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posted by on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the drill-baby-drill dept.

From CNN:

The massive find of conventional oil on state land could bring relief to budget pains in Alaska brought on by slumping production in the state and the crash in oil prices.

The new discovery was made in just the past few days in Alaska's North Slope, which was previously viewed as an aging oil basin.

[...] "The interesting thing about this discovery is the North Slope was previously thought to be on its last legs. But this is a significant emerging find," Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix told CNNMoney.

Of course, this news won't ease rising concern among investors about the stubborn glut of oil in the U.S. There are increasing signs that shale oil producers are preparing to ramp up output after surviving a two-year price war with OPEC.

It's a gift from $DEITY! Who needs renewable energy when we just keep finding oil! Right?


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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:23PM (23 children)

    by looorg (578) on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:23PM (#478108)

    ... Alaska brought on by slumping production in the state and the crash in oil prices.

    I'm not familiar with the oil-biz but how is finding more oil going to drive up the price? Isn't the price just going to plummet even more if they find even more oil? Sure I guess they could save it for a bit and hope the other oil deposits run dry (which they eventually will) and then this one will be great. But if the price is so low now it might not even be worth it to pump this one out of the ground. Not to mention there will probably be a bunch of treehuggers around that wants to save nature, some owl and something such else and they'll protest and file legal documents to make it even more of a drag to get out.

    But sure praise $deity for killing of all the dinos a few thousand years ago so he could create more oil.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:32PM (22 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:32PM (#478112)

    The crash in oil prices means it has not been economical to pump from expensive wells.
    This oil, presumably, is cheap to pump out so even if the price per barrel is decreased the profit per barrel is increased.
    Which means more barrels pumped in the state of alaska which means more tax revenue.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:06PM (21 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:06PM (#478124)

      Yes. Alaska will benefit. Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and Russia can suck it.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:57PM (19 children)

        by Whoever (4524) on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:57PM (#478150) Journal

        Yes. Alaska will benefit. Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and Russia can suck it.

        And that is how you return Russia to 3rd world status, unable to afford an effective military: keep the price of oil low.

        Whether it is by opening up fracking, new sources of oil, or replacing oil use with renewable energy sources, the most effective counter to Russia's recent military buildup is to fight using economic weapons, not military ones.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:03PM (14 children)

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:03PM (#478152) Journal

          Yes, but when this runs out...what then? A renewable base makes this entire disgusting 150+-year-long oil massacre moot; we won't need Russia and OPEC's stinkin' oil EVER AGAIN, not "just for the next 30 years." Oh, and it has the nice side effect of not turning the planet into an unstable polluted hellhole.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:54PM (12 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:54PM (#478183)

            "Renewables". Heh. You ignorant Gaia-worshippers with your pinwheels and heavy-metal photovoltaic cells, trying to claim they can provide for existing electrical demand, let alone any sort of breakthrough to allow for further technological advancements. You out yourselves as a religious death cult over your rejection of proven power-production technologies like molten salt nuclear reactors in favor of your landscape-destroying tinker-toys.

            I preferred the naked dances around campfires to today's shrill harpy screeching.

            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:46PM (#478200) Journal

              You, uh...don't seem to know who you're talking to. I am very much in favor of thorium fission, and in fact was blackballed from my college's research as an undergrad for bringing it up (as it turns out they were, and are, a big oil money school). I majored in Geology and had plans to go into either thorium or soil science...of course we all know how well that worked out :/

              So, um, wanna walk that back a little maybe?

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:08PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:08PM (#478224)

                I dislike nukes in general but the notion of a nuke which -consumes- the waste of previous fission plants (tens of kilotons, so far) is interesting.

                Too bad we won't see that in our lifetimes.

                The Cost of Nuclear Power [1] [ucsusa.org]
                Between 2002 and 2008, for example, cost estimates for new nuclear plant construction rose from between $2 billion and $4 billion per unit to $9 billion per unit, according to a 2009 [Union of Concerned Scientists] report

                Who is going to lay out that kind of cash for the first of its kind?
                ...especially in the middle of a worldwide depression which is still spiraling downward, with another crash likely.

                ...and history says that it takes a decade to build a nuke.
                By then, renewables will have become so affordable and widespread that new nukes won't be viable.

                [1] I like sites that have a Skip to main content link as the first thing on their pages.
                Now all they need is a guy who knows how to do that PROPERLY.

                -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:05PM (3 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:05PM (#478220)

              like molten salt nuclear reactors

              Nukes are the most expensive way ever devised to boil water.
              They also produce incredibly nasty waste which remains dangerous for eons and for which no one has devised a viable permanent disposal/re-use solution.

              landscape-destroying

              Rooftops, dude.
              **Distributed** energy; NOT giant corporate installations.

              A local college recently erected some things that not only provide shade for their parking lot (and protection from the occasional rain here), they also collect solar energy.

              Farmers graze their livestock in the same fields where wind turbines operate.

              ...and, nukes may not use huge tracts of land but they do use huge amounts of WATER.
              ...then there are the idiots who build them on earthquake faults.

              -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

              • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @12:26PM (2 children)

                by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @12:26PM (#478366) Journal

                like molten salt nuclear reactors... They also produce incredibly nasty waste which remains dangerous for eons and for which no one has devised a viable permanent disposal/re-use solution.

                certain molten-salt nuclear reactors were themselves designed from the ground up to be the viable permanent disposal/re-use solution. LFTR systems are designed to eat the nasty trans-uranic waste of current inefficient designs you seem to be confusing them with.

                nukes may not use huge tracts of land but they do use huge amounts of WATER.

                The earth's surface is 75% water. Even if nuke plants *kept* the water they used (spoiler: they just borrow it), their consumption of water would round off to 0% of terrestrial water by all known measuring methods.

                ...then there are the idiots who build them on earthquake faults.

                The only thing I can think of there is that perhaps they were trying to keep the plant out of the reach of Godzilla's usual hunting grounds.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @10:06PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @10:06PM (#478657)

                  Are you going to build nukes within a few feet of sea level?
                  AKA on the Atlantic coast and/or Gulf coast where global warming and sea level rise will soon inundate them.

                  Are you going to build more nukes on the Pacific coast?
                  AKA The Ring of Fire where there are earthquakes and volcanos.

                  ...and most of Earth's water is SALT water, which is significantly more corrosive than fresh water (which is in short supply in many places).

                  Even if nuke plants *kept* the water they used

                  We did a previous story (can't locate that now) about how already-warm water (global warming again) has less and less capacity to absorb the heat from nukes.
                  So, the "solution" is to use MORE water to cool the damned things?
                  ...or to reduce the generating capacity of the nukes?
                  ...while still negatively impacting the ecosystem.

                  .
                  ...and if you -did- re-use the same water over and over, just how much more REAL ESTATE would be used for the additional cooling apparatus for that, including the additional water volume?
                  (We're getting into of GP's original argument -for- nukes.)

                  A closed-loop cooling method for a nuke is fantasy.
                  How about the methods of generation which do NOT involve creating MORE heat?

                  -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

                  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @11:10PM

                    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @11:10PM (#478682) Journal

                    So, the "solution" is to use MORE water to cool the damned things?

                    That's *a* solution, sure.

                    already-warm water (global warming again) has less and less capacity to absorb the heat from nukes.

                    I don't think that the additional cooling capacity that might be required by this is as much as you are thinking, but even so...

                    how much more REAL ESTATE would be used for the additional cooling apparatus

                    Some, sure, but orders of magnitude less than would be required for wind or solar installations of comparable generating capacity.

                    This is a problem that solar and wind need to address. Rooftop, as you pointed out, is a good start, but these installations are really huge if they have any notable generating capacity. The energy required by a typical building, whether residential, commercial, or industrial, is much more than can be supplied by that building's rooftop area worth of solar.

                    There are off-grid designs that go to extremes to use less energy, thereby working within the parameters of onsite wind and/or solar installations, and that approach might be another way to address the problem.

                    We will solve these problems because we have to, when the price of fossil fuels becomes out of reach, or because they are a good idea, or a combination of both. But they will have to be solved in order for civilization to keep using energy at anywhere near the rate it currently does.

                    How about the methods of generation which do NOT involve creating MORE heat?

                    So that's, what, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric. All with their own problems, sure, but good sustainable solutions. We need more of those.

                    Solar doesn't create more heat, but it captures and keeps earthbound more solar heat than would have been, so it's probably a net of the same thing.

                    But if clean nuclear were possible, I wouldn't be against using lots and lots of water to cool it. Heck we could use some of that heat for desalination in a double bonus configuration.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @12:19PM (5 children)

              by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @12:19PM (#478364) Journal

              proven power-production technologies like molten salt nuclear reactors

              Okay, a couple of things here.

              1. molten salt nuclear reactors: The dream is that they are powered by thorium, little to no pollution, meltdown impossible, breed their own fuel. Sustainable.

              2. molten salt nuclear reactors: Are not in any universe a "proven power-production technology". Hey, I hope they succeed, but -- they might or might not. That's the opposite of "proven".

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @02:45PM (4 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @02:45PM (#478417)

                Are not in any universe a "proven power-production technology"

                Not sure which universe you're referring to, but in this one, we had Oak Ridge National Lab successfully run a 7MW molten-salt reactor over the span of four years. [wikipedia.org] The only apparent reason why the technology wasn't developed further at the time is that it's quite difficult to make weapons using such a design.

                • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @03:56PM (3 children)

                  by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @03:56PM (#478460) Journal

                  Not sure which universe you're referring to, but in this one, we had Oak Ridge National Lab successfully run a 7MW molten-salt reactor over the span of four years.

                  If you'll read your own link, you'll see that the ORNL experimental reactor didn't produce any power aside from some impressive waste heat.

                  I'd love to see molten salt reactors like the LFTR catch on. But they haven't, which hampers that proven track record a bit.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @04:05PM (2 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @04:05PM (#478468)

                    1. nuclear reactors only produce "waste heat", turbines produce power
                    2. molten salt reactor is the same for thorium or uranium ....
                    3. thorium and uranium produce almost identical waste streams, the different is not material
                    4. molten salt reactors don't exist because they are a pain to maintain!!
                    5. there are better ways of having passive safety

                    It's kind of sad to see armchair "physicists" keep repeating tired old bullshit about Thorium. It's already used in world's nuclear reactors! Meltdowns are caused not by fuel, but by lack of cooling. Hence the word melt. Actually, Uranium plays NO ROLE in meltdowns like Fukushima because Uranium chain reaction is completely stopped at that point. If they were running thorium in same geometry, they would melt just the same.

                    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @04:46PM

                      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @04:46PM (#478494) Journal

                      1. nuclear reactors only produce "waste heat", turbines produce power

                      Waste heat [merriam-webster.com] is heat other than that used for the primary purpose of a system.

                      For example, if a reactor heated water to produce steam which turned a turbine to produce electricity, any remaining heat would be waste heat, but the heat energy used to heat the fluid driving the turbine isn't wasted.

                      The ORNL molten salt reactor experiment didn't produce electricity, or indeed anything else except data--information. And waste heat. (And it wasn't fueled by Thorium.)

                      So the difference here is that many reactors have a proven track record of producing power, but molten salt reactors--while proven technically viable at ORNL--have no proven track record of generating anything useful other than valuable data.

                      Now, in the context of this article, if a reactor yielded something usable elsewhere via energy conversion such as electricity, or motive force for an airplane, then it would be on some level comparable to oil. If it was just an interesting study in a really hot building, then not.

                      2. molten salt reactor is the same for thorium or uranium ....
                      3. thorium and uranium produce almost identical waste streams, the different is not material

                      Yes, almost identical. But the devil's in the details [glerner.com].

                      4. molten salt reactors don't exist because they are a pain to maintain!!

                      While that may be a contributing factor, the situation is more complicated [discovermagazine.com] than that and the technical and policy decisions involved date back for decades.

                      5. there are better ways of having passive safety

                      There are other ways, sure. Better? Unproven, since the thorium liquid reactor folks have yet to get anything into production so far as I know.

                      It's kind of sad to see armchair "physicists" keep repeating tired old bullshit about Thorium.

                      There are some really interesting proposed ideas for combining molten fluoride salt reactors with a thorium -> uranium fuel cycle to produce a low-pressure breeder reactor with passive safety features such as an actively cooled drain block [wordpress.com]. Until someone builds one, they are just that--ideas. Afterwards, the data would presumably speak for themselves.

                      Uranium plays NO ROLE in meltdowns like Fukushima because Uranium chain reaction is completely stopped at that point. If they were running thorium in same geometry, they would melt just the same.

                      Making a reactor safe against meltdowns involves that passive safety we are talking about.

                      With a core of solid fuel rods + failure of cooling, the failure mode is "meltdown" which is bad [wikimedia.org].

                      With a core of liquid fuel held in place by a cooled drain plug + failure of cooling, the failure mode is "everything drains into an inert tank" which is arguably not so bad [wordpress.com].

                      This configuration does not magically appear once designers add a pinch of magic thorium dust, of course; it is a design that includes a decision to use a promising passive safety feature. Proposed reactor designs I've seen that include this idea typically also include the decision to use a Thorium fuel cycle. Still falls under "wouldn't that be nice."

                      But if this [wordpress.com] or another nuke design were to be developed that reduced/eliminated the need for long-term waste storage and reduced/eliminated the meltdown risk, then I argue that it would probably be better for most use cases than burning oil.

                    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 13 2017, @09:15PM

                      by bob_super (1357) on Monday March 13 2017, @09:15PM (#478638)

                      > Uranium plays NO ROLE in meltdowns like Fukushima because Uranium chain reaction is completely stopped at that point.

                      Incorrect.
                      Inserting the rods triggers the exponential decay of the chain reaction.
                      Your traditional 2-3GW (thermal) reactor will still need over 5MW of cooling three weeks after a scram event.
                      Not extracting the heat leads to meltdown.

                      https://mitnse.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/what-is-decay-heat/ [wordpress.com]

          • (Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Sunday March 12 2017, @11:03PM

            by Hawkwind (3531) on Sunday March 12 2017, @11:03PM (#478239)

            I like parent and grandparent. Russia is not that big of an economy, making sure the world price stays low is in our best interest. At the same time there's no reason to jack up the probabilities of hurting our environment.

            Although since the North Slope has been in play for so long I wonder from a world perspective if it isn't a decent place to pull oil from. Anyone with insight?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:08PM (#478186)

          And that is how you return Russia to 3rd world status, unable to afford an effective military: keep the price of oil low.

          Oil prices crashed in 2008 and in 2014 due to a reduction in demand not an increase in supply.
          Oil is just a source of power. If we can substitute another source of power for oil, it will have the same effect on oil prices.
          So we can cause the same damage to the Russian economy by making solar and wind power cheaper.
          Solar is already the cheapest source of power in 60 countries. [sciencealert.com] Its on track to be the cheapest source of power in all countries by 2025.

          The problem is new energy tech needs to compete with the sunk costs of already built systems. But, we don't have to make a wholesale replacement. Even just a 10% reduction in demand would be enough to send the price of oil through the floor.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:45PM (1 child)

          by Thexalon (636) on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:45PM (#478199)

          That's one possible way.

          The other way you cripple Russia is you wean the west off of oil and gas, since they're already moving in that direction. That lower demand will drop the price of oil just as assuredly as oversupply, and have the same effects on the Russian economy.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday March 12 2017, @09:30PM

            by Whoever (4524) on Sunday March 12 2017, @09:30PM (#478207) Journal

            The other way you cripple Russia is you wean the west off of oil and gas

            I think that I mentioned renewable energy (which is my preferred method) as one of the ways to achieve this.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday March 13 2017, @12:29PM

          by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 13 2017, @12:29PM (#478367) Journal

          Yes. Alaska will benefit. Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and Russia can suck it.

          And that is how you return Russia to 3rd world status, unable to afford an effective military: keep the price of oil low.

          Honestly, if I found oil, I would probably want the price higher rather than lower, even if I disagreed with the politics of Russia/OPEC/Venezuela/Etc., so that my oil would be worth some money....

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @11:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @11:33PM (#478249)

        ummm. aren't the more expensive wells in the tar sands of the usa?

        also, which country has the higher (and hence more costly) standard of living to maintain?

        and if the price of oil plummets, the ruskies are the ones that might actually benefit from it (like, the regular plebs that are freezing throughout the coldest winters, not the oil moguls)

        otoh, saudi arabia is already burning through its reserves of us treasuries, so yeah its pretty fucked

        the usa depends on the relationship with opec that created the petrodollar. when that relationship dies, so does the petrodollar, and then us dollar hegemony, so be careful what you wish for