[LMB] "Civilization isn't just electricity."

[anmar mirza]

On 2/7/08, Mandos Mitchinson <mandos at allowed.to> wrote:
>
> Most of what you said I agree with but not this bit. People often forget
> the
> US was the leading producer of Oil worldwide until it's wells ran dry,
> something people said would never happen. They hit the peak around 1970
> and
> now in the southern states there are thousands of rusting oil wells from
> fields that have run dry.


My point is that cheap oil running out is not a crisis.  I don't dispute
that the
days of oil so cheap that it was cheaper than clean water are over, but it
is not a crisis.  Right now the price of oil has everything to do with
political
issues, and the people who buy and sell oil on the futures market.  The
actual
extraction costs plus reasonable profit would put oil at about $15-20 a
barrel.
Now that oil is so high a lot of the defunct wells in the US south and other
places are
producing again, because it is now economically worthwhile to pump it.  When

the asian market collapsed back in the late 80s and early 90s and made oil
extremely cheap because of the worldwide glut of it, those wells were
put out of business not because they ran dry, but because they weren't cost
effective to run.  I've noted as I travel the country a lot of old small
fields are now
becoming active again (I live in one of those areas) and this has been
increasing
for the last decade.  It is now economically feasible to drill deeper and
the extraction
technology has improved, even in the last decade.

I don't mind paying what energy costs.  I do really strongly mind that some
worthless
pond scum is making money not by actually producing a product, but by
playing
the market on that product.  This is one reason I choose to produce my own
energy where I can, aside from reducing my carbon footprint, I hope that
wall
street trader and his stock portfolio and extravagant lifestyle chokes.
Meanwhile
I'll try to reduce how much he can make off me.



-- 
Anmar Mirza EMT, N9ISY, Central Region NCRC Coordinator, Owner Lost Creek
Packs, blog.myspace.com/anmarmirza)