Peak Oil?

[Dude_Doc]

Does anyone believe "in" the peak oil scenario? Now, I'm sure it will happen some day, after all, since our planet is finite, so must everything else be, including oil.

Here is a "pro-peak oil argument" site:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

So, is it just a new form of hype? Or will it happen in our lives? According to the link above, we may even experience blackouts and such this year...

[Edric O]

Well yes, given that the global supply of oil is finite (which no one can possibly deny), it is inevitable that "Peak Oil" will happen sooner or later - the only question is when, and what effects it will have. I think it's an exaggeration to claim that it will be the end of civilization as we know it, like that website does. It's more likely to simply plunge the world into a deep economic recession. That's bad, of course, but not the end of the world.

[Dude_Doc]

But isn't the scenario more serious than "just" an economic depression? Many things are made of oil - plastics, chemicals etc. And what about energy? None of the new, environmentally friendly fuels would work on as large scale as oil has. It seems it will be more like a new dark age...

[Khan]

I've said it before but nuclear is the way forward!

[Sneakgab]

Does electric power have anything to do with oil? Most things are powered by electricity and that is mostly provided (the resource that is) via coal plants. It is just transport that would have problems.

''I've said it before but nuclear is the way forward!''

Definitely.

Add hydrogen power or some other alternative source while your at it. Would be nice if the people with power were prepping transport already but since that would mean cutting into our profits its possible that the depletion of oil will hit at full force as the oil barons manipulate things to keep oil-guzzling cars out there as long as possible.

[Khan]

Yes most power at the moment is either derived from coal or Natural gas, although the mining and transportation of the fossil fuels is reliant on oil it isn't actually used in the generation of power.

The main problem with oil is that our transportation systems are wholly dependent on it, so the knock on effects will be catastrophic, even if the direct effects may not seem so dire. I think the most important aspect of the peak oil crises is discovering an affordable, effective substitute for petrol, since electric is a pipe dream and hydrogen is too costly.

[Sneakgab]

Hydrogen is to costly? Maybe the vehicles will be expensive, but think of the money you would save on petrol, especially if your the type to keep a single car until its so broken that buying a new one is cheaper. Even then, there is the alternative of check-ups to keep major parts from ever breaking that is much cheaper than replacing them completely. I guess which is cheaper for the amount of extended duration the car offers depends on the car but that is irrelevant to the fuel costs, and basically a useless digression on my part (sorry.:D). The point is that things could be cheaper without oil. Even if hydrogen powered cars are/are to be so expensive their price will probably come down eventually as they enter mass production and the methods of production and design are optimized. This would probably happen pretty fast if development of hydrogen-based cars was allowed to develop as a normal technology instead of being held back as much as possible by manipulators (eg: oil barons buying out all attempts at developing these vehicles).

[Dude_Doc]

I've said it before but nuclear is the way forward!

But power plants takes years to build. Not to mention all the uranium needed for them - and the risks.

Add hydrogen power or some other alternative source while your at it.

Apparently, hydrogen doesn't create anything, it's a sort of transporting "substanse"? Besides, who are going to test hydrogen cars?

Etanol wouldn't work either, whole countries must be converted to etanol fields. And now we have the expensive food crisis too.

[Andrew]

Nuclear is the only current solution that will work.

A single nuclear power plant in Ontario produces enough energy for 20% of the province. bruce power. The amount of emissions compared to a coal power plant is negligible. Bruce power plant is the largest in North America, and second largest in the world.

Seriously if a nuclear power plant designed in 1970s can produce that much power, I would expect a new one to produce a lot more. Start building several modern bruce power plants and in 15 years electrical needs should not be a problem.

As for peak oil, yes we will eventually run out. I doubt oil consumption worldwide will dramatically decrease in less than 30 years, so we still got lots of time. Prices will still go up because of high demand though.

People during the 1970s were predicting peak oil, and 30-40 years later we are still consuming it.

[Edric O]

I agree that nuclear power is the way to go. Nuclear reactions are the most efficient means of generating energy in the universe, so it makes perfect sense for us to use them to generate our power. Though we should be making more efforts to build a nuclear fusion reactor, since it would generate much more energy than the existing fission reactors, with the added bonus of not producing any radioactive waste. Besides, a fusion reactor would use hydrogen as fuel, and hydrogen, unlike uranium, is the most abundant element in the universe.

As for plastic and other physical products derived from oil, the fact is that we had an industrial civilization long before we invented them, so their end does not have to be the end of industrial civilization.

Humanity can certainly adapt to live without oil. The problem is that we may not have the time to adapt. We can't just build hundreds of new nuclear power plants overnight after we hit peak oil, and neither can we find a substitute for plastic overnight. That's why I believe there will be a long and deep global economic recession in the period between peak oil and the development of feasible alternatives to oil.

Apparently, hydrogen doesn't create anything, it's a sort of transporting "substanse"? Besides, who are going to test hydrogen cars?

The problem with hydrogen is that it is expensive to obtain. Although hydrogen is plentiful in the universe in general, there is basically no pure hydrogen anywhere on Earth, because pure molecular hydrogen is light enough to escape Earth's gravity very easily and get lost in space. So we must get all our hydrogen out of various hydrogen-based compounds - the most obvious one being water. But it takes a lot of energy to get the hydrogen out of water, and this is greater than the amount of energy you can get back by burning the hydrogen you just obtained.

So basically, if you want to burn hydrogen in your car you must first find the electricity required to get that hydrogen out of seawater in the first place.

But another thing about hydrogen is that you do not necessarily have to burn it. You can also use it as fuel for a nuclear fusion reactor. Nuclear fusion produces far more energy than burning. So we could, for example, use hydrogen-powered nuclear fusion reactors to produce the electricity needed to extract hydrogen from seawater, and then some.

The only problem is that no one has been able to build a working fusion reactor yet. :-

[Sneakgab]

Even nuclear power plants would probably be enough for that energy cost though. If we stopped using oil, the burden saved there would allow for the production of yet more nuclear power plants. So switching from oil to hydrogen pays for some if its own cost by cutting oil related costs. Also, if we consider all the wealth that is currently sitting in the pockets of parasitic oil barons... that all represents further resources and labor that could be used towards this purpose.

[Wolf]

Didn't peak oil happen like 8 years ago? Or was that when we had burned through 50% of the supply? One or the other, I can't remember which.

[Andrew]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Has all the info needed.

Canada has not hit peak oil and probably wont for a while. woot!

[spicy]

cant they make stronger pumps?  or develop ways to make the oil pore faster ?

did we really burned 50% of the oil? is there any info about that ?

i herd that its all lies and no knows exactly the reserve o oil

in the golf area they tell people  there is seas of oil under them

[Sneakgab]

Not like I have any hard facts, but I suppose they have already developed much of the oil fields to their maximum (in terms of extraction rate) extent that current technology allows. Of course, increasing technology and investment can increase the rate by a factor but as the oil depletes it becomes harder to extract reducing the rate. Ie: The extraction rate is proportional to the amount of oil as well as to the facilities used in said extraction. Sure, investing more can increase extraction rates but to maintain an extraction rate in spite of depleting oil reserves means constant investment. This investment basically lowers the profit rate so there can come a point (depending on the mathematical scenario and the exact numbers) where eventually it is LESS profitable to maintain investment and therefore higher oil extraction rates than to simply accept depleting rates. Since the oil barons generally only care about profit rate rather than oil extraction rate (directly, it is not their direct objective) they will not invest further just to produce more oil to prevent global recession UNLESS that would reduce their profits. Also, I suspect there is simply not much room left for investment.

[Andrew]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_power

Seems like a good alternative as well.