could OPEC buy with $658 billion? How many concentrating solar thermal power plants? How many wind turbines?

I'm just wondering because it occurrs to me in that in the not so distant future there could be a drastic shortage of oil to sell to the rest of us at the same time there is a drastic shortage of, say, grain to ship to the hungry masses of Saudi Arabia.

Or we could just come to our senses on the climate change frontier (unlikely) and decide to stop buying oil from them entirely. In that case OPEC would be relying on offshore investments to bring home the bacon.

In either scenario OPEC nations had better get cracking on a means of feedig thier populace when the black river of cash runs dyr. I suspect the rest of us aren't going to be too happy with them about then.

Put the Carbon Back

The craziest thing I ever heard was that the Saudis were going to plant Jatropha: link

OPEC is a fair player.   It is openly sharing information...in fact recent statements about the high price of oil, don't make them look as much like the Marquis de Sade that they are portrayed as.

The villians?  The energy exchanges.   They buy up from OPEC and then set prices based on Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD).

There is no real competition, they are the new 21st century cartels.   Every little tropical storm sends prices hurling.

We need more competition in the financing and exchange of oil and energy.

Don't get me wrong -- forcing us to new energy sources is a good thing...but these exchanges might eat up hydrogen and solar technology next!

Let's make sure that prices are set by rationality, and there is competition in financing and allocation of energy.

My Log

[Note to the FT: Please stop including "nuclear power" among the "alternative sources of energy" -- it has been a leading source of energy for decades now.]

That depends what scale you use.
http://greyfalcon.net/nuke.png

Thanks to the teachings of science, our children regularly report to us that Earth is round and finite in space-time. Easy enough.

Then, why is it that grown-ups with the very best education and responsibilities for ensuring a good future for the young deny one of these basic, irrefutable scientific facts?

While there is a clear consensus among young and old alike that the planet we inhabit is round, Thomas Friedman notwithstanding:),many political leaders and powerbrokers in the global economy act as if Earth is somehow infinite, not limited in its capacity to perpetually fulfill the needs and wishes of the human species. Their widely shared, consensually validated and specious thinking supports the idea that the Earth is a sort of cornucopia, a seemingly endless provider of whatsoever human beings desire. Our relatively small and frangible planet is treated by these erstwhile leaders like an ever expressive teat at which the human species continuously and eternally can suckle.

Take the example of the world's supply of oil. Children see that the oil supply must be limited because the Earth itself is bounded not boundless. In these times, the young ones recognize that older folks are rapidly building oil rigs everywhere on the surface of Earth, draining fields of their petroleum and then voraciously consuming it. Nonetheless, many people continue to consume the limited oil supply as if there must surely be no end to it. Given the requirements of practical reality, why are there not electric cars and trains taking us where we need to go? Where are meaningful economic incentives for limiting profligate oil consumption and promoting the development and use of alternative fuel sources? The policy-making and political decision-making processes of these leaders consciously ignores the current massive dissipation of the Earth's limited oil resources. Perhaps such behavior is both irrational and irresponsible.

It took millions of years for the oil reserves to form, thanks to God. And in the span of my lifetime it appears a few generations of voracious human beings, now numbering over 6.6 billion, are righteously "sucking up" the lion's share of the planet's petroleum capacity. If we old-timers simply keep doing what we are doing now to maximally expand oil production for immediate consumption, what resource base in petroleum will be left for our children and coming generations to this good Earth?

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
http://journals.aol.com/sesalmony/HumanandEnvironmentalHe ...

Mr. Romm, you say that "...since we don't burn much oil to make electricity,"  but this couldn't be farther from the truth. In fact, oil is used to generate more electricity than any other energy source, generating about 40% of our nation's energy.  You can find this info at US DOE's website: http://www.energy.gov/energysources/oil.htm

electrical power generation by source