As gas prices surge, liberals demand a windfall profit tax on oil companies. This should really help, since any taxes on corporations are simply passed on to consumers. The end result will be even MORE EXPENSIVE gas! Did any of these guys EVER take economics?


As a Harvard study has shown, when the U.S. imposed a windfall profits tax in 1980, prices rose to an inflation-adjusted range even higher than today, and domestic production fell.http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110008309

Why is gas more expensive? A massive increase in demand mostly in India and China. Meanwhile, liberals have done all they can to prevent measures that would actually help decrease prices. Namely, increasing the supply.

First we have ANWAR. Tons of oil in a desolate wasteland. Can't drill though, might upset the deer. Second, offshore drilling. Liberals have prevented any increases in offshore drilling despite the fact that by some estimates there is more oil of the coast off the US than in Saudi Arabia!

We also have different "blends" of gasoline required in practically every state.

If we want lower prices, let's do something to increase production and decrease regulations that make gasoline production more expensive. Also, decreasing taxes would help.

It's ANWR, not ANWAR. And there's not tons of oil. There's not enough oil up there to last America a month. A drop in the bottomless tank. There is so little oil, the oil companies don't really want to develop it. Not worth the trouble.

what happened to solar energy?
the major drawback of solar power was cost, it wasn't competitive with cheap oil.
oil is no longer cheap, but solar power is nowhere to be found. why?

what happened to solar energy?
the major drawback of solar power was cost, it wasn't competitive with cheap oil.
oil is no longer cheap, but solar power is nowhere to be found. why?The cells are still too expensive and inefficient to be practical on a large scale, however many research groups are working on inexpensive solar film collectors which capture more energy through the infrared spectrum:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200507/sargent.asp

I don't mean to sound contrary madanthonywayne, but more taxed/expensive gas may help us start taking the oil situation more seriously. SUV and truck sales have changed very little since prices have gone up (source (http://news.google.com/news?q=suv+sales&num=20&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title))
if people don't care about the gas prices, then the companies will charge whatever they want. basic economics: price up, demand down. we could simply use the extra tax money to fight the problem.

I am no expert on what measures are most effective, but perhaps giving consumers tax breaks for buying higher gas millage cars, or perhaps directly to the automakers, or research of renewable energy sources. oil's only economically inelastic as long as the other sources are so underdeveloped.

I am no expert on what measures are most effective, but perhaps giving consumers tax breaks for buying higher gas millage cars, or perhaps directly to the automakers, or research of renewable energy sources. oil's only economically inelastic as long as the other sources are so underdeveloped.

We could also start by cutting the tax breaks given to small businesses when they purchase trucks and SUV's that run on regular gasoline. Instead, let's give them tax breaks for purchasing trucks that run on ethanol, hydrogen or electric power. Just an idea. :rolleyes:

...If we want lower prices, let's do something to increase production and decrease regulations that make gasoline production more expensive. Also, decreasing taxes would help.IMHO, your position is the CAUSE of US’s problem, not the cure.

Even at $3/gal, US gasoline prices are less than half what ALL Europeans pay! Norway has no shortage of oil - is in fact a big supplier of that "black gold mineral." but that government and its people there are more intelligent and less short sighted than in the US, so their current price is above $7/gal, to encourage the development of the type of infrastructure that is necessary now, in the "post peak oil" era.

Saudi Arabia has been saying that it can increase production to meet demand, but fact it was slightly higher in 2004 than it is currently. They keep very tightly information about their capacity, but most experts think they have little except for low quality sour oil, which is already in global surplus and dropping in price as there are too few refineries that can accept this type of crude as feed stock. - I.e. Saudi Arabia is not likely to develop these deposits in a market already saturated with them.

If you want a better indicator of the probably of increased oil shipments from the gulf region, look at the price of long term rental /lease of oil tankers - it is dropping rapidly, in part no doubt due to the expectation that GWB is stupid enough to reduce oil export from Iran as he has already done for oil from Iraq (not yet back to pre-invasion levels).

The American suburban live style has been the envy of the world, but America’s neglect of the inter cities, neglect of public transport in cities that only the poor, usually blacks, use plus this general suburban sprawl developed by the richer part of US society and their big gas hogs, all those things US keeping gas at less than half the cost others have produced as “infrastructure“, will soon be the reason why the US collapses economically. - It is impossible to change this suburban infrastructure in less than a decade and gas can easily go to above $10/gal in half that time.

I.e. - It was a great dance, while it lasted, but paying the piper now that the dance is over, will be very painful for the US, much more so than for those countries that have sold gas at twice (or more) of the US price for years or for places like Brazil, that began to convert to alcohol fuel 30 years ago and now are energy self sufficient.

Little food is produce near where it is consumed in US. Was not necessary in the "cheap-gas" economy. What do you think will happen in the US when most of the local grocery shelves are bare or items on them are priced too high for the increasing out-of-work population to buy?

I bet only the army & police will have the gas when the collapsed US dollar can only import a little of it and that you will need guns (There are lots of them in the US.) to keep the hungry, angry, mob from taking what you wisely stored in your suburban basement when you began to realize that what I am suggesting might indeed happen.

I am in Brazil, building a refuge for my grand children. I hope I can get them out of the US before it gets too dangerous there. Where will you be then?

I think you are a bit too gloomy in your prediction. I doubt it will be that bad.

I am beggining to think that Peak Oil is a total scam by the people in the world who want to prematurly end the oil age.

Sure, if you simply rely on conventional oil sources, things are going to get hairy. I think the west should put a huge amount of capital investment into the Aberta Oil Sands as well as Colorado's Oil Shale.

There is over 1 trillion barrels of recoverable oil in these two deposits. With oil over $70/barrel, these previously expensive solutions have become economically viable.

And will be available to consumers when?

I dont know, maybe 10 years if we get started now.

I think you are a bit too gloomy in your prediction. I doubt it will be that bad.Hope you are right and I am wrong.

...With oil over $70/barrel, these previously expensive solutions have become economically viable.Is that just your opinion, or can you give some reference or show that as the result of an analysis. I am under the impression that so much heat is required to free the oil from the sand that a considerable higher price is required.

I.e. if you need to burn 2 barrels of oil to free 3, you only get a net gain of one and that at the expense of making the CO2 release per unit of energy three times greater. These numbers are just illustrations, but in the ball park as I remember it.

Please support your statement quoted above.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060424/24oil.htm


Actually the ratio is more like you get 3.5 usuable barrels of oil for every 1 used in production, much lower than the current 20:1 ratio of crude.

Alberta Oil Sands cost $10-30 more too produce than crude and oil shale is $30-50 more than crude.

As you can see, with oil prices below $50 this makes little sense. If oil stays above $70 there is incentive to use these unconventional sources.

That article is really good, check it out.

I.e. - It was a great dance, while it lasted, but paying the piper now that the dance is over, will be very painful for the US, much more so than for those countries that have sold gas at twice (or more) of the US price for years or for places like Brazil,
I am in Brazil, building a refuge for my grand children. I hope I can get them out of the US before it gets too dangerous there. Where will you be then?
Do you really think you'll be safe in Brazil if the country with the most powerful military in the world, located not that far from Brazil, is in the dire state you describe? Many liberals are fond of calling Bush a Nazi, but if any of what you described comes to pass, I think we'd see the real thing. Including the foriegn policy.

Fortunately, I don't believe any of that will happen. Speaking of the Nazis, didn't they power their war machine with liquified coal due to a shortage of oil? If they could do it with WW2 technology, surely we could too. The US has TONS of coal.

That article I posted talks about liquified coal.

It's ANWR, not ANWAR. And there's not tons of oil. There's not enough oil up there to last America a month. A drop in the bottomless tank. There is so little oil, the oil companies don't really want to develop it. Not worth the trouble.


Mr. Schumer and most of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate--the very crowd shouting the loudest about "obscene" gas prices--have voted uniformly for nearly 20 years against allowing most domestic oil production. They have vetoed opening even a tiny portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas production. If there is as much oil as the U.S. Geological Survey estimates, this would increase America's proven domestic oil reserves by about 50%.

They have also voted against producing oil from the Outer Continental Shelf, where there are more supplies by some estimates than in Saudi Arabia. http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110008309
Increasing domestic oil reserves by fifty percent sounds significant. So does a suppy of oil greater than that in Saudi Arabia.

That article I posted talks about liquified coal.
That was a good article. It points out some of the ways we will avoid the apocolyptic prophesies of Billy T. As oil becomes more expensive, all the hair brained ideas people have had over the years begin to make sense. If oil stays above fifty dollars a barrel for long, we'll see more and more of these new technologies.

$3 per gallon isnt that much. if you compare it to new zealand prices its about $0.60 NZD/litre cheaper that what im paying. and in britain its about 3 times as much with the amount of tax on it.

Increasing domestic oil reserves by fifty percent sounds significant.

Of course it sounds significant. It's worded vaguely so as to give you the impression of an enormity of oil that isn't being used. Simply misleading. Do you know what America's domestic oil reserves are? Here, I'll look it up for you:


United States proven oil reserves declined to a little more than 21 billion barrels by the end of 2004 according to the Energy Information Administration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#United_States

Do you know how many barrels of oil the US consumes in a year?
7 billion.
Half of 21 billion divided by 7 billion gives us a little more than a years supply of oil in ANWR. I'd rather keep the wilderness for my kids than you take that extra car ride to the grocery store.

To DubStyle (and others):

Thanks for ref. I agree it is good one, but it includes:

“…the biggest play in the unconventional reclamation game is in Canada. Oil sands production is over 1.2 million barrels per day, nearly double the output of four years ago. That has secured Canada's spot as No. 1 supplier to the No. 1 oil consumer, the United States, even though its conventional oil production is falling rapidly. Oil sands production (together with similar unconventional sources in Venezuela) will grow more than 170 percent by 2015,” {Billy T insert: Increase by 2mBPD, but I think US’s demand will increase much more, so problem is getting worse, not better.}

“Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons winces at the water loss (about a barrel for every barrel of oil produced) and the huge volumes of natural gas burned to separate oil from sand. "I call it making gold into lead," Simmons says.”

On US oil shale source:
“Rand estimates that a single 100,000-barrel-a-day operation would require a dedicated 1.2-gigawatt electricity generating station--a size that would be comparable to one of the nation's largest power plants, like the New Hampshire nuclear giant, Seabrook, which serves 900,000 customers. Electricity use is a challenge, O'Connor admits, but Shell estimates that its process would produce 3.5 units of energy* for every one it uses.” {Billy T insert: To put this into pocket book terms: For your current electric bill, on a daily basis, the customer get (neglecting many large costs associated with converting crude to gas, delivery and profits, etc) 1/9 of a BPD of oil which is adequate for his driving and house heating needs, but no bargain compared to a car running on batteries and an electric heat pump for heating (especially if you need it for air conditioning anyway). As I have been saying here for more than a year, run your car on imported low-cost, tropical-sugar-cane produced alcohol. - Much cheaper than a “battery car.”}
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*Billy T note: The use of one unit of electricity to produce (if actually as hoped) 3.5 units of energy in oil is slightly above “break even” in that if that oil energy were converted into the one unit of electric energy used, about 2/3 would be waste heat due to Carnot cycle limits. In this case this Waste heat may not be entirely “waste” as it is hot enough to assist with the extraction of oil form shale, but as Shell plans to use big electric heaters about 1000 feet below the surface, I think direct use of this “waste heat” IS NOT feasible; however, Shell also plans to freeze a ring of earth to prevent water form entering the “hot zone” and it may be feasible to use the waste heat as at least part of the energy required to drive these refrigerators. I would be willing to bet “dollars to donuts” that steam from the hot zone will condense on the “ice ring” melt it and the water released will find it way back into the hot zone. - I.e. Shell will discover they are making a 100 billion dollar version of two teams of men - one tasked with digging a hole and the other with filling it up as they electrically heat the hot zone inside their constantly refrigerated “ice ring.” Shell will realize this and give up as Exxon did, some what poorer, but wiser. -Perhaps Shell already knows this problem is real and “shale oil” is all “just talk“, designed to keep US congress and angry voters off their back with “excess profits tax“ They can argue “do not tax us, we need to make huge investment.” etc.?}

Do you really think you'll be safe in Brazil if the country with the most powerful military in the world, located not that far from Brazil, is in the dire state you describe? Many liberals are fond of calling Bush a Nazi, but if any of what you described comes to pass, I think we'd see the real thing. Including the foriegn policy.
Fortunately, I don't believe any of that will happen. Speaking of the Nazis, didn't they power their war machine with liquified coal due to a shortage of oil? If they could do it with WW2 technology, surely we could too. The US has TONS of coal.I am inclined to agree with you that the US will attempt to use its military might, except Brazil will not be the target. Probably part of the current excitment about Iran is very much related to who the target would be as that oil is cheap, easily extracted, and not already all going to US as Saudi oil essentially is. This will cause a lot of trouble with China and Japan, who do get most of their oil from Iran. They of course can do nothing against the US in the battle field, but collectively they can dump their dollar hoards and collapse the US dollar and economy.

It all gets very complex, but what I think MAY happen is a repeat of Iraq., only much worse for US. I.e. the US will make "regime change" but unlike Iraq, where many of natives wanted that change, the current US use of "Iran has no right to U235 enrichment, even for electic power, because that technology is same as required for bomb." (only a change is the plumbing between the centrifuges) has destroyed the native opposition to the government. Like in Iraq, their much larger better-trained army will fade into the hill and sabotage the oil production, so it will drastically drop. (Iraq's is still below pre invasion levels by about half a million BPD. If Iran is invaded, the drop will be several million BPD but that will not matter much as a collapsed economy will need much less.)


Fortunately, most of the oil Brazil gets is from off shore wells, easily destroyed in a "scorched earth" (scorched water?) policy. The US military lacks the skills to extract oil from deep ocean floor (Brazil's government controlled PetroBrass is the world leader in this technology.)

Yes. Nazis Germany and "apartheid isolated" SA both used the Fisher -Toper process to make oil, but the cost is so high that in both cases it was at least part of the reason for the fall of these governments. - Do not think the US economy can run as it does today on oil from coal. Perhaps it could, IF it had not built up the "suburban infrastructure" it made as a result of keeping, for decades, gas prices at the pump at half, or less, what Europe pays.

Oil sands production (together with similar unconventional sources in Venezuela) will grow more than 170 percent by 2015,” {Billy T insert: Increase by 2mBPD, but I think US’s demand will increase much more, so problem is getting worse, not better.}

You seriously think that American demand for oil is going to increase by "much more" than 170% in the next 9 years? Here is a plot of American petroleum demand from 1950 till 2002:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/Dem_image_US_cons_sector.htm

It took 40 years to increase 170% from 1965 to the present. At any rate, a doubling of oil demand would have to correspond to a doubling (or more) in GDP, which is not consistent with your whole "America is on the verge of collapse" thesis.

At any rate, a doubling of oil demand would have to correspond to a doubling (or more) in GDP, which is not consistent with your whole "America is on the verge of collapse" thesis.

Linear logic may not apply when frequency rates also increase. Gas prices at the pump have doubled since Bush took office and this suggests that linear scale analysis has lately been in error.

Higher gas prices is very much favorable. $5/gal at the pump by summer gives some hope that some people may reorient their thinking about the world they live in and the consequences of individual indiscretion towards the whole.

Linear logic may not apply when frequency rates also increase. Gas prices at the pump have doubled since Bush took office and this suggests that linear scale analysis has lately been in error.

First of all, said increase in gas prices is directly responsible for keeping US oil consumption flat. The only way for American consumption to suddenly spike would be a huge, sudden drop in oil prices. That, in turn, requires either a big drop in global demand (China and Japan get wiped out by a meteor, say) or big jump in supply (said meteor is made out of frozen crude oil). I don't see any indication that either of these things will come to pass. On the contrary, everyone expects demand to continue to surge, while supply will stay flat and eventually fall off. That adds up to escalating oil prices, and flattening consumption in America (and everywhere else).

As far as the relationship between energy consumption and GDP, you are correct that it is generally not linear, particularly for situations where energy use triples in the course of a few years. However, the nonlinearity is in the direction of decreased energy intensity (i.e., more GDP per BTU). This is because of the effects discussed above: a 170% spike in American demand would drive the price of oil up to astronomical levels, making it uneconomical for use in any but the most profitable applications. Thus, we would expect the American GDP to increase SUPERlinearly with oil consumption. This is why I said "a doubling (or more) in GDP." Note that I should have said "tripling" instead of "doubling," since a 170% *increase* is almost three times the original quantity.

So, in summary, the linear projection is a lower bound. I used it because it is both simple and conservative, and so handily illustrates that a 170% increase in American oil consumption is inconsistent with imminent American economic decline. If America's economy were to drop off a cliff, it would manifest as a *decrease* in oil consumption.

Why is gas more expensive? A massive increase in demand mostly in India and China. Meanwhile, liberals have done all they can to prevent measures that would actually help decrease prices. Namely, increasing the supply.

There is nothing you can do to increase the total amount of oil on Earth. Most of the sources of light sweet crude have already been exploited. More extensive exploration will paradoxically make the rest get used up even sooner. It's our failure to invest in alternatives that will be our downfall. I'm not even talking about hydrogen fantasies, but things like railroads and increasing the gas mileage standards for new vehicles.

Higher gas prices is very much favorable. $5/gal at the pump by summer gives some hope that some people may reorient their thinking about the world they live in and the consequences of individual indiscretion towards the whole.

Yeah, it's definitely getting people motivated. Auto sales have been shifting heavily towards fuel efficient models (Toyota has been having banner years in US sales, while the SUV companies are eating dirt) and all of the big energy and auto companies talking up alternative fuel sources, sustainability, etc. The day when America's energy intensity matches that of Europe isn't far off.

As far as global consequences go, an unfortunate fact is that a big part of the way developed nations achieve high efficiency/low emissions is by shifting inefficient, dirty industry to less developed countries (as opposed to eliminating it from the global economy). Since the infrastructure then supports more people, you end up with an even bigger industrial pollution problem over all. America has already shifted most of the inefficient industry abroad, notably to China. The result is that America's industrial efficiency and cleanliness is now quite good, and that China is the world leader in carbon dioxide emissions.

America's transport sector, on the other hand, has remained fairly inefficient, and so accounts for a disproportionate share of emissions. This is also where the brunt of rising fuel costs are now being felt. While this will make American transport more efficient, at the same time the number of cars on the road in China will grow rapidly. Although they will likely be small, efficient cars, they will still add up to a huge amount of emissions, by virtue of China's giant population.

So we won't be getting a cleaner world out of the deal, although you will soon have America on your side on issues like international pollution treaties.

You seriously think that American demand for oil is going to increase by "much more" than 170% in the next 9 years? ...NO ....OF COURSE NOT.

You did not read what I said.

DuvStyle gave reference:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztec...60424/24oil.htm

If you go there you will see that Canada's oil sands are currently providing US with 1.2 mBPD and their output is expect to increase by 170% (the reference's estimate, not mine!) or an increas of 2mBPD in 9 years.

I was stating that the US oil demand will increase by more than 2MBD in the next 9 years. Not a very bold statement! - I do not recall currrent US oil demand but just to show the difference, let me call it 50mBPD then a 1% increase annually for 9 years would raise that assumed 50 to about 55mBPD at the end of 9 years. Hense the increase out put from the Canadian oil sand, even if achieved, would only provide 40% of the increased demand.

Why don't you do the numbers correctly?* I am sure that if you do, and understand what I actually said, instead of your mis-reading of it, you will agree with me that the Canadian oil sands added output will not meet the increase in the US demand.

SUMMARY of point: US's salvation is not in Canada. - If it exist, it is the tropics, I.e. alcohol from sugar cane as I have been saying here for more than a year.
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*Your web reference no doubt has the numbers, but it is still not responding to me.

If you go there you will see that Canada's oil sands are currently providing US with 1.2 mBPD and their output is expect to increase by 170% (the reference's estimate, not mine!) or an increas of 2mBPD in 9 years.

I was stating that the US oil demand will increase by more than 2MBD in the next 9 years.

Okay, my mistake. I didn't realize you were considering the case where oil sands are expected to account for all of the growth in US demand. That is a conservative assumption, but it's fair enough.


Not a very bold statement! - I do not recall currrent US oil demand but just to show the difference, let me call it 50mBPD then a 1% increase annually for 9 years would raise that assumed 50 to about 55mBPD at the end of 9 years. Hense the increase out put from the Canadian oil sand, even if achieved, would only provide 40% of the increased demand.

Current US oil consumption is 20Mbpd, and has been for about 10 years. US oil consumption has been growing very slowly (less than 1% per year), even as the economy has grown at around 4% every year. In other words, all of the economic growth of the past decade has been achieved through increased energy efficiency and the use of other energy sources (notably natural gas). Supposing that an extra 2Mbpd of Canadian oil were sold to America over the next 9 years, this 10% growth in supply would be more than enough for the expected 8% growth in demand. So, yes, it is still a bold statement to say that America's oil consumption will grow by "much more" than 10% over the next 9 years. You are still saying that America's oil consumption will surge (if by a more realistic amount than the 170% figure), implying a surge in GDP growth.

My turn to say "my mistake"

I guessed too high at US oil consumption. It does look like Canada's oil sands could meet the increase in US oil demand, if they can boost the production by the 170% in 9 years. - I doubt that will be possible, mainly because of the water requirements, enviromental concerns, and fact a significant fraction of the oil taken from the ground is consummed to heat the sand (I think). I am told it gets cold in north Canada. :mad:

I am not sure that I can agree with your idea that US "energy efficiency" has improved much, but of course if it is defined as Dollars of GDP / gallon of oil it has improved a lot. - This because the US is becoming a "service economy" - the big energy users like steel mills, aluminium refiners, etc are moving over seas.

In the case of aluminum production, I bet the true improvement in energy efficiency is less than than 10% in the last 30 years. Electric motors improved significantly by the technological improvement in magnetic materials and the use of more copper in the windings, but at the current rate of copper price increase, the efficiency of electric motor NOW being designed is probably dropping!

Did you read my final speculation about why Shell talking up the recovery of oil from US land (in situ, 1000 ft below surface) with one of the largest electric power plants that has ever been built and a larger than ever build (by orders of magnitude) refrigeration system to form a surounding ice-wall barrier to keep water from entering the central hot zone? (See same ref of DubStyle as before.)

Namely, I said they are talking up this US oil independance nonsense so they can say: "Don't put excess profits tax on us as we need big profits to make big investments."

I think they know full well that steam from the hot zone will condense on the ice wall etc. - As I said in prior post - they are suggesting a 100 billion dollar (or more) scheme that is very much like hiring two teams of men to work simultaneously - one tasked with digging a hole and the other with fillng it up. But this idea (AND A SOME DOLLARS, well place in Washington) may be a smart move by Shell. What do you think?

what happened to solar energy?
the major drawback of solar power was cost, it wasn't competitive with cheap oil.
oil is no longer cheap, but solar power is nowhere to be found. why?

I think that depends on where you are looking. Solar and wind are everywhere but just still sufferering from decades of underinvestment.

...oil is no longer cheap, but solar power is nowhere to be found. why? That is not quite correct. Most cars in Brazil run on solar energy. It is called alcohol, produced from sugar cane.

Few seem to realize that conventional solar energy from photo cells is very expensive even if you only consider the cost of the land, the installation, the cleaning* (birds do fly over and do other things, leaves may blow on top or dust and sand storms where there are no leaves) the risk of hail, the transport to the field, the conversion of the low voltage DC to the AC needed the copper wire needed for connections. - These things are called the Balance of System Costs or "BOS costs" for short. BOS costs are more than 50% and going up rapidly with the cost of copper.

The production costs for the cells themselves are also increasing with the cost of energy. The Silicon itself is cheap, but it must be made pure by a "zone refining process" (many times heated and re-crystallized in progressive zones to drive the impurities to one end to be cut off.) The transport to the field is also more expensive due to the increase in gas price, but this is a minor effect.
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*Cleaning is important and the loss if you do not do it can be much greater than just the loss of the sunlight. This is because many individual cells must be connected in series. Suppose one of the N connected in series has most of its surface covered (leaf, or something else) then the resistance of that cell will be high with out light falling on it. The other cells in the chain will drive the series current thru it, make it get hot and you loss much more that the energy that did not fall on it. It is even possible that it may over heat to the point that it cracks or has excessive diffusion of its internal chemistry etc. A big bird that decides to sit and rest can cast a shadow on one or two cells, perhaps permanently damaging them by diffusion in the heat other cells are making in the high resistance shadowed one. - In short there are reasons why solar cell power is competitive only where power from the electric line is not available and generally then only in small scale, like a remote site for communications, a coast guard light, etc.

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*Billy T note: The use of one unit of electricity to produce (if actually as hoped) 3.5 units of energy in oil is slightly above “break even” in that if that oil energy were converted into the one unit of electric energy used, about 2/3 would be waste heat due to Carnot cycle limits. In this case this Waste heat may not be entirely “waste” as it is hot enough to assist with the extraction of oil form shale, but as Shell plans to use big electric heaters about 1000 feet below the surface, I think direct use of this “waste heat” IS NOT feasible; however, Shell also plans to freeze a ring of earth to prevent water form entering the “hot zone” and it may be feasible to use the waste heat as at least part of the energy required to drive these refrigerators. I would be willing to bet “dollars to donuts” that steam from the hot zone will condense on the “ice ring” melt it and the water released will find it way back into the hot zone. - I.e. Shell will discover they are making a 100 billion dollar version of two teams of men - one tasked with digging a hole and the other with filling it up as they electrically heat the hot zone inside their constantly refrigerated “ice ring.” Shell will realize this and give up as Exxon did, some what poorer, but wiser. -Perhaps Shell already knows this problem is real and “shale oil” is all “just talk“, designed to keep US congress and angry voters off their back with “excess profits tax“ They can argue “do not tax us, we need to make huge investment.” etc.?}[/QUOTE]

Damnit all if I haven't been trying to get my head around how they think that they can pull that one off. I share your skepticism, but I am really confused about why they started off thinking about their approach in the first place. Can it really be possible that the Shell engineers spaced out on this most important principle of thermodynamics? Your cynacism though has got to be misplaced. They'll surely try to look pitiful before Congress, but $1B is an expensive windmill to be charging.

....They'll surely try to look pitiful before Congress, but $1B is an expensive windmill to be charging.Congressmen can easily be fooled / bribed by vested interest. - Let me illustrate with a personnel story:

Back in the early days, pre NASA, as I recall, there were industrial groups wanting your tax dollars for space. One of the crazy suggestions that was often repeated was that in space with no gravity, it would be possible to make perfectly spherical ball bearings.

Several congressmen from the states trying to stick their hands into the tax pool were sprouting this nonsense. I happen to live in Maryland, a state that was not going to get any of the pie (Our congressman had other "boondoggles" in mind for that.) So I wrote him to point out that as liquid sphere of steel begins to go solid, the total volume will be reduced and the last part to go solid will probably be concave - that a "ball" bearing made in space would be the worst ball bearing one could imagine - it would not even make a good "steelie" for a game of Marbles. He invited me I to testify before his committee, but as I would feel compelled to say something against his projects too, I thank him, declined and said he should claim my argument against "space ball bearing" as his own.

I am sure Shell can find a few congressmen to actively support this shale oil nonsense: Oven fighting refrigerator etc. but it will cost Shell some campaign contributions - that is how the system works.

God - your sure get cynical after you have been around the track a few times!

Ultimate solution to any future oil crisis is here (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=54637).

Heres a great interview with an analyst who has been studying the nuts and bolts of production and pricing for several years - his prophetic visions are not exactly what you would call 'glad tidings':

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/11/03/simmons/

An interview with peak-oil provocateur Matthew Simmons

By Amanda Griscom Little
03 Nov 2005


Matthew Simmons has been stirring up a lot of angst in energy circles this year. This well-connected industry insider has concluded that some of the world's largest oil beds may be on the verge of production collapse -- and he's willing to bet his much-vaunted career on it.

Author of the recently published Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, Simmons is founder of Simmons & Company International, an investment bank that handles mergers and acquisitions among energy companies, and counts among its clients Halliburton, General Electric, and the World Bank. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, he served as an energy-policy adviser to the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign.

Conservative credentials aside, Simmons has been boggling the minds of people across the political spectrum with his recent prediction that the price of a barrel of oil could hit the high triple digits within a few years. To postpone economic meltdown, he says we should be drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other hotly contested spots. At the same time, he's calling for a massive shift in energy policy, including radical improvements in efficiency, as well as a return to local farming and manufacturing. With his unconventional opinions, he's single-handedly reinventing the image of the post-oil energy crusader. He talked to Grist from his cell phone while dashing between energy lectures.

question: Let's start with a brief overview of the premise and implications of Twilight.

answer: I believe we are either at or very close to peak oil. If I'm right, then we have to assume that five or 10 years from now we'll be producing less oil than we are today. And yet we have a society that is expecting, under the most conservative assumptions, that oil usage will grow by at least 30 to 50 percent over the next 25 years. In other words, we would end up with only 70 percent of the oil we have today when we would need to have 150 percent. It's a problem of staggering economic proportions -- far greater than the temporary setback of a terrorist attack on energy infrastructure -- that could end up leading to more geopolitical fistfights than you can ever imagine. The fistfights turn into weapon fights and give way to a very ugly society.

question: How did this thesis evolve?

answer: The odyssey began in the early 1980s when I realized that my firm was threatened by a production collapse in the energy and oil-service business. I thought, "How on earth could this have happened without us even knowing?" I started doing some careful investigation into energy data. The more I studied, the more I started to realize that so many people who call themselves experts in the energy market, including government analysts, are in fact experts in their opinions and don't actually base a lot of it in actual data.

question: Why? Because the relevant data are confidential?

answer: Yes, what's publicly available is extremely vague. No major oil-producing companies or nations allow audits of the data on their reserves and production, which leaves the experts effectively playing a guessing game.

question: If the data are concealed, on what evidence did you base your own conclusions?

answer: I've spent years poring over hundreds of papers from the Society of Petroleum Engineers that have revealed fascinating clues. First I took an inventory of the top oil fields in the world, field by field. I was aghast to find that nobody had ever listed even the top 20 oil fields by name. I found that there are only about 120 oil fields in the world that produce half of the world's oil supply. The top 14 fields, which make up 20 percent of global supply, are, on average, over 53 years old. In Saudi Arabia, which harbors a quarter of the entire global supply, there are only five key fields producing 90 percent of their oil. They're all old.

Naturally I was very curious to find details on the condition and productivity of these fields. Two years ago I took a trip to Saudi Arabia on a government tour for business executives. They plied us with various data points that just didn't add up, even vaguely. I've since found evidence in the engineering papers indicating that the major Saudi fields are seriously at risk of reaching their peak, at which point they will begin to see their output decline.

question: In this case, would Saudi Arabia's leadership collapse?

answer: I want to steer away from discussing specifics of geopolitics in the Middle East because I really don't want to shift the focus away from the economics. It doesn't ultimately matter who rules Saudi Arabia. They can't change the maturity of their oil fields.

question: You made a $5,000 bet with conservative New York Times columnist John Tierney that per-barrel oil prices will be at $200 in 2010. How did you arrive at this number?

answer: Well, first of all, the $5,000 bet was essentially an effort to be provocative and wake people up to how cheap oil still is. I started a year ago saying that we need to prepare ourselves for triple-digit oil prices -- and I don't mean $100 per barrel, I mean high triple digits. Will it be by 2010? We don't have any idea. It could be by the winter of 2006.

Oil price will ultimately be set by demand and supply. Current oil prices are ridiculously cheap. People find that hard to believe, particularly now, but consider this: $65 a barrel translates to 10 cents a cup. Ten times cheaper than bottled water. People who think that this is a really high price need to have their heads screwed back on.

question: You have an enormous amount, professionally, riding on the prediction that peak oil is nigh.

answer:I'm basically betting my entire career.

question: What evidence did you find of looming production limits?

answer: Let's start with the plummeting rate of discovery of critical oil fields. The French Petroleum Institute did a major study a couple of decades ago about the distribution of oil fields by basin, which lends itself to a chessboard analogy. What happens with phenomenal regularity worldwide is that within about five years of moving into a new area of potential oil reserves, prospectors tend to find the queen first, which is the second-largest; within a handful of years they find the king; and then over the next decade you find the next eight to 10 lords. And once you've found the royal family, the rest of the hydrocarbon deposits you'll ever find are basically peons in size. Research overwhelmingly shows that all the royal families have been discovered.

question: Can you describe your findings that most of the king- and queen-sized deposits are so old that they have to be injected with increasing amounts of water to produce the crude?

answer: For decades, Saudi Arabia has been injecting water in each key oil field to keep reservoir pressure artificially high. The data show that Saudis are now injecting somewhere between 15 million and 18 million barrels a day of water to recover 8 million barrels a day of oil. This is not sustainable. Geologically speaking, the faster you produce a highly pressurized reservoir, the faster the reservoir pressure collapses. Conversely, the more gently you produce the field, the longer you can produce it at a steady rate, and the higher amount of oil you get out of the field.

question: I suppose it's safe to assume we're not poised to go gently into the twilight of global reserves.

answer: To put it mildly. What they are doing is rapidly depleting the high-quality, high flow-rate oil, so they'll be left with vast amounts of oil that just won't come out of the ground without massive water input or thousands and thousands of wells being drilled.

question: What kind of response have you gotten to this book? I saw in a New York Times Magazine article by Peter Maass that Sadad al-Husseini, a former executive of state-owned Saudi Aramco, essentially corroborated your thesis.

answer: Yes, he's a first-rate person. We've actually become quite good friends. I don't know to what extent I might have actually liberated him to speak more openly about the limits to Middle East oil. I think I've given quite a few Saudi insiders cover for being able to finally speak up and say, yes, that's actually what I thought, too.

In the U.S., the response within industry and among politicians has been overwhelmingly positive. About 10 people total have attacked the book, and my guess is that most of them have one commonality: a consulting client called Saudi Aramco.

question: It boggles my mind that data on oil reserves can be concealed. Knowing when we're going to run out would seem as critical to global security as knowing who has weapons of mass destruction. Why isn't disclosing oil data a responsibility on par with disclosing WMDs?

answer: It should be. The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia spoke at Rice University about five weeks ago and he said, "We're as transparent as anybody." And he's right. Until we force that same standard of disclosure on Exxon and Shell and BP, then I don't think there's any reason to expect Saudi Arabia to behave better. What I'm suggesting is the whole world needs to go to a new standard. The problem, of course, is this: In political and corporate worlds there are currently significant disincentives to be forthright about these risks. That's why we're going to have to have some sort of enforced mandate. It won't happen voluntarily.

question: What would you advise the Bush administration to do?

answer: Clamor for energy-data reform. That's the only thing the governments of the world can do this year. But they can't do it alone. I think the global mandate of how we have to attack this problem needs to be a very coordinated, central plan. We need to have international energy cooperation so we don't go into an accidental energy war.

question: Have you discussed these ideas with President Bush?

answer: I have met with the president quite a few times on energy, but not since coming to these latest conclusions. But I have spoken very openly with senior politicians from both parties, and key people are paying attention.

question: I understand you are a strong proponent of allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the outer continental shelf.

answer: Yes, ASAP. There's nothing we can do to solve our problems, but everything we do that helps is a bridge to buy us time. Ultimately, we have to actually create some new forms of energy that don't exist today. Solar and wind are, of course, electricity, so not helpful near-term on the transportation front, which is the most intractable part of the problem. Biofuels need to be intensely examined, but corn-based ethanol is a scam because it requires such intensive oil inputs.

question: What about the shift to hybrid engines and, ultimately, hydrogen?

answer: There are some 220 million cars currently on the road in the U.S. alone. The problem with that concept, which so many people think is the way you end the energy war, is it will take 30 years to turn over the entire vehicle fleet. We don't have 15 or 20 years, much less 30.

We need to think on a grander scale. We have to find, for instance, far more energy-efficient methods of transporting products by rail and ship rather than trucks. We have to liberate the workforce from office-based jobs and let them work in their village, through the modern technology of emails and faxes and video conferencing. We have to address the distribution of food: Much of the food in supermarkets today comes from at least a continent or two away. We need to return to local farms. And we have to attack globalization: As energy prices soar, manufacturing things close to home will begin to make sense again.

question: What do you do personally to reduce your energy footprint?

answer: Very little, actually. I do have a new Mercedes diesel car that on the open road gets up to 50 miles per gallon. But in fact I'm one of the problems right now. I'm flying around the country giving too many energy talks. If I really wanted to say I'm going to be a personal crusader, I'd actually shut up and stay home.

to Carcano:
Thanks for the long Simmons post - I had not seen it, but it is the same song I have been singing for some time. The only points he missed, IMHO are:

(1) The Saudi's and "big oil" can not control the information about oil tanker lease rates. - They accurately reflect the views of the well informed. (If you put 100s of millions of dollars on the line each month, you try hard to know what is fact.). Rates are high when more oil will be shipped and low when less will be. Rates have been going down since 2004 which happens to be the same year exports from Saudi fields peaked. Part of the rated decrease is GWB's activities - about half a million BPD less coming out of Iraq now compared to pre-invasion.

I think Simmons is wrong if saying the Saudi fields are running out of oil - it is the sweet oil they have no capacity to increase. They have sour, heavy oil, but it is already in surplus as there are not enough refineries to process it. (I am not sure, but think its prices is still dropping under the pressure of over supply.) Brazil sells a lot of it and pays much more for less of the sweet oil it does import. Brazil is building at least one refinery in Brazil (and another in Venezuela with Chavez I think) to process the heavy crude as now gasoline from it is more economical than from the sweet, despite the higher refinery cost.

(2) He fails to note how much worse off the US will be than the rest of the world because of its suburban sprawl infrastructure, but gets close to this at times when he talks about it taking more than a decade to change the type of cars etc. - Even if cars remain as they are (terrible I admit) the improvement available by have most of the suburban commute terminated by living in the central cities or in high rises along the rail lines would be much more effective, but equally impossible in less than a couple of decades which US does not have.

About 50 years ago, mainly to make district heating via hot water waste from the generation of electricity economical, the Swedish government, especially, did this. - High urban density for all new construction and "radial linear villages" like spokes from the city hub were strongly encouraged.

Exactly the opposite - a "2D sprawl" has occurred in the US. As for use of the waste heat from power generation to at least double fuel efficiency - don't try to find it in the US as it is not economically feasible in a "2D sprawl" infrastructure. (There is a little district heating in the US. - most of it very old, in a few central cities and with only a short out reach as it is steam, which easily condenses, not hot water. Baltimore had some 20 years ago when I lived near there, but it did not get a mile from the old inter harbor power plant as it was like almost all, a steam district heating system. I doubt if it even exist today so about 2/3 of the energy in the coal BG&E burns is wasted.)

SUMMARY - The dance was fun, glad I was there for it, but it is now time for the US to pay the piper, glad I am not there for that.

Thanks for the long Simmons post - I had not seen it, but it is the same song I have been singing for some time.
Thought you'd enjoy that Billy...you can read the book length version of his research in pdf format here: http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/Hudson%20Institute%20September.pdf

the oil prices are high only for one reason,

someone wants U to work for them for free.

Even at $3/gal, US gasoline prices are less than half what ALL Europeans pay! Norway has no shortage of oil - is in fact a big supplier of that "black gold mineral." but that government and its people there are more intelligent and less short sighted than in the US, so their current price is above $7/gal, to encourage the development of the type of infrastructure that is necessary now, in the "post peak oil" era.

Assuming one barrel of oil produces 46 gallon of gas, Norway taxes their fuel very high. Norway charges a lot for studded tires in the winter and vehicle taxes to the point they discourage automobile driving. Which may be good for them since there are only 4.5 million people.

Norway designed the duties to make large-engine sport utility vehicles much costlier than compact cars. For instance, a high-end Toyota Land Cruiser that costs $60,000 in the United States might run as much as $100,000 in Norway.

Economists argue that gasoline prices and other auto taxes in Norway are not so expensive when measured against the annual incomes of Norwegians, among the world's highest at about $51,700 a person, or the shorter workweek of about 37.5 hours that is the norm here. (Norwegians also get five weeks of vacation a year.) The government frequently makes such arguments when responding to criticism over high fuel prices.

"Rural areas without good public transportation alternatives are hit a little harder," said Knut Sandberg Eriksen, a senior research economist at the Institute of Transport Economics here who estimates the government collects about $2.4 billion in fuel taxes alone each year, or about $519 for every Norwegian. Some of the revenue supports Norway's social benefits.

In US, if gasoline price goes up, due to taxes, the poor people are going to suffer. They will spend more money going to work than before. It will not hurt rich people.

As to solar cells, I met with a group in international solar conference in 1982 and provided a method to produce solar cells in a continuous process. One professor wrote a paper on it...and everything stopped.

Assuming one barrel of oil produces 46 gallon of gas, Norway taxes their fuel very high. Norway charges a lot for studded tires in the winter and vehicle taxes to the point they discourage automobile driving. Which may be good for them since there are only 4.5 million people....I do not know if you are disputing anything I said or not, but I will make comments, but first let me note that I have been to Norway about 8 or 10 times (Ex wife was Norwegian) but not in the last 20 years.

To get 46 gallons of gas from a "barrel of oil" would be a very good trick as there is less than 46 gallons of crude than that in a barrel of oil. (You are probably confusing a "barrel" with a 55 gallon "drum." - Many people do as they have seen drums but never a barrel, unless it had beer in it, but I am not sure what volume is in a barrel of beer. -I passed out before I got it empty. :D )

When I was in Norway studded tires were relatively new and illegal there. Winter driving in Norway is less of a problem than in DC after a 3 inch snow storm. They have the equipment to keep the roads clear and people know how to drive on snow. Because of the Gulf Stream, it is rarely much below freezing and beautiful big flakes may fall slowly, all day long - I have shoveled it in short sleeves to avoid over heating.

See my book Dark Visitor which tells of a small black hole passing far from Earth but slightly changing Earth's orbit to make permanent ice age. I use fact that Oslo is often warmer in winter than Boston, despite being 1000Km farther north to discuss the Corolois effect and illustrate its importance for climate. (Read book for free at web site under my name.)

It is distorting to give the salaries in Norway, without telling the tax rates. The dentist of my Ex only worked for 5 months each year, because after that 2/3 of the time he was working for the government!

I have no current data, but back then less than 1/3 of population had cars. Public transport is very good. In addition, no one drives drunk there. If you do, you will do manual labor (if fit) for first offense, even if you are the mayor of Oslo. - I was married in Oslo and half of the wedding party was stone cold sober to drive home afterwards, but fortunately, I was not in that half. ;) It is not unusual in winter for whole family to get on "the treck" (Norwegian, but spelled wrong) with their skis and get off several Km from their home and cross country ski back to it. Norway is nice in the long days of summer, but delightful in winter if you like to be active outside.

Recently some where I pointed out that the Balance of System, or "BOS cost" of photo cell power is more than half the cost, so even if the cells were free, it is not completive with the power grid, and never will be as most of the cost of your electric power (at least 80%) is the capital cost, not the fuel - think of hydro-power that "fuel" is already free. In addition to listing some of the BOS item, I discussed several technical problems in that post also and repeat the main one here: Because of the low voltage of each cell, they must be connected in series strings. If anything (say a leaf or bird sitting above one) make it have little light, it has high internal resistance. The others in the string drive current thru the shadowed one and over heat it. At noon on a sunny day, his can destroy it by thermal diffusion of the differently doped zones or in extreme cases, even crack it.

As I have been saying here for quite some time, green plants, especially sugar cane in tropical lands (and several other plants like the caster bean for diesel fuel replacement) are the economically attractive ways to get solar energy as liquid fuel. It is a common problem of technically advanced groups to think only of high tech solutions to problems.

To get 46 gallons of gas from a "barrel of oil" would be a very good trick as there is less than 46 gallons of crude than that in a barrel of oil. (You are probably confusing a "barrel" with a 55 gallon "drum." - Many people do as they have seen drums but never a barrel, unless it had beer in it, but I am not sure what volume is in a barrel of beer. -I passed out before I got it empty.

My mistake. A 42 gallon of crude oil (an US barrel) produces 44 to 46 gallon of petroleum products. That is because of the density change in the processing. The break down approximate is as follows:

19 to 21 gallon of gasoline
10 gallons of diesel fuel
4 to 5 gallon of jet fuel
2 gallon of heavy fuel oil
2 gallon of LPG
8 gallon of other products

The only reason I brought up the situation in Norway is that people point to Norway and say that look they have gasoline at $8.00 a gallon and because of that they have very high per capita income. So if you artificially raise the price of gasoline, then you will get rich too. They forget the population of Norway, the life style and a whole other issues...

Solar cells can be produced cheaply and work very well in sub-sharan countries. So would nuclear power, if you design it properly like a pallet based design and use heavy duty heat exchangers and perhaps a sodium loop to minimize waste products. Long term...work on fusion using super conducting high Tesla magnetic containment...Long long term...miniature black hole could power the planet beamed from space.....:D

A 42 gallon of crude oil (an US barrel) produces 44 to 46 gallon of petroleum products. That is because of the density change in the processing....
Solar cells can be produced cheaply and work very well in sub-sharan countries. ...I assume the volume increase is due to "cracking." I.e. the heavier molecules are broken in the hopes of getting more of the more valuable cuts, like gasoline. An increase in number of molecules does increase the volume. Cracking is achieved with the addition of heat, form natural gas usually, I think. Do you know what is the gasoline net yield after subtracting the gasoline equivalent energy input for cracking? I am sure Cracking, with cheap natural gas is economically attracive, but have my doubts about the net energy yield. - Cracking may effectively be just a way to convert X units of NG into Y units of gasoline where Y << X measured in energy content.

Solar cells work, problem is the energy produced is too expensive where grid power is available. Even if cells were free, the cost reducion would be less than 50% as the BOS cost are larger than the cells. (BOS = Balance of System, includes many things, for example the copper wires that collect the power, the conversion of the DC to AC, the land, the installation, transport to the land, cleaning /repair.)

There is a form of electrical energy already that has zero fuel cost, and it is cheaper, but not dramatically so, because of its BOS and capital costs. (Hydropower) People need to be realistic about the cost, not just looking at technical feasibility. Most of your electric power bill is captital cost, not fuel cost. The capital cost of fission power is much higher than it should be because of the years of delay the "greens" have caused. In France, fission power is cheap and well done, even exported to Germany, where there is coal. Fusion power has very expensive capital requirements {Vacuum systems, magnetic fields, radiation shielding (for the D-T reaction), to name just the big three.}

As I have said before:

Near term: Ethanol and related biomass (After all, we get most of our energy from fossil biomass)

MidTerm: Fission. I taught the Chinese how to automate with super safety system their nuclear plants and they are doing it great. Our USA cost is high becuse the pencils have to be certified as nuclear grade (whatever that means)

Long Term: We have the technology to do Nuclear Fusion. Cold Fusion could work, but additional research is needed in nonoscience to create atomic tunnels.

Yes Solar cells are expensive...Payout for home use is at 15 to 22 years. Just the Solar Panel cost is 170W panel at $835.00

It is a fallacy that oil/gas is more expensive today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. The price of oil goes up in pure dollar value, but this is an effect of the Federal Reserve destroying the value of the dollar. Oil goes up because we all have more dollars to spen because the Fed created more dollars, creating a true inflation. This true inflation isn't shown in the CPI, by the way.

Oil, when related to other consumer goods, has actually fallen in price over much of the past 20 years. Only recently has it seen a big upswing, but remember that oil was only $30 a gallon before the war on Iraq. Up until that war, oil was at a historical low if you consider how much the dollar has been devalued by federal reserve policy. Thank Greenspan for that magic trick.

why are solar cells expensive ?

why are solar cells expensive ?Of course any such question has implicit in it "compared to what?" I will assume that the answer you want is Because the production process is complex and expensive. The traditional type that are cut from a zone refined (purified) bar and that purification also require considerable energy. I do not really know much about the production process, but think few could do it in their basement. That brings me to the other half of the response: Compared to sugar cane capturing solar energy:

The efficience is about the same, but the solar cell makes its output at least as DC electricity and it is not too expensive to convert to 110V AC, whereas the the cane only puts a fraction of the energy it captured into the sugar that can be converted to alcohol. Thus, the solar cell is going to provide more useful power per acre. Offsetting this is the very low cost of planting and growing the cane compared to making the cell, both in dollar terms and in energy terms. This does point out the need for cheap land for the cane field compared to the solar-cell field.

I hope someone who actually has been envoled with solar cell production will try to answer your better and discuss thin film continuous production process that are at lest under development, and should lower the cost of producing solar cells, but I remind you of prior posts I have made that speak to the BOS (Balance of System) costs - even if he cells were free /zero cost, solar cell power cost would drop by at most half, so it will not be able to compete with power line electric where that is available even if the cells were free.