Please read the comments below the table of content

Table of Content

Go to Who am I
Go to The Cost of Gasoline
Go to A Little History
Go to Some Background Information
Go to A Little more History
Go to Some Limits on the Oil Industry
Go to What is Our Problem
Go to Will We Run Out of Oil
Go to It's Crunch Time
Go to What We Should Do
Go to A Little Knowledge
Go to The Rest of the Story
Go to A Little Ignorance
Go to There is No Need to Panic
Go to The Politics of Denial
Go to Some Caveats
Go to Some Comments
Go to Final Comments
Go to Oxygen                    070330
Go to Deceptively Simple   070330
Go to When big means very little 081011

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    The newspaper articles are a reorganization of several comments plus some new material in an attempt to have them published by newspapers. One local newspaper did publish fifteen of the articles. If your local newspaper is willing to publish any of the articles they may name and edit the articles as they see fit as long as they include my web site address.
    In my article 'A Little Ignorance' my statement that carbon dioxide nearly tripled from 1909 to 2005 is wrong, the ice core data indicate that carbon dioxide doubled during that time. Please correct that statement mentally when you read it.
    Also, I was not satisfied with that same article after I wrote it, but when I tried to improve upon it became disjointed and much too long for a newspaper article, so I left it as it was.
    Since then I have have written three letters to the editor to different publications. I combined and revised them. It is titled 'Oxygen', it is an attempt to make the oxygen cycle understandable without being too technical. Plus, I have added 'Deceptively Simple' in an additional attempt to make the oxygen cycle easy to understand.
    After reading the articles, please return to comments and read 'It's more than carbon dioxide' and 'It's more than global warming.'

    Let me tell you a little about myself so you will have some idea of my bias and so you will know I have been exposed to a large variety of systems. My bachelor degree is in chemistry, from Michigan State, 1956, with a background in math and physics. After two years in the army, artillery, Total Petroleum North America was my employer for twenty six years plus five years as a consultant. During that time, I worked as a product control, process control, and customer service chemist, director of a control lab, refinery programmer, assistant to the president, manager of information systems, and director of the Alma data center.
    I wrote my first program in 1967 in Fortran on a 32k IBM 360-30. Later I learned PL/I, Cobol, and basic assembler. I have used statistical techniques, regression analysis, and linear programming to evaluate products, additives, refinery production, product distribution, and acquisitions. I have analyzed, written, and maintained programs and systems for more than fifty applications from accounts payable, credit cards, general ledger, to payroll, property, and warehouse.
    I have worked with the equipment in chemistry labs, computer operations, and telecommunications and have been exposed to service stations, pipelines, terminals, refineries, and oil wells. I have worked with a staff of five to sixty four, budgets to three million, and traveled from coast to coast. I stopped logging installation visits at fifty.

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    Yes, America you are being ripped off by the oil companies, but before I qualify my statement, some knowledge about costs is needed. Let me start with the price of gasoline in Michigan. Divide the spot price of crude oil by 42, multiply by 1.04 and add 76 cents, then multiply by 1.06 (MI sales tax) and if you are paying more than ten cents above that amount you are being ripped off.
    For those who live another state, subtract MI state taxes of $.19875 from $.76 and add your state gasoline tax to the remainder and use the result in place of $.76 in the above calculation, also replace the 1.06 with your state sales tax rate.
    The above calculation may require the following qualifiers. For example, I live in Mackinaw City and shop in Cheboygan and Petoskey. In Cheboygan, each winter we pay more for gasoline than in Petoskey, but we pay less in the summer. Why?
    Because when the Straits freeze the oil tankers cannot transport oil to Cheboygen and all oil must be trucked from either Traverse City or Bay City. In addition, when the boats can pass through the broken ice in the Spring and Fall the insurance rates on the boats quadruple increasing the cost of transportation during those times.
    Pipelines are the cheapest way to ship oil followed by boats, rail tank cars, and the most expensive way is by truck. The cost also increases with increasing distance, a fact that most people ignore for some unknown reason, when considering the price of gasoline at different locations. Plus they ignore the different state gasoline taxes and sales taxes.
    At sixty three dollars per barrel of crude oil the price per gallon is $1.50, now would you change how you shipped crude oil to save $.0001 per gallon? Bigger is not always better, too big means economically infeasible.
    When the Alaskan North Slope field was developed $.0001 per gallon was the deciding factor. The oil industry wanted to build a pipeline down the east side of the Rockies. The inventory cost, the interest on the oil in the pipeline, was the deciding factor. Remember, the oil in the pipeline can never be removed and someone must pay for the oil in the line. Once the line is full then you can remove as much as you put in.
    At that time the inventory costs of a pipeline down the east side of the Rockies would have cost $5,000,000 more a year than the alternative. The pipeline capacity was to be 3,000,000 barrels per day, so lets do the calculation. 5,000,000 divided by 3,000,000, then divide by 42, then divide by 365 days per year and the saving is $.0001087 per gallon.
    The oil industry is driven by fractions of cent per gallon because of the astronomical volumes we consume each and every day in this country. Most people have no concept as to how large the numbers are. Next time a little history.

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    The first oil well in the US was drilled in 1859 in PA, but the oil industry didn't really begin until after the big strikes in OK and TX and the wide spread use of the automobile. Smaller fields were discovered in KA, OH, WY, and MI and a large field in Southern CA. After WWII off shore fields were discovered in the Gulf and off Southern CA and later the North Slope field in Alaska was developed.
    The first refineries were built near the oil fields because transportation was lacking and the refineries were inefficient and consumed about ten per cent of the oil; therefore, it was cheaper to ship the finished product long distances than to ship the oil long distances and the finished product a short distance. Even though modern refineries are much more efficient the same economics still holds.
    The transportation of oil evolved from shipment in wood barrels on a wagons, on rail box cars, on trucks; to tanker trucks, to rail tank cars, to boats, to pipelines, and to ocean super tankers carrying 2 million barrels of oil. Oil was first shipped in forty gallon wood barrels by wagons and box cars. The story has it that the buyers were complaining that they didn't receive forty gallons because the barrels leaked, so the sellers began putting two extra gallons in each wooden barrel so the buyers wouldn't complain. The barrel remained at forty two gallons even after steel barrels replaced the wood barrels.
    When I first began tracking crude oil production and finished product consumption in 1964, the US produced 12.1 million barrels a day and consumed 13.3 million barrels a day. World oil consumption was about 28 million barrels a day. Until the first oil embargo (1967) we never paid more than $1.25 a barrel for imported crude oil and most of the time much less.
    US production rose slightly as new fields were developed, but old wells were being depleted faster than new wells were being brought into production so our production is now below 6 million barrels a day, including the North Slope oil and off shore oil.
    Our consumption rose to 19.6 million barrels a day before and dropped to 16.7 after the second oil embargo (1973). World oil consumption was about 40 million barrels a day. Since then our consumption has risen about 3% a year. World consumption was 80 million barrels a day last year. The estimate for this year is 83 million barrels a day with an estimated addition of 2 million next year(06).
    Our crude oil consumption has remained about 20 million barrels a day because natural gas has replaced heating oil and heavy fuel oil in homes and industry so the oil industry has been importing much more finished product (gasoline and heating oil) from over seas.
    It's cheaper to import than to convert heating oil and heavy fuel into gasoline and since we must import to meet our demand it's cheaper to import the product to the location of the customer than to import the crude oil and refine it and then ship it to the customer. Next time some background information.

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    Geography determines how oil is shipped. Mountains and large bodies of water make pipelines economically infeasible. The east and west coasts have very few pipelines and have the highest shipping costs. Because of the mountains and the lack of pipelines crossing them, oil can NOT be moved freely any where in the nation.
    Because of this limitation the oil industry divides the nation into three areas, the east coast, the west coast, and mid continent. Each area is for all practical reasons completely isolated from the others. This isolation places severe economic penalties when shipping oil to meet demand in each area.
    'Not in my back yard' also plays a very important role in determining the location of oil facilities. No new refineries have been built since the '70's and no new pipelines have been built except along existing right of ways. Electric power transmission lines have the same problem, natural gas pipelines have had more success in obtaining right of ways because people prefer gas to oil or electricity.
    I laugh when politicians say, 'We need more refineries.' More is not better, more will not solve the problem. Why build more refineries or any oil facility if we have to import crude oil to meet our needs, it's cheaper to import finished products. Besides, and even more important, the oil industry knows we don't need more facilities, if we conserve we could reduce our imports by 4 million barrels a day, maybe more. And most important of all, why build any facility that will only be used for less than ten years, oil production will be at a maximum by then and we will be forced to conserve.
    When I first joined Leonard Refineries in 59, Michigan had more than eight refineries, today it has zero. Then Michigan produced thirty six thousand barrels a day, today less than four thousand. Now do you think there is a correlation here, 'little or no crude oil production equals no refineries'?
    The refineries were small, only one refined more than eight thousand barrels a day. As the wells became unprofitable, the refineries closed and sold their assets to other oil companies.
    Remember, it takes energy to get energy, a well must pump enough oil to pay for the electricity, gas, or diesel fuel to pump the oil, an operator to check on the well and perform routine maintenance, the fuel for the truck and a driver to transport the oil from the well to gathering pipelines, to pay for the lease of the well site, etc. This does not include the capital costs, seismic work to find the drill site, the cost of drilling the well, pipe, pipelines, or any of the equipment needed. When a well does not cover the operating costs it will be shut down and the lease forfeited.
    Next time a little more history.

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    As long as a well and / or a field pumps enough oil to cover operating costs, it will be operated in the hope of recovering the capital costs. This is the case of the North Slope field. This field has been a major disappointment, it never produced its projected quantity and the wells are depleting much faster than anticipated.
    This why the oil companies involved want to drill in the Arctic National Wild Life Refuge. With additional wells they might recover their capital investment in the Alaskan pipeline or at least get a better return on their investment if the price increases in crude oil has not provide the necessary return already.
    If you have read my web page, you know that I'm an environmentalist, but here is a case where I side with the oil companies. My argument goes like this: once resources have been spend I like to see them used to the fullest extent. The Alaskan pipeline is already there, lets use it, but don't be overly optimistic about the amount of oil produced from the Arctic National Wild Life Refuge, I have a gut feeling that it will be just as disappointing as the North Slope field.
    The oil industry can produce oil with minimum impact on the environment. Yes, there will be spills, accidents, and mistakes, this is a risk I think is worth taking. Besides, why are we so concerned with preserving small pieces of land when we are unwilling to preserve the whole world by not reducing our consumption of fossil fuels.
    To me this piece meal approach is, just, plain stupid and a waste of resources. I mean it's like a doctor treating a patient with a life threatening leg infection saying, 'The patient died, but I saved his leg'.
    The first refineries produced only two products, lamp kerosine and wagon axle grease, a very small portion of the crude oil. With the rest of the barrel, what they didn't burn as fuel, they dumped on the ground. Thus began some very bad habits and a very bad reputation, not to mention the environmental damage. If the early refiners and drillers had been more careful, 'Not in my backyard' would not be such a powerful force against new petroleum facilities.
    At 40 million barrels a day we were dumping excess carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, now at 80 million barrels a day we are pouring carbon dioxide into it. Remember, for each molecule of carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere, we are removing a molecule of oxygen, I'm rather fond of breathing, how about you?
    Next time some limits on the oil industry.

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    In 59 the US had 52 integrated oil companies and many non integrated oil companies. Integrated means that the company does all four activities required, production, pipeline, refine, and market. When I retired only twenty six integrated oil companies were left, today even less. I don't know the exact number, but would guess at eight.
    Leonard refineries bought three small refineries, the rest were shut down and scrapped. Then CFP bought Leonard and merged it with a production company in Canada and changed the name to Total Petroleum (North America). More acquisitions and increases in refining capacity brought Total to forty two thousand barrels a day. Modern refineries have at least two hundred fifty thousand barrels per day of capacity.
    More acquisitions nearly tripled Total's refining capacity. Total's MI refinery was shut down because it was too small and not economical. Later, Delmar Diamond Shamrock bought Total and later another oil company bought them.
    Michigan is a microcosm of the oil industry. Michigan is surrounded by water, with little crude oil production, with a large demand for finished product, with two crude oil pipe lines (both coming from and going to Canada) and two product pipe lines (of any size) with three terminals and five boat terminals. That means that all products must be trucked from the terminals to customers, very expensive. The average per gallon-mile was 56 miles, remember the truck has to return.
    The east coast does not have any oil fields, so obviously all crude oil must be shipped to the refineries by boat or pipeline. Since the number of pipelines crossing the mountains are few and the size of the pipe small, most of the crude oil is brought in by boat.
    'Not in my back yard' severely restricts the number of refineries on the east coast so a large share of gasoline and heating oil is shipped in from refineries over seas making the east coast vulnerable to price changes and inventory constraints.
    The west coast has similar constraints with one big exception, the Los Angeles basin oil fields. For many years these oil fields have supplied all of the west coast needs. As demand grew it was cheaper to import crude oil and products across the Pacific because only the smallest tankers can pass through the Panama canal and the only pipeline across the southern desert was very small. It's cheaper to import than to build bigger pipelines or a bigger canal.
    Since the north slope production was greater than the west coast demand and with no economic way to transport the crude to the mid continent, the oil industry shipped the Alaskan oil to Japan and exchanged it for OPEC oil to be delivered to the gulf coast. Certainly, Japan gets cheaper oil than if they bought OPEC oil directly, but would you do it for nothing?
    Next time what is our problem.

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    From an oil perspective, the mid continent is a country unto itself. Since most of our crude oil production is in the mid continent, that is where most of our refineries, pipelines, and other oil facilities are. It's also the area with the lowest costs.
    Since refineries require large amounts of cooling water, most refineries are built near large bodies of water, cooling towers are more expensive, so most of our refining capacity is on or near the gulf coast. Which in turn makes the gulf coast the most economical place to import crude oil. Costs increase with distance from the gulf.
    The oil industry tries to maintain about seven days of inventory and can go as low as three days or as high as ten days supply without economic penalty. This does not include the inventory available at high use industries, such as, air, truck, and rail lines, farm storage, etc. Since oil consumption is very predictable, the oil industry tries to maintain a minimum inventory to meet demand to keep the cost of inventory low.
    At over sixty dollars a barrel, inventory costs are very high. To give you an idea of how large the problem is consider the following. We consumed 21 million barrels a day last year, that is one billion two hundred sixty thousand dollars a day. One penny per gallon is 882 million dollars a day.
    To meet our consumption demand we must import seven super tankers every day. Each super tanker holds about 2 million barrels. Not very many people have ever seen a 100,000 barrel storage tank. These tanks vary in size, but most are over 160 feet in diameter and over 30 feet high. Four of them could be placed in a standard city block. That means that five city blocks would be needed to hold the crude oil delivered by one super tanker and thirty five city blocks would be need to hold the amount of crude oil we consume in one day and 254 city blocks would be needed to hold a seven day supply.
    Now do you have some idea about the problem we have. More production will not solve the problem, more refineries will not solve the problem, we cannot continue to consume crude oil at our present rate, we will run out of space and money, not to mention the enviornmental degradation.
    Next time will we run out of oil?

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    No, but that is the wrong question and you already know the answer to the right question. Will we run out of cheap oil? We already have. Will more oil be discovered? Yes, but it will be difficult to find and recover and therefore expensive.
    I didn't realize how much I took for granted until I read 'Hubbert's Peak', a book I recommend you read. If you have trouble with his statistics and chemistry just keep reading, what he says in between is very important.
    Here is what I took for granted: Michigan's oil industry began in the early 1930's. What most people do not understand by that statement is that all the major producing fields in the US and in fact, in the whole world, had already been discovered, except for the North Slope, the Mexican, and Indonesian oil fields and off shore oil fields. How can that be?
    Let me use the terms domes and bowls instead of the technical terms. Oil is not found in caves, it is found in porous rock.
    I happened to walk into the office of one of our production people during lunch hour, he was gone, but as I turned to walk out of his office I noticed what looked like a pie shaped piece of fudge on his desk. I picked it up and immediately recognized that it had been plasticized, why would anyone plasticize a piece of fudge? After a moment's thought I realized that it was small section of core sample from an oil well pay zone.
    If oil or gas is not trapped it will come to the surface and it does in many places around the world. The La Brea tar pits are world famous and I have heard people returning from a cruise blame the oil industry for oil blooms on the Gulf. What they don't know is that oil and gas seeps from the Gulf floor all the time, that is how the off shore fields were discovered. And close to my home, gas leaks from the Traverse formation around Traverse City. Many water wells in the area contain natural gas.
    The best place to find the most oil is under a dome, an impervious cap that prevents the oil and gas from coming to the surface. A trained geologist can recognize large domes just by looking at the terrain. With the advent of the airplane it became even easier. Then came the seismograph which made it easier to locate bowl trapped oil. For oil to be trapped in a bowl formation the strata must have been faulted so that the oil saturated rock layer had moved up or down so as to seal the faulted strata layer against an impervious rock layer. Michigan is a bowl formation. The edges of the bowl come to the surface all around the lakes that is why gas comes out of the ground around Traverse City.
    The other oil trapping formations are even more difficult to find and usually the amount of oil is smaller than dome formations. So while it is possible that more oil will be found, the probability is very low.
    Next time it's crunch time.

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    If all the other countries in the world were to consume energy at our rate I hate to think of what would happen. The consumption rate of the rest of the world is increasing at a very fast rate. My prediction is that world consumption of crude oil will be greater than crude oil production in five years. The economic consequences will be devastating and worst of all the effect will be felt long before the actual event because markets are driven by perception and when people finally realize what is going to happen, panic will ensue.
    The Tuesday after 911 I drove to Petoskey from Mackinaw City. I passed nine gas station on my route, at each one cars and trucks were lined up on both sides of the road waiting to get gas. I thought it was odd, but it became even odder when I passed a rural station. Again, trucks and cars were lined up on both sides of the road. Almost every vehicle was pulling a trailer, people were filling snowmobiles, lawn mowers, out board motor boat tanks, lawn tractors, spare gas cans, etc.
    When I returned three hours later, all the stations were closed with signs saying 'Out of Gas'. Three station were out of gas for one day, three were out of gas for two days, and three were out of gas for three days. Now what would you do if you turned into a station and found a 'Out of Gas' sign?
    The next day I learned that someone started an email rumor that a refinery in Chicago had been hit by the terrorists. Fortunately some people had enough sense to call friends in Chicago to confirm the rumor and that was the end of that.
    But what if it had been true? What if it had been true for the whole country? What will you do? What will we do?
    Shortages will be caused by panic hoarding long before a true shortage occurs that is why we can't wait until the crisis comes we must act before a panic can occur. And don't look for the politicians to do anything, they are concerned with abortion, stem cells, prayer in school, and terrorism. They along with most people in our country do not know the most dangerous threat to our country. The most dangerous threat to our country and to the world is oil consumption and no one is doing any thing about it and haven't since Jimmy Carter and look what the 'idiotologues' did to him.
    It's crunch time, a conjunction of major tsunamis will occur in five years. The solar sun spot maximum with the possibility of drought and a shortage of water, the maxing out of oil production with sky high prices, a world population over eight billion and a shortage of food, and the baby boomers retiring with under funded pension plans, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Are we ready?
    Next time What should we do.

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  First we must stop spending dollars driving to save dimes. In order to do this we must keep track of all car expenses and calculate an average cost per mile. Add to it the purchase price of the vehicle divided by the number of miles you expect to drive the car. Then record the number of miles you drive to all your usual destinations and calculate a cost per round trip.
    I use one credit card for only car expenses. Each December I record my odometer reading for each gasoline purchase and when I receive my January credit card statement I use the odometer reading of the first purchase not included on that statement for my year end milage and subtract it from the previous year end milage giving me my total milage for the year. Then I add all the gallons purchased for the last year and divided it by the total milage for the year. Then I add all car expenses, oil changes, repairs, license plates, drivers license, insurance, etc. and divide the total by my total milage giving me a operating cost per mile. I estimate how many miles I will drive a car when I purchase it and divide that into the purchase price of the new car after subtracting the sale price of my old car giving me the capital cost of my new car per mile.
    This number is only an estimate but it is close enough without spending a lot of time to be more accurate to determine how much it costs to drive to make a purchase. I then calculate my cost to my usual destinations.
    Now if you do the same you can avoid one of the most common mistakes we make in our country. We make frequent trips to save dimes and waste dollars driving to save them. Next time you are about to drive to save money on a purchase, subtract the cost of making the trip from your estimate of how much you will save.
    I have seen people spend two or more dollars on car expenses to save fifty cents or less on a purchase. Many times you can save money by paying a higher price by purchasing closer to home and driving a shorter distance.
    For example, you cannot afford to drive two extra miles to save two cents a gallon when you fill your tank, it will not even pay for the extra gasoline consumed to drive the two extra miles and if you add in the capital cost of the vehicle you cannot afford to drive two extra blocks.
    Once you become aware of the cost of driving it is easier to start driving smart. If you have a choice in which vehicle you will drive always use the least cost vehicle, do not idle your car, turn the motor off, combine trips that are in the same direction or when the total trip is shorter than several individual trips, coast into a stop light or stop sign, don't drive durning peak traffic times if you have a choice, etc.
    Come on America, do the arithmetic and stop spending dollars to save dimes.
    Next time a little knowledge.

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    Why is the consumption of crude oil the most serious threat to our country? Let me set the stage.
    During a trip to the Rose Bowl with a student from Germany, I became very aware of how many idioms, cliches, proverbs, etc., we use in our everyday speech. We could understand her perfectly, but she could not understand us. We were constantly interpreting our idioms, etc., for her.
    While the use of idioms, etc., is efficient, it can be very misleading because we tend to quote only the part that supports our position and that can lead to very lazy thinking because we do not examine other possibilities.
    For example, 'A little knowledge can be dangerous', we use only the first verse when the second verse is much more important and would expand our thinking.
    During the time I served as a customer service chemist the marketing department made a request for technical help and I was assigned to help. One of our jobbers went bankrupt and marketing didn't want to lose his customers and since we were his largest creditor we took control of his business.
    The jobber went bankrupt because of very poor business practices one of which was that he didn't keep inventory controls, he claimed his drivers were stealing from him but he could not prove it because he didn't have any records.
    The first thing our company manager did was to set up inventory controls. At the end of his first day on the job which happened to be a Saturday, he measured the amount of product in each of the tanks with a dip stick. A dip stick is nothing more than a twelve foot yard stick. He put water detecting paste on the bottom foot of the stick and stuck it into each tank though a sampling hole on the top. When he removed the stick he could see the liquid line and read the number of inches of product in the tank to a quarter of an inch and also knew how many inches of water was in the bottom of each tank. Then by referring to a chart on each tank he could calculate how much product was in each tank.
    On Monday morning before the drivers began to load their trucks, he stuck each tank again and to his surprise the gasoline tank had lost a large amount of product. Immediately, he knew there was a leak.
    He closed the valve on the line at the bottom of the tank. Then he had a contractor remove the dirt from the underground line from the valve to the loading rack with a back hoe and they discovered a union that was never brought up tight. Obviously, it had been leaking since the first day the underground line was put into operation. No wonder the jobber went bankrupt.
    Next time the rest of the story.

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    The union was tightened and the line was put back into service and that would have been the end of the story except for one very important detail. The jobbers bulk plant was next door to a grain elevator and about a week later the grain elevator had a fire in a small basement underneath the office.
    They called the gas company to check on a small hot water boiler that was on the dirt floor in the basement. When they went to check the boiler they discovered small flames coming from the ground in many places.
    They shut off the gas at the street but the flames continued to burn. They stuck a probe into the ground next to the largest flame and took a sample of the gas. The sample was analyzed and it was not natural gas.
    The elevator manager went to our bulk plant manager and asked if he had a leak. Then phones started ringing in many offices. The insurance company of the elevator went ballistic and our bulk plant manager asked for help.
    After a survey of the bulk plant and the elevator, I contracted a gravel company to bore holes between the bulk plant and the elevator with their gravel sampling auger. Two insurance inspectors were present when the holes were bored and when the auger brought up gasoline saturated soil they were very concerned about a possible fire if some one threw a cigarette near one of the holes.
    One of the insurance inspectors was a smoker, he threw lit cigarettes into and around the holes, but nothing happened. To further test their concern I took a sheet of newspaper, opened it fully, folded it on the diagonal, and then rolled it into a long cylinder. He lit one end of the paper cylinder for me. I then approached a hole, crouched down low, extended my arm, and moved so the lit end of the paper was over the hole. I did this to each hole that had gasoline soaked soil and each hole burned with a low flame. After I had lit the fifth hole the insurance inspector took his cigarette lighter and lit the sixth hole before I could stop him.
    If you have ever heard a flame front propagate down a cylinder, it is a sound you will never forget. That sound caused him to recoil ever so slightly, but enough to prolong his life. When the flame front reached the speed of sound it detonated and a flash of bright blue flames shot fifteen feet into the air singeing a small amount of his hair as he recoiled.
    His partner had to support him when he stood, his face was ghost white and he was shaking. He knew he had been within a fraction of an inch of death. Several minutes later he said, 'Now I know why you did what you did'.
    He had a small amount of knowledge and it was very dangerous, it almost ended his life. He knew that each hole that I lit burned gently and assumed all of them would and that brings us to the second verse and if he had known the second verse this event may not have happened. 'A little knowledge can be dangerous, but a little ignorance can be deadly.'
    Next time a little ignorance.

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    First, a little knowledge: most people know that plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and give off oxygen, so what is the problem?
    The problem is a little ignorance: plants consume every atom of oxygen they produce during respiration and decomposition and release every molecule of carbon dioxide they took in. The system is completely balanced, no increase in oxygen and no reduction in carbon dioxide. Burning is very rapid decomposition, so when we burn plant material as a fuel the system remains completely balanced that is why organic materials, provided we allow them to regrow, are call 'renewables'.
    And that is not the whole story. Crude oil by definition is a hydrocarbon, all fossil fuels are hydrocarbons. Plants produce carbohydrates: sugars, starches, cellulose, etc. Now when carbohydrates are consumed they only remove two oxygen atoms for every carbon atom, but hydrocarbons consume three atoms of oxygen for every carbon atom. That means that every time we consume oil, any fosil fuel, we are reducing the amount of oxygen available for us to breathe.
    Why worry, the atmosphere has tons and tons of oxygen. That is true, but starting in 1909 with the advent of the automobile, we have nearly tripled the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and we will double it again in the next ten years.
    I have not seen any reports indicating a reduction in oxygen, yet, but the reports will occur within the next ten years and how we handle the realization of that fact will determine the fate of our country. If we panic, we will crash our economy or worse.
    Another and a more insidious fact is that there will be no warning, none. Everything will be relatively fine, the economy will be doing fine, our standard of living will still be declining, but no one will sense that anything is wrong. But when enough people realize what is going to happen, look out!
    Markets are driven by perception, the reality does not have to occur for years. It is the realization that it will occur that will cause the panic and when this realization will occur is something no one can predict.
    The most recent reports in the scientific journals leave me very depressed. For more than twenty five years our public has been fed a steady stream of disinformation, making the possibility of a panic all the more probable when people finally wake up and realize that they have been told a lie because they will not know who to believe.
    I don't want our economy to crash, I want my grand children to have a chance. Alternatives will take ten to twenty years before they can replace our current sources of energy. Oil consumption is our biggest threat and it is also the easiest one to conserve and to replace. We must replace a little ignorance with education, research, and conservation. We cannot continue consuming fossil fuels Willy Nilly. Anarchy and chaos will not help, we must take an orderly approach to the problem and we must start NOW!
    Next time no need to panic.

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    When the first reports are released showing a reduction in oxygen, even I will be surprised if the reduction is greater than 0.2%. We have a small amount of time, how much, I don't know the exact amount. All I know is that it is urgent that we reduce and eventually eliminate the consumption of fossil fuels because once we convert hydrocarbons and oxygen to carbon dioxide and water, for all practical purposes, we will never get the oxygen back.
    We must make a meaningful reduction in oil consumption, not just a token reduction, because the trend is going up at an ever increasing rate. Remember, in 1909 the world oil consumption was zero for all practical purposes. It went to thirty million barrels a day in the '60's, to over eighty five million barrels a day now and my projection is it will be over one hundred twenty million barrels a day in ten years.
    Our country consumes one third of the world's energy with less than ten per cent of the world's population, if the rest of the world's population consumes one third as much as we do our biosphere will be swamped. We are very rapidly approaching the day when we will have to make this decision: do I want to drive my car today or do I want to breathe.
    The transition from fossil fuels, hydrocarbons, to renewable fuels, carbohydrates, and to other non carbon sources of energy will be expensive, inconvenient, and frustrating. Errors will be made, some energy sources will only be temporary and therefore expensive. The conversion time will be long, unless we make the conversion a very high priority. It will take more than ten years to make the first temporary conversions that is why we must start now.
    Oil will be difficult to replace because oil is a safe, convenient, and economical source of energy for vehicles. We over look the magnitude of the problem because our country has the infrastructure to move massive amounts of products from the source to their destinations very quickly. True, economics has forced this efficiency, but when you step back and look closely at the quantities that this country moves, it is staggering. We take a lot for granted and that is an understatement.
    Now because oil is a safe, convenient, and economical source of energy for vehicles, this is the source of energy that the developing countries are going to use. This is why oil consumption is the most dangerous threat to our country and it is our own fault. We have taught the rest of the world how to consume, consume, consume and we have done it well.
    If it wasn't so serious I would laugh when people complain about the price of gasoline, we caused the price increases. Most people don't even have a clue to what is happening and what is going to happen. Our public is in a state of denial.
    Next time the politics of denial.

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    I would like to call your attention to two changes in the dynamics of our politics. One change came with the advent of TV. TV is very convenient, but TV is very restrictive, it has a very limited focus. When you read a newspaper if an article does not interest you, you simply skip it and go to the next article. You can't do that with TV.
    You can switch channels, but most of the channels are covering the same stories. Plus the fact that TV can only present a limited amount of information in a given period of time and you can't set it down and go do something else and return without missing something. The only other option is to record all the news broadcasts and selectively view each one. How many people have the time to do that?
    Another problem, TV is expensive, so the TV companies are very sensitive to their advertisers wishes which places an unwanted bias on what you see and hear on TV. When money is the deciding factor, many times the only deciding factor, we are in great danger.
    Politics has always had an element of denial, distraction, deception, deceit, and out right lies, but in 1950 senator Joseph McCarthy took it to a new level and a new intensity with his communist witch hunt. And our country has been hunting witches ever since, Russia, China, and now terrorism.
    Because our focus has been on witch hunts we have made many very bad decisions, Vietnam being the worst one. TV has played a major role in the witch hunts because witch hunts have a very limited and narrow focus which fits TV's limitations very well.
    Sadly, when our attention is focused on the witch hunts we are not paying attention to our real problems, we are distracted and are easily mislead by the 'idiotologues', so they can achieve control for their own limited purposes.
    Earlier another change was taking place, non disclosure. Eisenhower made the first major non disclosure when he learned that our military had intentionally leaked a false story about the Russians building longer runways, which meant that they had longer range bombers and thus the cold war was accelerated out of control. Eisenhower nearly burst a blood vessel when he found out, but for what ever were his reasons he never told the public. He never disclosed the liars. A trend that has continued to this day.
    From '50's to the '80's many politicians, some bureaucrats, and a few CEO's, mainly auto and oil, denied that we had problems, but they were willing to admit there was a possibility that we had a problem. Starting with the presidential election in '80 they would not even admit the possibility of a problem.
    We have let the 'idiotologues' have complete control, they spin every mistake to the point where very few people even have a chance to recognize the mistake. Is there any wonder then why our country is in denial about oil?
    Next time some caveats.

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    What I'm hoping to do is to give people chance to learn before it is too late and then to encourage them to change in an orderly fashion so we don't crash our economy.
    The politicians have made accountability in education a major issue during the last forty years, I would like to have an accountability for politicians. We are letting our politicians get away with murder, murder of the truth.
    If we continue to let the politicians murder the truth we will become a nation of idiots and in complete control of the 'idiotologues'. If we are incapable of determining the truth, we will be incapable of defining our problems and if you can not define a problem you can never solve it.
    In order to keep the witch hunts going, politicians are presenting solutions to the wrong problem; therefore the problem is not solved and the witch hunts never end.
    Witch hunts always have an element of truth and most important they always have an element of danger. Both fit nicely into an interesting theme for TV, but the truth is distorted and the danger is misrepresented by the 'idiotologues' so they can keep control. Without a free press to present the data about a problem fairly the only way the cycle can be broken is for a major disaster to occur that exposes the lies.
    The worst lie currently being presented is about the nature of science. The 'idiotologues' define good science as being completely accurate, precise, and certain.
    There are five subjects where I find the lack of knowledge completely incomprehensible, especially in a country so dependent on all five, democracy, energy, mass production, free market and science.
    Let me use the data in my own articles in an attempt to shed some light on science. All of my numbers are based upon my memory and if you visit eia.doe.gov and go to their crude oil production numbers you will notice that my number for peak oil production is about 3 million barrels a day higher than theirs. If you also check their foot notes you will notice that their data is based on annual reports, The Gas and Oil Journal, and the Oil Daily. My memory is based upon American Petroleum Institute data. The API based their data on member surveys. Many small oil companies are privately owned and do not publish a public annual report. Over the years as the small oil companies went out of business the difference between the API numbers and the government numbers disappeared, but the question still remains which ones were correct?
    Yet after reading my articles can you honestly say that my numbers have to be completely accurate, precise, and certain in order for you to gain some very important knowledge. Do I have to report the day and time to the last second, does it matter if I round off the number of barrels to even millions instead of to the last ounce, and when I make a prediction, how certain must I be before you get the message about the danger. Does it have to be one hundred per cent certain, if so, why do we have collision insurance on our cars and fire insurance on our homes?
    Next time some comments.

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    I know carbon chemistry is much more complex than I have presented it. For example my use of the generalization of three oxygens to burn one hydrocarbon carbon atom, some molecules require more, some less. In general the longer the hydrocarbon chain the closer it comes to the generalization, but natural gas, methane, requires four oxygens per carbon atom, while benzene requires two and a half oxygens per carbon.
    So while it is better to burn natural gas when considering global warming, it is better to burn coal when considering oxygen consumption. The reference point you choose will determine your outlook. Even comparing pounds Vs gallons will change your outlook. In other words, we cannot expect simplistic solutions to solve a complex problem.
    We must start conserving fossil fuels now so our technology has a chance to catch up with our life style. The process will be slow and expensive and our current standard of living will fall, but when we conserve fossil fuels we are conserving oxygen. Remember, the GDP does not equal the standard of living.
    We have had seven major spikes in the price of oil and very few have paid attention especially the auto companies. I expect the price of oil to fall a little because speculators have contributed to the price increase, but I'm afraid the next major price increase could crash our economy. The trend for the price of oil is up and will not change until demand declines which will not occur until there is a major conservation effort.
    Talk about short term thinking, the hedge funds are speculating in oil options and futures, I hope they reinvest their earnings in non carbon fuel research because you can't eat money and you can't breath money.
    I hope you will follow the lead of the few who are paying attention to our problem. For example, our home is super insulated as much as our budget will allow, we have solar panels on the side of our home, we drive a fuel efficient car, 32 mpg on an annual basis, we limit our driving to necessary trips, etc. But that is a drop in the bucket unless many people join in.
    You will not like my suggestions for what we should do. Because we are twenty five years behind the curve we should tax all crude oil and crude oil products both foreign and domestic at least one dollar per gallon and tax natural gas consumption an additional penny for each ccf above 1000 ccf consumed per month and electricity an additional penny for each Kwatt above 1000 Kwatts. Make the changes in taxes slowly so our economy has some time to adjust. Incentives will encourage only a few people to change their habits, but most people will respond to changes in their pocket book.
    We will need to use mass transit, not because it will be cheaper or save more energy, but because it will much easier for mass transit to use non hydrocarbon fuels. We do not have the infrastructure to use non hydrocarbon fuels. We need to install wind generators as fast as possible which will require changes in zoning laws and we will have use nuclear energy. Alternative energy sources will not supply any where near the amount of energy we consume.
    Next time some final comments.

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    Several people mentioned that they were disappointed that I didn't mention a solution to our problem. I don't have a solution and I don't like any that have been proposed for a number of different reasons that's why I stress conservation, we need time to develop our technologies.
    Also several people questioned my use of the word 'simplistic' in the sentence 'we cannot expect simplistic solutions to solve a complex problem'. According to my dictionary, simplistic is an adjective for simplism which means the act or an instance of over simplifying; especially : the reduction of a problem to a false simplicity by ignoring complicating factors.
    This is exactly what the 'idoitologs' are doing. Obviously, if a problem is defined with false simplicity, it can never be solved.
    Over the years, I have offended many people when asked, 'What right does OPEC have to raise the price of OUR oil? Who do they think they are?' by replying 'Cheap oil is not one of the Ten Commandments'.
    If you take the data from the five large oil companies on profits and crude oil production and use their average price per barrel of crude oil, you will find that if you subtract the profit from crude oil from their reported profit you will find that they would have a negative number, that is because the cost of R & D plus the cost of exploration and production consumed their profits from refining and marketing.
    In other words the oil companies made money not by their own effort. It was a wind fall and so I agree that the politicians should place a wind fall profit tax on the oil, gas, and coal companies. Gas and coal will be able to raise prices based on oil costs giving them windfall profits as well.
    I also question the large salaries on the same grounds, they didn't earn the large profits, so why should they get the benefit from something they didn't do.
    When the price of crude oil went over thirty dollars a barrel, the politicians should have removed all special tax breaks to the oil industry, for the same reason as above plus the fact that the oil industry doesn't need tax incentives to do what they need to do. Although, the statements of many oil CEO's have been down right stupid, the engineers and scientist of the oil companies are some of the best in the world and they know what has to be done for the oil companies to remain in business.
    My guess is that they are waiting to see which technology will be the one to use and then they will use their large amounts of money to exploit that technology.

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    From the reports that I have read it seems to me as if the entire scientific community has ignored the oxygen cycle. Let me review it in an overly simplified manner.
    During photosynthesis plants take carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and remove the two oxygen atoms from the carbon and release them into our atmosphere. The carbon is then combined with water to create sugar, starch, cellulose, etc., the compounds the plant needs to live and grow. These compounds are appropriately called carbohydrates (carbon and water).
    When a plant needs energy to live and grow it 'burns' carbohydrates in a process called respiration and when a plant dies microbes 'burn' the plant material in their respiration, a process we call decomposition. Animals eat and then 'burn' plant material during their respiration and decompose when they die.
    'Burning' reverses the process of photosynthesis, it releases the water from the carbon atom and recombines two oxygen atoms with it, producing carbon dioxide. The 'burning' releases back into our atmosphere every molecule of carbon dioxide the plants took in and removes every atom of oxygen the plants released, no decrease in carbon dioxide and no increase in oxygen, a completely balanced system.
    Oxygen increased in our atmosphere because plant material was buried before it could decompose leaving behind in our atmosphere the oxygen that would have been 'burned' during decomposition.
    For millions of years oxygen continued to increase and carbon dioxide continued to decrease in our atmosphere as more plant material was buried and continues even now. Water and wind erosion carry plant material, sand, and silt into streams and rivers and then into the ocean where each layer of plant material, sand, and silt is continuously buried by the next layer.
    If people do not understand what created the oxygen in our atmosphere, they will never understand that the danger in burning fossil fuels is not just global warming.
    The buried plant material was converted into fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas. During the conversion process, oxygen was removed from the plant material; therefore, fossil fuels are appropriately called hydrocarbons (hydrogen and carbon). I doubt that the oxygen removed during the conversion ever reached our atmosphere, it probably reacted with minerals surrounding the buried plant material creating oxides, such as, iron ore.
    When we burn plant material (renewable fuels) we only remove two atoms of oxygen for every carbon atom burned, the same as respiration and decomposition, keeping the system completely balanced provided we allow the plants to regrow.
    When we burn fossil fuels we remove three oxygen atoms from our atmosphere for every carbon atom burned creating an imbalance in the system by reducing the amount of oxygen in our atmosphere.
    The decrease in oxygen will be less than a ratio of 3 to 2 times the increase in carbon dioxide. The decrease must be adjusted by the ratio of the amount of fossil fuel burned to the amount of plant material burned and for the amount of plant material buried and for the amount of fossil fuel removed from burial.

    There should never be more oxygen in our atmosphere that an amount proportional to the amount of plant material buried.

    Unconsciously we have been burying tons of plant material. Look at the amount of paper, wood, etc., that we put into our land fills and the amount of garbage we dump into the ocean. Plus look at all the lumber, cotton, wool, paper, etc., that we have 'buried' in our homes and buildings. This amount may be significant.
    I have read many reports indicating an increase in carbon dioxide, but no reports indicating a decrease in oxygen. With carbon dioxide over 0.04% we should be able to measure a reduction in oxygen from its current historical level of 20.99%. It should now measure between 20.96 and 20.94%. If we continue at our current rate of reduction our atmosphere will contain less that 20.8% oxygen before 2050.
    Because of the oxygen cycle non biological sequestering of carbon dioxide will be an exercise in futility, a waste of money and time. It may help reduce global warming, but it will do nothing to stop the reduction of oxygen.
    We must reduce the consumption of fossil fuels to the point that the system is in balance again and we must do it soon before the reduction in oxygen becomes significant. We may be able to recover from global warming, but when oxygen is lost, it is lost for ever.

    Thank you for reading my articles. Richard R Riker

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    The following equations are deceptively simple.

CO2 + H2O ---> O2 + CH2O (a sugar unit)
CO2 + H2O <--- O2 + CH2O (a sugar unit)
CO2 + H2O <--- O3 + CH2 (a fossil fuel unit)

    Notice that oxygen and carbon dioxide are on the opposite sides of the yield sign, this means if one increases the other decreases. When we eat, we 'burn' a sugar unit for energy, the second equation, we are reversing photosynthesis, the first equation. The first two equations are balanced, no increase in oxygen, no decrease in carbon dioxide. When we burn fossil fuel for energy, the third equation, we are reducing the oxygen in our atmosphere because there is no other equation to balance it and notice that it requires three oxygens instead of two.
    We must reduce our burning of fossil fuels before the reduction of oxygen becomes significant.
    Oxygen has declined by very small amounts from 20.9476% in 1976 to 20.9429% in 1988 to 20.9362% in 1999. As you can calculate, oxygen declined by 3.6 ppm per year from 1976 to 1988 and by 5.6 ppm from 1988 to 1999. This increasing rate of decline is worrysome and it confirms the increasing rate of carbon dioxide increase.
    Our lungs are efficient over a wide range of oxygen concentrations so healthy lungs will not have a problem breathing for a long time to come. But with each decrease in oxygen more people with lung and heart disease will require supplemental oxygen, the domino effect, increasing our health care costs. I hope you realize what this means to the poor people around the world.
 
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When big means very little

    There are many very large oil fields that produce little or no oil. Why?
    Many varibles determine whether oil will flow to a well so it can be recovered, only four will mentioned. First, and probably the most important, is the porosity of the rock containing the oil. If the pores are large the rock is called loose, if the pores are very small the rock is called tight. Some rock is so tight that oil will flow extremely slow if at all. The Green River formation of south western Wyoming and western Colorado and the large field in North and South Dakota are examples. It is like trying to get oil out of an asphalt road.
    Second is the viscosity of the oil. Some oils are so viscous they are almost solid, such as the Tar Sands of Alberta. Even high pressure steam or fire flooding the field will barely allow the oil to flow. Such oils make good asphalt, but very little else. Attemps to mine this type of oil is very expensive. The oil rock is mined like open pit coal or iron ore and crushed and fed into a oven and heated to allow the oil to flow out of the crushed rock. But the trucking of the oil rock to the oven and the depleted rock to waste disposal site and heati many time requires more oil than the rock contains. In addition the rock changes composition such that it now requires more space to contain it than before it was mined. No one has found a solution to disposing of the addtional rock economically.
    Third is the pressure forcing the oil to move. Most of the time water transfers pressure to the oil from below as it flows from above and around the cap that traps the oil. Many oil fields also have a large amount of natural gas above the oil between the oil and the cap that traps the oil and the gas. Sometimes the natural gas is disolved in the oil under high pressure. When a well is drilled into such a formation, the oil and gas will flow without pumping it.
    Fourth is the affinity of the rock for oil. Depending upon the chemical composition of the rock it may attract oil or repell it. If it attracts the oil the oil will tend to flow more slowly than if  the rock repells the oil.
    Remember oil is not found in a cave, it is found in porous rock and the characteristics of the rock and the oil will determine if the oil can be recovered.

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