No physical process is 100% efficient. The energy required to split water into H and O will always be greater than the energy reclaimed from burning the hydrogen thus produced. This is a basic principle of thermodynamics and if you want to argue against it you need to re-write the science books.
The process does not need to be 100% efficient.
Dont forget, there is energy generated purely by inertia which too can be used to recharge the fuel cells.
As i stated, i prefer a hybrid rather than aiming for the holy grail.
think of a waterwheel
not 100% efficient, but as the fuel is free who cares
a windmill same thing
sam wrote:
karlos - if a resource is being consumed faster than it is being replenished then how can it not run out eventually?
Crude oil is a part of the story.
Gas, Coal, Shale, Oil Sands are all interlinked.
Yes ofcourse at current rates of consumption after several hundred years maybe 500 years these resources may run out.
Assuming new deposits are not found in the 96% of the planet that has so far not been explored for them.
But way before then these fuels will have become obselete.
Oil is today being produced by Algae whereby one acre of land produces 10,000 gallons every year.
Algae does especially well when sited next to coal fired power stations and recycling the exhaust CO2 and water in which case it acts as a carbon capture clean technology and the yield rises to much more than 10,000 gallons every acre.
Your peak oil scam is not about fuel running out. It is about preventing people from using alternatives.
You want people to remain oil slaves for generations because the Rockefellers and Rothschilds and other zionist cabals want to maintain their grip.
Peak oil is because your sponsors dont want us to stop using their oil.
Governments are tied in with this because they make huge sums as tax revenue.
Water, wind, sunshine, cooking oil, sugar, carries no tax so the goverment loses out.
Hence you guys getting paid to promote peak oil. _________________
Your peak oil scam is not about fuel running out. It is about preventing people from using alternatives.
You want people to remain oil slaves for generations because the Rockefellers and Rothschilds and other zionist cabals want to maintain their grip.
Peak oil is because your sponsors dont want us to stop using their oil.
Governments are tied in with this because they make huge sums as tax revenue.
Water, wind, sunshine, cooking oil, sugar, carries no tax so the goverment loses out.
Hence you guys getting paid to promote peak oil.
karlos, this is absolute rubbish. Why don't you go and look at the peak oil websites and read what they are promoting - it definitely isn't the continued use of oil. And I see you are still peddling the 'getting paid' scenario.
I appreciate that you view yourself as the saviour of the common man but people really do not want alternatives for it requires more work, effort and cost to them. Just look at how many action groups have been set up to campaign against wind farms and who wants to have to fork out another £18K on a hybrid car? Perhaps you'd care to be the one who tells the public at large that food prices will have to rise much much further as more farmland has to be used for growing bio-fuels or that general consumer goods will be less available and more costly as synthetic oil cannot be supplied in the same volumes as ordinary crude to make raw materials used in the manufacture of clothes, and CD's, and video games, and fridges, and TV's, and so on. No more cheap electricals at Tescos! Now I'm all up for water powered cars like the example you have given if it stops us from using so much oil. I really don't want peak oil to happen since it will bring misery to millions and millions across the globe because we have created a world that needs oil. So yes, alternatives need to be promoted (and I run a business where part of it does just that), but the alternatives will barely cover even a fraction of what the world requires in terms of energy and people haven't the first clue as to how that will impact their lives even though it is something which will happen. So feel free to promote the alternatives alongside me but please expect plenty of criticism from the majority of people who see it purely as a fad industry; kind of interesting but a lot of hassle and costly too. You try telling people that the price of gas and fuel won't go down - they don't believe you. They react like blackcat does - "oh I've seen it all before back in the 70's", they say. "It'll all go back to normal again when the recession is over or when they find more oil". I've been installing a solar hot water system this weekend for a customer, but guess what, even at a full supply and fit cost of £2500, they still won't get their money back even at today's gas prices, (makes you wonder about those guys who charge £8K for the same system). The customer is doing it for climate change reasons as do most of my customers (which begs the questions as to why climate change is a scam, as some say, if it is promoting alternative energy). Now I don't have too many people queueing up to spend that sort of money for such little return.
So it would be good if that Japanese car works, although I suspect it is just making use of a catalyst to turn the water into hydrogen and oxygen - a catalyst which no doubt needs to be regenerated or renewed in some way which will require more energy consumption and therefore cost to the consumer. But don't forget that the manufacture of every car uses an enormous amount of oil and energy which means we'll have to use plenty of oil just to turn the world's fleet of cars into ones which use water.
No physical process is 100% efficient. The energy required to split water into H and O will always be greater than the energy reclaimed from burning the hydrogen thus produced. This is a basic principle of thermodynamics and if you want to argue against it you need to re-write the science books.
The process does not need to be 100% efficient.
Dont forget, there is energy generated purely by inertia which too can be used to recharge the fuel cells.
As i stated, i prefer a hybrid rather than aiming for the holy grail.
think of a waterwheel
not 100% efficient, but as the fuel is free who cares
a windmill same thing
Harvesting kinetic energy from moving water or air is an excellent idea. Ditto solar power.
We weren't talking about that. We were talking about splitting water into H and O with electricity, then using the H for energy production. This is where the "free energy from water" and "water powered cars" concept falls down. Water as a fuel source doesn't work, because water is energy neutral. Just like NaCl (common salt). There is an abundance of NaCl throughout the world, and Na is a highly reactive metal that could (technically, I suppose) be used as a fuel source. But the energy cost of splitting the NaCl is greater than the energy reclaimed from burning the Na (the laws of thermodyamics again - damn them)
And I'm not being "paid" for anything - literally. Please don't make such wild and outrageous claims. _________________ Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good.
By Hayley Millar
Business correspondent, BBC Scotland
The North Sea has almost as much oil left as has already been extracted, a BBC Scotland investigation has been told.
Experts believe between 25 and 30 billion barrels could still be recovered over the next 40 years.
Calculating oil reserves is not an exact science and this fact has made it difficult over the years to weigh up the true wealth of oil beneath the North Sea.
Oil producers have tended to play down their oil reserves. The markets do not cope well with shocks, so companies take the view that it is better to pleasantly surprise than disappoint them.
In 2004, Shell stunned shareholders when it revised its proven oil and gas reserves, slimming the figure by 20%. The revelation had an instant impact on the company's share price and has served as a lesson to the industry ever since.
The first minister and former oil economist Alex Salmond told me that there was another motivation for oil companies' reticence.
He said: "If oil companies said 'look we've got lots of reserves in the future', the immediate response of government would be to stick taxation up. So there was a kind of incentive for the big companies to underplay the significance of the province."
That is hardly surprising - since the late 1960s, the oil companies have paid £140bn in taxation to the Treasury.
That is a pretty big disincentive. No wonder there is such divergence over how much oil is left in the North Sea.
Sir Bernard Ingham, who was press secretary in the Department of Energy when North Sea oil came ashore, admitted that government negotiations with the oil companies always boiled down to the same thing -taxation.
As he put it: "The whole political calculation is how much brass can you get out of North Sea oil without driving the oil companies away."
The one thing that I did not expect to find in my investigation was that the proven reserves on some of the region's oldest fields are in fact rising.
The Forties Field, one of the biggest and most iconic, is still producing oil 33 years after the first oil was pumped ashore.
Higher costs
Five years ago, BP sold it to the Texas-based oil exploration and production company Apache. Since then Apache has invested $2bn in the field's sub sea network, its platforms and in re-evaluating how much oil is in the field.
According to Jim House, CEO of Apache, flow rates from the Forties field have increased and the amount of recoverable oil has also increased.
He said: "Forties was definitely showing her age when Apache took it. At the time when it was sold, pre-developed reserved were in the region of 150 million barrels. We ended last year with 200 million barrels on our books."
The downside to operating off the coast of Scotland has always been the relatively higher cost and, as the region matures, that cost factor is becoming more fundamental for the oil majors.
Shell has also been selling off some of its core assets in the North Sea to newer and more aggressive companies like Fairfield Energy.
Through shooting new seismic surveys and drilling new wells these new players are extending the life of North Sea oil fields.
John Gallagher, from Shell in Aberdeen, said his company was still committed to the area.
He said: "We're bringing on four new fields this year. We're talking hundreds of millions of pounds.
"The plant rejuvenation work that we're doing is hundreds of millions of pounds and the work we're doing cross-border - linking up Norway and the UK, which is a growing trend in our industry - is again hundreds of millions of pounds."
Huge gamble
The same high oil price that makes it harder for you and me to drive to the shops on a whim is making it easier for companies to take a gamble on previously undeveloped parts of the North Sea.
With a simple oil well costing $22m to drill, exploration companies are taking a huge gamble.
Canadian oil exploration company Oilexco last year drilled 39 out of 140 exploration and appraisal wells in the North Sea, despite rising costs.
Its chief executive officer, Arthur Millholland, said "In 2004 we were paying approximately $55,000 a day for a drilling rig.
"Today we're paying $350,000 a day. So even though the price of oil today is higher than it was in 2004, our costs of doing business here have increased just as dramatically."
It still seems to be worth their while staying in the North Sea, despite the high costs.
What I have seen in my investigation is an industry that is better placed to shoulder these costs. Smaller companies with lower overheads can go after smaller pockets of oil and still make a decent profit.
How long will North Sea oil last? The answer to that depends on many things, including market conditions, future government initiatives and constant technological improvements.
Technology alone is playing its part in extending the activity in the North Sea. John Forrest, Talisman Energy's general manager for the Flotta Catchment Area, said the company was now drilling wells that they were unable to drill five to 10 years ago.
World-class
He said: "We're bringing on fields that we've known were there for quite a long time but they just weren't economic or we didn't have the technologies. We recently brought on a field without drilling any more wells. We just had better technology."
The Talisman-owned Claymore platform is expected to keep pumping oil for another 30 years.
Mr Forrest said: "We foresee an economic life at that installation until the late 2030s and that's with the ideas we currently have. We think other innovations will come along that will almost certainly extend that."
The North Sea has many things in its favour. It has world-class geology which makes it attractive to those wanting to harvest its rich reservoirs.
Compared with many of the world's oil producing regions, it is governed by a relatively stable political and economic regime.
The market price of oil is a much more volatile factor, but at current prices the oil that still lies beneath the North Sea is becoming more and more valuable every day.
BBC Scotland's journalists are focusing on the high price of oil, and what this means for the industry in the North Sea, this week.
Hayley Miller will present a special hour-long documentary - Truth, Lies, Scotland and Oil - at 2240 BST on Wednesday on BBC One Scotland.
The one thing that I did not expect to find in my investigation was that the proven reserves on some of the region's oldest fields are in fact rising.
_________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
The one thing that I did not expect to find in my investigation was that the proven reserves on some of the region's oldest fields are in fact rising.
Isn't this constant repetition and reference to reserves getting a bit boring now. Obviously you don't read my posts on this subject for if you did you'd have read time and time again that reserves mean very little. It is the supply of oil from those reserves which is important. And, I'll repeat again, that is what peak oil is all about.
Yes, human beings will find several hundred billion more barrels.
Yes, existing reserves will have figures which are revised up as well as down.
Yes, oil will last for another hundred years, maybe two hundred or perhaps longer.
But, if in 100 years time the supply of oil is only 5 million barrels per day then the fact that there may be enough oil for another hundred years at that supply rate is irrelevant; irrelevant because as of now the world is built around consuming 80+ million barrels per day and there is no viable substitute to that amount of energy and raw material.
Every oil field reaches a peak in output. That is a fact. You cannot pretend it isn't so and it is caused by geological constraints. This often happens half way through a fields life although many fields break that rule. Therefore if an oil field has reserves of 20 million, the peak in output will likely be reached when 10 million has been extracted. The 10 million barrels left will then come out more slowly and output will drop over time but ultimately all 20 million barrels will be taken. It might even yield a further 2 million barrels thereby increasing in total reserves by 10% but only at a fraction of the daily output as was experienced at peak.
So applying that to the north sea; yes, there could be 20-30 billion barrels left, but it won't be coming out as fast as it did 9 years ago when the north sea region produced its greatest amount on record. And that is the crux of the matter. Less oil = high oil prices = recession, high fuel prices, high food costs and financial collapse.
If you care to look at the outputs of the north sea fields then please study each one here. You may care to note the general trend.
Also, here's an interesting little article from last weeks Daily Record - here
Quote:
Oil rig clean-up could be worht £20bn to Scots economy
Jun 12 2008
SCOTLAND is on the brink of a £20billion oil bonanza - for breaking up old North Sea platforms.
Around 500 oil and gas installations will be decommissioned and brought back to shore in a giant clean-up operation that will last 20 years.
And 6500 miles of ageing pipelines, as well as 5000 oil and gas wells, will need to be removed as oil fields dry up.
It costs £100million to decommission a platform.
Nearly 150 oil industry leaders will meet in Aberdeen today to look at the challenges of cleaning up the North Sea.
Paul Dymond of Oil & Gas UK, who represent the main North Sea operators, said: "We are starting to see a steady stream of installations coming to the market place for decommissioning."
Meanwhile Aberdeen University scientists have been given £600,000 to develop technology which can cut through two miles of lava to access vast untapped oil reserves under the Shetland-Faroe basin.
The last paragraph shows how desperate we have become if we need to start digging 2 miles down.
Why are you fixated on this James?
The oil sheiks of Saudi Arabia will start releasing a little more oil and the price will drop to the 2008 estimate
Still very expensive but not over the futures market estimate
It's still much over anywhere's price in the UK, appallingly expensive, but that's nothing to do with the availab ility of the commodity _________________ http://www.exopolitics-leeds.co.uk/introduction
Why are you fixated on this James?
The oil sheiks of Saudi Arabia will start releasing a little more oil and the price will drop to the 2008 estimate
Still very expensive but not over the futures market estimate
It's still much over anywhere's price in the UK, appallingly expensive, but that's nothing to do with the availab ility of the commodity
I don't believe in illuminati led NWO but do believe there are plans to control social order.
I don't believe in Alex Jones style prison planet scenarios.
I don't believe the world is facing a terrorist threat or that al qaeda is real
I do believe that 9/11 was created and executed by the neo-cons.
I do believe that all of the above are connected to a coming energy crisis.
Therefore, when people start posting on here that such a crisis is artificial, I am happy to offer an explanation as to why they are misguided. And if they keep on posting, then so do I.
And it's not the availability which has to cause a price increase, neither is it the futures market which at most is increasing the price by 10 or 20%. It is the high cost of producing unconventional oil, which if we didn't have right now would be causing supply problems.
Isn't this constant repetition and reference to reserves getting a bit boring now. Obviously you don't read my posts on this subject for if you did you'd have read time and time again that reserves mean very little.
Isn't this constant repetition and reference to Peak Oil getting a bit boring now. Obviously you don't read my posts on this subject for if you did you'd have read time and time again that there is enough oil and that alternatives such as coal are abundant. Add to that renewables such as hydro-electric, wind and solar, very little of which has been adopted in the USA and the UK, and you get the picture that they want you to believe in Peak Oil as part of a control mechanism. Like global cooling/global warming/terrorists are out to get your freedoms/Fractional Reserve Banking and a host of scams that are part of everyday "reality". The "credit crunch" is the latest scam and is repeated ad nauseum by the media without ever mentioning how it ever came about - ie deliberately. There obviously is a group of people bent on domination and what you call them is irrelevant. NWO or "Illuminati" or "Bilderberg" (they are the ones who don't exist remember!!) or "International Bankers" or neocons it doesn't matter. They are now running amok and murdering us and falling for their scams is how they consolidate their power. Of course the world is finite. Of course there is a limited supply of oil or gold or salt or vinegar dust or whatever else you care to mention. The point is it is NOT a problem for the foreseeable future if ever. Global warming is not really a problem. Terrorism is not really a problem. There is no need for 42 days detention but the government is pushing it. The Lisbon treaty should be dead but the government is pushing it. FFS wake up!!!!! _________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
Joined: 27 Mar 2006 Posts: 3187 Location: Here to help!
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:43 am Post subject:
blackcat wrote:
Isn't this constant repetition and reference to Peak Oil getting a bit boring now
Well if you mean Paul should start a thread "peak Oil disinformation" and everyone posting should simply agree with it, I'd find that enourmously dull and boring. Forum debates arnt comprised simply of "yes" men _________________ Free your Self and Free the World
there is enough oil and that alternatives such as coal are abundant.
Sigh!
I'm aware there is lots of oil - about 1 trillion barrels as it happens.
There's also enough coal for 150-200 years at today's rates of consumption.
If you cannot understand what I'm talking about when I have spelt it out as clearly as possible then you'll never grasp why 42 day detention is seen as a requirement by our politicians. Albeit a terribly misguided and shortsighted one.
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:37 am Post subject: 150 - 200 years!
James C wrote:
Quote:
There's also enough coal for 150-200 years at today's rates of consumption.
Does anyone seriously believe that man will still be living in a society dominated by hydro-carbons in 150-200 years? It would seem that I have far greater faith in future generations than our resident 'Peak Oil' protagonists!
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:40 pm Post subject: Re: 150 - 200 years!
ianrcrane wrote:
James C wrote:
Quote:
There's also enough coal for 150-200 years at today's rates of consumption.
Does anyone seriously believe that man will still be living in a society dominated by hydro-carbons in 150-200 years?
That is not what James said is it...
Electricity isn't going to be generated from gas and oil as the price goes through the roof and there is a massive coal-to-liquids effort underway and people are going to start to use more coal to heat their houses as they can't afford gas, just some reasons why we are clearly not gong to see today's rates of consumption...
For more on coal you could start here, from last year:
Isn't this constant repetition and reference to Peak Oil getting a bit boring now
Well if you mean Paul should start a thread "peak Oil disinformation" and everyone posting should simply agree with it, I'd find that enourmously dull and boring. Forum debates arnt comprised simply of "yes" men
I was repeating his arrogant assertion but slightly changed the wording. Address your criticism to James C - he made the "Isn't this constant repetition .... getting boring " remark.
Chris C wrote:
Electricity isn't going to be generated from gas and oil as the price goes through the roof
It has barely ever been. The amount of coal fired electricity in the UK is currently at its lowest percentage ever and that is still the majority at over 60%. It was only ever partially changed to oil/gas because recently we have been awash with the stuff and it was so cheap. We have enough known coal and oil reserves to keep the UK going for centuries. It is sickening to keep reading the ridiculous assertions that we are goosed. It is just another fantasy concocted by the money men and repeated ad nauseum by the ignorant. _________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:44 pm Post subject: Re: 150 - 200 years!
ianrcrane wrote:
James C wrote:
Quote:
There's also enough coal for 150-200 years at today's rates of consumption.
Does anyone seriously believe that man will still be living in a society dominated by hydro-carbons in 150-200 years? It would seem that I have far greater faith in future generations than our resident 'Peak Oil' protagonists!
Ian R. Crane
As chrisc kindly pointed out, you have misunderstood my comment. Either that or you've twisted it to suit your own agenda.
ianrcrane wrote:
The current Transition Town demeanour is more along the lines of, '... you're either with us, or .... !'
Sound familiar?
Having read this comment you made on the TT thread, yes, this does sound familiar.
It would seem that the 9/11 movement is not keen on the peak oil idea and anyone who believes in it or promotes it is to be vilified at every step. I even had my status changed to 9/11 Truth Critic because of it. How petty.
Also, there are some who would describe much of what passes for "9/11 truth" on this site as "9/11 disinformation", see for example this blog article:
Quote:
The 9/11 B. S. Movement
Blatant Insanity = Intentional DIS-information
Quote:
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers."
-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
It's a sad day for me, as I have to wade hip deep through this sewage. But, it's come to this. We are drowning in DIS-information, that is deliberate gibberish passed off as a "9/11 conspiracy theory," which is intended to associate all of the 9/11 skeptics with "whack job" ideas about that day.
The rational public will then see the "whack job" ideas dutifully printed in the mainstream corporate press, and they will respond with revulsion to the concept of skepticism of the official 9/11 story. It's simple guilt by association psychology.
No one wants to associate with obvious morons. There is indeed method to the madness.
As if we haven't suffered enough ad hominem attacks, we now must defend against deliberate campaigns that are on their face: MAD. And they're supposedly coming from us.
I was also "demoted" from being a "Validated Poster" ...
I think that on balance this site (Tony Goslings 911forum.org.uk) probably does more harm than good by associating those questioning the corporate media's 9/11 story with all sorts of very dubious "theories"... and the way things are looking at the other off-shoot, truthforum.co.uk, it's even worse... _________________ http://truthaction.org/ http://truthmove.org/ http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/topics/terror/
Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE, the Foreign Office's Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since 2003, confirmed the critical role of Iraqi oil reserves in potentially alleviating a "world shortage" of conventional oil. The Iraq War has helped to head off what Brigadier Ellery described as "the tide of Easternisation" – a shift in global political and economic power toward China and India, to whom goes "two thirds of the Middle East's oil."
After the 2004 transfer of authority to an interim Iraqi civilian administration, Brigadier Ellery set up and ran the 700-strong security framework operation in support of the US-funded Reconstruction of Iraq. His remarks were made as part of a presentation at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), University of London, sponsored by the Iraqi Youth Foundation, on 22nd April.
World Oil Shortage
"The reason that oil reached $117 a barrel last week", he said, "was less to do with security of supply... than World shortage." He went on to emphasise the strategic significance of Iraqi petroleum fields in relation to the danger of production peaks being breached in major oil reserves around the world. "Russia's production has peaked at 10 million barrels per day; Africa has proved slow to yield affordable extra supplies – from Sudan and Angola for example. Thus the only near-term potential increase will be from Iraq," he said. Whether Iraq began "favouring East or West" could therefore be "de-stabilizing" not only "within the region but to nations far beyond which have an interest."
Last month geological surveys and seismic data compiled by several international oil companies exploring Iraqi oil reserves showed that Iraq has the world's largest proven oil reserves, with as much as 350 billion barrels, significantly exceeding Saudi Arabia's 264 billion barrels, according to a report in the London Times. Former Bush administration energy adviser Matthew Simmons, author of the book Twilight in the Desert, says that Saudi oil production has probably already peaked, with production rates declining consecutively each year. This month the UK Treasury Department warned of the danger of an oil supply crunch by 2015, due to rocketing demand from China and India.
The Threat of Easternisation
Brigadier Ellery's career in the British Army has involved stints in the Middle East, Africa, Bosnia, Germany and Northern Ireland. "Iraq holds the key to stability in the region," he said, "unless that is you believe the tide of 'Easternisation' is such that the USA and the West are in such decline, relative to the emerging China and India, that it is the East – not the West – which is more likely to guarantee stability. Incidentally, I do not." Iraq's pivotal importance in the Middle East, he explained, is because of its "relatively large, consuming population" at 24 million, its being home to "the second largest reserve of oil – under exploited", and finally its geostrategic location "on the routes between Asia, Europe, Arabia and North Africa - hence the Silk Road."
Oil production peaks when a given petroleum reserve is depleted by half, after which oil is geophysically increasingly difficult to extract, causing production to plateau, and then steadily decline. US oil production peaked by 1970, while British production in the North Sea peaked by 2000, converting both countries from exporters into net importers of oil and gas.
Oil industry experts and petroleum geologists increasingly believe that world oil production is precariously close to peaking. According to an October 2007 report by the German-based Energy Watch Group, run by an international network of European politicians and scientists, world oil production peaked in 2006. According to BP's annual statistical review of world energy supply and demand for 2008, released on 11th June, world oil production fell last year for the first time since 2002, by 130,000 barrels per day last year to 81.53 million. Yet world consumption continued to rise by 1.1 per cent to 85.22 million barrels per day, outweighing production by nearly 5 per cent.
Iraqi Reconstruction Corruption Whitewash
Brigadier-General James Ellery is currently Director of Operations at AEGIS Defence Services Ltd., a private British security firm and US defence contractor since June 2004. In April this year, the same month as Ellery's SOAS lecture, AEGIS won the renewal of its US defence department (DoD) contract for two more years, which at $475 million is the single largest security contract brokered by the DoD. The contract is to provide security services for reconstruction projects in Iraq conducted by mostly American companies.
A US government audit by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, released exactly two years before Brigadier Ellery's SOAS presentation, concluded that AEGIS could not prove it had properly trained or vetted several armed Iraqi employees. For a random sample of 20 armed guards, no training documentation was found for 14 of them. For 125 other employees, AEGIS reportedly failed to document background checks. The auditors concluded that "there is no assurance that Aegis is providing the best possible safety and security for government and reconstruction contractor personnel and facilities."
During his April presentation at SOAS, AEGIS director Ellery declared, "Iraq promises a degree of prosperity in the region as it embarks on massive Iraqi-funded reconstruction, a part of which will raise Iraqi's oil production from 2.5 million bpd today to 3 million by next year and maybe ultimately 6 million barrels per day." He added, "With a budget of $187 billion over 4 years, Iraq is poised to have a considerable impact on the economies of countries whose technologies can fill the skills gap left by the latter years of Saddam Hussein's regime." During the UN sanctions regime imposed primarily by the US and Britain, Iraq was banned from importing thousands of household goods, including food, medicines, clothes and books, from 1991 to 2003, purportedly to prevent Saddam from developing weapons of mass destruction. It is now widely recognized that the sanctions led to massive socio-economic deprivation, the break-down of civilian infrastructure, large-scale unemployment, and de-industrialisation, resulting in the deaths of up to 1.8 million Iraqis, half of whom were children. The humanitarian crisis led United Nations officials such as Dennis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary-General, and Hans von Sponeck, former Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, to resign in protest.
Today, those profiting most from reconstruction projects in Iraq are not Iraqis, but private contractors based primarily in the United States and Britain, according to a new report out last month by Stuart Bowen Jr, incumbent Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The Bowen Report found that at least 855 contracts valued at billions of dollars were cancelled before completion. Another 112 agreements were cancelled because of poor performance, while still more projects recorded as completed never happened. In one case, a $50 million children's hospital in Basra is listed as completed although the contract was stopped when only 35 percent of the work was finished.
During Brigadier Ellery's tenure at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad, under Paul Bremer's leadership $8.8 billion of reconstruction funds were unaccounted for, and a further $3.4 billion was re-directed for "security" purposes. A UN body to audit the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), by which the CPA Programme Review Board managed Iraqi oil revenues until June 2004, found "gross irregularities by CPA officials in their management of the DFI," and condemned the United States for "lack of transparency" and providing the opportunity for "fraudulent acts."
Under American- and British-administered Iraqi reconstruction programmes, Iraqi agriculture has been devastated. In 2004, the Coalition Provision Authority imposed a hundred economic orders designed to open Iraq's economy to foreign investment, including Order 12 for tax- and tariff-free imports of foreign products. The Order allowed the giant American agribusiness conglomerate Cargill to flood Iraq with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cheap wheat, undercutting local food prices, and wiping out the livelihoods of Iraqi farmers.
As an executive director of AEGIS, one of the most prominent US defence contractors in Iraq, Brigadier Ellery is a personal beneficiary of the privatisation of the Iraqi economy. In the conclusions of his April address, he said, "Iraq has resources aplenty: not just oil, of which there is a prodigious quantity", but especially "the capacity to rebuild a balanced economy including agriculture - for which Iraq was a legend."
I've mentioned this project on many occasions now and finally it looks like it will happen.
The TAPI pipe line is the fundamental reason behind the occupation of Afghanistan and 9/11 acted as the perfect catalyst for this event. Since the Taliban reneged on earlier agreements to allow the construction of this pipe with talks finally breaking down in August 2001, the US was desperate to continue with the project especially as its own gas supplies are in steep decline. The pipe line will take gas to India and Pakistan but will also be shipped as LNG to the US and UK. The pipe will of course have a negative affect on Russian energy dominance in the region which will be beneficial to US strategic policy in the Middle East.
Pipeline opens new front in Afghan war
Canadian role in Kandahar may heat up as allies agree on U.S.-backed energy route through land-mine zones and Taliban hot spots
SHAWN MCCARTHY
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
June 19, 2008 at 2:30 AM EDT
OTTAWA — Afghanistan and three of its neighbouring countries have agreed to build a $7.6-billion (U.S.) pipeline that would deliver natural gas from Turkmenistan to energy-starved Pakistan and India – a project running right through the volatile Kandahar province – raising questions about what role Canadian Forces may play in defending the project.
To prepare for proposed construction in 2010, the Afghan government has reportedly given assurances it will clear the route of land mines, and make the path free of Taliban influence.
In a report to be released Thursday, energy economist John Foster says the pipeline is part of a wider struggle by the United States to counter the influence of Russia and Iran over energy trade in the region.
The so-called Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has strong support from Washington because the U.S. government is eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran.
The TAPI pipeline would also diminish Russia's dominance of Central Asian energy exports.
Mr. Foster said the Canadian government has long ignored the broader geopolitical aspects of the Afghanistan deployment, even as NATO forces, including Canadian troops, could be called upon to defend the critical energy infrastructure.
“Government efforts to convince Canadians to stay in Afghanistan have been enormous,” he says in a report prepared for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-of-centre think tank in Ottawa.
“But the impact of the proposed multibillion-dollar pipeline in areas of Afghanistan under Canadian purview has never been seriously debated.”
In an interview, Mr. Foster – a former economist with Petro-Canada, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – said he believes the TAPI project could provide major benefits for Afghanistan and the region generally. If the project proceeds – and serious obstacles remain – Afghanistan's national government could reap $160-million (U.S.) a year in transit fees, an amount equivalent to half the government's current revenue.
But he said the security issues remain daunting and the Canadian military could – wittingly or not – become embroiled in a “new great game” over energy security that is playing out in the region.
Acting Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson – who chairs the cabinet committee on Afghanistan – would not comment on the pipeline yesterday. When asked about the project earlier this spring, he said only that Canada wants to see Afghanistan develop a “legitimate and legal economy that can sustain a credible, viable state.”
Backed by the opposition Liberals, the Conservative government has committed to keeping the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan until 2011, although there is growing skepticism that the engagement will end at that point.
New Democratic Party MP Paul Dewar said the government needs to be more forthcoming about the four-nation project and whether Canadian forces would end up guarding the pipeline.
Though experts remain skeptical that the project will get off the ground, the four countries appear determined to prove them wrong.
With the backing of Manila-based Asian Development Bank, ministers from the four countries met in late April and agreed to start construction of the pipeline by 2010, and begin supplying gas by 2015, although critical financial issues must still be worked out.
At a donor's conference attended by a Canadian delegation last November, countries committed to “assist Afghanistan to become an energy bridge in the region” and to accelerate work on the TAPI pipeline “to develop a technically and commercially viable project.”
There was no public discussion of who would provide the security for the project.
The pipeline proposal goes back to the 1990s, when the Taliban government held talks with California-based Unocal Corp. – and its U.S. government backer – while considering a competing bid by Argentina's Bridas Corp. Those U.S.-Taliban talks broke down in August, 2001. India, which desperately needs natural gas imports to fuel its growth, later joined the revived project.
Last week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said the U.S. government has a “fundamental strategic interest” in Afghanistan that goes well beyond ensuring it is not used as a launching pad for terrorism, which was the original justification for the UN-sanctioned NATO mission of which Canada is a part.
That objective remains paramount, Mr. Boucher said, but he added that there is a “historic opportunity … of having an open Afghanistan that can act as a conduit for energy, ideas, people, trade, goods from Central Asia and other places down to the Arabian Sea.”
Stephen Blank, a professor at the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle Barracks, Pa., said the U.S. government is particularly eager to provide an alternative to the proposed $7.5-billion (U.S.) Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, which those three countries have agreed to pursue.
“From the U.S. viewpoint, the idea of blocking Iran is of paramount significance,” he said.
As well, the United States is pushing the TAPI pipeline as one of several natural gas export options from Central Asia that would bypass Russia, which until now has maintained a stranglehold on gas exports from the region.
But Dr. Blank – who has written extensively on energy-related geopolitics in the region – said he doesn't believe the TAPI pipeline will be built any time soon due to security concerns.
Still, the project is seen as a key part of Afghanistan's strategic development plan, which Canada and its NATO partners have endorsed as critical to establishing its political stability.
I was under the impression that the, then, Afghanistan authorities had declimed the carpet of gold and had signed a deal with a South American oilco, prior to them being carpeted in bombs.
Is this incorrect? _________________ The Medium is the Massage - Marshall McLuhan.
A shale formation under western North Dakota holds the biggest continuous oil deposit in the lower 48 states, the U.S. Geographical Survey has determined.
The Bakken shale formation, 10,000 feet beneath the Williston Basin, holds 4.3 billion barrels of oil the report said.
The estimate includes what the USGS believes is recoverable using current technology.
A shale formation under western North Dakota holds the biggest continuous oil deposit in the lower 48 states, the U.S. Geographical Survey has determined.
The Bakken shale formation, 10,000 feet beneath the Williston Basin, holds 4.3 billion barrels of oil the report said.
The estimate includes what the USGS believes is recoverable using current technology.
karlos,
It would appear that you and blackcat and a few others are still unable to grasp the fundamentals of peak oil. I'm sorry that that sounds like a rude statement, I don't intend it to be, but the simple fact is that reserves are meaningless. What is important, is the production rates of oil from those reserves which in the case of the Bakken field will be small. In other words, the oil from Bakken will be recoverable over several decades at low output.
Why are rates important? Because the world consumes 85 million barrels a day, so unless the rate of extraction can keep up, it doesn't matter how big the reserves are. Bakken is a perfect case. Discovered in 1951 it was considered unworkable and therefore non-profitable. The latest technology has changed that but it comes at a cost. The fact that oil is now at $135 allows the oil companies to meet that cost and remain profitable but the simple fact is this oil is difficult to deal with and therefore the process of putting it onto the market is slow i.e. the production rates are low. Expect the field to yield no more than a couple of hundred thousand barrels per day at best which when compared with SA's Ghawar oil field, pumping out 5 million barrels per day, is small fry. Then again, even if all that oil could be mined in one go, it would last the US about 7 months. Alaska's remaining reserves, estimated to be about 11 billion barrels would keep the US going for 1.5 years or the world less than 5 months!
The reality about oil production is that the best oil fields are now gone and even the old ones which remain such as Ghawar are running into problems as engineers fight to maintain output. Russia's entire production has now peaked at 10 million barrels per day although the International Energy Association did estimate that Russia would have to be producing 15 million barrels per day by 2030 just to keep the world happy. That now won't happen. The new oil fields coming online are often in hard to reach places or contain low grade oil such as at Bakken and so production rates are struggling to meet demand even though oil reserves are rising.
Bakken production costs are estimated at $16 per barrel.
So are very low compared with offshore fields.
The second video is talking about Alaska.
So we now have a huge untapped deposit in North Dakota.
Another huge untapped reserve in Alberta
and another even bigger reserve in Alaska.
The US is deliberately sitting on these huge reserves in order to prolong the age of oil and it's control over these resources. For decades they have been using oil at $10 per barrel. Only now that the price is edging towards $200 do they even think about exploiting their own oil deposits which in fact far exceed Saudi reserves.
PS:
Zack Goldsmith is another peak oil spammer. _________________
Bakken production costs are estimated at $16 per barrel.
So are very low compared with offshore fields.
The second video is talking about Alaska.
So we now have a huge untapped deposit in North Dakota.
Another huge untapped reserve in Alberta
and another even bigger reserve in Alaska.
The US is deliberately sitting on these huge reserves in order to prolong the age of oil and it's control over these resources. For decades they have been using oil at $10 per barrel. Only now that the price is edging towards $200 do they even think about exploiting their own oil deposits which in fact far exceed Saudi reserves.
Still talking about reserves are you karlos? So how does the US hope to supply itself with 20 million barrels per day if it only produces 5 million (inc Bakken) regardless of how big its reserves are? Mind you, the US was the biggest producer for decades. Why do you think it became so powerful? But it peaked at almost 10 million barrels per day in 1970, squandering its oil and leaving itself in a desperate position. US reserves are now only 10% of SA's and total production to date has been half of SA's so stop lying!
And please don't use the word untapped. Alaska, Alberta and Dakota have been producing oil for several years. In the case of Alaska, 30 years.
Just accept you are wrong about reserves then we can move on.
Last edited by James C on Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:17 pm; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:52 pm Post subject: unable to grasp the fundamentals of peak oil
James C wrote:
karlos,
It would appear that you and blackcat and a few others are still unable to grasp the fundamentals of peak oil. I'm sorry that that sounds like a rude statement
Mmm. Dr Hubbert, the man who invented peak oil back in the 1950's and calculated that it would happen in the States was publicly humiliated and became the subject of many scandals. The oil companies attempted to shut him up for almost 15 years from the time he went public with his findings to the time the peak in the US actually happened. The vilification of Dr Hubbert finally stopped when he proved himself correct.
Isn't this just history repeating? Although this time Simmons is just one of dozens and dozens of non related people all saying the same thing. Simmons is not the only one promoting this issue. The person who has done more to take peak oil to the man in the streets of the UK and US is Richard Heinberg and he's not affiliated with anyone. He's being doing it for as long as Simmons has. Colin Campbell even longer.
It would appear that you and blackcat and a few others are still unable to grasp the fundamentals of peak oil.
Oh I grasp it all right. Just like I grasp that 9/11 was carried out by Arabs because they "Hate our freedoms" or that smoking is good for you and hemp is bad for you and fluoride is put in the water to make you more healthy (whether you like it or not!) and Bush was genuinely elected etc. etc. --- I get it all right!!! _________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
It would appear that you and blackcat and a few others are still unable to grasp the fundamentals of peak oil.
Oh I grasp it all right. Just like I grasp that 9/11 was carried out by Arabs because they "Hate our freedoms" or that smoking is good for you and hemp is bad for you and fluoride is put in the water to make you more healthy (whether you like it or not!) and Bush was genuinely elected etc. etc. --- I get it all right!!!
Yes I did notice, which is why your constant reference to reserves and not output was quite revealing.
Get it into your head blackcat (and karlos), reserves mean jack sh*t so stop posting articles referring to them. In that way you won't make yourself look stupid.
Obviously this simple, simple fact is seriously p*ssing you and karlos off which is why you both keep harping on about it. No wonder peak oil is confusing the heck out of you. As long as we are tied to oil, we'll have no freedom, so stop the hypocritical giberish about hatred of freedom. Either the oil reign ends now and we adjust accordingly or else it continues to dominate world politics for ever more. And since you are so keen to discuss how much oil there is in the world, I suggest that you'd really prefer the latter.
Sadly, adjusting to less oil is likely to be quite painful. Expect wars, famine and social breakdown. And if you speak out it will be 42 day detention in one of the new super prisons which come online in 2012.
Mmm. Dr Hubbert, the man who invented peak oil back in the 1950's and calculated that it would happen in the States was publicly humiliated and became the subject of many scandals. The oil companies attempted to shut him up for almost 15 years from the time he went public with his findings to the time the peak in the US actually happened. The vilification of Dr Hubbert finally stopped when he proved himself correct.
Proved himself correct?
Like that stock maket guru Bob Beckman you mean?
Another clown who was wrong 99% of the time.
One barrel contains 42 gallons of crude oil. The total volume of products made from crude oil based origins is 48.43 gallons on average - 6.43 gallons greater than the original 42 gallons of crude oil. This represents a "processing gain" due to the additional other petroleum products such as alkylates that are added to the refining process to create the final products.
Additionally, California gasoline contains approximately 5.7 percent by volume of ethanol, a non-petroleum-based additive that brings the total processing gain to 7.59 gallons (or 49.59 total gallons).
So crude is currently £1.50 a gallon. Still cheaper than water.
xxxxxxxxxx
50% of the new build vehicles in Iran, which produces 1,000,000 vehicles a year, are now running solely on LPG.
More than half Brazil's cars run on sugar cane ethanol.
The massive hydro-electric dams like the Hoover dam which was built in 1930 produce enough electric for 50,000,000 people.
Brazil has an even bigger dam than the USA.
The world does not need crude oil at all. But we are forced to use it because we are enslaved by a few people like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers. Who are promoting their peak oil story through their PR departments. And freelancers like James.
They want us to keep using oil. They dont want it to become obselete when so much of it is still underground.
Peak oil is above continued global enslavement. There is more than enough oil to last centuries. And well before then it will be obselete. _________________
Yes I did notice, which is why your constant reference to reserves and not output was quite revealing.
Get it into your head blackcat (and karlos), reserves mean jack sh*t so stop posting articles referring to them. In that way you won't make yourself look stupid.
Obviously this simple, simple fact is seriously p*ssing you and karlos off which is why you both keep harping on about it. No wonder peak oil is confusing the heck out of you.
Blah blah blah. I will not get anything you dictate into my head nor will I stop posting articles which dispute the nonsense you peddle. We will see who "looks stupid" when time has passed and, like the 1970s, all the fuss fades away and we revert to cheap and plentiful oil and alternatives. Nothing you say or post "p*sses me off" and I don't harp on any more than you do but I counter your regurtgitated 1970s nonsense with an alternative view. The only thing that confuses me is how someone who alleges they know of the deceit of 9/11 somehow cannot see through the blatant scam of "Peak Oil". Stop rattling your cage, put your chains back on and be a good slave.
Link _________________ "The conflict between corporations and activists is that of narcolepsy versus remembrance. The corporations have money, power and influence. Our sole influence is public outrage. Extract from "Cloud Atlas (page 125) by David Mitchell.
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