41–50 of 89 posts
Looks like the new arms race is about digging your own environmental grave.
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…
Some commentary on the paper and reactions to it, which concludes mostly that better data would be nice: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/fracki...
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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
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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...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_doctrine
It's the reason the US Marines have their own air force -- they don't want someone else second-guessing their decisions.
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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.
Maybe convincing people to cut their energy consumption in half isn't in the cards. At the same time, maybe that is what is needed. The universe doesn't have to cooperate to give us pragmatic solutions.
If the "impossible" solution is required, and the "pragmatic" solution isn't sufficient... why should climate scientists advocate for the latter over the former?
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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.
I wonder what prevents the use of "salt water" for fracking? We have an abundant supply of that resource; maybe prevents the oceans from rising too! (I am joking)
Also seems the consideration is about saline aquifers and not ocean water. I suspect the cost of transporting ocean water is the issue leading to this consideration.
[1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/breakthrou...
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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 ma…
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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 thousa…
I've been wondering if that's still true.
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.
I believe we need to proactively remove atmospheric CO2. Retool our economy and industrial might for that job.
To do that, we need a strong economy.
I'm not saying more, cheaper fossil fuels is a good thing. I just think we should play the cards we're dealt (to ourselves).
Looks like the new arms race is about digging your own environmental grave.
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.
[1] http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2157446...
[2] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/16/lomborg-climate-models...