A Tough-Oil World: Why Twenty-First Century Oil Will Break the Bank -- and the Planet

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



A Tough-Oil World
Why Twenty-First Century Oil Will Break the Bank -- and the Planet

By Michael T. Klare


Oil prices are now higher than they have ever been -- except for a few frenzied moments before the global economic meltdown of 2008. Many immediate factors are contributing to this surge, including Iran’s threats to block oil shipping in the Persian Gulf, fears of a new Middle Eastern war, and turmoil in energy-rich Nigeria. Some of these pressures could ease in the months ahead, providing temporary relief at the gas pump. But the principal cause of higher prices -- a fundamental shift in the structure of the oil industry -- cannot be reversed, and so oil prices are destined to remain high for a long time to come.

In energy terms, we are now entering a world whose grim nature has yet to be fully grasped. This pivotal shift has been brought about by the disappearance of relatively accessible and inexpensive petroleum -- “easy oil,” in the parlance of industry analysts; in other words, the kind of oil that powered a staggering expansion of global wealth over the past 65 years and the creation of endless car-oriented suburban communities. This oil is now nearly gone.

The world still harbors large reserves of petroleum, but these are of the hard-to-reach, hard-to-refine, “tough oil” variety. From now on, every barrel we consume will be more costly to extract, more costly to refine -- and so more expensive at the gas pump.

Those who claim that the world remains “awash” in oil are technically correct: the planet still harbors vast reserves of petroleum. But propagandists for the oil industry usually fail to emphasize that not all oil reservoirs are alike: some are located close to the surface or near to shore, and are contained in soft, porous rock; others are located deep underground, far offshore, or trapped in unyielding rock formations. The former sites are relatively easy to exploit and yield a liquid fuel that can readily be refined into usable liquids; the latter can only be exploited through costly, environmentally hazardous techniques, and often result in a product which must be heavily processed before refining can even begin. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175515/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_why_high_gas_prices_are_here_to_stay/#more

[kenny blankenship]

1. It will do no good to blame conspiracies of shadowy forces, Exxon, Bushcheney, Limbaugh, etc.

The shadowy forces presiding over this requiem are called escalating demand for a finite supply. The supply is not yet shrinking but it is no longer possible to believe in its infinite and sufficient growth - the beginning of actual supply shrinkage can be foreseen now and is as certain as death and taxes. Meanwhile the world is as dependent as ever on the black ooze and it still needs more and more of it to keep the pulse of economic growth going. Yes, there will be plenty of carrion birds tearing at the dying Petro-economy beast, feasting around the edges of its corpse, but they are unable to determine the overall longterm trend: ashes to ashes, distilled dinosaur dust to dust.