Hurricane Katrina

[kapkomet]

 

Your avatar is hilarious, Flaxx.

[Balta1701]

Brian Williams's Blog...

 

I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.

[Balta1701]

As far as all press reports right nwo are saying...George W. Bush has placed that veteran of many reconstructions, Karl Rove, in charge of contracting and rebuilding on the Gulf Coast. Yes, I said Karl Rove.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

I agree, but that hasn't stopped Big Oil's lobbyists from exploiting this national tradegy to their own ends, both as justification for future price increases and as a reason to pursue more drilling in other areas.

 

 

 

 

Thats why I doubled my position in Halliburton after the hurricane hit.

[YASNY]

I agree, but that hasn't stopped Big Oil's lobbyists from exploiting this national tradegy to their own ends, both as justification for future price increases and as a reason to pursue more drilling in other areas.

 

If anything, this should serve as strong evidence that no matter what promises the oil companies give that there will be no environmental impact from their operations, the reality of unforseen events (natural and manmade) is an entirely different matter.

 

So we should stop supplying our own oil?

[FlaSoxxJim]

So we should stop supplying our own oil?

We shouldn't fall for any bulls*** lines about the minimal footprint of extraction operations and the negligible impact it will have on surrounding natural systems.

 

We shouldn't fall for scare tactics suggesting that opening ANWR and other protected areas up to drilling will actually even do anything to alleviate fuel shortages or high prices. If ANWR opened up today it wouldn't add anything to the energy supply line for a decade.

 

And the government should absolutely require that the energy companies that win the contracts if such areas are opened (as inevitably many will be) place several billion dollars into escrow accounts BEFORE they begin operations to cover cleanup costs when human error results in spills.

[YASNY]

We shouldn't fall for any bulls*** lines about the minimal footprint of extraction operations and the negligible impact it will have on surrounding natural systems.

 

We shouldn't fall for scare tactics suggesting that opening ANWR and other protected areas up to drilling will actually even do anything to alleviate fuel shortages or high prices.  If ANWR opened up today it wouldn't add anything to the energy supply line for a decade.

 

And the government should absolutely require that the energy companies that win the contracts if such areas are opened (as inevitably many will be) place several billion dollars into escrow accounts BEFORE they begin operations to cover cleanup costs when human error results in spills.

 

Well, just call it a guess, but I believe we'll be needing some oil in a decade. But I could be wrong. And for the oil companies wanting to drill in other areas, wtf is wrong with that? We need oil, they are in business to supply it to us. When 25% of our domestic oil comes from one geographic area, and it gets hammered with a natural disater, it seems diversity in location just might be a good idea.

[Balta1701]

Well, just call it a guess, but I believe we'll be needing some oil in a decade.  But I could be wrong.  And for the oil companies wanting to drill in other areas, wtf is wrong with that?  We need oil, they are in business to supply it to us.  When 25% of our domestic oil comes from one geographic area, and it gets hammered with a natural disater, it seems diversity in location just might be a good idea.

First of all...in about a decade, yeah that oil will be useful, but it will be simply a small drop in the bucket compared to the 2 dominant effects we are going to see in the oil market:

 

1. Oil demand is rising at an unsustainable rate

2. Oil supply has very nearly peaked, or is at least growing at a crawl.

 

By the time that oil comes on line...we're already going to be well past the tipping point where the world wants to consume more oil than it can produce. It will be at least 10 years before the first oil comes out of there, and it will be 20 years before the oil from that field reaches peak production. By that point, we'll be talking about deficits of supply on the order of 10 million + barrels per day, and the most that we'll ever pull out of that field is about 600,000 barrels per day.

 

There's a reason 25%of our domestic oil comes from the Delta...that's the only place in the U.S. where there is a lot of cheap, accessible oil. This nation has less than 4% of the world's oil reserves. No matter how much you want to produce elsewhere, production simply cannot keep up with the demand for oil in this country. It is actually impossible. The only solution is to work to reduce demand.

[Rex Hudler]

One question, one comment.........

 

Comment - The world demand for oil will not continue at its current rate. At some point, and I think it is already coming, consumers will go back to being more concerned about fuel efficiency and the types of vehicles manufactured/purchased will adjust and slow the increase in demand, if not decrease it from current levels.

 

Question for those that know more about oil than I do - Is the supply of oil in this country a bigger problem than our ability to refine it into gasoline? The number of refineries has dropped dramatically in this country in recent years so I am wondering if our ability to produce gasoline might be or become a bigger problem then our ability to produce/purchase oil.

[Balta1701]

One question, one comment.........

 

Comment - The world demand for oil will not continue at its current rate.  At some point, and I think it is already coming, consumers will go back to being more concerned about fuel efficiency and the types of vehicles manufactured/purchased will adjust and slow the increase in demand, if not decrease it from current levels.

 

Question for those that know more about oil than I do - Is the supply of oil in this country a bigger problem than our ability to refine it into gasoline?  The number of refineries has dropped dramatically in this country in recent years so I am wondering if our ability to produce gasoline might be or become a bigger problem then our ability to produce/purchase oil.

First, it doesnt' matter if more fuel efficient vehciles become the norm...the reality is this...

 

1. China and India are growing at obscene rates. Those 2 nations are increasing their number of cars massively. Even if fuel efficiency increases, it will not even come close to offsetting the increased demand as those 2 nations industrialize.

 

2. Even if consumers do become more concerned with fuel efficiency, that only matters if the ability of the world to produce oil keeps growing or even remains constant. But history has shown this is not the case. In virtually every oil field ever found, production increases for a period, then decreases following a curve that is fairly nearly gaussian. This pattern is seen worldwide...in oil fields, nations, and most likely even the world. In other words, it's entirely possible that within a few years, not only will we not be increasing the supply of oil, the supply of oil may tip and begin rapidly decereasing.

 

And on your second point...no, the issue is not one of refining capacity. Our ability to produce oil is by far the biggest kink point in this nation. Playing around with refining capacity is one of those things that oil companies do to try to push the price up so that they can make more profit per gallon.

 

For example, like 2 years ago out here in CA, Shell wanted to shut down a refinery that was in fact quite profitable, and which produced like 7% of CA's diesel fuel. There was no rational business reason to shut it down, unless you wanted to put less gas onto hte market to push up the price. California would not let them shutter the plant, and forced them to sell it to Flying J, who happily bought it up and is making a tidy profit off of the plant.

[Rex Kickass]

Actually, it will help getting a fuel efficient car now. That isn't a long term solution, more a short-term one. But more fuel efficiency now buys us more time for a long term solution in the mean time.

[LosMediasBlancas]

Rita, might swing west and hit Tx. and La.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/19/trop...ther/index.html

[southsider2k5]

All of those thousands dead, still have not materialized. So far there are only 579 dead officially in New Orleans. Also they are estimating only 40% of the city under water now.

[Balta1701]

All of those thousands dead, still have not materialized.  So far there are only 579 dead officially in New Orleans.  Also they are estimating only 40% of the city under water now.

They are estimating that the water will be pumped out by the end of the month, maybe even sooner.

 

The difficulty in evaluating the casualty tolls right now is that we really don't know how much of the city has actually been searched, and if so, how many bodies have actually been policed up.

 

For example, we saw just last week an example of a unit with instructions to simply mark houses that may contain bodies, with the intention of coming back to police them up later.

 

Anywho...hopefully the lack of bodies is a positive sign.

[KipWellsFan]

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT1.../151209W_sm.gif

 

[southsider2k5]

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT1.../151209W_sm.gif

 

 

 

The center of that circle is a dead on aim for Houston Texas, which has the biggest gasoline refinaries in the country in Texas City, Texas... not to mention a metro area of about 5 million people, give or take a few. The far east track line is almost exactly what Katrina did.

[Balta1701]

Right now, the 17th street Levee gap is filled by a bunch of sandbags...so if it gets hit by any wind at all...that city could very well re-flood completely.

 

It also is again on path to hit the exact same sort of waters that turned Katrina into a cat 5.

 

Hopefully...people will have learned to get the Hell out of the way of this one if it stays on its current path.

 

BTW, in order for that storm to make a beeline to Houston, it would have to pass right through Galveston, Texas...the site of the current worst natural disaster in U.S. history in terms of loss of life.

 

http://www.noaa.gov/galveston1900/

[southsider2k5]

Right now, the 17th street Levee gap is filled by a bunch of sandbags...so if it gets hit by any wind at all...that city could very well re-flood completely.

 

It also is again on path to hit the exact same sort of waters that turned Katrina into a cat 5.

 

Hopefully...people will have learned to get the Hell out of the way of this one if it stays on its current path.

 

BTW, in order for that storm to make a beeline to Houston, it would have to pass right through Galveston, Texas...the site of the current worst natural disaster in U.S. history in terms of loss of life.

 

http://www.noaa.gov/galveston1900/

 

If anyone ever wants to watch a compelling story about this, try catching "Isaac's Storm" on the History Channel when it comes on again. Galveston was the biggest city in the state of Texas in 1900 when this storm hit. The devestation and dead were incredible. Galveston is a lot better equipped to handle storms of this nature today as evidenced by the hit they took from Hurricane Alicia in 1983. They also remembered a valuable lesson in leaving the island if there is going to be a hurricane.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/huricane/history/walicia.htm

[FlaSoxxJim]

No matter how much you want to produce elsewhere, production simply cannot keep up with the demand for oil in this country.  It is actually impossible.  The only solution is to work to reduce demand.

 

Balta, I had a question. There's a lot of yahoos talking about heat extraction of oil from oil shale rock finally being technically feasible, if not yet economically so. Of course I hope they never try this on a commercial scale since it will be the beginning of the end of a lot of relatively intact hatural habitat out west. But when the oil yahoos hear stats that note we have like half the world's oil shale deposits, and that there are billions of gallons of oil locked up in the shale (regardles of theimpractibility of extraction), they start to hatch some wild schemes.

 

What's your professional take? Is big energy going to turn more attention to the shale, other than the pilot heat-extraction studies that have been carried out so far?

[Queen Prawn]

If anyone ever wants to watch a compelling story about this, try catching "Isaac's Storm" on the History Channel when it comes on again.  Galveston was the biggest city in the state of Texas in 1900 when this storm hit.  The devestation and dead were incredible.  Galveston is a lot better equipped to handle storms of this nature today as evidenced by the hit they took from Hurricane Alicia in 1983.  They also remembered a valuable lesson in leaving the island if there is going to be a hurricane.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/huricane/history/walicia.htm

 

I've seen that twice - it is something else the damage that was caused. I am looking to get the book as well.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Oil spiked 4 and some change to 67.5 a barrel today cause of concerns about the new hurricane forming near Florida.

[southsider2k5]

Oil spiked 4 and some change to 67.5 a barrel today cause of concerns about the new hurricane forming near Florida.

 

That and they aren't sure OPEC is going to raise production at all.

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

That and they aren't sure OPEC is going to raise production at all.

 

 

It really doesn't matter that much if they raise production or not, if the market gets it in its head that oil is gonna run then oil is gonna run. All that increased production will do is fatten the bottom lines of XOM and COP and their peers.

[Balta1701]

That and they aren't sure OPEC is going to raise production at all.

Even if Opec wanted to raise production, I'm fairly certain they couldn't. They are literally maxed out.

 

The last time Saudi Arabia tried to raise production by releasing more oil, it turned out that the oil they released wasn't the usual Saudi Light, sweet crude, but it was in fact the heavier, sulfur-laden junk that takes forever and costs a fortune to process...in other words, it was the end-of-the-line type stuff.

 

The only spare capacity left anywhere within OPEC is in Iraq, and it keeps being blown apart.

[southsider2k5]

That story about the nursing home drownding is not agreeing with the timeline of events...

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9368952