Oil Depletion Calculator

In my article, "The Big Crunch" I mentioned writing a BASIC computer program to calculate world oil depletion time; from about starting year 2000 to some computed time in the future.
Due to oil industry reluctance to divulge oil reserve data an analyst must make assumptions based on existing available data. Adding up reported oil reserves I started the calculations at world oil reserves as being 1 trillion barrels (1000E9) and World oil consumption at 24 billion barrels (24E9). Oil depletion figures in the year 1999 indicated the depletion rate (reduction in discoveries) as being 2.5% (.025) and the increase in oil discoveries as starting out as 1 barrel discovered for every 4 consumed (.25). Oil consumption was rated as being 1.5% or .015.
The results of the computation is as follows; following is the computer program itself.

Year World Oil Reserves Total New Oil Discoveries, in barrels

1 981,640,000,000 11,850,000,000

5 903,027,811,285 33,823,607,750

10 792,962,591,153 58,338,868,719

15 699,458,159,217 79,939,159,578

20 532,062,426,110 98,971,082,829

25 380,218,620,253 115,740,028,441

30 213,265,490,335 130,515,074,202

35 30,436,537,394 143,533,303,392

36 -8,109,306,478 145,944,970,807



Depletion Program in BASIC (Should work in most BASIC versions)

I wrote this program on a Radio Shack Model 100.

100 Input "Todays Known Oil Reserves"; R
110 Input "Known World Oil consumption"; C
115 Let T=0
120 Let G=C *.25
125 Let T=G
130 For I=100
170 Let C=C+(C*.015)
180 Let R=R+G-C
190 Let G=G-(G*.025)
192 Let T=T+G
195 Print "World Reserves= ";R
197 Print "Growth in World Reserves";T
200 Print "Years ="; I
210 Stop
220 Next I
500 End


Instructions:
1) Type in at prompt known reserves ( I used 1000E9)
2) Type in at prompt oil consumption per year ( I used 24E9).
3) After calculation computer halts and shows results per year on screen: type cont to continue.

With my figures oil is depleted after year 35 and shows a negative figure for year 36. Oil discovers total over 143 billion barrels. When you consider that the most optimistic figure for oil in ANWAR as being 16 billion barrels these figures are illuminating.
This program may appear simple but it calculates a number of positive growing variables and negative declining figures and correcting them against each other to come up with the corrected results.

Illegal Aliens--Bring 'em Out Into The Light

Barack Obama said, in an NALEO meeting, that borders should be controlled, illegal employers should be dealt with regarding "exploiting" illegal aliens, and that 12 million illegal aliens must be brought out into the light so that a pathway to legalization and citizenship could be created.
Virtually the same was said in 1986, which allowed 3 million illegal aliens, out of an then estimated 1.5 million, to be "legalized"; which only encouraged 12 million, maybe double that, to swarm over our borders after 1986.
Bringing illegal alien lawbreakers out of the shadows and into the light is a bogus argument--why not bring robbers, muggers, forgers, rapists, killers out into the light and make them pay fines and promise not break laws again? Why arrest them if their families were to suffer hardships? We now arrest people without hesitation if they use false IDs and false social security numbers in the work place; except of course if they are illegal aliens, it then becomes a "humanitarian" question. The enforcement of laws is now based on a double standard; laws apply to citizens and not to illegal aliens.
Allowing illegal aliens to become citizens is not beneficial to the average American. Anyone proposing and engaged in implementing such a program is working against the average American. How? Allowing 12 to 20 million illegal aliens legality and citizenship creates an economic and social burden on the population. Illegal aliens are generally uneducated and unskilled, in poorer health than the rest of the population, do not speak English well, becomes a tax burden rather than a tax payer, shifts political power that benefits them and not necessarily of a benefit to the general population, creates partisan organizations (that does not benefit the general population), drains public funds and services, creates ghettos, gangs, and crime, and the precedent creates a form of anarchy and disrespect for our laws and social institutions.
The greatest threat by legalizing and incorporation of the illegal aliens is the unscrupulous pandering by the political parties to gain and grow political power to the detriment of the general population. No one has challenged "Comprehensive Immigration" effectively. Valid studies on the subject are dismissed and trivialized, and any studies done are partisan, mostly in favor of Comprehensive Immigration or Amnesty.
Amnesty, from Amnesia, means to "forget"--not forgive. Amnesty given to criminals in the past usually meant that some act by the criminal had to be done before his crimes were "forgot" or put aside. Proponents of the Comprehensive Immigration issue try to say their plan does not involve amnesty because a fine and other requirements must be met means that it is not amnesty. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck its a duck. As soon as the illegal alien applies for legalization he is then "legal" in the eyes of the law. The illegal alien will not pay a stiff fine and learn English before he becomes legal, so the idea that amnesty is not given is bogus. In other words the act of applying and his being known means he/she becomes legal and obtains amnesty. Furthermore the government is not going to follow up on the fine and learning English requirements because funding will just disappear and it will be dropped. All the politicians want is the Latino vote. Simple as that. Oh yeah, employers want cheap compliant labor.

Comprehensive Energy Solutions?

I listened to Bill Richardson mention recently that "We need a comprehensive energy policy" and I immediately thought "what we need is a "comprehensive energy study" first; then we can talk of a "comprehensive energy program". Everyone is running about like a chicken yard full of panicked chickens crying "we need to drill, drill, drill"; or saying other things like "fill up your tank with nuclear power". The public has no idea of what the real numbers are, what solutions are "special interest" based, how much time we have before the crunch happens, or anything else. The people need a consortium drawn up of engineers, geologists, economists, scientists of all kinds to gather facts and derive answers, timetables, and realistic nonpartisan solutions. Without defining the problem we cannot have good answers. So far we have chaos.

Oil And The Numbers

The Oil Industry and their advocates in government are on a roll now that gasoline is over $4 a gallon. Drill in ANWAR, mine oil shale in the Rockies, drill on the Continental Shelf and the Gulf, and drill in National Parks is the theme call. Oil executives being asked about how to "solve" the oil crises propagandize by saying such things as "it takes $50 to $75 a barrel to produce a barrel of oil": what they aren't saying is that only some of the oil takes that amount to produce, whereas Saudi oil may only cost $.75 to $1.00 to produce a barrel of oil. Oil produced in the Gulf costs more to produce than oil produced on land--when compared to its maturity. Oil, when first developed, is usually under pressure and comes up on its own. Later it must be pumped, then when that doesn't produce other methods such as steam injection, water flooding etc. needs be done to the oil reservoir to coax the oil out of the rock. When it costs more to produce than the price of oil covers the oil well is capped and left till prices rise high enough to cover production costs. So, the Oil Executive may be speaking the truth--but not the whole truth of the matter.
The U.S. uses up more than 7 billion barrels of oil a year and population growth is about 1.25%; which means consumption grows 1.25%; or more if part of the population decides to buy Hummers or large SUVs such as they have until prices went through the roof. The U.S. imports at least 60% of its oil and that increases as population grows and U.S. oil depletes. U.S. oil peaked in 1973-4 and has been declining at an accelerated rate ever since. Some claim that we can "drill" ourselves into self-sufficiency--that is like sticking more straws into a milk shake--you may get more milk shake for a short period of time but the milk shake is depleted faster. Drilling doesn't create more oil, it just uses what we have faster. That is better for the oil companies but not for consumers.
Oil advocates state that off shore oil amounts to 10 billion barrels. They claim that amount will free the U.S. from foreign oil for a decade or more. Remember we use 7 billion barrels and more a year. It will take years to explore and produce that oil and production itself is limited by the viscosity of the oil, the size and shape of the oil reservoir, the engineering involved, the profit picture, and luck. There is no way that 10 billion barrels of oil would be enough to offset imports. We would need to find and produce 4 billion barrels of oil a year to be self sufficient. We would need to be able to increase discovery and production above 4 billion barrels a year to keep up with demand. We are far from that figure--oil discoveries and production is declining; not increasing. We have found most of the oil that is to be found--I mean economical oil. Oil that can be produced at a cost that we can afford.
Hydrogen is an example of a fuel that is abundant but not affordable. People can't make enough money to be able to afford high priced oil, or other fuels. Oil executives can slant their case to convince the uninformed for a time, and their friends in government can try to con the public and create loopholes but the truth will come out in time. The point I am trying to make is that we need to move on while we have the resources to do so. If we wait till oil is depleted it will be too late.

Solutions To High Gas Prices

Like the weather everyone gripes about high gas prices but no one seems to have any real solutions to the problem.
Not much has changed in the past year to give cause for speculators to bid up the price for oil--now about $135 a barrel. Not in real terms anyhow. The price for oil has wrought some changes of course--higher food prices, transportation costs and the like, which has caused some changes of course. What has changed is talk about what might happen and the speculators are betting that havoc will cause oil shortages from which they can profit. A bunch of Chicken Littles hoping the sky will fall.
Our government is worse than worthless--calling up oil executives in front of them so they can make the sign of the cross over them and mumble compliments. So what is the solution?
Corporations and investment people are not dumb, they can see a train coming at them and step aside to avoid it. There has to be real hard proposals made. Proposals that has some teeth. The oil and investment people are not about to solve the problem about high gas prices and availability if there is less profit in it for them. Threaten to take away their profits and they might respond. What would do that?
Nationalize energy. The high prices and eventual depletion of oil is a matter of National Security. What better reason than that for nationalization? The U.S. needs more refineries to keep up with gasoline production and the oil industry is not going to spend billions of dollars to increase gasoline production, which is necessary to reduce gas prices. The oil industry is not going to spend billions of dollars converting coal to oil. The competition with oil would bring oil prices down.
Another part of the solution is to regulate investment. Who is doing all the speculation and are they investing on the up and up? No one knows, and they should.
Convert coal to oil. South Africa is doing so and we should too. That would reduce the drain on our national treasure. Billions of dollars is being pipelined to other countries just so we can get to work and shop. Money that could be used much more wisely here at home.
Do away with oil subsidies. If the oil companies want to stick it to us then turn about is fair play.
Then there is another part of the solution; getting rid of Congressmen and women who represent oil companies instead of the people. It is so obvious for who they stand for that it is a wonder that they have lasted as long as they have.
Then there is the National Media. I listened to Glenn Beck the other day talking about nuclear power being the answer to reducing gasoline prices. Where has he been all his life? Nuclear plants generate electricity. We don't have plug in electric cars and trucks as yet so I fail to see his logic there. He talked about ANWR and how drilling there would help bring down gas prices. At the most the region would provide us with less than two years of oil--we use 7 billion barrels of oil a year and at most there might be in ANWR 10 billion barrels, which would take 10 years to begin production.
So, anyone have any other ideas?