[brass hammer]

and came across this peak oil.com site, and stayed quite awhile, alot of different links/threads

if the 'glass half empty' crowd is right, then gunkid would not be that far off the mark in his rants!

i know when crude oil was $11-$12 a barrel, it was costing $1500/month per oilwell lease to operate/maintain, i think my dad had 9 or 11 wells at one time! and he would joke that my mothers oilwells was going to put him in the poorhouse.


when it was in the $15-$16per barrel price range, he would say that my mothers and his wells were breaking even, no profit no loss.



when it was in the $18-$20 per barrel price range, he would say that his oilwells were doing quite nicely, thank you! ha! go figure!


america has had it's domestic production squeezed off from the inside as well as abroad on perpuse[sp] IMNSHO!



although, i can't think of a better place on the planet, than the middle east to have the U.S.A BOOT PRINT stamped firmly/permanetly on!



any one have a view?


should this be moved to the general B.S.forum?




thanks.

 

[mrostov]

The price of oil is being artificially manipulated. There is enough known reserves, just those that are known, to supply our current consumption for about 300 years. This isn't my guess but this opinion is also held by many who are seasoned experts in the field.

It's like when I was a kid in the 1970's and the mouthpieces were all talking about how everyone was running out of petroleum. According to that rhetoric, we should have been back to the horse and buggies some time ago.

What we have going on now is a grasp for resources for the purposes of power and control. Also, due to China's sudden massive growth, the world's oil production capacity (a separate item from the known reserves) is being stressed. One of China's achilles heels is the fact that they have very little known domestic petroleum reserves. China is now the world's #2 oil importer. Just wait till there are 400 - 600 million+ cars running in China. This level of private autos in China probably won't happen before the next world war breaks out, but you can see the awesome potential for the competition of resources.

Will you see oil shortages? Yes. Just like a great deal of the famines in the last 100 years have been man made and often intentional (Stalin, Mengitsu, etc), the coming oil crunch will be similar.

There are other energy sources that have been in the wings since the days of Tesla (probably the greatest scientific genius the 20th Century).

Zero point energy is here, it just hasn't erupted into the public yet. Lifter technology is coming too. Even Jane's Defense Weekly is on the act. Recently an editor for Jane's has stated that the Internet has done for zero point what Guttenberg's press did for free speech and the expression of religious differences.

 

[Magnum88C]

I believe that the "oil shortage" is complete BS. As mrostov said, it's artificially created. Do you have any idea how much oil we have right offshore? Makes the middel east look like small potatoes. Problem is, the eco-nuts whine, screamed, hollared, stamped their feet, peed their pants and lobbied so hard, that The government won't allow drilling. Also, our Alaskan reserves fit into the same category. What we are drilling in AK would keep the country running, but we'd have to cut off Japan to do so. Most of our imported oil comes from South America, not the middle east, so middle east tomfoolery should have little effect on our prices. The prices go up, because the oil companies know they can get away with it, and that's all there is to it.

The problem with all these "alternative energy" schemes is that they are horrendously expensive. Reason being is that they are not produced on a large scale. Economy of scale is what makes or breaks energy production. And it won't be produced in scale until there's a market, and there won't be a market until people get out of the "oil is cheaper, so why change?" mode of thinking. Car companies could have helped the situation long ago, but opted not to. Not by making dangerous no-power midgetmobiles, but hey, when you're cruising, that V-8 doesn't have to be running on all 8 cylinders. Chevy has a good idea coming out in '06 or '07. A V-8 powered truck also with electric power. But instead of killing the power by using a tiny "sustainer motor" to a primry electric motor, what it does is runs on the V-8, then when cruising/coasting, the V-8 turns off and maintains speed with the electric. When the truck demands more power, it restarts the engine (powerful starter, preliminary test drivers say you can hardly feel the tranisition), for towing, or demanding maneurverability.
There's no reason this could not have been implemented since cars became computer-controlled.

 

[mrostov]

Zero point is practical for the small local use. With a zero point power source, each house can disconnect from the grid. You can move to deep in the boonies and just bring the blender, the AC, and the electric heater with you.

We would have had zero point and similar technology a long tiome ago, but JP Morgan told Tesla, "If I can't put a meter on it I don't want it."

In the 1930's, Tesla drove around New York with a Packard automobile converted to electric power. His energy source was a small box that he would set on the seat and plug into the dash.

In 1965, a Japanese manufactuer brought to a proving ground in Arizona a prototype pickup that could run on any fuel, including burning twigs. It was powered by a close cycle steam system that used freon instead of water.

For any energy crunch, you might want to seriously look into the old technology of powering a gasoline engine off of wood gas. This will keep you mobile and it uses an existing technology base. During WWII, some countries, like neutral Sweden, Germany, and Japan converted almost all of their civilian vehicles and a great deal of their military trucks to wood gas. Wood gas can deliver 1/2 to 3/4 the power that a standard engine can deliver when using gasoline. The bigger the engine the better.

 

[Magnum88C]

I did a lot of reading of Tesla. He was light years beyond Edison, and definitely one of, if not the most intelligent and innovative man in the 20th century. The idea of his that intrihued me the most was a way of devising a battery out of the erth itself, that anyone could tap into anywhere. Of course that went over with the energy magnates like a fart in church.
If you like gadets and inventions, Barnes & Noble had a nice 3-volume set of Tesla's patents.