I keep forgetting to address my posts. The above post was in response to michael hart

Mar 16, 2014 at 1:34 PM | Unregistered Commentermichael hart

replicant (1:54 PM): The heat death of the sun leaves us with even fewer options. The question, as always, is timing.

Mar 16, 2014 at 2:01 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Drake

As much as I understand your point I wish people would just come out and say it. That's not the same thing is it. If you don't believe in peak oil, so be it. I should have said the fossil fuel economy as our only or primary energy supplier is limited. Of course the military and rich will always have fossil fuels. But the rest of us? Now that's a different matter. It's no longer really a fossil fuel economy is it. I think that time is short indeed.

Simon, your number 4 does not exist, as AGW is quite clearly falsifiable. You fall neatly into category 3 - rejection based upon the word of false authorities. Don't sweat it! You are in the company of friends and they are equally beholden to the same false authorities for their opinions. They just don't realise it, instead having such regard for their own supposed cleverness that they can see what climate science cannot.

Johanna, I love you too.

Shub,

> Things like solar and wind power would never stand
a chance but for the climate stuff.

Go and stand in the sun on a sunny day and marvel at the amount of energy hitting you. People throughout history have wished they could harness that energy. Now they can, to the discomfort of those like you who wish they couldn't. But it was always going to happen, subsidies just allowed it to happen more quickly. Your utility friends might scream and shout but they can't put the genie back in the bottle. Solar will only get cheaper and although they might put road blocks in the way, with your enthusiastic support, utilities will have to accept that their years of guaranteed profits are gone. That is something for the rest of us to celebrate.

shub

If solar companies made inexpensive energy,

If government stopped subsidizing fossil fuels to the tune of billions and billions of dollars pretty much any form of energy would beat fossil fuels. Without credits that qualify road building to well pads as infrastructure development. Water charges that are gifts. And royalty fees that variable. Not to mention the exclusion from any environmental consequences there would be zero shale oil development in B.C. The B.C. taxpayer is directly subsidizing this industry rather than receiving any benefits of any kind.

Well I wouldn't have expected anything less as a response. But the evidence is global. Every country deals in fossil fuel subsidies. Iran, Russia, US, Canada, UK. All of them. And that's pretty much where any logic stops. Call them what you like. I am not going to be following you down that road. I only want to say that the following reference isn't made because fossil fuel subsidies don't exist. Do you know what I am trying to say? I am not going to argue the figmant of my imagination subsidy when the highest bank in the world makes reference to them.

And it certainly doesn't take much effort to turn up questionable things. Why are road construction to well pads credited as infrastructure development? So now we are paying them to develop a resource? Why this fact sounds like a proper state of affairs to you is beyond me.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-13/why-fuel-subsidies-in-developing-nations-are-an-economic-addiction

Once again, Ukraine is turning to Europe and the International Monetary Fund for assistance, this time a $15 billion bailout. For years, negotiations with the IMF had stalled over a single point: Ukraine spends 7 percent of its gross domestic product on natural gas subsidies for consumers. The IMF wants that cut by a third before approving any loans.

shub

Anyway, why not address the whole of my argument

And what whole argument is that?

Why don't you address the many, many arguments that I have made against your many vacuous claims?

Richard Drake

I apologise in advance for his contemptuous tone as he deals with this long-running green canard.

OK. I feel compelled to give one small example. And this is totally small potatoes. That everybody can understand. You want to complain about subsidies but you don't want to acknowledge oil and gas subsidies (for an unknown reason). The following is a line in an industry journal that would come to an industry conclusion. My conclusion would be why? Why do we need to promote risky exploration in the oil and gas industry? That is the fundamental issue. And the answer to that is that we don't. And we don't need to be promoting shale oil and gas drilling that gives us zero returned benefit. In fact, which we pay to have inflicted upon us.

http://www.albertaoilmagazine.com/2011/07/insights-do-targeted-tax-incentives-work/

Should these tax credits count as subsidies? It depends on your perspective. Some, including Jack Mintz of the University of Calgary, argue correctly that oil and gas exploration is risky and taxing risky investments at the same rate as low-risk ones would discourage these activities.

shub

Solar companies know what the produce is a substandard product but they use the theory of global warming to cover this defect and force customers to buy the product.

Like uh, yea ok. Right on man. Catch you later.

shub

I find an incongruity in slamming oil and coal companies, given the above, and given that they, at least, have a useful product to deliver.

Uh shub, I don't want to break it to you al of a sudden, but that rant is not a given. I don't know where you come up with these wild fantasies like environmentalists have a lot to answer for? I confess, your mental trapeze is stunning. I am sure you have spent decades outlining your position in great detail. Without facts, but nevertheless in great detail.

allow their petty ideology to clamber up power structures

You don't realize it but you have left the world of meaningful response. The claim has no argument. No supporting substance. And lastly - your petty ideology doesn't fit in this world. You are above and beyond such mere mortal question as there green gooks dare to pose? I think I've got that right. Like what? Are you seriously trying to claim that the green revolution has infiltrated the government to such an extent that they are making it difficult, if not impossible for the fossil fuel industry to carry out their God given task? Or at least the company charter? Have I got that right?

It's all news to me. I don't type well. But as I understand it the -

The green unclean have infiltrated the power structure to such an extent that they are a drag on the economy and in many cases increase cost of energy.

The fossil fuel industry on the other hand have infiltrated the power structure to such an extent that they have kept the cost of energy down through various tax policies.

We obviously have a limiting supply of oil. Or is this an extremely debatable topic on this site? Is this a site that believes the UK has thousands of years of cheap natural gas.

I mean at this point. I feel as if almost nothing could surprise me.

"Since there really isn't any long term future for a fossil fuel economy, that doesn't really leave a whole lot of options does it?"
Mar 16, 2014 at 1:54 PM | Unregistered Commenterreplicant

It is the only game in town as far as supplying both energy and the material products which our civilization depends on. From the plastic of your keyboard, to the energy that makes the internet work 24/7, to mechanized transport, and just about everything else. This was not invented by a big-oil conspiracy on the back of government legislation, but by an industry meeting our needs. It was developed over years now numbered in the hundreds. It will be true for many generations to come.

Solar power is, and will remain an expensive niche product. It cannot supply the amount of power needed, where it is needed, when it is needed. Governments can be pressurized into making laws that may favor photo-voltaics, but they cannot pass laws that magically produce energy from thin air.

Wishing that all of the above wasn't true, doesn't make it so. Only with sufficient affordable energy will humans be able to satisfy their needs. I advise you to invest for the long term in fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Michael hart

It is the only game in town as far as supplying both energy and the material products which our civilization depends on

I don't disagree. I've never disagreed. In fact that is the point. There is no more cheap oil. Period. And the sooner government realizes that and stops subsidizing and promoting oil in order to try to make people think there is lots and everything will be fine if we just let the companies do what they have to.

Unfortunately this is a fantasy. That is why they are digging up northeast Alberta tar sands which have an eroei (see my other thread) of 6-1 now and lower down it will have an eroei of 3 -1 and if we weren't absolutely scraping the bottom of the barrel the industry wouldn't desperately be trying to squeeze oil out of rock with an eroei of less than 1 - 1. At least that's how I read things.

The thing about "unconventional" hydrocarbons is that they are extending economically extractable reserves with constantly improving technology.

Then we have the coal. And the untapped methane-clathrates from the oceans. With nuclear energy, we should be developing these resources, not turning our backs on technology. There is no going back.

And because there is in fact no more cheap oil the government should promptly remove all incentives and begin to charge the oil companies royalties based on a much higher price of oil. At least that is certainly the first step. If a resource is not profitable to develop at current prices there is certainly no crime to want to wait until the price of that resource goes up. The only reason the tar sands are being developed is because the Alberta government is selling the resources based on a model that wants oil to stay low. That is a stupid policy. That resource should be maximised. And if that means waiting until oil is $200 a barrel, or ever, then that should be considered. There is no absolute requirement that we have to develop a resource because the industry has to have it at a particularly low cost. Because it is claimed, that the people have to have it. That right there, is the sales pitch.

I wrote the above and now I see you have posted so I'll address that.

The thing about "unconventional" hydrocarbons is that they are extending economically extractable reserves with constantly improving technology.</I>

The thing is that they aren't. That is something that is a physical reality. It takes as much energy to retrieve unconventional gas (ie:shale gas/oil) as is gained from burning them. Shale oil has an eroei of less than 1:1. This is not counting environmental costs and health costs. In other words, shale oil is a hole. A grave.

Here, replicant, I have typed an an entire reply to your next point, even before I've seen you post it. Lets see how good my guess was:

As fossil fuels become scarcer, they should rise, gradually, in price over time. Ther is no need to make them super-expensive right here and now. There are highly liquid oil-futures markets where the price of petrochemical products are determined.

What makes greens/environmentalists (who so often have a predeclared antipathy to fossil fuels for other reasons) all of a sudden become experts at determining what the real price should be? I've seen these arguments before about nuclear-power. First they vehemently argued against it for all the usual reasons (mostly bad reasons). Then, all of a sudden, they became experts, saying “it isn't economic”, when what they really meant was “we intend to make it uneconomic”.

I think wasn't too far off, was I?

I think you're dreaming.

I think you missed the entire issue. Why develop a resource if it is not sufficiently profitable? Who decides? You seem to think the industry should decide because somehow the futures price is a 'fair' price and after all - we 'should' develop our unprofitable resources - and pay to have them developed. Because that is what we are doing. That is what it means to develop a resource with an eroei 6:1. Who made you judge that that resource must be developed? That's more to the question.

Michael Hart

> The thing about "unconventional" hydrocarbons is
that they are extending economically extractable
reserves with constantly improving technology.

I understood from supporters of fracking that the technology was not new. I've seen many people argue that fracking is supposedly safe because it has been used for 40 years. Are you saying this is not true? What seems to have made uneconomic reserves become economic to extract is that the price of the extracted resource has gone up.