Petroleum and the future of civilization

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Doug50

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Hi, I’m new here. I thought I’d through this out for thought to those unaware of the this issue.

What happens to civilization when not enough oil can be produced to meet global demand? Right now the big talk about the future of civilization is over global warming put a pressing issue is over future water supplies and petroleum.

Behind general public’s awareness is a debate about the future of petroleum. Some links to graphs and video debates/discussions on “peak oil”. Today with globalization and indurialism, 10 calories of petroleum is used to produce 1 calorie of food.

Here’s where we are today with oil production, reserves, and new discoveries. We are producing more oil each year then we discover (graphs):
home.planet.nl/~reijd050/JoeR/peak_oil/pictures/BP_world_graph.gif

money.cnn.com/2004/11/02/markets/peak_oil/GrowingGap2.gif

And the Videos:
Peak Oil
abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/default_full_mac.htm

The End of Suburbia
youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug

Biofuels & Ethanol: The Real Story
youtube.com/watch?v=DeVT7jMYZlo

Toyota’s advanced fuels manager
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2558276641904882805
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2201199802681775303

Matt Simmons:
“So the book in German through an intermediary was delivered to Pope Benedict the 16th. I have a lovely framed letter now from the Secretary of State’s Assistant to the Vatican thanking me for the efforts of alerting the world to peak oil.”

financialsense.com/Experts/2007/Simmons.html

News media:
International Energy Agency see oil crunch within 5 years.
google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-34,GGLJ:en&q=international+energy+agency+oil+crunch
 
My response is 1)
this guy (peakoildebunked.blogspot.com)
and 2)
2005: (lifeaftertheoilcrash.net)
2006: (savinarsolar.net).
Matt Savinar, the guy who made “Peak Oil” popular (I trust you’re familiar with the name), is a money-grubbing charlatan who was selling his “survival guide to the oil crash” book on the web, and then started selling solar power systems despite saying in his book and on LATOC that solar power wasn’t going to be very successful because there weren’t enough components to make them.
Thing is, the people make these claims on websites or YouTube videos and then, when proved wrong, are constantly revising them. It’s like Loose Change for envirojunkies.

(Sorry, this is an extremely sensitive subject.)
 
The great thing about living in a capitalist society is that when necessity gets to be the mother of invention then you get to buy stock in that invention.

It’s not as if and when petroleum runs low that there will be no more “go” we will have figured out a bigger bader more “go” already.

Zero sum balance thinking is not for me.
 
I’m familiar with Matt Savinar and your links. My links though are either from or contain interviews by credible individuals. Is it sensitive? Oh yeah. I’m in the oil business. I make my living from it. As of right now there is nothing to replace it that is as energy dense and in the volumes we use it. Nothing.

Most wars over the last 100 years were fought over oil. Oil reserves, today, is the economic bases for Darfur.
worldpress.org/Africa/1911.cfm
 
b_justb said:
The great thing about living in a capitalist society is that when necessity gets to be the mother of invention then you get to buy stock in that invention.

It’s not as if and when petroleum runs low that there will be no more “go” we will have figured out a bigger bader more “go” already.

Zero sum balance thinking is not for me.
Click to expand...
I’m big on science and technology but I don’t put faith in the miracle of science to solve all problems. Science is not my religion. Science has made great headways into health care, for example, but even after all these years a lot of diseases have not been cured despite the efforts made.

When someone shows me the techno fixes for a substitute to petroleum I’ll become an optimist. There are no magic bullets.
 
Doug50 said:
As of right now there is nothing to replace it that is as energy dense and in the volumes we use it. Nothing.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but the volume we use it at is ABSURD. Therefore, if we cut down it will suck, yes (probably suck like life in England after the second war), but there are enough people claiming global catastrophe along the lines of Mad Max will be the only possible result. I like to step in before that happens.
Oil reserves, today, is the economic bases for Darfur.
worldpress.org/Africa/1911.cfm
Click to expand...
Wrong. That’s about as absurd as… I don’t know. It’s Christian-Muslim **** like a lot of the rest of the drama in the Middle East. The two REALLY don’t get along in Africa.
 
Doug50 said:
When someone shows me the techno fixes for a substitute to petroleum I’ll become an optimist. There are no magic bullets.
Click to expand...
We don’t need a magic bullet - we do what people did before we came across easy stuff like coal and petroleum - take what’s available where we are and is most easily used, and use that. Whatever fits best into the environment.

ETA: (Though I don’t understand why, in many cases, nuclear is off the table. Sure, sometimes it’s dangerous, like with that Japanese nuclear plant that got a crack in the earthquake, but that’s why you don’t put nuclear plants into areas they are likely to be damaged by the environment.)
 
Nevarlander said:
Agreed, but the volume we use it at is ABSURD. Therefore, if we cut down it will suck, yes (probably suck like life in England after the second war), but there are enough people claiming global catastrophe along the lines of Mad Max will be the only possible result. I like to step in before that happens.

When I was a child my small town had three grocery stores (now one), three clothing stores (now none), etc. A lot of the groceries, such as eggs and chickens, came from local farmers but today only beef. I think we’ll go back to more of that kind of living…I don’t know what will happen to suburbian sprawl.

Wrong. That’s about as absurd as… I don’t know. It’s Christian-Muslim **** like a lot of the rest of the drama in the Middle East. The two REALLY don’t get along in Africa.
Click to expand...
Wrong. It is the economic…
 
Nevarlander said:
We don’t need a magic bullet - we do what people did before we came across easy stuff like coal and petroleum - take what’s available where we are and is most easily used, and use that. Whatever fits best into the environment.

ETA: (Though I don’t understand why, in many cases, nuclear is off the table. Sure, sometimes it’s dangerous, like with that Japanese nuclear plant that got a crack in the earthquake, but that’s why you don’t put nuclear plants into areas they are likely to be damaged by the environment.)
Click to expand...
There’s a potential problem with simply going back to the days before coal and petroleum…we have a lot more mouths to feed. Pesticides and fertalizers come from petroleum and natural gas.
It’s going to be a challenge and a test of human resolve.

One of five homes in the US, today, is running on nuclear power, 20%. I think we’ll be using more nuclear powerin the future…but you can’t drive cars very far or long on electricity. How long is the supply of uranium going to last into the future? As economies grow so to will the demand to use more. Take coal, we have about a 200 hundred year supply of it in this country at today usage…at todays usage. Increase that usage by only 2% annually, year after year, and that known supply of coal runs out in only 80 years.
 
I think we need to be careful not to give into a “Chicken Little” mentality when it comes to our energy concerns.

The idea that our civilization is going to crumble when the oil runs out(as though it will happen spontaneously like turning off a switch) is ludicrous. People who give into this type of thinking are the same ones who would have hoarded toilet paper during the
Y2K fiasco a few years ago, or ran for the hills at a solar eclipse back in the days of our ancestors.:rolleyes:

I agree that necessity is the mother of invention, and the situation isn’t even close to dire enough yet for these solutions to be found. I refuse to believe that the top minds in our world are scampering heedlessly towards the chasm like a bunch of lemmings.

So take heart, better minds than ours will solve this problem when it arises, just like they always have. Things may not be easy while we’re in transition, but no civilizations are going to crumble over it. 👍
 
Doug50 said:
There’s a potential problem with simply going back to the days before coal and petroleum…we have a lot more mouths to feed. Pesticides and fertalizers come from petroleum and natural gas.
It’s going to be a challenge and a test of human resolve.

One of five homes in the US, today, is running on nuclear power, 20%. I think we’ll be using more nuclear powerin the future…but you can’t drive cars very far or long on electricity. How long is the supply of uranium going to last into the future? As economies grow so to will the demand to use more. Take coal, we have about a 200 hundred year supply of it in this country at today usage…at todays usage. Increase that usage by only 2% annually, year after year, and that known supply of coal runs out in only 80 years.
Click to expand...
I’m also thinking that by then we’ll have figured out more. There are a lot of small-scale improvements going on in “sustainability” which could probably be scaled up in food production - and in case you haven’t heard, the world birthrate is actually declining and looks to level out at around a 9-10 billion global population by about 2050. As to energy, as I said, we’re working on putting the pieces together like in agriculture.
 
I’m not a scientist but a dear friend of mine who is one once told me that, despite it’s “bad press”, the way out of the energy dilemma is Nuclear.

Nuclear power has had some bad episodes in the past. As a result, no nuclear power plants have been built in decades. In the meantime, the science has progressed.

If we used NUCLEAR generated energy for electricity, if PETROLEUM was only used for those things for which there is no viable substitute ~ such as fueling our vehicles ~ we wouldn’t have to import oil. And our foreign policy wouldn’t be dictated by the importation of foreign oil.

This is Win-Win. All we have to do is build modern nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, what’s the chance of that?
 
Standup4thruth: If the solution isn’t solved, and so far it isn’t, our suburban civilation will likely not survive. It won’t happen over night, like turning off a light switch. Civilization, however, I believe will survive in one form or another. It might even be a lot more peaceful. The militaries of the world need oil to function.

Neverlander: What’s sustainable in the lab or on a small scale can’t necessarily be scaled up to meet global demand.

For example: In 2007 the IEA estimates the world is using 86.1 million barrels of oil per day; that is eqaul to 1000 barrels per second. 86 million would fill 5,600 olympic sized pools of oil every day. An olympic pool is 100 meters x 50 meters x 2 meters (164 feet x 82 feet x 6.5 feet). Lay those pools end-to-end and in one year you’d have a pool nearly 63,500 miles long. That tells us a few things: (1) it isn’t just going to run out over night, like turning off a lightswitch ( although I’ve seen how well/field decline curves in action in action energy.ihs.com/NR/rdonlyres/D054572D-6C6E-4FFD-831D-DB267A385747/0/a_Decline_Curve_Screen500.gif)). (2) The world uses a heck of a lot of oil, we swim in it. You can’t possible think of all the ways petroleum toughes modern societal lives. It makes the fuel we drive. It makes the carpet and flooring in our homes. Your computer is made from it. A lot of drugs are made from petrochemicals; even asprin, today, is made from petroleum. And (3) we have no good substitue that will scale up to meet a need global demand at those wells’ flow rates.

Just how many corn fields would it take to replace that much volume of petroleum? If we can’t find a substitute our modern civilization will not survive. Even if we do find a substitute equivolent to those volumes it will likely be a lot more expensive to use (since it won’t be simply digging a hole in the ground to mine it out like we do oil).
 
MelanieAnne said:
I’m not a scientist but a dear friend of mine who is one once told me that, despite it’s “bad press”, the way out of the energy dilemma is Nuclear.
QUOTE]

It’s not so much that we are facing an energy problem per se in the near term since only 3% of oil is used to produce electrictiy (although natural gas has now peaked and is on decline in North America). We use a lot of natural gas to produce electrictiy but sinc natural gas in on decline the push, now, is to build more coal-fired generators. What we are facing a liquid fuels problem. Our suburbian lifestyle is completely dependent upon having enough fuel, whenever we want/need it, to drive our cars to work, to church, to buy food, to play.

A thought experiment…the next time you’re alone driving: Years ago I was an oilfield pumper. It was my job to make sure the wells kept producing oil into the tanks. I saw what it took to produce a tank of oil. Over a period of time some of the heaver stuff would settle out onto the bottom of the tanks. We’d use this stuff to pave lease roads. Think of the American highway system and how many roads that have been built. Most of those roads are paved with oil (actually tar, which is a fraction of the byproduct refined out of a barrel of oil). The highway systme is one hugh oil slick. And it isn’t just the US…it’s the rest of the world that uses oil for roads in exactly the same way. I think imaging the highway systems asphat surface (for which most take for granted) is a pretty good way of getting some visual image of just how much oil the modern world uses and depends on. It’s not going to be easy to replace.
Click to expand...
 
By the way, sorry about my mild dyslexia. I should should us Word first but it’s kind of a pain 🙂
 
Well Doug, if you’re such an expert on this, why did you open this up for discussion? I have a feeling someone joined in order to “educate” us simple-minded folks on energy policy. :rolleyes:

Even going by your scenario, our suburban lifestyle wouldn’t cease to exist - on the contrary, it would thrive! People would move to the cities in droves as commuting would become too expensive. Not that it will ever get to that point with all of the alternative energy sources being developed. Oil and coal are outmoded technologies from the industrial revolution, there are plenty of viable alternative energies out there already. Currently it’s just cheaper to use fossil fuels, and when it gets too expensive these alternative technologies will fill the gap.

If you want to be a doomsayer and go hole up for the coming apocalypse, more power to ya! Make sure you’re in a high place, though, so you don’t drown when the polar ice caps melt! Some of us would prefer to live with hope for the future. 🙂

If history has taught us anything, it’s that there will always be something for people to worry about, and there will always be prophets of doom trying to get us all worked up.
 
Why are your charts so old?

They just discovered more oil reserves in Iran

They are saying there are oil deposits in al-Anbar in Iraq that no one knew about before.

And they keep finding the stuff Not to mention the synthetic stuff. That [more and more things can use](http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/blogs/perr(name removed by moderator)ost/2007/08/alternative-fue.html).

Three Questions for Peak Oil Fans

I have three simple questions for peak oil supporters - I have yet to find anyone who can answer all three:

  1. *]If the peak is just around the corner and exceedingly high prices ($200 dollars a barrel? $300? $400?) are coming our way, then why are the prices for oil futures and oil call options so low?
    *]Are you buying oil futures or oil call options? If not, why not?
    *]Why did peak oil supporters in the 1970s tell us that the oil supply would run out in the 1980s and 1990s? Why were they wrong then? Why are you right now? What’s changed?
    economics.about.com/od/theoilsupply/a/peak_oil_views.htm
 
Doug50 said:
Standup4thruth: If the solution isn’t solved, and so far it isn’t, our suburban civilation will likely not survive. It won’t happen over night, like turning off a light switch. Civilization, however, I believe will survive in one form or another. It might even be a lot more peaceful. The militaries of the world need oil to function.

Neverlander: What’s sustainable in the lab or on a small scale can’t necessarily be scaled up to meet global demand.

For example: In 2007 the IEA estimates the world is using 86.1 million barrels of oil per day; that is eqaul to 1000 barrels per second. 86 million would fill 5,600 olympic sized pools of oil every day. An olympic pool is 100 meters x 50 meters x 2 meters (164 feet x 82 feet x 6.5 feet). Lay those pools end-to-end and in one year you’d have a pool nearly 63,500 miles long. That tells us a few things: (1) it isn’t just going to run out over night, like turning off a lightswitch ( although I’ve seen how well/field decline curves in action in action energy.ihs.com/NR/rdonlyres/D054572D-6C6E-4FFD-831D-DB267A385747/0/a_Decline_Curve_Screen500.gif)). (2) The world uses a heck of a lot of oil, we swim in it. You can’t possible think of all the ways petroleum toughes modern societal lives. It makes the fuel we drive. It makes the carpet and flooring in our homes. Your computer is made from it. A lot of drugs are made from petrochemicals; even asprin, today, is made from petroleum. And (3) we have no good substitue that will scale up to meet a need global demand at those wells’ flow rates.

Just how many corn fields would it take to replace that much volume of petroleum? If we can’t find a substitute our modern civilization will not survive. Even if we do find a substitute equivolent to those volumes it will likely be a lot more expensive to use (since it won’t be simply digging a hole in the ground to mine it out like we do oil).
Click to expand...
Dude, I already said we were going to have to shrink and find substitutes. I just don’t think it’s going to be civilization-crashing. I’m done here.
 
I don’t understand the “peak oil” slogan. The super wealthy who share the world with the peasants already have everything in place for the transition. Solar cells at over 40% efficiency. Solar at Nellis Air Force Base. 100 million dollar cellulosic ethanol plant going up in Michigan. Megawatt solar in California. The GM Volt will go into testing this coming Spring, and the Lithium-Ion batteries are almost ready. No new oil refineries being built in the US because that would dig into profits. OPEC pumps more or less, totally controlling the so-called supply-demand equation.

The solution to all this will be whatever those with the money decide will give them the biggest ROI. I don’t think for a microsecond they want everything to go back to pre-21st Century America.

The average person is out of the loop. Unless you want to force all those HUMMERS off the road.

God bless,
Ed
 
i work in the oil industry on the government side. i can tell you first hand that in the gulf of mexico, companies are forced to drill deeper and further offshore. the blocks available for leasing have been picked over by oil companies time and time again. they drill smaller and more subtle traps now. in alaska, the environmentalists have viturally stopped offshore leasing and exploration activities.

the bottom line is there will always be more oil and gas to drill, but at more of a cost. that is why oil prices are $70 a barrel. the oil industry is forced to either go back to old fields and produce by-passed pay, or go to more remote, deeper, locations to find oil. the age of cheap oil is over because all of the easy to produce mega fields have been drilled.

we are overly globalized and are living an unsustainable lifestyle here in the us. if every developing country were to consume at our level, there would not be enough resources available on our planet.

don’t you think we would be more humble and more God fearing if we would return to a more agrarian sustainable lifestyle? places like houston texas are the antithesis of sustainability–where ozone alerts are frequent and an ever expanding suburban sprawl destroy our quality of life. we are setting ourselves up for disaster. between a taxing illegal alien population, growing debt, constant wars, aging population, pollution, negative savings rate, and increasing oil prices, we will probably enter depression in 10 years time.

we are stewards of the earth, not consumers.
 
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