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Peak Oil is History

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Re: Peak Oil is History

#21

Post by fungi »

jsz0 wrote: post #18
fungi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are not interested in practical solutions but it's us stinky hippies that bang on the loudest and for the longest about sustainable transport solutions, renewable energy and sustainable population. (~>_aside form nuclear energy_ edit: emphasis

Environmentalists in Europe have been known to protest expansion of high speed rail. Not sure if this is a common view or not.

hm didn't know that, guess it all depends where the line runs if you are going to make a serious environmental case vs's NIMBY.

fwiw the greens just got us a feasibility study for australias first high speed line (under the world 4th busiest flight corridor) but i'm sure i'll be a very old man b4 anything comes of it

Re: Peak Oil is History

#22

Post by baq »

jacoblyles wrote: post #9
chipsy wrote: post #4

I let myself get scared a little, as I should with any good peak oil story, and then went looking for an Achilles' Heel. "Some might also wonder why a shortage of oil should automatically trigger a collapse. It turns out that, in an industrialized economy, a drop in oil consumption precipitates a proportional drop in overall economic activity. Oil is the feedstock used to make the vast majority of transportation fuel…

Econtalk had an episode about carbon shortage recently. It turns out that synthetic fuels manufactured from coal become economical far before petroleum is totally gone. And there are other more expensive technologies that come into play when the coal is gone. All the while, renewable energy is getting cheaper by the year. Here's the link. It is a fascinating podcast, though it wanders a bit near the end: http://www.e…

ideally there should be a solar-wind-powered atmospheric CO2/H20 to hydrocarbon synthesis device in every backyard, and i believe that's how our grand(grandgrand)children will operate. it'll take a while to get there, though.

Re: Peak Oil is History

#23

Post by lzw »

I find it amazing that so much of the peak oil arguments come from looking at production in the USA, and also from seemingly looking only at production of light sweet crude.

Production in the USA is much harder now because of environmental regulations. These drive up costs and naturally would result in companies going offshore to produce... Yet I bet if you looked at proven reserves in e USA you might see a different figure.

Especially if you include forms other than light sweet crude. This easy oil is cheapest to refine but it is just one grade of oil, with many heavy grades going all the eay in to oil shale and coal tar and oil sands..... And the reserves of these types of oil are massive in the USA and staggering in Canada.

Further exploration is very difficult and banned for the Americas richest locations, such as ANWR. Before it was cut off from exploration, I believe many geologists believed that north of prudhoe bay there was more oil than was found in Saudi Arabia, and at the time they were keeping it under wraps as strategic reserve..... Now we pretend like it doesn't exist.

Finally peak oil is based on the theory that depleted fields never produce again, while I understand there are many fields that were previously depleted that refilled while lying fallow for several decades. It is possible that oil is actually a natural product of geological forces, not ancient plant matter, and that most fields will refill over time.

Re: Peak Oil is History

#24

Post by Tichy »

chipsy wrote: post #4

I let myself get scared a little, as I should with any good peak oil story, and then went looking for an Achilles' Heel. "Some might also wonder why a shortage of oil should automatically trigger a collapse. It turns out that, in an industrialized economy, a drop in oil consumption precipitates a proportional drop in overall economic activity. Oil is the feedstock used to make the vast majority of transportation fuel…

While I also prefer to be an optimist in such matters, I never quite get the "we are so resourceful" reaction. Yes, a couple of times in history we (I mean earth, humans, as I am not from the US) have been lucky, and some looming crisis was averted. A lot of other times things didn't go so well. History is full of civilizations collapsing, wars, famines and so on. There is not always some genius at hand who invents a wonderful rescue device (as apparently with the agricultural revolution last century).

Personally, I used to hate cars and everything oil related. So I am the first who would welcome it if the economy would run on sustainable alternative energy. But I think oil is ultimately simply this: free energy. It is as if somebody gave your country several trillions of dollars (without inflation). So if you take that away, you suddenly have several trillions of dollars less (or more, just picked a random number here). You can not simply replace them, they are missing from the equation completely. So overall, you will be that much poorer, with all the consequences. Sure, you can build other things, but it will take time.

Re: Peak Oil is History

#25

Post by Tichy »

jacoblyles wrote: post #9
chipsy wrote: post #4

I let myself get scared a little, as I should with any good peak oil story, and then went looking for an Achilles' Heel. "Some might also wonder why a shortage of oil should automatically trigger a collapse. It turns out that, in an industrialized economy, a drop in oil consumption precipitates a proportional drop in overall economic activity. Oil is the feedstock used to make the vast majority of transportation fuel…

Econtalk had an episode about carbon shortage recently. It turns out that synthetic fuels manufactured from coal become economical far before petroleum is totally gone. And there are other more expensive technologies that come into play when the coal is gone. All the while, renewable energy is getting cheaper by the year. Here's the link. It is a fascinating podcast, though it wanders a bit near the end: http://www.e…

"become economical far before petroleum is totally gone"

What does that even mean, though? If oil was gone today, dragging things by hand or with horses would become economical, too. That doesn't imply that it would afford us the same luxurious lifestyle we enjoy today (luxury == not having to drag stuff around by hand, among other things).

Re: Peak Oil is History

#26

Post by Maktab »

Tichy wrote: post #25
jacoblyles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Econtalk had an episode about carbon shortage recently. It turns out that synthetic fuels manufactured from coal become economical far before petroleum is totally gone. And there are other more expensive technologies that come into play when the coal is gone. All the while, renewable energy is getting cheaper by the year. Here's the link. It is a fascinating podcast, though it wanders a bit near the end: http://www.e…

"become economical far before petroleum is totally gone" What does that even mean, though? If oil was gone today, dragging things by hand or with horses would become economical, too. That doesn't imply that it would afford us the same luxurious lifestyle we enjoy today (luxury == not having to drag stuff around by hand, among other things).

Sasol, the world's largest coal-to-liquids (CTL) and gas-to-liquids (GTL) producer, has stated that GTL becomes financially viable at $10-$20 a barrel while CTL reaches the same level at $50-$60 a barrel. So with the current price of oil at over $70, it's reasonable to assume that CTL, supplemented by GTL, could maintain prices at close to current levels.

Re: Peak Oil is History

#27

Post by erikstarck »

I'm looking forward to a world not running on oil.

Finally, for the first time, there's global pressure to develop alternatives. The result of this can already be seen in hybrid cars and cheaper solar power.

Getting rid of oil is a Good Thing for so many reasons. We should salute it, not fear it.

Re: Peak Oil is History

#28

Post by Tichy »

Maktab wrote: post #26
Tichy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"become economical far before petroleum is totally gone" What does that even mean, though? If oil was gone today, dragging things by hand or with horses would become economical, too. That doesn't imply that it would afford us the same luxurious lifestyle we enjoy today (luxury == not having to drag stuff around by hand, among other things).

Sasol, the world's largest coal-to-liquids (CTL) and gas-to-liquids (GTL) producer, has stated that GTL becomes financially viable at $10-$20 a barrel while CTL reaches the same level at $50-$60 a barrel. So with the current price of oil at over $70, it's reasonable to assume that CTL, supplemented by GTL, could maintain prices at close to current levels.

I must admit I don't understand what this means? So Sasol could provide a replacement for oil that only costs 10-20$ per barrel? Why isn't everybody using their stuff now, instead of the 70$ "real" oil?

Also, in my mind "peak oil" was actually just "peak fossile fuels" - how much more coal and gas is there than oil?

Re: Peak Oil is History

#29

Post by Mz »

Tichy wrote: post #24
chipsy wrote: post #4

I let myself get scared a little, as I should with any good peak oil story, and then went looking for an Achilles' Heel. "Some might also wonder why a shortage of oil should automatically trigger a collapse. It turns out that, in an industrialized economy, a drop in oil consumption precipitates a proportional drop in overall economic activity. Oil is the feedstock used to make the vast majority of transportation fuel…

While I also prefer to be an optimist in such matters, I never quite get the "we are so resourceful" reaction. Yes, a couple of times in history we (I mean earth, humans, as I am not from the US) have been lucky, and some looming crisis was averted. A lot of other times things didn't go so well. History is full of civilizations collapsing, wars, famines and so on. There is not always some genius at hand who invents a…

Yes, a couple of times in history we (I mean earth, humans, as I am not from the US) have been lucky, and some looming crisis was averted.

We avert stuff every day. It's just not "news" so you don't much hear about it. ("News" generally involves dirty laundry of some sort, not good outcomes.) When we had some huge earthquake in the East, it was News. When the world rose to the occasion and averted hundreds of thousands of expected additional deaths from famine and disease in the aftermath, big yawn. Moving on. Has Hollywood got some juicy scandal for us? When Iraq set fire to the oil wells as it was leaving Kuwait, Big News. When the entire world converged upon Kuwait with every available crack team for putting out such things and invented new methods on the spot to kill the fires in a much shorter time frame than was predicted, big yawn. Moving on. Can we come up with some juicy gossip from somewhere? When the desert bloomed like no one had seen in decades (if ever) from all the water and carbon in the aftermath of the fires and attempts to put them out, also hardly mentioned. Y2K also was a huge anticlimactic non-event after years of people getting ready for a global meltdown of our banking infrastructure...etc...

I've been talking about Peak Oil for years. I think it is a serious issue. But I'm an optimist and I think we can adapt. It doesn't have to be some nightmare scenario. It will only turn into that if we engage in too much denial and foot dragging and resistance to change.

Peace.

Re: Peak Oil is History

#30

Post by igravious »

w00pla wrote: post #19
jsz0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll probably be too busy fighting each other every step of the way. I don't know much about SA's situation but I'm going to take a guess that it was the pro-apartheid government that made it happen. Maybe they weren't so consumed about fighting with each other since they had a common enemy to focus on. I'm somewhat convinced we're at the point in the US where the opposition party (either one) would sabotage the pla…

> Maybe they weren't so consumed about fighting with each other since they had a common enemy to focus on. And who would this “common enemy” be? The Spiel that white people considered black people their enemies during Apartheid is a bit incorrect (yet a popular sentiment in the west). It is ironic that statistically, the plight of the majority of black people is now far worse in SA than during Apartheid (life expecta…

> The Spiel that white people considered black people their enemies during Apartheid

Presumably what was meant was the common enemy was not the "darkies" but the rest of the world coming together and imposing sanctions.

> Yet the ideology of full democracy (i.e. tyranny of the majority) is also spectacularly failing. Yet no one would acknowledge the latter failings.

Naomi Klein does in The Shock Doctrine and a heck of a lot of people have read that book.

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