World running low on oil

mellowguy said:

Hi,
anyone interested in discussing the possibility the world is about to run low on oil ? ! ? ! ? !

Search on 'peak oil' to find websites explaining this
Essentially the idea is that oil production follows a curve, which allows you to predict the peak. Experts recon this peak could occur any time, or maybe even occuring now. Its a proven theory that correctly predicted the US peak oil production

Once the peak has passed, demand will outstrip supply and there will be an oil crisis. After that supply will drop a few percent a year making the crisis worse

The implications are huge, considering how important oil is to the industrial nations. It could cause new wars and a depression like the 1930's. Gas is predicted to run low in 15-20 years, that would be a bummer too

I think it undermines the concept of capitalism, in the sense that it leads to unsustainable growth due to having only a short or medium term outlook, and so must require governmental controls to tame it

It sounds like a dull subject, till you think about what could happen. I just don't know what it could mean but I recon ordinary people need to know about it so they can get their national leaders to adopt sane policies that won't cause a war over this. We have to share the worlds resources fairly

Martin

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I do believe that that energy is a crucial consideration as we move deeper in the C21. I notice that many electronic gagets are becoming more and more efficient with energy. That the British government aim to produce 20% of electricity from wind power by 2015 and that the US government has launched a massive research programme into the hydrogen fuel cell. The germans have been offering grants for energy efficient houses for years. Solar panels or even your own windwill can all be subsidised.

Meanwhile Saudia Arabia is sitting on more than a century of oil reserves and Iraq and Iran have hefty reserves also. Nuclear power is still an option and other renewables like tidal and solar have yet to be exploited.

I am not pessimistic about the future, I believe human beings will find a way to make things work.

What about all of the unknown and unexploited petroleum out there?

Instead of dwelling up the country side, it is time to put money into alternate sources, and delvelop electric cars. Oil is not renewable, and with China's thirst because of all the American jobs that are there now, they need massive amounts of oil. So gas prices are not going to come down, and we need to break our addiction to oil.
Jeff the Finn

We will switch to alternate sources sooner or later. The question is whether we will do it the easy way or the hard way? It is not even a question of finding alternate sources. They alreayd exist and are readially available. So my hope is that the oil shortage becomes a huge enough scare to motivate people to overcome the obstacles standing in the way of switching.

Great points. There are significant reserves left, and comparatively recent discoveries (North Slope of Alaska, North Sea, Russian Arctic) are supplementing what was predicted to be a near-future shortage. But we need to have the foresight to wean ourselves from burning up our children's inheritance -- and the sooner the better.

Jeremiah, there is quite a lot of exploration going on for new oil deposits. Probably there are a few undiscovered reserves around. But based on what I know of the sedimentology of oil reserves, we've found the overwhelming majority of what there is to find. As somebody once said, you won't find a diamond by sifting through all the sand at the beach (unless of course someone lost one there) -- you look where diamond bearing deposits are located. There are only so many sedimentary basins on this planet, and we know the geology of over 95% of the land and shallow-water areas well enough to know where oil can and cannot be found. (E.g., the granite bedrock of the Adirondacks cannot have an oil reserve, because of how it was formed. The sedimentary Permian Basin in Texas is underlain by a large oil reserve -- which we're rapidly tapping.) So it's likely that only one or two more large finds are in the offing -- and we'll need to be looking at other ways of heating houses and running cars and generating electricity in the very near future.

Jeremiah the Bullfrog said:

What about all of the unknown and unexploited petroleum out there?

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If it was known, we'd be using it already.

mindlight said:

That the British government aim to produce 20% of electricity from wind power by 2015 and that the US government has launched a massive research programme into the hydrogen fuel cell.

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Note that, as it currently stands, hydrogen fuel isn't actually an energy source--we currently have to create hydrogen at an energy cost. Apparently some scientists believe that we will be able to process rock to extract hydrogen efficiently, but that's still quite a ways off. We should probably be looking into more sustainable energy sources in the interim. Heck, that would probably make gathering hydrogen unnecessary.

mindlight said:

Nuclear power is still an option and other renewables like tidal and solar have yet to be exploited.

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I've heard that, were the world to switch to nuclear power, we currently only know of fissionable material to last for about 25 years at our current rate of energy consumption. Anyone know how true this is?

I heard an author being interviewed on NPR (National Public Radio) last year. He had written a book based on his work and his research into alternate energy sources. His proposal was a project by the federal government similar to the Manhatten project. Except the goal would be to be completely free of oil dependence in 15 years. He said that if the western windy states such as Wyoming were used for wind power, that just two states out there could produce three times the amount of energy used nationwide.

Added to that woudl be supllemental solar power in individual buildings which would also at the same time solve polution and power grid problems. It would decentralize dependence to put solar cells in individual buildings on a large scale. This would protect from terrorist atatck because while the solar would not supply 100% , it would keep us from an all or nothing scenario like the power blackout last year caused.

Using the wind power to generate electricity which would power electric cars as well. He had the numbers of how this was all possible now. If the federal government would back the project. The inexpensive power would pay for itself in short time and solve polution and political problems which are caused by oil. As a side benefit, terrorists in the middle east who now have 100's of billions at their disposal would have their money supply dryed up and a terrorist with ten dollars to his name would be much more irrelevant on a global scale.

Yes, well this is nothing really new. Four years ago Exxon estimated (conservatively) that comsumption would pass supply in 12 years, without factoring in China. Since then the US has been banging on China's door to sell cars and all the major automotive manufacturers are building car factories over there even though currently the auto construction exceeds the demand. Then end of the story...China is now the second largest importer of oil after the US.

I think anyone who believes that there is some rationalist government who would rather survive longer than their immediate political term regardless of consequence should go back to watching X-files and HOPE that aliens are running the government..they are our best hope. But no, I predict that at the same time oil reserves will be running low nationally, auto companies will be applying and getting grants from the government to sell cars because thier industry is hurt by higher gas prices.

Or to put in another way, it is nice of the US to have ban on whaling, but if the wheat and cattle ever all died, there would be the greatest electronically assisted extermination of whales ever imagined. If you don't believe in the mentallity of immediacy and conveniance, talk a look at the way the US government has been treating the "sacred" sites of the Antarctic and its own Alaska nature reserves.

ifriit said:

Note that, as it currently stands, hydrogen fuel isn't actually an energy source--we currently have to create hydrogen at an energy cost. Apparently some scientists believe that we will be able to process rock to extract hydrogen efficiently, but that's still quite a ways off. We should probably be looking into more sustainable energy sources in the interim. Heck, that would probably make gathering hydrogen unnecessary.

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The point, though, is that we can do a fair-to-middling job of generating electricity at specific sites; it's fueling vehicles and related bring-the-energy-where-the-need-is situations that would create difficulties. If a generating plant tapping tidal, hydrothermal, wind, hydroelectric (flowing), geothermal, or nuclear power sources is located alongside a plant producing hydrogen (perhaps electrolyzing water), you've resolved the "transportable power source" problem.

I've heard that, were the world to switch to nuclear power, we currently only know of fissionable material to last for about 25 years at our current rate of energy consumption. Anyone know how true this is?

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I'd heard a bit higher figure (~50 years) but we're in the same ballpark. However, this is based on U-235 from known uranium deposits. And there are several responses to this. First, there are probably a lot more pitchblende and uraninite veins around that haven't been discovered. Second, there are two other fissionable isotopes, U-233 and Pu-239, which can be produced in breeder reactors from Th-232 and U-238, both of which are vastly more common than U-235. The problem is that nobody wants to invest in building breeder reactors -- combined with the fear of plutonium poisoning (almost negligible with the oxide used in reactors; what's toxic is the elemental metal used in bombs). Third, we're "about ten years from economically feasible fusion reactors" -- and we've been "about ten years from economically feasible fusion reactors" for the last forty years. Every administration since Carter has been unwilling to invest the relatively minor sums in R&D on fusion that could probably cure our energy-crisis woes for the foreseeable future.

I hope the world runs out of oil sooner rather than later. Bankrupting the world’s generators of terrorism like Saudi Arabia and Iran would be doing the world a favor. Not to mention the positive effect on world ecology. Besides, our technology and economic resiliency will carry us through the changes. The Middle East however is headed for disaster because oil is the only viable export they have. Their economies wouldn’t exist without oil. They will be thrown back into the Stone Age. Not that they are very far from that now. No more money to build fanatic driven mosques and funneling money to terrorists.

Uh, it won't be the Middle East going to the stone age...it will be the USA.

Alternatives have been around for decades and other countries have been picking up on them: wind farms, hydrogen fuel cells, propane, etc. For instance, no taxi's run on gas anymore in my home town, and haven't for about 7 years: they simply made it the law. All new buses are hydrogen fuel cells.

But what has the US done? Hmm, unanimously voted to leave the Kyoto agreement and as for local or national implimentation of alternative fuel.......zero. Hmmm, there is a country which is the number one consumer of oil, number one importer of oil in the world and has demonstated about 7 times in the last 12 years that it is willing to use military force in order to make sure that its needs come first. Gee...I wonder what will happen when the oil supply is reduced or threatened? A) make radical, expensive and painful changes to the country which will affect every single person or B) attack somewhere that has oil in order to get more of it. I wonder?

mpshiel said:

Uh, it won't be the Middle East going to the stone age...it will be the USA.

Alternatives have been around for decades and other countries have been picking up on them: wind farms, hydrogen fuel cells, propane, etc. For instance, no taxi's run on gas anymore in my home town, and haven't for about 7 years: they simply made it the law. All new buses are hydrogen fuel cells.

But what has the US done? Hmm, unanimously voted to leave the Kyoto agreement and as for local or national implimentation of alternative fuel.......zero. Hmmm, there is a country which is the number one consumer of oil, number one importer of oil in the world and has demonstated about 7 times in the last 12 years that it is willing to use military force in order to make sure that its needs come first. Gee...I wonder what will happen when the oil supply is reduced or threatened? A) make radical, expensive and painful changes to the country which will affect every single person or B) attack somewhere that has oil in order to get more of it. I wonder?

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-That's why the US leads the world in Fuel Cell Research and has pioneered almost all other forms of renewable energy research. Oil dependency is a world problem, not just the USA's. What are these 7 countries in the last 12 years we've attacked for oil? The US is not ready to make the switch to fuel cells because the technology isn't advanced enough yet, however when it does, and we are ready to make the switch, the cost won't bankrupt the USA or pitch it into the stone age.

Arturis said:

-That's why the US leads the world in Fuel Cell Research and has pioneered almost all other forms of renewable energy research. Oil dependency is a world problem, not just the USA's. What are these 7 countries in the last 12 years we've attacked for oil? The US is not ready to make the switch to fuel cells because the technology isn't advanced enough yet, however when it does, and we are ready to make the switch, the cost won't bankrupt the USA or pitch it into the stone age.

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I will venture an educated guess about 2 of the countries in answer to which 7 countries have been attacked for oil. Iraq and Afghanistan.

Polycarp1 said:

The point, though, is that we can do a fair-to-middling job of generating electricity at specific sites; it's fueling vehicles and related bring-the-energy-where-the-need-is situations that would create difficulties. If a generating plant tapping tidal, hydrothermal, wind, hydroelectric (flowing), geothermal, or nuclear power sources is located alongside a plant producing hydrogen (perhaps electrolyzing water), you've resolved the "transportable power source" problem.

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Quite true, I was simply addressing what seems to be a common concept, that hydrogen is an energy source similar to petroleum to be gathered for a net gain. It seems that the US media has focussed very heavily on this lately as the replacement for oil, and little mention is made of any actual new or improved energy source technologies.

Polycarp1 said:

Third, we're "about ten years from economically feasible fusion reactors" -- and we've been "about ten years from economically feasible fusion reactors" for the last forty years. Every administration since Carter has been unwilling to invest the relatively minor sums in R&D on fusion that could probably cure our energy-crisis woes for the foreseeable future.

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Do you know of a good net source on the current state of fusion technology? I keep hearing completely different things all the time--about two or three years ago, I read that containment had been figured out and that ignition was the major problem to resolve, now I'm hearing that ignition is solved but containment is still a problem.

mellowguy said:

This is a wake up call

There is NO alternative to oil OR gas that we can transition to quickly
Forget fuel cells and the rest, they supply just a few percent of our electricity needs and they won't make petrol or aviation fuel or other things oil is made into

The only argument against my post is that we aren't about to run out of oil, not that we can just 'switch' to some imaginary alternative

Why do you think the US is so interested in Iraq, Iran and the rest. Its because we need the oil so badly, we are desparate for it, our entire economies are based around it and there's no easy alternative

I want to see the world's resources shared fairly, the alternative is warfare. The US is already moving to protect its oil supply (Iraq and the rest), so its not looking good right now

Martin

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I agree that it is not looking good right now. However, the alternatives are not imaginary. It is true that it would take time and effort to switch to the alternatives. But not that much time. With a concentrated effort, The U.S. could switch in ten to fifteeen years and have zero depoendence on oil. I think we have enough reserves to handle that.

Alternatives to Oil/Gas: Much oil and gas are burned for electric power. Simple solution there is to switch to an alternative source that works at that site. Coal, nuclear, tidal, geothermal... the list is pretty extensive. For fuel, there's a very simple solution blocked by the oil companies: ethanol. Producing ethanol from crops is a fairly simple procedure -- moonshiners have been doing it since the Twenties. Converting cars to run on ethanol is a matter of rebuilding carburetors, along with some modifications in venting of fuel tanks (in the ground and on vehicles).

Fusion: No, I don't. But I belong to a private board on which the Owner/Administrator (parallel to Erwin here) and one of the Moderators are power plant engineers with an extensive background in alternative energy sources, their potential and shortcomings. I'll start a thread over there asking for their analysis of fusion power and report back what they have to say.