From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon May 12 2003 - 12:16:09 MDT
--- Charles Hixson <charleshixsn@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> >--- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>
> >>Yes John -- but it isn't *sustainable*. It would be fine if the
> >>...
> >>
> >>
> >
> >What do you mean it isn't "sustainable"? So far as I know, Iraq can
> >pump 900,000 - 3.5 million barrels or more a day at that cost level
> for
> >many years into the future. Iraq has some of the cheapest to access
> oil
> >f...
> >
> >
> Can you quantify "many"? Is it more like 5, 25, or 125 years? This
> makes a significant difference.
> This raid is starting to look like a world-class rip-off. I wonder
> who
> will benefit...somehow I doubt that it will be the Iranian populace.
>
Let us hope the Iranians don't benefit from Iraqi oil.
How many years it can sustain those production levels at those cost
levels is really irrelevant, since it is such a low cost level. It also
implies that the amount of oil recoverable at higher prices (like
$2.00-5.00/bbl) is even greater. It would take many centuries for the
cost of recovery of Iraqi oil to reach even current day market prices.
This is why the stats you ask for are meaningless, but are often used
by Malthusians and Luddites to make claims that are not supported by
the facts. Iraq may have 25 years of oil recoverable at $1.00/bbl. It
would also have many decades of oil recoverable at 2.00 a bbl, and a
similar or greater amount at 3.00 and so on.
In the same time frame, while oil recovery costs increase only
linearly, technology advances which enables mankind to produce more
things with less energy, less pollution, in a Vingean sigularity curve
of exponential change rates. At some point, technology advances so fast
that the recovery costs related to technology, tools, etc start to
DECREASE again, even as we seek out and recover ever harder to get at
oil deposits.
What will make oil obsolete is not its scarcity. What will make it
obsolete is technology which is so efficient that the market price of
oil drops below recovery costs and then seeks out other sources which
can sustain the curve. While there will be market pressure to recover
oil more cheaply, there will also be pressure to abandon it altogether
for more cheap sources. At such a time, nanotech will burn organics in
the very soil, it will extract energy from osmotic pressure between
fresh and salt water, and it will transform large tracts of otherwise
useless land into vast solar energy parks.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.blogspot.com/
Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/greendragon
Pro-tech freedom discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon May 12 2003 - 12:29:31 MDT