Is oil REALLY a limited commodity?

[vz71]

I do not think it is a straw man argument.

You very clearly restated one of the points.

The point was posited “…man has nearly nothing…”
Your counter was “…Saying humans have nothing to do with it…”

The change in meaning between what was stated and what you countered with make it a very obvious straw man fallacy.

 

[tafan2]

Ok, that was unintentional. I will restate my original assertion:

Saying humans have nearly nothing to do with it is nothing more than adhering to preconceived notions, typically based on political thought, and not being able to look at the scientific evidence with an open mind. I will admit, there is a lot of global warming doomsayers who exaggerate the effects of it to a great extent. But the underlying scientific data does support the existence of man-made global warming.

And with the modification, I stand by the statement. I apologize for implying that @Kirk_O did not allow for some level of human cause in his claim.

 

[niceatheist]

the earth produces oil and is not made by old plants and dinosaurs. Calling coal and oil fossil fuels is just bad science.

I don’t think there’s been a serious geologist in years who think oil is created at anywhere approaching the volumes that it is being extracted. The fact that US producers are using new techniques to extract oil from old wells suggests that it is, on the timescales of human civilization, a non-renewable resource.

 

[vz71]

And with the modification, I stand by the statement

Thank you.

 

[ATraveller]

Skip to 3:18 for the key part:

The comments in this video are also worth reading.

I think one day we will try to remediate landfills because it’s the right thing to do and all of the plastics that were once considered unrecyclable and are in landfills right now will re-enter the market by being turned back into crude oil.

 

[dochawk]

I know that shortage of living space and an inability to match agricultural output with the increase in the population has been used to justify this, but petroleum?

To be clear, the Malthusian delusion that agricultural production doesn’t match the rise in population has been wrong and debunked each and every time it has been raised since Malthus’ time . . . we use far less land in the developed world today for agriculture than in his time, despite the, err, significant change in population. Agricultural technology growth has consistently outstripped population growth.

I once taught Economics from a text which had a chapter on such groups, including Malthus, and the groups that produced Drs. Kellogg and Graham (of corn flakes and Graham flower [used still in Graham crackers]). They were from sects that were pretty much opposed to sex within marriage (History has not recorded Mrs. Graham’s or Mrs. Kellog’s response to their husbands’ opinions!), and these products were developed specifically to be mild in the believe that this would dampen the sexual appetite . . .

Total global oil reserves are unknown.

Total reserves are, by definition, known. It’s the toast amount of oil that is not.

Reserves have been steadily increasing, whether expressed in barrels or years, for several decades.

So basically we have to ask; if oil takes millions of years to form, there must be some tipping point where extraction overtakes the ability of natural processes to replace the oil.

No, there is no “must”. It would seem probable, yes, given increasing returns. And I’d be surprised (though not astonished) if we are not currently consuming faster than it is being produced. But there is no basis for “must”.

What does that have to do with the question of whether it’s a limited commodity? It either is or it isn’t.

The supply of hydrogen the universe is also limited . . . the question isn’t whether the limit exists, but whether the constraint will ever bind.

 

[niceatheist]

It would make more sense to convert plastic to hydrogen. A simpler process and a lot more bang for the buck.

 

[PetraG]

It would make more sense to convert plastic to hydrogen. A simpler process and a lot more bang for the buck.

Huh? Please say explicitly which reactions you are comparing and explain what happens to all the organic side products in each case. I am not following you at all.

 

[niceatheist]

Sunlight converts plastic waste to hydrogen fuel | Research | Chemistry World

 

[PetraG]

I’d like to see a bit more specificity where the arrow points to “organics” as a product. What are those and what do you do with them?

 

[ATraveller]

It would make more sense to convert plastic to hydrogen. A simpler process and a lot more bang for the buck.

I don’t know about that.
Planes have unique challenges where even biofuels can’t be used.
The link you gave used cadmium catalysts. That stuff is toxic especially when scaled up, not that anyone would be consuming the products but there are environmental concerns and a need to purify those organic products, the value of which may not be the same as the video’s.
But they definitely can make changes.

I’d like to see a bit more specificity where the arrow points to “organics” as a product. What are those and what do you do with them?

This was the paper niceatheist’s article was citing:

This process operates under ambient temperature and pressure, generates pure H2 and converts the waste polymer into organic products such as formate, acetate and pyruvate.

Plastic waste as a feedstock for solar-driven H2 generation - Energy & Environmental Science (RSC Publishing)

Pyruvate could be converted to lactate, which can be used for more biodegradable plastics, which can only be used for things when its properties are useful. Acetate can be used for certain plastics too.

But the problem here for comparison is that the video I shared doesn’t go into detail. Are the products in the video more varied and in higher quantities and economical for industrial use? If the video’s process is higher in BTX hydrocarbons, then that might be more preferable to the one in the article. The former’s products being more “flexible” than the latter.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

OTOH, oil has a property that is very hard to duplicate: energy density is quite high. So we will likely always need to use some of it. For example, there is nothing on the horizon that I know of that will be able to handle airline traffic besides petroleum based fuel. Replacing all petroleum is likely not feasible. But hopefully we can replace a lot of it.

This is something that frequently gets lost in the shuffle. It’s possible to replicate the energy output on land or sea with non-fossil fuel (name removed by moderator)uts when weight and space are less important, but everything put in the air has to be able to operate there. In particular, gravity and drag have quite the influence against which it takes a definite degree of fuel consuming thrust to keep the aircraft aloft, hence weight and aerodynamics are absolutely critical constraints that must be designed to.

So at this point of time, there is nothing that comes remotely close to the energy and space density of aviation fuel. There has been research into aviation fuel generated from biomass, but this has not shown much promise so far. Not to mention it’s very expensive compared to oil extraction and refinement. Further, current renditions of this technology haven’t scaled up very well. Maybe that changes down the road, but today it’s not there, not even close, hence no mandates should be put on the aircraft industry until they get this sorted.

So you’re thinking hey Teslas can go 0-60 very quickly, sure aircraft can run on batteries. Well that’s a car. A typical Boeing 747 fully loaded will weigh about 250,000kg before fuel is added. How do you get that to cruising altitude? What size battery bank would do it? How much space would it take from the passenger and cargo compartments? How much more would that weigh in lieu of aviation fuel? How safe is it to fly that quantity of batteries? What range will it have? It’s likely aircraft would have to be redesigned from the ground up. All those boring questions the likes of AOC and her ilk never pay attention to.

Something else that hasn’t had a lot of attention paid to it is the changing demographics of the world population which is slowly heading toward a leveling off and decline down the road. That will most certainly have an effect on the next generation and the one after that.

 

[PetraG]

Plastic waste as a feedstock for solar-driven H2 generation - Energy & Environmental Science (RSC Publishing)

Pyruvate could be converted to lactate, which can be used for more biodegradable plastics, which can only be used for things when its properties are useful. Acetate can be used for certain plastics too.

But the problem here for comparison is that the video I shared doesn’t go into detail. Are the products in the video more varied and in higher quantities and economical for industrial use? If the video’s process is higher in BTX hydrocarbons, then that might be more preferable to the one in the article. The former’s products being more “flexible” than the latter.

That’s an interesting process and gives good hope that the mountains of plastic that have been produced can be dealt with in an effective way that makes good use of them. We have turned a LOT of petroleum into plastic!!