Initial Responses

[Roger]

Some of the secondary recovery approaches they had been looking into (high-pressure CO2 injection, in particular)

They are looking for something better than water injection. Since the super light crudes were pumped out first, and then the light crudes, we're turning to the med, heavy & sour crudes. In Saudi Arabia, @ their largest oil field, @ the north end, the sweeter crude (API 35-40) was found in the more porous rock, most of that is gone. The API 31-34 med crude is found in less porous rock. So its slower to flow.



The 164 mile Gharwar oil field, north is @ top. Purple, blue and grean are water, the oil is red and yellow, natural gas white.

Water injection has flushed out a lot of oil, but tends to leave the injection site and follow the path of least resistance. By putting the water at the bottom of the crude formation, the intent is to force all the oil to oil rigs waiting to pump it out. Things like cracks in the rock can screw your oil flow up. Areas of varying rock porousity too. CO2 couldt be better than water

[scareduck]

You know what oil companies need the most? Same thing as everyone else.

Cheap energy.

They could certainly use it for process steam to extract bitumen in Athabasca.

[rj40]

So what happens to places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela in the first year after the announcement, then after 5 years and then 15 years+? How will OPEC react during this period? Do you think some of these places will follow in the footsteps of Dubai?

[Roger]

Roger,

Manufacturing jobs are never coming back.

Did I say that ?

[scareduck]

As the Gulf states go, Dubai is relatively liberal. Saudi is just one effed-up mess of Wahhabist (sp?) fundamentalism and petrodollars. Over the long haul, that is a toxic mix. So, no, liberalization is not likely to happen.

Workable fusion could ultimately benefit them, but they would also have to overcome their internal political handicaps.

[scareduck]

Also -- Roger, re CO2 injection, the big problem in California is that BP had planned a 60-in., 6,000 PSI pipeline from their Los Angeles (Wilmington) refinery all the way up to Bakersfield, buried 30 feet deep. It would run through a number of residential neighborhoods. Imagine the potential for death if that thing ever blew out. Something like that could work fine in the uninhabited parts of Texas and Colorado.

[TallDave]

Where is there oil at those lift prices? Saudi Arabia, maybe; certainly nowhere in the U.S., and I would bet against it in Venezuela and Mexico, too.

In SA, it's considerably less: about $5/bbl. In the U.S. probably less than $20.

"Production cost" includes a world-wide average of US $7.35 per barrel in finding costs, $3.57 per barrel in lifting cost (what it takes to operate a producing well), and $1.00 in production taxes per barrel

http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html

Remember, the unadjusted price of oil was only $20/bbl as recently as 2002, and as low as $11/bbl in 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_prices

Why do you think the oil companies suddenly have the highest profits ever recorded? And why does anyone think they would to do anything (like Polywell) to disrupt this gravy train?

We're probably going to go flex-fuel as Brazil did in successfully eliminating their petroleum dependence. Farmland will expand vastly, and Third World farmers will have a product worth selling.

Did you know, BTW, that fusion research funding tracks oil prices quite closely for the last 40 years?

[TallDave]

Meh. You forget that oil companies once upon a time had a hand in fusion development but gave it up. (I forget which one, but one of the Riggatron's contemporary competitors was funded in part by an oil major.)

A PR effort.

So what happens to places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela in the first year after the announcement, then after 5 years and then 15 years+?

At first they ignore it, then they panic, then they go back to being unimportant backwater states.

How will OPEC react during this period?

Badly. A lot of wailing. I expect the Jews will be blamed.

You know what oil companies need the most? Same thing as everyone else.

Money. And they can't make nearly as much on Polywell.

You have to realize that if it works as cheaply as we hope, Polywell is horrifyingly destructive to commodity energy profits. It's intellectual property that creates energy. And intellectual property is a non-scarce resource.

Now, in theory, you could say "We are The Polywell Company and only by buying our licenses can you produce energy this way" and thus create profits via scarcity, but the rush to copy this tech would make Eli Whitney's travails look like a day in Small Claims Court -- and it would cross every border.

[scareduck]

I absolutely disagree with this. The Saudis know their oil is a limited resource.

[TallDave]

They're starting to invest the windfall proceeds now, and belatedly realizing that maybe they need an educated labor force, but overall their attitude has been "Inshallah, the oil wil flow." They've been throwing billions into madrassas in Pakistan while SA unemployment reaches 25%.

I don't know why you expect them to behave rationally. Remember, this is the country that produced Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers, not to mention a flood of splodeydopes that has made life miserable for Iraqis. Women are little more than property, honor killings are routine, and the concept of democracy only arrived a few years ago.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/sa.html

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fair ... esA98.html

[MSimon]

BFRs (Bussard Fusion Reactors) will have approximately zero effect on the oil business for the first five years of its roll out.

The business it will affect most is electrical coal.

The coal folks already know they are on the ropes.

If PEHVs with multi-fuel capability become the norm then some of the pressure will come off oil. If BFRs come on line in the same time frame it could be very synergistic.

[scareduck]

Remember, this is the country that produced Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers

Because of course the people running Saudi Aramco are just like Osama bin Laden.

I'll take "Collective Guilt" for $500, Alex ... sheesh ...

[rj40]

That would be nice, but you have to remember that they will make vastly less money on Polywell than oil because oil is a scarce resource while Polywell is essentially intellectual property.

I once read that capitalists like competition – at least until they are the ones that have to compete. That sounds plausible to me. So it wouldn’t surprise me if oil companies tried to slow things down for a time. In the end though, there is going to be so much money at stake, I don’t see them doing this for long. Everyone out there with investment money is going to be getting into this (assuming, as always, it works), so will the oil companies. Now that I think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many groups protesting that the oil companies are too big to compete against in this; that they have an unfair advantage.

[Roger]

Polywell may put the oil companies on a sunset road, but corporations in general, over the long term are going to love going to space, especially if we "give them", resource abundant plots on the moon or asteroids in orbit.

BFRs (Bussard Fusion Reactors) will have approximately zero effect on the oil business for the first five years of its roll out.

The business it will affect most is electrical coal.

The coal folks already know they are on the ropes.

Correct, most oil goes to transportation, while Coal goes to electrical generation. IIRC we get 52% of our electricity from coal, so the first casualty is the coal fired plant.

[rj40]

Thanks for all the responses. This is very interesting stuff. And now for the 24.864760137 slug gorilla in the room: what about the chances for violence? People displaced at work or otherwise ill affected by this technology? What about terrorism? Should we expect an upswing as terrorists realize a big chunk of their funding (not all of it!) would be drying up? Do you expect Polwell facilities to be prime targets? What could we do, if anything, to ameliorate the situation?