‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
nytimes.com
‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
1–10 of 25 posts
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#2I've noticed that peak oil is always now+10 years:
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=peak+oil+10+year...
All you need to know about peak oil is "Are the reserves growing or shrinking over time?"
http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/12/opec_reserve_growth.gif
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/eneene/sources/petpet/images/refstrar...
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#3I guess I don't really get it. Earth, the planet, is finite in mass and not all of that mass exists in the form of crude oil or equivalent raw sources of petroleum. Therefore there will be a point at which no further oil can be obtained.
One is of course free to debate when that point will come, or when the inevitable decline toward that point begins, but the simple fact remains that a finite resource is, well, finite. And given the difficulty of predicting exactly when its finitude will catch up to us (i.e., the theme of this op-ed piece), it seems only prudent to have contingencies and alternatives in place well in advance.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#4I've noticed that peak oil is always now+10 years: http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=peak+oil+10+year... All you need to know about peak oil is "Are the reserves growing or shrinking over time?" http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/12/opec_reserve_growth.gif http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/eneene/sources/petpet/images/refstrar...
You'll also note that "peak food" and "peak landfill space" didn't turn out to be nearly as insurmountable as people thought they'd be.
(Anyone remember the total obsession with garbage we had for a few years in the late eighties early nineties? Like how we were going to cover the entire world with it if we didn't recycle everything? Turns out, um... global warming and peak oil!)
Personally, living in Japan, I'm more concerned with "peak people" than any of the above.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#5Right .... I would sooner believe any crazy wacko peak oil theorist than an energy consultant saying that oil will settle at $30 per gallon soon. Currently oil is $70 per gallon AND we are in a global recession AND the middle east is as peaceful as it will ever be in the foreseeable future.
The truth of the matter is peak oil will be very hard to predict because oil companies' reserve estimates are not very reliable, neither are the rates of future discoveries and future improvements of technology.
In any event, the rational choice for the USA, as another poster pointed out, is to find alternatives now. Peak oil may or may not happen soon but it will happen eventually so that it will be very irresponsible not to have an alternative ready.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#6I guess I don't really get it. Earth, the planet, is finite in mass and not all of that mass exists in the form of crude oil or equivalent raw sources of petroleum. Therefore there will be a point at which no further oil can be obtained. One is of course free to debate when that point will come, or when the inevitable decline toward that point begins, but the simple fact remains that a finite resource is, well, finit…
it seems only prudent to have contingencies and alternatives in place well in advance.
Meh, the market works. As the supply of oil at a given degree of extraction difficulty decreases, the price of oil increases, which brings additional oil at the next higher level of difficulty into the profitable-to-extract region. Repeat ad nauseum. Eventually, there will be disruptive innovation and we won't need oil anymore. Disruptive innovation is similarly triggered by the increasing price of oil: the lower the economically viable supply, the higher the price, the higher the price, the greater the return to R&D to replace it with substitutes.
All of this has happened before, and all of this has happened again. We used to use prodigious quantities of lamp oil, which was made from whale blubber. Kerosene happened. Then electricity happened to kerosene. We no longer have to worry about Peak Whale Oil.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#7I've noticed that peak oil is always now+10 years: http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=peak+oil+10+year... All you need to know about peak oil is "Are the reserves growing or shrinking over time?" http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/12/opec_reserve_growth.gif http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/eneene/sources/petpet/images/refstrar...
You'll also note that "peak food" and "peak landfill space" didn't turn out to be nearly as insurmountable as people thought they'd be. (Anyone remember the total obsession with garbage we had for a few years in the late eighties early nineties? Like how we were going to cover the entire world with it if we didn't recycle everything? Turns out, um... global warming and peak oil!) Personally, living in Japan, I'm more…
Turns out we simply dump it to the oceans and create new continents where no one will see them.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#8I guess I don't really get it. Earth, the planet, is finite in mass and not all of that mass exists in the form of crude oil or equivalent raw sources of petroleum. Therefore there will be a point at which no further oil can be obtained. One is of course free to debate when that point will come, or when the inevitable decline toward that point begins, but the simple fact remains that a finite resource is, well, finit…
That is correct. The problem is that all the oil isn't lying around in great big underground lakes where it's just a question of sticking a pipe in and start pumping. There are different degrees of difficulty in getting to it.
We're well beyond peak $10/barrel oil, we're probably moving up on peak $40/b oil, but we're no where near peak $100/b and we're not even thinking about $200/b oil.
As patio11 said, the more expensive oil gets, the more expensive alternatives become viable.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#9I guess I don't really get it. Earth, the planet, is finite in mass and not all of that mass exists in the form of crude oil or equivalent raw sources of petroleum. Therefore there will be a point at which no further oil can be obtained. One is of course free to debate when that point will come, or when the inevitable decline toward that point begins, but the simple fact remains that a finite resource is, well, finit…
it seems only prudent to have contingencies and alternatives in place well in advance. Meh, the market works. As the supply of oil at a given degree of extraction difficulty decreases, the price of oil increases, which brings additional oil at the next higher level of difficulty into the profitable-to-extract region. Repeat ad nauseum. Eventually, there will be disruptive innovation and we won't need oil anymore. Dis…
This is a topic discussed in economics - reducing scarcity through technology.
For an example of how this has happened with other resources, look at metals. Aluminum and iron used to be much more expensive and scarce. Now they're pretty cheap, and to find out why, just total the savings of lots of tiny improvements like thinner soda cans, better sorting of recycling, lower-energy production methods, etc.
If 50 people come up with cumulative improvements of 2% to a process, you end up with a 269% improvement.
This is one of the reasons why software is so appealing - it's low-capital to distribute, and there are an unending number of tasks to automate, making it easy to come up with new approaches to improve productivity.
Re: ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy
#10I guess I don't really get it. Earth, the planet, is finite in mass and not all of that mass exists in the form of crude oil or equivalent raw sources of petroleum. Therefore there will be a point at which no further oil can be obtained. One is of course free to debate when that point will come, or when the inevitable decline toward that point begins, but the simple fact remains that a finite resource is, well, finit…
it seems only prudent to have contingencies and alternatives in place well in advance. Meh, the market works. As the supply of oil at a given degree of extraction difficulty decreases, the price of oil increases, which brings additional oil at the next higher level of difficulty into the profitable-to-extract region. Repeat ad nauseum. Eventually, there will be disruptive innovation and we won't need oil anymore. Dis…
But the problem is that it would take decades to go from R&D to a complete infrastructure that supplants the one we have in place for oil. Even now, the only legitimate substitute for gas-powered cars I've seen is Agassi's proposal: http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_...
The issues with a hydrogen economy have been detailed in the past on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=688909
In a case like this that involves a massive lag time and an insanely complex upgrade procedure, I'd argue that planning ahead is way better than waiting for the onset of a slow-moving disaster. Not to mention we should probably be phasing out oil anyway for all the usual reasons (global warming, pollution, empowering dictatorships, etc.)