World can't afford to lose Iran's oil: US EIA chief

[Eugene]

World can't afford to lose Iran's oil: US EIA chief
Tue Jan 17, 2006 4:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A disruption in Iran's crude oil exports because of a dispute over that
country's nuclear program would affect an already tight global oil market and lead to higher
petroleum prices, the head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration warned on Tuesday.

"The market is so tightly balanced, clearly, we can't afford to lose a large supply of crude to the
market," EIA chief Guy Caruso told Reuters in an interview.

Even though the United States does not directly import Iranian crude, Caruso said a cutoff of Iran's
oil would affect the U.S. market because other countries that buy Iranian crude would compete with
America to find new supplies.

<snip>

Full article: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-01-17T215451Z_01_L13668738_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENERGY-IRAN-OIL-US.xml

Meanwhile: Defiant Iran could withdraw oil in nuclear row (Reuters)

[no_hypocrisy]

1. B/c of this imbecilic posturing, U.S. could lose the Iranian oil one of

two ways:

1. Iran decides to limit or ban sales to this country, or raise prices just for the U.S., or

2. * sends out a nuclear attack on a few sites, which are subterranean, which may have radiation contamination of the oil reserves, making it unusable.

[phantom power]

2. I wonder what would happen if...

Iran installed a bit of C4 at every single well site, maybe some major pipelines, etc, and then announced that they will detonate all this C4, if anybody sets a single boot, or flies a single F16, on their country. Clearly, this would brinksmanship, but then again that kind of brinksmanship isn't exactly unprecedented in history.

[NNadir]

3. Of course, a cut off of Iranian oil would have many positives.

It would reduce the world's use of oil by driving prices up, thereby further encouraging conservation. It would have the effect of maintaining an oil reserve as the oil was left in the ground. It would make people increasingly aware that the oil party is over, and strengthen the market for oil alternatives. It will obviate even more the strategic instability of an oil based economy. It will result in fewer greenhouse gases being dumped into our atmosphere. It will lower the risks of oil accidents, like the explosion yesterday in Brooklyn New York, or the regular tanker leaks.

It would defund any agressive projects Iran may have underway.

I'll get back with some bad points as soon as I think of one.

[jpak]

4. Defund "aggressive projects" - like uranium enrichment?????

Since when is the nuclear fuel cycle "aggressive" or dangerous????

Nuclear power is a "peaceful technology".

It produces nothing but sweetness and light - lol

:)

on edit: are these "aggressive projects" more "agressive" or less "aggressive" than Niger's uranium sales to Iraq?????

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2048057

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jpak]

8. LOL!!!

Hypocrisy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x38637

If Iran was building wind farms, or utility-scale PV arrays, or biomass/biogas thermal power plants - no one would care.

When Junior attacks Iran's nuclear infrastructure will he be Anti-Nuclear Luddite #1 or Nuclear-Power-Advocate Hypocrite #1????

[NNadir]

9. He will be pro-fossil fuel, as always. He at least is bald about it.

It's a very different game to be pro-fossil fuel while giggling nonsense about a solar nirvana that cannot actually be delivered.

When no fossil fuels are being burned, I will happy to discuss the viability and safety of the technology that has replaced it. But last I looked, global climate change was getting worse, not better. There are only two forms of greenhouse gas free energy that have proved themselves on scale: Hydroelectric and nuclear.

"Solar PV will save us" nitwits could of course, shut up all nay sayers by merely producing energy measurable in exajoules. But that's not what they do. Instead they depend consistently obfuscation, because let's face it, the truth makes them seem like what they are, idiots.

Both forms of fossil fuel apologists, "solar energy will save us" and "we are not really stealing oil, but advancing 'freedom'" malcontents are liars, but they take slightly different tacks.

One claims to give a shit about global climate change and the other denies it's existence, but the effective result is the same: Greater danger from greater levels of carbon dioxide.

People who can read (or god forbid, think) can tell the difference between Iran and the Ukraine. The Ukraine is not seeking to enrich fuel outside of IAEA. They are simply looking for economic leverage against the Russians - who actually supply most of the world's enriched uranium because they are destroying nuclear weapons.

Now, if I were a moral idiot trying desperately to prove what is not true, that nuclear energy is more dangerous than any other continuously available energy option, I would continually present myself as incapable - in hopes that people were gullible - of making a distinction between nuclear power and nuclear weapons. In fact I would try to muddle all distinctions and try to present the matter in completely simplistic terms.

This strategy sometimes works. For instance, Dick Cheney, merely said "uranium!" and "mushroom cloud" in the same sentence and people were inspired to do murder.

The distinction however between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, like the failure of the solar PV industry to register even a nick in the surface of global climate change, is obvious.

I am accused of hypocrisy. In post #4 in the post that is alleged to be evidence of my hypocrisy - again one would need to both be sober and to know how to read, not a hard trick really, but some people are far too limited to accomplish either or both - I point out that no additional enrichment capacity is needed any where on earth right now. There's a surfeit of such capacity. There are, too, plenty of nuclear weapons that should be available to dismantling.

http://www.isis-online.org/global_stocks/summary_tables.pdf

The 3755 metric tons of combined HEU and plutonium represents just under 300 exajoules of energy, or about 3/4 of annual world wide energy demand from all sources, including the ridiculous little solar PV industry.

I know that the current nuclear fuel cycle works but I am sure - along with many other educated people - that the cycle can be improved and further optimized. It is difficult to see why this is so mysterious.

The real reason for my post on the Ukraine was subtle and apparently missed. The Ukraine is the country where Chernobyl occurred. We hear lots and lots of crocodile tears about Chernobyl - unaccompanied by any sympathy for the thousands who have died in coal operations in the Ukraine since that event. Even with Chernobyl in their country the Ukrainians have no plans to abandon nuclear energy. They are, in fact, looking to expand it. It falls to them to bury the bodies from their respective forms of energy.

The reason that Iran - which is in a desert - is not building solar PV arrays is because they are ridiculously expensive. Nobody builds them, really, except on a scale that is industrially insignificant, not that each plant escapes generating lots of celebratory websites ignoring scale. Of course it was an industrially significant technology, it wouldn't need all these websites for each kilo"watt" of "capacity." One would simply see these systems everywhere.

Solar PV power is still largely a toy for rich boys, as it has been for many decades. All the shouting in the world apparently cannot make it otherwise, since if it were so, all of the past shouting would have accomplished something. But it is, for what its worth, still next to useless.

Iran should build wind farms. However, just like everyone else on the planet, the Iranians need constant load energy when the wind is not blowing. This energy, in an ideal world, would be nuclear energy, not fossil energy. For the purpose of producing energy when the wind is not blowing, Iran can have a domestic nuclear power program like every normal country. This is not the issue. Again, the issue is one of international law, and not an issue of technology.

Personally, if Iran announced that it was going to buy enough nuclear reactors to eliminate all fossil fuel burning connected with electricity and be open to IAEA inspection - I would be speaking in their support.

In any case, I do not support war on Iran. I don't support war anywhere. I believe that the real issue here is simply a pissing match: Iran wants to assert it's sovereignty. They have chosen a dumb route to do so. I very much doubt that Iran will ever use a nuclear weapon in any case. Like North Korea, like the circus antics of Greenpeace, this is really a game that says "Look at me! Pay attention to ME! Look! Look! LOOK, DAMN YOU LOOK! Look at ME."

Nuclear power produced more than 30 exajoules of primary energy last year, a large portion of it from countries that imported low enriched uranium. Any civilized law abiding country can import enriched fuel. Sweden does it. Belgium does it. Argentina does it. Spain does it. Japan does it. Finland does it...



I really don't understand why any of this is so difficult for anti-environmental anti-nuclear advocates to get. No, I shouldn't be so disingenuous. I understand why they fail to get it completely:

The anti-nuclear game is a religion. It is dogma. Like all religions, it is indifferent to reality.

Here are the facts, which are obvious: There is no such thing as risk free energy. There is only risk minimized energy. That energy is nuclear energy.

[One_Life_To_Give]

5. Political Opportunity?

Failure to implement/continue measures leading to US Energy independence started under Carter. Have lead the US/World to be held hostage by extremists in Iran.

[phantom power]

6. The 70s really *are* back, eh?

Any day now, I keep expecting to see toilet paper with pictures of the Ayatolla on it.