Oil has shown no signs of running out, a 2003 study said that oil isn't what we thought and a big chunk of the earth's core is made up of oil.

The "Shortage" is manufactured, there are trillions of gallons in reserve in various place, and no shortage in the ground.

We in the US should be extracting our own oil on a larger scale, but due to environemental regs we can't.

What happened to converting all our cars to alchohol? 

What happened to converting all our cars to alchohol?

.. simply an empty Drunk Thread on func_... ;P 

First I didn't see walking in Quake feels like being drunk. I don't like being drunk because it's expensive. Quake is a good way of being drunk without alcohol. 

So why is it by design? What possible sense does it make to build your cities in a way that FORCES people to own a car?

You're right, it is stupid. But as everyone's pointed out, economic/lifestyle factors made it that way.

America is an automotive culture. We've had fifty years of relative peacefulness and prosperity with (aside from occasional hiccups) plenty of oil to fuel it. People buying cars and driving more often spurs the balkanization of where we live and work into commercial centers, strip malls, and suburbs. People being able to drive a lot makes all this stuff commercially viable, which forces people to drive more. It's one of those unfortunately cyclic things.

There was an (I think) Alice Cooper song that kind of touched on this:
I can't get a girl because I don't have a car
I can't get a car becauses I don't have a job
I can't get a job because I don't have a car
so I'm looking for a girl with a job and a car.

I doubt we're going to be able to get off our asses and convert our petroleum infrastructure to hydrogen or whatever other alternative finally becomes viable before we run out of the stuff, and running out of the stuff is what's going to force it. It won't happen until after a prolonged period of suck though - an extended lack of oil will hurt the economy real fucking bad because we're so reliant on it for transportation to/from work, to/from stores, for shipping goods cross-country. etc.

Also:
a big chunk of the earth's core is made up of oil.
ROFL - I'm in tears.

The Federal Oil Reserve isn't for periods when gas prices go up, it's just in case the communists invade. That's why it's called the "strategic oil reserve." Unlikely as that is, using it when oil prices are high is a poor decision anyway. To maintain the reserve we'll just have to fill it again at present day (ie $70/barrel) rates, thus solving nothing. 

How the hell can a description of a situation be a logical fallacy? The situation can be illogical, but the description cannot; it is either true or false.

Way to put the aggression before the intellect. 

Way to put the aggression before the intellect

It's a good explanation about Iraki Bushtchery ... doh !! 

LOL, don't forget Madfox too =) 

Lun, you may want to stop for a minute and look at this:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/June04/Thomas_Gold_obit.hrs.html 

You are trying to justify American whining about the impact of fuel prices by describing the very dependency that *causes* the problem. Cart. Before horse.

Let me put that another way - you are complaining about the inevitable consequences of relying on cheap but limited resources by invoking the fact that you rely on them! Talk about inconsistent - if you didn't want to pay for scarce fuel, why the fuck are you using so much?

You still get it cheap anyway, you silly whinging bastards. :) 

Blackdog:
You make it sound as if ceasing to rely on said resources is an incredibly simple thing we can all do overnight. Like notray said, a lot of Americans have to drive in order to make a living, and often even to buy food. Driving has long been the best price point, much cheaper than living near work in expensive urban areas and much faster than spending hours every day walking to the increasingly distant stores we need to supply us with basic necessities.

The answer to "Why the fuck are you using so much?" is "Because we can't completely restructure the urban and rural landscapes of the united states whenever gas gets pricey." It's taken fifty or sixty years of intense construction and zoning to work ourselves into such a reliance. You think undoing all of that is easy?

I'm not saying it doesn't need to be done, but the only factor strong enough to force it to happen on the necessary scale is gas going up to eight bucks a gallon and staying that way.



and Headthump:
that guy being right about eardrums and moon dust doesn't guarantee he's going to be right about the earth magically producing limitless oil. I'f I'm wrong about that, the earth has still had a couple billion years to build up the meager reserve we've burned through in the past hundred. It'll never be enough to sustain us at even a tiny fraction of the current global rate of consumption. And even if I'm wrong about that is it really the best idea to keep burning it? 

It isn't just one 'guy'. Google the work of Roger Andersen, an oceanographer and executive director of Columbia�s Energy Research Center if you are interested in this subject matter.

There are scarcities, and then there are scarcities. If oil is actually something of a scarcity in kin to air, water and sunlight than a easily quantifiable scarcity like cows milk than the changes in life style and culture proposed by the Conservation movement and others, would be in itself a drastic waste of resources, time, and effort on everyone's part.

There are known quantities of oil that exit in shoal in our good neighbor, Canada to such extent as to dwarf the reserves known to exist in Saudia Arabia. The only problem, at our current technological level it is much more expensive to process it (though probably cheaper than to defend countries like Saudia Arabia and Kuwait from their neighors) than it is to pump liquid crude.

But if that proves unuseable and Gold's theory proves wrong, I am not in any way opposed to the development of cheap hybrid cars. 

Who said I'm complaining about the high prices? I'm attempting to explain to arrogant fuckers who don't understand my country why it's impractical to tell all of us to "just take a bus" and why this is a significant issue for the majority of the population. If you don't care to understand, then please feel free to ride your high horse right up your rectum.

Everyone knows that something needs to be done. Some ideas (fuel efficiency, or alternative sources) are more practical than others (relocating 50% of the population into a city, or pressuring Saudi Arabia into higher production). 

The Federal Oil Reserve isn't for periods when gas prices go up, it's just in case the communists invade. That's why it's called the "strategic oil reserve." Unlikely as that is, using it when oil prices are high is a poor decision anyway. To maintain the reserve we'll just have to fill it again at present day (ie $70/barrel) rates, thus solving nothing.

Clinton and Bush (probably other presidents) have traditionally told this organization to inject spare fuel into the economy during election season (every four years for you non-Americans). This lowers gas prices, and causes more voters to vote them back for a second term. Actually, I found this out because I was hypothetically positing what control the president has over his own reelection, and that was one of the things that I thought of... and it turns out, was true. 

Good old abuse of power. You'll note Dubya has never once touched the reserves, in spite of fuel costs - because guess who benefits from expensive gas?

He's doing it now, of course, to help support gulf refineries whose supply of crude has been cut off now that so many oil rigs have been wrecked - and once more, guess who that directly benefits? :P 

When I'm president, I'm going to release the game development reserves to help boost the economy! 

are you alive? I dont have irc here (yet) (not that i want it!), but I know you go back to uni soon too... where are you and what is up? 

I understand that busses are impractical and sympathize with the high gas prices. We will be only too happy to sell our southern neighbours gasoline (prices adjusted to the global market) while I fill up my motorcycle for 10cnd and live in a province where political debates consists of how many gold houses and rocket cars everyone gets. 

I'm gonna screw the interns and let my wife run the country. 

gonna have to arrange for Mr. Friggles to have an 'accident'... his game sucks anyway! 

RPG, my issue with your posts was that you seemed to regard fuel prices, and not American dependency on fuel, as the problem to be bitched about (and hopefully solved). Since you don't seem to be saying now what I thought you were saying, I retract teh haet and subsitute teh loev.

/me throws flowers and garlands


PS Well said, Lun 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?ex=1282276800&en=4c742b408ca7847a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

There is still plenty of oil left, no one really disputes that, but the era of cheap oil may be over. All oil production follows a bell curve - when you've extracted half of the oil in an oil field, the 2nd half is progressively more difficult to extract, so you get diminishing returns as the production falls. This is called Hubbert's peak ( http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ ). It is theorized that we are close (10-20 years at most) to hitting the peak of the world's oil production. We are probably seeing the beginning signs now - supply is strained and is falling behind demand - and the gap is being filled with soaring prices, which are never going to come significantly back down. Demand will inevitably continue to grow exponentially, but if the supply is hitting the top of a bell curve, then we really need some drastic replacement, fast. But as oil prices increase, previously infeasible alternative energy replacements will begin to look more and more attractive. Oil will be replaced long before we use it all up.

I think it's going to be a very interesting next couple of years. 

It is theorized that we are close (10-20 years at most) to hitting the peak of the world's oil production. We are probably seeing the beginning signs now - supply is strained and is falling behind demand - and the gap is being filled with soaring prices, which are never going to come significantly back down.

Wouldn't the prices increase AFTER we passed the supply boom?

Regardless, interesting points about the asymptotic nature of oil drilling and production. 

Oil will be replaced long before we use it all up.
You sure about that? Lets not forget that this is a reactionary world, and we won't know we're out of oil until theres none left or such shortages that parts of the world are unable to get any more. If you think we'll all be driving energy efficient/alternative fueled cars well before the oil supply starts to bottom out, I think you are kidding yourself. 

But they're ugly.

Another American issue -- vanity. 

And since demand is what drives up the price, there's nothing to stop oil becoming expensive even before production reaches it's peak.