Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/center-of-gravity-in-oil-world-shifts-to-americas/2012/05/25/gJQAjeuVqU_story.html

by cwan • 14 years ago

31 26 14 years ago

washingtonpost.com

ojbyrne3• 14 years ago

That whole Peak Oil thing seems slightly ludicrous now.

darkestkhan• 14 years ago

Not exactly - it is just another (and more expensive) source of oil, but inevitably there is still a limit to it (and while prolly there is more shale gas in world than oil I doubt it even triples the time before oil supply will end). Inevitably we will have to use biofuels, solar, wind [and in future also thermonuclear].

modeless• 14 years ago

Yeah, except there will be another (more expensive) source of oil after this one, and another after that. Gradually solar will become cheaper than the cheapest oil available, and the world will move to solar, and that will be it. Nobody's saying solar isn't the future, we're just saying there won't be any sudden end to oil. There will be no global catastrophe.

danielharan2• 14 years ago

I recommend reading http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/... for a clear explanation of why this actually makes peak oil worse.

ojbyrne3• 14 years ago

I actually have read fairly widely and taken courses in Systems Theory, but I'd appreciate a synopsis of your argument.

ajtaylor• 14 years ago

Part of the reason these new fields are being developed is that the price of oil will now support them. I wonder what these newer, more expensive methods of production will do to the long-term price of oil? Anything to break the near-monopoly of oil from the Middle East is good, but will it come at a price?

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

As production from a new method ramps up the cost typically goes down, due to amortization of initial fixed costs and efficiencies developed through experience.

yaix• 14 years ago

So basically what this is saying is, insteat of burning trillions of dollars in Iraq, killing over a hundred thousand human beings and ruining the credibility of the US on the way, it would have been sufficient to just take 100 billion or so and invent new drilling technologies? Talk about a bad decision.

incredimike2• 14 years ago

Well, the USA hasn't been a beacon for great decision making in recent years. I feel as though oil-wars were fueled by other agendas outside of the simple need for crude. Also, look at alternative energy markets and how they've barely gained any traction outside of grass-roots until recently. There were even cables released on wikileaks showing that USA was supporting the International Renewable Energy Agency being hosted by the UAE (4th largest producer of oil). Counter-intuitive isn't even the word.

sown• 14 years ago

I think the US's decision in Iraq also had to do with keeping those resources away from her enemies.

aurelianito• 14 years ago

Wow! I didn't expect Argentina to be at the lead! Now I understand the recent statization of the national oil company (YPF).

maukdaddy• 14 years ago

Highly disappointed in the WaPo. This read like a PR piece released by the oil industry and/or their lobbyists. No mention of the environmental disaster looming from the tarsands? No mention of the effects from fracking? No discussion about how this will only delay much needed investment in renewables by the US Government?

gringomorcego• 14 years ago

very odd to not mention the downsides of fracking. a quarter of the article is about it, and it seems like the crux of the argument of the new dependency on america comes from resources attained through fracking.

very biased reporting.

joe_the_user• 14 years ago

Well...

I'm more a corporate hater than a corporation lover.

But while the downside of tar sands are real and horrific, the downsides of fracking so far seem speculative. I haven't heard any strong argument why North Dakota fracking would have the same effect as the fracking described in Gas Lands.

If anything, fracking seems possibly scary but not something with clear, proven downsides. It may be, for example, that pipelines carrying oil extracted using fracking and that could cause damage somewhere and that does more damage than the actual fracking.

If anyone has a reference to prove me wrong, I'd love to see it (well, maybe not love but appreciate it).

blutonium• 14 years ago

Great that you care about this, but the environmental consequences have been largely invisible to Americans for many years. Be it CO2 or destroyed ecosystems in every oil producing country, the damage is largely done.

I'd hardly blame this rag for the oversight at this point.

mkramlich2• 14 years ago

I had two reactions.

First, I found it odd that in the entire 2 pages there wasn't a single mention of any sort of environmental or health downside to shale oil extraction (the strip mining and toxic chemical ponds, etc.) or of fracking, or carbon emissions and thus no mention of the relationship between fossil fuels and what the overwhelming majority of scientists are saying is a climate change crisis. Even though they clearly cited the increase in fracking and shale oil as a big component in the global oil shift. Instead, just a focus on the money upside for various producers and geostrategic implications like Iran/Hormuz.

Second, I saw what I've come to expect in the comments below the post, on their site. I have this theory that there are rightwing groups that pay for people to astroturf (sometimes called sock puppets) by posting comments at the bottom of articles on major media websites. Because so many of them seem too well organized, hit too many buzzwords and talking points, as if all following the same script but given a little leeway to improvise. The ridiculous demonizing of Obama backed up by nothing specific, the apparent total naivete and ignorance about the shared positive health purpose of the EPA specifically and government regulations in general (hint: they're not out to oppress oil companies and rednecks, they're out to hopefully minimize the amount that fellow citizens, perhaps even one's own family or neighbors (or potential customers!), get sick and die from toxic pollution. Or to prevent the killing off of entire ecosystems needed for plants, insects and animals to live, creatures that we in turn depend on for our own survival.) If astroturfing IS truly happening, and there was a technical means of preventing it, and I had the power to do it, I would make it impossible. It worsens our society. Swamps signal with noise. Reduces our ability to trust others, etc. If such comments are NOT astroturfing, then it's depressing to think that with our current voting system in the US, everyone's vote is weighed exactly the same. Whether a logical thinker or not. Whether well read in history or ignorant. Whether you know a lot about human health or very little, a lot about biology or nothing. Whether you picked your beliefs out of thin air one day or arrived at positions after many years of careful observation and analysis: doesn't matter, all votes count the same and can cancel each other out. And then if an election can be split along some other line, perhaps more superficial, abstract or emotional issue or false dichotomy ("gubmint bad, Bible good!"), our voting process is cheapened even further.

But yeah, the US getting less oil from Mideast and/or OPEC is good. Still needing it is bad. But since the piece was written in such a way that it seemed to be carefully tip-toeing around saying anything that could be construed as "renewable good, fossil bad" or "pollution is bad" one can't help but suspect they wanted to stay on the good side of various people in the oil industry. Perhaps they weren't ass-kissing the oil industry. Perhaps they just wanted to focus. But why would you focus on the more trivial aspects, and leave out the elephant(s) in the room?

avocet• 14 years ago

I hate astroturfing too, but one part of your response bothers me.

"it's depressing to think that with our current voting system in the US, everyone's vote is weighed exactly the same. Whether a logical thinker or not. Whether well read in history or ignorant. Whether you know a lot about human health or very little, a lot about biology or nothing. Whether you picked your beliefs out of thin air one day or arrived at positions after many years of careful observation and analysis: doesn't matter, all votes count the same and can cancel each other out."

I'm certainly not in favor of bigoted or ignorant people voting, but that doesn't make it any less their right to have an equal voice. If one is going to reduce someone's voting rights based on some criteria, how can one measure objectively "logical" or "well read"? The minute the government declares "these special criteria reduce a vote's weight!" someone is going to skew those criteria to marginalize others for political gain.

This idea creates more problems than it solves. It reminds me of the Three-Fifths Compromise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise), an example of voting weight adjusted for political gain (in this case, for the Southern US).

mkramlich2• 14 years ago

Two citizens go to the voting booth and choose between electing candidates 1 or 2 to the Presidency. Call these citizens A and B. But at some point previous to this day both of these citizens had taken a test to gauge general intelligence. The test is not perfect but is better at ferreting out signal than having nothing at all. Here's that test (for sake of argument):

The test describes an apparent murder case. Here are the known facts. The victim was found dead by bullet wound. Seven different witnesses claim they saw suspect X enter the victim's house carrying a gun, then heard a gunshot, then saw suspect X leave the house and flee the scene. One neighborhood resident, a 90 year old man with dementia, told an officer he thinks suspect Y did it. When asked his reasons, he said, "Because he's a bad man!" though admits he did not personally see or hear anything directly related to the murder scene or time. The test then asks the test taker: without knowing for sure, in an omniscient way, who committed the murder, and without any additional data or evidence, who do you think is more likely to have commited the murder, suspect X or Y?

Citizens A and B take this test. Citizen A indicates X. Citizen B indicates Y.

Now someone chimes in on the Internet to say that tests are unfair and it's impossible to test for intelligence, that the government can skew tests, etc. Then election day comes. Citizen A votes for candidate 1. B votes for candidate 2. Since everyone's vote weighs the same, these two votes effectively cancel each other out.

Do you think that's a smart system? Do you think that system produces better or more "fair" results than a system in which each vote can be weighed differently? I've already obviously said which I think to be true. I just wanted to give a concrete example of how we can devise tests or filtering mechanisms that can score or filter for desirable qualities, and that the current system allows dumb votes to cancel out smart votes. The current system can be even worse than that if there are more "dumb" people than smart ones (where for sake of argument assume dumb/smart is a generalization across a wide set of qualities and signals.) To continue my example, what if there were a lot more people who thought like citizen B, than A? Do you think that would produce smarter results for the country? Or dumber results?

And yes we can objectively measure and compare between two people to determine who is more logical or well-read. Again, not in some perfect ideal way in every single possible situation -- the world is messy and imperfect -- but in enough cases and in broad enough strokes that yes we can better filter for signal over noise. I know it is possible.

Also the government chooses special criteria and devises lengthy and arbitrary rules already, all the time, for all sorts of things. You can't do D unless E, F and G are true. You're not allowed to do J unless you've previously done K and L. Lots of precedent, both in government and in the private business sector, clubs, pretty much everywhere in society. But for some reason when we go to the voting booth (figuratively speaking) everyone's vote counts the same. When serious money is on the line or someone's life we don't go take a poll of every Tom, Dick and Harry in your neighborhood, instead we go to experts or at least to people who we have a reasonable expectation will give us smarter, better advice than the average Joe. Suddenly when millions of lives are on the line, and trillions of dollars in spending (when it comes to voting on national-level political issues or candidates) we abandon that system and dramatically loosen and worsen our standards. I say it's a hilariously bad design. So obviously bad that perhaps it just might be by design and intent. But regardless, I know we can do better. So let's try.

Thank you for your feedback though!

adaml_623• 14 years ago

There's a line in the article about the 'unstable' Middle East. My perception is that Central and South America has it's own stability problems that are different but just as serious.

Sadly I guess that the US sending troops into the Americas (again) is likely in the next few decades. This is one of the reasons why renewables (despite their problems) seem more sensible to me. The ethical and human cost of chasing the petroleum economy seem too high.

redwood3• 14 years ago

Check out these INCREDIBLE aerial photos of the Alberta tar sands operations: http://www.businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-sands-flyover-20... I think mega-infrastructure like this that we're all relying on to some degree or another needs to be seen

EliRivers• 14 years ago

All of us? All of you, perhaps.

redwood3• 14 years ago

In an international commodity market we all are connected "to some degree". Think of it this way: as North America imports less Middle Eastern oil, there's more middle eastern oil for you

Center of gravity in oil world shifts to Americas

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