slashdot

It's a pretty thoughtful discussion, and as always, I learned a lot.  There are some actual geologists weighing in.

Here's a couple quotes.



I challenge your assumption. A world population of less than 2 billion survived for tens of thousands of years before the use of petroleum products. That doesn't say diddlely about the current situation, where the population exceeds 6 billion. This recent increase in population (all of it within living memory: go talk to somebody in their 80s about their childhood) has been powered by fossil fuels. The continuing population growth is unsustainable without a continued increase in energy production and will probably follow the classic pattern of a short plateau (as increasing die-offs balance new births) followed by a catastrophic drop to sustainable levels.

I suggest that you review Economics 101, giving special attention to the reasonings of Malthus, and the reasons why his dismal predictions have not yet come true. You will find that his equations are correct and that his predictions have failed because new sources of energy have occasionally been added to the mix. Now for the first time an energy source is being gradually subtracted from the mix.... This is indeed dismal science.


Problem is we don't know what exactly is sustainable

That's pretty much the nail on the head right there. There's no such thing as one sustainable lifestyle. Sustainability just means renewability. So while everyone is moaning and groaning about how the Americna lifestyle is unsustainable they are forgetting to mention the fact that it is high technology that increases the level of sustainable lifestyles. Until solar power, ethanol, etc "sustainable" meant "what you can build with your hands". It is only thanks to advanced research that we may actually get a sustainable lifestyle that also involves such frivolous things as running water and medical treatment.

Basically, no matter what the students did to conserve, and what they did to increase the resources, the "world" pretty much always ran out of fuel and resources by the year 2020

So he wrote a program to demonstate the effect of exponential growth, and modeled some lame "conserve" and "research" options that didn't really effect the growth rate. It was a simulation designed to always come to that conclusion. Big surprise that it always led to that conclusion, huh?

Being college I hope somebody spoke up and challenged his assumptions, I also recall models that projected the population continuing to grow exponentially, though the reality has been far from that. Yes resources are being consumed far faster than they are being generated, but at the same time technology is moving fatser than ever too. My 295hp car just got 28 mpg on a 3 hour trip today, in 1978 that car would have gotten about 6-12mpg (since there were no 295 hp new cars in 1978, we'll have to estimate). One thing to keep in mind is that we DO have renewable sources of energy, and technology continues to lower the production costs of these while the non-renewable sources will continue to rise. At some point the two lines cross and we'll switch in a big way. The USA is real good at solving these problems.

87 octane

What's the topic again?

<----------502 big block

The key is adaptation.  We have have become quite astute with this.  No geologist can tell you there is a certain quantifiable amount of fossil fuel left, but we can all agree that it is finite.

I am somewhat dissapointed by our timetable to remove oursleves from the dependance of oil.  We are getting there though.

I thought we would have jetpacks and flying cars by now, but the left seems to hate splitting the atom.  fuckers

Here's an interesting one that makes an interesting case for those that say that there will be no peak, or that oil will always be cheap, or whatever they're trying to say.  

Here are some quotes from the National Center For Policy Analysis, regarding Oil Peaks and attempting to forecast oil production:

In 1855, an advertisement for Kier's Rock Oil advised consumers to "hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature's laboratory."

In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, the nation's leading oil-producing state, estimated that only enough U.S. oil remained to keep the nation's kerosene lamps burning for four years.

In May 1920, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the world's total endowment of oil amounted to 60 billion barrels.

In 1950, geologists estimated the world's total oil endowment at around 600 billion barrels.

From 1970 through 1990, their estimates increased to between 1,500 and 2,000 billion barrels.

In 1994, the U.S. Geological Survey raised the estimate to 2,400 billion barrels, and their most recent estimate (2000) was of a 3,000-billion-barrel endowment. Could be more if you count the shale and tar sands.  Could be less if the Arabs are lying.  It could go either way, my popcorn is ready.

By the year 2000, a total of 900 billion barrels of oil had been produced. Total world oil production in 2000 was 25 billion barrels. If world oil consumption continues to increase at an average rate of 1.4 percent a year, and no further resources are discovered, the world's oil supply will not be exhausted until the year 2056.

The estimates above do not include unconventional oil resources. Conventional oil refers to oil that is pumped out of the ground with minimal processing; unconventional oil resources consist largely of tar sands and oil shales that require processing to extract liquid petroleum. Unconventional oil resources are very large. In the future, new technologies that allow extraction of these unconventional resources likely will increase the world's reserves.

Oil production from tar sands in Canada and South America would add about 600 billion barrels to the world's supply.

Rocks found in the three western states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone contain 1,500 billion barrels of oil.

Worldwide, the oil-shale resource base could easily be as large as 14,000 billion barrels -- more than 500 years of oil supply at year 2000 production rates.

Unconventional oil resources are more expensive to extract and produce, but we can expect production costs to drop with time as improved technologies increase efficiency.

With every passing year it becomes possible to exploit oil resources that could not have been recovered with old technologies. The first American oil well drilled in 1859 by Colonel Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pa. -- which was actually drilled by a local blacksmith known as Uncle Billy Smith -- reached a total depth of 69 feet (21 meters).

Today's drilling technology allows the completion of wells up to 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) deep.

The vast petroleum resources of the world's submerged continental margins are accessible from offshore platforms that allow drilling in water depths to 9,000 feet (2,743 meters).

The amount of oil recoverable from a single well has greatly increased because new technologies allow the boring of multiple horizontal shafts from a single vertical shaft.

Four-dimensional seismic imaging enables engineers and geologists to see a subsurface petroleum reservoir drain over months to years, allowing them to increase the efficiency of its recovery.  Supposedly, this has allowed the total amount of oil extracted from a given well to increase greatly.  My comments in red.

New techniques and new technology have increased the efficiency of oil exploration. The success rate for exploratory petroleum wells has increased 50 percent over the past decade, according to energy economist Michael C. Lynch.

You should go outside sometime and meet girls.  

Quoted: You should go outside sometime and meet girls.

Sorry, I just find this topic to be absolutely riveting.  I do tend to be a little obsessive, though.  Don't you find it interesting, though?  Energy.  It flows all around us.  Oil underlies everything.  Everything that is manufactured requires an energy input.  Most agriculture requires a fertilizer (energy) input.  

Wars are fought over oil.  Winston Churchill called middle eastern oil "a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."  He fuelled his navy with oil and conquered the world.  He took anything he wanted from the whole planet.  Ask Indians about it.  Ever wonder why Indians (and Africans) kind of have an English accent?  Later, the Nazi war machine fell apart at least partly from a lack of oil.

Is this boring to you?  Of no consequence?  I dunno, I guess I'm just into it for some reason.  

My geology instructor talked about Peak Oil on the first day.  I was impressed.  

Quoted: Winston Churchill called middle eastern oil "a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."  He fuelled his navy with oil and conquered the world.  He took anything he wanted from the whole planet.  Ask Indians about it.  Ever wonder why Indians (and Africans) kind of have an English accent?

Wait a minute.  Churchill's navy certainly used oil, but it had nothing to do with colonialism.

FWIW, I too am quite interested in the subject.  Tag for later.

--VT

.

Quoted: FWIW, I too am quite interested in the subject.  Tag for later. --VT

Nothing will come of it on arfcom, this is tinfoil hat conspiracy theory UFO shit here.  Try another site.  

lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
peakoil.net
peakoil.com

The granddaddy is dieoff.  The two black faces become the white vase.  I find it impossible to tear myself away.

Also check out Global Public Media.  It's free, tons of audio and video.  Take a look at Matthew Simmons, Kenneth Deffeyes... those two guys have the greatest credibility in my mind.  Simmons was on Cheney's energy policy team.  His comments have depth and weight.  There are hours and hours of interviews with him on that site, I would encourage anyone to check what he has to say on the topic.  Richard Heinberg has a lot of material on that site, but he's the typical liberal Jew.  I doubt that anyone on Arfcom would listen to him.  Frankly, he makes my ears bleed, too.

I happen to like Professor Albert Bartlett, too.  It's hard to argue with his conclusions.  He has many hours of audio and video available at globalpublicmedia.com.  There is a bittorrent with a title that includes the words "population" and "arithmetic" in it, very interesting.  I very much dislike his conclusions, and yet I am fascinated by his commentary.

James Kunstler at www.kunstler.com is an asshole and an idiot... but he's right once in a while.  

In the last couple of years, the amount of discussion on the topic of peak oil has mushroomed.  There is much to wade through once you get into it, but it's so interesting to me that I find myself spending hour after hour reading and watching and listening and sifting.  I might take a geology course over the summer just to learn more.

Anyway.

I am pretty much of the same opinion as the one in the initial post.  As reserves dwindle, and who knows how long that will take, presumably the effort required to extract oil will increase and we will meet the law of diminishing returns.  Oil prices will rise, providing incentives for development of other sources of energy.  New forms will become more cost effective and will eventually supplant most of the need for oil.  Eventually.  I simply don't believe this peak-oil doomsday the-sky-is-falling scenario.  Obviously something will have to be done, but the market will determine what and how fast.

In a related note, there is this 15 year-old kid in my college calculus class (he's taking it as a refresher, no less) who is way into this peak-oil thing.  He's even in a campus club that meets weekly to discuss it.  Another older student and I got into a debate with him about it.  After he explained how big a problem it is, we were not convinced.  Still we decided to indulge him by asking him what he thinks needs to be done to solve the problem.  In typical liberal fashion, he stammered and began further explaining why it is such a big deal.  We stopped him and asked again.  After a little badgering, he said we need to conserve resources.  Ok, fine.  But then what?  He repeated we need to conserve resources.  I asked him "What about those who won't conserve?"  He really let the cat out of the bag by saying "Then they should be forced to conserve."  Well, isn't that special?  Go ahead, make me...

PC,

I have an answer for you.  We need to build 40 coal-fired electricity generating plants in Colorado to support Shell's shale project.  In my mind, we have three years to get them built to avoid enormous economic dislocation in the US.  We would use about one half of one percent of US coal reserves to generate the electricity needed to get the shale oil on to the US market.  It would save our bacon, and it can be done.  Maybe we could use nukular instead, but it's not necessary.

Those 40 coal-fired plants will provide the electricity needed to heat the burners that will free 20 million barrels of oil per day that can be harvested from the shale rocks there.  If that is done, we have enough oil to last us for 70 years at current rates of extraction.  That is the solution that buys us a generation.

We absolutely must find the political will to make this happen, or our grandchildren will be eating our dust.  Find a politician that will campaign on this issue and vote for them, or apologize to your children later.

I would pay higher taxes today to avoid sending severe economic pain down to my descendants.  It is the compassionate thing to do.

Quoted: Quoted: You should go outside sometime and meet girls.   Sorry, I just find this topic to be absolutely riveting.  I do tend to be a little obsessive, though.  Don't you find it interesting, though?  Energy.  It flows all around us.  Oil underlies everything.  Everything that is manufactured requires an energy input.  Most agriculture requires a fertilizer (energy) input.   Wars are fought over oil.  Winston Churchill called middle eastern oil "a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."  He fuelled his navy with oil and conquered the world.  He took anything he wanted from the whole planet.  Ask Indians about it.  Ever wonder why Indians (and Africans) kind of have an English accent?  Later, the Nazi war machine fell apart at least partly from a lack of oil. Is this boring to you?  Of no consequence?  I dunno, I guess I'm just into it for some reason.

perhaps another hobby is in order.

Quoted: Quoted: Winston Churchill called middle eastern oil "a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."  He fuelled his navy with oil and conquered the world.  He took anything he wanted from the whole planet.  Ask Indians about it.  Ever wonder why Indians (and Africans) kind of have an English accent? Wait a minute.  Churchill's navy certainly used oil, but it had nothing to do with colonialism.

It does, but it came much later.  Read "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer and you will know how we got in the mess we are today.

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

Quoted: Winston Churchill called middle eastern oil "a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."  He fuelled his navy with oil and conquered the world.  He took anything he wanted from the whole planet.  Ask Indians about it.  Ever wonder why Indians (and Africans) kind of have an English accent?

Your ignorance of the British empire is horrific.  By the time that Winston Churchill was PM the British emipire was in drastic decline.  Most of the naval vessels used in the British Colonial expansion were wind and coal powered.

British Colonial Timeline

If this is the type of tripe that you regurgitate without any research, how can anything you say be taken with any seriousness?

Quoted: Quoted: FWIW, I too am quite interested in the subject.  Tag for later. --VT Nothing will come of it on arfcom, this is tinfoil hat conspiracy theory UFO shit here.  Try another site.

It's not that it's tinfoil hate conspiracy theory UFO shit.




It's just that when you've got people throwing around statements like "the world only has 200 billions barrels of oil left!!@!!@ That meenz that in tha year 2012 there will be an apocalypse and we will all be living in the Stone Age!!$!@!11one! OMGWTF4XBBQ!~!!1 Repent now!@"

That shit gets old after a while, and it's nothing by rampant fear mongering and hysteria. Sure, oil will eventually reach a point where it's too costly to extract for whatever reason, but the notion that a couple of dudes on the intarweb can predict when that will occur or precisely what its impact will be with any degree of accuracy is absurd.

In 1855, an advertisement for Kier's Rock Oil advised consumers to "hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature's laboratory." In 1874, the state geologist of Pennsylvania, the nation's leading oil-producing state, estimated that only enough U.S. oil remained to keep the nation's kerosene lamps burning for four years. In May 1920, the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the world's total endowment of oil amounted to 60 billion barrels. In 1950, geologists estimated the world's total oil endowment at around 600 billion barrels. From 1970 through 1990, their estimates increased to between 1,500 and 2,000 billion barrels. In 1994, the U.S. Geological Survey raised the estimate to 2,400 billion barrels, and their most recent estimate (2000) was of a 3,000-billion-barrel endowment. Could be more if you count the shale and tar sands. Could be less if the Arabs are lying. It could go either way, my popcorn is ready.

As you can see, the track record for predictions regarding oil reserves, output, and capacity is less than stellar. In fact, it's downright dismal.

Here's what I am curious about...all the new fast cars being advertised. I see ads for cars that come stock with 300+, 400+ and even 500+ HP. Dawn thats a lot of power. These same vehicles claim 0-60 times under 5 seconds, some under 4.......thats really fast.

Is Detroit getting people into high performance vehicles in an attempt to have the consumer drive more internal combustion motor engines? How will people accustomed to this kind of performance handle a hybrid that cant possible match the same output?

Would you rather pay $100 a week to fuel up your 500HP street machine or would you rather pay $35 a month to be green, save the earth, and drive really really slow?

I don't care who is right.  If we run out of oil, people will find other ways to run our technology.  Necessity being the mother of invention.  If not, and the world goes to shit, at least I'll get to use up some more of my ammo.

Quoted: Here's what I am curious about...all the new fast cars being advertised. I see ads for cars that come stock with 300+, 400+ and even 500+ HP. Dawn thats a lot of power. These same vehicles claim 0-60 times under 5 seconds, some under 4.......thats really fast. Is Detroit getting people into high performance vehicles in an attempt to have the consumer drive more internal combustion motor engines? How will people accustomed to this kind of performance handle a hybrid that cant possible match the same output? Would you rather pay $100 a week to fuel up your 500HP street machine or would you rather pay $35 a month to be green, save the earth, and drive really really slow?

No brainer.  500hp is the way to go.

It's an economic choice.  Let me make it.

if you want to make it for me, please fuck off and die.

TXL

Any predictions about "peak oil" are hard to make, as the estimates about oil reserves are wildly erratic.  No one really knows, they just guess and put the best spin for their need on it.

What we do know: Oil is a finite resource (unless you believe it recharges itself).  Oil production will not keep pace with the need for oil.  Oil will eventually run out or be too expensive to be a cheap fuel.  The whole sticking point is "when".

Our country is in a catch-22 with oil and petroleum products.  The prices are going to rise, yet we need to keep using a lot or we risk giving cheap energy to other "enemy" countries like China, India, and basically every other country in the world.  Alternative fuels and methods need to be developed but it has to be balanced against giving unlimited energy to foreign countries.  

We need to ride the oil wave until it is truely in a decline, then switch over to something else.  The problem is that something else needs to be developed and ready for the right time.

Quoted: Here's what I am curious about...all the new fast cars being advertised. I see ads for cars that come stock with 300+, 400+ and even 500+ HP. Dawn thats a lot of power. These same vehicles claim 0-60 times under 5 seconds, some under 4.......thats really fast. Is Detroit getting people into high performance vehicles in an attempt to have the consumer drive more internal combustion motor engines? How will people accustomed to this kind of performance handle a hybrid that cant possible match the same output? Would you rather pay $100 a week to fuel up your 500HP street machine or would you rather pay $35 a month to be green, save the earth, and drive really really slow?

Couple of points - why is it bad for cars to make 500+ HP? A lot of that power and the overall performance comes from efficiency increases. That's why a fast sports car today can get better gas mileage then a weenie econobox car did 30-40 years ago.

And who says that Hybrids have to be low-performance? A lot of them now are, because the only people who want to buy hybrids are enviromentalist weenies who associate lots of power with bad mileage. There's no reason why a hybrid or even an electric car couldn't be just as fast or faster then gas powered cars. The disadvantages are in other areas - hybrid systems are expensive, and pure electric has a short range and is slow to recharge.

screw peak oil, I'm more woried about peak ammo!

Quoted: Quoted: You should go outside sometime and meet girls.   Sorry, I just find this topic to be absolutely riveting.  I do tend to be a little obsessive, though.  Don't you find it interesting, though?  Energy.  It flows all around us.  Oil underlies everything.  Everything that is manufactured requires an energy input.  Most agriculture requires a fertilizer (energy) input.   Wars are fought over oil.  Winston Churchill called middle eastern oil "a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."  He fuelled his navy with oil and conquered the world.  He took anything he wanted from the whole planet.  Ask Indians about it.  Ever wonder why Indians (and Africans) kind of have an English accent?  Later, the Nazi war machine fell apart at least partly from a lack of oil. Is this boring to you?  Of no consequence?  I dunno, I guess I'm just into it for some reason.

Somewhat boring, somewhat that there isn't a lot to say about it.

For one, kinda like the global warming debate, the data is wildly erratic and unpredictable. Few people are willing to make expensive policy decisions based on such uncertain data.

Doom and gloom predictions are a big turn-off too. Capitalist market economies tend to be flexible and innovate, at least when they have to be. The end of the world has been predicted so many times from so many causes. It never happens, and nobody really listens anymore, if they ever did in the first place. Basically, if stuff happens, we'll deal with it.

It's a tempest in a teapot.  If oil becomes prohibitively expensive, another fuel source will take over.  Yes, economically it might be a bit painful, but hardly unsurvivable.

Quoted: screw peak oil, I'm more woried about peak ammo! img.photobucket.com/albums/v171/deathray187/ammochart.jpg

Kharn