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Published online 14 November 2007 | Nature 450, 326 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450326a
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The price of power
The price of oil is hovering at around US$100 a barrel, a psychologically powerful level that experts and analysts once discussed in purely theoretical terms. John Deutch, a chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency under President Clinton, gives his thoughts on the issue.
What is the significance of $100 oil?
The rise in oil prices indicates the inevitable truth that we are using up low-cost energy reserves in the ground. We should expect that over time, on average, oil and gas prices will increase.
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There is a shortage of oil at a production price of $2 a barrel, but those who still have this price are making untold millions. There are still places where this price might be found if only the soldiers and the politicians did not get in the way. Oil at $100 a barrel is potentially plentiful. There are older abandoned fields which now are economic. There is an increased potential for prospecting in formerly uneconomic areas There are very large deposits of oil shale. Currently in Alberta it costs %20 a barrel. The environmentalists are trying to shut it down. Oil from coal is a well established technology. There are vast coal deposits. The trouble is, the foolish and unproven belief that carbon dioxide increases are harmful to the climate, and an environmental movement which tries to stop any new development, have led to a situation where oil companies can make more money from scarcity and failure to maintain equipment, than the risk and litigation of new developments. The nations of the world are shooting themselves in the foot with a preudo religion which is opposed to further human development, pretending that this harmful philosophy is beneficial.
Whether or not we have reached peak oil may not matter nearly as much as many people think. This is because population growth has been faster than oil production for decades. The world reached peak oil per capita in around 1980( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil#Quantifying_reserves ). Since that point the world has learned to make do on less oil per person and done quite well. Nothing I have seen yet convinces me that hitting peak oil in an absolute sense will be noticed by the general public any more than hitting the per capita peak.
The fact that we depend so much on oil from the Persian Gulf — from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait — leads to questions about these nations' political stability and the role of terrorists, such as the CIA. Isn't it strange that a person who is/was in a position to make a difference talks in an undertone?
Is this the same Vincent Gray? I must say, it takes a lot of gusto to ignore copious amounts of scientific data regarding global warming and greenhouse gases on a site dedicated to scientific advancement... Petroleum and Coal A search of 22,000 academic journals shows that Gray has never been published in a peer-reviewed journal on the subject of climate change. Gray has published peer-reviewed scientific work on coal with the last article being published 17 years ago. Gray and the NRSP Listed as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Natural Resource Stewardship Project (NRSP), a lobby organization that refuses to disclose it's funding sources. The NRSP is led by executive director Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball. An Oct. 16, 2006 CanWest Global news article on who funds the NRSP, it states that "a confidentiality agreement doesn't allow him [Tom Harris] to say whether energy companies are funding his group." Gray, the New Zealand Climate Coalition and the Navy Gray is a founding member of a new organizaton calling itself "The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition." Brought together in May, '06, the NZ Coalition states that its main goals are: to publish and distribute papers and commentaries produced by members of the Coalition; to audit statements by other organizations, both in New Zealand and overseas, which are published in New Zealand, or are expected to influence New Zealand public policy and public opinion, and; to audit the forthcoming IPCC report, either on its own, or through the Asia Pacific Climate Science Coalition, or equivalent organization, if one has been established in time. The chairman of the NZ Coalition is Rear Admiral Jack Welch, a retired member of the New Zealand Navy. Author of the "NZ Climate Enviro Truth" newsletter Gray publishes a newsletter called the NZ Climate and Envirotruth. Gray and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy Published a policy paper in 2001 for a Canadian think tank called "The Frontier Centre for Public Policy." The FCPP has held lunch seminars on global warming with Tim Ball, a well-known global warming "skeptic." http://www.desmogblog.com/node/1215
I am new to this column and myself not a scientist either! I just want to say that be optimistic and rely on future technologies to harvest renewable energy sources. A new era will come when all these co2 producing fuel would be nowhere.
I am new to this column and myself not a scientist either! I just want to say that be optimistic and rely on future technologies to harvest renewable energy sources. A new era will come when all these co2 producing fuel would be nowhere. Priyaranjan Indian School Of MInes University Dhanbad