Massive Oil Find in Alaska Is Largest in 30 Years | Fox Business
Massive oil discovery in Alaska is biggest onshore find in 30 years - Mar. 10, 2017
Honestly, it's all the same to me, but just to be bi-partisan, I linked articles from both Fox and CNN.
To put this find in perspective, the according to the EIA,
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6, the US uses 19.4 MMbpd, so this find translates into roughly 62 days if the US were suddenly forced to rely on this reserve as its only oil source at current consumption rates.
That's right, the largest oil field found in 30 years only produces 2 months worth of oil.
Oil is a finite resource and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to extract at prices we have come to expect. The problem is that not only has CAPEX slowed down tremendously, which will almost undoubtedly result in an oil shock, it's that we've kept the price of oil artificially low for decades.
How?
Well for one, there is NO REPLACEMENT FOR OIL! In 2015, renewable energy sources accounted for about 10% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 13% of electricity generation.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=92&t=4
That's right, 10 and 13 percent.
When you price oil and you don't have a viable replacement, you are essentially borrowing from future generations at a very significant cost, particularly when society is predicated off the use of this resource.
According to the EIA, the US has 35.2 Billion barrels of proven reserves.
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/
This equates to roughly 5 years of use at the current consumption rate. This is not that much oil, in particular if we export it. And just in case people are under the illusion that we are producing more than we are using, you are wrong. The oil in the US decreased from 39.9 billion barrels to 35.2 billion barrels, which is a decrease of 4.7 barrels or roughly 8 months of use.
I think people are underestimating the necessity of developing a sustainable infrastructure program, both for our logistics system and our power grid structure.
Before you realize it, oil prices will shoot through the moon and our lifestyle will be completely unsustainable. What will you do then? What will any of us do?
What use will we have?
Oh, you didn't know about automation? Well, automation is going to replace probably 99% of all jobs in the future and it's coming much faster than you think. You see, you are not special. Your thoughts, your ideas are merely patterns in your mind based upon correlations in knowledge that you've learned throughout the years.
You see, computers have far more availability to data that only grows larger as the harvesting of data becomes more and more sophisticated and eventually correlations can be formed which can be utilized in machine learning algorithms to make decisions with far more accuracy than any human.
Yes, that's right, your KIDS ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE JOBS.
What are you going to do in a society where there is no oil (affordable) and there are no jobs? What are our rulers going to do?
Why do you worship these people of the recent past as if they carried us to the promised land? While I can't disagree that our standard of living is better than it ever has been, it is also fundamentally unsustainable as it violates the very principle in which economics is based on. I am referring to the principle of scarcity, which means that resources are limited.
This is not new news. This is common sense. Do you think that this is unknown?
Yet, we have done nothing to address this. We have depended upon someone else, and now we are here. Fortunately, we still have a choice...maybe.
Trump is President. There is nothing you can do about it, so accept the fact that he will be residing in the White House for at least the next 4 years. We have to realize what the most important issues are and appeal to this administration to solve these problems.
Lets start with this infrastructure plan...or else we won't have the choice in the future.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
