Have we reached peak oil and can we survive it?

[promethathustra]

Check your premise of "we."

 

[Valiant]

Check your premise of "we."

Yeah, you just emailed me this:

"WE"=NT---the rational...forget Nations!

Nations, cultures, ethnicities... They're quite real.
More so than anything the MBTI could devise.
If you with NTs mean the world's "best and brightest"...
Which is a faulty definition, since most of us aren't that influential...
Or even particularly bright!

The world is a place of brutal realism, not idealism.
It's not how things work. I won't forget Nations :/

 

[promethathustra]

Personality is the "overman." Nations exist and act accordingly!

"All of human history resolves itself to a few stout men." Emerson

 

[entropie]

I recently had that topic in a lecture and they gave good statistical data on it. Tho this data is from 2006 it's still worth looking at:

Translation:

Gewinnungskosten 2004 = conveying cost 2004
Erdölressourcen = oil ressources

Tiefsee = deep sea
Große Wassertiefe = deep in the sea but not as deep as deep sea
Arktische Felder = arctic oil fields
Sekundär- & Tertiärproduktion mit CO2-Verpressung = secondary and tertiary conveyance with CO2 - deep injection [ secondary and tertiary conveyance basically needs you to inject a gas into the oil field, because otherwise the oil wouldnt come out due to a lack of pressure. The majority of all conveyance is either secondary or tertiary ]
Ölschiefer - oil shale
Andere / Konventionelle - Other / conventional fields
Schwerstöle, Teere - heavy oil, oil tar
Verbraucht - Used up
bis 2030 erwarteter Gesamtbedarf - estimated demand in the year 2030

You see in the diagramm that OPEC conveyance is the cheapest and in fact it is the case that we pay really little for a ressource that's almost as worth as much as gold. To understand the diagramm, you have to differentiate ressources from reserves. Our oil reserves in fact will last only 42 years. Tho you have to differentiate that some countries have more and some have lesser reserves. Fact tho is too that our ressources will last another 400 years. So there is a difference between the oil we have at our immediant disposal (reserve) and the oil we know about but havent touched yet (ressources).

For economics that means, oil costs will go up, when the easier accessible fields are depleted. Developing countires like China and India tho are about to meet western standards and by wanting to get their they will peak oil consumption to another level.

The deman for energy has raised from ~1 million tons units of coal in 1860 to ~16,000 million units of coal in 2006. This does not mean we are running out of oil, therefore its no immediant topic in politics too. Fact is at current consumption, we can run another 400 years on oil and there are still a lot of fields we havent exploited ( like in the arctic regions ).

The problem tho is do we want to be so dependant from one ressource ? Oil isnt only used for fueling our machines, it's for example used to in nearly all plastic production and thats a material without which our houses would fall apart. So they need to be found solutions to substitute the ressource oil in the production processes.

Regarding world climate change and energy consumption, here's a troubling diagramm. I love my fellow americans and am thankful you grant me in your middle, but if you see this diagramm you know why America needs to develop a more economic and ressource fficient way of living. This is why the news are probably bugging you so much about climate change and stuff you cant hear anymore, look here:

Translation:

Bevölkerung Mio - population in million
jährl. Wachstumsrate % - annual population growth in %
Kinder pro Frau (15-49 Jahre) - kids per woman ( 15 - 49 yrs old, the woman not the kid )
Pro-Kopf Energieverbrauch t SKE - energy consumption per head in tons coal units
Elektr. Verbrauch pro Kopf in kWh - electrical power consumption per head in kiloWatt hours.
CO2 pro Kopf t CO2 - CO2 production per head in tons CO2

So if you put America and Germany ( Deutschland ) in comparism you see, tho both countries have the same living standard, an alarming number: namely the States have 13.6 k consumption of electrical energy per head, while Germany has 7.2 k. That is not meant to brag how good we are and to say that Americans suck, real fact is even Germany has a bad number compared with what number could be possible. You can with an energy consumption of around 2 - 3 k live your life like always without missing anything, so basically everything above that is destruction of energy. And lets not even start with Canadas numbers, thats devastating. It's like an industrial stoneage.

So and here's an important sentence, I'll make it bold so it wont go missing.

When people, like for example the German chancelor nowadays talk about climate change, she doesnt mean that we must reduce CO2 emissions, the important thing she means is that we reduce our energy consumption, what automaticallly will reduce CO2 emissions. So to say: reduce your CO2 emissions, is diplomatic for dont use so much energy or you gonna kill us.

And that is why they are probably at the moment propagating so much about climate change in the US. So the people start to use energy saving lamps, paint their roof tops white and use air con with more reason.

A thing I liked about american movies from the 80s as a kid was always that they had so many lamps and lights lighted in a house. The american houses in movies always looked like a huge christmas tree all the year and nowadays when I think of it, it makes sense, I liked it so much because as a kid I was taught the most hard way possible to always switch of the lights when I leave a room. This is an attitude that comes in Germany from the years after the war, when ressources where scarce and my grandparents learned very quick they had to save electrical power cause their aint much of it.

So its little things that can help us with climate change as in ressources depletion and everyone can do a bit. Noone wants to give up his living standards thats for sure, but its possible to find entp clever ways to keep ones living standard and still care for this planet.

Take my advice, with an annual population growth of 0.02 of Germany like in the diagramm above, I wont be around too long anymore to tell you

 

[Robopop]

These are the conclusions reached by the Hirsch report, it was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005.

World oil peaking is going to happen, and will likely be abrupt.
World production of conventional oil will reach a maximum and decline thereafter.
Some forecasters project peaking within a decade; others contend it will occur later.
Peaking will happen, but the timing is uncertain.
Oil peaking will adversely affect global economies, particularly the U.S.
Over the past century the U.S. economy has been shaped by the availability of low-cost oil.
The economic loss to the United States could be measured on a trillion-dollar scale.
Aggressive fuel efficiency and substitute fuel production could provide substantial mitigation.
Oil peaking presents a unique challenge.
Without massive mitigation, the problem will be pervasive and long-term.
Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary.
Oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.
The problem is liquid fuels for transportation.
The lifetimes of transportation equipment are measured in decades.
Rapid changeover in transportation equipment is inherently impossible.
Motor vehicles, aircraft, trains, and ships have no ready alternative to liquid fuels.
Mitigation efforts will require substantial time.
Waiting until production peaks would leave the world with a liquid fuel deficit for 20 years.
Initiating a crash program 10 years before peaking leaves a liquid fuels shortfall of a decade.
Initiating a crash program 20 years before peaking could avoid a world liquid fuels shortfall.Both supply and demand will require attention.
Sustained high oil prices will cause forced demand reduction (recession and unemployment).
Production of large amounts of substitute liquid fuels can and must be provided.
The production of substitute liquid fuels is technically and economically feasible.
It is a matter of risk management.
The peaking of world oil production is a classic risk management problem
Mitigation efforts earlier than required may be premature, if peaking is long delayed.
On the other hand, if peaking is soon, failure to initiate mitigation could be extremely damaging.
Government intervention will be required.
The economic and social implications of oil peaking would otherwise be chaotic.
Expediency may require major changes to existing administrative and regulatory procedures.
Economic upheaval is not inevitable.
Without mitigation, the peaking of world oil production will cause major economic upheaval.
Given enough lead-time, the problems are soluble with existing technologies.
New technologies will help, but on a longer time scale.
More information is needed.
Effective action to combat peaking requires better understanding of the issues.
Risks and possible benefits of possible mitigation actions need to be examined

We don't have 20 years, hell, we might not have 10 years for global oil production to peak, WE HAVE NO CRASH PROGRAM, I can bet if I went around my own tech college and asked people their knowledge of peak oil, it would probably be nil. We need a bottom up approach to this problem if we expect the government and politicians to really implement any sufficient policies.

The really bad thing is this problem would have been way more manageable if the government started planning ahead 20-30 years ago.
It's like we're living off borrowed time now. Like someone said before, the US needs to start becoming more self-sufficient, supplying its own food needs, producing its own products. In cities alot of the open space on the top of buildings can be turned into gardens for some of the city's food needs, there's actually plenty of space in most cities, why this is not a popular idea I do not know.

 

[entropie]

It is a problem with the political admissions that probably exist in all countries: it always takes to long to initiate things and future developments are generally overlooked. Then with changing political structure and after new elections some other things become buried in mid-process, to be dug up then again and to become buried again.

I do not think that the world is on the verge of a collapse regarding oil, if that really was true, oil wouldnt be so cheap. You'ld have to know what in particularity the Hirsch report was talking about in terms of reserves and ressources.

Another interesting thing is the growing E-mobility market. You can ask every engineer in the world and he will tell you a small-sized diesel engine is ten times more ressource efficient than an electric car, cause the power for it has to be produced somewhere and if we stop burning fuels on the streets, we just have to burn it somewhere else.
Despite of that the E-mobility thing is an expanding and continually growing market, tho with current technologies it will rather make our energy problems more bad than better.

Why is it still growing then ? I dont know, there is only one rational answer to everything irrational happening on the world:

someone makes money with it.

 

[Andy]

I don't know much about the topic, but doesn't nuclear fission produce far less waste than nuclear fusion? Even if it does produce less waste, there's still the issue of cost.

While I do agree that solar energy is a great choice, I think it should be used alongside a few other sources like wind, algae fuel, or whatever.

The current problem with nuclear fusion as a means of power generation is that it doesn't work. No-ne has ever been able to create a nuclear fusion power plant that producs more energy than it consumes.

Anyway, back to oil and oil products.

Half the problem is democracy itself. The short term of office doesn't really encourage politicians to take the long term approach. If something isn't going to happen for 15 - 20 years, than it's going to be someone elses problem it arrives. Rulers today just don't think in terms of dynasties and inheritance.

To sort out most of the economic problems, you'd have to take some unpopular steps. Look at plastic waste and the problems of recycling it. Technically, thermoplastics can be melted down easily enough, but our economy uses such a wide range of them that by the time they enter the waste steam, they are all jumbled together, long with thermosets which don't melt (they burn instead). With so little differance in physical properties, sorting them out is very hard. Try to just melt them all into one, and the end result is a bittle, weak material of little use.

The easiest method to solve them problem? Regulate plastic use. Stop the manufacurers from being able to use whatever plastic they like in whatever colour they like. Everyone gets the same, and tough shit if it messes up your advertising.

In fact, to really put the problem to bed, completely standardise all packaging. There would be a number of standardised pot formats and everything comes in one them. All the manufacturer can do is put a lable on it. That way you need to melt anything. Just collect them after use, wash the and reuse them. Lowest energy solution of all. It would just result in the supermarket shelves looking a bit boring.

Replacing the internal combustion engine is the big one, of course. To make the transition, it would be useful for the alternatives to be able to work in the current infrastructure. A lot of fuss is made of hydrogen cars, which use fuel cells.People go on about how wonderful and clean hydrogen fuel is. Trouble is, it's not very practical at the moment. The grade of hydrogen they need is difficult to produce on a large scale. The is a type of fuel cell called an SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell) that can run on diesel. There is currently problems with sulphur additions made to diesel fuel, but introducing no sulphur diesel shouldn't be any harder than introducing unleaded petrol. Do that, and you've got a fuel cell car that can work in the current economic environment. Even if it isn't fantastically better than a combustion engine, it paves the way for further fuel cell technology. And the SOFC can use many fuels, including biofuels and, yes, hydrogen.

 

[Robopop]

One thing that I never fail to notice about peakist is that they down play technology or even seem a little anti-technology to me(plus they seem to view the future linearly).The possible benefits from exponential growth in technology can be difficult to foresee.

I mean just 7 years ago the human genome project took millions of dollars to fund, and now in the early 2010's there's talk of "the 100 dollar genome".
Nanotechnology will likely be farther along progression than most people think in another 10 years(because most people view technological growth linearly instead of exponentially). It seems some of the people preaching peak oil just ignore technological progress altogether, it's like they want to see some hippie ideal back to nature ecotopia happen .

 

[Feops]

Short term political thinking is definately at a disadvantage here. Making moves today that help you fourty years from now does not get you re-elected next term unless you can impress upon people that the short term sacrifice was worthwhile, and this runs counter to our aversion to personal discomfort.

Peak oil will happen but I don't think it will be quite as dramatic as people make it out to be. My line of thinking is that our access to reserves will slowly increase as technology improves, but global demand will also increase and at a faster rate, until they eventually meet. It will be more of a curve than a jagged mountain peak.

At that point there will be plateau of sorts and economic pressure will quickly mount to improve efficiencies and swap to alternatives, especially in first world countries that tend to rely on energy imports. We saw a brief glimpse of that back in 2008 or so when oil prices spiked, and economical cars very quickly grew into favor. There will be hardship as energy costs consume a greater portion of our incomes, but society will adapt to live within its means. For example, there may be a resurgence of shipping by train and ship with a lessened importance of shipping by truck or airplane. This may kill the notion of 'just in time shipping', but.. tough. These efficiencies will leverage the power of energy alternatives until they become economically profitable.

The devil is in the details of course. The USA especially is a bit of a wildcard in how much they love cheap energy and their willingness to throw international clout around (be it military or economical) to get what they want. I think they'll eventually adapt but they'll be among the last, and it'll hurt them. But.. no massive collapse of modern society incoming, no.

 

[yeghor]

Short term political thinking is definately at a disadvantage here. Making moves today that help you fourty years from now does not get you re-elected next term unless you can impress upon people that the short term sacrifice was worthwhile, and this runs counter to our aversion to personal discomfort.

Peak oil will happen but I don't think it will be quite as dramatic as people make it out to be. My line of thinking is that our access to reserves will slowly increase as technology improves, but global demand will also increase and at a faster rate, until they eventually meet. It will be more of a curve than a jagged mountain peak.

At that point there will be plateau of sorts and economic pressure will quickly mount to improve efficiencies and swap to alternatives, especially in first world countries that tend to rely on energy imports. We saw a brief glimpse of that back in 2008 or so when oil prices spiked, and economical cars very quickly grew into favor. There will be hardship as energy costs consume a greater portion of our incomes, but society will adapt to live within its means. For example, there may be a resurgence of shipping by train and ship with a lessened importance of shipping by truck or airplane. This may kill the notion of 'just in time shipping', but.. tough. These efficiencies will leverage the power of energy alternatives until they become economically profitable.

The devil is in the details of course. The USA especially is a bit of a wildcard in how much they love cheap energy and their willingness to throw international clout around (be it military or economical) to get what they want. I think they'll eventually adapt but they'll be among the last, and it'll hurt them. But.. no massive collapse of modern society incoming, no.

At the bottom is a theatrical assessment of events and politics revolving around oil as an energy source, starting from WW I.

The narrator asserts that the real cause of WW I were the oil fields in Iraq and Arabian peninsula.

He also discusses in a sarcastic manner how alternative energy sources can be used instead of oil but there's no global will to do so, how fight over oil deposits are carried out under the pretense of freedom and democracy, and how oil also affects food production thru fertilizers etc.

I don't understand why nuclear energy gets such a bad rep, if properly managed it is much cleaner and sustainable than oil and coal.

And can't we just contain and launch the nuclear core into space or the sun in case of a meltdown or something? Can't the meltdown be contained long enough to launch the containment chamber into orbit or towards the sun? It says it takes a speed of at least 7 miles per second to leave earth's gravity, and let's say it takes 170 miles from the surface, that would mean the rocket could leave earth's gravity within 30 seconds to a couple of minutes in case of meltdown.

Robert Newman's History of Oil