5 ms·

I'm not sufficiently versed to have this opinion probably, but why are we building pipelines all over the place? Isn't oil a dinosaur (heh heh) at this point? I

I'm not sufficiently versed to have this opinion probably, but why are we building pipelines all over the place? Isn't oil a dinosaur (heh heh) at this point? I mean, no, obviously the world runs on it, but I expect to in my lifetime see insane leaps in solar tech and rollout, huge jumps in the percentages of electric cars on the roads, driverless cars reconfigure if and how people buy cars, and so on. Is the US really growing its oil use so much we need two or three new pipelines?

slavik81 10y ago
It's not use that has changed. It's production. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=a https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...
naterr 10y ago
This pipeline removes 7 unit trains a day from the rails through Minnesota to Illinois, the bakken makes about a million+/- bbls a day, and will for quite some time.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  The solution seems to be to drive the price of oil up then, no?
  - zrail 10y ago
    Higher oil prices are good for the Bakken. It's not economically feasible to get at that oil at lower prices, which is one possible reason for the recent over production from the Middle East. Drive the price down low enough and the companies working in the Bakken fold, send their workers home, and it takes a long time to build back up.
    - koverstreet 10y ago
      But higher oil prices do drive down the use of oil in general.
      - zrail 10y ago
        Oil has highly inelastic demand in the short term. People need to drive to work. Goods need to be transported either by train, ship, or truck. Planes are still jam packed with people. In the long term high oil prices will modify demand because people will start buying more efficient vehicles. You can see this happening in the decade starting in 2001 because prices spiked and stayed above $3/gal for the entire decade and fuel efficiency rose to match it.
        e12e 10y ago
        Not to forget one of the most "insidious" uses/dependencies of oil: food production in general and agriculture in particular. No oil, means, as far as I know, without radical change, less (as in not enough) and (much) more expensive food. That's even before one considers transport etc.
        08-15 10y ago
        I really wonder why farmers don't run their equipment on biodiesel or bioethanol. (Actually, the answer is bloody obvious. Admittedly somewhat off-topic, too.)
        e12e 10y ago
        AFAIK there's been some success in Germany with being able to combine a big enough crop devoted to biodisel along side a meaningfully size crop for food - but oil, especially subsidized oil, is really cheap energy. But there was recently a big scare connected to farmers taking subsidies to produce biodisel - and biodiisel production out-competing food production and/or leading to hike in food prices... so yeah. If you have X square meters in which to grow food, you can't readily use some large percentage of that for "growing" biodiesel, without cutting into your food grow area. I'm sure there are certain biomass that will work as both, but it's not trivial to "just use biodisel".

slavik81 10y ago

It's not use that has changed. It's production. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrfpus2&f=a https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=m...

naterr 10y ago

This pipeline removes 7 unit trains a day from the rails through Minnesota to Illinois, the bakken makes about a million+/- bbls a day, and will for quite some time.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
The solution seems to be to drive the price of oil up then, no?
- zrail 10y ago
  Higher oil prices are good for the Bakken. It's not economically feasible to get at that oil at lower prices, which is one possible reason for the recent over production from the Middle East. Drive the price down low enough and the companies working in the Bakken fold, send their workers home, and it takes a long time to build back up.
  - koverstreet 10y ago
    But higher oil prices do drive down the use of oil in general.
    - zrail 10y ago
      Oil has highly inelastic demand in the short term. People need to drive to work. Goods need to be transported either by train, ship, or truck. Planes are still jam packed with people. In the long term high oil prices will modify demand because people will start buying more efficient vehicles. You can see this happening in the decade starting in 2001 because prices spiked and stayed above $3/gal for the entire decade and fuel efficiency rose to match it.
      - e12e 10y ago
        Not to forget one of the most "insidious" uses/dependencies of oil: food production in general and agriculture in particular. No oil, means, as far as I know, without radical change, less (as in not enough) and (much) more expensive food. That's even before one considers transport etc.
        08-15 10y ago
        I really wonder why farmers don't run their equipment on biodiesel or bioethanol. (Actually, the answer is bloody obvious. Admittedly somewhat off-topic, too.)
        e12e 10y ago
        AFAIK there's been some success in Germany with being able to combine a big enough crop devoted to biodisel along side a meaningfully size crop for food - but oil, especially subsidized oil, is really cheap energy. But there was recently a big scare connected to farmers taking subsidies to produce biodisel - and biodiisel production out-competing food production and/or leading to hike in food prices... so yeah. If you have X square meters in which to grow food, you can't readily use some large percentage of that for "growing" biodiesel, without cutting into your food grow area. I'm sure there are certain biomass that will work as both, but it's not trivial to "just use biodisel".