Axel6

First off, why should the oil companies find a "solution" to the energy crisis unless it involves their CORE BUSINESS, exploring for oil? Correct me if I'm wrong, but shareholders for the major oil companies care only about profits, which they are making at a good clip as of late.

If you want to invest in alternative energy, put your money into those companies that seek to develop said resources. Don't ask an oil company to do it. And for Christ's sake don't have the government implement a "windfall tax" to force them into it. Think about it, if you were a shareholder of GM and someone said they were requiring you to invest in bicycles, what would YOU do as a shareholder?

One of the main reasons we're in this mess is because the Fed has lowered interest rates so precipitously as to make the dollar-denominated oil market sky rocket with an ever sinking dollar. Shore up the currency, increase supply and provide incentives for alternatives. Why is that so difficult to fathom for the tax-n-spend tree-huggers amongst us?

JonBoy

You don't have to mine to get oil out of shale; it's just a lot more expensive to do it other ways. Chevron and Shell have been experimenting with in situ heating of oil deposits in shale for years. That process has been proven to work but it just takes a while. They've worked out a number of issues and I believe that, at current oil prices, it's more than viable. I believe it's more an issue of government permission right now than anything.

The Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta are a different animal and strip mining is definitely the preferred way there. Recovery is fairly straightforward and now that the infrastructure is there, viability is increasing as time goes on. There are an estimated 1.7 TRILLION barrels of oil there, though only 10% were considered viable a few months ago. Still, that's a lot! With technology improvements, it's very possible that some of the rest of it will also start to become viable.

NEODYMIUM

$130 per barrel price is not a result of the production cost, it's a result of market forces. If it costs $50 to produce something in a market that sells the product for $130 it sounds like there are some profits to be made. Oil shale is currently economically feasible. Shell has already invested millions in it.

archtop

The best thing out of this whole oil mess is that we are "finally" realizing it's time to get serious about alt. energy.

C6400hp

Interesting articles.

Click

Clack

archtop

Thanks,very interesting!

Communist_StooK

I wish there were an oil well in my backyard right about now.

s2kpdx01

There is no way demand went up 40% in 1 year or supply went down 40% in 1 years for oil ($80 a barrel in 2007 vs $130 in 2008). The current price has nothing to do with supply and demand it's all speculative BS.

With that said I'm all for getting ourselves of the foreign energy teat. If all of a sudden the US market wanted to buy a lot less oil then usual I think OPEC and others would come around pretty quickly.

dombey

I say drill. Why the hell not? I don't buy the environmental argument. Back when those laws were passed, David Hasselhoff was really cool and honda made crappy cars. The environmental threat is nothing like it used to be because the technologies that have been developed.

As long as the cost<price, we should be doing it.

There should also be legislation around reducing the amount of speculation in the market.

I do however agree that high prices will force the world to innovate like never before, which is good in the long term. So, I don't really give a crap one way or another. The one thing I'm positive of is that a windfall profit tax is the worst idea I've ever heard, so as long as we don't do that, I'm happy. Of course, I don't really believe the dems actually want to do that....it's all pandering to the michael moores of the world that think the oil companies are the devil and the only way to save the world is to stick them w/ excessive taxes. Anything for a vote.

s2kpdx01

^ Wait, hasselhoff isn't still cool?