Peak Oil

[Djayness]

We have all heard the doom and gloom of the peak oil reports, or have we?

I'm quite interested in the whole idea, not only because its relevant now, but the alarms about it signalled 2-4-6 years ago by many experts is now coming to light in very real terms. If you have filled up your car recently you will know what i mean.

News.com.au believes that the oil bubble will burst and go as low as 80/90 dollars a barrel, of course news.com doesnt give any proof for their claims and the general lack of journalism seen on the site is nothing short of criminal.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,23754398-462,00.html


On the other side, http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ gives an overview of what to expect backed up by real world figures and proper sourcing which is, a little scary. The point driven home is that we are producing oil at a declining rate and that world demand is becoming alot higher than supply.

Crude Impact is a good flim on the subject most of it is on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqdw7yhEpIk

Its an interesting topic to discuss, many believe its not going to affect us that much, they say it just means a heavier price at the fuel pumps. Unfortunately its not that simple...

 

[vishalt]

We have all heard the doom and gloom of the peak oil reports, or have we?

I'm quite interested in the whole idea, not only because its relevant now, but the alarms about it signalled 2-4-6 years ago by many experts is now coming to light in very real terms. If you have filled up your car recently you will know what i mean.

News.com.au believes that the oil bubble will burst and go as low as 80/90 dollars a barrel, of course news.com doesnt give any proof for their claims and the general lack of journalism seen on the site is nothing short of criminal.

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,23754398-462,00.html


On the other side, http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ gives an overview of what to expect backed up by real world figures and proper sourcing which is, a little scary. The point driven home is that we are producing oil at a declining rate and that world demand is becoming alot higher than supply.

Crude Impact is a good flim on the subject most of it is on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqdw7yhEpIk

Its an interesting topic to discuss, many believe its not going to affect us that much, they say it just means a heavier price at the fuel pumps. Unfortunately its not that simple...

news.com.au doesn't believe oil will burst, the economists and companies quoted believes it will. I'd hardly call that bursting anyway.. considering oil was once upon a time $US10, and now $US130, a correction to $US80 or $US90 would be nothing unusual for an oil correction.

I think oil is mainly being driven up by Wall St because they lost so much money on sub-prime bets they just had to inflate a rapid bubble into commodities like oil.

I don't understand why we didn't have this oil issue in 2006 or 2007? I mean back then, Europe and the US (heavily populated continents) were still growing at a reasonable rate and consuming lots of energy but no-one really pointed out "whoops we have 600 million emerging markets people rising up into the middle-class, gee thats going to create a huge demand for petrol!"

But now the US (please don't kid yourself and wait for them to officially announce or lie about it) is in recession and Europe will likely follow, thats 2 big sources of demand that are poised to dip but Wall St will just inflate a bubble and ride it on the attention the media has given to it.

I think oil's price rise is a great thing, now we are forced to find alternative ways and invest in bio-fuels and alternative energy companies so there's that.

Also I'm amazed at how mankind has used oil - which took millions of years to form - in just 2 centuries!

I've invested in Beach Petroleum which has some long-life oil and gas reserves so I'm happy with my energy investment, however I would like to find a green company to invest in, i just wish Barclays would hurry up with making an alternatives technology ETF!

 

[Smurf1976]

Today we each ate roughly 10MJ of food.

It took 8MJ to run the oven to cook one of the meals I ate today.

The fridge eats roughly as much energy each day as I do. Fridges are a very minor share of household energy use.

I just watched the Eurovision final. That TV watching for 3 hours used the same amount of energy that I ate today. And that's without mentioning that I had the lights on too.

I had the heater running too. In 3 hours that used as much energy as I will eat in the next 10 days.

I drive a 4 cylinder car that's fairly economical. Driven average km (say, 15,000 km each year) it eats as much as 10 people each year.

And my household energy consumption is, of course, only about a quarter of the energy I'm really using - the rest being through business supplying goods and services.

Bottom line? No way are we going to grow ourselves out of this one via biofuels. We'd need to completely starve all of NSW and Victoria just to replace oil in Tasmania. And of course Tassie doesn't exactly use that much oil anyway with its short travelling distances and predominantly hydro power supply.

We're either heading into permanent economic contraction, coal liquefaction or an all-electric economy whether we like it or not. Odds are we'll do a bit of all 3.

 

[Smurf1976]

Also I'm amazed at how mankind has used oil - which took millions of years to form - in just 2 centuries!

Don't worry about two centuries. The one I usually mention is that half the oil ever used (worldwide) has been used since Kylie Minogue launched her singing career.

And we've used about half of that since the dot.com bubble burst.

 

[Tysonboss1]

Bottom line? No way are we going to grow ourselves out of this one via biofuels. We'd need to completely starve all of NSW and Victoria just to replace oil in Tasmania. And of course Tassie doesn't exactly use that much oil anyway with its short travelling distances and predominantly hydro power supply.

.

There is absouloutly no "silver bullet" to get us out of this energy situation in the long term,... however biofuels will play a part in the future energy mix, especially biofuels from waste from flour mills, sugar mills and saw mills.

They are even large scale garbage bioreacters than break down garbage and sewage digesters that capture biogas,...

 

[Djayness]

I guess the point was even if we found a limitless supply of energy besides oil, we'd end up running out of something else we need etc etc. Humanity and its economies cannot keep growing exponentially (although current world population graphs disagree).

 

[Smurf1976]

however biofuels will play a part in the future energy mix, especially biofuels from waste from flour mills, sugar mills and saw mills.

Agreed there. Just as long as nobody's expecting biofuels to become the dominant part of that mix.

Worth noting that even nuclear and hydro are small compared to any of the individual fossil fuels.

 

[numbercruncher]

The Oil age allowed a population spike, I suspect 100s Millions will die as Peak Oil runs it course.

Will future Generations shake their heads when they think we burned most the Oil through Cars/Lorrys/Planes/trains/Powerstations, when Tech and even policy to preserve dwindling Oil supplys existed ?


We live in Interesting Times !

 

[Wysiwyg]

There surely is more oil except it is in deeper waters and pristine wilderness. The Russians are probably sitting on a massive supply too.

 

[numbercruncher]

There surely is more oil except it is in deeper waters and pristine wilderness. The Russians are probably sitting on a massive supply too.


.

Trick is can they extract it at a fast enough rate to keep the bubble going ? Demand is increasing daily, Price is dampening that demand I assume, its still growing though !

Modern farming techniques are absolutely oil dependant. We already have a food crisis apparently!

They need to work fast before disaster arrives ....

 

[gfresh]

To play the devil's advocate here - what do we actually need oil for? It's mostly cars and transport. Do we have the means to halve fuel economy in most vehicles, in effect halving our oil requirements? I'd argue yes.

Yes, you can already buy a small car that uses 6L/100km, yet people still continue to buy, or use vehicles that use 10L/100km or more. Simply due to ego in many cases "small cars are unsafe", "I need something big to carry 2 children", "I need a big 4WD as it's all we can fit in", "I need to be able to travel 200km/hr", "I like a v8". Many of these things are both illogical, and probably not needed if people really sat down and changed their habits and mindset.

I can already see in 10 years time rows and rows of large 4WD, v8's and the like ready to be crushed, as simply nobody can afford to drive them. I wouldn't like to be selling many of the larger cars sold today even in 5 years time if petrol was say $3-5/L. Purchased $50k off a showroom floor today, worth how much in 5 years time? $5000?

I am sure for food, etc transport with trucks there are some new models with quite efficient engines as well, even though most of the trucks on our roads are probably based on quite old technology. It's simply a matter of the transport companies demanding more fuel efficient models.

The biggest challenge here is changing people's mindsets, and the high upfront cost of change. This will happen I think, but it will take time. In some ways the high cost of fuel presently is a good push in that direction.

Oil is less required for energy generation - there is enough coal in Australia for apparently hundreds of years supply. And CSG is quite feasible. Or nuclear energy is another option.

We are lucky we have so many options here in Australia if we so put on the front to go with them. It's only humanity itself that gets in the way.

 

[Djayness]

To play the devil's advocate here - what do we actually need oil for? It's mostly cars and transport. Do we have the means to halve fuel economy in most vehicles, in effect halving our oil requirements? I'd argue yes.

Yes, you can already buy a small car that uses 6L/100km, yet people still continue to buy, or use vehicles that use 10L/100km or more. Simply due to ego in many cases "small cars are unsafe", "I need something big to carry 2 children", "I need a big 4WD as it's all we can fit in", "I need to be able to travel 200km/hr", "I like a v8". Many of these things are both illogical, and probably not needed if people really sat down and changed their habits and mindset.

I can already see in 10 years time rows and rows of large 4WD, v8's and the like ready to be crushed, as simply nobody can afford to drive them. I wouldn't like to be selling many of the larger cars sold today even in 5 years time if petrol was say $3-5/L. Purchased $50k off a showroom floor today, worth how much in 5 years time? $5000?

I am sure for food, etc transport with trucks there are some new models with quite efficient engines as well, even though most of the trucks on our roads are probably based on quite old technology. It's simply a matter of the transport companies demanding more fuel efficient models.

The biggest challenge here is changing people's mindsets, and the high upfront cost of change. This will happen I think, but it will take time. In some ways the high cost of fuel presently is a good push in that direction.

Oil is less required for energy generation - there is enough coal in Australia for apparently hundreds of years supply. And CSG is quite feasible. Or nuclear energy is another option.

We are lucky we have so many options here in Australia if we so put on the front to go with them. It's only humanity itself that gets in the way.

Transport and cars are only a small part of the equation.

"Because petrochemicals are key components to much more than just the gas in your car. As of the year 2002, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US. Source The size of this ratio stems from the fact that every step of modern food production is fossil fuel and petrochemical powered:

Pesticides and agro-chemicals are made from oil;

Commercial fertilizers are made from ammonia, which is made from natural gas, which is also peaking in the near future. Source

Most farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil-derived fuels.

Food storage systems such as refrigerators are manufactured in oil-powered plants, distributed using oil-powered transportation networks and usually run on electricity, which most often comes from natural gas or coal. Like oil and natural gas, coal too is peaking in the near future. Source

In the US, the average piece of food is transported almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. Source In Canada, the average piece of food is transported 5,000 miles from where it is produced to where it is consumed. Source "

 

[Tysonboss1]

Transport and cars are only a small part of the equation.

"Because petrochemicals are key components to much more than just the gas in your car. As of the year 2002, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US. "

Your not really correct here,...

Transport is the cause of over 50% of oil use,...

And transport of the food is the main cause behind that example you gave of there being 10calories of oil used for every 1 calorie eaten.

There will be oil production for over 100years it just won't be enough,... so all we have to do is start introducing alternatives to offset the shortfall in production caused by economic growth and decline in production.

Alternatives in transport will probally be the easy way to start offseting oil use.

 

[numbercruncher]

And transport of the food is the main cause behind that example you gave of there being 10calories of oil used for every 1 calorie eaten.

Not quite ....

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7 Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:

· 31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer

· 19% for the operation of field machinery

· 16% for transportation

· 13% for irrigation

· 08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)

· 05% for crop drying

· 05% for pesticide production

· 08% miscellaneous8


Energy costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets, and household cooking are not considered in these figures.

To give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern agriculture, production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer requires the energy equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel fuel. This is not considering the natural gas feedstock.9 According to The Fertilizer Institute (http://www.tfi.org), in the year from June 30 2001 until June 30 2002 the United States used 12,009,300 short tons of nitrogen fertilizer.10 Using the low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of nitrogen, this equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters of diesel fuel, or 96.2 million barrels.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

Its oldish data but In the ballpark ...

 

[Spineli]

How many banks got caught on the good side of sub prime? Not too many!

Which bank performed outstandingly? Goldman Sachs

Which bank is predicting an oil spike to $200+ per barrel? Goldman Sachs

 

[lusk]

How many banks got caught on the good side of sub prime? Not too many!

Which bank performed outstandingly? Goldman Sachs

Which bank is predicting an oil spike to $200+ per barrel? Goldman Sachs

They must be selling if they are putting out statements like that.

 

[gfresh]

Transport and cars are only a small part of the equation.

"Because petrochemicals are key components to much more than just the gas in your car. As of the year 2002, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the US. Source The size of this ratio stems from the fact that every step of modern food production is fossil fuel and petrochemical powered:

Hmmm, yes, exactly - oil is used for transport of the goods from the grainery to the grocer, and at all steps along the way. By making more efficient vehicles (a large part is trucks, diesel trains, or the like that play a major part in that equation), in effect the savings are reflected right across the chain.

The technology is there, or available at higher cost, and in the past there hasn't been much need for it. Look back to the 70's, a lot of really innovative technology was devised at a time when there was the last oil crisis. By the mid 80's oil was readily available again, so a lot of that passed by the wayside.

Making some 30-40% ? savings in vehicle fuel across the nation, frees up the use of oil where there are possibly less alternatives - such as plastics, fertilisers, etc.

Everybody runs around with their head chopped off when they think the oil will run out, but I don't think it's so bleak. As the price of oil goes up and up, the alternatives will become cheaper and cheaper, and the incentives to find alternatives will become stronger and stronger.

 

[Tysonboss1]

Not quite ....

QUOTE]

does those figures calculate the transport of the whole supply chain or just the fininshed product,.... Because you would have to transport more than you would think,

 

[Djayness]

I was just quoting the source http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ ill check the validity when I have the time.

Im interested to see what happens to the growth of the worlds economies when fuel becomes too expensive or can no longer meet demand.

 

[vishalt]

What fascinates me is how America and Australia are hardcore crybabies when it comes to energy prices going up.

In Australia petrol is still one of the cheapest things you can but per liter. Milk costs like $2.50 and fresh juice costs $5/L.

I'm amazed to see that when I was in Europe, fuel is like $4-$13 depending in which country you go to (UK/Switzerland/Norway/Amsterdam/Spain) etc but they're used to it.

Over here we are just a bunch of oil addicts and would rather complain about petrol prices going up because its easier than having a European attitude where they realise that "oil is limited, we all need to share it so use it in moderation".

Many Euros happily get on their bike or skate to work and back each morning if they live within sustainable distances, but if they don't, they are smart enough to use more care pooling/hydro buses and trams!

The fact is petrol is in Australia/US hurting people who generally chose to live beyond their means, as unfair as that sounds if they are good people (but loaded with debt, mortgages, loans, buy this, buy that).

The fact is we could have had substantially less fuel usage if the US and Australia weren't purposely "built on wheels" and people who could have used public transport or had a healthy walk to work chose to instead be lazy and drive.

I've made my cuts by only limiting myself to having a 5 min drive each day to the station and a 15 min drive to a nearby suburb on the weekends, my energy use is only 1 - 25 liter tank a month.

I don't drive to the city ever anymore and I don't drive to the beach either, I use public transport and/or the ferry or go on a holiday if I really need a getaway.