Removing all the politics from today’s sense of how to rebuild the economy, it is useful to look around and see what the people who can actually look ahead are seeing.
Is OPEC adding capacity? no. the saudis and kuwaits have both cancelled deals to make better use of future oil, because they can see no sign of demand. Mexico’s fields are collapsing (which was part of the hyper-spike earlier in the year). China’s major fields are declining, if not collapsing. (even cramer’s people acknowledge that..possibly so his boys can cover shorts) , and yet oil “can’t find” $50 .
Another part of the nonsense about the bright future of petroleum is in the idea of Canadian tar.
Here’s some iconic realities courtesy of another commentator:
…” the energy requirements of the projects planned for tar sands development already exceed the amount of available natural gas from the entire Mackenzie River project. Virtually all estimates for natural gas usage in tar sands operations by 2015, just 10 years hence, exceed the projections for available amounts of natural gas…
“Immense amounts of water are currently being discarded into settlement ponds, in which it may take 200 years for the smallest particles to settle down to the bottom. Meanwhile, the water is toxic, and mixed with exceedingly high levels of heavy metals and other exotic elements that you probably do not want to eat.”
So, how to proceed towards an economy that can actually afford to use the remaining oil resources properly?
Back to the idea of getting inefficient cars off the roads, out of the junkyards, away from the air supply, creating investment oportunities for alternative vehicles to actually make it from the “concept” display at a convention, or a magazine, and into car lots and driveways.”
Posted under business
This post was written by admin on January 21, 2009
