Poll: What do you know/think about "Peak Oil"

[darelldd]

Originally Posted by jayman

Hard to believe we're dumb enough to burn it up by driving cars, isn't it?

It used to be hard to believe it. But now I'm reading a poll where we seem to have an option to not "believe" in peak oil. Are there really those who think our earthly oil supply is infinite? (And that we can survive it's continued use?) Nobody denies that the easy oil is gone. Not even the folks who's fortunes depend on it being otherwise.

Good post Patsparks! I sure don't agree with you all the time, but that was a good read.

[hiremichaelreid]

There is supposed to be a "big meeting" of "important people" with the King of Saudi Arabia tomorrow.

I think the outcome if this meeting and the price of oil in the next few weeks will be strong evidence of if the world has hit peak oil yet.

If the price of oil stays up in the next few weeks, I'd be willing to say peak oil production is "upon" us; IE it happened in the last few years or will happen in the next few years, or we are on a plateau and current level is withing %5 of the REAL peak.

If this is the case, I think the reality will sink in for enough people that business and the stock markets will suffer and a recession, at least, will be upon us. Just TOO much dependent on cheap oil IMO.

Saudi royal family does NOT want a global recession or inflation or deflation or general economic or social havoc. Royal family also wants to stay in power and remain friendly with USA. So they will TRY IMO very hard to pump more and encourage other oil producers to pump more.

If they do pump more and price remains above $100 per barrel, IMO, world economies are STILL going to hurt. Nevermind $200,$500, etc.

[patsparks]

I don't understand this fascination with "Peak Oil"? 100 years ago or more we started heading toward no oil. Does it really matter if oil production has peaked? I think what matters is it is running out. Production of fuel from crude oil may have reached a peak recently or that may happen some time soon but the amount of oil in the ground today is less than yesterday and yesterday was less than the day before. We are using a finite resource so we need to use it conservatively and look for alternatives now.

Just as there is no one energy source now there is no one answer to our energy supplies in the future. We already have several options but not one excludes another. We can use several renewable energies to replace a growing portion of our fossil fuel use now and extend the usable life of fossil fuels. There are also steps we can take toward reducing consumption where fossil fuels are the only option, hybrids are an example of that. There is no reason wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal hydro, bio, and fossil fuels can't all be used into the future as long as fossil fuels are a last resort. The best way to ensure development of this kind is that fossil fuel prices reflect the harm they do and the cost of remedial action required to restore the harm done by them. This will ensure the alternative energies are price competitive on a level playing field.

The high price of fossil fuels is a good thing in that it makes the alternatives more attractive to use and develop.

I'd like to see a 5% global loading on fossil fuels to be channelled into renewable energy development and installation. That would go a small way toward rectifying the harm done and prepare us for a future with much less reliance on fossil fuels. I would even argue that 5% of what we currently spend on fossil fuels over 20 years would see enough use of renewable energy to almost eliminate the use of fossil fuels except for the distribution of freight. Such a fund could also be used to encourage clean development in developing countries.
Rant over.

[jayman]

Originally Posted by patsparks

Rant over.

Nope, no rant. I agree. We are rapidly heading towards a Dystopian future, rather than the Utopian Future we always believed we would have

Unless we're willing to wage biological or thermonuclear war on 85% of the global population to ensure us spoiled brats in the West can have unlimited access to energy, our future is Dystopian. And there is no guarantee all-out war will help our odds, more than likely we just fall off the cliff that much faster

[Devil's Advocate]

Go Nucular! ;-)
Nevada resident in favor of Yucca;
Democrats, Liberals and Environmentalists are attempting to create "peak" oil by restricting exploration;
The poor (and developing countries) suffer the most from Democrat, Liberal and Environmentalist energy policies;
There are more proven oil reserves currently than have EVER existed! (existed meaning were previously known reserves, from about 10 years ago)
I just paid over $50 to fill up the Prius, and the result.... I will personally drill through the heart of the last baby harp seal to get back to even $2 a gallon gas!

[FL_Prius_Driver]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Go Nucular! ;-)
Nevada resident in favor of Yucca;
Democrats, Liberals and Environmentalists are attempting to create "peak" oil by restricting exploration;
The poor (and developing countries) suffer the most from Democrat, Liberal and Environmentalist energy policies;
There are more proven oil reserves currently than have EVER existed! (existed meaning were previously known reserves, from about 10 years ago)
I just paid over $50 to fill up the Prius, and the result.... I will personally drill through the heart of the last baby harp seal to get back to even $2 a gallon gas!

Hopefully this is a parody post. Very good job of leaving the readers wondering.

[dragonfly]

It helps to understand EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested).

http://www.theoildrum.com/files/ch_balloon_tod.png

EROEI on imported oil today is about the same as for windmills; on domestic it is approaching that of nuclear and solar. This is the "easy" oil (which as you can see is becoming less and less "easy"). Tar sands and shale have an EROEI of less than 1, meaning it takes more energy to extract than the energy extracted. We will never return to $2 gas.

[patsparks]

Maybe they can use wind and solar and nuclear energy to extract the oil from the shale and tar sands to put a few more gallons in the old F150?

[sendconroymail]

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

Go Nucular! ;-)
Nevada resident in favor of Yucca;
Democrats, Liberals and Environmentalists are attempting to create "peak" oil by restricting exploration;
The poor (and developing countries) suffer the most from Democrat, Liberal and Environmentalist energy policies;
There are more proven oil reserves currently than have EVER existed! (existed meaning were previously known reserves, from about 10 years ago)
I just paid over $50 to fill up the Prius, and the result.... I will personally drill through the heart of the last baby harp seal to get back to even $2 a gallon gas!

Nuclear energy which a lot of people talk about replacing oil will not work. The simplest reason? There is not enough uranium in the world to create enough nuclear reactors.

Also you mention there is more proven reserves than have ever existed. Yes on the books there are more proven reserves than ever. But the real question is do you know WHY? Its because members of OPEC are allowed to sell a specific number of barrells per year. That number is determined by how many barrels in the ground each country has. Did you notice in the late 80's the number of barrels each country had in the ground mysteriously doubled overnight. I don't mean 1 or 2 opec countries but all of them doubled their numbers. And every day they pump roughly 32 million barrels, that's billions of barrels a year. But guess what? Magically at the end of the year all the OPEC countries report the same amount of oil in the ground as they had the previous year. Pretty amazing isn't it. So if you have a cookie jar filled with money and you take out 32 million a day, at the end of the year you still have the same amount of money you started with. Wow wouldn't that be great.

The bottom line is OPEC lies. They don't want people to panic and actually do something about the oil problem. God... I wish people would just use their brain sometimes.

[hiremichaelreid]

Originally Posted by sendconroymail

Nuclear energy which a lot of people talk about replacing oil will not work. The simplest reason? There is not enough uranium in the world to create enough nuclear reactors.

Also you mention there is more proven reserves than have ever existed. Yes on the books there are more proven reserves than ever.

Nuclear will help. We should do everything that can help and is economic. Electricity for PHEVs and electric trains etc. Price of uranium is still pretty low. I've been eyeing Canadian miner Cameco as an investment: Cameco Corporation --- Uranium - Fuel - Electricity - Mining - Milling - Refining

I'll be interested to see if any orders for Candu's start coming in soon. Hydro is cheaper but most of the good, big water is already producing.


As far as "actual reserves" in the world go, nobody really knows. Yes different parties fudge numbers for business or political reasons, but there's no such thing as "actual reserves" anyway.

All we could say, in theory, is that with current technology, we think there is X amount of reserves that are economic at price Y. Technology keeps changing, new fields are found occasionally, old ones live longer or shorter than expected, different fields = different grades, and there are MANY other factors that I, an amateur in this field, will probably never even hear about.

Point is, nobody really knows. All we know is Oil and Gas cost X and Y today, or Z months in the future via derivatives.


So given that "actual reserves" are unknown and perhaps unknowable, all we should do IMO is say:

"Oil and gas cost this much. If this much causes threats to the world economy because we are so dependent on it being cheap, then we must examine the costs and technology of all the alternatives and strive to be more flexible and independent of any given fuel/energy source."


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