MetaFilter posts tagged with oil

Surely this. . .

bardic — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:02:14 -0800

"Liberal Hawk" Peter Galbraith played a major role in justifying the American invasion of Iraq. Later he helped write the new Iraqi constitution. Turns out he failed to disclose the hundreds of millions he stands to make on Kurdish oil fields, in part because of his engineering of the same constitution to put him in a favorable business position. Another blogger remembers the good ol' days of 2003 when the media and politicians were shocked --shocked! -- that anyone would dare suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was "all about oil."

Peak Rock was reached in 1965

acb — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:20:26 -0800

US Crude Oil Production vs. Rock Music Quality, by year. Is Rockism the cultural equivalent of Hubbert Peak Theory?

Iron Man,Wild Goose! Sounds like a finger up a tin man's backside,doesn't it?

KokuRyu — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:44:31 -0800

Simon Mann, freed dog of war, is demanding justice. After more than five years in jail, the British mercenary is seeking vengeance on others he says were part of the failed 'Wonga Coup' – including Mark Thatcher. [previously] The plot itself is well documented – how in March 2004 Mann, Nick du Toit and three other South African mercenaries with wealthy international backers and the tacit approval of at least three governments, most notably the Spanish, attempted a coup which involved flying into the former Spanish colony in a plane loaded with arms and more than 50 black "Buffalo soldiers" – former members of the now disbanded South African defence forces' elite 32 battalion– to replace Obiang with an exiled opposition activist called Severo Moto. The prize was vast, untapped reserves of oil and natural gas that an American company had recently discovered in the tiny nation. In March 2004 the plane was intercepted by the Zimbabweans at Harare airport and a jubilant President Robert Mugabe threw Mann and his fellow conspirators into jail before handing them over to Equatorial Guinea where a court sentenced the Eton-educated mercenary to 34 years in jail. [Mann and others imprisoned for five years in Equatorial Guinea] are "furious" at yesterday's indications by Scotland Yard that there is insufficiently strong evidence to further pursue Thatcher or Calil and at the lack of international political will. Equatorial Guinea, a small central African country and former colony of Spain, has a bloody post-colonial history. One dictator, Francisco Macías Nguema, transformed Equatorial Guinea into the "Dachau of Africa," and either drove out or killed two-thirds of the population, becoming known as one of the worst African dictators of all time. Equatorial Guinea's Bioko Island, besides serving as an isolated offshore hub for the country's oil industry, is also famous as a refuge for the endangered baboon-like drill.

Nitroglycerin in the Pennsylvania oil fields

tss — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:51:01 -0800

From The Titusville Morning Herald of June 17, 1866, "Our attention has been called to a series of experiments that have been made in the wells of various localities by Col. Roberts, with his newly patented torpedo. ... The torpedo... is lowered into the well, down to the spot, as near as can be ascertained, where it is necessary to explode it. ... The object of the torpedo is to clean out all the deposits at the bottom of the well."
In the western Pennsylvania oilfields of the second half of the 1800s, "shooters" were men who set off nitroglycerin charges in wells to get the oil flowing again. Tales of Destruction relates stories and legends of this absurdly hazardous job. Additional notes here, in Samuel Pees's Oil History. (Previously)

Something something making sausage!

Artw — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:34:58 -0800

"We only went into Iraq because of oil, you know." "We only appease Saudi Arabia because of oil, you know." To hear people talk sometimes, you'd think they never used oil. - David Mitchell on hypocrisy and politics, and how we blame our leaders for making decisions based on what we want, not on what we say.

IT'S ALL (natural gas) PIPES!

Sys Rq — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:43:45 -0800

Does your tap water taste funny? Have you tried lighting it on fire? (previously)

Do oil-exporting nations deserve compensation for carbon taxes?

anotherpanacea — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:44:39 -0800

"If wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers." Previously.

International Fine Art

netbros — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:17:01 -0800

The Images of Eyes Gallery exhibits images and paintings of eyes by international artists, featuring work from about 200 artists from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Gallery I contains figurative paintings, oil and watercolor paintings, portraits, charcoal and ink drawings, lithographs, sculpture, digital, and other fine art content. Gallery II exhibits nude paintings, so may be NSFW.

_____ Blue

Sys Rq — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:07:35 -0800

Coke is Corn. (Among other things.) (Previously.)

Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller

kliuless — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:33:11 -0800

Post-(cheap)oil: will the end of globalisation be the beginning of re-localisation? BONUS -The Grand Energy Transition -Energy Needs, Energy Efficiency and the Cost of Saving Us -The Homely Costs of Energy Conservation -Life after Peak Oil -Peak Water -Desalination Technology Increases Naval Capabilities -Better cheap than good: renewable power for developing world

The Long Good Bye

adamvasco — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:05:59 -0800

Foreign Policy has an interesting double in the latest issue: Oil's very future is being seriously questioned, debated, and challenged. Just as we need more oil than ever, it is changing faster than we can keep up with. An article by the often controversal Pulitzer prize winner Daniel Yergan.
This article is complimented by: Subpriming the Pump; Oil wealth used to hurt only those who had it. Now, it's hurting everyone. By Mahmoud El-Gamal and Amy Myers Jaffe both of Rice University.

Potholes on the road to a green future

Diablevert — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:49:32 -0800

Inspired by a recent Wall Street Journal* article, Robert Rapier, chemical engineer, peakist, blogger, and currently chief technology officer for a bioenergy company, reviews the pretenders, contenders, and niche players in the emerging field of green energy, with particular consideration of liquid fuels. Meanwhile, the boffins at Foreign Policy consider the risks of the coming of the green energy era, and depict the end of the oil age. (Both part of FP's extensive look at the end of oil; previously.) Being an engineer, Rapier discusses some hard numbers that give a sense of the dimensions of the challenge the industry faces. From his contenders article: “Consider for a moment the amount of energy locked up inside the 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass that the Department of Energy suggests can be sustainably produced each year. Woody biomass and crop residues - the kind of biomass covered in the 1.3 billion ton study - contains an energy content of approximately 7,000 BTUs per pound (bone dry basis). The energy content of a barrel of oil is approximately 5.8 million BTUs. Thus the raw energy contained in 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass is equivalent to the energy content of 3.1 billion barrels of oil, which is equal to 42% of the 7.32 billion barrels the United States consumed in 2008. This calculation tells you a couple of things. First, the 42% represents an upper limit on the amount of oil that could be displaced by 1.3 billion tons of biomass. The true number would be much lower because energy is required to get the biomass to the biorefinery and then to process it. So replacing oil with biomass isn't going to be a trivial task, and a process must be capable of turning a respectable percentage of those biomass BTUs into liquid fuel if it is to be a contender. *Paywall, if encountered, may be averted by searching article title on google and entering from there.

“I wish we had found water.”

anotherpanacea — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:43:01 -0800

The Iraqi who saved Norway from oil: requires registration, but it's worth it.

...dependency on natural resources can poison a country’s economic and political system. Inflows of hard currency push up prices, squeezing the competitiveness of non-oil businesses and starving them of capital. As a result, productivity growth withers (a phenomenon known as “Dutch disease” after the negative effects of North Sea gas production on the Netherlands). Meanwhile, the state institutions in charge of oil often become corrupt and evade democratic control. And oil-rich states almost invariably waste the income it brings, many ending their oil booms deeper in debt than when they started.

Energy Independence and Peak Oil

bystander — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:57:40 -0800

A Saudi Prince tells America to give up futile dreams of energy independence. Op-Ed in the NYT says Peak Oil is a waste of energy and an illusion. Meanwhile, the OECD's energy advisors, the IEA are saying cheap oil will run out in ten years, a decade sooner than estimates made as recently as 2007.

Axis of ChiRan

adamvasco — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:47:44 -0800

Multi - polarity in Eurasia. Pepe Escobar on Iran, China and the New Silk Road 1 & 2
Iran and China just signed a $3 bn. deal for China to help develop Iran's refinery capacity in Abadan and the Gulf. ( previous )

Yesterday's Energy of Tomorrow...and more

Miko — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:05:33 -0800

Peak Oil, 1925. In 2000, 20% of new buildings will be solar equipped. By the late 1990s, 90% of the world's energy will be nuclear-generated. These and other erroneous projections are being collected as part of the Forecast Project on the website Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America.

Expensive gasoline is good for you

acb — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:58:36 -0800

The author of a new book on how rising oil prices will change America makes the claims that higher gasoline prices will make the country healthier and safer. Christopher Steiner asserts that, for every $1 that gasoline prices rise, obesity rates drop by 10% (as people walk more and eat out less). As for "safer", that comes in when high gasoline prices force police out of their cruisers and onto bicycles and foot patrols, where they can interact more closely with their communities. And here is a summary of claims Steiner makes in his book about other consequences of high oil prices. Some are things that have been discussed before (inner cities becoming affluent and suburbs becoming slums, for example, fewer plastic knick-knacks and a renaissance in rail transportation), while others (such as mass migration to the south as heating homes in the north becomes prohibitively expensive) are less so. All in all, Steiner's assessment, whilst heralding radical changes, seems upbeat and entirely non-apocalyptic.

war profiteering in Iraq

nickyskye — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:15:47 -0800

It is fitting that today’s deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq’s cities coincides with a meeting in Baghdad to auction off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. It is a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion and in whose interests over one million Iraqis and 4,634 American and other Western troops have been killed. However, today's bidding was not the bonanza that was expected. Iraqis in Baghdad celebrate the withdrawal of US troops from the country's cities and towns yesterday. Bidding war for Iraq's huge oil contracts sputters into life.

Know Your Fats. Yummy, yummy fats.

Deathalicious — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:21:48 -0800

Fats, whether from plant sources or animals, have been in use in cooking for a long time. Olive oil's history goes back 7 millenia and palm oil has a history dating back to 3000 BCE. Once widely used in place of butter during the 19th century, lard is finally making a comeback (and you can easily make your own). Schmaltz, the Jewish lard alternative, will probably never rebound as a food, although the word itself is still popular (to describe something that is overly sentimental). Although fat in general has a negative connotation, you need fat to survive and there are good fats and bad fats. If your food has nutritional info on it, it's likely going to split up the fats into saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and, possibly, trans fats. What are all of these different kind of fats (literally fatty acids)? It all has to do with two of the major "ingredients" of fat, carbon and hydrogen:

Saturated fat: So named because they are "saturated" with hydrogen atoms (every carbon atom in the chain bonds with 2 hydrogen atoms). These are typically solid at room temperature. They raise your cholesterol (specifically, the "unhealthy" LDL cholesterol).
Monounsaturated fat: Instead of bonding with 2 hydrogen atoms, one of the carbon atom bonds to only one other hydrogen atom and has one (hence, "mono-") double bond with another carbon atom. Monounsaturated fats raise "healthy" HDL cholesterol while lowering bad cholesterol. Olive oil, high in monounsaturated fats, is one of the factors in the apparent benefits of the so-called "Mediterranean Diet".
Polyunsaturated fat: More than one carbon has a double bond with another carbon atom (hence, "poly"). They lower bad cholesterol.
Trans fat: The name comes from the trans-isomer bond that the carbon atoms have with the hydrogen atom (the hydrogen atoms are on opposite sides of the carbon atom chain). Generally, these are unsaturated fats which are hydrogenated (altered to hold more hydrogen atoms). Trans fats both raise bad and lower good cholesterol.

Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation

symbollocks — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:32:05 -0800

In a talk titled Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation given at The New Emergency Conference, Peak Oil activist and writer Dmitry Orlov (previously 1 2 3) shows how he has come to the conclusion that the oil price spike of summer 2008 was the trigger for the financial collapse that occurred later on in the fall. He goes on to summarize (from his point of view) pretty much everything that has been happening in the past year or so, and what he thinks is coming up next. This is a long one, so here are some quotes: "Now that the reality of Peak Oil has started to sink in, one commonly hears that "The age of cheap oil is over". But does that mean that the age of expensive oil is upon us? Not necessarily. We now know (or should have learnt by now) that once oil rises to over 25% of global GDP, the world's industrial economy stalls out, and as soon as that happens, oil ceases to be particularly valuable, so much so that investment in maintaining oil production is curtailed. The next time industry tries to stage a comeback (if it ever does) it hits the wall much sooner and stalls again. I doubt that it would take more than just a couple of cycles of this market whiplash for all the participants to have two realisations: that they cannot get enough oil no matter how much they pay for it, and that nobody wants to take their money even for the oil they do have." "One person I would like to have a close encounter with the brick wall is this fellow, Myron Scholes, the Nobel Prise-winning co-author of the Black-Scholes method of pricing derivatives, the man behind the crash of Long Term Capital Management. He is the inspiration behind much of the current financial debacle. Recently, he has been quoted as saying the following: "Most of the time, your risk management works. With a systemic event such as the recent shocks following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, obviously the risk-management system of any one bank appears, after the fact, to be incomplete." Now, imagine a structural engineer saying something along those lines: "Most of the time our structural analysis works, but if there is a strong gust of wind, then, for any given structure, it is incomplete." Or a nuclear engineer: "Our calculations of the strength of nuclear reactor containment vessels work quite well much of the time. Of course, if there is an earthquake, then any given containment vessel might fail." In these other disciplines, if you just don't know the answer, then you just don't bother showing up for work, because what would be the point?"

Wiwa vs. Shell

allkindsoftime — Sat, 30 May 2009 01:24:15 -0800

Wiwa vs. Shell. 14 years ago, Ken Saro-Wiwa (prev) was hung with his counterparts for speaking out against Shell and the atrocities they were committing upon the Ogoni people of the Nigerian River Delta. The trial was postponed on May 26th, the day before it was scheduled to begin. The trial is expected to excite huge interest on the part of multinational companies and human rights bodies. Its estimated that Shell has extracted $30 billion in oil from Ogoni lands since they first struck there. Remember Saro-Wiwa The Case Against Shell

New US Fuel Economy Plan: Win, Lose, or Draw?

filthy light thief — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:31:05 -0800

Car companies were facing a variety of efficiency and emission standards throughout the United States, from the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, On May 19th, and then an even stricter emission standard from California and 13 other states (plus DC). On May 19th, President Obama announced nation-wide new vehicle fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks through 2016. The goal is to rapidly increase fuel efficiency,without compromising safety, by an average of 5, culminating in 39 MPG for cars and 30 MPG for light trucks. Currently, no auto makers are meet the final standards, though some are closer than others. Car enthusiasts say this is the end of "fun cars," and point out air conditioning improvement short-cuts that would achieve the required goals. Environmentalists say this won't change enough. The EPA says the unified standard is welcomed by the auto manufacturers because it provides regulatory certainty and predictability and includes flexibilities that will significantly reduce the cost of compliance (partially due to the fuel efficiency score covering an automaker’s entire fleet). Other people point out though the new standards are better than the old ones, the auto fuel economy goal was reachable a decade ago, and still SUVs are classified as light trucks. Then again, why wait for new standards when you can start hypermiling today? It's not limited to hybrids.

Cuba's Oil

Burhanistan — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:34:19 -0800

Cuba's Undersea Oil Could Help Thaw Trade With U.S. [WAPO bugmenot] - Deep in the Gulf of Mexico, an end to the 1962 U.S. trade embargo against Cuba may be lying untapped, buried under layers of rock, seawater and bitter relations. Why Cuba's Dreams of Major Oil Discoveries Might Come True - US News & World Report Cuba claims massive oil reserves - BBC News Russia to help Cuba with oil projects - Cuba Headlines

“Americans want their gasoline cheap but it’s not possible without cutting a few corners.”

plexi — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:04:29 -0800

“Oil is not a commodity,” Eronat said. “It’s a political weapon.”

Enter the world of the oil fixer, one of expensive dinners and third world leaders.

It's Mine - No, it's Mine.

adamvasco — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:48:22 -0800

Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak, the second article from Pepe Escobar; Asia Times reporter after his Postcard from Pipelineistan - Liquid War.
Energy Wars for the 21st Century as recently indicated by Moscow. ( previous ).