Thursday 24 July 2008

Who writes this rubbish in the Environment column of the SMH?

Pls read this - there will be a quiz afterwards.
Polar power: vast oil find in Arctic
(SMH website - 24 July 2008)
Is it a new oil find?
Sounds like it, doesn't it?

"The resources account for about 22 per cent of the undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the world," the USGS said, meaning the estimated volume is not added to the world's known recoverable resources"
Is that: "NOT ADDED TO THE WORLD'S KNOWN RECOVERABLE RESOURCES "???
or
Is that: "NOW ADDED TO THE WORLD'S KNOWN RECOVERABLE RESOURCES "???
If it is "NOT ADDED", then what is the point of the story? It ain't "new oil".

"The majority of the undiscovered 90 billion barrels of crude oil, USGS experts estimate, are lying in Alaska, where 30 billion are hiding, Russia's Barents Basins, East and West Greenland and East Canada."
(These must be the "know unknowns" Donald Rumsfeld told us about).

"By comparison, US oil reserves stand at 22 billion barrels, and its production level at 1.6 billion barrels a year. Around the world, proven oil reserves stand at a record 1.24 trillion barrels. Production is stable but consumption, 30 billion barrels a day, is on the rise".

If any of this means anything, America has a reserve of 13.75 years worth of production (unlikely in the extreme)
But America's reserves are less than one days worth of international consumption - 17.6 hours worth to be precise.
The "new find" will last 3 days (90 Billion/30 billion consumption per day).
Who writes this stuff (or supposedly "edits" it for the Herald, as it is sourced from AFP) ???

No comments:

REMEMBER: "IT IS BY BEING QUIET AND POLITE CITIZENS WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE IGNORED"