Oil Shortage

[Nigel Goodwin]

If gas in the US ever hits 5-10 dollars a gallon, people will walk, people will use public transport and bikes, they will do whatever they have to do to use whatever isn't current practical. For now.. Gas works fine.

I suspect you're completely wrong there, people will still use it just as before - it's that price elsewhere, and it has had very little effect on consumption.

Currently petrol here is about $9 a gallon, although ours are proper gallons of course

 

[4pyros]

I suspect you're completely wrong there, people will still use it just as before

There are big drops in consumption here in the US as the price goes up. No more Sunday drives.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

There are big drops in consumption here in the US as the price goes up. No more Sunday drives.

For a while, then it all goes back to normal, perhaps with a slight overall drop in consumption.

 

[4pyros]

For a while, then it all goes back to normal, perhaps with a slight overall drop in consumption.

Yes a lot of people only make temporary reductions. Some make permanent reductions. It depends on how long the price for oil stays up. but every time it goes up we have more and more permanent reductions.

 

[ronsimpson]

The sky is falling the sky is falling. Buy my book and I will tell you how scared you need to be.

There are also videos and books like this on water, air, climate change, governments, UFOs, ..........etc.

 

[BrownOut]

You seem to think oil companies are stupid? - which they aren't. That's why they are spending loads of their oil money on energy research, so they control future energy sources as well - it's simply good business.

I don't believe any reasonable person would be convinced I think oil companies are stupid from what I've written. Greedy, uncaring, reckless yes! I see no evidence that oil companies are spending 'loads' of money. Oil is one of the most profitable industries, and one of the most government subsidized. They’ll just keep milking the same cow until the milk runs dry. Simple math can show that the current leaders in the industry can keep the money flowing for as long as they live, and that’s pretty much all they care about. New technologies will not come from the current energy industry, unless something changes drastically.

 

[tcmtech]

The sky is falling the sky is falling. Buy my book and I will tell you how scared you need to be.

NO! NO! NO! buy my book its pages are blank so you yourself can write up everything you are afraid of that way you will know exactly what to be worried about the most!

Only $199.95 and available in limited production. Hurry now and spend your money before *Insert irrational and ill conceived fear here happens and kills us all.

Order in the next five minutes and I will even include a free one pound canister of lead powder you can cover yourself in to block out harmful radiation!

 

[BrownOut]

Yes a lot of people only make temporary reductions. Some make permanent reductions. It depends on how long the price for oil stays up. but every time it goes up we have more and more permanent reductions.

I agree with you here. When the price of gas goes up, people have to make choices between driving less and keeping their lights on. In Europe, the prices have been high for a long time, and people made the adjustments long ago, so it only appears that prices haven't affected consumption. The US is used to relative low prices, and as such, changes do have a big effect on consumption. Forward thinking people will find ways to do more with less before it becomes necessary.

 

[ronsimpson]

My father and my father in law own farms across Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas. The oil companies are paying big money to drill in these areas. The maps show a very large very deep deposit that could make the US a oil exporter. Here they are drilling miles deep and a mile horizontal with good results. There are news ways of drilling that seem safer. The old method used 10 holes per square mile. Now they only have one drill sight and drill horizontal to get to new areas. It is really exciting to see all the oil flowing in Colorado.

 

[tcmtech]

Here they are drilling miles deep and a mile horizontal with good results. There are news ways of drilling that seem safer. The old method used 10 holes per square mile. Now they only have one drill sight and drill horizontal to get to new areas.

Thats how it gets done here now as well. they go about 8000 feet down then do a sweeping turn to 90 degrees for another 2000 feet or so then follow a 15 - 20 foot thick oil shale vein for roughly another 10,000 feet out. Some of the newest sites are even putting two runs out from one well head and up to 6 well heads on one site! 12 well bores producing on one site alone!

OH YEA I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE ONE OF THEM SET UPS IN MY BACK PASTURE SOME DAY!

 

[duffy]

You guys seriously calling huge fracking operations "safer"? The whole earthquakes-and-contaminated-groundwater thing doesn't bother you?

 

[ronsimpson]

You guys seriously calling huge fracking operations "safer"? The whole earthquakes-and-contaminated-groundwater thing doesn't bother you?

Should we stop? using trees, drilling holes in the ground, digging for (iron, copper, coal), damming rivers, driving cars, using computers, etc? (all of which have safety problems)
Good night I need to turn off the computer (save some coal).

 

[Sceadwian]

Fracking is a very serious issue in the states, especially where I live, just south of us in PA it's common practice, and it's being heavily looked into for commercial use in NY state... It shouldn't worry anyone at all that 20% of this entire planets fresh water resources are around here...

 

[tcmtech]

Around here the greatest concerns with fracking has been the overloading of the rural water supply systems. If too many water trucks load out of a small town supply system the water stops running at everyones houses which is why most small towns have put restrictions on how much water the water loading stations can sell per day to the companies that haul water for the fracking rigs.

After that the concerns over fracking tend to dissipate rather rapidly but then the formation they are fracking here is around 2 miles down and way way way below the deepest aquifers that anyone has ever used.

 

[Sceadwian]

tmctech, give it a couple years, that crud will come trickling up... It's natural gas based, you can't heal the rock and put it back where it was. They just got the most economically ex-tractable portion of it. Look at their disclaimers and they'll realize what they REALLY paid for in the end..

All they saw were dollar signs. If the contracts remains solvent in the future it's the property owners that are responsible for pollution after the fact, the mining companies are just there for drilling rights, and they walk off with all the product too.

It's all in the fine print. and till your dieing day the will have rights to put a pipe anywhere on your land they want to.

 

[tcmtech]

As someone who is actually familiar with the underlaying geology of where I live I am not the lest bit worried.

We have a vast salt water aquifer that is about 1 mile down that is naturally under high pressure. Thats where the returning production water from active wells get pumped into. Whats interesting is that it takes about 1000+ PSI at the surface to get the water to flow down into that aquifer plus the water there is already very nasty even by fracking standards.

The Bakken and related oil formations fracking takes place another mile below that and would have to get through that salt water aquifer which itself has yet to ever manage to get to the surface on its own.

As far as pipelines go around here the land owner gets paid for them plus we have mineral rights to our property and a fair amount of money invested in oil stocks which in our family makes us more than happy about the thought of them putting pipelines and hopefully even a well or two on lour property!

You have to remember I worked in the oil fields for a while now and I like to ask questions and learn things. So far what I see does not bother me one bit! In fact I welcome the oil industry and everything its bringing to our part of the country!

As far as the natural gas is concerned its present in about every water well that has ever been drilled more than a few tens of feet deep. I have it and every neighbor I know has it too and many of their wells are 50 - 70+ years old predating any oil drilling that has ever been done here. Its a natural occurrence to us already and we are quite used to dealing with it.

 

[shortbus=]

In the Ohio - Pa area they are acting like fracking is something new and dangerous. I have two gas wells on my lot (3 acres) put in in 1998 and they were fracked back then. What the naysayers don't say is that they first drill a larger diameter hole and pressure fill with a special cement down about 1500 feet or more. Then re-drill through that with a smaller hole that has a steel casing. Don't think its going to leak.

 

[tcmtech]

What the naysayers don't say is that they first drill a larger diameter hole and pressure fill with a special cement down about 1500 feet or more. Then re-drill through that with a smaller hole that has a steel casing. Don't think its going to leak.

Same basic drilling concepts here.

So far what I see is those who do not have mineral rights to land thats being drilled on are the ones making the biggest fuss over what ever they can think of imagined or other wise. If you are like me and my family who have a few hundred acres of land plus majority mineral rights and oil stocks that are doing very well the view is considerably different!

 

[BrownOut]

Energy affects everyone, not only those who have oil stocks or oil wells in their yards. Unless you're living as an indigenous tribal in New Guinea, you have a very important interest in energy, and most likely an equally important opinion on the matter.

 

[bryan1]

Rant.....


Well over here in Oz those off shore owned fracking companies are setting up shelf companies to buy prime property on the eastern seaboard and are determined to turn our pristine agriculture area's into a wasteland by digging huge holes etc to extract coal, gas and other minerals then export them so the locals will get nothing and be left to do the cleanup. Hell as far as I'm concerned the way of the land over here is the govt is doing their best to push the farmer off the land and turn the whole country into a consumer society living off cheap nasty imports that will bringin disease and ruin any fruit or vege crop.

Us guy's over in the middle of the country have been doing it rough for a long time and it will be great to see a few tall poppies over east come back to earth.

But remember in the past the slogan "we are the lucky country'" hell that was a generation ago and now the slogan should read " come and buyout what you like and destroy our lifestyle and get govt assistance".

If one hasn't seen the movie 'gasland' go and watch it as it based on a true story so I was told....

Anyway my small 85 acre farm is far enough away we will never have mains power, town water, a gas connection, sealed roads and never get turned into suburbia..... We grow our own fruit and veges and soon free lamb, pork and beef and drink clean rainwater and make our power sometimes too much so hot water is free. We bought this place 10 years ago and moved in on xmas day so for us living off the grid for a decade and early in the we we asked how we could live off the grid. To often now I'm asked can you help us be more energy efficient or I bought this 30K wind turbine and now it doesn't work can you help me. I have done this a few times and every time people think I just doing them a favour, so now I'm up front on costs and say if I'm going to help you it will cost as YOU are taking me away from what I do and my time is $$$$.

/Rant

OK let's just look at today around the world.......

Europe is a basket case

The US is a step away from beating the great depression of the 30's

All values from previous generations have been lost with todays kid's

Food is said to soon become more valuable than oil

Young kids today would rather rip off a grannies purse rather than work

...............................................................................................

Well whats going to happen with an over population and MASS unemployment it's all going to be case of 'history repeating' so when is the next war going to start and by the way it won't be oil...... (just to stay on topic)

Cheers Bryan