A “Carbon-Constrained” World Is Coming?

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Yes, this is another essay that deals with oil, the lack thereof, and how this fact is destabilizing the world with war and the threat of new wars.

The Washington Post has this article about oil, Iran, and China:

Oil, Ideology Keep China From Joining Push Against Iran

In its effort to muster support for sterner action against Iran, the Obama administration will have to overcome China’s reluctance to punish a country that is one of its top oil suppliers and a major beneficiary of its energy-related investments.

The fact that Iran is China’s biggest supplier is not news to some of us.  As I showed before, and again below, Iran is China’s biggest supplier because it is the country with the most oil reserves not dominated, or in the process of being dominated, by the United States:

1. Saudi Arabia – 264.3

2. Canada – 178.8

3. Iran – 132.5

4. Iraq – 115.0

5. Kuwait – 101.5

6. United Arab Emirates – 97.8

7. Venezuela – 79.7

8. Russia – 60.0

9. Libya – 39.1

10. Nigeria – 35.9

11. United States – 21.4

Aren’t we glad that our MSM is almost up to speed on this issue?

The administration’s frustration with Beijing is growing. U.S. officials have noted that China has appeared even more reluctant than Russia to take action against Iran after disclosures about its nuclear program. U.S. officials said they are particularly concerned that China has blocked their efforts to target freight-forwarding companies based in Hong Kong that reship goods, including prohibited weaponry, to Iran.

The Chinese “have not displayed a sense of urgency” on Iran, said a senior administration official. Instead, the official said, China has attempted to “have it both ways,” preserving its relationship with Iran while also working with the United States and other countries involved in the effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Why is China protecting Iran? Two reasons, analysts say: oil and ideology.

Well, let’s face it, who else is China going to rely upon for its oil needs?  And when you have a constant calling for attacking that country coming from the United States, who already proved not six years ago that it would lie its way into a war and blackmail countries into not opposing our invasion (google bi-lateral immunity agreements), of course China is also going to look the other way as Iran arms itself.

I asked before and I ask again, what is this urgency in the world to secure oil resources now?

Well, in a New York Times op-ed on the Chamber of Commerce, there is a very interesting sentence:

These companies are members of the United States Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of businesses and environmental groups that early this year came up with a plan for limiting emissions that helped shape the House bill. They see a carbon-constrained world coming and want to get out ahead of the curve – not behind it like the chamber.

We all know the business model; squeeze until you get every last drop of profit.  But, read that sentence again.

They see a carbon-constrained world coming and want to get out ahead of the curve – not behind it like the chamber.

To these businesses it isn’t merely limiting greenhouse gases, it is that oil availability is declining, quite rapidly, and they want to get ahead of it and into controlling the next energy production cash-cow.  If energy companies are starting to see that now is the time to start swapping over from oil, what does it tell the rest of us?  The business model is, after all, squeeze out every last bit of profit you can before swapping business models to a new product.

The WaPo article above cites the following fact about China’s oil imports:

The Middle East remains the largest source of China’s oil imports, although African countries also contribute a significant amount to China’s oil imports. According to FACTS Global Energy, China imported 3.6 million bbl/d of crude oil in 2008, of which approximately 1.8 million bbl/d (50 percent) came from the Middle East, 1.1 million bbl/d (30 percent) from Africa, 101,000 bbl/d (3 percent) from the Asia-Pacific region, and 603,000 bbl/d (17 percent) came from other countries. A similar pattern is evident in import data from the first five months of 2009 (see the pie charts below for greater detail). In 2008, Saudi Arabia and Angola were China’s two largest sources of oil imports, together accounting for over one-third of China’s total crude oil imports (see the Saudi Arabia and Angola Country Analysis Briefs for more information). China exported about 75,000 bbl/d of crude oil in 2008. China imported approximately 0.8 million bbl/d and exported 0.3 million bbl/d of key petroleum products including LPG, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, and lubricants in 2008.

Considering that the United States dominates most of the Middle East and Nigeria in Africa, are we still surprised that China is working as a buffer for Iran who holds the single largest amount of oil reserves not under the United States sway?

Do you remember this from Dick Cheney?

In an interview with the Washington Times yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that Bush’s “place in history likely would grow during the next 20 to 30 years.“

Forget the rest where Cheney tries to justify that timeline through Nixon’s pardon by Ford.  Look at the TIMELINE.  20 to 30 years.  Now, figure out how long it takes for an energy company to get the infrastructure up and running in order to “get out in front” of a new energy resource now.  Do you see the same correlation in these timelines I do?

This tells me that in the next 20-30 years, all of the major oil reserves will be tapped and on the decline.  This, too, isn’t news.

Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake CEO

“The industry can cope with $4 gas. The industry can’t grow or sustain production with $4 gas…We at Chesapeake think that price has to be three times the finding costs, and that translates to $6 to $9 in the next 12 months.”

The problem?  That “next 12 months” began on two days ago.

Faux News reported:

Study: ‘Peak Oil’ Will Be Reached by 2018

Some oil companies and consultancy firms such as Cambridge Energy Research Associates speculate that oil will peak sometime after 2020, but a number of oil geologists and executives predict it will happen much sooner.

So, when Russia and China are holding joint military exercises while China is holding much of the United State’s debt for the wars we started in the Middle East — we need to be listening and watching.