Saturday, August 19, 2006
The Iranian issue is interesting, but this blog believes that at least some of the debate is missing the big picture. Let’s review the facts, Iran is a net oil producer with some of the largest reserves of oil in the world, Iran needs nuclear fuel to ramp up its energy sector. Assuming at least some of the nuclear energy is really needed for energy, are we thus facing the situation of Iran running low on oil? Does it therefore strike anyone that the much discussed oil crisis maybe much closer than expected?
There have been assertions flying around for quite some time already that oil from the ground is finite; the crux of the debate is really how long can the black stuff last. On one hand we have the OPEC members who believe that oil can last at least till the next century. Indeed proven oil reserves in OPEC nations do suggest that given current production and consumption, we could probably outlive the supply of oil and let our children deal with the shortage. However, the reality is as always not that straight forward. Most fields are rate and pressure sensitive, which in effect means the more we pump out today, the less we can get out eventually. Which makes proven reserves an inaccurate measure of eventual production. This leaves us with a slippery definition of oil reserves and an erroneous judgment of the amount of time we have before our reliance on oil must shift.
It is true that man will eventually find a method of substituting oil, and current to some countries, going nuclear seems attractive. There is the advert of fuel cells and ionic cells, but the scale of these have been relatively small. It is almost as if no one sees any urgency at all, which is not all that surprising. We have made mistakes in judgment, as individuals and as a collective whole, but this quite different from all the other mistakes that we have been making. After all, first we can foresee the direction of the whole situation and second, we do have some alternatives on the table already. We can and indeed we must stop this slide to implosion, and by the way, if EDB can get a monopoly on the alternatives energy market, this blog asserts Singapore will be in good stead for the next few decades.
1:07 AM
