TonyWalsham said:Kind of reminds me of the infomercial that came on about doctors recommending you eat more fish (I think it was for a supplement, I turned it off) that came on right after a newsmagazine segment on overfishing.... durrrrrrrrrrrrr! (just another reason not to turn on the idiot box on Sunday afternoons?)
Not if it is being consumed faster than it can be created.
TonyWalsham said:How does one measure that unknown quantity?David Hill said:Not if it is being consumed faster than it can be created.
My question may have sounded silly, but I am serious. If oil is produced from decaying organic matter, shouldn't oil be considered a renewable resource?
It takes millions of years for nature to create the liquid oil from which we refine our automotive gasoline.
I don’t know if you read the entire article posted here http://21stcenturywire.com/2011/03/07/the-chinese-car-bomb/ that Forrest linked us to or not, but if you do/did, towards the end it explains why we will never be able to produce enough oil given the current and proposed consumption by India and China alone.
…then compare that to this test of a proper? car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0I4fmttN7Y&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Tony,
That “proper? car” doesn’t look like it could tow itself, let alone a boat or a camper. I guess, kinda like an RDC, huh?
(you really lost me with the placement of the"?" question mark that time, and I was lookin’ real close) 
Do you guys call them “proper? cars”, “foreign cars” in Boronia?
Hi Ric.
In this instance proper? was meant to demonstrate it was “properly designed and made” and not Chinese made.
Fortunately we are yet to have mass marketing of Chinese made “cars” here in Australia. Although that is about to change after the successful launch of the Great Wall brand pick up. Which is not what we would call a car.
Great Wall brand pickup? What size, what capacity? I looked it up, but can’t really tell the size from the picture. The way money is flowing, I would imagine we will see them here eventually. After 1967, many European cars were blocked from entering the US market because of safety and pollution standards. However, back then the USA owned the purse strings.
Great Wall is about Toyota Hilux size. Thousands of dollars cheaper than the Toyota. $24,000 Aud will get you a four-wheel drive station wagon type body or a two-wheel drive four door pickup. $18,000 Aud will get you a two-door two-wheel drive pickup. Toyota’s these days could come from anywhere outside of Japan, nominally Thailand, so Chinese made should not be that lesser quality. We also have a similar sized Indian-made pickup.
If the oil we are extracting today is 1,000,000 years old, then the oil we will be extracting in the next decade is today 999,990 years old, and next century’s oil today is 999,900 years old today. Unless, it takes a fraction of the time to produce oil from only centuries old carbon-based life. Then we are at risk of running out. I dunno?
TonyWalsham said:
..then compare that to this test of a proper? car.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0I4fmttN7Y&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Yes, but Austrailia has (or had) its own version of the Chinese car, we’ve all seen this now infamous video of the Holden-into-the-wall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUNMOPDniAw
Granted this was an intentionally extreme ‘worst case scenario’ test where they overoaded the trunk with CONCRETE BLOCKS to simulate a fully loaded boot, still has one hell of an effect on the car. 
BTW whats with this Aussie Ford vs Holden rivallry they keep going on about on Top Gear, do they actually have these huge fistfights at race tracks were occasionally a race will break out???
We are not going to run out of gas. My dog is laying at my feet producing enough to run me out of the house and down the street!!!LOL Wish I could bottle it.
Noel
Noel I’d pay just to see you try to do that :lol:
Shhh.
(Wispering)Don’t tell anyone,but the USA has more oil than all of them combined.
It’s a secret don’t tell anyone.
David
If you read the latest oil has been discovered in the new Natural gas fields in PA. They drilled below the gas and found crude oil.
The not as new oil fields in the northern mid west. The US has more oil than all of Middle-east.
Don’t take my word for it check it out.
David
walter sarapa said:
Everything I've read in the past 10-15 years suggests that global petroleum reserves that are economically feasible to extract will be exhausted within the next 20-50 years. We can argue about the time frame but I think we can all agree that eventually we're going to run out. So it seems to me that we have two choices: get serious NOW about advancing research on alternatives to fossil fuels and, embrace/enforce (dirty word) conservation - OR we keep drilling and digging at the current pace and hope and pray that our great-grandchildren will be much smarter than we are and will be able to figure out a better way to do things.
OK I found the article I first saw about the oilis!
Here’s an astonishing read. Important and verifiable
information:About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program
on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest. The host
said to Forbes, “I am going to ask you a direct question and
I would like a direct answer; how much oil does the U.S.
have in the ground?” Forbes did not miss a beat, he said,
“more than all the Middle East put together.” Please read
below.The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008
that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man
was it big. It was a revised report (hadn’t been updated
since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western
2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme
eastern Montana … check THIS out:The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since
Alaska 's Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate
all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy
Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion
barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable… at
$107 a barrel, we’re looking at a resource base worth more
than $5…3 trillion.“When I first briefed legislators on this, you could
practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.”
says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature’s financial
analyst.“This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil
field found in the past 56 years,” reports The Pittsburgh
Post Gazette. It’s a formation known as the Williston Basin
, but is more commonly referred to as the ‘Bakken.’ It
stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and
into Canada. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been
considered a dead end. Even the ‘Big Oil’ companies gave up
searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent
technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken’s
massive reserves… and we now have access of up to 500
billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those
billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!That’s enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for
2041 years straight. And if THAT didn’t throw you on the
floor, then this next one should - because it’s from 2006!U.S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains
lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is
more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President
Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of
high oil prices none has been extracted. With this mother
load of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore
drilling?They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside
our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth…
Here are the official estimates:
- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it’s all right here in the Western United States .
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because
the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to
help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we
are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and
our economy…WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we’ve got
more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle
East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That’s more
than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world
today, reports The Denver Post. Don’t think ‘OPEC’ will
drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It’s all
about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC
just might be funding the environmentalists?
Got your attention yet? Now, while you’re thinking about it
, do this:
Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do
this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you
complain about gas prices - by doing NOTHING, you forfeit
your right to complain.
Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every
one of you sent this to every one in your address book.
By the way…this is all true. Check it out at the link
below!!! GOOGLE it, or follow this link. It will blow your
mind.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
< http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911 >
Now couple this with the find in the PA gas fields that is bigger than BIG.
David
I’m going to get my cordless drill out tonight and start drilling my own oil well in my Pennsylvania backyard. I’ll need a long drill bit though.
David Kapp said:I've done a quick web search of the three oil reserve finds you mentioned and found that the estimates are wildly overblown. The US western finds apparently are locked in shale and it's not cost effective to recover that crude with today's technology. Instead of 500 billion barrels a more realistic number is 50 billion recoverable barrels and that probably won't happen for another 20 years. I couldn't find any information about large new oil finds in PA. However I've read about what oil industry giants consider "Large " new finds: BP announced that it thinks it's found a "vast" new reserve - it's supposed to hold 5-6 billion barrels - that amounts to about one year of US oil imports from abroad.
If you read the latest oil has been discovered in the new Natural gas fields in PA. They drilled below the gas and found crude oil. The not as new oil fields in the northern mid west. The US has more oil than all of Middle-east. Don't take my word for it check it out. Davidwalter sarapa said:
Everything I've read in the past 10-15 years suggests that global petroleum reserves that are economically feasible to extract will be exhausted within the next 20-50 years. We can argue about the time frame but I think we can all agree that eventually we're going to run out. So it seems to me that we have two choices: get serious NOW about advancing research on alternatives to fossil fuels and, embrace/enforce (dirty word) conservation - OR we keep drilling and digging at the current pace and hope and pray that our great-grandchildren will be much smarter than we are and will be able to figure out a better way to do things.
So until I can see credible evidence that we’re actually “awash” in petroleum I’m going to stick to my stated opinion.
Another ‘fossil’ fuel resource is coal seam gas. It is commonly found where we would find coal deposits. To extract all one needs to do is pump water underground to force the gas to the surface. Simple enough? However, in pumping the water under the ground (pressure greater than 600 psi), toxic elements in the soil are carried along with the pressurised water and find their way into the water table. This then pollutes the surrounding streams, rivers, ocean. The naturally occurring chemicals are safe enough encased in the ground but harmful on the surface. Gas extraction companies deny any risk in the extraction process, but civil groups are forming to ban any further exploration. Under Australian law, a landowner is legally not able to stop the companies exploring and developing gas fields on his property. Some small acreage farms in Queensland are planned to contain several thousand gas extraction heads per farm, impacting severely on the farmers, who are compensated $250 per drill hole per year.
Currently, a drill rig is exploring gas seams less than half a kilometre from Sydney International airport and several rigs are planned less than five kilometres offshore from some of Sydney’s famous beaches. The rigs will be clearly visible from the beach shoreline.