The Axis of Oil

[EC]

Features > January 31, 2005
The Axis of Oil
By Jehangir Pocha



China and India are locked in an increasingly aggressive wrangle with the United States over the world’s most critical economic commodity: oil. More than any other issue, this tussle will shape the economic, environmental and geopolitical future of these three countries, and the world.

Ensuring a steady flow of cheap oil has always been one of the central goals of U.S. foreign and economic policy, and Washington’s preeminent position in the world is based in large measure on its ability to do this. But China and India are increasingly competing with the United States to secure oil exploration rights in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Latin America.

India has invested more than $3 billion in global exploration ventures and has said it will continue to spend $1 billion a year on more acquisitions. China, which has already invested about $15 billion in foreign oil fields, is expected to spend 10 times more over the next decade.

The motive, says Zheng Hongfei, an energy researcher at the Beijing Institute of Technology, is that “there is just not enough oil in the world” to cover China’s and India’s growing energy needs.


more http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1909/

[Tinoire]

1. Not enough oil in the world to cover the US's needs either

Meanwhile not one subway is being built in my large city- not one.

So Chavez had signed on with China and Russia is remaining close to Iran. Things are going to start getting interesting very quickly.

[EC]

2. And Bush wants to cut all funds to Amtrack...n/t

[mhr]

3. Only 34 Years Of Oil Left - Better Get While The Gettin's Good

eom

[rman]

4. that's IF both demand and production remain at current levels

which it won't.

[mhr]

7. Yes Of Course - But The Steady State Is All That Most Folks Can Understand

Once increasing demand and ever falling extraction rates are factored in, the 34 year number falls.

This is too much for most to understand. To hit home, which is bad enough, just use the steady state numbers.

[rman]

5. China, India, US... and Europe?

I'd guess Europe might also want some of that oil.

[McKenzie]

6. AND the idiots still build huge, unserviced suburbs

once the oil becomes scarcer and hugely more expensive, suburbs will not be a good place to live. They need to be serviced; eg waste uplift, carriageway and lighting maintenance, policing, provision of emergency services. The residents need to travel out to obtain their goods and services and suburbs often lack social/community facilities.

This is quite apart from the massive amount of energy input that is required for the construction of suburbs in the first place, the effect on the water table, damage to established ecosystems and a lot of other undesirable side-effects.

The penny will drop eventually...when people can't drive anywhere because there isn't any fuel for their vehicles and the supermarket deliveries are unreliable due to fuel supply being a bit hit and miss...

Your post confirms what many of us knew all along...the oil is becoming scarce and that signals the end for an energy-profligate lifestyle for the developed world. Some of us better get ready for a radically different lifestyle in the near future.

[mhr]

8. Yes - Read "Home From Nowhere" By Kunstler

http://www.kunstler.com/

He keeps a diary called "Clusterfuck Nation" that is too the point about our sad society.

http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary12.html

[McKenzie]

9. thnx - I mailed Jim a while ago and got a nice reply

he is a witty guy and I have his site bookmarked - part of my work is in Urban Design.

[mhr]

12. Yes - He Is A Very Friendly Guy - I Have Emailed Him As Well

He is also an extraordinarily good public speaker.

I have heard him interviewed on several occasions - very well spoken.

[NVMojo]

29. thanks for the links!

[pstans]

31. Kunstler is great

I check his website frequently and have read 2 of his books, Geography of Nowhere and Home from Nowhere. He has a new book coming out in May about the end of cheap oil.

I would vote for Kunstler for any public office. His message is one that more people need to hear. A better built environment is a win-win situation, as Smart Growth is better for the environment and a more compact, walkable neighborhood provides a better life for children than the isolated fry pits that make up surburbia.

I highly recommend visiting www.kunstler.com

[cornermouse]

10. I can't help but notice that China and India both have the money

and the jobs/industries. We don't. Bush spent it. And that's why we're going to come out third in a three "man" race.

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. The US doesn't NEED one drop of foreign oil

.
.
.

It's all a big scam to keep the corporate criminals in business.

Technology has been around for ages to convert waste into oil, as well as other beneficial products.

Not only that, it would relieve one heck of a lot of pressure off of landfill sites, and help the environment.

-------------------------------

"Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil."

source

--------------------------------

CWT is the result of collaboration between Brian Appel, a businessman from New York, and Paul Baskis, the man behind the science. As Baskis said, "This is tremendous. From the tests we've run in our pilot, we know that if we took all the agricultural wastes and converted them into oil we could make 12 billion barrels a year."

source


I could get dozens, no, HUNDREDS of such links from people and organizations that claim basically the same thing - even household waste, tires, almost anything can be converted into useful energy - And, Diverted from our landfill sites - - -

But, but - - - then what would happen to all our mega-billion dollar oil corporations . . . .

aw gee,

I say feck 'em,

feckemall!!

:smoke:

[mhr]

13. How Much Credibility Do You Expect To Have When One Of Your Sources

Is Free Republic?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/897232/posts/

You have obviously not studied EROEI - energy returned on energy invested.

It takes energy to convert all that manure into fuel. If it takes more energy to convert than is produced in useful work it is a net loss of energy. That is why these schemes do not see the light of day.

[ConcernedCanuk]

20. Ok - one at a time

.
.
.

First of all, just like DU, or any other organization, not ALL members are if one mind. Ask Elad and the gang how many DU members have been removed from THIS forum. Free Republic is still a group of PEOPLE, and I refuse to categorize, or judge people just on the simple fact that they belong to one organization or another. If that were the case, I should detest all Americans because they live in the country run by an insane man who makes war on innocent people? I think not.

I think it should be noted, that the author at Free Republic posted an article from a respected magazine called "Discover". It took a wee bit of juggling, with their link, but here is the story they were quoting if you care to take the time to read it. the full article requires registration. I believe that the poster did indeed post the entire original article from May 2003, tho - I suggest it be a given a good read?

Secondly, I AM familiar with energy returned on energy invested, I have no idea where your "obviously" statement is justified. Billions of dollars are spent just to GET to the oil we drill for, never mind the Billions the US's War machine consumes trying to acquire and protect their oil sources.

I maintain, to use your words, that "why these schemes do not see the light of day" is because even partial loss of their markets would put the oil magnates in the poorhouse. Many of the US's most powerful politicians made/make their fortunes in the profits from oil, so "alternatives" would diminish their wealth, and so will NOT allow serious efforts to provide alternatives "see the light of day".

No-one will convince me otherwise.

That's my opinion

[mhr]

23. The EROEI For Oil Is Presently Positive

In other words for each Barrel of oil equivalent energy used to extract the oil we benefit from 3 to 5 barrels of extracted oil equivalent energy.

The simple reason for this is that most of the middle east oil is under pressure and does not "cost" much energy to extract.

However, once one starts talking about processing the tar sands of Canada, for example, this advantage disappears and the EROEI goes to one or less.

Once we are in negative EROEI territory, each use of energy must be weighed against the benefit derived.

After the cheap and easy oil is gone, we will see massive rationing for the ever precious oil resource regardless of the source.

[rman]

15. and how much energy does it take to convert waste into oil?

it'll be an expensive source of oil, much like extracting oil from tar-sand, for instance.
Peak-oil/oil-depletion isn't so much about running out of oil as it is about running out of cheap oil, which is going to cause huge problems for most people.

Of course the technology for alternative energy sources is there, it's just that it hasn't been implemented to replace oil as an energy source. By now we have only a few years, a decade at most, to make the switch to alternatives - which should include increasing the efficiency of energy use roughly by a factor of ten.

[ConcernedCanuk]

21. If they can make it for less than half our present cost

.
.
.

AND divert the waste from the landfills, I see this as a win-win - no?

From the May 2003 article:

"Private investors, who have chipped in $40 million to develop the process, aren't the only ones who are impressed. The federal government has granted more than $12 million to push the work along. "We will be able to make oil for $8 to $12 a barrel," says Paul Baskis, the inventor of the process. "We are going to be able to switch to a carbohydrate economy.""

Full article at Discovery Magazine requires subscription:

http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/

and update, and some info can be found at

http://www.discover.com/issues/jul-04/features/anything-into-oil/

I'll quote from the latter:

"The process described—transforming turkey guts, old tires, used plastic bottles, and municipal sewage into fuel oil—struck some readers as more like alchemy than chemistry and struck others as the answer to energy shortages, not to mention the solution to some of America’s worst waste problems."

/snip/

" Out of 100 Btus in a given unit of feedstock, only 15 Btus are used to power the process, with the remainder residing in oil, gas, and chemicals. Most important, the oil produced in these tests easily meets the specifications for diesel fuel. "

I am not "pushing" this particular venue, I am merely pointing out it is one of MANY viable processes involving creating solutions for the oil the United States needs, without ever leaving the continent, AND diverting waste from our landfills.

Good idea, no :shrug:

[rman]

27. oh right; 100% efficiency... dream on

this subject has been discussed at length on DU

[EC]

28. Corps would be lining up to do it if it were such a win-win....n/t

[illflem]

16. The above sources only work

when much of the wastes are petro related products. After those wastes are used up the yeilds will be way down. Not to say there isn't a non-petro solution but waste power isn't it.

[ConcernedCanuk]

22. hmmmm

.
.
.

There are actually apartment buildings that recycle all the fluid waste WITHIN the buildings, even trapping the methane to heat it, and purifying the liquids into potable water, but I digress - -

from the Posted Article at FreeRepublic,(remember, the "source" is Discover Magazine, not the poster) I followed the link to the May artricle and found an update in July of 2004

"Twenty tons of slaughterhouse turkey parts, freshly dumped by a truck, await processing into oil, gas, and minerals at the thermal conversion process plant in Carthage, Missouri. When the plant reaches full capacity in the fall, it will process 10 dump trucks of leftovers, one tanker truck of blood, and one tanker truck of discarded restaurant grease every 24 hours."



Also from the initial article in May 2003

"Making oil and gas from hydrocarbon-based waste is a trick that Earth mastered long ago. Most crude oil comes from one-celled plants and animals that die, settle to ocean floors, decompose, and are mashed by sliding tectonic plates, a process geologists call subduction."


Food for thought, no?

[illflem]

17. dupe

[DainBramaged]

14. Coal, the Con-Job answer to all problems energy

The Nazi's used synthetic oil from coal to fuel their war machine in the closing months of their war. I have this feeling the 'clean coal' solution is more than just talk. The technology has been there for decades, except for cheap oil. And if that happens, the environment is going to have a very black future, and the greedy Cons will have the third finger on their grubby little hands pointed toward us all. 34 years, I don't think that bothers the Cons one bit. The future for them is fossil, because if it has to be converted, it means profit.

[marcologico]

26. Don't forget LGN, coming soon. . .

. . . as soon as they figure out how to make us pay for their accidents.

[dbt]

18. There's about some forward-thinking bastards in the BFEE.

That whole family enterprise has been about oil for several decades now. Suppose Junior's handlers knew, back in 1995-99, that Peak Oil was real, that it was at hand. They would also have realized that China would be the next threat to US domination of the globe, so how best to contain them? Get between China and Oil.

Buy an election if necessary, but a blood member of the BFEE had to be put at the head of US government; there was simply too much power (not to mention corporate profits) at stake to allow the country to continue in the direction that Clinton had taken it.

Flash forward to Iraq in 2003, all that lovely oil just there for the taking. No matter that we can't seem to get it out; we've at least kept China from getting it!

:freak:
dbt

[marcologico]

25. Forward-thinking my ass. They haven't had an original thought since 1950

and that's giving them credit for more than they deserve. They're basically Standard Oil company police.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

19. The simple Amurkan solution to the energy crisis...... is....

[Democrat Dragon]

30. ROTFL! then we only have 10 years of oil left!

Not to mention plastic is made from oil.

Here's a list of things that are made from plastic:

clothes (nylon, polyester, and acrylic)
medical equipment(IV bags, syringes, anestesia masks, tubes etc.)
paint (acylic paint)
sports helmets
toys
crafts (nylon paintbrushes, styrofoam, foam, glue, polyester pompoms and felt etc.)
casing for electronic equpment
vinyl bumper stickers
plastic jewlery
stickers
school & office equipment: rulers, compases, pens, mechanical pencils etc.
food & drink packaging: soda bottles, meat containers, milk bottles, candy wrappers, bags, plastic jars etc.
chemical storage: lysol containers, bleach containers etc.
sanitation and mediciene contairners: soap pumps, toilet seats, clear bandaids, ointment containers, mediciene jars, cotton swabs, etc.
containers and bags: ziploc bags, gladware containers, plastic bags, corrugated plastic boxes, etc.

If we don't recycle all of the oil and plastic we use soon, WE WILL BE SCREWED!!!!!!

[marcologico]

24. "If I am President, we will ... create alternative fuels and the vehicles

of the future – to make this country energy independent of Mideast oil within ten years."

Guess who said it, and it wasn't short stuff (either one).

[pstans]

32. Kerry or Kucinich?

not sure which one, but I researched all of the candidates in the primaries on their energy policy and Kerry and Kucinich said the most about it.

[marcologico]

33. Kerry's quote, but Kucinich might have said something similar.

Here's the link: http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0227.html