Are we runninng out of oil?q

Some people thought that I was brainwashed because I once thought because of other people's statements that we were running out of oil and then I thought that we weren't running out of oil, but I'm not sure now. I would like to know everyone's opinion about this.

[canadarocks]

Oil is a non-renewable resource. There is a limited supply. The number of new oil-fields found are decreasing, but technology is allowing more and more oil to be obtained from the oil fields. We will run out of oil eventually (I remember that one estimate put it at 2050, but that we from 20 years ago). Hope this helps.

[H3LL]

Are we running out of oil?

The stuff you can pump out of the ground and into a barrel. Yes. It's a finite resource.

Other sources of oil. No.

There are other natural sources of oil that are harder to extract from and will be used as easier resources deplete.

We have three kinds:
(1) mineral oils, such as crude oil from petroleum, which are mixtures of hydrocarbons;
(2) animal and vegetable oils, such as corn oil, which are mixtures of triglycerides;
(3) essential oils or perfumes from plants.

After that maybe.....

Is it Woo...Or is it Real?

After all, there is little use for crude oil and mostly it is the refining of hydrocarbons into usable products such as gasoline, and plastics.

I suppose you cannot actually destroy anything, and we are not running out of oil, just shuffling its components around the planet.

[H3LL]

This is an interesting link:

When will the joy ride end?

IMHO it is not "running out of oil" that is the problem, it is "running out of CHEAP oil".

Alternatives are available and not mainstream because they are reletively expensive. That will change in time as cheap oil becomes harder to find and economy of scale with pull alternatives into popular use.

I wonder which they will be?

PS - Can we bury in a tar-pit the first person to mention GW after this statement?

[jmercer]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ian
Some people thought that I was brainwashed because I once thought because of other people's statements that we were running out of oil and then I thought that we weren't running out of oil, but I'm not sure now. I would like to know everyone's opinion about this.

I'm not sure if we're running out of oil at this time or not. (And yes, I've read the studies, etc. ) However, all the projections that I've encountered are based on estimated known oil reservoirs. I believe that it may be possible that other substantial reservoirs exist (perhaps under the polar ice cap).

If other reservoirs are not found, then yes - I believe we're running out of cheap, readily accessible oil.

[Just thinking]

Quote:

Originally posted by Ian
... I would like to know everyone's opinion about this.

I agree with some others that have opined that we are depleating our quantity of "Cheap" oil -- I also believe that we may find more reserves in the future. Will that mean that we will always have enough for all to enjoy (without restraint) and that we will never need alternate energy sources ... certainly not. Back in the 1970's many thought that by 2010 all oil for gasoline and home heating oil would be gone. I wonder what they are now saying given all the SUV's on the road and mansions being built these days of 2005? Hmmmm ...

[Jyera]

Has anyone investigated the presumption, that the rate at which we use oil (crude) is higher than the rate oil is formed naturally?

[AWPrime]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jyera
that the rate at which we use oil (crude) is higher than the rate oil is formed naturally?

What a understatement..

[jmercer]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jyera
Has anyone investigated the presumption, that the rate at which we use oil (crude) is higher than the rate oil is formed naturally?

If I understand the process and the source, oil is no longer being formed anymore. I may be wrong, but I believe that's the case.

[Mrick]

Quote:

Originally posted by H3LL
This is an interesting link:

When will the joy ride end?

IMHO it is not "running out of oil" that is the problem, it is "running out of CHEAP oil".


PS - Can we bury in a tar-pit the first person to mention GW after this statement?

Which is one of the key reasons for the Iraq invasion. The reason there was no "exit plan" was we didn't intend to exit. We intended to stay and establish military basis.

It is also one of the key reasons we don't invade Saudi Arabia. They have been in a business relationship with us since Roosevelt. We protect the Royal Family even though the regime is awful.

That was the whole reason for Osama. Osama was one our guys - a CIA asset. But basing in Saudi Arabia offended his religion, as does the character of the Royal Family and their tie to the United States.

It isn't any accident that those running the nation come from the oil industry and the defense industry. We will be defending pipelines for a long time.

imho,
Mrick

[dano]

Running out of "cheap" oil is the same as running out oil, for all practical purposes, and the supply is indeed running short. Do a search on "Hubbert's Peak" to learn more.

We will begin to see the effects of this in our lifetime, or certainly our children's. As oil supplies get shorter the pirce goes up. Not enough people understand the devastating impact this will have on world economies. There's a three-pronged train wreck in the works: We're passing the peak of global oil reserves, which means the price of oil only goes up and up and up from here on out (I'm speaking long term, years and decades), the global population is continuing to grow exponentially (though there are some studies which believe this may be slowing, it's tricky), creating further demands on our resources, and some third world type cultures with huge populations are emulating the U.S lifestyle, so that the existing population is dramatically increasing it's energy demands, most notably China and India. This all bodes BIG trouble. Note that I have not even mentioned environmental damage and global warming issues.

It's easy to dismiss some proposed scenarios as doomsday nonsense, but the fact is increasing energy demands and a shrinking supply of cheap petroleum are a disastorous combination that will have a profound effect on people's lifestyles. We got just a little taste of this in this country in the 1970's. Remember the gas lines and the ensuing chaos, even violence, for what was a temporary, artificial shortage? Stay tuned. More to come.

There are technological and lifestyle solutions to this problem than can be developed, and many good people are working them at present, but the sad fact is no real action will occur until the crisis is upon us. It's been that way more or less throughout human history.

[fenster]

-the price of oil will indeed go higher, I believe, moreso if China's hot economy doesn't implode; but remember that as the US$goes down (I believe it will over the next few years), oil becomes cheaper (relatively) for other countries. Just be thankful that oil isn't traded in Euros!

[Giambattista]

What I find particularly amusing is that the peak oil myth tends to be a favorite of the same people who eat up the global warming myth. They insist both that we soon won't have any fuel and that we'll manage to destroy the planet with fuel emissions!

Here's a tip folks, you won't get anywhere with 'critical thinking' until you stop the 'loser thinking'.

[AWPrime]

Thinking of might go wrong is a part of critical thinking.

[Giambattista]

Don't know what that means, but gibberish isn't critical thinking, either.

Part of the problem of the oil debate is that much of the vernacular is stuck in 200-year old science. You will still find references of 'fossil fuel' being stored 'solar energy', which means all the oil we pull out of the ground is supposedly mass that the sun spat all over the earth. That is preposterous considering we have known for at least a half century that the amount of mass that is added to the earth from the sun from plant photosynthesis is miniscule. There is no 'solar energy' trapped in oil. If oil even is a fossil fuel and not aboiotically formed, then the plants that have become oil used sunlight as a catalyst to reform energy in soil constituents into carbon.

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by Giambattista
Don't know what that means, but gibberish isn't critical thinking, either.

Part of the problem of the oil debate is that much of the vernacular is stuck in 200-year old science. You will still find references of 'fossil fuel' being stored 'solar energy', which means all the oil we pull out of the ground is supposedly mass that the sun spat all over the earth. That is preposterous considering we have known for at least a half century that the amount of mass that is added to the earth from the sun from plant photosynthesis is miniscule. There is no 'solar energy' trapped in oil. If oil even is a fossil fuel and not aboiotically formed, then the plants that have become oil used sunlight as a catalyst to reform energy in soil constituents into carbon.

Your second paragraph confirms your first. It was, so far as I can tell, gibberish. Perhaps you worded it incorrectly but your first paragraph still applies. The energy contained in oil (the hydrocarbon bond) was formed through a chain of events beginning with the sun. But like you said, this assumes there is not an aboiotical explanation for oil but I don't think that's too big an assumption.

[Giambattista]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rob Lister
Your second paragraph confirms your first. It was, so far as I can tell, gibberish. Perhaps you worded it incorrectly but your first paragraph still applies. The energy contained in oil (the hydrocarbon bond) was formed through a chain of events beginning with the sun.

I debunked a claim that hydrocarbons contain 'stored solar energy', and you are beating the 'formed through a chain of events' strawman. (granted the 'stored solar energy' claim is a red herring I introduced in the peak oil debate simply to demonstrate how poor general knowledge on these subjects is). Even of the solar energy that a plant absorbs, a very small amount is used, the rest is waste product the plant expells as hot water vapor. There is an infintessimal amount of stored energy (mass) from the sun in a plant. If you want to envision physics working differently than it does, there's plenty of woo-woo forums for you to hang out on, no need to clutter up this board.

[Giambattista]

Might as well shoot down another peak oil canard while I'm here. Peak oil enthusiasts will often claim that while we won't run out of oil, it will just get more and more expensive as it costs more and more to extract it from reserves that are harder to get at. These people are showing their utter incompetance to understand capitalist economy, or much of anything. The greater the investment in oil-wel superfields, the cheaper the oil is to extract. It's not rocket science, it's the way Wal-mart and every other growth-oriented capital operation cuts cost - by increasing volume. The debt on the infrastructure only has to be serviced. The main reason the cost of oil is double what it was a decade ago is because the middle eastern countries sitting on huge reserves haven't been allowing oil companies to invest in superfields to keep up with demand.

Another amusing thing is that peak oil enthusiasts will often cite the fact that authorites want oil companies to more accurately project their reserves. Because when an oil company says it has 500 million barrels in reserve, they're often talking about oil they don't plan on ever extracting. Peak oil fanatics intrepret this as a dastardly over-inflation of the actual amount of oil available to consumers, designed to fool us all into thinking there is plenty of oil left! But there is. If an oil company knows about 500 million barrels it doesn't ever intend on extracting, then it must be happily extracting what it does intend on extracting, right? And if that supply is ever jeopardized, maybe they will consider going after that hard-to-get 500 million barrel reserve. But why should they even care now, when there is enough easy-to-reach oil to last the planet another 200 years at the least?

Then of course there's also the fact that when the price of oil goes up, people use less, and switch to other energy. The fact that only environmental concerns, not economic, are driving the hybrid-car industry should demonstrate to anyone with half a brain that there is no immediate shortage of oil on the horizon - if there were, oil companies would be driving the hybrid-car industry, not environmentalists.

[AWPrime]

Giambattista, you have spoken like a true economist. Like most economist, they don't understand concepts like: 'maximum rate of extraction' or 'finite resource'.

Quote:

The greater the investment in oil-wel superfields, the cheaper the oil is to extract.

And how faster it runs out. Next to this problem is that humanity is running out of superfields.

Question: If investments increase oil-production, then why has the oil-porduction of the USA peaked several decades ago?


ps. The hybrid-car industry, is a dead end for peakoil because hydrogen isn't a power-resource only a power storage medium.

[Giambattista]

Quote:

Originally posted by AWPrime
Giambattista, you have spoken like a true economist.

thanks, I couldn't ask for a better compliment!

Oil production peaked in USA just as Hubbert was able to predict because millions of holes had been drilled all over the lower 48 so it was pretty damn easy for him to plot, no crystal balls or dowsing rods required, and there wasn't a whole lot of oil under USA to begin with. Under the middle east there appears to be a lot more oil than was ever under USA, but oil companies have either not been permitted or have been waiting for political climates to cool down before bothering to survey it. Afghanistan itself will probably end up fueling the world for 300 years. China is finally in the position of being able to invest capital in oilfields and they are finding tons of it wherever they bother to look. You just don't have a clue. It's amusing to watch losers gripe and grumble about booming economies that show no signs of cooling off. They have to dream up wild doomsday senarios. Why not make it easy on yourself and put your faith in karma, the choice of millions of grumbling losers worldwide!

ps. Your ps was gibberish.

[AWPrime]

Those places in the middle east have been surveyed. And the global discovered amount of found oil is falling.

And don't put to much faith in 'proven' oil reserves untill a third party comforms it. Because the amount of reserves dictates how much oil may be shipped. And lets not forget Shell.
Probably an even more interesting number would be the "reserves of high quality oil", namely, the good stuff that can be easily turned into fuel.




ps. You do know the difference between powersource and storage?

[AWPrime]

Another point is that oil and natural gas does not exist in commercial quantities outside of sedimentary basins. So you just can't expect to find them anywhere.

The error many economists make is that they always convert everything into money. And then take money as their bases for predictions. Its not money that that runs the economy its energy and labor! And when energy becomes more expensive it will slow or even reduce the economy.

[Giambattista]

You are obviously very devoted to your delusions. If you are interested in life-coaching sessions at an introductory rate of $50/hr, contact me privately. Have a nice day!

[AWPrime]

As a wise man ones said: attack the message not the messager.

[Giambattista]

I am not attacking you and I am satisfied that I have debunked Peak Oil. My offer for life-coaching is sincere, granted no one has yet ever taken me up on the offer after I've debunked their delusions in an online forum.

[AWPrime]

Then where are your counterarguments and numbers?

[Giambattista]

Quote:

Originally posted by Giambattista
I am satisfied that I have debunked Peak Oil.

Actually..

A few articles:

http://www.williambowles.info/oil/no_oil.html

http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2...ot_runnin.html


http://www.frbatlanta.org/invoke.cfm...method=display

Some facts:

Over the last 25 years, known reserves of oil have increased by almost 70 percent, to the point where if all new exploration for oil and gas were to stop tomorrow, the wells would not run dry for at least the next 47 years

- Source: Petroconsultants, op.cit., p.6; Note: For Reserves/Production Ratio for1997, Total Oil Equivalent-of the major Reserves estimates: Of Oil & Gas Journal, World Oil, and US Geological Survey, Petroconsultants is the most conservative.

* *

According to the US Geological Survey: "Identified Reserves include proven reserves and may also include additional petroleum that could be added through field growth through field extensions, revisions of reserve estimates, additions of new pools, and applications of new recovery techniques. Proven reserves are the identified resource whose existence, quantity, and commercial producibility are demonstrated by geologic evidence and supported by engineering measurements." Cited in Masters, C.D., D.H. Root, and R.M. Turner, "World Conventional Crude Oil and Natural Gas: Identified Reserves, Undiscovered Resources and Futures," US Department of the Interior, US Geological Survey Open File Report 98-468, August 1998, FINAL DRAFT.

* *

There is general consensus that current conventional reserves of oil are in the area of 1,000 billion barrels

Source: Oil & Gas Journal, "How Perceptions Have Changed of World Oil, Gas Resources" February 23, 1998, pp. 77-79.

* *

Ok, now I'm satisfied.

[AWPrime]

http://asponews.org/HTML/Newsletter50.html#C487

Quote:

It is understood from preliminary estimates that the total world discovery of oil in 2004 was about 7 Gb, of which perhaps 2 Gb were in deepwater finds. Less than half was found in fields with reserves of greater than 100 Mb. Furthermore, the cost of exploration has been exceeding the net present value of the discoveries in absolute terms.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/...hokethomas.htm

Quote:

Total global consumption is approximately 80 million barrels per day.

80 * 365 = 29200 million barrels a year
which is 29 billion barrels a year.

[Giambattista]

Still satisfied.

[AWPrime]

Most of the remaining oil that you have stated is of low quality, and will have lower netto energy gain (EROEI).


And you seem to forget that oil demand is still increasing.

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by Giambattista
I debunked a claim that hydrocarbons contain 'stored solar energy', and you are beating the 'formed through a chain of events' strawman. (granted the 'stored solar energy' claim is a red herring I introduced in the peak oil debate simply to demonstrate how poor general knowledge on these subjects is). Even of the solar energy that a plant absorbs, a very small amount is used, the rest is waste product the plant expells as hot water vapor. There is an infintessimal amount of stored energy (mass) from the sun in a plant. If you want to envision physics working differently than it does, there's plenty of woo-woo forums for you to hang out on, no need to clutter up this board.

Yes, it was your red herring so I shall clutter on. Now, what energy was used to form the hydrocarbon bonds if not solar energy?

[Giambattista]

If EROEI were a constant, it would be constantly declining as technology advances, but it isn't a constant since as the price of oil goes up, previously uneconomical fields are put back in operation. By the way the new breed of hybrid cars are not fuel cell storage vehicles they are vehicles using new technologies for more efficient use of kinetic energy. They will only contribute to the Jevons effect, though, so it's a good thing there's plenty of oil to go around for a long time to come. But in the long run, population and economic boom will bring more alternate energy online, people will stop being squeamish about nuclear reactors, and we'll all live happily ever after. Isn't that nice?

[AWPrime]

What EROEI means to an economy: http://www.oilanalytics.org/netentop.html

Quote:

Because the production of goods and services is a work process, economies with access to higher EROI fuel sources have greater potential for economic expansion and/or diversification

Quote:

by Giambattista
By the way the new breed of hybrid cars are not fuel cell storage vehicles they are vehicles using new technologies for more efficient use of kinetic energy.

I know, but even those technologies have a hard time trying to catch up on Demand.



ps. So you think there will be no overshoot?

[Giambattista]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rob Lister
Yes, it was your red herring so I shall clutter on. Now, what energy was used to form the hydrocarbon bonds if not solar energy?

You are quite confused. Hydrocarbons are formed under pressure underground.

[Giambattista]

Quote:

ps. So you think there will be no overshoot?

I think that as always, when there is economic growth there will be opportunity for those in a position to take advantage of it to do so, and that those who wont be in a position to take advantage of it will not. In the future, in the civilized world, the rich will live better than they do today, and the poor will live better than they do today. That's been the trend for the past 500 years, (400 of which were not particularly dependant on oil) and I anticipate that trend to continue, with or without oil. And the time to switch to cheaper fuel source will be if and when a cheaper fuel source emerges.

[AWPrime]

That is a big if. And even if a cheap solution if found will it be found in time, in large enough quantities and will it be usable in many applications?

[Rob Lister]

Quote:

Originally posted by Giambattista
You are quite confused. Hydrocarbons are formed under pressure underground.

Fair enough. Out of what substance are they formed?

[drkitten]

Quote:

Originally posted by Giambattista
Even of the solar energy that a plant absorbs, a very small amount is used, the rest is waste product the plant expells as hot water vapor. There is an infintessimal amount of stored energy (mass) from the sun in a plant.

But this infinitesimal amount is still very substantial. How do you think a wood-burning stove keeps the house warm?

[Giambattista]

Quote:

Originally posted by AWPrime
That is a big if. And even if a cheap solution if found will it be found in time, in large enough quantities and will it be usable in many applications?

You're still devoted to your doomsday fantasies. "In time" for what? There is no disaster looming.

[Giambattista]

Quote:

Originally posted by new drkitten
But this infinitesimal amount is still very substantial. How do you think a wood-burning stove keeps the house warm?

Wood is formed from photosynthesis using carbon-dioxide and water to produce sugars. The energy of sunlight is used up (converted to the waste product of oxygen) in this process, not stored. In organic chemistry this is called a reaction. The energy released when combusting wood does not come from sunlight, it comes from the carbon in the wood and the gas it's combusting in, which in a wood-burning stove would be oxygen.