Cobble Hill/Mill Bay – Re: ‘Why has the price of gas not come down?’ by Greg Mccallum The price of extracting oil or natural gas from tar sands and fracking is not profitable at less than approximately $70-80 per barrel. Those extraction companies, including the major oil companies, have been losing money steadily, even at $100/barrel due to the costs associated with financing the extraction.
Many of those oil company profits have been put right back into the search for new sources of oil. It is likely that within 10 years, we will not have the financial ability to extract the amounts of energy that we are using today. There is no physical law that will allow us to continue to live the way we have been living since 1900.
There are hopeful delusions, such as, “surely someone will think of something, why there’s no REAL cheap energy problem, it is the evil rich or those nasty foreigners; maybe the Tesla battery and electric cars will save us, we deserve to live as we do”.
I’m not sure that this planet really cares what a few billion people think we deserve. Physical limits described by the paper Limits to Growth have been derided, demonized, and laughed at again and again by those who do not understand the nature of physical reality.
To quote: “Limits to Growth is a study about the future of our planet…” It is a Cassandra, but the thing is, Cassandra was right. Fascinating reading for those willing to question. (www.clubofrome.org/?p=326) It is more true today than when it was written in the early 1970s.
Dirk Ouellette Cobble Hill/Mill Bay
