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U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

blogs.marketwatch.com

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Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#31

Post by criley2 »

beedogs wrote: post #27
hannibal5 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to limit climate change to +2°C, we must leave 80% of hydrocarbons into the ground. This option is not showing in the prices of energy companies. It's just not going to happen.

Hopefully the demise of our species will be quick and relatively painless, then.

It will be bloody and violent and probably the single largest amount of human suffering from a single event in the short history of our civilization.

While it is an oversimplified game, Fate of the World can help show how increasing temperatures puts more energy into global systems resulting in intense storms, droughts, flooding, wildfires, famines, etc, and how that destabilizes regions leading to less effective ability to implement anti-warming policy.

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#32

Post by hrishi1990 »

justincormack wrote: post #23
ck2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers are hard to follow but I do not understand why if we produce so much why we don't consume our own content? For example if the keystone pipeline was approved the majority of it would be for export, not domestic use.

Because the US consumes even more? The US is by far the biggest consumer. Saudi Arabia and Russia have quite small populations too, but the US is just very energy intensive.

what's the big difference? transport?

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#33

Post by joshuahedlund »

foobarbazqux wrote: post #26
joshuahedlund wrote: post #19

Commenters bemoaning US running out of resources sooner or ruining the environment by increasing usage should note that US oil demand has essentially peaked[1] and will likely drop in the coming years due to a variety of factors including demographics and the increasing viability of alternative energy sources (solar power + Tesla et. al.) In this context, the US gas/oil energy boom is a wonderful thing, a last hurrah…

I wouldn't say that oil demand has peaked from looking at that graph. I'd say it took a big hit right around the time of the 2008 financial crash and is recovering along with the rest of the economy, or perhaps lagging somewhat.

There's definitely a hit from the financial crash, but there's also been no increase since that drop for four straight years, during which the economy has presumably been recovering, albeit slowly; I suspect the decrease in retiring Boomers driving, decrease in new teenagers driving, increase in fuel efficiency, increase in non-driving entertainment like social networks, etc are all outweighing the hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been created since then. The huge growth in electric vehicles in the last 2-3 years[1] is probably to small to have an impact on that graph now, but give it a few more...

[1]http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/IV-AA467_ECARS_G_2...

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#34

Post by at-fates-hands »

maxerickson wrote: post #8
ck2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those numbers are hard to follow but I do not understand why if we produce so much why we don't consume our own content? For example if the keystone pipeline was approved the majority of it would be for export, not domestic use.

Are you sure the majority of it would be for export? A big driver of exports is simply the fact that lots of places don't have refinery capacity. People in such places are willing to pay more than people in the U.S., with its relative abundance of refineries. The rest of the 'not consuming our own content' is just a logistics thing, the cheapest oil is generally used, not the oil that crosses the least borders.

>>>> A big driver of exports is simply the fact that lots of places don't have refinery capacity.

I've been harping on this for years. You can produce billions of gallons of oil, but if you can't refine it, it's a loss leader and a big reason why our gas continues to hover around $4.

If we owned the whole cycle from drilling, production, refinement and consumption, it would be huge. Cutting out the refining middle man would save us billions and dramatically reduce the price per gallon. It's just simple supply and demand.

Just in case you wanted to know. .

http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=29&t=6

The last refinery was built in 2008. Before that, in 1998. The majority of refineries were built in the 1970's - go figure, when oil was suddenly abundant and post OPEC embargo, very, very cheap.

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#35

Post by coherentpony »

silverlight wrote: post #25
llamataboot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly every prominent climate scientist disagrees strongly with you, and sees the current move towards fracking as climate suicide.

I'm sure you have them, but since the parent commenter was nice enough to supply sources for his claims, perhaps you could as well?

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/#.UknaKlN7WMc

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#36

Post by hrishi1990 »

ihsw wrote: post #14
devx wrote: post #11

Can we end oil subsidies yet? Or have the oil companies not made enough trillions of dollars in profit since they started receiving subsidies a century ago? I'm all for subsidies to accelerate an emerging market or technology, especially if it's "the future", but for 5-10 years at most, until it becomes mature enough to handle itself. Subsidizing highly profitable companies for a century is beyond stupid, because it…

Oil subsidies are the only reason the US is an energy production leader, not unlike how corn subsidies are the only reason corn-based ethanol is competitive. Ending subsidies cannot be done -- it needs to be accomplished as a side-effect of ending political interference. The oil lobby and corn lobby are very powerful.

what's the point of being a production leader? Shouldn't it be left to the free market? The Oil bias is in a sense, hampering innovation in efficiency in oil-consuming machines, notwithstanding effects on other energy sources.

Remember, the great efficiency drive in automobiles started after the Middle East Oil crisis in 1979, if I'm not wrong...

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#37

Post by alphydan »

So the US produces 11 mbpd (million barrels per day) of liquids (oil, gas2liquids, ethanol, biodiesel). However it consumes about 19 mpbd [0]. Unfortunately this is just a bleep because more expensive prices have made fracking (a 30 - 20 year old technology) economical, but the typical decline rates of these fields are extremely high (produces loads the first year, dies out very very quickly thereafter) [1]. In the longer view (5 - 10 yrs) it's a bump in a long,unstoppable and ever more expensive decline [2].

[0] http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/us_oil.cfm

[1] http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9506

[2] http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/10/02/our-oil-problems-are-no...

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#38

Post by marknutter »

llamataboot wrote: post #22
joshuahedlund wrote: post #19

Commenters bemoaning US running out of resources sooner or ruining the environment by increasing usage should note that US oil demand has essentially peaked[1] and will likely drop in the coming years due to a variety of factors including demographics and the increasing viability of alternative energy sources (solar power + Tesla et. al.) In this context, the US gas/oil energy boom is a wonderful thing, a last hurrah…

Nearly every prominent climate scientist disagrees strongly with you, and sees the current move towards fracking as climate suicide.

What's more likely? That we'll convince people to cut their energy consumption in half, or convince people to purchase higher efficiency equipment and slowly move over to cleaner forms of energy as they become available? What's needed in the climate debate is a healthy dose of pragmatism.

Re: U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer

#40

Post by nathan_long »

ck2 wrote: post #6
e13tra wrote: post #5

Looks like the new arms race is about digging your own environmental grave.

I think the country that is going to win will be biggest exporter of clean water in about two decades. Meanwhile China makes more solar panels than anyone in the world yet has the most filthy air.

> Meanwhile China makes more solar panels than anyone in the world yet has the most filthy air.

Most overall or per capita? And do they use them?

If the cleaners at Grand Central Station use only twice the cleaning supplies as you do at your house, it's likely to be much dirtier than your house.

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