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!
