exxon energy forcast for 2040

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b68909ac-62ae-11e3-99d1-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2nIQD3cCc

Big oil may indeed lend its pac to fight coal

Barnett Shale: Exxon's latest energy outlook anticipates growing demand, carbon levy

A carbon tax would close coal power plants much quicker than current EPA regulations, especially if it was waved in fast cycling natural gas power plants that are needed to make up demand for renewables.

Read more here: Barnett Shale: Exxon's latest energy outlook anticipates growing demand, carbon levy​

Prediction of continued abundant oil but with more expensive prices. That is bad news for investment in hydrogen infrastructure, but good news for hybrids and plug-in cars.

 

Perhaps gore should drop his own fossil fuel use to that of the average american, before he preaches that the world must cut it to 0. Talk about a hypocrit.

I find the language quite useful. Gore defines non-biased scientists as the ones that agree with him. There fore you don't even have to do a survey. I could say non biased scientists agree 100% santa clause is white, and megyn kelly is a non-biased scientist. The idea here is belief in ones core principals are so much more important than facts. It kind of makes me sick. Yes manbearpig will kill us all, if everyone except al gore doesn't stop using fossil fuels. ManBearPig (Season 10, Episode 6) - Full Episode Player - South Park Studios

Yes the best way to make money is to say controversal things, and follow it up with a web pole of your supporters. Here we can find Ted Cruz was absolutely certain the government shutdown was good for the country, and the democratic party was responsable for it. Now Cruz is actually an intellegent guy, so I believe he knew he was lieing in both cases, but.... he served his extreme base which may mean the lies were good for him personally. Gore is also an intellegent man, and I believe he knows he is lying, and he also knows he himself is more adicted to fossil fuels than most of the world, or perhaps he would personally cut back. Its like the 400lb "personal trainer" that knows exactly what your diet and work out should be.

Its really hard to get people to cut 20% from wastefull spending on the budget, or in fossil fuel use. Its freaking impossible if you keep telling people they need to cut everything or its worthless. Let's just put this gore lie with the cruz lie. He has a chearleading section, but IMHO he is an awful voice to cut fuel use.

 

Sorry, I think a brief, and I will stipulate rather warped history lesson is in order.
You have to have 0% hindsite to think that we are about to run out of natural gas. In the late 1970s, the government was certain that we were about to run out of natural gas. Congress in 1978, made it illegal to build base load natural gas power plants, forcing states like texas to build coal and nuclear, when they wanted to build more natural gas infrastructure. Only california was exempted, because, well they had a lot more power than other states that didn't want coal. Carter even asked congress for big subsidies to build coal power plants, as if killing natual gas new power was not enough. To go along with we are running out of natural gas and we don't want companies to profit from the shortage, there were firm price controls put in place under nixon. When Reagan argued that they should be removed like oil price controls, since it was really a matter of cost, and given a high enough price more researves of natural gas would be developed. Congress said it knew best, that forcing people to build coal power plants, and subsidizing fuel oil for heat would keep demand for natural gas low enough to keep the prices cheap, and higher prices would not result in bigger supply.

Fast forward to bush 41, and somehow suprise, people seemed to realize that yes coal wasn't the only solution to the oil scarcity problem, in fact when oil prices were degulated supplies magically appeared. Well it wasn't magic, people cut back on oil use because they were paying more, exploration produced new finds, and opec, the source of the spike needed the cash. Natural gas prices were deregulated and ccgt power plants became legal (can't remeber if this was under regan's second term or bush). People also discovered something that they knew in the 70s, but congress failed to admit, coal pollution is a major problem, and cap and trade on coal pollution was implemented. This quickly added enough pollution control devices to end the acid rain problem, but added some costs. This gave the impetus that ccgt plants have been the big growth power plant since 1990. IIRC the amount of coal used has only slightly increased since then, while electrical production has increased a great deal. In the 90s the clinton doe helped oil and gas companies develop better fracking technology, which along with bush 43 continuation, has led to the natural gas and oil boom of today.

Now given the history it is quite unlikely that natural gas researves are over stated, it just is the matter of price and technology to get it out.

On the Bakken fields for oil, exxon noted fairly firmly in their report this is a short term phenominon, that OPEC will end up using some of the newer technology to increase their percentage of oil exports. We have more oil than they thought in the US in the 1980s, but the price of extraction will go higher and higher as we develop the easy stuff, and production will shift back. Natural gas is not like this, since domestic consumption is so much smaller than the supply and importing lng takes quite a significant amount of energy and money versus better drilling techniques.

 

The saudis will simply use the technology that the DOE helped develop with the shale players, and those recovering oil from played out wells in texas. They simply don't use it now because they restrict oil production to keep the price up as part of a cartell. With their quotas today they can simply stick a straw in the ground at a production cost of about $9/bbl. When the oil companies look at the geology opec countries have large researves available to today's technology. Exxons estimate that the world will have used about 35% of world reserves using today's tech by 2040. There is much argument with this figure, but we certainly are only near a peak because of demand and monopoly, not a lack of supply.

What does this mean? If the chinese and Indians keep growing vmt traveled then OPEC will have more and more ability to cause oil shocks in the US unless the US cuts down on oil use and creates long term contracts with canadian suppliers. That is the oil story plain and simple, not that we are near peak oil, but we have past peak easy oil in North America, and a monopoly controls most of the easy oil now. The last big oil shock was Iran and the United states's bad reaction to the revolution. We could see anouther iranian crisis, and the country is better prepared, but for economic and national security you want to lower oil dependancy. Natural gas, wind, and solar can be substituted, but the government needs to coordinate that substitution, and it seems to be doing a piss poor job at doing that, even though every president has made speaches about oil dependance at least as far back as Nixon.

 

The $9/bbl figure came from a chevron report from a couple of years ago, and included transporation. Really they simply stick a straw in the ground and oil comes out like it used to in texas. The cost to extract the oil has nothing to do with the price OPEC charges. Quantitative Easing has more of an effect, as the strength of the dollar has a lot to do with the price of oil as does geopolitics. Here is an older estimate that doesn't include transporation
FACTBOX-Oil production cost estimates by country| Reuters

Now technology can make extraction of more difficult oil cheaper, but when you have your quota being produced cheap why would you invest in that capital equipment. When the cheap oil runs bellow the quota in the Saudi Kingdom and the rest of OPEC then they will use some of the techniques we have developed here. They will happily pay for the technology.

For geopolitics a real deal with Iran, would eliminate sanctions. Without sanctions the rest of opec would need to cut quotas back for the new Iranian oil or allow the price to drop. This makes investments in oil above $70/bbl risky. End of QE may strenthen the dolllar and also push the price of oil down. On the higher price side there is contagion from Syria's civil war, spreading to oil fields in other arab nations, harsher sanctions on Iran, and new demand from china and India.

IMHO oil should average less than $100/bbl next year, but geopolitics is tough. In the long run it will go up, but price spikes have caused exploration that should keep downward pressure in the short term on oil prices.

 

Well this is part of the problem I was talking about. Cruz before he led the fight for the shutdown, was asked about it, and said he would blame democrats. Now a blogging campaign can try to ignore the sound bites but that is difficult for most independants to stomach, or even the reasonable within the liers own party. Its a lawyers response, and most of us hate these things.

Scrutiny mounts for Cruz's Senate filibuster plan as shutdown deadline nears | Fox News
I call a lie a lie even though a lawyer like cruz can flip the script.

Now ofcourse Cruz doesn't have very much power, it was boehner that went along with this shutdown, and reid that dared him to do it. All three of them acted like middle school bullies, beating up on the kid they don't care about, the american people. But give me a break, you can't plan to shut down the government unless you get what the senate has denied over 40 times (yes the house voted that many times to dismantal aca) and blame the other side, while being believed.

Now say the republicans instead first asked for something more reasonable, eliminating the tax penalty for individuals in 2014, and allowing individuals to keep their health insurance in 2014 even if it violated HHS new rules. Then some democrats might have voted for it, and if they didn't they would look worse today. Unfortunately many believed you could defund the national parks and cancer research while funding ACA and somehow magically get what you want. Its like a toddler telling you he can fly, then crying when you won't let him jump off the building, but instead they through some of the american people off the building.

 

OK so now do you redact your statement though. You are one of those that wanted ted cruz to close the government to somehow get rid of the ACA. Can't you be honest now, that it is ted cruz that is lieing about it being harry reid? I mean the dishonesty here is huge. When you say you want do something to close the government, and you say you are going to blame your enemy before you do it, how can anyone take your blame seriously after the fact. Does it really matter what the meaning of 'is' is?

Now the other lie that most Republicans have said cruz made was that somehow closing most of the government, but funding ACA as cruz's plan did, would end the ACA. That seems quite stupid now. Those republicans like rand paul, paul ryan etc were quite upset at the transparantly bad lie. Yet you still seem to believe it.

Well then you think it was worth it. OK. Then at least do me the service of not lieing about it. You think it was a good thing that we paid $400M to have people now work. OK. I understand. You are one of the believers. Just don't lie to us and tell us that the congress acted well when they closed down the government, but it was really the other guys fault.

You know here is the problem. I didn't bring up the law at all. That would have been FHOP, and I will follow you there for one comment if you like. My problem is the lying politicians! I used one from the left and right to not be political, but somehow if you are a true believer you don't even like ballance. Bad lying politicians are on both sides of the aisle, and people seem to like the lies because hell the ends justify the means. At least as long as the outside groups that pay them, keep the money rolling.