Is It the Beginning of the End for Suburbia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

Good point. This is an article of almost religious faith on the part of conservative Americans, but the evidence all points to the contrary. The "conspiracy theory" that there's PLENTY of oil left (where?) is what drives calls for drilling in ANWR, off-shore, and other places in North America. But North America has been completely explored, we know where the oil is, and how much there is. ANWR has about 14 months of supply.

In the most charitable case, we should be keeping that oil in the ground for the extremely lean times to come. In the least charitable case, drilling in ANWR is like tearing apart your $2400 couch because rent's due, you're $500 short, and you know there's some loose change down in there. It's the definition of short-sighted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

Yep, there's going to be incrementally less oil produced, and significantly more demand as countries like China and India continue to come online. More competition for fewer resources is quite literally a recipe for disaster.

Folks who are heavily invested in the suburban lifestyle and can't imagine things will ever be different than they are today remind me of the Lyuba character from The Cherry Orchard: it's over, you just haven't been told yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

new technology and higher oil prices make a lot more oil recoverable. look at what is happening right now in Canada and Texas. plenty of oil left, but that doesn't mean we should not be investing heavily in natural gas plants and nuclear plans to lessen our dependence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suburban life is not going to change. People are still spread out in countries where the price of gas is already that high due to taxation. Behavior might change, such as car purchases, telecommuting, use of public transportation, etc. And companies might locate nearer to where people live - ie, the suburbs.

But an extra grand of gas does not make people want to move into already overcrowded cities, with real estate prices between 2 and 4 times the suburban equivalent.
.

So why is gas about 80 cents a gallon more expensive in DC than it is in Rockville? Is that all DC gas taxes?

[Anonymous]

It would help a lot if we all dumped the gas guzzlers and drove hybrids. Unfortunately, hybrids are not being manufactured in droves so the price remains high even though deman is high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

Oil is not as simple as you make it out to be. This is more descriptive of the Saudi reserves than the world as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

Yep, there's going to be incrementally less oil produced, and significantly more demand as countries like China and India continue to come online. More competition for fewer resources is quite literally a recipe for disaster.

Folks who are heavily invested in the suburban lifestyle and can't imagine things will ever be different than they are today remind me of the Lyuba character from The Cherry Orchard: it's over, you just haven't been told yet.

Gotta love it when someone tries to bend a problem into validation for their personal lifestyle. Sorry but while oil prices will change much about our society, baving a starbucks and an upscale cupcake store within walking distance will never be an economic necessity.

[Anonymous]

I don't think the fate of suburbs is the biggest problem here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

Yep, there's going to be incrementally less oil produced, and significantly more demand as countries like China and India continue to come online. More competition for fewer resources is quite literally a recipe for disaster.

Folks who are heavily invested in the suburban lifestyle and can't imagine things will ever be different than they are today remind me of the Lyuba character from The Cherry Orchard: it's over, you just haven't been told yet.

Gotta love it when someone tries to bend a problem into validation for their personal lifestyle. Sorry but while oil prices will change much about our society, baving a starbucks and an upscale cupcake store within walking distance will never be an economic necessity.

Next chapter in the suburbanization of poverty:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/housing-vouchers-a-golden-ticket-to-pricey-suburbs/2011/06/23/AGDNc7kH_story.html

A huge number of Section 8 contracts expired recently. In the city, many of those are moving to market rate. There's a massive supply in the suburbs, though. Housing bubble and the resultant foreclosures is the last piece that will transform the city-suburb relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:and there is PLENTY of oil left. just need to go get it.

The world oil supply peaked in 2005. The sources that are left and yet untapped can indeed be accessed, but only at higher and higher prices. And as the supply becomes less free-flowing than it used to be, there will be more and more rooms for speculators/derivative traders to artificially cause temporary spikes in the market to make a quick buck at the world's expense, just as they did in 2008 with staple crops while purshing 100s of millions of poor people in developing countries closer to starvation.

new technology and higher oil prices make a lot more oil recoverable. look at what is happening right now in Canada and Texas. plenty of oil left, but that doesn't mean we should not be investing heavily in natural gas plants and nuclear plans to lessen our dependence.

The idea that shale oil from Canada will be some sort of replacement for declines in current production is the equivalent of folks touting switchgrass as a general answer. In other words, it's a pipe-dream. And "new-technology" is just hand-waving. Sorry, but you can't just assume new technologies will come online--if you could, we'd have cheap fusion power, flying cars, and vacation homes on the moon by now. All of those things were predicted in the 1950s. Still waiting.

[Anonymous]

Both of you act like experts but both of you are talking out your asses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both of you act like experts but both of you are talking out your asses.

I am not one of the two you are criticizing, but at least they are expressing opinions about a political topic, as opposed to just sniping. If they are wrong, please supply some information to correct their misconceptions.

[Anonymous]

Well it s tough to know where to start. Recovery technologies are a stopgap and in many cases there s someone looking for a subsidy who will gladly take your country's money. Don't get me wrong, there are successes like Venezuela with heavy oil or tar sands. But oil shale is one of those canards from the 70's and it will die one way or another. But better exploration / drilling technology is the bigger deal.

The reason why has to do with the other poster's comment that oil peaked as thou it is on an inevitable decline. Oil is in the ground. We just need to find it. To this day oil exploration wells run a 30-50% success rate. It is true that Saudi Arabia is on the decline and that makes for great uncertainty but it does not mean the oil is gone. When prices rise exploration rises. The future of oil is finding large fields like Tupi. I am not saying that oil will last forever but the doom and gloom poster is taking a few facts mostly about Saudi and predicting the end of oil.

Slowing our rate of consumption is serious business, but you can't talk like an oil expert having read a few articles in the economist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well it s tough to know where to start. Recovery technologies are a stopgap and in many cases there s someone looking for a subsidy who will gladly take your country's money. Don't get me wrong, there are successes like Venezuela with heavy oil or tar sands. But oil shale is one of those canards from the 70's and it will die one way or another. But better exploration / drilling technology is the bigger deal.

The reason why has to do with the other poster's comment that oil peaked as thou it is on an inevitable decline. Oil is in the ground. We just need to find it. To this day oil exploration wells run a 30-50% success rate. It is true that Saudi Arabia is on the decline and that makes for great uncertainty but it does not mean the oil is gone. When prices rise exploration rises. The future of oil is finding large fields like Tupi. I am not saying that oil will last forever but the doom and gloom poster is taking a few facts mostly about Saudi and predicting the end of oil.

Slowing our rate of consumption is serious business, but you can't talk like an oil expert having read a few articles in the economist.

It's facile to say that "the future of oil is to find large finds like Tupi". Hoping that there are an unlimited number of mega-fields is childish.

"If one tries to put Tupi - a genuinely large find - into context of world consumption, we see what kind of problems face a world at, or approaching, a peak in world oil consumption. Tupi has 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, but it will not reach a fraction of that in terms of production until around 2011 to 2012 when it may, and we repeat may, reach 100,000 barrels per day of output.

That is a mere fraction of what it will take to cover the natural decline of maturing provinces. It is a drop in the ocean of what will never be recovered from the terribly badly damaged fields in Iraq - Kirkuk will never reach 1 million barrels per day - or the drop in production from the UK and Norwegian north sea.

But even if we took a wildly optimistic stance and said Tupi would hit 300,000 barrels per day by 2015, which is most unlikely, then we face the prospect that the oil produced from Tupi will end up…in Brazil. Brazil itself is a giant country, it will only be self-sufficient in hydrocarbons for around a decade, and Petrobras has already said if it has anything to export from Tupi it will be gasoline or other products."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well it s tough to know where to start. Recovery technologies are a stopgap and in many cases there s someone looking for a subsidy who will gladly take your country's money. Don't get me wrong, there are successes like Venezuela with heavy oil or tar sands. But oil shale is one of those canards from the 70's and it will die one way or another. But better exploration / drilling technology is the bigger deal.

The reason why has to do with the other poster's comment that oil peaked as thou it is on an inevitable decline. Oil is in the ground. We just need to find it. To this day oil exploration wells run a 30-50% success rate. It is true that Saudi Arabia is on the decline and that makes for great uncertainty but it does not mean the oil is gone. When prices rise exploration rises. The future of oil is finding large fields like Tupi. I am not saying that oil will last forever but the doom and gloom poster is taking a few facts mostly about Saudi and predicting the end of oil.

Slowing our rate of consumption is serious business, but you can't talk like an oil expert having read a few articles in the economist.

IOW, we'll always find new technology to save us, and a weekly discovery of abnormally large oil fields will become the new normal. Plus we'll all have jetpacks.