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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 11:23 AM Apr 2013

What If We Never Run Out of Oil?

CHARLES C. MANN

As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchill’s world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchill’s outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated.

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. With characteristic vigor and verve, he set about modernizing the Royal Navy, jewel of the empire. The revamped fleet, he proclaimed, should be fueled with oil, rather than coal—a decision that continues to reverberate in the present. Burning a pound of fuel oil produces about twice as much energy as burning a pound of coal. Because of this greater energy density, oil could push ships faster and farther than coal could.

Churchill’s proposal led to emphatic dispute. The United Kingdom had lots of coal but next to no oil. At the time, the United States produced almost two-thirds of the world’s petroleum; Russia produced another fifth. Both were allies of Great Britain. Nonetheless, Whitehall was uneasy about the prospect of the Navy’s falling under the thumb of foreign entities, even if friendly. The solution, Churchill told Parliament in 1913, was for Britons to become “the owners, or at any rate, the controllers at the source of at least a proportion of the supply of natural oil which we require.” Spurred by the Admiralty, the U.K. soon bought 51 percent of what is now British Petroleum, which had rights to oil “at the source”: Iran (then known as Persia). The concessions’ terms were so unpopular in Iran that they helped spark a revolution. London worked to suppress it. Then, to prevent further disruptions, Britain enmeshed itself ever more deeply in the Middle East, working to install new shahs in Iran and carve Iraq out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

Churchill fired the starting gun, but all of the Western powers joined the race to control Middle Eastern oil. Britain clawed past France, Germany, and the Netherlands, only to be overtaken by the United States, which secured oil concessions in Turkey, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. The struggle created a long-lasting intercontinental snarl of need and resentment. Even as oil-consuming nations intervened in the affairs of oil-producing nations, they seethed at their powerlessness; oil producers exacted huge sums from oil consumers but chafed at having to submit to them. Decades of turmoil—oil shocks in 1973 and 1979, failed programs for “energy independence,” two wars in Iraq—have left unchanged this fundamental, Churchillian dynamic, a toxic mash of anger and dependence that often seems as basic to global relations as the rotation of the sun.

more

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/what-if-we-never-run-out-of-oil/309294/

8 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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What If We Never Run Out of Oil? (Original Post) n2doc Apr 2013 OP
K & R! (nt) NYC_SKP Apr 2013 #1
No problem. Dead civilizations don't drill for oil. hunter Apr 2013 #2
Natural gas doesn't cause as much CO2 as oil burning does, FWIW. kestrel91316 Apr 2013 #3
Gas from fracking wells leaks methane like a sieve NickB79 Apr 2013 #6
+1 limpyhobbler Apr 2013 #8
And once we find a Complete Solution, gas magnates will voluntarily close up shop wtmusic Apr 2013 #4
We don't need to rely on good will. kristopher Apr 2013 #5
Then we cook, but do so while wearing nice clothes hatrack Apr 2013 #7

hunter

(38,264 posts)
2. No problem. Dead civilizations don't drill for oil.
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 12:21 PM
Apr 2013

The article ends with bullshit:

Natural gas, both from fracking and in methane hydrate, gives us a way to cut back on carbon emissions while we work toward a more complete solution.



Just like PBS, NPR, and the "alternative energy" industry they get owned by "clean burning natural (ha-ha) gas."

Most effective advertising scam ever, better than anything the tobacco industry ever came up with.

Fossil fuel Natural Lite!


 

kestrel91316

(51,666 posts)
3. Natural gas doesn't cause as much CO2 as oil burning does, FWIW.
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 12:28 PM
Apr 2013

It's all bad, but gas is less bad. And a natural gas infrastructure can also utilize biogas, which is carbon neutral.

NickB79

(19,111 posts)
6. Gas from fracking wells leaks methane like a sieve
Fri Apr 26, 2013, 02:21 AM
Apr 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/02/1388021/bridge-to-nowhere-noaa-confirms-high-methane-leakage-rate-up-to-9-from-gas-fields-gutting-climate-benefit/?mobile=nc

Indeed, if the previous findings — of 4% methane leakage over a Colorado gas field — were a bombshell, then the new measurements reported by the journal Nature are thermonuclear:

… the research team reported new Colorado data that support the earlier work, as well as preliminary results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah suggesting even higher rates of methane leakage — an eye-popping 9% of the total production. That figure is nearly double the cumulative loss rates estimated from industry data — which are already higher in Utah than in Colorado.

The Uinta Basin is of particular interest because fracking has increased there over the past decade.

How much methane leaks during the entire lifecycle of unconventional gas has emerged as a key question in the fracking debate. Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4). And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned — 25 times more potent over a century and 72 to 100 times more potent over a 20-year period.


If those numbers are verified, that means natural gas from fracking is WORSE than burning coal and oil, amazingly enough.

wtmusic

(39,166 posts)
4. And once we find a Complete Solution, gas magnates will voluntarily close up shop
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 12:32 PM
Apr 2013

for the sake of the environment.

Brings a tear.

kristopher

(29,798 posts)
5. We don't need to rely on good will.
Thu Apr 25, 2013, 08:49 PM
Apr 2013

There is a natural interplay of economic forces that results from the fact that renewables have no fuel cost and natural gas will always have a fuel cost.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance
STRONG GROWTH FOR RENEWABLES EXPECTED THROUGH TO 2030

Improvements in cost-competitiveness means that renewables will account for between 69% and 74% of new power capacity added by 2030 worldwide, despite current difficult market conditions.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/112742104

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