more of all the hydrocarbon deposits that were "out there,"
and, thus, that future discoveries will inevitably decline over time,
approaching zero as a limit. Result: runaway oil prices caused not by
government bungling, but by an inexorable decline in the available
supplies.
Unfortunately for the "Peak Oil" proponents, it is a simple matter to
calculate a lower bound for the size of the available hydrocarbon
deposits. All of the oxygen in our atmosphere was placed there by
photosynthesis, a process that uses sunlight to remove the carbon from
CO2, so that the carbon can be incorporated into biomass. Hence for
every O2 in the atmosphere, there is a carbon sequestered as part of a
carbon-based life form, or in the remains of such a life form buried
somewhere in the Earth--i.e., in a hydrocarbon deposit. If you compute
the total amount of carbon involved and subtract the part currently in
living biomass, you will find that the amount remaining in the Earth is
sufficient to allow a minimum of 100,000 years of oil production at
current rates of consumption.
[Hanson snipped]
:-)
--Mitchell Jones}***
You neglect the issue of time. It all may be there somewhere but
where is it and how soon can we get it into the "pipeline" in a usable
form?
***{The answer depends on politics. Governments have been nationalizing
privately owned oil fields, pipelines, refineries, and tanker facilities
for almost a hundred years. That happened because western governments
did not defend the property rights of their citizens. The cumulative
result is that, today, more than 90% of the resources related to oil
discovery and production are either explicitly owned or indirectly
controlled by governments, and those governments are either indifferent
to the "public interest" that they claim to serve, or else are laughably
incompetent at carrying out their supposed goals; for in virtually all
cases, what is actually happening is that the resources which they
seized are simply being looted--which means: the research, development,
and exploration required to replace the oil that is being pumped out is
not being done, and, as a consequence, disaster is approaching rapidly.
To reverse this progression, the property rights that were violated need
to be restored to their proper owners--which means: to the private
interests who discovered and developed the fields, refineries, etc., or
to their heirs. However, that will not be done. People are too stupid to
live and so, when they complete the destruction of the system of private
ownership upon which their lives depend, billions of them are going to
die, and this civilization is going to collapse. --MJ}***
Soon enough to prevent the runaway? Time will tell but I think
not. At least not without large scale nuclear fission leverage and
the lead time to that is probably too long even if folks got their
heads out of their asses about it yesterday.
Bob
*****************************************************************
If I seem to be ignoring you, consider the possibility
that you are in my killfile. --MJ
.
- References:
- More Reasons "Peak Oil" is a Crock
- From: Mitchell Jones
- Re: More Reasons "Peak Oil" is a Crock
- From: Bob Cain
- Re: More Reasons "Peak Oil" is a Crock
- From: Mitchell Jones
- Re: More Reasons "Peak Oil" is a Crock
- From: Bob Cain
- More Reasons "Peak Oil" is a Crock
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