Heathrow

[skier-hughes]

I don't see how recession however bad can remove potential. :wink:
1: existing in possibility : capable of development into actuality <potential benefits>
2: expressing possibility ; specifically : of, relating to, or constituting a verb phrase expressing possibility, liberty, or power by the use of an auxiliary with the infinitive of the verb (as in “it may rain”)

 

[Penners]

You look at every oil field in the world and then you look at all the places that might potentially have oil and you work out the maximum rate of production that they could possibly achieve. You study the depletion rate of all the existing oil fields and you look at how quickly new oil fields could be brought on stream. And you take into account the number of oil rigs and the speed that new oil rigs could be built. And you study the number of geologists and oil field engineers and how many of them are about to retire and how long it takes to recruit and train new ones. And you take into account downstream capability, the tanker fleet and the refinery capacity. And then the type of oil is taken into account, light sweet or heavy sour, or worse, the tar sands and oil shales. And you study the technical difficulties of operating in deep water.

If I'd known it was that easy, I wouldn't have bothered to ask. :shock:

 

[skier-hughes]

If I'd known it was that easy, I wouldn't have bothered to ask. :shock:

Good one :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[AMc]

Moving briefly back to the main topic - I can't express my feelings about steam rollering ahead with this useless scheme in spite of massive opposition as I recall there is a sweary word filter on this forum.

For what it's worth [bad words] to the now confirmed 3rd runway at Heathrow.

 

[Penners]

As has already been said, I don't believe it'll ever get built.

It seems likely that we'll have a Conservative government shortly. It also seems likely that they'll ditch the whole plan.

 

[biffvernon]

Tragic that Labour under Gordon Brown seems to have a death wish.

Tell Mr Brown via http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?

 

[biffvernon]

I don't see how recession however bad can remove potential.

It's a fair point. Remember what happened to some of our coal mines. They weren't very profitable so Thatcher closed them despite there being some coal left. Once closed, the mine floods, props collapse and it becomes enormously expensive to re-open the mine at a later date. There are similar situations in oil fields. Take, for instance the complex of small fields in our North Sea. Without a great deal of maintenance and renewal of the ageing infrastructure the remaining oil cannot be produced. With today's low crude prices and lack of credit it is difficult for the industry to spend money on this work and once the system is degraded beyond a certain point it makes it pretty much impossible to produce the remaining oil even when prices rise again. And even in the big easy oilfields of Saudi Arabia, to squeeze out the last of teh oil needs the increasingly sophisticated technology of 'enhanced oil recovery'. If the price of crude drops below the marginal cost of prodicing this oil, which it has, the investment will simply not be made and that last portion of the oil will remain underground forever. It loses it's potential for being produced.

The recession will mean that some of the oil will never be produced, a climatalogical silver lining to the black cloud of financial meltdown.

Here's the latest big oil boss, Jim Buckee, saying Peak Oil is history:

"Black oil has peaked,"

 

[Penners]

Biff
Your Client Campaign link doesn't seem to work.

 

[Penners]

If the price of crude drops below the marginal cost of prodicing this oil, which it has, the investment will simply not be made and that last portion of the oil will remain underground forever.

Speaking as a world-renowned expert on this subject (!), I don't understand that statement.

All the market rules of supply and demand say that, as a commodity grows scarcer, its price increases. So surely as oil stocks dwindle, the price will steadily increase, making it financially viable to squeeze the last drop out of the planet.

Unless, of course, we've found a viable alternative to oil in the meantime, and switched our attention to that.

 

[Jon Maine]

Of course it will all get squeezed out of our globe, the fact that we need another two globes to carry on like we are seems irrelevant as of course as we can offset our excessive use by planting a few trees and trading carbon credits with the Amazonian Indians so it will all be alright then :wink:

Who knows, this recession we had hoped might make people realise that we need localisation rather than globalisation on many every day things like food. I find it bizarre that the government can only consider trying to bump start bulk consumerism again as a solution to the worlds problems.

 

[skier-hughes]

True Jon, we should be using this to promote a "proper green living lifestyle".

 

[Jon Maine]

By graduation though, to much of a sudden change without doubt will cause mayhem too.

There has to be a happy medium somewhere where local economies can generate local power and grow their food.A good old bartering system wouldn't go amiss. To difficult for the suits to sit at the top of the tree to stay affluent I guess.

Maybe the hut in he woods is a good idea.........

 

[biffvernon]

If the price of crude drops below the marginal cost of prodicing this oil, which it has, the investment will simply not be made and that last portion of the oil will remain underground forever.

Speaking as a world-renowned expert on this subject (!), I don't understand that statement.

My spelling of 'prodicing' will have confused you. Prodcing a barrel of crude from, say, Ghawar in Suadi Arabia, might cost $10 but that only gives so much. The marginal cost of production is what it costs to produce the 85 millionth barrel of the day, in say, a small deep water field north of Shetland. It's just isn't worth exploiting when the price is $40 so it stays in the ground.

As you say, the market rules ensure that price causes supply and demand to coincide. But when supply is constrained by geology price will rise to the point of demand destruction. That point may trigger global recesion and a hotly debated topic is to what extent the run up to $147 last July was the trigger for the ultimately inevitable financial collapse we are seeing. Or, as you point out, alternatives to oil may be found. Eventually there will be alternatives to oil and at a price that ensures that a large proportion of the oil remains underground. There is no way that all the oil can be squeezed out, and unless the price is very much higher than what we have so far seen, a large proportion of the oil will stay undergound. You can't have a very high price without an economy that supports it.

So no, Jon, I'm sure it will not all get squeezed out and since we don't happen to have a couple of spare planets we will not carry on like we are. We will not build the third Heathrow runway and we will not continue making so much cement (which actually uses more fuel and emits more CO2 that the aviation industry), whatever the present, increasingly temporary-looking government, may wish for.

 

[Penners]

My spelling of 'prodicing' will have confused you.

If only my confusion were that easily explained... :?

 

[Jon Maine]

No confusion, I am sure I saw my wife looking at a kitchen utensil called a prodicer so I guess using it would be prodicing

 

[Flyfisher]

I realise that environmental concerns were not an issue during the 1930's depression, but I wonder if there was the same sort of "things can never be as good again" prevailing viewpoint back then as there seems to be at present. Yet, things recovered and economies flourished. So, who really knows?

As for oil production and pricing, historically it's been all over the place due to a mixture of supply/demand and price-fixing - well, production fixing, which amounts to almost the same thing. As for peak oil, the concept seems simple enough - after all we can fairly presume it's a finite source - but can we be sure about the remaining resources? At present, we may be protective of pristine Alaskan and Antarctic wilderness, for example, but does anyone think we'd really leave any significant reserves in the ground when push really comes to shove?

Whatever, this whole heathrow issue has revealed that environmental concerns really are not being taken seriously. Not seriously enough to actually self-impose any hardship that might, possibly, threaten our economy or it's recovery. All focus is on getting 'back to normal' with ever-growing economies. Now, how is that sustainable in the long-term? Oh, silly me, governments don't 'do' long-term, do they?

Meanwhile, the Severn Barrage project (more correctly proposal, since no real progress is evident) is again in the news for it's effect on upsetting the wading bird ecology of the Severn mudflats. Puh-lease - do we have imminent global climate catastrophe on the horizon or not? I've read that this project could provide 7% of the UK's electricity for little more than the price of the 2012 olympics. Sounds like a much better deal than a new runway at Heathrow (or the 2012 Olympics come to think of it), but it seems we don't want to upset a few thousand wading birds. You couldn't make it up.

 

[skier-hughes]

Severn barrage built wading birds disturbed
Severn barrage not built wading birds die.................................

Let me see, which should we go for if we want to protect the birds?

 

[Jon Maine]

Hey you lot that's proposed on my doorstep!! :shock:

Again I personally can't work out why it is a proposal only, I heard an article on Radio 4 this morning where transportation by boat around the coast was being cited as greener than hgv lorries so we shouldn't build the barrage because of that reason. I have to admit I have not studied the dynamics of a barrage but if it involved a difference in water heights surely locks could be included.

 

[biffvernon]

I realise that environmental concerns were not an issue during the 1930's depression, but I wonder if there was the same sort of "things can never be as good again" prevailing viewpoint back then as there seems to be at present. Yet, things recovered and economies flourished. So, who really knows?

Obviously the history of predicting the future has been a dismal failure and one may question why prdictions made now should fare any better.

That said, in the 1930's we were not at the peak of oil production. Most of it was still there to drive economic growth for the next 70 years. We are getting more and more sure of how much oil is left and the key thing to keep in mind when considering the unconventional oils - arctic, deep water, tar sands, oil shales, etc, is the rate at which these can be produced. It is just not the same thing as the easy oil we've become addicted to.

I'm quite taken with the tidal lagoon idea for the Severn - not quite the all or nothing thing of a complete barrage.

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/severn_barrage_lagoons.pdf

 

[Penners]

I'm quite taken with the tidal lagoon idea for the Severn - not quite the all or nothing thing of a complete barrage.

http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/severn_barrage_lagoons.pdf

Sounds an interesting plan, but if it's going to be designed by the same team who prepared the 'computer-generated image' of it on page 3 of the report, it may prove to be a little under-engineered.

Frankly, lagoons or barrage - I don't much care which. I just wish the powers-that-be would stop endlessly talking about it and get on and do something.