Peak oil or global warming, which is most serious?

There are alternatives to traditional oil sources, but they won't supply the massive quantities needed. The Canadian tar sands are begining to be produced, but it takes a lot of natural gas (which is also going up in price) and water to get it to crude oil status. Estimates are it won't ever reach the millions of barrels/day that's needed if something like ghawar oil field dries up. Also, China also has a contract on at least some of the oil coming from Canadian tar sands, so it's not all ear-marked for the U.S. Oil shale in the western U.S. is in experimental stages, but it's not really cost effective, and the director of the project estimates it could take 20 years to get anything large scale going, and again that wouldn't be a single answer to even our current needs. (See some of the links at http://www.evworld.com/ ).

There are answers - plug-in hybrids being one of them, since we will have coal, hydrothermal, and nuclear power for electric generation for quite some time, just not enough petroleum, of which something like 80% is used for transportation. Biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol are also promising. Trouble with any of the answers is that there would have to be a shift in the infrastructure, and that can take decades, and political will. The transitional period could be bad, but I'm not one of the "peak-oil will throw us back to the middle ages after massive oil wars" believers (it's a possibility, but pretty remote, IMO). It all depends on how much OPEC really has left, and we really don't know the answer to that. It also depends on what our then-current president would do facing an oil crisis. But really we need to take bigger steps now, to avoid the worst-case scenario.

As far as global warming, I think the next president will try to patch up relations with Europe and elsewhere, and that includes getting serious about controlling pollution and global-warming gases (GWG). Maybe not sign Kyoto protocol, but something along those lines that gives teeth to the Bush administration's new technology proposal. It's pretty hard to avoid admitting global-warming is happening anymore, now the argument is shifting to whether it's man-made or not. Raising CAFE standards will help both global-warming and oil dependence, and probably won't be fought by the American car companies quite so vigorously now that hybrids are shown to be feasible and even desirable in the correct configuration. Ironically, if we had raised the CAFE, despite their protests, American car companies would now be in a better position to compete against foreign brands.

nerfer

 

Well said, Nerfer. People often forget that it's not really how much oil there is but how quickly it can be produced. The same is very true for coal, oil shale, tar sands, etc.

So what precisely is the NG used for? Hydrogen content? So without a large source of NG (or other source of hydrogen) is it possible to convert these "alternatives" into crude?

 

Global warming. Expensive though they may be, we have other energy sources and other energy storage technologies. There's only one Earth.

 

I fear global warming. I can always find a way to get around, but here in FL the hurricanes are intensifying. It's believed this is a result of global warming and I believe that makes sense. I am sad about the polar caps melting. We are in for some very bad times if humans don't stop screwing up the earth.

 

There is no PROOF of LONG TERM global warming, because we don't have long term records.
We've accurately measured our climate for the last 100 or so years, yet the earth is 15 million years old. Yes we may have gotten warmer in the last century, but no conclusion can be drawn if it is because of man made phenonmenon(terribly arrogant anyway) or mother nature. Just remember(or research) how volcanic erruptions over the last century have cooled our climate for years. Long term in the universe is millions of years.
Plus, there is no ozone hole. Ozone is constantly breaking down and being regenerated in the upper atmosphere. How long have we had satellites in space imaging the ozone layer versus how old is the earth?

 

I wouldn't want to ride on 95 if we all had horses.

 

i also agree the global warming is a much more pressing need. coal gassification suggested by the governor of Montana is a good supply that has the potential to supply about a third of our current needs, but that will still introduce greenhouse gases, albeit, at a much lower rate, but nevertheless, it will still contribute CO2 and we need to address the fact that india and china will be using much much more energy and sooner than we want to think about.

i simply dont feel the world will be able to support over 100 billion tons of pollutants we currently put out added to the expected increase in consumption even if our usage remains flat

 

Well, the insurance companies are definitely feeling and going to feel the pinch from global warming. Real estate in the FL keys will be worthless, as well as many coastal areas. Methinks the capitalists will feel their profits directly affected.

Problem is, this is a very slow moving and massive problem that can hit threshold and then react violently. Once that happens, humans and their economic woes are trivial.

 

Peak oil is of interest to day traders.
Global Warming is the overiding #1 issue for every country in the world this century, +/- a few million american neo-cons.

The *voluntary* decision to not burn fossil fuel is a political cliff-hanger. Face it; the oil producers can always undercut the price of alternative energy if need be to sell their product. The only situation I can think of that is in any way similar is nucler weapon non-proliferation, in the sense that a world concensus is required for success. In the meantime, I wonder if carbon duties on products from countries that are in non-compliance will occur ?

 

Ericgo,

I sure agree with you here, and I would add - "whether they realize it or not". Global warming has the potential to essentially end life as we know it on planet earth due to rising sea levels, and the subsequent economic collapse that will follow when cities like London, New York, Miami, New Orleans, and thousands of smaller places start to flood.

 

How many children would be ashamed later when they find out the technology to reduce emissions & consumption was available, but their parent's generation instead argued that their was no conclusive proof so they didn't even bother trying?

The beginning of this millennium has, for the most part, been an embarrassment. Waste has grown. Pollution has expanded.

The president is now saying we are "addicted to oil". My blogs from the beginning clearly document how he turned his back on hybrids and endorsed monster-size gas-guzzlers claiming they were "good for the economy". In other words, he was part of the problem. Now he claims to be helping. Will he?

I'd love to see "full" hybrids running on E10 everywhere. That would definitely be a step in the right direction. And most importantly, it's realistic. There is no waiting for an entirely new infrastructure to be setup, like hydrogen requires. All that's really needed is a major increase in production of vehicles like the one I'm already driving. As for ethanol, percentages don't even have to be as high as 10 percent. Whatever is practical would be a good start... which makes you wonder how the heck the current proposal for 85 percent could actually be accomplished. Perhaps we can eventually achieve something on the level of success that Brazil has now, but you have to start small. E10 is good, since all gas vehicles already on the road can use it.

Put simply, we have something to try. Why don't we?

 

You forgot to add that evolution makes less sense than the theory of intelligent design.

 

Well, you might want to consider the facts. It would seem that the scientists who study this for a living have some information that you don't appear to be aware of:

"NASA Confirms Global Warming Impact on Ice Sheets
http://www.scenta.co.uk/scenta/news.cfm?ci....content_view_1

"NASA-led scientists say ocean data ties manmade emissions to warmer Earth"
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7665636/

The following articles are based on information from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
"Stark Effects From Global Warming
CO2 emissions are causing oceans to warm, ocean chemistry to change, and rainfall patterns to shift"
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/83/i12/8312globalwarming.html
and
"Studies confirm global warming underway"
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.htm...143&sid=5548239

This from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies
"2005 Warmest Year in Over a Century"
http://grounds-mag.com/news/warmest_year_030706/

And these quotes are from the United States Deparetment of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Institution.
"Is the climate warming? Yes."
and
"recent decades appear to be the warmest since at least about 1000AD, and the warming since the late 19th century is unprecedented over the last 1000 years."
and
"Global mean sea level has been rising at an average rate of 1 to 2 mm/year over the past 100 years, which is significantly larger than the rate averaged over the last several thousand years."

And I could go on and on....

I express no opinion here, only the informed opinion of crapots like NASA, NOAA, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography....which drastically contradict your opinon. I'll let the readers decide who they believe.

 

the earth is 4.5 BILLION years old and your opinion is nothing but a VICTIM of bush administration spin. dont feel bad. a lot of people have been duped

 

huhh.

You mean the Earth is not ~ 5000 years old, like the good pastor tells us ?

 

Sorry, the first link in my post above was bad:

http://www.scenta.co.uk/scenta/news.cfm?ci...5644862587751TR

and if anyone is actually looking at these links, here is another intersting one from NASA:
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=e...3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==

 

I would argue that in the short term, peak oil will have a more devastating economic and social impact than global warming (over the next 20 - 50 years or so) however, global warming will have a much more serious long term impact as we move beyond peak oil and its ramifications yet are still faced with the long term consequences of global warming which will only increase over time (30-50-100+ years)

 

some experts say we only have 10 years to mend our ways on the warming issue

 

Dang it...sorry again. Apparently some of these links don't survive posting. But I think you can get to the articles by cutting/pasting and Googling the titles:

NASA Confirms Global Warming Impact on Ice Sheets

NASA scientist has chilling global warming tale

and etc., see earlier post.