Science Question about Oil consumption

We can create hydrocarbon chains from higher energy dense sources like thorium nuclear energy or if we had it, a contained fusion reaction.

But that isn't the issue really, the issue is the amount of energy required to produce the oil from artificial means. Same thing with abiotic oil. I personally believe that the core of our earth produces hydrocarbon chains like petroleum and natural gas along with water as by-products in a continual plasma reaction.

But again, it's the cost to produce, drill or obtain the oil. How much energy is required to drill down 20,000 feet and pump out oil? It costs more energy than you can yield. When we discovered the uses of oil most deposits were at or near the surface of the earth, and they were under hydro-static pressure so it was fairly easy to pump out. During the oil booms days of the mid-west they just sunk a hole in the ground and oil came gushing out because the reservoir was under pressure (overburden of soil and rock).

This is the essence of peak oil, not that we pump out all the oil but that the cost to drill, refine and deliver to market additional oil costs us more and more every day. You see that in the oil future's market now, if oil went to $200 a barrel most oil companies still wouldn't produce a profit because the costs to drill, refine and deliver to market a barrel of oil rise in lock step with the price increase.

Most energy companies are now operating from deficits, enabled by bond sales (debt) which in turn are enabled by the world's central bank continually degrading credit quality.

The term you want to use then is called the energy returned over energy invested ratio. Sweet crude oil used to provide 40 or more barrels of oil for every barrel of oil energy used. But now shale oil plays deliver less than 5 barrels of oil for every barrel of oil energy invested. And that ratio is dropping fast.

Alternative energies cannot fill in the gap either because they are inter-mittent sources and require fossil fuel backups, and our energy distribution system along with all the toys we power oil with were designed for oil. No one even considers how much energy would be required to replace our gasoline engines with electric cars. It works for the few thousand people that buy these cars, but to replace the entire world's automobiles would require more energy than we can produce.

This is peak oil.

originally posted by: SkeptiSchism
Alternative energies cannot fill in the gap either because they are inter-mittent sources and require fossil fuel backups, and our energy distribution system along with all the toys we power oil with were designed for oil. No one even considers how much energy would be required to replace our gasoline engines with electric cars. It works for the few thousand people that buy these cars, but to replace the entire world's automobiles would require more energy than we can produce.

Almost no electrical grids are powered by oil. Natural gas is dominant. As ground vehicles switch to electric drive, so will the money which used to go to petroleum fuel. This will help fund the electrical grid development. It will take decades, but it will happen. Peak Oil will be painful but because it happens slower than market price signals, people will adapt. The recent major declines in battery prices and solar panel prices came at the right time to help the transition be feasible if not pleasant.

I am much more afraid of the climate consequences as more coal and gas is burnt to make electricity. We should cease coal ASAP and replace with modular nuclear plus renewable with flow battery storage & buffering.