There was a time not that long ago where the expression “sustainable conventional energy” was considered an oxymoron.
I wonder, does hundreds of years of conventional energy in abundance change it to a tautology?
“The message is quite clear, you can produce gas hydrates using conventional techniques,” says Scott Dallimore, a senior scientist at Natural Resources Canada, who co-led the project in the Mackenzie Delta. Over two winters the researchers drilled down more than a kilometre into a 150-metre-thick layer on the edge of the Beaufort Sea at Mallik — the most concentrated known deposit of the frozen fuel in the world.
Thank you Cjunk for working on this topic as well as on the threat of Islam.
Ditto! Cheers;
I just learned a new word today. Tautology and it’s other forms of adj. adv. noun, adverb etc.
I often wondered what to call a person who uses tautology to make what is being said sound like more, or sound more important that it should or is. Pretentious asshole, covers it, but that’s a bit crude in polite company.
I hate tautologists.
Cjunk knocks it out of the park!
‘The world will soon be depleted of all fossil fuels.’
That is what I had thrown back at me, time and time again, by the climate alarmists I know. I am not talking of the weirdo hyppy types -, no, I am referring to very reasonable people who, are mostly very reserved and reasonable in their everyday lives. And yet they we’re ready and willing to force everyone to repent by deleting modern life styles – the ‘good life’ , because of fossil fuels.
Peak oil? Pfffft.
Tell me – why is it, that in a court of law, if one speaks an untruth, any further statements are usually taken with a grain of salt.
And if a person is known for stretching the truth, everything they say is doubted.
And yet so many may read a newspaper story, of which the reader may have first hand knowledge, and knows! said article is slanted, out of context or simply wrong. But, BUT so many readers will then turn the pages and accept all subsequent articles at face value. WHY!?
This is the biggest problem the world faces today. It clouds all issues.
As Russia is twice our size, I suspect they have at least as much energy as we do, they just haven’t gotten to it yet.
and let’s not forget dilithium either.
Robert of Ottawa, I suspect that you are right.
Siberian coal attracts investment.
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_02_18/66373240/
Russia and the energy of tomorrow. The article also mentions Canada and its energy resources.
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/11/24/60975063.html
and when you include shale or tight oil . . .
‘The US has Three Times the Proven Reserves of Saudi Arabia in Shale Oil.
More than 1.8 trillion barrels of oil are trapped in shale in Federal lands in the western United States in the states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, of which 800 billion is considered recoverable–three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. The INTEK assessment for EIA found 23.9 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil resources in the onshore Lower 48 States. The Southern California Monterey/Santos play is the largest shale oil formation estimated to hold 15.4 billion barrels or 64 percent of the total shale oil resources followed by Bakken and Eagle Ford with approximately 3.6 billion barrels and 3.4 billion barrels of oil, respectively.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/How-the-US-Shale-Boom-Will-Change-the-World.html
It is going to really suck to be an enviro-grrenie-eco-jihadi-warmonger in the near future.
The simple fact that exploration and technical advances have made the notion of “peak energy” as obsolete and discredited as eugenics, is a mortal threat to the “Watermelon Initiative”.
How else can this element, self styled wise men appoint themselves as absolute global rulers?
The “watermelons” are thinly disquised fascists. Expect violence and instability as they resort to a bunker mentality.
Already the Nov 2012 US elections, represent their Kursk/battle of the Bulge momment….all or nothing.
We should continue to use hydrocarbons for what they’re best at: transportation fuel, and heating. But for electricity, nuclear still seems the best option. This article spells out the many alternatives to massive nuclear plants:
Small Modular Reactors
These smaller plants can fit into relatively small spaces – 20 acres – and many designs do not require a nearby river or lake for cooling, providing more flexibility for site location. Because the SMR’s can be closer to the point of use, we don’t need as much space for power-line corridors.
But the article’s summary points out that there are a couple of issues that need to be addressed. First, while all of these designs work as one-offs, no one has yet produced them in great numbers, so the hoped-for economies of scale are as yet not attained. But the biggest hurdle to overcome will be the enviro-weenies, who will use every scare and stall tactic available to prevent deployment. As usual, government will be far more the problem than the solution.
Don’t worry about the ‘tar sands’ cooking the earth. Coal and natural gas is the enemy.
It’s true because a scientist says so.
Coal, not oil sands, the true climate change bad guy, analysis shows
With their endless whine about “peak energy” I’d have thought the eco-zealots and climate alarmists would have long passed the point of “peak bullshit” … but evidently that point doesn’t exist in their fevered minds.
Gas hydrates won’t be needed in this Millenium. Conventional NG supplies offshore and elsewhere will suffice.
Meanwhile a collapse in oil prices in the mid and long term seems a certainty. NG is so cheap it will more and more be substituted for oil. Oil producers like Libya and most significantly Iraq are rapidly increasing production. Iraq says it hopes to be producing 12 mm bpd by 2016 (saudi Arabia currently only produces 10 mm bpd).
And brazil will likely be oil self sufficient and and exporter within five years as it brings on line it 150 billion bbl offshore fields.
The extra-silver lining is that pump gas is likely to go over the 5$ mark by early summer and stay there until Obama has been removed. Then the taps will come online and the boom will begin in earnest.
Better start building the pipelines. Oh, that’s right…
Most natural resources are sustainable including water, timber, food and energy. We must realize we live in an era where corporate and radical political forces have joined ranks to create hysteria over fallacious shortages. Shortage hysteria drives commodity markets up and the rationing of resources (agenda 21) drives prices even higher – for common sustainable commodities. It’s a tag team match made in hell between control freak greens and rapacious commodity suppliers/speculators. Don’t fall for it and stay vigilant.
Occam
Yup, that’s been my hinking for a long time
First – no tax is a good tax – but. Perhaps an import duty on petroleum products coming into North America might sustain self sufficiency. We all know that $20 per barrel is coming as we approach self sufficiency. OPEC manipulates the price to our disadvantage. Putting duties in place to keep imported oil at a minimum $60 per barrel means the price would never go below that level.
Kevin, less space than that even. The Canadian designed Slowpoke reactor fits in one room.
And if we want to talk about fuel availability, fissile material from uranium and thorium will last for hundreds of thousands of years. Gives us lots of time to figure out how to produce useful energy from fusion.
Obligatory XKCD reference:
http://xkcd.com/703/
In contrast, the paper concludes that burning all the globe’s vast coal deposits would create a 15-degree increase in temperature.
~foobert
Nonsense. CO2 does not drive temperature, temperature drives CO2.