Oil rises jump almost $7, (Fear not Americans, ANWR is still off-limits)

[Constitutionally Speaking]

Personally I think we should sit on our oil reserves as painful as it is. Oil is a finite commodity and we should make the most out of other people's oil before we start dipping into what we have left whether it is ANWR or shale oil etc. I do not think a lot of people realize just how much oil is ingrained in our daily lives. It is part of everything we do. If we do not have a viable alternative when it is gone we are in for a world of hurt and rapid decline back to a pre-industrial society but at populations far exceeding what they had then. The mass starvation will be ugly to say the least.

We've got enough for over 150 years - right here within our borders. There is no need to sit on it.

[LogansPapa]

We've got enough for over 150 years - right here within our borders. There is no need to sit on it.

We've got a 1,000 years of energy, via crude and coal - but that will require altering the landscape just a bit.:p

[Vepr]

We've got enough for over 150 years - right here within our borders. There is no need to sit on it.

I disagree. First if we are counting shale oil it is still up in the air how easy it will be to access all of it. Also we keep thinking of terms of the here and now in terms of consumption. What we use now will not be what we will be using in 10 or 20 years. Our need for oil is only going to keep rising and it is hard to tell what those needs are going to be in 20 years. World wide we keep out pacing the predictions on what we will be consuming. In 50 we could be looking at a much smaller supply just due to rampant growth. I would rather be safe than sorry and use up the rest of the worlds oil and then resort to our own when everyone else is tapped out.

[Vepr]

We are lucky to be swimming in coal. What Saudi Arabia is to oil we are to coal and it can be turned into syn oil. That being said turning coal into oil is not ideal, dirty, and we still need to watch our resource consumption including coal.

[megimoo]

Bingo! Excellent perspective, and real too.:)

Who are we saving it for China ?They will drill every drop,world wide,they can get their hands on. Right now they are drilling off the coast of Cuba into our coastal oil reserves that we are not allowed to drill Which proves that if we don't drill it someone else will .

World estimates of available oil is about thirty five million barrels a day short term and that tops whatevery we could use in over a fifty years and more is being discovered. The oil now being discovered is more difficult to extract but the extration technology will improve .

We need to accelerate research into alternate real energy sources.Nuclear power is the only feasible source of cheap and clean electric power followed by solar/liquid metal heat exchangers in southwestern US deserts.

Solar electric panels are far too expensive and are only usefull as battery charges on some low power applications .Solar electric panels are in reality the worlds most expensive battery changers and I have used them on many remote,low power,engineering projects !

The US produces about 5 million barrels of crude a day, and imports about 12 million... Some day we will be using super cooled liquid Hydrogen to putter around in our anti-gravity pods but that will be after we are all long gone. !

[LogansPapa]

Dow -3.13% Nasdaq -2.96%

[megimoo]

Dow -3.13% Nasdaq -2.96%

Someone sneezed in the whitehouse !

[Vepr]

Who are we saving it for China ?They will drill every drop,world wide,they can get their hands on. Right now they are drilling off the coast of Cuba into our coastal oil reserves that we are not allowed to drill Which proves that if we don't drill it someone else will .

World estimates of available oil is about thirty five million barrels a day short term and that tops whatevery we could use in over a fifty years and more is being discovered. The oil now being discovered is more difficult to extract but the extration technology will improve .

We need to accelerate research into alternate real energy sources.Nuclear power is the only feasible source of cheap and clean electric power followed by solar/liquid metal heat exchangers in southwestern US deserts.

Solar electric panels are far too expensive and are only usefull as battery charges on some low power applications .Solar electric panels are in reality the worlds most expensive battery changers and I have used them on many remote,low power,engineering projects !

The US produces about 5 million barrels of crude a day, and imports about 12 million... Some day we will be using super cooled liquid Hydrogen to putter around in our anti-gravity pods but that will be after we are all long gone. !

If it comes to using resources that anyone can exploit then by all means go after them. If it is resources only we can access then sit on them until we have no choice. Then we can tell the rest of the world to sit and spin.

[Constitutionally Speaking]

I disagree. First if we are counting shale oil it is still up in the air how easy it will be to access all of it. Also we keep thinking of terms of the here and now in terms of consumption. What we use now will not be what we will be using in 10 or 20 years. Our need for oil is only going to keep rising and it is hard to tell what those needs are going to be in 20 years. World wide we keep out pacing the predictions on what we will be consuming. In 50 we could be looking at a much smaller supply just due to rampant growth. I would rather be safe than sorry and use up the rest of the worlds oil and then resort to our own when everyone else is tapped out.

The problem has been solved.

The reason you probably haven't heard about the Green River Formation is that most of the methods tried for turning oil shale into oil have been deeply flawed - economically, environmentally or usually both. Because there have been so many false starts, oil shale tends to get lumped with cold fusion, zero-point energy, and other "miracle" fuels perpetually just over the horizon.

"A lot of other companies have bent their spears trying to do what we're now doing," Vinegar says of his 28-year quest to turn oil shale into a commercial energy source. "We're talking about the Holy Grail."

Unlike the Grail, though, Shell is convinced that oil shale is no myth and that after years of secret research, it is close to achieving this oil-based alchemy. Shell is not alone in this assessment. "Harold has broken the code," says oil shale expert Anton Dammer, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves.

Vinegar has developed a cutting-edge technology that, according to Shell, will produce large quantities of high-quality oil without ravaging the local environment - and be profitable with prices around $30 a barrel. Now that oil is approaching $90, the odds on Shell's speculative bet are beginning to look awfully good.

Shell declines to get too specific about how much oil it thinks it can pump at peak production levels, but one DOE study contends that the region can sustain two million barrels a day by 2020 and three million by 2040. Other government estimates have posited an upper range of five million. At that level, Western oil shale would rival the largest oilfields in the world.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/30/maga...tune/index.htm

[Vepr]

The problem has been solved.






http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/30/maga...tune/index.htm

If that is the solution where they pump super heated CO2 into the ground to boil the oil out it very well could work but to my knowledge that has only been tested on a small scale. I don't think they have any guarentees that it will be able to produce the type of oil they are talking about. Even if it is able to we would be smart to develop the technology but keep using up everyone elses reserves first.