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When oil is no longer in demand

economist.com

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Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#101

Post by Gibbon1 »

philipkglass wrote: post #43
maxerickson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a process for fixing nitrogen using electricity as the primary input: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland%E2%80%93Eyde_process You can also plant nitrogen fixing plants and till them into the soil at the end of the season.

Even better, electrolyze water and run the hydrogen through a standard Haber-Bosch ammonia plant. It's a little more complicated but much more energy efficient. It's been done on an industrial scale in the past with electricity from hydropower.

Yeah that's the thing, hydrogen is the key feed-stock for the Haber-Bosch process. I think currently it's mostly made from natural gas. Though earlier it was made by reacting H2O with coke (coal).

Makes me think about the flurry of ill directed excitement about a catalyst that with energy supplied electricity could convert water and CO2 to alcohol. One wonders if it wouldn't be possible use a similar catalyst to convert nitrogen and water to nitrate/ammonia.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#102

Post by Gibbon1 »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #38
coredog64 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless someone figures out how to bulldoze the Rocky mountain range, high speed rail as a replacement for coast to coast air travel is a non starter.

The real transit corridors are Boston-Atlanta and New York-Chicago, as well as Seattle-San Diego on the west coast. Coast to coast would be nice but even just those would be an enormous boost to our transport infrastructure and potentially a huge emissions cut (depending on where the power comes from).

The high speed part of the California high speed rail is mostly to relieve congestion at the coastal airports. Idea being that passengers flying between the Bay Area and LA/San Diego will instead take the train. Hardest part of that is it'll require a number of tunnels, one 14 miles long, through the mountains into the LA Basin.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#103

Post by vegabook »

A few counterpoints:

* In the market oil is a very popular short. So much so that despite Iran coming back onstream, oil has since risen 20 points.

* Aramco's IPO will force it to open kimono on its reserves. Is there a negative surprise waiting there?

* Nobody is going to put electric cars into the southern hemisphere anytime soon, because the distances are too long and infrastructure too sparse. As Africa develops, oil demand there will increase, especially with increasing chinese involvement. Ditto Latam. Ditto central Asia, Middle east.

* We are seeing inflation picking up around the world, and oil is the classic inflation trade.

Finally, anecdotally, the economist has a long history of being a counter-indicator due to its susceptibility to consensus thinking.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#104

Post by toomuchtodo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #90
toomuchtodo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All resource problems are energy problems. With enough clean energy, you can make fuel, water, fertilizer, anything. We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years.

> We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years. There is no point at which sequestering CO2 by use of electricity is going to make sense. Until the day that we burn zero CO2 whatsoever, you're better off using the electricity as electricity and thereby burning less carbon than burning it and then trying to get it back. And even at th…

> There is no point at which sequestering CO2 by use of electricity is going to make sense.

> Until the day that we burn zero CO2 whatsoever

That day will come. And we'll then be at the point where its time to use cheap renewables to pull CO2 back out of the air and store it in a stable state where it can't be burned again.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#106

Post by smallnamespace »

JDiculous wrote: post #95
btilly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a stupid policy, but there is some attempt at logic behind it. Oil production has the problem that increasing in oil production requires spending money that will only pay off if the price of oil remains high for several years. Cheap producers like Saudi Arabia know this, and so try to make the price fluctuate with enough lows to wipe out expensive oil producers, and enough highs to get rich thems…

Isn't that what oil futures are designed to hedge against?

Yes, this basically socializes the cost of figuring out how to hedge (assuming the state actually hedges, which it probably doesn't), since the intersection of oil producers and prudent users of derivatives is probably rather small...

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#107

Post by clappski »

JDiculous wrote: post #95
btilly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a stupid policy, but there is some attempt at logic behind it. Oil production has the problem that increasing in oil production requires spending money that will only pay off if the price of oil remains high for several years. Cheap producers like Saudi Arabia know this, and so try to make the price fluctuate with enough lows to wipe out expensive oil producers, and enough highs to get rich thems…

Isn't that what oil futures are designed to hedge against?

That still isn't risk free, a producer could sell some futures contracts and not be able to produce on delivery; then they either have to sell the future on at a below market price (it will be closer to the spot) or purchase oil to make delivery. It only has less risk on the buy side.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#108

Post by alivelore »

EGreg wrote: post #76
btilly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a stupid policy, but there is some attempt at logic behind it. Oil production has the problem that increasing in oil production requires spending money that will only pay off if the price of oil remains high for several years. Cheap producers like Saudi Arabia know this, and so try to make the price fluctuate with enough lows to wipe out expensive oil producers, and enough highs to get rich thems…

And if they didn't, we might have built a sustainable society faster and invested in sustainable energy sooner. It could have been done in the 80s. I know it's scary to imagine Americans driving on smaller cars and bicycles and public transport like Europeans... but we would survive it :)

Average commute time in the us is lower than almost all of europe (https://goo.gl/r8DJqz) and public transport not only needs billions in investment to be built but there are very few places where it doesn't run on subsidies. So yeah you're asking americans to a) take longer to get to work b) constantly subsidise a system that will keep on losing money. Based on the political makeup of the country i'd say you can keep on dreamin' :)

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#109

Post by T2_t2 »

stuartalex wrote: post #78

A web developer from Aberdeen here. The transition from wealthy to poor in Aberdeen has been instantaneous. Everyone I know in the city has been affected—my fiancee was made redundant, my Dad (after 25 years at BP) and my best mate’s dad (after 25 years at Shell) too. I studied CS at Robert Gordon University, which is cutting academic staff. I also worked at a design and dev shop, but that went bust in December last…

So you basically hate/have never seen the sun?

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#110

Post by UniversalBlue »

Mao_Zedang wrote: post #77

If oil is no longer in demand it will trigger the biggest mass migration from the middle east to the west the world has ever seen. These countries import 90% of their food, food which they pay for with oil income.

Yeah, because we need more "refugees". As if the ones we already got haven't caused enough damage.
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