X-Message-Number: 27098
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Re: Under the Premise that Knowledge Is Power:
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:41:59 -0700

In message # 27089, David Stodolsky writes,

>Proven Reserves have never been higher. There are hundreds of billions of 
>barrels in Venezuela, in Saudi Arabia, in Iraq, and in Iran,

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons has studied the Saudi oil situation 
in depth, and he thinks that Saudi fields have seriously depleted no matter 
what their official spokesmen claim. Arab culture has a taboo against 
acknowledging weakness and vulnerability, as we saw from "Baghdad Bob's" 
absurd press conferences over two years ago. Simmons has published his 
findings in his new book, "Twilight in the Desert." The mainstream business 
media have given him considerable access, demonstrating that they find his 
viewpoint legitimate and credible. Simmons proposes that if a few dozen 
outside experts had access to Aramco's records, they could accurately audit 
the state of Saudi reserves to see whether they really have all much that 
oil left.

In the world overall, the proportions and absolute quantities of the 
different weights of oil have also changed recently. The supply of light 
crude has declined by over 2 million barrels a day since 2000, meaning that 
light crude has already peaked. Link to OPEC's August 2005 report, scroll 
down to page 4 and do the math:

http://www.opec.org/home/Monthly%20Oil%20Market%20Reports/2005/pdf/MR082005.pdf

Light crude yields more gasoline and jet fuel per barrel than the medium and 
heavy crudes. Most refineries can't process the heavier grades without 
retooling and dumping more toxic byproducts into the environment. The Saudis 
have so much heavy crude these days they almost have to give it away. This 
largely unreported fact helps to explain how we can have a growing supply of 
(nonfungible) "oil" while the fuel situation continues to deteriorate.

>not to mention the tar sands in Canada, which contain an equal amount.

In the real world business of extracting oil from Alberta's muskeg, costs 
have started to spiral out of control because the process just about breaks 
even thermodynamically:

Shell Canada Oil-Sands Cost Target Jumps to C$7.3 Bln (Update3)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000082&sid=ahBH9vf06yT0

Tar sand extraction uses natural gas, the supply for which in North American 
has already started to slide despite increasingly frenetic drilling, as 
Exxon's retiring CEO Lee Raymond admitted recently. The two hurricanes in 
the Gulf of Mexico have made the supply situation dramatically worse. I'd 
put the odds at 60% that the U.S. will experience some kind of natural gas 
emergency this winter.

What do these facts have to do with cryonics? One, and I can't this 
emphasize this enough, you can no longer depend on having mobility when you 
need it, especially if you live overseas and have to get to the U.S. for 
your cryosuspension. And two, liquid nitrogen requires an energy intensive 
industrial base to produce. The chemical industry threatens to quit North 
America because it can't afford the local natural gas as a feedstock (many 
nitrogen fertliizer plants have already closed for that reason), and other 
nonessential, energy expensive commodities will follow suit. Eventually this 
trend will threaten the supply of liquid nitrogen.

Manage your risk, not your terror.
Mark Plus

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=27098