Sunday, May 08, 2005

For Those of the Investor Class

If you are an investor, this might be of interest to you. Even investment companies are beginning to see the writing on the wall. Largely, economists believe that everything can be solved by the market. Many of these economists don't have any background in the sciences. Remember the theory of "energy returned on energy invested" or ERoEI. In other words, there may very well be a billion barrels of oil discovered in Utah but you have to remember that not all oil is recoverable from a cost effective standpoint. The first half of collectible oil is relatively easy to extract, most of the time, but as you get into the second half of recoverable oil, it becomes much harder to extract physically and so it's more expensive and not cost effective. From what I've learned, this billion barrels of oil found in Utah may not be fully extractable and the total amount is only about 12 days worth of wordwide oil at our present demand rates...and that is rising. If only half of it is easily extractable and cost effective, this would only equal 6 days of worldwide demand and about 23 days worth of U.S. consumption. Evidently, some investors realize this as well. I'm not a big investor, but if I was, I would probably invest in more renewable energy companies and businesses that are researching and developing alternatives.

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