Will "Big Oil" allow a quick switch to alternative energy ?

Question

If you made billions each year from people buying your product what incentive do you have to allow anyone to provide a viable alternative to your product before you have depleted your current stockpile ?

With the new breakthroughs in renewable energy and the current "Energy Crisis" you would think that the world super powers would be pushing us more in to renewable energy instead of simply hiking the price of the current resource because of "Green Issues".

I personally think that they already have a "Plan B" for the oil running dry but they wont do anything about it until they milk every last penny out of the current dirty resources which are easily taxed and regulated.

The US government, for example, recently decided to put all solar projects on hold for around two years while they "Had a think about it" but there was such an outcry they were forced to do a u-turn. Why would anyone spend two years having a ponder over an alternative as sustainable as the sun when the oil supplies are as critically low as the elites claim they are ?

Do you think that the people who rule the world and line their pockets with our hard earned cash will allow their cash cows (oil, gas, coal) to be replaced with something that they can't levy a simple tax on until they have no option ?

Answer 1

I really think you should buy the book

<acoholisagas.com>

Coast to coast , talk radio in there archives about .three weeks ago. two hours of basic info about the book.

It was a great show.

Answer 2

Big Oil (like the Big Three) are sitting on a vast warehouse of alternative fuels and alternative engines, but what they've been lacking is the impetus to dust these things off and put them to use. But that impetus has finally arrived in three distinct forms; three extremely (for them) terrifying forms: high oil prices per barrel; Peak Oil from the Arabian oil fields; Green consciousness.

High oil price per barrel is not something that is going to go away any time soon. The causes are myriad, but one of the factors is the sense of crisis in the Middle East. The Iraqi-American war is tertiary to that; what is really causing panic in the Arabian oil fields is the knowledge that the fields have reached Peak Performance.

Peak Oil refers to the theory that all oil fields will move in a course which roughly describes a hill--it goes up, reaches the plateau (or peak) and then descends. This concept was originally postulated by a Geologist named M. King Hubbert. He said that Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. He predicted that the USA would reach peak production and begin decline in 1970. He was right. Peak Oil production in the Arabian oil fields has apparently been reached, and now begins their decline as well.

But it is Green consciousness which really worries the oil and car people. Once upon a time, the concerns about the environment were tossed aside as the bleatings of "Ecology Nuts", but in the light of Global Warming and rising greenhouse gases (and skyrocketing oil prices) the idea of a car that gets 50-60 miles a gallon are very tempting. Already, old SUV's are being called 'dinosaurs', and new ones are gathering dust in showrooms all over the world.

You ask, "Do you think that the people who rule the world and line their pockets with our hard earned cash will allow their cash cows (oil, gas, coal) to be replaced with something that they can't levy a simple tax on until they have no option ?"

Actually that's the least of their worries. Sheer survival is taking precedence over simple greed.

For the Saudis, for example, they must now put away their toys and deal with the fact that for seventy years they have built their entire culture based on oil, a finite resource. They have bought jets, built palaces, taken long and expensive vacations, but they have virtually no infrastructure! They cannot feed their own people with their land, which is still desert. Virtually all necessities are imported. They have made investments, yes, but nothing which will prop up their country once the oil is depleted! This is one of the factors which is driving oil prices up: they have to make up for lost time and build these things now.

For the Big Three, time is also a precious commodity. As little as three years ago, there was a board meeting at GM in which one member put forth the idea of bringing back the Volt, GM's electric car. His suggestion was shouted down, and the decision was made to concentrate on SUV's instead. Now, GM is working overtime to bring back the Volt, and literally spending one billion dollars a month (!) to incorporate hybrid technology into their current manufacturing centers in order to stay alive. If GM (and other US manufacturers) wish to survive, they need to adapt.

Sixty-five million years ago, a comet slammed into the Yucatan peninsula and brought about a worldwide climate change. Within a few short years the entire world was changed, and the lumbering dinosaurs which had ruled for so long died out. In a like fashion, the current climate change and the disappearance of the dinosaur remains (fossil fuels) are necessitating another change in the evolution of transport and the way humans behave. Those who adapt will go on; those who refuse to change will perish. Such is the way of the world.

Perhaps evolution is the biggest conspiracy of all.

Answer 3

This is an interesting and complicated question.

Is the president of the United States in the pocket of the oil companies. The current incumbent certainly appears so. America is still a super power and that power is oil fuelled.

How much oil, coal and gas is there left? You can be sure that no government is going to set a date and say that's it the barrel is dry. They will increase the price to reduce demand and make it last longer; so fair point, the rich will become richer in relation to the poor. As for a plan B); that might be wishful thinking. Self sustainable populations require controlled numbers and that would mean culling societies weakest and least productive, (echoes of Adolf Hitler). Nuclear power is the option that will be taken, but remove transport and towns will have to be created solely so the workforce doesn't have to travel, (Chernobyl).

Looking at this solar power idea, I can see why you wouldn't want to rush. In order for these panels to work at optimum you have to kill all plant life around them, which means the animals will die. That's what turned savanah into desert in the first place. No oil and food imports take a massive dive. Plan C) might involve cultivation of these waste lands at a later date. If they are completely devoid of life, that's going to be difficult, nor does it address global warming and weather pattern shift. If the Chinese keep building coal powered power stations, who says Nevada will be sunny in 50 years time?

Conspiracy theory? - The less you know the less you worry :0)

Answer 4

A change of heart / tactics (decisions based on understanding & empathy, not cruel indifference & capitalism) might make all the difference.

I don't understand why organisations such as BP, don't offer the public solar-corporation strength solar collectors for our roofs

(cells built-in, not panels stuck on top).

The international market for makng the public and businesses

self-sufficient re: energy is obviously huge, and due to significantly lower overheads, such a venture will be just as, if not far more profitable,

esp. when considering the long-term

because, I fear, the governments  answer to oil-peak

is orchestrated holocaust (doomsday)

which will mean far fewer customers.

Selling this vital equipment / kit i.e. producing a viable alternative

(such cells should also power transport)

(plus technology is improving all the time...)

would help to Save the Planet

from deadly pollution; also all the exploitative / explorative

drilling deep into the Earth's crust for fossil fuels can stop.

Oh God. (Poignant pause).

Light begins to dawn...

Light has the potential to change the world... everything...

Answer 5

It makes me cringe when I see these companies dipping into alternative energy sources and broadcasting tv commercials concerning it!  They need control and we need to be more self-sufficient.

Answer 6

About 40 years ago, I designed and patented a gas turbine / electric car engine.  Some work was still needed, but the theory was that it would run on just about any volatile liquid and would offer about twice the mileage of car engines at the time.  Shell bought the patent - just to make sure no-one ever built one.

The oil industry is the world's most powerful economic force.  They effectively run the US Presidency (you need billions to become president - so who else would put up the cash).  The USA will support the oil industry until the last drop is out of the ground - then both will collapse.

Answer 7

Not until they have adequate control of it.  Until them, they will oppose all policy and work to obstruct the the facts about anthropogenic global warming.

Answer 8

It's not "big oil"'s responsibility to create competition for themselves.  Unlike the self-promoting, useless movements that need a boogeyman to scare people into supporting then, oil companies actually produce a useful and necessary product that sells at a fair price!  If anything was better and cheaper, it would quickly put "big oil" out of business.

Why don't we have buggy whips factories any more?  Could it be that someone invented something else that people actually preferred to horse and buggy?  

This will happen with the oil companies some day also.  As soon as someone invents a practical, portable SOURCE of energy (not just a better battery or fuel cell or spring: all energy storage systems and not energy sources) then there will no longer be a reason for people to buy oil (except of course for lubrication, plastics, pharmaceuticals, personal hygeine products, water purification equipment, etc.)

Governments, no matter what the party or idealology, have one goal: Stay in power.  Corporations are no different than a democracy.  They are run by their stock holders (even the California teacher's union is a big oil stock holder and is benefitting from the oil price run-up) just as a democracy is run by the citizens.  The only difference is: corporations have to obey laws and governments don't.

There is only one ultimate solution to the earth's energy requirements.  It will come eventually.  It may take hundreds of years or it may happen tomorrow but it will happen and when it does, life on earth as we know it will be changed forever.  What I'm talking about is

FUSION POWER.

So use the oil now but invest in fusion for the future.  Hydrogen fuel cells, solar, wind and batteries are all a government smokescreen and distraction from what is really important.  We can't all become Amish and the utopian hippies of the 60's have all grown up or OD'ed.

Don't forget, money is created by governments for the good of its people and governments control the value of money based on how much of it they spend (governments ultimately only spend money to buy votes).  Because governments print money, the more a government spends, the less the money is worth.

But then...

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other."  - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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Update:

just_another - If the average net worth for all the world's population is $6,074 (world net worth $40.7 Trillion / world population 6.7 Billion), and you distribute that average net worth equally among all the people of this planet so no person has more or less than $6,074, then who will build the roads, parks, houses, airplanes, ships, schools, factories?  Who will drill the oil, build the infrastructure to support the internet, have the money to start a computer company like Michael Dell did?  Who will build the transportation grids to get food to all these people who no longer have someone to work for?  How long would the money last in the hands of so many nonproductive people?

Even Jesus said "..you always have the poor with you.." (Mark 14:7) and He had the power to change the world.

Answer 9

yes they have to think ahead get on the ladder before anybody else , if they want to stay making the billions as you say .it`s just good business seance  

Answer 10

That's why so much oil money is fueling McCain's campaign! If the people finally wake up to realize that abrupt climate change is happening,then something might get done.  We can't 'drill' our way out of EXTINCTION!

Answer 11

the US government put a hold on solar projects?

the US government will pay you up to $3,500 dollars to put up solar panels or wind generators AND give up to $2,500 off on your taxes....

stop blaming a vast conspiracy and take some personal responsibility for your power consumption.......turn off the TV and the DVD for starters....

and ask not what your country can do for you

ask what you can do for yourself.....

Answer 12

If you thing "big oil" won't have their finger in the pie of any alternative fuels, you misjudge them

You can't sell sunshine, but the tools to gather it can cost