Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Peak oil is coming

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=632811

Sooner or later, the end result will be the same. Maybe the people with Y2K bunkers didn't waste their money after all.

We have about 60 cubic miles of oil to draw from. 25 cubic miles have been recovered. The last 10 cubic miles wll be very difficult. Look at present daily oil consumption worldwide plus its upward trend and, given the 25 cubic miles of petroleum remaining, set a date for Ragnarok.

An interesting item but quite frankly containing substantial inaccuracies: Especially as regards the Canadian oil sands.

Right now Canada has more extractable oil than the entire middle-east combined and it is not theoretical ... it is being extracted very profitably and has been for years. Those wishing more information:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=COS-UN.TO&t=2y
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=UTS.TO&t=2y
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=WTO.TO&t=2y&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
to cite just a few.

Uncle Al is incorrect as to how much oil is recoverable. The amount of oil recovered each year has been decreasing for awhile and no serious industry insider thinks that is going to change. The amount of material pumped is irrelevant as much of what is pumped from many oil fields, especially those in Saudi Arabia, is water: Water used to help flush out the remaining oil.

It is over folks. China and India alone are enough to make it clear the party is over. Get ready for the pain.

The amount of "pain" depends on where you live. China and India are going to be in a world of hurt (unless they leapfrog over an oil infrastructure, which they'll do if they are smart). The US and Europe, however, will be relatively fine, imho.

Yes, energy will be expensive and the transition to new energy technology will be costly, but I don't think we'll have to drop too many more bombs over oil. The energy bill that recently passed in the US will set up a good oil buffer for the transition (ethical implications of how that's done aside). All that is needed is a smooth and speedy transition.

The biggest question isn't, as far as I can see, "when will oil run out". Rather, we should ask "how quickly can industry make a transition". No one is dumb enough, including oil companies, to see another oil shock. Industry will fill the void, but with what? I hear a lot of talk about hydrogen and nuclear power. I wonder what this board's feeling on these energy forms are.

In their way both Uncle Al and D.Morgan are both right in their way.
Al and his 25 cubic miles of EASILY EXTRACTED OIL.
While Dan correctly states that the Canadien Athabaska tar sands exceeds by 1.5 times all the known oil deposits in the world. Except that processing and extraction causes awful POLLUTION. Even though Canada relies upon 10% of this extracted oil for its own use.

Ever the optimist, I am posting a large number of recent Oil and Gas finds,for everyones info at the bottom of this posting.
Many countries previously not known for having any Gas or Oil deposits, have now been found to have them. The Inuits and Australians, among others.
Egypt and Israel have both found huge Gas offshore deposits which are coming online.
Infact there is speculation that the whole of the Mediteranean Sea Basin, may hold untold Gas reserves. Could that be why Pres: Putin is about to visit Israel?

Staying optimistic...don't forget that our Moon's
(yes we have two, Cruithne, is our other) are a potential source of unlimited energy. In the form of the Helium 3 Isotope. A potent non-polluting energy source with virtually no radio-active byproducts in a Nuclear Reactor.
The estimated million tons of Helium 3 on the Moon, could supply earth with energy for thousands of years. A single Shuttle load of 30 tons, should meet all the U.S demands for 14 months.
(my estimation, admittedly, I do not know how many tons a shuttle could BRING BACK.)
Could that be why Bush is gearing up for a Chinese/U.S Moon race?

Staying optimistic, ..vast quantities of Deturium present in our Seas could be isolated and purified using H2s Isotope exchange lines. (could be easier and better than using our Moons H3?)
Both would require us to solve the problem of heating Hydrogen to 100 Million C and keeping it confined long enough to extract unlimited energy.

Then there is Prof: Thomas Gold who believes that Methane Gas has continually generated deep within our warm Earth, by micro-organismsfot millions of years.

Nor should we forget undersea Clathrates, (frozen Methane) again estimated to be at least equal in energy to all the known oil reserves.

Plus, much research going into the development of a total Ceramic Diesel engine. The block and pistons would glow dull red. Sintered Ceramics can operate at 1000C + (Shuttle tiles) No water cooling would be needed(Remember the 'Beetle' Volkswagon?) A total Ceramic engine would be far more efficient on fuel, with no electronics either
except for LED headlites?
With 100% burning of its pollutants, theexpensive Platinum catalyst would not be needed.

I envisage future houses using LED lighting, Transistor Radios, Tv's and Mobiles, using no more than 2 or three volts. Fridge freezers
might use an efficient tri-metal strip heat exchanger, or even a Gas heater.Given the above, Just why would we need to remain connected to the expensive over extended Power Companys?

We hav'nt seen nothing yet. The best is yet to come, as far as energy is concerned, in my book anyway.

Now back to those recent Oil and Gas discoverys.
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/discover/h_left.htm


**********************************************

Optimism IS Life......Mike Kremer

Only americans with SUVs are stupid enough to compare the end of fossilic fuel with the end of the world. And by the way, if USA and its leaders had any sense, they would reduce their oil consumption by some billion liters, and maybe delay ragnarok for some decades.

The United States of America is the world's largest energy producer, consumer, and net importer. According to the "Oil and gas journal" The US imports roughly 5 million barrels pr day, and produces 10 million barrels pr day of crude oil.

But as I was saying, even though most americans think the US is the world, only the US would suffer a ragnarok when the oil is finito. The rest of the world will manage because we have planned ahead. So long suckers.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

You're absolutely spot on, Johan. If the US plunges into a sudden economic recession from an oil shock, everyone else will be *just fine*.

Now carefully listen to the sounds of me rolling my eyes at you.

Your current state of survival is more dependent on the US than you think.

PJ:
You are not paying attention. China is investing worldwide in petroleum and has purchased billions of dollars in Canadian assets. Unlike the US ... they have a government with an energy policy.

Mike:
I'm only an optimist if fusion power is developed. Everything else is "bad" just differing in who has to clean up, or live with, the mess.

And to clearify the mediajippo, hydrogen is only energy bearer. You have to put quite a lot of energy into the production of hydrogen. So in a 100 years the whole world will be covered in windmills etc to produce enough hydrogen to power the SUVs.

So just ignore solar
Ignore fusion
Ignore bio-fuel cells
Ignore ....

Why the search for the silver bullet rather than a robust multi-faceted strategy? Hopefully you aren't a politician incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time.

There will be a clear demand on a wide variety of methods of harvesting energy. The world will be covered with windmills ETC. (Etc meaning windmills, solar panels, tidal power plants, oceanwave power plants, subsea current mills just to name a few.) But yes, ignore fusion. We will not see that in several centuries.

Depends on how optimistic you are; it's been "a few years away" for a long time, but it's conceivable that the crucial breakthrough will occur in my lifetime (I'm 24). It's not an immediate option, however, which is what I think we are going to be needing shortly.

I am reading
the Long Emergency
by Jame Howard Kunstler
It is very interesting and so far non-partisian - he slams Clinton's whilstling thru the Peak just as well as slams Bush's lack of energy policy...

though he does occasionally bring up the apocolopytic mindset behind religions/political factions - the belief that worrying about the future is a waste of time because there will be no future (Armeggeddon - both Christian and Muslim versions).

I am about 185 pages thru it right now...

He does barge thru the various "saviors" that the technos and market believers think will come to the rescue and basically comes down to a nuclear energy is the only real hope of maintaining any faction of the current American lifestyle but even that will not suffice - that suburbia and the great shopping malls are the dipolocti and stegesaurians of our economic excesses.

He brings out an funny comparison to the dreamers and wishfull thinkers - calls it the Cargo Cults - where Island People of the Pacific SW would build ships or planes in effigy trying to bring back the foreigners with fantastic objects for trade (like flash lights).

Read it, a very interesting projection of a dark and uncertain future.

all of which depend on the oil economy to build - you can't use windmill power to forge parts to build new windmills. Same with solar power - you need plastics (derived from oil products/methane gas) and the power to make them in the first place.

Kunstler brings up some good pionts in his book shooting down why - regardless of what technologies we think will save us, can not maintain the excesses of American consumption as we live it today.

Then he touches on the pain of restructing our communities and lifestyles amidst resurgences of regional divides (Red and Blue states - anyone?)

Europe is not left unscathed either and basically the French are in the best position (with high levels of nuclear and hydroelectric generatio) but all are vunerable to world wide economic contraction that will be caused by the collapse of cheap oil.

Check it out, I would like to hear what some of you have to say about his projections...
thanks
Dan

What about the solution that is already being phased in?

sugar-cane spirit (ethanol) is being used to top up petrol in some countries. and you can visit the drag races to see the "top-alcohol" dudes show how well they can run an internal combustion engine on alcohol.

its environmentally renewable in one sense because all the carbon burned in vehicles and emitted into the air has previously been extracted from the air by plants.

so whats all the fear mongering about? the transition to alternative fuels has begun and the internal combustion engine hasnt yet had its day.

all you people in the west have to worry about is making sure you dont run out of oil before your enemies do.
well, thats not the only thing - but judging by your governments policies, it seems that way.

fringe

There is only one solution possible with current technology ... multiple solutions.

Any single solution, widely adopted, will bring its own set of problems.

An interesting Read from everyone
But I got News for you. Something you guys have not mentioned so far.

In Huntorf near Bremen, Germany. They have been using the worlds first commercial compressed-hot air storage installation for the last eight years.
They operated for the first 3 years in total secrecy.

It works like this- during off peak hours the Huntorf facility compresses 300,000 cubic meters
of air (10+ million cubic feet)to 1000 lbs per cubic inch.!
Amazingly it is stored at this pressure in two large underground salt caverns!!

Now here is the clever part.....during periods of peak demand a certain amount of natural GAS is piped into the caverns and LIT!!

Yep, the Cavern is actually set alight using special gas jets (like the top of your cooker?)
This burning EXPANDS the heated air which is fed into high and low pressure turbines that can generate 290,000 killowatts for about two hours.
At the Huntorf plant each kilowatt-hour of output requires an electrical energy input of 0.8 kwh for air compression, and a fuel energy input of 5,300 Btu's for air re-heating.
This unit has been charged and discharged some tens of thousands of times, without faults.
The Germans are dismantling their Atomic Energy power stations.
(They are not keen on Atomic energy anyway)
I blew the lid on their secret project, over 3 years ago.
Now you can read about this super efficient energy storage project .....they have put up on the NET
ie....enter words like HUNTDORF GAS AIR ENERGY (I seem to have lost their original site)
or look at a similar project in the USA....... about to come on line.
http://www.caes.net/mcintosh.html

Science changes and scientific theories change. The idea that oil is an exhaustible resource created by the decay of organic materials over time is one of the ideas we all learned in school but which is increasingly being challenged by new discoveries.

Russians reached the conclusion that oil is generated by natural geologic processes continually years ago. Many major oil companies have begun to shape their prospecting strategies on this new idea.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/30mar_moonfountains.htm

So, Oil is actually constantly being generated within the earth and seeping up through fractures in the earths crust. The idea that we can 'run out' of oil is based on outdated science that is pretty well debunked by new discoveries.

At least based on the following article, I would not agree.

http://www.energybulletin.net/2423.html

I presume you meant to post a link germane to the topic under discussion; the one you posted does not seem relevant (unless I missed it).

Many of the predictions on when the oil is going to run out, are based on propaganda from enviromental maniacs. But this is not a good argument as to why oil seems to appear by itself. Enviro maniacs have questionable motives for claiming to run out of oil, and the technology for oil detection has been greatly improved the last 40 years. It is not necesserily mysteriously appearing from little goblins in rocks.

The thing is, we are currently using more oil than the potential of new located producable fields.

So.. Ask me again in 300 years. If there still is being extracted oil at the same rate as today (or the potential is the same as today), I will reevaluate my standings.