If you discover more than ten years of reserves, politicians are apt to take it away from you. So for the last hundred years or so, the world has only had ten years worth of proven oil reserves left and has been about to run out in ten years or so. In fact the world has only had about ten years of anything left for the past hundred years or …
Tag: oil
Explanations of the oil price rise
My explanation for high oil prices is the collapse of oil states. Arnold Kling argues that instead the problem is that investors fear the collapse of advanced states, so are reluctant to take their money. My explanation is that oil states are increasingly short of the competence to pump oil, the ability to provide security to people pumping oil, and the credibility to make deals with people who are competent …
Bush rolls back oil prices, MSM in denial
Political correctness is that we should not drill for oil, for more oil will not solve the problem of high and rising fuel prices. Which political correctness the mainstream media firmly endorse. There are multiple bans on oil drilling. Bush ended one of them, which had no immediate effect on oil drilling, for other bans in place. But it had immediate psychological effect. Oil prices immediate dropped about eighteen dollars, …
Roots of the energy crisis
The energy crisis happened because of optimistic projections – that gas to liquid and coal to liquid would not be needed until the technology had been improved and the cost brought down, that the dramatic growth in China and India could be accommodated by rapidly expanding conventional oil production. The political elite, unable to introduce a carbon tax because it would directly and visibly hurt people, proceeded to block coal …
Finally, some one else does the maths on oil
the price of oil will rise without limit until coal to oil and nuclear to hydrogen fills the gap. And right now, coal to oil projects are insignificant, and nuclear to hydrogen is not even on the drawing board.
Exxon blows it
Bryan Caplan wonders if oil prices are a bubble. When oil spikes abruptly, that means people made incorrect investment decisions – under invested in exploration, development, and gas to liquids conversion. A simple back of the envelope calculation tells me they are still under investing. Exxon recently abandoned gas to liquids plant that would be profitable if oil remains above forty dollars to fifty dollars a barrel. But if everyone …
Coal to oil is not under development
People are starving yet we still treat energy developers as criminals, rather than heroes.
The first greenie famine
The twentieth century was the century of the red famines. Now, in the twenty first century, we are seeing the first greenie famine. Let us hope it will not be the first of many. The red famines killed an extraordinary number of people during the twentieth century – famines caused in part by carelessness, in part by active malice as socialists sought to centralize all food under their direct control. …
Oil hits $120 a barrel
When capitalism screws up badly, as is happening right now, people are inclined to listen to demagogues who tell them that if only the demagogue got to make decisions, instead of those wicked capitalists, all would be well.
Famine
Tractors are just as attractive to tyrants, demagogues, and terrorists as pipelines are.