Supply - demand relationshiop only works one way

[sundevil777 94]

At least according to libs such as our president. He says that the quest for lower demand of oil will result in lower prices because of the supply - demand relationship. Increasing the supply of oil by greater domestic drilling won't reduce the price however, because oil is a world market commodity, blah blah.

Why does the law of supply and demand work from only one direction for libs? I think they are blinded by their desire to not want to use oil.

I think the US should embark on achieving the goal of energy independence - at least from OPEC. It might take 10 or 20 years to achieve, but we should be boycotting OPEC.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[billvon 2,406]

>Increasing the supply of oil by greater domestic drilling won't reduce the price
>however, because . . .

. . . we are already in decline in production, and have been since 1970. We cannot drill enough new wells to even level off the decline. We are just plain running out of oil.

A good measure of this decline is EROEI, or energy return on energy invested. In very rough terms it is the effort to get the energy vs. the energy you actually get. Hydropower is huge in terms of EROEI; for every unit of energy you invest (in building dams etc) you get 100 units of energy back. Oil used to have a similar EROEI; you drilled a shallow well, got a gusher of oil and got a tremendous return on investment.

Nowadays in the US the EROEI on oil is about 3 to 1. It takes the energy equivalent of one barrel to get three out of the ground. As we go deeper and deeper and use ever more esoteric methods to get oil out of the ground that will decline further. Below about 2 to 1 it simply will not be economically viable to get the remaining oil.

Imagine a forest where you are cutting down wood to burn for heat. You discover that you have cut 80% of the forest, and the remaining wood is harder and harder to get to and less suitable for burning. Will cutting the forest more quickly solve your problem?

[sundevil777 94]

But Obama likes to brag and take undeserved credit for domestic production being at a peak in the last 8 years - even with libs doing what they can to stop oil flowing from federal lands. That doesn't match your assertion.

There sure is quite an oil boom happening in some parts of the country and Canada (could be happening in Alaska and off the coast) compared to your claim of "plain running out of oil". Obama says that he's for an "all of the above" strategy but his policies do not match his words - he's lying.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

Quote

But Obama likes to brag and take undeserved credit for domestic production being at a peak in the last 8 years - even with libs doing what they can to stop oil flowing from federal lands. That doesn't match your assertion.

There sure is quite an oil boom happening in some parts of the country and Canada (could be happening in Alaska and off the coast) compared to your claim of "plain running out of oil". Obama says that he's for an "all of the above" strategy but his policies do not match his words - he's lying.

Of course he is lying and taking undeserved credit. He's a politician. That's what they do.

The oil boom is a direct result of the high prices. The cost (both money wise and energy wise) of extraction in the Alberta "oil sands" (also known as "tar sands") is incredibly high. If the price of oil dropped signifcantly (below about $75 per barrel IIRC) that entire boom would just stop.

That oil was known to exist for years. It simply wasn't economically viable to extract it. Which is true (with certain exceptions made for environmental protection) for all oil exploration and new production today.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[lawrocket 3]

Quote

As we go deeper and deeper and use ever more esoteric methods to get oil out of the ground that will decline further. Below about 2 to 1 it simply will not be economically viable to get the remaining oil.

Of course, this shouldn't be the case. Government policy has been to use renewable resources. Oil has its role with regard to its energy function and is ill suited for such things as powering the grid.

Why not have solar power aid in the extraction? Nuclear power? Etc. While the energy of a barrel of oil may be needed to get 4 barrels out, that energy itself should be cheaper, shouldn't it?

If that energy is cheaper, the benefit of obtaining the oil could be much better. You're explaining the effect that renewable can have in making it easier and less expensive to obtain oil from a domestic supply. It's another double-edged sword. The problem is that technologies that do not use oil are STILL inefficient or politically distasteful (coal).

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billeisele 122]

Quote

>Increasing the supply of oil by greater domestic drilling won't reduce the price
>however, because . . .

. . . we are already in decline in production, and have been since 1970. We cannot drill enough new wells to even level off the decline. We are just plain running out of oil.

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and the more areas that are restricted from drilling the worse this will get, eventually the cost of energy will be high enough that renewable will be cost effective, interesting energy policy - drive up the cost of the most comon available fuels until the non-economical green stuff become economical
---------------------------------

A good measure of this decline is EROEI, or energy return on energy invested. In very rough terms it is the effort to get the energy vs. the energy you actually get. Hydropower is huge in terms of EROEI; for every unit of energy you invest (in building dams etc) you get 100 units of energy back. Oil used to have a similar EROEI; you drilled a shallow well, got a gusher of oil and got a tremendous return on investment.

-----------------------------
and the EROEI on solar would be?, the aluminum and plastic in a solar panel takes huge amounts of energy to make
-------------------

Nowadays in the US the EROEI on oil is about 3 to 1. It takes the energy equivalent of one barrel to get three out of the ground. As we go deeper and deeper and use ever more esoteric methods to get oil out of the ground that will decline further. Below about 2 to 1 it simply will not be economically viable to get the remaining oil.

Imagine a forest where you are cutting down wood to burn for heat. You discover that you have cut 80% of the forest, and the remaining wood is harder and harder to get to and less suitable for burning. Will cutting the forest more quickly solve your problem?

-------------
so is the biomass crowd causing issues?, it is amusing that the the folks that currently use trees for paper-cardboard-etc are complaining the the biomass folks are "driving up" the cost of "my raw material" like they own the forest

all the green folks need to get together and solve the in-fighting to decide who gets to use the worlds natural resources, the government is deciding who gets access to oil and coal, and while they are doing this the nuclear folks will keep building and producing electricity from a non-emitting source (no CO2, etc.) this just kills the greenies

Give one city to the thugs so they can all live together. I vote for Chicago where they have strict gun laws.

[billvon 2,406]

>But Obama likes to brag and take undeserved credit for domestic production being
>at a peak in the last 8 years - even with libs doing what they can to stop oil flowing
>from federal lands. That doesn't match your assertion.

I think that has more to do with recovering from a recession than having new wells being drilled. Out of work people buy less oil and gas. Also as the price of oil has increased, oil companies have spent more and more money looking at clever (and expensive) tricks to get more oil out of almost-dead wells.

>There sure is quite an oil boom happening in some parts of the country and Canada
>(could be happening in Alaska and off the coast) compared to your claim of "plain
>running out of oil"

We ARE running out of cheap oil - which is why we can't "drill our way out" of this shortage. Indeed, oil is getting so scarce that expensive alternatives like tar sands are becoming economically viable. EROEI on tar sands is around 1:3.5 - and that's just to get the tar (bitumen.) It then needs further processing to make it into refinable oil, which lowers EROEI to below 1:3.

Which is why up until now it hasn't been profitable to extract.

[billvon 2,406]

>Why not have solar power aid in the extraction? Nuclear power? Etc. While the
>energy of a barrel of oil may be needed to get 4 barrels out, that energy itself should
>be cheaper, shouldn't it?

That happens now to a large degree. Energy needed to drill and refine oil can be lumped into three categories:

1) Pumping. Both pumping drilling and extraction fluids down wells and pumping the oil back up, also some pumping through pipelines and process control at refineries. This is mostly electrical, and comes from the solar, nuclear etc power you mention above. Adding solar to the grid helps there.

2) Transportation. This right now is mostly oil to fuel trucks. We can help change that with electric vehicles designed for transportation of fuel (mostly local delivery trucks with fixed routes.)

3) Process heat, mainly for refining. This is probably always going to be oil, because you have it being pumped into the refinery anyway, and burning oil is a great source of heat - and the fractions burned for process heat are generally the undesirables anyway.

>While the energy of a barrel of oil may be needed to get 4 barrels out, that energy
>itself should be cheaper, shouldn't it?

Yes. But if you're going to use 1 barrel of fuel equivalent to get 1 barrel of oil out, there is simply no way to make that economically viable, no matter how cheap your energy is. It would be like having a deal at a bank where they give you $100 back for every $100 you give them. Even if deflation occurs, and that $100 is easier for you to get - it's still not a good deal.

That being said, oil is a very valuable product that has uses above and beyond being burned for energy. In the future we will likely see a higher percentage of oil used as an industrial feedstock - and in that case EROEI does not apply since no energy is expected of the final product.