Posted by We use oil to make gasoline, Diesel oil, heating oil, asphalt and road oil, hydrocarbon gas, jet fuel and aviation gasoline, kerosene, waxes, petroleum coke, petrochemical feed stock (used to make plastics), special naphtha, paints, lubricants, and a host of chemical and pharmaceutical products, which are used in our medical and healthcare systems. We use natural gas in similar ways and also to produce ammonia, which is the raw material from which most modern agricultural fertilizers are made. Without these ammonia-based fertilizers we would not be able to feed all the people in the world. Without oil and natural gas, our technical civilization would come to a screeching halt.
Oil is defined as a substance that consists of carbon and hydrogen. It takes a very long time and very specific circumstances for oil to form, and most of the oil that we use today formed millions of years ago.
Roughly 10 percent of the oil that’s harvested today was formed during the Paleozoic age, which dates between 541 and 252 million years ago. Most of it formed during the Mesozoic era, which dates between 252 and 66 million years ago. And the final 20 percent formed during the Cenozoic age, roughly 65 million years ago.
Crude oil formed in ancient shallow oceans, which were filled with microscopic organic matter, phytoplankton, zooplankton, and algae – in addition to the bacteria that thrived in those warm shallow waters. As these organisms died, they sank to the bottom of the ocean and mixed with a clay-like material that made up the river and ocean beds of the era.
This mud enveloped the dead organic-rich matter and prevented it from decomposing. As millions of years passed, the mud layer was compressed and became sedimentary rock. The organic material became what is today known as organic shale.
If this shale is deep enough, between one and 2.5 miles below the surface of the earth, it starts to get warmer and experiences additional pressure. The pressure turns the organic shale into oil shale, also known as kerogen. At temperatures between 90 and 160 degrees Celsius, the kerogen turns into oil and natural gas. At any temperatures higher than 160 C, only natural gas or graphite is formed. This temperature range is known as the “oil window”. Oil will escape from the oil shale and rise toward the water above, creating a reservoir. This is what prospectors are looking for when searching for new areas to drill.
The above implies that areas where oil is found today must have been shallow oceans 65 – 541 million years ago. It follows that Earth’s climate must have been much warmer then and ocean levels must have been much higher than today – or the shifting of the tectonic plates and/or continental drift may have caused the land to sink relative to the ocean level.
In 2000, the “Club of Rome” proclaimed that humankind had exhausted most of the oil reserves and that recoverable oil had “peaked”, i.e. that the amount of oil humans could recover, would be less each year from now on. We know today that the Club of Rome was full of it. Such patently false projections ensue, when philosophers and politicians judge technical developments. They only looked at the oil reserves known at the time and at the discovery and recovery technology existing at the time. They could not imagine that both would rapidly improve resulting in the discovery of vast new oil reserves and in new methods of recovery that would allow the exploitation of reserves hitherto deemed unrecoverable.
In 1998, oil reserves were estimated at 1.1 trillion barrels. In 2008, the estimate was 1,5 trillion barrels. In 2017, the estimate was 1.7 trillion barrels. In 2018, 1.8 trillion barrels. As you can see, the estimates are ticking upwards. In 2018, 59% of the US oil production came from hydraulic fractioning (“fracking”), a technology that opened up vast additional oil reserves. Nobody seems to know exactly how much more oil will become available through fracking.
To my best knowledge, the largest oil reserves exist in Venezuela, and the second largest in Saudi Arabia. Currently, the US alone consumes approximately 19 million barrels per day (mbd). The entire world consumes approximately 104 mbd. As of 2018, American oil production topped 11 million barrels per day, eclipsing Russian output and making the United States the number one producer of oil for the first time since 1973. The momentum of the fracking boom, had it lasted, was expected to push US oil exports to a level by 2024 that would allow the United States to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest exporter of crude oil.
But it did not happen.
Not for economic reasons. Not for technological reasons.
Political reasons killed US fracking and choked its overall oil production to death. The socialist Biden government, beholden as it is to the radical climate savers and global warmers, stopped the Keystone pipeline construction, most fracking, and all prospecting on public lands. To save the climate, our economy and our civilization were forced on a low-oil diet.
The official argument for this policy is that we must stop individual traffic and fuel consumption to reduce the CO2 output into the atmosphere. As I have shown in earlier articles in the Beacon, this is nonsense, as CO2 is not causing significant global warming.
What is truly behind this domestic oil-embargo policy is the ideology of the “New World Order” – Mr. Klaus Schwab’s “Great Reset” – his vision of a socialist and totalitarian society and form of government that finally implement equality, equity, and social justice at a small price: serfdom for all – sauf the new ruling elite. Equity is going to be accomplished by sacrificing liberty. We will all be equal – equally oppressed serfs.
This leads us to the other effect of energy independence – which we accomplished and then lost again. If we have to buy oil and/or natural gas from other nations, we depend on them for our ability to function and for our survival. If we buy oil from the Saudis or from the Russians, it will be difficult to preserve our political independence. Our dependence on their oil gives them leverage over our foreign policy.
The German “social-democratic” Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, first chairman of the “Young Socialists” (Jungsozialisten or “JUSOs”) and later a self-confessed Marxist, sold his country to the Russians. In 2001, he made an agreement with them (the “Petersburg Dialogue”) that made the German industry and economy dependent on Russian oil and natural gas. He ended up as a Director of the Supervisory Board of the North Stream 1 pipeline project and Director of GAZPROM, the Russian government-controlled gas trust. Today, his net worth is estimated at approx. 21 million. The Biden family seems to have had a similarly profitable relationship with the Putin mafia and with the Ukrainian corruptocracy.
President Trump criticized Germany for that:
<How can you ask America to play the key role and be the main payor in NATO to defend Germany and the EU against Russian hegemonial aspirations, when you make your country and with it the entire EU dependent on Russian energy imports?>
he asked the NATO guys.
(Or almost so. I was unable to find the original quote in writing. I heard it in a video report about a meeting of Trump with NATO officials.)
When Biden shut down US oil production, he made the US also dependent on Russian energy imports. No sooner had this happened than Putin started invading Ukraine. And until this minute, our government has still not discontinued our oil imports from Russia depriving itself of all political freedom of action against Putin. And we should dread the moment when they do stop importing Russian oil without restarting US production.
I just talked with a friend in Germany and he told me that they are now paying Euro 2.40 per liter of regular gas – and climbing. The Euro exchange rate stands at 1 Euro = 1.20 Dollar. That makes Euro 2.40 the equivalent of $ 2.88. One imperial gallon is the equivalent of 3.6 liters. That means that Germans are now paying the equivalent of $10.35 per gallon of regular fuel. Man, gas is still cheap in California at $7.30 on average! But not for long. Soon, US gas prices will reach European levels.
What or who’s to blame? Ms. Psaki says that the Russians are to blame and of course we are to blame, because we won’t give up our private vehicles and move into silos in metropolitan America and because oil is a precious “gift from nature” that we must respect and save – like “the” climate. And the Saudis are to blame, because they refuse to pump more oil.
But our government has a cure for all this: they will reduce the gas tax, pay government employees a fuel subsidy, buy oil from the Iranians, import more oil from Venezuela, and promote the production of electric cars that neither of us can afford.
Ola hombre! Wait a minute! What will be the (intended?) consequences of these cures? Unless you are struck by globalism, climatism, or general socialist blindness, you will easily see what is wrong here.
Increasing, the fuel tax will reduce the government’s tax income and force it to print more money, which will further increase inflation and devalue our currency. Buying oil from the mad mullahs will support their effort to finalize their nuclear bomb, which will have a very negative effect on Near East peace and on Israel’s continued existence. Buying oil from Venezuela, which appears to be sitting on the largest oil reserves on earth, will support a radically communist regime that is brutally starving and enslaving its own population and supporting similar classless despotism all over the world.
BTW, what difference does it make for the atmosphere and “the” climate, whether the CO2 comes from Russian, Iranian, Venezuelan, or US oil? In truth: using non-US oil would increase the contamination (if it really exists), because all of the oils from these other sources are dirtier than American oil. So, if saving “the” climate is the motive for closing down our domestic oil production, the climate savers are shooting themselves in the foot. But it does not really matter. Their goal is not primarily to save “the” climate but to destroy our civilization. Must tear down the old house, before you can build another one in its place, right?
The only reasonable and effective action our government could take is the one it will not take, because it isn’t ideologically correct in the eyes of radical left globalists and climatists. This action is
DRILL BABY, DRILL !!!
If we revived our own oil industry, we would gain the following advantages:
- We would reduce gas prices significantly and avoid the collapse of our transportation and food supply systems.
- We would not need to import oil from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran or Venezuela, which would remove the handcuffs from our foreign policy.
- We would be in a position to provide Europe with oil and natural gas so that the EU would not need the Russian oil and gas any longer and would also depend less on near-eastern oil.
- We could push down oil prices worldwide, which would drastically reduce Russia’s income from the sale of oil and reduce its capability to wage sustained war against Ukraine – or anybody else as for that.
- We would generate a great boost to our economy and generate thousands of well-paying jobs as well as tons of income for the government.
- Hell, we might even be in position to reduce our humongous national debt of $ 30,308,695,611,614 (30.3 trillion dollars as per 03/10/2022 01:15 pm).
- Last but not least – we could use some of the windfall money from energy exports to fund a World Energy Research Institution to make the most of the approximately 100 years we can still make do with oil and develop viable, affordable, and efficient forms of energy that can support a technical civilization without bankrupting it and without creating unsustainable environmental situations. Something like optimized nuclear energy perhaps.
But the Biden government and its social-justice dreamers will not do any of this. They will rather impoverish the entire nation and destroy our society and economy than make these common-sense changes.
Why? Because they want to annihilate our society, our economy, and our nation state.
Why? Because in their worldview, our capitalist market economy is destroying “the” climate, our society is racist and unjust, and our nation is a fascist construct that prevents the solution of global problems and instigates wars.
It’s obviously ideology over reality. Climate Salvation, Social Justice, and Classless Society all packed into one Trojan Horse. “Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes.” (Virgil: I fear the Greeks, even if they bring gifts.)
Joe, make no mistake, the biblical metaphor that “faith can move mountains” is just that – a metaphor. Or do we have any proven record that faith has ever moved a real mountain? Ideology is just a secular faith. It’s faith without God. Reality will eventually catch up with it.
True, the failed and misguided policies of our present government will not hurt the rich governing elite too much. It will mainly hurt we the people.
What will you all do, when you must pay $20 per gallon of regular? Or more.
What will you do, when basic food items like bread, milk, butter, ground beef, or cornflakes become unaffordable or even unavailable?
What will you do, when you can no longer afford to heat your home?
OK, you can still get some food at the local Food Pantry, provided you are able to afford the cost of the fuel you need to get there and back home?
OK, around here you can still hunt, fish, keep chickens, or grow your own vegetables. At least for a while.
OK. Maybe you can cut down a tree and light a wood fire in a bucket.
But what about those millions who live in metropolitan areas and who cannot hunt or fish, who can only grow very little in their balcony flower pots, and who have no trees they can cut down?
Can you even imagine the resulting pandemonium?
What Mr. Biden ought to do to save us from the abyss, is a 180 and to say:
“OK, man, we made a mistake. We misjudged. But we will take corrective action. We will immediately re-open US oil and natural gas production at least temporarily, until we have stabilized the situation within and outside the USA. We might then reconsider. Saving the climate and replacing capitalism with socialism will have to wait till later.”
This would be reasonable, because it is reasonable to change one’s opinion in the light of new facts and/or convincing arguments. AOC and her globalist friends would probably be angry, because they are not reasonable. But the rest of us would be very happy. And Joe might even be reelected.
But he will not, because these days, Democrats are not reasonable anymore. They have jumped on the communist ideology raft and are rudderless rapidly drifting down the wild river of blind conviction and disregard for reality and the will of the people, fast approaching the great waterfall.