The Coming Oil Boom - Good for the US economy (short term), bad for the environment

[pampango]

Until very recently, our collective assumption was that oil was running out. That was partly a matter of what seemed like geological common sense. It took millions of years for the earth to crush plankton into fossil fuels; it is logical to think that it would take millions of years to create more. The rise of the emerging markets, with their energy-hungry billions, was a further reason it seemed obvious we would have less oil and gas in 2020 than we do today.

Obvious — but wrong. Thanks in part to technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking, we are entering a new age of abundant oil. As the energy expert Leonardo Maugeri contends in a recent report published by the Belfer Center at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, “contrary to what most people believe, oil supply capacity is growing worldwide at such an unprecedented level that it might outpace consumption.”

The implications for the climate change debate are even more fraught. Until now, the arithmetic of oil supply and the agenda of environmentalists conveniently dovetailed. Since we were running out of oil anyway, environmentally motivated efforts to limit fossil fuel consumption and increase our use of renewable energy boasted the additional virtue of being inevitable. In an age of abundant oil, those economically utilitarian arguments lose their power.

For environmentalists, and for the liberal political parties with which they are usually aligned, that poses a serious challenge. The temptation will be to oppose new oil production projects indiscriminately. That instinct could be politically dangerous. Political progress in combating climate change has been slow, but the battle for hearts and minds, especially of the younger generation, is being won. That political capital can be lost in an instant if the environmental movement allows itself to be equated with opposition to one of the lone sources of growth — and of good blue-collar jobs — at a time of global economic stagnation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/us/10iht-letter10.html?_r=1

The author projects the year 2015 as a tipping point in terms of the new oil hitting the market and making an impact. I have never heard of the Belfer Center and don't know what its political leanings are.

I would agree with the unfortunate reality that peak oil and the need to switch large scale to alternative energies provided an impetus to the green economy. That may be a tougher sell IF the predictions in this report prove to be accurate.

[bananas]

1. Obama's Science Advisor John Holdren is on leave from the Belfer Center

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/experts/140/john_p_holdren.html

[Zalatix]

2. How are they extracting oil shale cheaply?

Much less as cheaply as light sweet crude?

I smell BS.

[Ralph058]

3. Maugeri is a retired oil company executive

I believe that he is irresponsible for declaring that we are not going to run out of oil (or the NYT is). We are going to run out of oil unless we stop using it entirely. It isn't a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

When I was in high school, we were told there was another 50 years of oil available. Well, now it is over 52 years later and we still have a lot of it. However, we will run out. There is no new oil being made. It may be 100 years. It may be 200 years. Or the predictions I hear a few months ago of another 50 years may be right. I don't have the insight for that.

The side effects of using oil are such that it is important to cut our dependency. Those side effects are social, economic, and political as well as the obvious environmental impact.