X-Message-Number: 27105
References: <>
From: David Stodolsky <>
Subject: Re: Vanishing oil reserves
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 17:07:21 +0200

On 22 Sep 2005, at 04:33, marta sandberg wrote:

> It seems that oil generates a lot of heated debate and I do not  
> want to
> become involved in a long convoluted thread, but there is it I  
> generally
> accepted that stated proven oil reserves cannot be relied on.

What can then be relied upon? Proven reserves are a low estimate of  
actually reserves. Misrepresentation of proven reserves can result in  
jail time or other bad happenings as some Shell executives found out  
recently, when they had to reduce their figures drastically.

The best correlation with high oil prices is whether Big Oil has  
their man in the Whitehouse. The last major "Oil Crisis" was under  
President Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon, nearly a bag man for big  
business (not to mention, a mass murderer, etc.). But Nixon was  
running the Whitehouse, with Reagan we had a good actor and now we  
have a bad one, with others actually exercising control. Things have  
gone down hill politically since the Nixon days when all people had  
to worry about was a "Communist under every bed", these days it's a  
"Terrorist behind every Bush" :-)


>
> OPEC changed their rules a few years back and decided the export  
> quotas
> would depend on the oil reserves of member countries.  In the next  
> year the
> members started to announce that they had  re-evaluated' their  
> reserves and
>   surprise, surprise   they where much larger that previously  
> thought.  At
> first the increases where rather modest, add an addition 10% or  
> 20%.  In the
> end, reserves could quite literally double overnight.  As this  
> happened
> without any new testing, it is unlikely that the new figures have any
> connection with reality.

What makes you think the old figures had any connection with reality?  
"Oil shortages" and high prices are correlated. Do OPEC countries  
want low oil prices?


>
> If you want a good comprehensive overview of the situation I would  
> recommend
> Campbell, C. J. & Leherr re, J. H. (1998) End of Cheap oil Scientific
> American 278(3).

This is not a peer-reviewed journal and is known to be under the  
influence of big corporations. Perhaps you should review their  
performance on the questions of life extension and cryonics:

http://www.alcor.org/press2001SciAm.html
Cryonics and Scientific American

The growing popularity of cryonics is evidenced by an article in the  
September 2001 Scientific American titled "Nano nonsense and  
cryonics." While hardly a flattering title, the first paragraph is  
worse:

Cryonicists believe that people can be frozen immediately after death  
and reanimated later when the cure for what ailed them is found. To  
see the flaw in this system, thaw out a can of frozen strawberries.  
During freezing, the water within each cell expands, crystallizes,  
and ruptures the cell membranes. When defrosted, all the  
intracellular goo oozes out, turning your strawberries into runny  
mush. This is your brain on cryonics.




dss

David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky

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