Peak oil (1 Viewer)

[Rafy]

The latest 4 corners program explores the issue of peak oil and the consequenses of the decline in supply. The issue of Peak oil was also raised in a senate inquiry today.

Nobody knows exactly how much oil is left, or how long supplies can keep up with rising demand. Almost everyone now agrees that the era of cheap oil is over.
But most oil producers believe that they can meet world needs for decades to come. They say there is still plenty undiscovered oil, and new technologies will extent to life of existing fields, and higher prices will bring massive investment in alternative fuels.
But a growing body of analysts makes a grim prediction. Production is set to peak they say, before suddenly and dramatically falling behind demand causing prices to rocket, thrusting an unprepared world into economic turmoil and upending suburban lifestyles built around the private card.
Who is right? When will the crunch come, and can alternatives to conventional oil fill the gap?

• 4 Corners - Peak Oil? (Includes a stream of the entire program, extended interviews and other resources)
  
• Peak Oil? - Program Transcript

Also:http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&ned=au&q=peak+oil&btnG=Search+News (A number of interesting recent articles on the matter)

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Have we reached peak oil production? Or can existing supplies still maintain our needs for many years to come?

Will higher prices ultimately force economies and societies to adjust to alternatives? Or is this a dangerously inadequate assumption?

Ultimately are we ready? There is no doubt oil will not last forever, but are we as a society that is so reliant on oil, preparing for the inevitable?

Your Thoughts?

 

[Serius]

Yeah i saw that show a few months ago[and again caught the repeat the other night] pretty scary stuff.
I think that th oil will inevitably run out, but i think what the show was pointing out was not when the oil will run out, but when it will become too costly and difficult to extract small amounts of oil to waste by burning in a car engine.

Case in point: The talked about some oil fields that passed their peak, where before they would pump out 40million barrels per time period, now it is just a couple million. The thing is that if the peak is the halfway point and those 40mill were coming out for about 30 years, those couple million barrels are going to be dribbling out for many years to come.

The days of oil as an energy source are numbered, we should attempt to preserve it for use only in manufacturing of stuff like polymers and ethanol.

 

[transcendent]

Yeah, I'm more worried about plastics disappearing than cars because of lack of oil.

 

[withoutaface]

Yeah, I'm more worried about plastics disappearing than cars because of lack of oil.

Nah Antarctica treaties will stop resource rape til we realise we need oil for plastics, and Antarctica has enough oil for plastics.

EDIT: To put it more clearly, by the time the treaties expire we'll be weaned off oil for cars, and the higher price of plastics should drive the energy sector out of the market because renewables will also be cheaper, thus leaving plastics as the sole usage.

 

[turtleface]

It'd be good if alcohol use increased. Better for the environment too, using agricultural waste as fuel. Much less CO emissions.

Australia should move quickly. Brazil has, and now no longer needs crude oil. Anyway, its not like we're short of ethanol anyway.

 

[Mc_Meaney]

hmm poses the question tho - what will american bomb countries for when oil is gone?

 

[Ktulu-Spiral]

Thanks for the links. Peak oil is one of my favourite subjects to study of late. I'm kinda of the opinion that it's important for western countries to wage resource wars in order to secure the remaining oil supplies. After all, it's survival of the fittest. And if taking the last oil reserves helps the west maintain global supremacy as we move into the post-oil era, then as sad as it may be, I think it is something we need to do.

The only other solution I can see, would be a kind of 'structured and controlled economic collapse', in which oil was rationed between countries, and the financial/economic consequences of peak oil were dealt with by policy and the gradual implementation of post-oil infrastructure, rather than by gunboat diplomacy. This could help deal with economic decline associated with resource scarcity, and maybe even start the ball rolling for a post-oil age of new growth, as industry converts to the use of oil alternatives and non-oil technology.

But, humans are greedy, and I think this is beyond our ability. So, bring on the resource wars!

Alright, I'm off to watch the program. Thanks again.

 

[transcendent]

I suspect that the resource wars will truly be a world war in the making.

 

[transcendent]

Yeah they can. Besides it's a fight over the 'remaining' oil resources.

 

[loquasagacious]

I doubt resource wars over oil, water is more likely for those.

The reason being that there are substitutes for oil (eg alternate fuels) however there are ni substitutes for drinking water and virtually everything is a compliment.

I'm personally confident that simple economics will drive us away from oil. eg it becomes scarce which increases its value which means increased research in new fields, old fields and substitutes.

We are already seeing this as car companies are bringing out hybrid/electric cars, etc etc. The downside is that Antarctica will inevitably be mined.

Also it will kinda ruin the party for me and my car passion.

 

[Ktulu-Spiral]

I'm personally confident that simple economics will drive us away from oil. eg it becomes scarce which increases its value which means increased research in new fields, old fields and substitutes.

You are right. In the longrun, market forces will prevail. As conventional oil becomes more costly, alternative sources of oil will be sought as they become relatively cheaper, such as coal liquifaction and processing shale oil.

But as Keynes said, the longrun doesn't matter if we're all dead in the shortrun. And while scarcity of oil won't kill us, it has the potential to cause severe economic hardship if we aren't prepared.

The problem with oil substitutes is that none of them provide the same return on investment as conventional oil. In the past, oil companies have enjoyed something like, 30 barrels of output for every 1 barrel of input, or something of that order anyway. Cheap oil has been the bloodline of the developed world, driving growth for the past 60 to 70 years. Just look at what happened during the oil shocks of the 1970's.

With coal liquifaction and processing shale oil, and other alternatives like bio-fuels and mining tar sands, you won't get the same return on investment as with conventional oil. So even with market forces, we could still face economic decline, because alternative fuels are not only more costly in dollars, but more costly in energy input needed to generate energy output.

As time goes by, the technology and processes involved in these alternative fuels will become cheaper, but it's questionable as to whether we will ever see oil being produced at the prices of $30 USD per barrel ever again.

The days of cheap oil will sooner or later draw to a close, and it seems like it could be starting now. So I think it's best we start getting organised to ease ourselves into the post-(cheap)oil era sooner rather than later.

 

[Serius]

It'd be good if alcohol use increased. Better for the environment too, using agricultural waste as fuel. Much less CO emissions.

Australia should move quickly. Brazil has, and now no longer needs crude oil. Anyway, its not like we're short of ethanol anyway.

you do realise we get our ethanol from crude oil right?

 

[P_Dilemma]

Oil and fossil fuels will run out. That is for certain.

In the event of an u;tra-decline in the supply of oil, we can only turn to alternative energy sources. Hydrogen, solar, nuclear, ethanol, for example. In the event that we are not prepared to use these alternative sources, the world may just shut down. Possibility of conflict, perhaps, though i believe that will happen before the end. Either way, somebody will be prepared to take advantage of these new series of events.

 

[Aznpsycho]

Brazil has, and now no longer needs crude oil. Anyway, its not like we're short of ethanol anyway.

The whole Brazil-ethanol experiment was an economic failure, requiring massive government subsidies to prop up the industry. After all, they were specifically growing sugar cane, fermenting it, and distilling out the sweet sweet ethanol.

Plus, it hardly stopped them from importing oil, as they had to use that to run the tractors/distilleries/etc. But, comes the inevitable response, we'll use the ethanol produced by the industry to run all the tractors, etc. Unfortunately, this requires a ridiculous amount of land, and you're better off utilising waste products, instead of specifically and inefficiently producing the raw material for the ethanol.

 

[Serius]

australia does produce alot of shit though. Instead of specifically using sugar cane for ethanol, we could continue doing what we do, but instead of throwing out waste sugar cane stuff, distill it and make some ethanol. That would offset australias oil usage a fair amount, If Australia used all waste products and all exported produce to make ethanol, it would cut australian oil usage by 2/3rds.

 

[Enlightened_One]

One of the major concerns, at least in my opinion, is the lack of government funding going towards the development of alternative energy. Most of our scientists are poached by overseas places where the money is. And the CSIRO is not funded to look into anything that is not profitable in some way or other.

Howard wants Australia to become an energy superpower, then here is our chance. However, Howard seems to be pushing uranium rather strongly. Could this be because uranium is actually something we can control, and harvest a profit from, whereas we cannot regulate the use of the winds, the sun, or the tides?

Anyway, as to the fact that ethanol requires a large spate of land, well, all the farms that go belly up because of our stupid FTA (such as with America), could go into farming ethanol. If we can get off oil then our economy may be all the better for it.

 

[Rafy]

When oil dries up

Oil is close to running out, and chaos will follow, according to a US expert. Nick Galvin reports.

[...]Heinberg, who is embarking on an Australia-wide speaking tour, is a leading proponent of the "peak oil" theory.

Peak oil is shorthand for the premise that the amount of oil left for us to use has "peaked" (or is just about to peak). Once worldwide production begins to fall and with no corresponding decrease in demand, oil prices will skyrocket, leading to widespread chaos.

How bad will it be? If Heinberg is to be believed, the impending dislocation caused by the end of the oil era will be about as bad as it gets.

From global resource wars as oil-dependent economies battle for control of remaining resources to widespread famine caused by the slowdown in oil-dependent agribusiness, the picture he paints is nothing short of cataclysmic.[...]

Continued - http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/when-oil-dries-up/2006/08/25/1156012745906.html?page=fullpage

 

[withoutaface]

australia does produce alot of shit though. Instead of specifically using sugar cane for ethanol, we could continue doing what we do, but instead of throwing out waste sugar cane stuff, distill it and make some ethanol. That would offset australias oil usage a fair amount, If Australia used all waste products and all exported produce to make ethanol, it would cut australian oil usage by 2/3rds.

The distillation process for ethanol uses more energy than can be extracted from the ethanol itself.

 

[Serius]

The distillation process for ethanol uses more energy than can be extracted from the ethanol itself.

true, in a debate a few years back i argued strongly against ethanol, using Brazil as an example of how stupid it can be. The thing is we arent looking for perpetual energy here, all we need is a source of energy that will be cheaper than petrol.

Hydrogen fuel cells might work,but your same response is true because if you put about $1 of electricity into a fuel cell, you will only get say 90c of energy back out. The point is that not everyone has a coal power plant strapped to their car, so we need an efficient way to transport electricity to mobile uses.

Ethanol on its own is not the answer, and personally i beleive that alternative energy is not the way, we should be looking to secure oil reserves in the middle east to enure out civilisation survives. Its every country for himself, iam just glad in the oil wars we will be on the american side. What happens when even that oil becomes too expensive to extract though? what shall we turn to for energy?

 

[AntiHyper]

We can just hope that our Aussie hippies & land lovers would allow nuclear energy to be used.