wikileaks: saudis running out of oil

[bcbm]

The latest startling revelation to come via documents leaked to Julian Assange's muckraking website and published by The Guardian (http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/yblog_thelookout/ts_yblog_thelookout/storytext/wikileaks-saudis-running-out-of-oil/40106407/SIG=12otl4afs/*http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks) should give pause to every suburban SUV-driver: U.S. officials think Saudi Arabia (http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110209/ts_yblog_thelookout/wikileaks-saudis-running-out-of-oil#) is overpromising on its capacity to supply oil to a fuel-thirsty world. That sets up a scenario, the documents show, whereby the Saudis could dramatically underdeliver on output by as soon as next year, sending fuel prices soaring.uh oh

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110209/ts_yblog_thelookout/wikileaks-saudis-running-out-of-oil

[bcbm]

shit this already got posted in politics

[The Vegan Marxist]

Que in Technocrat where he explains, to those who choose to not listen for some reason, about peak oil.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I wonder if this means places like Dubai become ghost towns in a couple of decades?

[Broletariat]

Que in Technocrat where he explains, to those who choose to not listen for some reason, about peak oil.


Never heard this explanation before, link to it or re-explain please?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Never heard this explanation before, link to it or re-explain please?

See the thread "How many people can the Earth support?" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/many-people-can-t148400/index.html)

[Broletariat]

See the thread "How many people can the Earth support?" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/many-people-can-t148400/index.html)


I read the whole thread and didn't see very much on peak oil.

[S.Artesian]

The wikileak article claims:


target oil output of 12.5 million barrels per day output in order to keep prices stable

Except the Saudis have made no such claim as to their target output, probably because this target output exceeds their current estimated capacity [as the US Energy Information Agency calculates].

What Saudi Aramco had done in 2010 was boot petroleum production to 10.2 million bbl/day which includes some 8.4 million bbl/day of crude oil.

So I would take the report as interesting gossip, but not hard fact.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I read the whole thread and didn't see very much on peak oil.

Well Technocrat should be around at some point so he can explain. It's not something I really endorse myself.

Peak oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil)

[Broletariat]

Well Technocrat should be around at some point so he can explain. It's not something I really endorse myself.

Peak oil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil)

May I ask why you don't endorse it?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

May I ask why you don't endorse it?

Because nobody knows how much oil is left. They may claim to know, but given the amount of places we've yet to drill they're just guessing.

All I know is that oil is most likely an increasingly limited resource, and we should switch to more abundant and environmentally friendly energy sources, meaning nuclear and renewables.

[Mather]

I wonder if this means places like Dubai become ghost towns in a couple of decades?

I hope so, it would be no great loss.

[Impulse97]

I hope so, it would be no great loss.

So millions displaced is a good thing? Would you say the same thing if it was the US or Europe we where talking about?:hammersickle::che::hammersickle:

(Dammit all, Communism is changing my well established world views. I hope your all happy...:mad:)

[Magón]

Because nobody knows how much oil is left. They may claim to know, but given the amount of places we've yet to drill they're just guessing.

All I know is that oil is most likely an increasingly limited resource, and we should switch to more abundant and environmentally friendly energy sources, meaning nuclear and renewables.

I don't think any factual and reliable source can put a number on how much oil we have left, it is all just speculation and guessing. But most of the time what peak oil sources are talking about, is how much easy oil we have left, not oil entirely (ie the whole world). There's no debate on whether we'll suck up the absolute last drum of oil, just the last one we can easily fill up.

[bcbm]

So millions displaced is a good thing? Would you say the same thing if it was the US or Europe we where talking about?:hammersickle::che::hammersickle:


our unfortunate global reality is that things are changing rapidly and in the coming decades millions (maybe billions) of people will be displaced due to climate change and other factors. this is a global reality we need to start dealing with and preparing for now so that we can avoid an even greater catastrophe than the existent.

but of course we're doing nothing, so.


I don't think any factual and reliable source can put a number on how much oil we have left, it is all just speculation and guessing. But most of the time what peak oil sources are talking about, is how much easy oil we have left, not oil entirely (ie the whole world). There's no debate on whether we'll suck up the absolute last drum of oil, just the last one we can easily fill up.

yeah we basically need to kick oil asap and build alternatives. but that won't happen until there is profit to be made, or the whole kit and kaboodle collapses

[Os Cangaceiros]

Because nobody knows how much oil is left.

Not to mention natural/shale gas.

[bcbm]

Not to mention natural/shale gas.

little enough that we need to be very seriously building alternatives, and isn't the extraction process for that shit fucked ?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't know. I just know that there's a lot of it where I'm from (well, the general area anyway). Sarah Palin wanted to fast-track the BP natural gas pipeline to start getting it out (back when she was still guvnah), although I don't know what the status on that is.

We talked about it in geology class in college, too. I don't remember anything about it, though. The only thing I remember from the natural resources section was that supposedly we have enough coal to last for 500 years.

There's a lot of it in Canada, too.

[bcbm]

even if we did have enough coal/gas/oil to last that long we're still faced with the problem that that shit makes our planet a hothouse and will destroy our agricultural capabilties, etc

[The Vegan Marxist]

even if we did have enough coal/gas/oil to last that long we're still faced with the problem that that shit makes our planet a hothouse and will destroy our agricultural capabilties, etc

No, seriously, tell us how you really feel? lol

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't think any factual and reliable source can put a number on how much oil we have left, it is all just speculation and guessing. But most of the time what peak oil sources are talking about, is how much easy oil we have left, not oil entirely (ie the whole world). There's no debate on whether we'll suck up the absolute last drum of oil, just the last one we can easily fill up.

It doesn't matter if extraction is complicated and difficult - as long as there is net profit from the activity then it is bound to happen. The problem is that technology can mean that what was previously unprofitable to exploit becomes profitable now or in the future. This is regardless of the environmental cost.

Another thing that bothers me about Peak Oil enthusiasts is that most of the seem to asssume the drop-off from peak production will be (is? was?) rapid to the point of civilisational collapse. Rather than people just buying less and less petrochemicals as their prices increase and seeking more alternatives over time as they become relatively more cost-effective, which is what actually seems to be happening.

Sorry disasterbators, but the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket just yet.

[bcbm]

Sorry disasterbators, but the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket just yet.

give it time...

[Magón]

It doesn't matter if extraction is complicated and difficult - as long as there is net profit from the activity then it is bound to happen. The problem is that technology can mean that what was previously unprofitable to exploit becomes profitable now or in the future. This is regardless of the environmental cost.

Well one example of hard to reach oil, and the technology we have now to reach it not cutting it, was the Gulf Crisis. The oil BP was drilling for there was very deep, and deep sea drilling is already hard to do because you not only have to go through miles of water, but miles of seafloor, and right now, the technology we have to reach the harder to reach isn't cutting it, and won't. As far as I know, no technology has been brought forth to fix the matter of drilling deeper, and not causing these environmental disasters. (Not to mention, where geological surveyors are looking in the ocean, they're having to go farther and farther out into the seas, oceans, etc. to find decent deposits.) If technology in the oil industry doesn't move on any further than it already is, we'll see a lot more oil spills/disasters than we do nowadays.

As for the environment itself. If oil companies don't better their technology, which I don't hope they do, because I do think renewable/eco-friendlier technologies, etc. are much better obviously, we'll have ecological disasters not just in our seas and oceans, but on land masses too, which will hopefully drive the worlds population into a better more progressive mindset on renewable energies, etc.


Another thing that bothers me about Peak Oil enthusiasts is that most of the seem to asssume the drop-off from peak production will be (is? was?) rapid to the point of civilisational collapse. Rather than people just buying less and less petrochemicals as their prices increase and seeking more alternatives over time as they become relatively more cost-effective, which is what actually seems to be happening.

Well it will definitely change the world if the last barrel of oil is drawn, and the gas stations are dry for good. Whether that's the end of civilization, I don't think that it will be, is a matter of speculation by those who see our world being solely dependent on oil itself. (Which you can't argue it's not, because we'd have already put more time and energy into find something cleaner.) But I do think we'll see a lot of outraged and angry people when they go to the pumps to find a sign.

http://cache1.asset-cache.net/xc/83065290.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=77BFBA49EF8789215ABF3343C02EA548F38C3D6D692C6F5D ABA8D5D4FC52EED10747057FB1C3FD5DE30A760B0D811297

[Mather]

So millions displaced is a good thing? Would you say the same thing if it was the US or Europe we where talking about?

I did not mean it in that way.

I just find Dubai to be a classic example of all money and no taste. That and the fact that over 67% of Dubai's population (mainly South Asians) live in near slave like conditions, these are the very people who built Dubai. Hopefully these workers will someday expel the Emirati ruling elite and the wealthy foreigners who live and rule over Dubai and inherit the city for themselves.

[S.Artesian]

To get back to the OP-- nobody's running out of oil.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

Well, if anything, this news should serve as motivation as why to why we need to speed up the development of new energy sources such as solar and wind.

[Decolonize The Left]

Another thing that bothers me about Peak Oil enthusiasts is that most of the seem to asssume the drop-off from peak production will be (is? was?) rapid to the point of civilisational collapse. Rather than people just buying less and less petrochemicals as their prices increase and seeking more alternatives over time as they become relatively more cost-effective, which is what actually seems to be happening.

If we had a massive network of public transportation and millions of small farms whereby individuals could feed, cloth, and shelter themselves without reliance upon petrochemicals then this would be an adequate argument.

Unfortunately we are completely reliant upon petrochemicals. So the argument is just - if we are reliant upon one source of energy, and the cost of producing this energy rises, the cost of consuming this energy rises, and hence the majority of people can't afford it and suffer as a result.

Furthermore, you must consider that the production of all alternative energies operates on the consumption of oil! So as the cost of oil rises, the cost of production of the alternative energies rises as well, putting a huge wrench in your theory that things will just magically even themselves out.


Sorry disasterbators, but the world isn't going to hell in a handbasket just yet.

Hell's a long way off, but idealism aside, there's only one road and it leads there. The question is how we go and how long it takes us to get there.

- August

[S.Artesian]

^^^^Except the Peak Oil calculations, including Hubbert's famous "calling" of the US peak have been consistently wrong in their estimates of underlying oil reserves, maximum production amounts, and rates of decline from the peak.... not to mention that the very date of the peak has been mistaken.... and not to mention further that the peak in US oil comes at exactly the same time as supposed "peaks," and predictions of depletion in US copper production, lead production etc. without any decline in reserves, which might lead the critical observer to think that these types of peaks are actual economic in origin, not geological.

What makes peak oil look "scientific" is that in essence the data is being "backfitted" to the curve on the upside, with a mirror reflection assumed for the downside. In reality the slope of decline from peak has been consistently less than the peak oilers have predicted.

I would recommend anyone with interest in this read Steven Gorelick's book Oil Panic and the Global Crisis.


Just saying....