If the Saudi's stopped pumping oil - What would the effect be and what would we do?

Great Debates
21

I agree with E72521

I think that this situation is exactly what the US needs.

The alternative fuel technology is there, and is relativly cost affective, safe, and pollution free. The US’s heroin addiction to Oil and natural resources is the reason that there is not very much AF tech out there for resonable prices. Right now it is so much cheaper to buy the old barbarian pollution ridden tech because there is such a huge, competitive market for that, which destroys almost any chance for AF research and manufacturing companies to stay afloat.

Look at the Ballard Fuel Cell ( www.ballard.com ) it converts nearly any hydrocarbon (including ammonia) into electricty very efficiently and pollution free. Is it available in the US for home consumers? Not the last time I checked.

22

I don’t think “heroin addiction” is a valid or useful description, and more than a person who takes a shortcut diagonally across a vacant lot is “addicted” to saving time. There is no reason not to keep using the shortcut, until such time that it is no longer feasible, i.e. someone puts a building on the lot, or builds fences, or a family of wolverines moves in.

Arab oil is currently cheaper and easier to use than alternatives, and this won’t change until something dramatic occurs, like a technological breakthrough (i.e. controlled fusion) or a supply shortage (the Arabs go for another anti-US embargo, or suffer a major war).

Barring an amazingly cheap and efficient and non-polluting tech breakthrough, the best, most likely, resolution is a gradual dwindling of Arab oil supplies that causes prices to slowly rise and encourages a relatively painless transition to alternates.

I’m looking forward to it, myself. I just don’t feel compelled to engage in santimonious hyperbole in the meantime.

23

Yes, oil is probably going to get more expensive in the long term. And this is a cause for panic? WHY don’t we have alternative fuel cars? Answer: Because oil is so cheap. Double the price of oil, and suddenly a dozen or so alternatives become economically viable. But here’s the funny thing. As those alternatives go online, they will cause a drop in the demand for oil. Meaning the price of oil will fall.

The fantasy that we will pump the last drop of oil sometime soon, and then face a huge cataclysm is laughable. If the Saudi oil fields are taken out of the equation, oil prices will rise. There will probably be price spikes until new distribution channels are established. Things will settle down, and then everyone can complain about how fuel cells emit harmfull electromagnetic radiation that gives you brain cancer, only the government is covering it up.

24

The shortcut has no deletrious effects. While Western dependance on fossil fuels harms the environment and obligates us to certain foreign policy positions. It costs money to keep a carrier in the Persian Gulf 24/7, and it costs moral capital for the US to turn a blind eye to Arab autocrats because we fear “instability” in the region.

Cigarettes or coffee addiction perhaps. Harmful in the long term.

25

Lemur,

I do not advocate panic in any sense, but I do believe the situation is perhaps a little grimmer than you (or many mainstream media) make it out to be.

Double the price of oil and other resources will be used - true - but energy prices underlay our entire world economy. Everything today is produced at the cheapest place and shipped all over the world due to relatively cheap transport (mostly oil). If oil prices double the price of almost every commoditity that depends on a lot of shipping (shipping the raw goods one place - shipping the parts another place - then shipping the finished product a third place) will also increase in price - somewhat dramatically. This will cause a worldwide economic shock that will make the great depression look like the roaring 20’s. This will of course temporarily decrease oil prices again but as oil does run out (not completely - just getting to over half of what is easily available - making it almost impossibel to increase supply) then things will be pretty hairy during the changeover.

The world economy will adjust - but part of the adjustment might involve sever famine, war, disease (due to lack of transport of easily made medicenes), etc.

Oil is also very important to our current food supply system - in several ways. We depend on huge yields from less and less farmed acreage to keep up with food supply now - inherent in that big yield is the fertilizers (mostly made from oil derivatives) and mechanized farming (mostly using oil for energy) and shipping of the raw food and shipping of the produced food - all very dependent on the price and availability of oil.

Some of the new technologies are not to the point of energy breakeven. IE to produce some of these power supplies takes more energy than you get out of the product in its useful lifetime. These can be refined and then mass produced - but that takes energy and time - which if we don’t start soon will be in short supply.

So yes, running out of cheap, easily supplied oil is not just a possibility - it is a certainty - the only question is when - some say in 40 years (but those estimates take our current usage - which is increasing every year - and also assume extra supply - which is not certain according to more and more geologists), some say a lot sooner.

I hope that I am wrong and are reading the wrong reports - but more and more reputable scientists are raising some problematic questions that are largely ignored by politicians and the media with just a economic answer of " if the demand increases the price rise will stimulate more supply " which ignores the physical reality of finite resources.

Good day, and I welcome any sensible rebuttal. The more I look into this issue, the more worried I become because I see the problem magnified by our system of wait until it is a problem to fix it - and by then it will be too late to cushion the blow that the changeover will entail - and if it comes later instead of sooner - then it will be worse because of larger population with larger demands for energy for food and shelter and warmth.

One of the more scary links is this one :

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/

Simmonsco is a reputable energy advisor that takes in a lot of data - and his work on natural gas supply is very alarming due to the increased reliance on natural gas for electricity production. He is warning that the natural gas shortage to come will hit before the oil and may have worse effects on electricity shortage (and then the extra demand on oil to offset shortage of natural gas will exacerbate that problem as well).

Thanks for listening.