[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

...in 2410 they'll be anguishing about running out of coal

By 2410 I expect we'll be importing hydrocarbons from Titan.

[martin14]

LightStarr LightStarr:

I don't man to be a downer or anything and I'm just speculating after scanning the article and everyone's responses, but isn't this just a stop-gap measure? I mean "fossil fuel" implies that it's limited, yes? So again, just wondering, why isn't the focus on introducing other sources of power or improving on the technologies out there that are not created through fossil fuels. Though I assume most things -- even the "green" ones -- are created in some form through the use of fossil fuels. I'm just wondering if it's not a little foolish to focus on something with a limited supply when a better solution is, or could be, out there.

Nothing burns better than hydro carbons.

If you look at alt fuels, most of them require a lot of energy input to
actually produce something, and can only make money through gov't subsidies.
Also, using corn or others for fuel takes resources away from
agriculture for human consuption or animals.


If they can get fusion power working, and solve the
electricity storage problems, we'll be fine for energy.

Til then, coal coming back will just be another product in the mix.

[bootlegga]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Peak oil is still an issue. But you have to look at it in the thermodynamic, as opposed to the economic, context. The economics focuses on the cost of a barrle of oil, but the cost is influenced by many factors--as Infidel pointed out a few posts ago.

The real issue is what is the amount of energy that you put in compared to the amount of energy you get out of it (well, exergy not energy, to be perfectly correct, but we'll skip that for now). The problem is that, after you pick the low-hanging fruit (easily-accessed sweet Arabian crude), it takes more and more energy to get your barrel of oil. And you've reached your thermdynamical-economical limit when it takes more than a barrelful of energy to get a barrelful of oil.

I should have used a smiley, I was being facetious.

Peak oil is still an issue, simply because I doubt that we could produce the 80 million barrels of oil that we use every day with this process anytime soon. I'm sure they can do it on a small scale, but even ramping it up to the scale needed to bring us back from the brink of peak oil (so to speak) is probably at least a decade away, if not longer, barring a massive investment from big government. And then again, the question becomes, how environmentally unfriendly is the process? If it's anything like refining tar sands or shale, it's going to be a difficult battle to ramp it in a big way.

Its just like the tar sands, even though there is 180 - 300 billion barrels located there, they can still only produce about 1 million barrels a day. To get to their goal of 5 million per day it will take until at least 2020 (and that's the company's involved own predictions).

The only advantage to this process IMHO is that once it is ramped up, peak oil moves from an immediate issue to something for future generations to deal with. That could be bad, in that green technologies such as solar and wind will probably get put on the back burner again, or good in that it might give us time to develop really green technology, like fusion power.

[BartSimpson]

"Peak oil" has been forecast for a long time now, most famously by Jimmy Carter who predicted 'peak oil' in 1980. Yah, not so much, Jimmy.

Anyhow, the Norwegian fellow who predicted that abiotic oil would be found in some place where sedimentary layers were wholly absent has purportedly been proven accurate so far. Potentially, we have scads more oil in the earth and we just need the means to get to it. The abiotic oil thing also means we could have reserves of oil closer to the surface, but in areas where biotic oil was not expected. Meaning that oil could possibly be found in Quebec or other areas where ancient basalts form the foundation of the area.

[bootlegga]

Sorry, Bart, but peak oil is why it costs $80 per barrel, instead of the $10 it cost 50 years ago.

Peak oil is not about us running out, which is what many people seem to think.

Peak oil basically boils down to supply and demand. If demand is greater than supply, than the price goes up, which why the price of oil has risen over the past decade from $30 in the 90s to about $80 today.

The problem with our oil supply is that all of the massive oil fields that are easy to produce from (like Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field) are running at full production, and no new massive fields like that have been found in decades. These days, finding a 10 billion barrel field (like the one off the coast of Brazil) is a bonanza, whereas 50 years ago, they were finding 50 billion barrel fields. Even moderately difficult production areas like the North Sea and North Slope (Alaska) are running at full production. Hard to produce areas like the tar sands and the Orinoco shale field in Venezuela are ramping up production as fast as possible, but unlike Ghawar, where you can pretty much stick a pipe in the ground and get oil (which needs next to no refining), tar sands oil takes a boatload of costly and time-consuming infrastructure to produce a meaningful number (companies are spending a billion or two to produce 100,000+ barrels a day).

Unfortunately, places like Ghawar, the North Sea and North slope, all of which for so long produced a seemingly endless supply of oil, are starting to slow down in production. It's not a drastic drop-off, but as all major fields production declines, there is less oil for consumption. There was a time when the USA produced far more oil than it could use, and exported it for profit. Not any longer. China was a net exporter until the late 90s too. Now, it imports oil.

But wait, it gets worse, production is declining at the very same time that demand is rising worldwide, fueled by growth in places like China, India and Brazil. So basically, what happens is that oil production is slowing right when demand is increasing. Eventually, oil production will NOT meet demand, and prices will spike astronomically. What happens then is anyone's guess.

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Sorry, Bart, but peak oil is why it costs $80 per barrel, instead of the $10 it cost 50 years ago.

No, an oil cartel and a market that colludes to balance supplies against demand in order to maximize profits is why oil is so expensive.

The principle applies to diamonds. Diamonds are more expensive than ever yet the world supply of diamonds is larger than ever. The problem is that the excess supply is controlled by the DeBeers cartel and they do their best to control the supply to maximize profits.

Namibia is more or less polluted with diamonds. In some areas you can literally reach down and pick them up and find yourself with a marketable stone. But then try getting it out of the country.

We have PLENTY of oil but the oil interests actively work to keep the supply down and the profits up. California, for instance, has boatloads of light, sweet crude and environmental rules are used to prevent that oil from being pulled out of the ground. California opposes offshore drilling but the groups that agitate the most against the offshore drilling (like the Sierra Club) are getting money from the oil companies. Coincidence?

Did you know that there are proven reserves of oil in Oregon and Washington? Yet those reserves can't be tapped because of convenient laws.

Venezuela has an ocean of oil yet that country has so restricted production that they won't produce enough to fuel their own cars anymore.

Seriously, if 100% of current oil production potential were on the market then oil prices would fall to those $10 per barrel levels you speak of.

But who else would oppose oil prices being so low? That's right; government.

The record high oil prices of 2007-2008 yielded record fuel tax revenues for governments who now have a vested interest in colluding with the oil cartels to keep prices (and tax revenues) high.

We have plenty of oil and all this talk of peak oil and etc. is just BS to create a scarcity market that really doesn't exist at all.

[LightStarr]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

No, an oil cartel and a market that colludes to balance supplies against demand in order to maximize profits is why oil is so expensive.

Just like high fructose corn syrup. POW!

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

"Peak oil" has been forecast for a long time now, most famously by Jimmy Carter who predicted 'peak oil' in 1980. Yah, not so much, Jimmy.

Anyhow, the Norwegian fellow who predicted that abiotic oil would be found in some place where sedimentary layers were wholly absent has purportedly been proven accurate so far. Potentially, we have scads more oil in the earth and we just need the means to get to it. The abiotic oil thing also means we could have reserves of oil closer to the surface, but in areas where biotic oil was not expected. Meaning that oil could possibly be found in Quebec or other areas where ancient basalts form the foundation of the area.

I don't think abiotic oil has been found in any commercailly viable quantities. You could use a little skepticism on this account.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Sorry, Bart, but peak oil is why it costs $80 per barrel, instead of the $10 it cost 50 years ago.

No, an oil cartel and a market that colludes to balance supplies against demand in order to maximize profits is why oil is so expensive.

The principle applies to diamonds. Diamonds are more expensive than ever yet the world supply of diamonds is larger than ever. The problem is that the excess supply is controlled by the DeBeers cartel and they do their best to control the supply to maximize profits.

Namibia is more or less polluted with diamonds. In some areas you can literally reach down and pick them up and find yourself with a marketable stone. But then try getting it out of the country.

We have PLENTY of oil but the oil interests actively work to keep the supply down and the profits up. California, for instance, has boatloads of light, sweet crude and environmental rules are used to prevent that oil from being pulled out of the ground. California opposes offshore drilling but the groups that agitate the most against the offshore drilling (like the Sierra Club) are getting money from the oil companies. Coincidence?

Did you know that there are proven reserves of oil in Oregon and Washington? Yet those reserves can't be tapped because of convenient laws.

Venezuela has an ocean of oil yet that country has so restricted production that they won't produce enough to fuel their own cars anymore.

Seriously, if 100% of current oil production potential were on the market then oil prices would fall to those $10 per barrel levels you speak of.

But who else would oppose oil prices being so low? That's right; government.

The record high oil prices of 2007-2008 yielded record fuel tax revenues for governments who now have a vested interest in colluding with the oil cartels to keep prices (and tax revenues) high.

We have plenty of oil and all this talk of peak oil and etc. is just BS to create a scarcity market that really doesn't exist at all.

First off, comparing oil to diamonds is a bad analogy. You might as well compare it to coal or iron or platinum or any other natural resource, but either way you'd still be comparing apples to oranges.

OPEC used to control oil prices back in its heyday, but it no longer can control its own members, and with significant producers like Russia and Canada not part of it, they don't have the stranglehold they once had on oil prices. And most of OPEC is running at full production (well they were before the recession started and prices were at $140/barrel).

Yes, there are tons of little oil deposits in places like ANWR, the Arctic, offshore, etc, but the problem is that they are all small deposits. Companies always go after the easiest profits first, so places like Texas and western Canada (regular oil, not the tar sands) went into production long before all these other marginal deposits you speak of. After all, if you're an oil company, are you going to invest $100 million to find 100 million barrels of oil or 10 billion barrels? Are you going to go after oil that's located in friendly countries, or unfriendly countries? Close to major cities, or are you going to build expensive fields in the Arctic? Or offshore platforms?

The problem is that all the big deposits of easy, high grade oil are almost gone, and what's left are either relatively small (therefore far less profitable) high grade fields or huge low grade fields (like the tar sands and shale oil), which require massive infrastructure to produce at the levels the planet needs to keep running our economies.