[ennui2]

You have grouped methane hydrates with ultra-deep. That is a measure of your ignorance Mos. Ultra deep Brazilian pre salt has already been produced but methane is naw but a woolly dream of a dobber.

I've been wanting to say this, more or less, for a long time, but it is the crux of the matter when it comes to peak-oil. It's very simple logic but it explains a lot of the difference of opinions.

Oil is underground. You can't see it until you manage to drill it and oil comes up. Yes, there are many ways to attempt to guess what's there or what's not there. There's also many approaches to get at the oil which can maybe make it more economical where before it wasn't.

When it comes to things you can't see directly, it fosters quasi-religious thinking. Peakers always interpret things within the frame of geological depletion. Cornies always think of some magical new find or new recovery technology. (Then you have the abiotic crowd which is REALLY in religious territory.) It also means anytime oil drilling goes down, peakers interpret it as geological depletion rather than a temporary reaction to a glut (like now). All of it revolves around not being able to directly see oil in a reservoir going down. All data becomes an inkblot test and people fill in the blanks with their biases.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, and that's where I'm coming from.

In an environment of cheap oil, oil companies are not going to waste a lot of time looking for oil in places like the arctic. However, once oil settles around $100 or more, I suspect they will be back. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying there is a ton of oil up there, but I think they will look for it, and I don't think it matters how much they looked before. Once the ice is clear and it's easier to look around they'll feel they have a better shot at finding something.

The same is true of all remaining hydrocarbon stores including methane hydrates. This is all part of leaving no stone unturned. It's highly unrealistic to think that oil companies will just throw up their hands and give up if there's any chance some of these things can work out.

I'm sure you'd love to see oil companies capitulate like that, but it's ridiculous to think they will. So them abandoning the arctic is not the end of the story there.

[GregT]

Once the ice is clear and it's easier to look around they'll feel they have a better shot at finding something.

Once the ice is clear we'll have far more serious issues to deal with.

[ennui2]

Once the ice is clear and it's easier to look around they'll feel they have a better shot at finding something.

Once the ice is clear we'll have far more serious issues to deal with.

Correct. Pound for pound, AGW is a more pressing issue than peak-oil.

I know Pstarr disagrees, of course. He can't seem to leave 2008 behind.

[peripato]

Also, lots of bright green environmentalists applauded the decision by US oil interests to abandon the arctic. They didn't want to acknowledge that this was only a temporary decision due to current low oil prices. They thought it was the oil companies somehow showing a glimmer of ecological responsibility. Well, articles like this really drive home the point that they'll be back.

Do you really believe Shell gave up on the Arctic because of a short-term crude price dip? Just getting the ship out of Seattle cost tens of millions. The multi-billion investment in Arctic was planned decades ago before the the enormous cost and crappy payoff was known. Now they know.

I'm sure they'll be back when oil reaches $600 a barrel.../sarc

[kublikhan]

Folks here in Panama view this as a potential $ trillion loss of revenue as the Panama Canal will become an obsolete artifact of the 20th century

How important is the canal to Panama?

[ROCKMAN]

I have no idea about how such commercial oil reserves are or aren't in the Arctic Basin. But the same was said about the Deep Water GOM in the early days: not much oil there; too environmentally sensitive; too technology challenging/expensive. And today there have been over 150 fields developed out there and have recovered billions of bbls of oil. Won't know what the Artic holds until enough holes are poked. Reminds me of what I read many years ago: the first MAJOR North Sea oil field was discovered by the 93rd wildcat drilled in the basin.

[vtsnowedin]

How important is the canal to Panama?

About 1.5 billion US$ per year which is 15% of it's budget plus a strong tourist industry of people coming to view the canal.

[Cog]

Once the ice is clear and it's easier to look around they'll feel they have a better shot at finding something.

Once the ice is clear we'll have far more serious issues to deal with.

What issues would those be?

[onlooker]

Issues like runaway global warming!

[Cog]

Regardless of the doomers claims to the contrary, the Arctic will never be ice-free in our lifetimes. The Arctic will present extremely challenging drilling and production problems. If the price is right and the oil is there, its going to get drilled and produced. Why would anyone think any differently? If not the US, then the Canadians, or the Russians.

[ROCKMAN]

"If the price is right and the oil is there, its going to get drilled and produced. Why would anyone think any differently? If not the US, then the Canadians, or the Russians." Just a reminder: the Russians are already producing oil in the offshore Arctic Basin. Remember the Greenpeace incident. Not a lot at the moment but they have plans to drill more wells in that field.

[Cog]

"If the price is right and the oil is there, its going to get drilled and produced. Why would anyone think any differently? If not the US, then the Canadians, or the Russians." Just a reminder: the Russians are already producing oil in the offshore Arctic Basin. Remember the Greenpeace incident. Not a lot at the moment but they have plans to drill more wells in that field.

This is an outrage. Our Russian allies are drilling in the pristine Arctic Basin. What is Hillary and Bernie going to do about this?

[JimBof]

"If the price is right and the oil is there, its going to get drilled and produced. Why would anyone think any differently? If not the US, then the Canadians, or the Russians." Just a reminder: the Russians are already producing oil in the offshore Arctic Basin. Remember the Greenpeace incident. Not a lot at the moment but they have plans to drill more wells in that field.

This is an outrage. Our Russian allies are drilling in the pristine Arctic Basin. What is Hillary and Bernie going to do about this?

Scratch their arses?

[Subjectivist]

"If the price is right and the oil is there, its going to get drilled and produced. Why would anyone think any differently? If not the US, then the Canadians, or the Russians." Just a reminder: the Russians are already producing oil in the offshore Arctic Basin. Remember the Greenpeace incident. Not a lot at the moment but they have plans to drill more wells in that field.

This is an outrage. Our Russian allies are drilling in the pristine Arctic Basin. What is Hillary and Bernie going to do about this?

Hiring Russia to drill north coast Alaska for them?

[Tanada]

"If the price is right and the oil is there, its going to get drilled and produced. Why would anyone think any differently? If not the US, then the Canadians, or the Russians." Just a reminder: the Russians are already producing oil in the offshore Arctic Basin. Remember the Greenpeace incident. Not a lot at the moment but they have plans to drill more wells in that field.

This is an outrage. Our Russian allies are drilling in the pristine Arctic Basin. What is Hillary and Bernie going to do about this?

Hiring Russia to drill north coast Alaska for them?

Aye, there's the rub. Not one of the current political crop has any interest in deviating from BAU. They may occasionally pay lip service to global warming, or overpopulation, or even resource depletion/Peak Oil. However none of them have actually done anything that has a real world impact and I seriously doubt they will so long as they can keep propping up BAU or some version of it.

[ennui2]

I have no idea about how such commercial oil reserves are or aren't in the Arctic Basin. But the same was said about the Deep Water GOM in the early days: not much oil there; too environmentally sensitive; too technology challenging/expensive. And today there have been over 150 fields developed out there and have recovered billions of bbls of oil. Won't know what the Artic holds until enough holes are poked. Reminds me of what I read many years ago: the first MAJOR North Sea oil field was discovered by the 93rd wildcat drilled in the basin.

There you go, Pstarr. Now ad-hom Rockman instead of me, because he's saying the exact same thing I did.

[GregT]

What issues would those be?

If you have been unable to figure it out so far, there probably isn't any point in trying to explain it to you.

[peripato]

What issues would those be?

If you have been unable to figure it out so far, there probably isn't any point in trying to explain it to you.

[ennui2]

So will it be the methane burp or the methane calthrate NG give-away party? Do we all perish when the underseas gas hydrate dissociates under AGW warming, or will the open arctic render calthrate natural gas too cheap to meter?

Either way we'll perish due to AGW doom. We just buy a little more eat-drink-and-merry time if we find a way to use the hydrates. That's what the brown-tech future-scenario is all about, which is the world we're actually living in, whether you want to accept it or not. FF has more legs to it than you think.