8 Replies to "West Seattle Gas Price Watch: Trickling downward"

• Bill Reiswig July 21, 2008 (11:21 am)

  Interested in the REAL STORY on why gasoline goes UP UP UP? It’s more than China’s demand,”speculation”, or greedy oil companies… It’s likely because of peak oil . What’s peak oil? Educate yourself about this crisis at the Movie “A Crude Awakening” showing at Camp Long, Thursday July 24 at 7pm; discussion to follow. Movie sponsored by the Northwest Environmental Education Council. Event is Free, but donations are welcome.

• JanS July 21, 2008 (1:43 pm)

  re: Peak Oil…an interesting article (it’s long) from 2004 !

  http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

• JanS July 21, 2008 (1:50 pm)

  actually, that’s an update of a previous article…. not from 2004…mea culpa :)

• OP July 21, 2008 (2:37 pm)

  Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society.

  LOL! Thanks, JanS. I needed a laugh! (Oh, and just so I’m clear: Yes, it is a “wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult”.)

• Bill Reiswig July 21, 2008 (3:47 pm)

  OP —

  To be fair, there are people interested in Peak Oil who are too focused on what “cant” or “won’t” work. However; Oil is finite and almost all of the giant fields we draw from are decades old. This presents a major problem for a civilization as oil dependent as ours. Replacing our energy infrastructure with an alternative will take decades and will take several trillions of dollars and is a project not to be dismissed lightly.

• OP July 21, 2008 (11:33 pm)

  I’m not going to eat up bandwidth and explain why and how the Peak Oil concept doesn’t account or really address some major issues (i.e., curbed or completely stalled new refinery construction in order to meet demand in the West by environmental groups; or the archaic and perhaps backwards manner it is now believed in which reserves are calculated; current limiting drilling technology that allows us really to only tap the top 1/3 of most oil fields). But to suggest, as Jan’s article does, that somehow “Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon” is nothing short of gaseous hyperbole served with a healthy side order of environmental scare tactics. So forgive me if I take the situation lightly, but this kind of rhetoric is exactly how problems that will—yes, take trillions of dollars to solve—are so laughable.

  Now, if we want to be serious about solving our energy woes, then I would recommend reading T. Boone’s Pickens Wall St. Journal article from 2 weeks ago about harnessing our wind and natural gas resources. I agree with most all of it, except for one thing Pickens fails to mention: We still need oil no matter how fast (being a relative word) we develop/harness new alternative fuels and energy.

• Bill Reiswig July 22, 2008 (11:20 am)

  OP–

  The reason we will still need oil is because our infrastructure and systems run on it…exactly the reason that we must leave oil before it leaves us. Even Fatih Birol, the top economist for the IEA has said “We must prepare to leave oil before it leaves us”. I am sure you would agree with that… it’s just that you do not accept that we are at the end of cheap oil. However, if you parse the comments of the CEO’s of Chevron, Shell, Conooco Phillips, and Total, and even the retired Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia.. all of these men have said that a plateau in oil is within sight.

  It’s our many of our politicians on the right and left who cannot read the writing on the wall. The Repubilicans main plan is to drill, but even they admit that this will only lead to new supply of about 1 million barrels a day 10 years from now, and that the benefits to price in the near term are only “psycological”. The democrats mistakenly believe that this is all some result of speculation… ignoring the truth that at 140$ per barrel all supply is being consumed by demand.

  I am very familiar with and appreciate T. Boone Pickens proposals on ending oil dependence. In fact, in the near term his proposal would be easier to implement than such proposals as Mr. Gores. This does not mean though that Natural Gas can be any type of a longer term solution to energy — it is only a “bridging” solution. It too is a depleting natural resource. The US actually produces LESS natural gas than we did decades ago, despite many more drilling rigs. A truly sustainable system that embraces the idea that we will have modern conveniences for the next centuries must harvest the majority of our energy from renewable energy sources. OP… without a long term development of these systems (solar/wind/geothermal/tidal) people like yourself are ironically embracing a future that has vastly less available energy and in which as a result advanced technology is impossible. By hitching our civilization to increasingly expensive exaustable resources you chain our economics to poorer and poorer quality resources. Oil Shale for example is present in trillions of barrels of quanitity underground, but converting this into a usable product takes trillions upon trillions of barrels of water the west just does not have. Do you know what the oil companies plan is to convert shale into oil? They actually heat the shale rock to 700-900 degrees for years “in situ” (in place). They surround this area with a “freeze wall” where the freeze the rock around this heated area that entire time to keep this heated oil from seeping into the groundwater. When you burrow down into the plans that the oil companies have to keep us addicted to this substance you realize that it is all crazy and unsustainable… that is why it is a future that will never never happen.

  The reason only a third of the oil in fields is produced has to do with the structure of the rock oil is found in… the first third is “recoverable”… even with EOR (enhanced oil recovery) techniques this number only moves to 35-40%– maybe a little highter with some fields. And when this is done, it is very expensive and takes a great deal of energy to accomplish.

  The largest oil fields were all found in the 50’s and 60’s and since that smaller and smaller fields are found. The idea that people like you can deny that this will all come to an end (relatively) soon is what is perposterous.

  I encourage yourself and other people to at least watch the movie this thursday and see if what is described in the movie “crude awakening” comports with the reality they see unfolding around them.

• OP July 22, 2008 (3:02 pm)

  Bill, I don’t even know where to begin to tell you how wrong you and your multiple “facts” (just about all of them, really) are. So, I’m not going to try.

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