Notes from our GIM!

General Interest Meeting

• Introductions

• Board Introductions
• Paige Colton, Co-President
• Rose Eilenberg, Co-President
• Minseok Marcelino Lee - Treasurer
• Carolyn Boudreau - Communications Director
• Charles Cushing - Advisor

• Semester Goals
• Focus on activities and involvement
• More field trips:
• Thermal power plant
• Genzyme - Cambridge, MA energy efficient building
• NH nuclear reactor - produces energy
• One panel discussion
• Collaboration with other group on campus
• Ideas? Talk to Rose
• Speakers
• Recent graduates now working in energy fields
• Professors doing research
• Ideas? Talk to Paige
• Energy research/Energy conferences
• We can help you get funding
• Conference funding if you do a small project/presentation afterwards
• Energy related project
• Tufts Energy Conference April 15-16
• Tufts energy Solutions Challenge
• Win $1000 for research
• All entrants enter the Tufts Energy Conference for free
• Tuftsenergyconference.com/get_involved/energy_challenge
• Check your email!

Egyptian Turm-oil: How is the crisis in the Middle East is Affecting Global Oil?

Presentation

• Oil resources are heavily concentrated geographically
• Especially commercially viable ones
• 76 largest sites contain 95% of known petroleum
• Mostly concentrated in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait region
• Canada/US oil in solid form, difficult to commercialize
• 95% of commercially viable oil is found in the Middle East
• Egypt doesn't produce a lot of oil, but holds Suez Canal (important for transport)

• NPR Clip - February 3, 2011
• Evacuating staff from Egypt
• Lead to higher prices? Yes
• BP has the largest corporate oil presence in Egypt
• Shut down new drilling
• Production not depleted yet
• Staying mum is best strategy for oil companies at this point
• Oil companies know how to survive crisis zones
• Safe houses for employees
• Contingency plans
• Patience
• Egypt is a transportation hub
• 2% of world's crude travels through Suez
• Price goes up when oil has to go around the Cape of Good Hope
• No interruption yet
• OPEC can make up with slack
• Spread of protest to more oil countries is the worst fear
• More drilling in US?
• Or reducing oil consumption?

Discussion

• If Suez canal/oil pipeline shut down, extra 6000 miles around Cape of Good Hope and extra danger (navigation)
• How likely? Tariffs increase or shut down?
• Unlikely to shut down
• Large chunk of Egyptian economy
• Could increase charge turmoil or no
• New government not friendly? Increasing prices
• Increasing to punish or just marginally to increase profit

• Incident is just noise in price fluctuation - not very important country in energy
• Developed market is recovering - is that raising the price?

• Protests focused on Mubarak, economic troubles
• Dictator more favorable to US than ultra-Muslim democracy

• World intervention
• To ensure transportation
• Similar to Somalian incident

• Is 2% a lot of world oil? Potential effect?
• Oil pipeline - no oil pipeline is small
• When one pipeline is bombed, whole thing is flammable and burns down -- catastrophic effect
• Resources to deal with unrest and potential terrorist action?
• Military and police focused on riots
• When it's crazy, people go to mayhem
• Companies probably have own security to protect pipeline

• Unrest traveling throughout Middle East - Is unrest contagious?
• From Tunisia -> Egypt -> Yemen -> Sudan -> Algeria
• Those people get what they want, we should protest for ours
• Ideas are contagious
• If Egypt fizzles out, not giving hope to other countries
• Depends on end of riots
• Like Eastern Europe in late 1980s/1990s
• Saudia Arabia and Libya are the US's biggest worries
• Saudia Arabia falls, possibly leading to a 3rd invasion of the Middle East
• Saudi Arabia probably has backup plans
• Has been stable
• Oil controlled by government
• High poverty in region
• Similarity between countries - Saudi Arabia specifically
• Strong military ties

• When new oil found, it retards democratization and encourages authoritarian - Resource Curse?
• Lower taxes in oil-rich states
• More government spending in oil-rich states
• Egypt is oil-poor -> Saudi Arabia is more likely to stick with authoritarian rule
• Potential for Iran to revolt?
• Lots of natural gas
• Disputes over oil - may have lots of oil undiscovered
• Companies have been hesitant to invest
• Oil is exceptional beyond other natural resources
• Easier for government to control
• Few companies because of high startup costs, no small companies
• Many African countries don't pump/refine their own because of high costs
• Economies in resourceful countries too focused on resource
• Not enough diversification
• Difficult to have sustainable growth
• New technology will lead to claims of more oil
• Can access deeper reserves
• All oil estimates can be flexible
• Only what you can access or what could potentially be accessed in the future?

• How would America/Europe react?
• Drill Baby Drill!
• Likely based on past
• Not big enough market disturbance for sustainable research
• "Dependent on foreign oil" - another example
• Investing in coal
• Focus on another economically viable source
• Electric cars - run on electricity mostly based on coal
• 20-40% efficiency from coal vs. 70-80% efficiency from oil
• 27% or more oil used for transportation
• Increasing sustainable energy
• We want to believe in this!
• America might be better off with $200 a barrel oil - as a thought experiment
• Typical American doesn't want nuclear
• Although John McCain talked about it last Presidential election
• Buying tech from China for renewables?
• Dependence on foreign (Fill-in-the-blank)
• Technology vs. Resources
• Not binding like resources are
• We could catch up - possibly by reverse engineering

Keep checking back for more updates!