[Rhodes22-list] Energy -not sailing

[Bill Effros]

Ron,

I keep hearing that OPEC wants to keep the price of oil moderately low 
to prevent the development of alternative technologies coupled with 
projections that there's only 30-40 years worth of the stuff left.  
Doesn't make sense to me.

Bill Effros

Ronald Lipton wrote:

> We had an interesting talk today by Steven Koonin, formerly the
> provost of cal tech and now the chief scientist at BP.  Since there
> was some discussion on the list about future energy issues it was useful
> to get some up-to-date information.  He made a few interesting points:
>
> - It is in OPECs interest to keep the price of oil moderately low to 
> prevent
> development of alternative technologies and discourage conservation.
> - The known reserves of oil is projected to last 41 years, gas 67 and
>  coal 200. The oil projection has been at 40 years for the past decade.
> - The world supplies will begin to trend downward in ~20 years (non OPEC)
>   and 30 years (OPEC)
> - Technologies like natural gas and coal conversion to diesel become
>  cost effective at $40/barrel oil!
> - Co2 loading of the atmosphere is a serious issue. (He felt that the 
> cause/effect
>   relation between Co2 and the demonstrated warming trend was plausible
>   but not proven.) This will become particularly serious as the 
> developing world
>   become significant consumers.  It is a problem with no solution that 
> is both
>   politically and economically feasible.
> - The developing world is the 1000 pound gorilla here - even moderate 
> increase
>   in per capita consumption is a huge effect with that many capitas.
> - Population growth is expected to moderate - to about 8-10 billion 
> toward the
>   end of the century.
>
> We are actually going to have a series of these lectures, including 
> fusion and
> hydrogen power. For folks with fast connections the talks are 
> available on
> streaming video a few days after they are presented on:
> http://www-ppd.fnal.gov/EPPOffice-w/colloq/colloq.html
>
> Ron
>
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