By many estimates we have reached or are near reaching peak production. Even as new sources are brought online (which is not going to happen when oil prices are under $80-$100/barrel), older sources will reach the end of their capacity.

 

What people don't seem to realize is that we won't see new production until oil prices (and gasoline prices), rise to the levels at which most Americans started feeling the pain. And these new sources will not drive down the cost because production cannot be sustained at lower costs.

 

What we saw last summer is a snapshot of what we have to look forward to for a long as we are dependent upon huge volumes of oil.  CAFE standards of 35 MPG by 2020 are a joke. In 2020 nobody will be able to afford to drive a vehicle which gets only 35 MPG.

 

That is why it is so important that we emphasize alternative transportation, now, while we can still afford it.

 

http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=849

 

Oil: No Supply Side Answer to the Coming Crisis

Rather soon, we have to find mechanisms and processes to ensure an orderly and permanent annual reduction in world oil demand at least equal to expected net loss of supply as we come out of the 'undulating plateau'.

By Andrew McKillop

Apr. 6, 2009

 

Special Report: Peak Oil

this article has been updated

 

Neoliberal Notions

 

One hangover from the neoliberal 1980s is the myth of 'supply side solutions'. For oil, the key target is to keep prices low as long as possible because "High oil prices hurt growth". In practice, giving this myth some substance needs a sharp fall in economic growth and energy demand destruction.

 

After this, the myth goes on, oil prices will recover slower than economic growth, allowing a window of opportunity for building another fragile asset bubble. The key element, therefore, is demand destruction because supply growth is slow, underlining that so-called 'supply side solutions' are in fact demand-linked and demand-constrained.

 

Without a certain period of destroyed demand, supply side responses cannot work.

http://www.watertechonline.com/news.asp?N_ID=71706

 

Scientific surprise over water-hungry ethanol

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

 

ST. PAUL, MN —Scientists from the University of Minnesota are reporting that production of bioethanol — often regarded as a clean-burning energy source of the future — may consume up to three times more water than previously thought.

 

“Water Embodied in Bioethanol in the United States,” scheduled for publication in the April 15 issue of the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) journal Environmental Science & Technology, comes at a time when water supplies are scarce in many areas of the United States, the ACS said in a press release about the study.

 

.........

Another article critical of ethanol (especially corn-based, like the one above).....

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/behindTheScenes/idUKTRE53796T20090408?sp=true

 

Ethanol adds 0.5-0.8 points to U.S. food prices

Wed Apr 8, 2009

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The boom in corn-based ethanol as motor fuel added from 0.5-0.8 percentage points to U.S. food prices when they were climbing at double the usual rate, said the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday.

 

In a report, CBO said larger use of ethanol drove up feed prices for cattle, hogs and poultry and, in turn, resulted in higher retail prices for food.

 

CBO said the increased use of ethanol accounted for 10 percent-15 percent of

.......

The graphs alone are worth clicking on the start of this three-part series "$200 Oil Is Coming While We Waste a Perfectly Good Crisis" here....

 

http://seekingalpha.com/article/130143-200-oil-is-coming-while-we-waste-a-perfectly-good-crisis-part-1

I'm not sure what planet this writer is from, but it must be a planet with a bottomless tank. History is not a guide. We have been plundering the planet's natural resources for only 200 years, barely a hair in the history of man and not even a molecule in the planet's geologic timeline. Yet for all the millions of years this planet has been producing and processing its fossil fuels and the hundreds of years we're burning them up, we pretend as if we can keep exponentially increasing our global population and economy ad infinitum. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

 

http://www.newsweek.com/id/193499

 

If It’s in the Ground, It Can Only Go Down

If You Dig It: Energy is driven by demand

By Ruchir Sharma | NEWSWEEK

Published Apr 11, 2009

From the magazine issue dated Apr 20, 2009

 

As playwright Arthur Miller once observed, "An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." And most of the illusions that defined the late global economic boom—the notion that global growth had moved to a permanently higher plane and housing prices from Miami to Mumbai would rise indefinitely—are now indeed exhausted. Yet one idea still has the power to capture imaginations and markets: it is that commodities like oil, copper, grains and gold are all destined to rise over time. Lots of smart people believe that last year's swoon in commodities prices represented a short pause in a long-term bull market.

 

.......

I'm not sure what planet this writer is from, but it must be a planet with a bottomless tank. History is not a guide. We have been plundering the planet's natural resources for only 200 years, barely a hair in the history of man and not even a molecule in the planet's geologic timeline. Yet for all the millions of years this planet has been producing and processing its fossil fuels and the hundreds of years we're burning them up, we pretend as if we can keep exponentially increasing our global population and economy ad infinitum. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

 

 

And in these same 200 years, actually less, we have made strides in science and technology that could only have been dreams in the past.  There will be solutions out there that you can only dream about now.  No need to run around like Chicken Little.  How sad, that you have no faith in mankind to solve its problems.  I think you mean a millisecond in the planet's geologic timeline, not sure how to equate mass with time.

I'm not sure what planet this writer is from, but it must be a planet with a bottomless tank. History is not a guide. We have been plundering the planet's natural resources for only 200 years, barely a hair in the history of man and not even a molecule in the planet's geologic timeline. Yet for all the millions of years this planet has been producing and processing its fossil fuels and the hundreds of years we're burning them up, we pretend as if we can keep exponentially increasing our global population and economy ad infinitum. WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!

 

 

And in these same 200 years, actually less, we have made strides in science and technology that could only have been dreams in the past. There will be solutions out there that you can only dream about now. No need to run around like Chicken Little.

 

This is the same position I take DanB.  I fully understand and subscribe to peak oil, but I have faith that we will be able to find and utilize alternatives before disaster strikes.  I'm pretty confident that the free market will solve this problem.  We can't all be running around screaming bloody murder like KJP and we can't all ignore it like DanB and possibly myself, but each response to the problem serves a purpose (alerting and calming).  Together, we'll figure it out.

"I have faith that we will be able to find and utilize alternatives..."

 

Have fun with that.

 

"A child born in 1970 will see two thirds of the world's oil supply consumed in his lifetime." M King Hubbert

...I'm pretty confident that the free market will solve this problem.

 

Just like with respect to transportation, there is no free market in the energy sector either.  Energy companies of various sorts have lobbied for and received tax breaks and subsidies of various kinds.  The US has a military presence in the vast majority of places where there is oil, the cost of which is not reflected in the price.  The full cost of air pollution from burning fossil fuel isn't reflected in the price either.  We've let coal companies blow up entire mountains without any accounting of the costs of polluted watersheds, stressed communities, lost ecosystem services, etc.  Because their survival in elections depends upon it, politicians aim to keep energy prices cheap to the end users regardless of or not those prices reflect the true cost of providing that energy.

 

In the case of oil, there has to be, or at this point I should be saying... there should have been a long term national strategy to reduce our dependence on oil decades ago. 

 

In the case of oil, we are so dependent upon it and there is no single source of energy that can replace it (and no single resource that can replace all of the other things oil does for us), that the lead time needed to be a good 20 years or more before the real trouble began.  Remember, you don't know for sure when the peak hits until after it happens. 

 

While we may currently be in a temporary reprieve, the real trouble started in 2005 when we first hit the (slightly undulating) plateau of oil production.  The price signals hit the market with a dangerously short, and very likely inadequate time frame for a smooth transition. 

 

 

 

 

 

"I have faith that we will be able to find and utilize alternatives..."

 

Have fun with that.

 

"A child born in 1970 will see two thirds of the world's oil supply consumed in his lifetime." M King Hubbert

 

If you don't have faith (which you clearly don't) what do you have?  Seriously though, what do you think is going to happen when we run out of oil?  You are probably one of those who think the world economy will collapse and powerful oil hungry countries like the US will become third world countries.  That could happen, but I choose to be optimistic.

 

Gildone brings up a good point about the energy market and how prices are manipulated.  It's true that the market price probably doesn't accurately reflect the true cost (all things considered) of the oil, but it's the standard we use regardless.  There will be an initial jump in the cost of oil when a supply shortage is forcast, this will slow demand and should stabilize the price at some higher point.  I just believe that the ever increasing price of oil will spur change and decrease demand over a few decades.  I may be wrong, but I hope I'm right.

"I have faith that we will be able to find and utilize alternatives..."

 

Have fun with that.

 

"A child born in 1970 will see two thirds of the world's oil supply consumed in his lifetime." M King Hubbert

 

If you don't have faith (which you clearly don't) what do you have?  Seriously though, what do you think is going to happen when we run out of oil?  You are probably one of those who think the world economy will collapse and powerful oil hungry countries like the US will become third world countries.  That could happen, but I choose to be optimistic.

 

I chose to be optimistic and have faith by saying "We can solve our problems by looking for alternatives to oil and reducing our overall energy usage NOW," rather than saying "Don't worry about it, let's come up with a solution LATER."

If we want more of the world to live the way Americans do, there's a possibility we can come up with solutions IF we put forth a pretty massive research effort. But I'm afraid the effort is cosmetic, which is what causes me to question the sustainability of the American way of life as we have lived it for one-fourth of this nation's history (and a tiny fraction of human history).

 

There is a proven solution out there, but one that is often dismissed out of hand as anti-capitalistic -- conservation. Yet the communists in China often practice more capitalism in their transportation sector than America (they actually use private financing to build their highways), yet consume one-fourth the oil as America despite having four times the population as America. And Western Europe has a pretty good quality of life, despite using one-half as much oil per capita as America.

 

We, in America, are the weirdos and the energy wasters in the world. We remain that way because haven't come to grips that our 100-year reign as the world's largest oil producing nation ended nearly 40 years ago. Instead, we have more in common today with Europe and Japan, which never produced much of their own oil and thus never let their cities sprawl or discarded their rail and transit systems like we did.

 

If we conserved the way the rest of the civilized world does, there would be another 10 million barrels of oil on the market each day. That would probably be consumed by other nations, especially those producing it, but at least America's economy would be adjusting to the reality of its own availability of natural resources. Instead we continue to siphon wealth from our own economy to buy oil on the false premise that we are using oil to maintain our economy. Instead we are only enriching other nations at the expense of our own.

the American way of life... with its wasteful use of energy and massive consumption of disposable consumer items is not sustainable.  The world is already consuming resources faster than the earth can replenish them.  We can have a high standard of living and high quality of life without all the waste.    Either the world gets its collective act together, or the economy, and the standard of living that some of the world has and the rest of the world wants, is toast.

If we want more of the world to live the way Americans do, there's a possibility we can come up with solutions IF we put forth a pretty massive research effort. But I'm afraid the effort is cosmetic, which is what causes me to question the sustainability of the American way of life as we have lived it for one-fourth of this nation's history (and a tiny fraction of human history).

 

There is a proven solution out there, but one that is often dismissed out of hand as anti-capitalistic -- conservation. Yet the communists in China often practice more capitalism in their transportation sector than America (they actually use private financing to build their highways), yet consume one-fourth the oil as America despite having four times the population as America. And Western Europe has a pretty good quality of life, despite using one-half as much oil per capita as America.

 

We, in America, are the weirdos and the energy wasters in the world. We remain that way because haven't come to grips that our 100-year reign as the world's largest oil producing nation ended nearly 40 years ago. Instead, we have more in common today with Europe and Japan, which never produced much of their own oil and thus never let their cities sprawl or discarded their rail and transit systems like we did.

 

If we conserved the way the rest of the civilized world does, there would be another 10 million barrels of oil on the market each day. That would probably be consumed by other nations, especially those producing it, but at least America's economy would be adjusting to the reality of its own availability of natural resources. Instead we continue to siphon wealth from our own economy to buy oil on the false premise that we are using oil to maintain our economy. Instead we are only enriching other nations at the expense of our own.

 

Well said KJP and I agree with you for the most part.  Conservation is key, but Americans will only conserve when the incentives are there to do so.  The incentive is to save money when oil gets back to $150 a barrel or so.  This is my point when I say that I have faith in the free market to produce the change necessary to adapt to an ever decreasing oil supply.  The increasing price should automatically decrease consumption and spur technological innovations in the energy industry.

 

I agree with you 100% that Americans have a bit of an attitude of entitlement when it comes to oil and the only way to change that is through a lengthened period of higher gas prices.

    "Seriously though, what do you think is going to happen when we run out of oil?  You are probably one of those who think the world economy will collapse and powerful oil hungry countries like the US will become third world countries.  That could happen, but I choose to be optimistic."

 

    I have actually given a lot of thought to this, and have done a bit of research. The short answer is that no one knows what will happen. But since you asked...

 

    First, please don't use the words "Run out of oil" because they are ambiguous. They imply that there is a big tank, and oil is produced at a steady rate, until it suddenly dries up. In reality, the rate at which any individual oil field yeilds oil is a function of pressure and all kinds of other factors. Once the pressure drops, the extraction rate drops, in a slow, prolonged decline.

 

    The sum of all the oil fields in the world is likely to follow the same general trend. We will not suddenly "run out," but follow a slow decline over perhaps 100 years. For example, maybe in 2010 we will extract 80 million barrels per day globally; in 2030, 50 million barrels; in 2060, 30 million barrels; in 2070, 10 million barrels. There is still A LOT of oil left.

 

    Besides petroleum, we have natural gas, coal, hydropower, and nuclear power as industrial power sources. Of these, petroleum is projected to peak any time now, if it has not already; natural gas is projected to peak in 2015; coal is projected to peak in 2100 plus or minus 50 years. I haven't found any good projections for nuclear; no new nuclear plants have been built in the United States in 30 years, but that is mainly due to political nervousness about nuclear accidents. 

 

    In the short term, say 20 years, I expect petroleum use to decline, but coal use to increase. This suggests that electric cars or electric powered rail might be popular. This does NOT imply that electric cars will replace conventional cars. Electric cars have been available for 100 years, but they have never caught on due to various drawbacks. It has been said that when oil prices rise, electric cars will be more affordable. Maybe they will be more affordable than conventional cars at that time, but I don't think they will be more affordable than they are now. Just about everything will be LESS AFFORDABLE.

 

    For that matter, there is a lot of discussion about how to replace conventional cars. I don't think they will ever be replaced. I think that people will just stop driving. (Remember, this is likely to happen over the next 100 years.)

Already, all the driving trends are down, for the first time in history! I think that both the average number of miles per person will drop as well as the number of drivers.

 

    In the longer term, say 500 years, not only will most of the petroleum be consumed, but also the natural gas and coal. So, if you want to have fun devising ways of converting one form of energy to another, have fun with that, but remember that in the long term natural gas and coal are going to follow the same trend as petroleum.

 

      The wild card is nuclear energy. If we manage to make some technological breakthrough, then everything changes. I do not say that it won't happen, but I am not counting on it.

 

    People have lived for thousands of years without cars. It's very difficult to even imagine it, but it can be done. There might even be some benefits, such as the ability to walk around in neighborhoods coming back. I don't expect some catastrophe when oil prices spike. I don't expect some modern, green utopia, either. I DO expect the majority of modern industrial civilization to eventually collapse. Notice that I said INDUSTRIAL. Without a source of power, our industrial economy is doomed eventually.

 

    In the meantime, we have solar energy. Not the photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity, but the ability to grow things under the light. In other words, agriculture. Growing plants is the most useful way to turn solar energy into useful things.

 

      Our biggest source of energy is solar energy. It isn't mentioned much, because it is taken for granted. All of our industrial might is just a fraction of our ability to grow things.

 

    A thousand years ago, before the industrial revolution, political power belonged to those who controlled land and the ability to grow things. Since it's hard to control all of the land, political power was dispersed among millions of people around the globe. Since the industrial revolution, more and more of the political power has been controlled by those in control of sources of industrial energy. Since these sources were concentrated at mines and well heads, a relatively small number of people became very wealthy compared to everyone else.

 

    By far, the people of the United States found themselves in control of the lion's share of industrial energy sources. It has been said that Americans have 4% of the world's population but control 20% of the world's resources. Indeed, as recently as WWII there were comparatively few automobiles outside of the United States.

 

    We in the United States had a head start in developing natural resources, which has led to increased consumption in this country. Will we exhaust ours first because we started first? Or will resources continue to flow our way for some other reason? I don't know. I don't think the United States will suddenly collapse into a third world country. We were not a third world country before petroleum was produced. We are also blessed with other natural resources besides hydrocarbons. 

 

    A lot of folks on this site like to observe old photographs and note the things that have changed. Imagine a tree growing. The pace of change is so imperceptively slow that no one notices. Yet, if you look at old photographs, you can see that a large tree was once just a little seedling. We tend not to notice slow changes.

 

    The industrial revolution has been with us, say, 300 years now, of which only in the last 100 years have we had automobiles. The number of automobiles on the road doubled from about 1950 to 1960. Yet, no one seemed to notice a catastrophic change as our old cities disappeared and the suburban landscape came to dominate.

 

    Indeed, I expect such a gradual change to continue. I can't say for sure what it will be. I have my guesses:

   

    Car ownership will drop as cars become unaffordable. The poor of course will do without them first, and the rich will hold on to them as long as possible.

   

    With car ownership dropping, parking lots will gradually disappear. My guess is that the land will be used for agriculture, or maybe it will revert to forest.

     

      Americans will hold on to their cars as long as possible. The automobile industry will last longer than the airline industry. Every flight that is cancelled frees up that much more petroleum for automobiles.

   

      As natural gas declines, the single family suburban home will decline, at least in the Midwest where natural gas is used for heat. This may be just as much as a factor in suburbia as the automobile.

 

    All kinds of products will become more energy-efficient, some by technological improvement and some by downsizing. This will aleviate energy declines.

 

    The southern half of the United States will increase in population. By world standards, the United States is presently underpopulated. The northern half, especially the great lakes region, will decline as the hydrocarbons on which so much of the economy is based are depleted. Economists will write about the loss of manufacturing jobs.

   

      Saudi Arabia will continue to sell oil as long as they can. They will not suddenly cut off production. They need the cash to trade for food, which they do not have.

   

      Birth rates in developed countries will continue to drop. This will ease pressure due to declining industrial energy production. Developed countries will still have the highest standard of living, even without hydrocarbons.

   

    Third World countries will continue to suffer as they do now. A lot of people will die, as they do now. Some folks will manage to migrate from the third world countries to the first world countries and improve their lives, as they do now.

 

    Sources of political power will change along with sources of industrial power.

     

    Somehow, somewhere, someone will find a way to continue to drive cars, but the automobile age will have been recognized to be over. The world will seem very different than it does now, as different as the year 1900 seems to us.

 

    Some people will conserve energy, as they do now. Some people will waste energy, as they do now. Some people will berate other people for wasting energy, as they do now. Some people will dream of future utopias, as they do now.

 

    And finally, my guess is that someone will write a book about what America used to be like and why this happened.

 

    Again, I don't pretend to know what is going to happen. These are only my humble guesses.

 

    That was a long post, but you asked for it.  :-)

 

    Cheers.

   

 

 

Wow... a lot to digest there.  Thanks for the input!

 

It's great that you bring up that this won't happen overnight.  People need to be reminded of this when talking about global warming as well.  Especially when they see water rushing into the streets of NYC on the discovery channel.

 

The one glaring thing that I disagree with you on is your belief that the great lakes regions population will decline with people moving south.  A big factor you are probably forgetting about is drinking water... the most valued natural resource on the planet.  Without energy to run distillation plants the south may not be able to handle large population increases.  I'm guessing it will be easier to heat these peoples homes in the north than provide drinking water for them in the south.

It is also easier to live in a home that stays in the low 60s for the winter (not that I do it :) ) than it is to live without having enough water.

 

Historically people have been able to live in climates such as the Midwest's much better than they did in the desert, regardless of the energy available to them.

First, please don't use the words "Run out of oil" because they are ambiguous. They imply that there is a big tank, and oil is produced at a steady rate, until it suddenly dries up. In reality, the rate at which any individual oil field yeilds oil is a function of pressure and all kinds of other factors. Once the pressure drops, the extraction rate drops, in a slow, prolonged decline.

 

The sum of all the oil fields in the world is likely to follow the same general trend. We will not suddenly "run out," but follow a slow decline over perhaps 100 years. For example, maybe in 2010 we will extract 80 million barrels per day globally; in 2030, 50 million barrels; in 2060, 30 million barrels; in 2070, 10 million barrels. There is still A LOT of oil left.

 

 

Do you agree that we get the oil better out of the ground today than we did 50-100 years ago?  If so, what makes you think we won't come up with new and better ways to extract it in the next 100 years?  That gives us plenty of time to come up with new forms of technology.

 

    I just read an 800+ page book written in 1913 about the oil extraction in Ohio at that time. Certainly their methods were primitive by today's standards. Of course extraction technology has improved.

 

    We WILL come up with better ways to extract oil. However, there will be less oil left to extract!

 

    Before oil can be extracted, it has to be discovered. We have all kinds of technology to search for oil that we didn't have just 20 years ago. Yet oil DISCOVERY peaked around 1960!

 

    That is, we discovered more oil in 1960 than we did in 2000. A lot more. Chances are that the oil in your car was discovered before you were born. (Unless you are Rob)  :laugh:

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

    "A big factor you are forgetting about is drinking water."

 

    Populations are limited by the most precious resource, not the most abundant one. The eastern half of the United States- both north and south - is blessed with abundant water supplies by world standards.

"Historically people have been able to live in climates such as the Midwest's much better than they did in the desert, regardless of the energy available to them."

 

    I read that a member of one of the pioneer families in the Cincinnati area lived in an unheated house until he was over 30. It may not be comfortable, but it is possible, and people did it. People in those days would go for months without bathing, I imagine, because it was too cold to take a bath in the winter.

 

    Again, hard to imagine today, but that was life then.

I know that I keep the house at 60 degrees during the winter.  It's a bit chilly at times but you get used to it. And as it keeps heating costs lower I cant complain about it.  All it really requires is to always wear a sweatshirt or hoodie which, as it is winter, you would probably be doing anyway. 

 

btw, the reason its at 60 is the wife likes it cold in the winter, I prefer 64 degrees in the winter.

This is what 8th & State was talking about....

 

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/energygraphics/DiscoveriesvProductionchart.gif

 

Please note that 26 of the 4,000+ oilfields produce one-fourth of the world's oil....

 

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/energygraphics/simmonsoilfieldpyramid.jpg

 

And these four oilfields produce 10 percent of the world's oil, yet they are all in terminal decline. There are no fields offering the promise of comparable production of the Big Four being discovered to replace them....

 

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/energygraphics/OilFieldsInDecline.gif

We should be able to integrate over both of the curves in teh Discoveries/Production graph to figure out how many barrells of oil there are which have been discovered and not yet used.  This would probably be able to pretty effectively predict when that dotted-line major dropoff in production should occur (it looks to me like it would actually be sooner than the graph indicates).

The above chart uses a median value trend line, not actual year-to-year data. Here's a more detailed chart the actual data....

 

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/energygraphics/Discovery-ProductionGap.jpg

 

Then you can cross reference it with this data (or just use a 90 million barrels of oil per day consumption rate for the whole planet)....

 

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/energygraphics/Oil_Usebynationbarchart.jpg

 

Do you agree that we get the oil better out of the ground today than we did 50-100 years ago?  If so, what makes you think we won't come up with new and better ways to extract it in the next 100 years?  That gives us plenty of time to come up with new forms of technology.

 

Eighth and State answered this just fine.  I only want to add: don't make the mistake of thinking that technology = energy.  It doesn't. 

Perhaps this needs its own thread, like "The Future of Automobile Transportation" or something (I'll let the mods decide)... but the developed world seems to be hoping that we can just switch out gasoline for something else in our cars... like lithium batteries.  As it turns out, this would just make the developed world dependent upon yet another finite resource that it doesn't have:  Lithium.  Recently, there was an excellent article in the UK paper, The Daily Mail, on this very subject.  See below. 

 

One thing the developed world, particularly the US, needs to come to grips with is that the question needs to shift from "how do we keep all of the cars running?",  to "Is car-based transportation at developed world levels really sustainable?" 

 

I strongly urge everyone to read this article...

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1166387/In-search-Lithium-The-battle-3rd-element.html#

 

 

In search of Lithium: The battle for the 3rd element

 

The good news: A wonder metal that fires your phone, iPod and shiny new electric car is so clean it may save the planet. The bad news: More than half of the world's lithium is beneath this Bolivian desert...and getting it is so dirty it inspired the latest Bond plot

 

By DAN McDOUGALL

April 5, 2009

Salar De Uyuni in Bolivia

 

Salar De Uyuni in Bolivia is a little-known but expansive desert of Cactus, rainwater lagoons and ten billion tons of salt covering nearly 5,000 square miles

 

Darkness falls across the Andes, turning the distant snow caps from blinding white to nothingness in the blink of an eye. From the east, the night races across the bleak Altiplano towards us, as the temperature plummets to below zero, leaving the windswept emptiness of the planet's largest salt plain in a vast cold shadow....

 

 

Yes, but as in the past, technology can find new ways to extract the oil, and possibly discover new fields. 

Yes, but as in the past, technology can find new ways to extract the oil, and possibly discover new fields.

 

Past performance is not a predictor of future results.  We are very good at finding oil.  As has already been pointed out to you, oil discoveries peaked in the '60s.  The reality we are in is that the world needs to discover about a Saudi Arabia's worth of oil (~260 bbl) every 8 years, just to keep up.  There are no more Saudi Arabia's left.  All the technology in the world, current or future, isn't going to change that. 

 

 

I actually think the electric car thing will turn out to be a failure. Every time we get to messing with heavy metals they end up causing all sorts of other problems. For home heating, I think trees + geothermal can get us quite a ways along. I'm closer to DanB than those who figure we are setting ourselves for group suicides to help the planet in a couple generations. I have faith we will figure something out, though batteries aren't realistic, especially since heavy metals seem to be constantly problematic in terms of getting them out of the earth and the like. We will end up with a lot of nuclear energy or some variation of fusion reactor.

I would hope we're all closer to DanB than group suicide!  :lol:

 

I'm sure there are solutions out there, in addition to conservation, that could be had next week or 20 years from now. But the responsible question is, who would keep driving toward an unknown abyss at full speed?

 

Gildone says technology shouldn't be confused with energy. Faith isn't an energy resource either.

"Yes, but as in the past, technology can find new ways to extract the oil, and possibly discover new fields."

 

  "New Fields" is the key here.

 

  Petroleum was known since ancient times, as it sometimes seeps out of the ground, but only since the 1800's have speculators actually gone out drilling for it. In the crudest way, a speculator will construct a drill rig and drill a hole in a random place and see if there is any oil there. Many holes are dry, but if it produces a lot of oil, then the speculator can become rich.

 

    Technology can increase the odds off success by developing better drilling equipment and by guessing better at where the oil is. Most of our knowledge of geology was driven in search of natural resources, especially petroleum. We are no longer drilling at random; there are all kinds of ways to ascertain what is underground. But in the end, the choice to drill is still just a guess.

 

    The annoying thing about drilling is that once you find a field and develop it, the petroleum becomes depleted. To maintain production, you have to start drilling somewhere else.

 

    Indeed, that is what has happened. Drilling began in both the United States and Europe at about the same time. Oil companies were formed to raise capital and drill for oil. As production was depleted in well after well, new ones were drilled everywhere.

 

    Ohio was once the oil capital of the world, and Ohio owes a lot of her prosperity to oil, as well as natural gas and coal. People even talked about the end of oil long ago, in the 1920's. Effectively, Ohio's oil industry peaked long ago. But when the Ohio oil companies moved on, they discovered oil in Texas and Oklahoma, which became the new oil capital. Yet those fields began to be depleted as well, and the companies moved on to Alaska, the Middle East, South America, and, in effect, the rest of the world.

 

    Large discoveries were made in Alaska, the North Sea, the Middle East, Nigeria, and Venezuela. Small discoveries were made almost everywhere.

 

    The entire world has been prospected, with perhaps the exception of the poles.

 

    New fields continue to be discovered, but a large no really big discoveries have been made in a long time.

 

    Think of it as a game of Battleship. Since the large ships are bigger, they are usually discovered first. The little ships may survive until the end of the game. But of course you can't discover a ship if it isn't there. In the game of Battleship, the number of ships at the beginning of the game is known, but what if it wasn't? You can continue to drop bombs until every location on the board has been checked, but you will experience diminishing returns.

 

    Today there have been so many holes drilled in the earth that we can be confident that we will NOT find a new Saudi Arabia.

 

    Now, the normal everyday person does not study geology. He does not follow the oil industry. He simply buys his gasoline at the station, like his father did and his grandfather before him. Gasoline seems no different than any other product. But, it IS different, because it is non-renewable. A farm can produce grain for many, many years, but a well can produce petroleum only once. The rate at which a well can produce depends on many factors, but all wells are depleted eventually.

 

    The sum production of thousands of individual wells is what we call the global oil production, and the point at which the sum production of all the wells is at the maximum is what we call peak oil.

 

    Data on oil production is not easy to come by, and there are debates on the real numbers, not to mention the projections. However, there is a general agreement that peak oil has been reached, or is about to be reached. There are at least ten books on the subject if you are interested.

 

  In short, New Technology has ALREADY discovered almost all of the oil that there is to be discovered. New Technology is already accounted for in oil production projections.

 

   

 

   

Everything that can be invented has been invented.

 

--Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

^again, technology isn't the problem, it's how much oil there is left to get. 

 

    Some experts have estimated that the global supplies of recoverable oil amount to 3 trillion barrels, and at this point we have consumed about half of that.

 

  Maybe they were wrong. Maybe there are 6 trillion barrels, or even 12 trillion barrels. Maybe we have only consumed 10% of the global oil supply. No one knows for sure.

 

    But you have to agree that there is a FINITE amount of petroleum. It is not increasing by any known natural or artificial process. New technology does not change this number.

 

    This is true of any mineral. Take Silver for example. We started with a certain amount of silver in the ground. Silver is useful for many things, including jewelry, money, electric circuits, camera film, watch batteries, and so on.

 

    Global silver production is recognized to have peaked long ago, around 1915. This means that more new silver was extracted in 1915 than this year. This is despite having 85 years of improved technology. If it isn't there, it doesn't matter haw hard you look for it.

 

    Silver, unlike petroleum, can be recycled. So, the actual amount of silver IN USE approaches the amount that has ever been mined.

 

    Nevertheless, silver has been making it's way into landfills via camera film. Processing centers have always recycled the silver from film, but nevertheless, some of it ends up in landfills.

 

    Digital cameras have come a long way in replacing film cameras. So, we have another way to take photos without wasting all that silver.

 

    Digital cameras have changed the way that people take and share photos. Just a few years ago I was careful not to waste film. I wanted to get my money's worth from each picture. I took maybe 50 photos per year. Now, I have a little digital camera that holds 10,000 digital images. I took over 2000 photos on one trip. I only printed a handful of those photos. Technology has changed the way we use cameras.

 

    In 1970, someone claimed that we were "running out of silver."

 

    We didn't have a catastrophe. But we did have a quiet revolution in photography. Film cameras are still available, but who uses a Polaroid instant camera anymore?

 

    What DIDN'T happen was discovery of major new sources of silver.

 

   

Gee, are you saying that technology improved?

 

    Yes, obviously.

 

    Technology has improved on almost every front. I am amazed at technology, and I feel like I can't keep up with it, even in my own field.

 

 

 

"We have the technology... We can rebuild it..." Rather than seek technologies to increase the supply of oil and therefore hasten its depletion, we can use technologies mankind has developed in recent decades to be more productive with the resources we have.......

 

Technology, such as intelligent urban design which mixes land uses within the range of pedestrians and therefore requires fewer vehicular trips......

 

http://photos.igougo.com/images/p406867-Dublin-Grafton_Street_City_Centre.jpg

 

 

Or there are destinations around town that are just a bit too far for walking. So include bike-friendly features in urban design.....

 

http://www.pedbikeimages.org/repository/0005D414-D312-1C34-80BD80D21AC3FE77.jpg

 

http://www.pedbikeimages.org/repository/ACFQJBZxaqWu.jpg

 

 

For our food needs, does a tomato or a green bean or other foods really need to travel an average of 1,500 miles from a farm to a family's dinner table? Clean up and make better use of the vacant land in our urban and suburban areas....

 

http://easywaystogogreen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/urban_garden.jpg

 

 

Internalize all of the government costs associated with oil/gas development, production and military protection of oil shipments by increasing the gas tax to cover those costs. I suspect you'll see a lot more efficient vehicles like this on the roads, which will mean that motorists won't pay any more taxes than they do now while reducing consumption....

 

http://www.autointheknow.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/toyota-yaris-image-1.jpg

 

http://www.chevrolet.com/i/pic/cobalt/2009/photogallery/ext_gallery01.jpg

 

 

And, of course, travel across town by electrically powered transit means less energy consumption (including from fossil fuels). Also, the pedestrian-friendly urban development needed for rail transit's best success reduces energy use by even greater amounts since people don't have to hop in the car to run every little errand....

 

http://urbanlivinginca.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/2422466536_0a0742d03c.jpg

 

Or light rail for a little faster transit.....

http://www.samknecht.com/trips/sd_80_la_light_rail_transit_sm.JPG

 

Or heavy rail/subway/elevated for even faster transit.....

http://www.geocities.com/los_angeles_coast/Los_Angeles_subway_Highland.jpg

 

Or regional/commuter rail for fast trips out into the urban hinterland to visit pedestrian-friendly "satellite" towns.....

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o263/Daneelo/DoSto/DoSto_CD471.jpg?t=1240163376

 

And of course high speed trains to cities 100 to 600 miles away (and farther or closer, in some cases).....

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o263/Daneelo/Occasional%20Train%20Blogging/HS2007/HS2007_EurostarMedway.jpg

 

With air-rail links enhanced so that fast trains can serve as connecting flights (this is Frankfurt, Germany)....

http://www.yuanda.com.cn/UpLoadFiles/projects/business/2007110513591150351.jpg

 

 

Water shipping is the most energy efficient way to move freight. We need to invest more in terminals on navigable waterways...

 

http://www.muuga-ct.com/89ior.jpg

 

 

But since water routes don't go everywhere, expand infrastructure for truck/train linkages so energy efficient rail freight can haul stuff long-distances and trucks will take it from train to loading dock and vice-versa....

 

http://www.pacificnational.com.au/library/photos/sites/images/sites_img_3.jpg

 

 

And of course all the alternative energy sources.....

 

http://www.greenthinkers.org/blog/images/highwaywindturbine_photo.jpg

 

http://www.ecosherpa.com/images/ev2.jpg

 

http://www.reuk.co.uk/OtherImages/repower-5mw-wind-turbine.jpg

 

http://energyethos.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/landfilldone.jpg

 

http://universalnewtech.com/images/Solar%20heater%20and%20hot%20water-sml.jpg

 

http://randwick.ses.nsw.gov.au/albums/album73/Solar_water_heater_blown_off_roof.sized.jpg

 

The technology exists to live comfortably on this earth with the resources we have, but not to continue to increase our consumption of oil at the exponential rate we have been since the mid-20th century. We can do it!

Well-illustrated post, KJP.

 

... That is, we discovered more oil in 1960 than we did in 2000. A lot more. Chances are that the oil in your car was discovered before you were born. (Unless you are Rob)  :laugh:

 

My first car was a 1951 Hudson, bought used for $250 in 1956. The oil I used probably came from Drake's Well, floated down the creek in wooden barrels during a spring freshet :wink:. It cost 25 cents/quart. Premium oil for fancy cars cost 35 cents, and regular gas cost 29.9 cents/gallon except when there was a price war and it dropped to 24.9.

http://ndn3.newsweek.com/media/43/090411_OVCover-thumb4.jpg

 

http://www.peakoil.net/headline-news/newsweek-and-cheap-oil-forever

 

Newsweek and “Cheap Oil forever”

Submitted by Kjell Aleklett on Mon, 2009-04-20 18:38.

 

Kjell Aleklett, President of ASPO International, Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, www.peakoil.net. Professor in Global Energy Systems, Uppsala University, Sweden, www.fysast.uu.se/ges

 

Newsweek’s cover declares that we shall have ”Cheap Oil Forever”. Furthermore, on their hompage, www.newsweek.com they promise that we shall be told ”The truth about oil” and the person who will tell us is Ruchir Sharma, Head of Emerging Markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Of course, I want to know who this oracle is and, with the help of Google, I discover Ruchr Sharma as a smiling young man in the prime of his life. With great interest I examine the article "If It’s in the Ground, It Can Only Go Down", the article that will show me the truth that my research group strives daily to find, that truth that the entire world seeks.

 

 

..............

Al-Naimi Says Saudi Oil Output Below Target; Stockpiles to Fall

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBL_62gRgvrE&refer=home#

 

By Christian Schmollinger and Shigeru Sato

 

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s biggest oil exporter, is producing less crude than its target and global stockpiles are likely to decline, according to Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi.

 

The country is producing less than 8 million barrels of crude a day, al-Naimi told reporters today in Tokyo, where he is attending a meeting of Asian energy ministers. Stockpiles “will come down eventually,” he said.

 

U.S. stockpiles have climbed to the highest since September 1990 even as Saudi Arabia leads the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ efforts to implement a 4.2 million barrel a day reduction in oil output from the group’s September levels... The country is producing 7.79 million barrels a day, less than its target of 8.1 million barrels a day.

 

 

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Schmollinger in Tokyo at [email protected]; Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at [email protected];

Last Updated: April 25, 2009 08:43 EDT

Speaking of Saudi arabia ,..I am in that country last 2 years Is there any new there?

 

_________________

LED Flashlight

 

A thoughtful essay......

___________________

 

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2009/05/rethinking-rust-belt.html

 

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Rethinking the Rust Belt

Posted by John Michael Greer

 

One of the least useful habits of thought fostered by the modern mythology of progress, it seems to me, is the notion that historical change can only move in one direction – the direction in which it seems to be going at the present. Those of us who suggest that today’s industrial societies are headed for a process of decline and fall, not that different from the ones that ended civilizations of the past, run up against this insistence constantly. The truism that time only goes one way gets distorted into the claim that since the last three hundred years have seen a great deal of expansion and technical development, the future must follow the same trajectory.

 

 

...........

"Thus the possibility of a Rust Belt renaissance in the coming decades should not be dismissed out of hand."

 

The sustainability movement that is afoot among businesses, non-profits, grassroots, and some local governments in Cleveland/NE Ohio, Pittsburgh, and now even Detroit, is what will ultimately revive the rust belt.  Peak oil will help accelerate the shift. 

Peak Oil: Global Oil Production’s Peaked, Analyst Says

 

May 4, 2009

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/05/04/peak-oil-global-oil-productions-peaked-analyst-says/

 

Dust off those survivalist manuals and brush up on your dystopias: Peak oil is back.

 

Global production of petroleum peaked in the first quarter of last year, says analysts Raymond James, which “represents a paradigm shift of historic proportions. Unfortunately, mankind better get ready to live in a peak oil world because we believe the ‘peak’ is now behind us.”...

 

 

  "Then expect oil prices to jump back toward triple digits"

 

    Peak oil is not about price. I wish folks would stop making price predictions.

The question for a peak oil geography is whether we would rather heat or cool our homes (and businesses). Once upon a time, we basically could not cool our buildings (we could design to them to be cooler, anyway), then we invented air conditioning and suddenly the sunny climes of the South and West was more inviting. A/C requires electricity, which means either coal or nuclear or other (there are geothermal systems, but I have a hard time seeing retrofitting to a large enough to degree that it would solve much), whereas you can burn whatever to create heat. If electricity stays cheaper but gas/oil/coal rise in price then the end of the Rust Belt will only accelerate (you ain't seen nothing yet, throw a carbon tax against the midwest with no funding to build massive nuclear plants and the last person to the South and West will you please bring the light bulb with you).

  "Then expect oil prices to jump back toward triple digits"

 

    Peak oil is not about price. I wish folks would stop making price predictions.

 

But it is back up to $60 today.  :-D

Unless there's considerable investment in new nuclear generating facilities, the cost of electricity will rise along with the cost of fossil fuels. Nuclear plants are ghastly expensive to build, and they won't get any cheaper as the prices of materials and energy climb.

 

There is an option for air conditioning that doesn't require electricity to operate, other than the motors to circulate cooled air; the ammonia absorption cycle, driven by a heat source. It's what's used in propane-fueled gas refrigerators in recreational vehicles and in some Amish households where kerosene may provide the energy. It's the principle behind the earliest air conditioning in railroad cars in the steam era, when steam from the locomotive's boiler provided the heat.

 

In its simplest form it has no moving parts and uses environmentally-benign ammonia, hydrogen, and water. It gets its energy from heat, and operates in a closed cycle so the ammonia and hydrogen recirculate continuously and don't need to be replenished.

 

In today's market ammonia absorption refrigeration is more expensive to build and install than a conventional compressor-driven system using HCFC refrigerant, and when electricity or petroleum fuel provides the heat it's less energy-efficient. Using solar heat, though, the operating cost is nearly zero and the hotter the day, the higher the system's output.