When and what happens when oil runs out: The answer

We still have coal, so electricity will be around for a bit more.

why not use ethanol, it is a renewable resource. and is better for the enviroment.

reply to post by crawgator406

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WOW, this is an old thread.

Good time to dust it off, and give credit to the Op for being so accurate in the prediction.

Peak oil occurred in late 2005, and the oil prices we are seeing are the result. Those who argue that peal oil has not occurred are drinking the oil companies cool aid. Sure, we are not going to completely run out of oil, But, the oil sources of the future are going to be FAR, FAR, more expensive to tap.

Alternative energy sources are already starting to be developed, and lets face it, we could make huge gains in our efficiency standards. I take a train to work, and it is far more relaxing and enjoyable than driving, the big problem is that public transportation is so limited, it takes such a long time to get anywhere, and that is a problem that could be easily solved.

What I think is best about the inevitable rise of oil costs due to the decline of the availability of easy to access oil is that this could be the beginning of the end of big oil, and that would be a great thing for humanity. I dream of wind mill and solar mill farms, and bio-diesel farms which will not be controlled by huge international corporations.

The bad news is that food and all other costs are going to soar, and the third world nations are going to suffer the most. There will be extreme pressure to migrate to the first world nations, and things will get worse before they get better. The young populations of the third world are going to become a very big problem.

We will not run out of oil. It is my opinion that oil regenerates due to the rotation of earths core. What we need to watch out for is when other countries stop selling us their oil. That is much more likely at this point of time.

reply to post by disgustedbyhumanity

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If the Earth regenerates oil, and that is a huge IF, then it is not regenerating the oil fast enough to keep up with current demand, or the level of demand from thirty years ago, so the problem remains the same, we have to find alternative sources of energy soon.

Being that we have burned through the accumulation of oil throughout the history of the Earth in about a hundred years, in the reasonably easy to access places on the planet, no regeneration theory is going to solve anything.

reply to post by AlexofSkye

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Any oil discovery curve as a function of time clearly shows that the amount of oil being discovered over the last couple of decades has declined. As long as one keeps using some amount of a finite resource such as oil it will definitely run out. Why isn't this obvious?

there is no true alternative to petroleum products, at present.

ie. it's the most efficient and, more importantly, versatile source of energy especially for mobile use. Hydrogen is a pipe-dream, electric is going to be a decent alternative, at least for city use, even with caveats such as heavy and toxic batteries and ethanol, well, biofuels, by nature will always remain of limited volume, due to their production at low energy densities. they might, however, allow farms and remote villages to produce their own power and fuel.

On Ethanol-blend emissions

Food shortages blamed on biofuels

A World Bank classified report on the subject


i'll keep posting this stuff even on necroposted threads see one, because, like GMOs, it's all just empty promises and veiled agendas. take gas prices, they're high because the market is controlled by a cartel, take a a gander at their record profits and crude vs. refined price relations and you'll understand. peak oil or not, some people are raping a captive market, that's all, for now at least.


PS: petroleum will be phased out, hopefully sooner rather than later, all that's required to do that would (f-ex.) be a method to mine methane hydrate and another to derive longer chained hydrocarbons from it, ie. synthetic fuel.

these two goals are by no means utopic.

[edit on 2008.11.7 by Long Lance]

Really? Accurate predictions?



There is no conclusive ( i would say non but interpretation does vary depending on how well informed one is) proof that peak oil occurred in late 2005 and there most certainly isn't any more proof for it now despite the fact that so many countries oil production capacities remains devastated or undeveloped.



Those that argue that peak oil has occurred are drinking far more intoxicating stuff than cool aid. The oil companies are not pushing the peak oil issue despite the fact that it would make much sense for them to do so while continuing their actions to prevent true alternatives from gaining market share.



Which must be why oil prices slumped to 8 USD in 1998 leading to a decade of underdevelopment and reduced exploration to prevent more oil gluts and price slumps? Isn't it barely ten years later and we are again heading for a massive glut on the oil market? How can it be said that oil is 'peaking' when it's price can collapse so spectacularly without the demand being much reduced?



And that has been the case for more than 100 years yet here we are using oil.



It does take more time but in many ways you have that time for some form of personal enrichment. If everyone read a few books in that time we would ALL be better off.



Big oil wont so easily slip into oblivion and while they will milk oil revenue's to the last day i am confident they will ensure their place in the new energy economy by hook and or by crook.



I dream of vacuum energy extraction( a reality since oil become 'popular' but i must admit that the wind mills are far more beautiful and awe inspiring.



Well they don't have to but the same forces as before will do their best to keep these third world citizens poor and unable to defend their resources with the legal, social and martial prowess that results from better education and living standards.



If the pressure on the third world is kept up that would be the case but it doesn't have to be that way if we all did our part to spread the word about why and how the third world is kept in it's artificial impoverished state by mostly western powers.



Or the solution if we can help them to shut the door on those who would exploit their resources to further the wealth and power they will then employ to slowly destroy western living standards in similar fashion.

Stellar

i strongly agree nevertheless fossil fuels, altogethor are expected to run out in roughly 80 yrs

we will never run out of oil.

we may run out of oil in the ground but.

during WW2 the Germans had very little oil.

They made there own oil using the Fischer-Tropsch process.
en.wikipedia.org...

With this process we can MAKE oil from trash, sewage, biomass, ETC

This should be a priory with the Obama administration to build these plants.

We could emanate land fills, hazardous waste dumps. treated sewage going into our rivers with drugs in it. all toxic to the environment
ag.arizona.edu...

We could cut our need for arab oil by a good % just by building these plants.

Along with improving the gas mileage of our cars we might be able to end the use of arab oil

reply to post by StellarX

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I don't know what you are looking for when it comes to conclusive proof that oil production peaked in 2005, but there is far more evidence of peak oil than there is evidence that the advanced Western nations are responsible for all the poverty and the all the brutal third world dictators in the world.

www.oildecline.com...




www.theoildrum.com...

I guess we don't pay attention to all those cooks that say energy
is all around us.
Perhaps if they mentioned a few good solid leads we might pay attention.
Some times I feel their non sense is a put up job to make the whole
idea seem ridiculous as they go on and on about nothing at all.

What to do without oil?
The oil companies won't solve that problem.
In fact they will do down selling their last drop like fighting at the Alamo.

Solutions will be around.
Like my optics teacher once quizzed the class: if you were the last
person on earth, starting life over again on the planet, how would you
make white paint.
I don't think any one got the answer.
So we need more than one person.

I think Sugar ethanol, Cannibus ethanol, and soybean diesel have excellent chances of becoming very viable energy alternatives. Cleaning burning coal technology has been improved dramatically, and there is no reason to believe that it will not continue to improve. Wind power has already been shown to be very effective. There are many areas where the wind always blows.

The U.S. needs a major effort to redesign its infrastructure. Why couldn't there be maglev systems that allow individuals to operate their privately owned vehicles on a magnetic levitation system? A computer controlled system like this could possibly be made more efficient and versatile than our current road system. There are a great many possibilities to explore. You might be able to jump on a maglev super highway and travel across the country in your personal vehicle at 200mph. The computer system would control your speed, you wouldn't have to steer, you could watch videos or do whatever. With a little extra your vehicle could also be designed to work off the grid.

reply to post by poet1b

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I saw one of those Wind Power fields and I thought what a waste of space.
The number of true atomic generators that could be placed in that
field could power the world.

Well, it might take all the wind power fields in the world not just the
one, but thats what I thought.

There is still the research on the radiant power that seems neglected
or under cover for some reason as that would replace the atomic
generators that are under cover as well. See electrical engineering
just goes on and on as Tesla ignored GE and made upgrades to
power generation that are still ignored by the world.

What is everyones problem with Hydrogen?

I just don't get it... Hydrocarbons get their energy FROM the hydrogen Oxygen combustion process.

Surely it cant be the efficiency of electrolysis... which is from 80-95% efficient.

It CANNOT be Hydrogen Embrittlemnt, which is caused by Atomic Hydrogen (A product of arc welding) and not Molecular Hydrogen (a product of electrolysis)

We already have viable hydrogen storage vessels (pressurized for vehicular, Metal hydrides for in place storage, Liquid for Aviation.)

We already have abundant energy resources to power this hydrogen economy...

High efficiency Copper Indium Gallium Selenium Nanoparticle cells have reduced the cost per watt of solar cells to comperable with coal power.

Slap those babies on peoples roofs (gov't Subsidization)

Make a whole bunch of low cost solar plants (Fresnel Lens solar trough steam plants)

And just convert your gas stations to a form of grid powered Hydrogen Electrolysis station.


Simple...

There is around 6.3458186 × 10^14 watts available on the earths sunward side all the time... (every second)

(Earth Radius 6,356^2 * PI) * 1,000,000(meters^2 per Kilometer^2) * .25 (landmass) * 200 (avg watts per m^2)

To contrast, the world uses 85,085,664 barrels per day.

One barrel of oil contains 6.1*10^9 joules (joule = Watt second)

(6.1*10^9)*85,085,664 = 5.1902255 × 10^17 joules (watt seconds) per day

OR

5.1902255 × 10^17 watt seconds per day.

Contrast that to:

6.3458186 × 10^14 watt seconds per SECOND, on the sunward side of the earth.

OR

2.2844947 × 10^18 watt seconds per HOUR.

OR

1.37069682 × 10^19 watt seconds per DAY.

Using Fresnel concentration tech will reduce the amount of zinc/silver/aluminum used for reflectors.

Pumping it all back into the grid, and using at the gas stations will set up the infrastructure rather simply and cost effectively. (also cutting cost of transport.)

As far as Biodeisel, ethanol, etc...

Solar is FAR more efficient per acre than plant material... seriously, there isn't even a comparison.



Discuss.

-Edrick

To contrast, global energy useage is 17,154,402,852,000 kWh (yearly)

That is equivalent to...

543,962 Kwh/sec

OR

1,958,263,200,000 watt seconds per second

-Edrick



[edit on 6-3-2009 by Edrick]

I found that Lord Kelvin said the future belonged to windmills.

I think this upset Tesla as he wrote another anecdote to history
praising Lord Kelvin on his research on the conservation of
energy and how Lord Kelvin also his discovered of how gases did
not behave according to the rules of the Relativists.

Wow, any one pay attention.

Well, guess Lord Kelvin and the Illuminati still want wind power
cause we get the rules from their agents.