Does anyone else wonder about oil shortages?

[mrcheerful]

I'm just wondering if the oil execs aren't playing the DeBeers game with oil. From my understanding all the studies done on oil is by what oil execs put out there and the people who look for oil are paid by oil execs. i wonder if like DeBeers does with diamonds, if oil companies are limiting how much oil is released and sold. Remember during the 80's oil companies closed most of the refineries in penn, mich, and ohio. The only ones left arerigh in hurricane areas. Remember in 1974 oil execs were saying that oil would be used up by 2000. Well here it is 2005 and still nothing done on alternative fuels, in fact in 2000 GW told america to buy big ,buy powerful and buy often. Now we are hit with high gas prices, ''because of the hurricane''.

[brokensymmetry]

1. Do I wonder? No...

I've been doing a lot of reading this past year; Simmon's "Twilight in the Desert" among other books on the subject of peak oil.

I think the shortages are just a very mild precursor to much more significant events that are coming. Our problem, in my opinion, is not the oil companies - it is geology. We are running out of cheap energy. Will there still be oil? Sure. But it will cost far more than today. We will soon (2 years or less) look back on gasoline under $5.00 per gallon with nostalgia.

[OneTwentyoNine]

4. Ethanol plants are being started almost daily in Kansas....

The latest one was just announced the other day,it will have a capacity of 40 million gallons per year to start,larger capacity later. That has to be the third or fourth such plant announced in the last six months.

[Clark2008]

5. Yeah, but can they make it without it's making your car

perform like crap?

Every time I've ever used ethanol, it makes my car ping and run like it's suffocating.

[OneTwentyoNine]

7. It needs an engine thats made for ethanol--E85 fuel...

Older cars will have problems,although I can run my 3/4 ton cargo van on 10% and it runs just fine--my van has 220,000 miles on it.

Cars that run E85,85% ethanol,15% gasoline need an engine thats been developed for it,those would mostly be cars that are less than 3-4 years old.

There are several sites that list E85 cars. Its pathetic how few run on that fuel which is clean burning and usually about .50 LESS per gallon.

Someone is making sure that the number of E85 vehicles is kept small--wonder who that could be?

[brokensymmetry]

8. Several issues...

1) The U.S. consumes 20 million barrels per day. Compared to that level of consumption, 40 million gallons per year is a drop in the gas tank.

2) As corn (or other bio-materials) are used for fuel production, what happens to the cost and availability of same for use as food?

3) EROEI. How must energy is required to produce the energy you get from ethanol? At best, it's less than 3 to 1. But oil is routinely 20:1. At the beginning, it was 100:1.

So, as I said before, we face the end of cheap energy. And that will change a lot...

[OneTwentyoNine]

9. Some numbers to ponder......

<>1) The U.S. consumes 20 million barrels per day. Compared to that level of consumption, 40 million gallons per year is a drop in the gas tank.<>

Ok,lets do some math. First off a barrel of Oil (42 gallons)only produces about 19 or 20 actual gallons of gasoline,the rest is used for road oil,asphalt,heating oil etc. It also depends on the oil quality,oil from Venezuela produces less gasoline per barrel but lets stick with the higher amount.

That works out to around 9.2 million gallons per day in the US. E-85 uses 85% ethanol so the gallons of ethanol needed would be 7.82 million gallons--that's if EVERY car,jet,Cessna, boat etc.. ran on E-85,the remainder would be pure gasoline.

Like I mentioned there aren't that many engines today capable of running on E-85 but lets say the number miraculously jumps to 50% in the next two/three years. That would require approx 3.9 million gallons per day of ethanol for 50% of the cars running 85% ethanol.

The plant I mentioned can produce 109,589 gallons of ethanol per day. We would need 3.9 million per day so do the math. It works out to about 36 of these ethanol refineries to produce that amount--does that sound like an impossible number?? Like I said there are four just like it either in production or being built in Kansas,so that means we need a whopping 32 MORE in the ENTIRE US to meet demand. Those are EASY numbers to meet,I don't care how you cut it.

Would it totally end demand for pure gasoline?--No, but by reducing the amount by nearly FIFTY percent would make a HELL of a difference. We would need to import little,you could completely cut off the mid east and just import from Canada,Mexico and a few others. Oil companies would actually have COMPETITION for a change,interest in small family owned farms would jump because there would always be a market for their product instead of waiting on another government subsidy check.

It can be done,its already being done....

[SillyGoose]

2. You might be interested in this article that was posted here yesterday.

Internal Memos Show Oil Companies Intentionally Limited Refining Capacity to Drive Up Gasoline Prices

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) today exposed internal oil company memos that show how the industry intentionally reduced domestic refining capacity to drive up profits. The exposure comes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as the oil industry blames environmental regulation for limiting number of U.S. refineries.

The three internal memos from Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco (available at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/fs/ show different ways the oil giants closed down refining capacity and drove independent refiners out of business. The confidential memos demonstrate a nationwide effort by American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying and research arm of the oil industry, to encourage the major refiners to close their refineries in the mid-1990s in order to raise the price at the pump.

"Large oil companies have for a decade artificially shorted the gasoline market to drive up prices," said FTCR president Jamie Court, who successfully fought to keep Shell Oil from needlessly closing its Bakersfield, California refinery this year. "Oil companies know they can make more money by making less gasoline. Katrina should be a wakeup call to America that the refiners profit widely when they keep the system running on empty."

"It's now obvious to most Americans that we have a refinery shortage," said petroleum consultant Tim Hamilton, who authored a recent report about oil company price gouging for FTCR. (Read the report at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/rp/ ) "To point to the environmental laws as the cause simply misses the fact that it was the major oil companies, not the environmental groups, that used the regulatory process to create artificial shortages and limit competition."


http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=52755

[Delphinus]

3. You can also

check out the Peak Oil forum on this board. It's under Politics, Issues, and Media: Peak Oil. I think this link will take you to it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=266

[mrcheerful]

6. Again your using the oil companies as the source of information.

As I was pointing out, its the oil companies thats giving information out. It reminds me of how DeBeers limits the number of diamonds put on the market. Diamonds are rare because DeBeers limits how many are sold, also anyplace that has coal also can produce diamonds, if heat and pressure is also present. My question is, are the oil execs playing the same game?