It would be folly to labour under the illusion that overall oil and gas supplies are going to grow. Nor should we succumb to the popular notion that we can find enough oil and gas to meet any level of potential demand simply by pouring capital into exploration and development. In classic supply/demand theory, when supply gets tight and demand remains strong, prices rise. If you’re talking about widgets, the solution to the problem is automatic. Manufacturers, enticed by opportunities for profit, spend the money to gear up and make more of them, bringing supply back into balance with demand, moderating prices. But oil and gas exploration isn’t like widget making; investment doesn’t necessarily increase supply. It’s really an exercise governed by the law of diminishing returns. The largest oil and gas deposits are always exploited first, because they’re the easiest to find and the most profitable. Every field, every region, ultimately has the same production history. Production rises quickly after the initial, large discoveries are made. Then it peaks and begins a natural decline that’s partially offset by smaller, secondary discoveries. Eventually, though, production goes into an irreversible, long-term decline, and that is where the world is clearly headed now. (01/17/02)
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The possession of an object does not mean that the possessor has a moral or rational claim to ownership of the object. The political, economic, and social structures of our present world are all based on our concept of ‘property’ and property rights. Recall from the Basics section, my discussion of the shifting of human values as humanity evolves from adversary processing to neutral processing to synergic processing. Adversary wealth is physical force. Neutral wealth is money. And, synergic wealth is mutual life support. Therefore adversary ‘property’ is property obtained by force or fraud, and then held with physical force. Neutral ‘property’ is property purchased in the fair market, and held by right of law enforced by neutral government. Remember Neutrality was an evolutionary advance from Adversity, at the time of Neutrality’s inception most possessions were adversary. They had been obtained through force or fraud and held with physical force. The new institutions of Neutrality never made any attempt to correct what by the new values of Neutrality would be past injustices. Neutral values would prevail in future, but the past was left alone. This resulted in the legal precedent wherein possession is 9/10 of the law. (01/17/02)
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Where is all that Persian Gulf oil going? Look no further than the tank of the SUV sitting in your neighbor’s driveway. Our entire transportation system is based on refined petroleum, and although some fuels the 767s and some moves the trains and boats, most of it fuels the American love affair with the road. That affair, which keeps us locked in the embrace of Osama bin Laden, is one problem. The other is what our consumption of energy is doing to the environment. There was a time, ten years ago or so, when it was possible to hide behind some ambiguities in the data and deny that global warming was under way. Not any more. Although the data aren’t perfect—and never will be—there is almost complete consensus in the scientific community that the way we consume energy has already had an irreversible effect on the planet’s climate. (01/17/02)
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For an electric-power generating station, Mohegan-2 cuts a singularly unimpressive figure. There are no cooling towers raking the sky, no forest of transmission towers, no vast turbines, no giant paddles revolving in mighty rivers. Basically, it looks like a very tall dumpster. But when it is installed as a backup generator at the Connecticut casino Mohegan Sun, after which it is named, the gently humming Mohegan-2 will turn in a performance that any conventional generating plant would be hard pressed to match: it will derive energy from fuel without burning it, turning out 200 kilowatts of electricity, usable heat, and water of a purity that no mountain spring could match while only producing a modest amount of carbon dioxide. Most impressive of all, over time it very well may be able to do all this almost as cheaply as—and more reliably than—conventional power plants. (01/17/02)
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