Peak Oil

[pai mei]

Peak oil means the point where oil production starts to fall ,and even if new oil fields are found the production does not go up, because usually they are too small. The last big discovery was in 1970 in Mexico the giant field Cantarell

From this site :
http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/res.html it can be seen that there are 1.2 trillion barrels in estimate reserves, untouched oil. At our current rate of consumption of 80 million barrels/ day it will last some 40 years, without taking into account the rise in demand caused by India and China

A good site about peak oil is here :

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

A few images :




We do not need to wait 40 years, the price of oil will rise as soon as the oil production starts to fall, and everything will become to expensive , that means economies will suffer.
Most oil producing countries are past their peak in production, even Saudi Arabia does not seem to be able to increase production now.
In Canada there is a lot of oil but it's trapped in tar sands, very expensive to extract.
What does everybody think about the end of oil ? Myself I don't trust that other forms of energy will save us and I predict economic collapse, anarchy, end of the world, the worse scenario

[Willravel]

This can't be the first thread on Hubbert's Peak.

[Slims]

I think it is intuitively obvious that since we are rapidly consuming a finite resource we will eventually see peak production and will eventually run out.

But I dont' think we will see the catastrophic consequences predicted by the 'peak oil crowd' either.

I think that as oil continues to become more expensive we will be forced to explore the other viable options to oil that are available to us.

I think we will simply shift from an oil based economy to something else... but we won't do it until we no longer have any choice.

[Lokus]

As cool as Mad Max is, Greg is probably right (I'm still carrying my sawed-off just in case). There are other types of fuel we can use so the world won't completely collapse. Hopefully we'll have some entirely new form of fuel we can use, nothing feeds ingenuity like desperation.

[pai mei]

The solution as I see it : railroads everywhere with electric trains, nuclear power plants, solar power, wind power, keep the oil for important stuff like : insecticides, fertilisers, medicine, plastic, and use bicycles whenever possible - short trips. But I doubt any of these will be implemented until it's too late.

Why hydrogen is not a solution :
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/fre...n_answers.html

Why ethanol is not a solution :
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchin...ent_912170.htm

It should be noted that if the entire US corn crop were converted into ethanol, it would satisfy only 16 percent of US transport needs. The amount of corn that goes into the gas tank of a large automobile could feed one person for a year.

When the market sees that it is more profitable to produce ethanol than sell the grain for food, the food industry will be in trouble. Since ethanol is used as a fuel, its price will be tied to the price of oil. As oil prices climb because of the impending world shortage of oil, ethanol prices will rise. As a consequence food prices will rise as well.

Ethanol is not oil, the plants used do not grow in one day, also they require energy , fertilisers and other stuff to grow and process. From corn you get less energy than you put in. From hemp or sugar cane you get 2 times the energy. People make ethanol from corn because it is subsidized, but it's not a smart thing to do


This shows why wasting corn helps nobody, only some farmers :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6283992.stm

In its report, the IEA argued that biofuel production would hit 1.8 million barrels by 2012, more than double 2006 levels.

Today we used 80 million barrels of oil. 1.8 million barrels by 2012 is nothing. Ethanol can be a good thing if it's made from hemp or sugar cane or something else but not grains. Look what problems this ethanol hoax is creating :

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...cle2697788.ece

Mexico was ablaze in late January. Just two months after the election of Felipe Calderon as Mexico's President, protests had broken out across the country.

Thousands of people were marching on the main cities calling on their pro-free trade businessman President to halt a phenomenon threatening the lives of millions of Mexicans.

The reason for such a substantial increase in the price lay north of the border. In order to wean itself off its addiction to oil, the US was turning to biofuels made from industrial corn like never before. Farmers in Mexico and America had been replacing edible corn crops with industrial corn that could then be processed into biofuels, leading to a decrease in the amount corn available on the open market.

[Charlatan]

As oil gets more expensive, alternative fuels become more affordable.

I don't see out power being replaced by any one source (in the way that oil is currently). Rather I see us using a number of different fuel supplies.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

As oil gets more expensive, alternative fuels become more affordable.

I don't see out power being replaced by any one source (in the way that oil is currently). Rather I see us using a number of different fuel supplies.

Maybe governments will shift all those subsidies from the oil companies to those who are developing/producing alternative power. The oil companies will, eventually, either switch over or fade away.

[filtherton]

I don't know how you folks can be so optimistic that the technology to save us from a complete economic and/or social breakdown will somehow just materialize out of thin air.

[Slims]

The technology already exists. It is just inconvenient, too expensive, or not yet polished enough for the general public.

If gas became more expensive than using nuclear power to charge your electric car, would you switch over or just throw up your hands and stop driving? The idea that society will break down simply because oil becomes (more) expensive implies that people will do the later.

I will grant that the average person has the initiative of a paperweight, but if they have to choose between a new tech or walking I think they will make the more convenient decision.

Currently there are plenty of good technologies that are not oil dependent. But oil is such an integral part of our way of life that we have been resistant to exploring those other options. We have the toolkit to make repairs, but oil isn't yet broken, so there has been no need to fix it.

[Willravel]

There aren't enough alternatives to oil to make up for oil. The real solution to this problem will be a drastic cut in global consumption, by everyone. Even using the quickest and largest implementation of all alternatives: wind, water, geothermal, solar, bio-fuels, nuclear, hydrogen, synth-coal, etc, more than 70% of the planet would be without power, not to mention the fact that it would take burning a great deal of oil to get all of those started on larger scales.

Oil has been broken since people have gotten sick from it over a hundred years ago. It's just that people who don't get sick don't care if my daughter develops life threatening asthma at the age of 3. Speaking as a father who also developed severe asthma from pollution, oil companies can go fuck themselves.

[pig]

first, i think it's important to note that everyone who posts in this thread is speaking in hypotheticals, because we are talking about the development of technologies that will take the next 20-50 years to be realized in any practical form. that said, i would like to make a few comments concerning the op.

on the topic of peak oil, i don't have much to say that is particularly useful at this time. it's a reality we have to live with. oil is a *great* chemical. with proper mitigation strategies, oil in it's uses for energy production and storage, polymer production, lubricants, hydraulics, cooling fluids, etc - it does the job. the obvious problem is that we haven't followed clever mitigation strategies, but for a long time we didn't really know we needed them. we now know, or at least strongly suspect, that we do. that is an engineering problem, and it is one that can theoretically be addressed. of course, we have the long term implications of the use we have already made of oil, and the gigantic problem of cleaning up what we have already done, dealing with the problems we can't actually fix, etc. - but what is done is done. no putting that genie back in the bottle. that is one entire problem in and of itself.

regardless, it's availability will be limited as time goes by.

2. so, if we're just dealing with the energy aspects, we have to find another method of dealing with production, storage, transportation, and recovery/end use. i personally feel that this will involve a series of cultural changes regarding what we perceive to be necessary aspects of our lifestyle that are facilitated by energy availability. currently, we live as though we have unlimited energy resources, if we're talking industrialized nations. this is changing, and will continue to change. therefore, the question becomes how far do we change, and how far do we have to change?

3. thus enters the scientific and engineering question: what do we implement for an energy source, an energy storage / carrier technology, what device do we use to recover the stored energy, what infrastructure is put in place to facilitate this, and what are the safety / environmental strategies associated with it?

i don't want to get into it too much at this point. all i will say is that the people who are working on this problem are very well aware of all the difficulties associated with it. there is no home run answer right now, but there are technologies that are being identified and assessed. these technologies are still very much developmental, but they are coming along. in the end, we will have a technology in place, or a suite of technologies, and we will have to conform to what they can provide. it is unforseeable at present as to whether a core set of technologies, in the relatively near term (think next century or so), will emerge such that we can use them in a similar way that we currently use oil, natural gas, and coal - or whether they will simply allow us to move forward while continuing to develop additional technologies. who can say what we will be doing, as a culture (perhaps on a planetary scale) in 200 years that will affect how we deal with energy?

4. so to me, the question is truly one of mindset. are you part of the problem or part of the solution? do we simply throw up our hands and say 'the sky is falling' and give up, or do we find a solution that will work, however well it works, and continue to find new ways of addressing the problem? do we go all thundar the barbarian and start riding around with a flaming sword, a fucked up chewie knock off, and hot wizard lady?

5. energy is only one problem that we will have to address culturally over the next few centuries, but it is a big one. people will continue to work on it, and in the end they will have a solution. what kind of solution? who knows...but what will be will be.

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by Greg700

The technology already exists. It is just inconvenient, too expensive, or not yet polished enough for the general public.

If gas became more expensive than using nuclear power to charge your electric car, would you switch over or just throw up your hands and stop driving? The idea that society will break down simply because oil becomes (more) expensive implies that people will do the later.

Our way of life exists because of a large supply of cheap, relatively efficient energy. There isn't anything currently available that can take its place, and anything that could would require a whole lot of money and has never been attempted on anything close to the scale required to replace oil. This doesn't even take into account all things that we use oil for that aren't directly related to energy, like plastics.

Using nuclear power to charge my electric car isn't as simple as it sounds. First, you have to build the power plants, something that is essentially impossible right now because of politics. There is no guarantee that there will be money to build them if we wait until oil gets really expensive to do so, or that we will have the political will to do so.

Even so, we will still have to deal with the political problems that will sprout up as oil gets more expensive, like china and the middle east and venezuela.

This whole thing will fundamentally alter the way we live, and i'm not enough of an optimist to think that it will result in anything close to wonderful, at least in the short term.

[blahblah454]

I have a neat video (news clip) about a guy who invented an engine that runs on water... yes that is right, tap water. It uses hardly any at all and runs just great. According to the video he has a contract with the US military right now and is working on a Hummer engine that will run on water. I don't know where the video is online but if anyone wants to PM with their email address I would be more than happy to forward it on to you.


*EDIT*
Found the video on youtube, here is the linky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9iWaCMbw60

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by blahblah454

I have a neat video (news clip) about a guy who invented an engine that runs on water... yes that is right, tap water. It uses hardly any at all and runs just great. According to the video he has a contract with the US military right now and is working on a Hummer engine that will run on water.

As always, if it sounds too good to be true...

http://anti-rant.blogspot.com/2006/0...and-water.html

I don't know. I haven't read much about this, but I've heard about this before. In theory it really does sound great though. Perhaps it will be more efficient than our current engine technology..

[pig]

well, to add to that skepticism about the HHO gas (it violates the laws of thermodynamics, etc. you don't get jack shit for free), i just thought i'd do a quick search of the literature on this. frankly, if he had this thing worked out, he'd have published it. sure, maybe he'd have worked out the ip issues first, but he would have published it. someone would have forced him to publish it.

it would have been in either science or nature. it's not. it's not in the international journal of hydrogen energy, or is it in journal of power sources.

i know many people who work in this field. if the answer were that simple, a lot of people would be out of jobs. the department of energy would be on this shit like crazy. it would be causing massive waves inside the energy community. it's not. the MAN isn't going to keep professors from watching the news and going ape shit over something like this. people who like to solve problems aren't going to keep banging their heads against the hydrogen issue to keep in line with a government or haliburtun conspiracy. they're going to work on nuclear waste destruction and mitigation, or world hunger, or making better listerine breath tape or something. they wouldn't reinvent the wheel for the fun of it.

people are looking at electrolysis for hydrogen production, as well as thermolysis, pyrolysis, and a lot of other olyses. some of them might glean results, but you need an original energy source. you can't just split water for free, then take the hydrogen gas or some meta-stable intermediate (and that would be tough...water is pretty stable. that's why it's everywhere. to keep it in a meta-stable intermediate form of HHO (whatever that means) versus H2O would be, well....tricky. as soon as it saw a contacting nucleation surface, it would be water)

that's the key part of this puzzle. if you go hydrogen, you've got to produce it, store it, ship it, release it to work energy, and regenerate it and/or the storage media.

if you go batteries, you have to create the voltage, store it, release it, and regenerate your storage media. you've got ultracapacitors, and hydride materials, and all sorts of stuff people are working on.

you've got constraints. x amount of energy in x size storage container. x temperature ranges, x pressure ranges, x number of cycles, x $ to create, x amount of scale-up availability. you've got to make it accessible, you have to have a way to put it in your house, your car, your whatever. you've got to get it out as useable energy, and you have be able to cycle that within constraints. it's a big, hairly ugly ass interesting problem.

socially, the implications will be interesting. the u.s. is actually not the biggest show, in terms of energy growth demands over the next 20-50 years. think china. think india. we dominate culturally, but how long will that last? what does the concept of a nation mean, versus the concept of the corporation? who will pick what standards we have to adapt to, or will they simply fall into place based on what we have? what happens with world population? the earth is about 25,000 miles in diameter, and people are still fucking. it's all very interesting, but we will adapt, or the earth will adapt, or both. something will happen. the best we can do is work on it. that or give up. period.

[blade02]

This is the beauty of a capitolistic society. When oil becomes too expensive, other technologies will be more affordable in comparison. Until then we keep using oil. With so much money potential, you can be sure that are and will be more people who are willing to invest the time and money to be the ones that come up with the solution. I'm not too worried about it.

Though there will have to be lots of fenagling to build more powerplants if its an electric based solution. Can't build damns because fish cant find there way home, cant' build wind mills off the coast because it blocks the view of the people who bought summer homes, cant go nuclear because its scary, and so on.

I propose lots of people (say everyone on welfare, in prison, etc) on stationary bikes, pedaling and powering electric generators. Of course you get paid based on killowatts generated and not simply hours worked. Not only does it provide clean electricity, it solves welfare, gives people in prison something to do, and if you make it mandatory for young adults (say high school kids) it gives everyone a healthier start towards adulthood. And if you're willing to put illegal aliens into immigration camps, they can pedal away and learn english and earn their citizenship. So it solves all sorts of social problems and with out giving a hand out to anyone.

[Baraka_Guru]

Although I won't deny that we need to look to the distant future, peak oil may be quite a ways off yet. Canada? More oil reserves than Russia and Iraq combined?

After Saudi Arabia, Canada has the world's largest oil reserves but, instead of being in liquid form, these are in the form of oil sands - a mixture of quartz sand, clay, silt, water and bitumen. A ton of such oil sands yields 79.5 liters or a half barrel of clean oil, on average.

Alberta, Canada, has the world's second-largest oil reserves, extraction of which has only recently become economically viable. This means that Canada has larger oil reserves than Russia and Iraq together.

Source:Jerusalem Post

The find means that Russia could potentially claim an area the size of Germany, France and Italy combined, which may contain up to 10 billion cubic meters of hydrocarbons, along with diamonds and metal ores.

Source: www.barentsobserver.com

[filtherton]

Baraka, peak oil isn't necessarily about running out of oil, it's about running out of cheaply procured oil. If i'm not mistaken, the oil in canada and russia is relatively energy and labor intensive compared to the fields we are currently using.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by filtherton

Baraka, peak oil isn't necessarily about running out of oil, it's about running out of cheaply procured oil. If i'm not mistaken, the oil in canada and russia is relatively energy and labor intensive compared to the fields we are currently using.

Yes, this is why I quoted the part about the economic viability of extracting from the oil sands. We've known the oil was there for a long time now, but the boom is just beginning. Oil companies are beginning to move into Alberta for this reason.

As far as Russia's claim is concerned, it is yet to be determined how viable the extraction of this new potential find will be, if, of course, the oil is actually there.

[tenniels]

Just a bit of a side note. I live in Alberta Canada and I have seen the severe ups and downs living in an oil rich place can create. The growth here has been banana's and while that can be good, there are always down sides. The cost of a house here has gone up so much it's insane, builders can't keep up and landlords keep raising rents due to the contstant demand for a place to live. Oil. Don't want to go into much else about it I guess. I've been riding my bike a lot lately though. Better for me, better for the environment, easier on the wallet.

[Nimetic]

The India/China thing keeps coming up.

I think people have to realize that their growth rate is due to their low base. Growth rate, ultimately is not the question. It's overall use (per head) that matters.

And I challenge anyone who visits China/India to say that they are culturally dominated by the west. It's simply not true. The Chinese don't speak the language (mostly). India... well yeah, most seem to speak some English.

That about sums it up for me to.

Although I'm thinking we'd keep ourselves warm for a short while by burning the remaining free-market economists.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by tenniels

I live in Alberta Canada and I have seen the severe ups and downs living in an oil rich place can create. The growth here has been banana's and while that can be good, there are always down sides. The cost of a house here has gone up so much it's insane, builders can't keep up and landlords keep raising rents due to the contstant demand for a place to live.

Yeah, I've heard the stories. There will always be downsides to a free-market economy. Companies can't find workers... workers can't find homes. Crazy.

Originally Posted by Nimetic

The India/China thing keeps coming up.

I think people have to realize that their growth rate is due to their low base. Growth rate, ultimately is not the question. It's overall use (per head) that matters.

And I challenge anyone who visits China/India to say that they are culturally dominated by the west.

(Emphasis mine.)

This is so true. It's amazing the inroads China is making in terms of exporting their culture. Think of movies alone. If not for the sheer volume, look at the quality of some of their productions. They put many Hollywood filmmakers to shame. (I'm not even going to discuss Bollywood.)

The growth of China and India has a huge impact on the world economy... (if you are invested in the right resource stocks, congratulations.) This includes their demand for oil products, I'm sure. But one thing to keep in mind is that places like China are not immune to the common trends of economics. They've had double-digit growth for far too long. According to the most fundamental principles of economics, this is unsustainable and, if overheated enough, could spell trouble one day. Hyperinflation is a bitch.

It's incredible the potential impact the Chinese population has on the world. Can you imagine the Chinese per-capita demand for goods and services becoming even close to that of the U.S.? This goes beyond just oil.

[jorgelito]

Just think if they decided to go to corn-ethanol for energy. Cost of corn would skyrocket. As it is, food prices should be set to increase as they need to import more and more.

I always felt that China and India were positioned well to be on the forefront of renewable energy and sustainable development. Sadly, their leadership is as myopic as ours. Such a shame.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by jorgelito

Just think if they decided to go to corn-ethanol for energy. Cost of corn would skyrocket. As it is, food prices should be set to increase as they need to import more and more.

Yeah, the use of corn ethanol as a major fuel source is borderline unethical (is it over the line, maybe?) considering the devastating impact it would have on populations that depend on corn as a staple. Consider Mexico.

Originally Posted by jorgelio

I always felt that China and India were positioned well to be on the forefront of renewable energy and sustainable development. Sadly, their leadership is as myopic as ours. Such a shame.

Au contraire...

Renewable energy source usage is significantly higher in Asia than in the US where renewables comprise just 11.5%. Renewables account for 32.0% of India’s total electricity generation capacity. In China and Japan they represent 21.0% and 20.0% respectively.

Source: Business Insights.

Addressing the valedictory session of “Solar India 2007” conference and exhibition, organised by the World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE), Pune, Mr. Muttemwar said the 9 per cent power shortage in the country could only be bridged through renewable energy.

“Renewable energy has made a contribution of 10,400 MW to the national grid. The target set for the 11th Plan period is to achieve 14,000 MW power capacity through renewable energy,” he said.

Source: The Hindu.

I think what is at issue is the fact that both India and China a rapidly growing economies. It is the increase in demand for energy that makes them look like hogs... also consider that they already have huge populations. Compare the per-capita use of energy between the U.S. and virtually any Asian country. I'm actually a bit relieved that they are at least considering renewable energy sources to match increasing demand and to replace outdated sources. Let's hope they follow through.

[jorgelito]

Thanks for the links.

I'm not so sure that "going corn" would be unethical. I mean, are Mexicans "worth more" than the Chinese"? They could export their corn and turn a tidy profit and then import wheat or rice or something or maybe grow maize.

I am under the impression that China wants to go back to using coal energy, and maybe nuclear too. Their "alternative energy" source, the Three Gorges Dam project is possibly damaging to the environment as well.

Pollution in China is a big, big, big problem. I think the government is well aware of the damage they are doing on all levels to their environment but in the end, they have decided that their "economic growth" is far more important than responsible sustainable development and growth.

However, it is precisely because of their economic growth and need for infrastructure that I had hopes they would be on the cutting edge of "greener" tech. It seemed to be a wise course to me. I don't see it as a zero-sum the way their government does. I believe, alternative energy, etc would be a win-win and even help their economy as well as helping them politically,

Like you, I also hope they will seriously consider the alternatives, but I am also afraid they could go the "Great Leap Forward" route.

I think Brazil has the right idea.

[pai mei]

I found this on youtube about nomadic gypsies in Romania:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcSCS...elated&search=
Nice way of life, even if I am sure it's not as easy as it seems If there is no electricity or running water I have big problems. I think we are in a technology trap compared to them

[The_Dunedan]

European Roma also tend to have average lifespans significantly shorter than non-Roma; a 20-year gap was not uncommon until recently, and it's still in double-digits in some countries. The remaining nomadic groups have serious problems with access to medical care, which results in greatly increased infant and maternal mortality surrounding childbirth. And, thanks to the propensity of European governments for shoving the Roma into walled or otherwise inaccessible ghettoes*, all Roma populations have significant problems with communicable and chronic disease. The Gypsies I've met here have all been very cool people, but their lives are hardly what I'd call easy. The ones who can get work, work like Mexicans for even less money. The unemployment rate for Roma men is over 80% in the CR, for women it's nearly universal. The only job routinely available for Roma women in urban areas is prostitution, which is hugely destructive to the Roma culture, which values femenine fidelity. And of course, the Police roust, arrest, and assault them on a fairly regular basis, city or country. Country folks seem to be more tolerant of the Roma, because in the countryside they're a valuable pool of labour and traditional skills. In the cities...fuuuuj.



*The last such project was in 1997, when a 10-foot wall was built to seperate a Roma neighborhood from the "white" part of a town near Ostrava. Another example is of a group of Roma who were forcibly settled in a flatblock situated on a triangular plot of land which was surrounded on all three sides by 5-lane freeways. There were no exits accessible by foot, and since most of the Roma didn't own cars it was almost impossible to leave with any measure of safety. Any of you who've encountered Czech drivers, you know what I mean. The cops routinely arrested parents for not sending their kids to school...on foot, across an Interstate. The kids would then be siezed by the State. The Roma were finally resettled in newer and more accessible housing last year.

[pai mei]

http://www.energybulletin.net/33980.html

On unconventional oil, 80% is in the Western Hemisphere. Chavez has driven Venezuela into a ditch; their production is falling. Oil shale has the energy density of shaving cream, one-third that of phone books, and has never provided more than 1/10,000th of global energy. Yes, the Canadians will get tar sands to 3 Mb/d, which will help. But U.S. tar sands are not water soluble, occur in thin crusts and have never been produced commercially. A 50,000 b/d coal-to-liquids plant would cost $6 billion, take 3 years to build, and aggravate climate change.

“The report also seems somewhat cavalier about North American gas constraints: do you mean to suggest that 3 tanker loads of LNG will glide into American shores each day by 2020? From where, exactly? Half of US domestic gas is from wells less than 3 years old, which means we have to replace with new drilling 25 billion cubic ft/d in the next 1000 days.

“That's one of the hard truths I find missing here.

“My biggest regret is that the NPC report fails to communicate the essential nature of the competition between depletion of existing wells and investment in new ones. Depletion is tireless, quick, inevitable, relentless, and automatic. Investment is costly, slow, uncertain, sporadic, and optional. This is a horse race, with one winner.

Also a nice official looking documentary here :
http://abc.net.au/4corners/special_e...t_standard.htm

I just thought I should post these things, no comment from me, all I can say is "We're doomed !"

[pai mei]

A very interesting article about oil and agriculture here :
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2004/02/0079915

Plato wrote of his country's farmlands:

What now remains of the formerly rich land is like the skeleton of a sick man. . . . Formerly, many of the mountains were arable. The plains that were full of rich soil are now marshes. Hills that were once covered with forests and produced abundant pasture now produce only food for bees. Once the land was enriched by yearly rains, which were not lost, as they are now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea. The soil was deep, it absorbed and kept the water in loamy soil, and the water that soaked into the hills fed springs and running streams everywhere. Now the abandoned shrines at spots where formerly there were springs attest that our description of the land is true.

Plato's lament is rooted in wheat agriculture, which depleted his country's soil and subsequently caused the series of declines that pushed centers of civilization to Rome, Turkey, and western Europe. By the fifth century, though, wheat's strategy of depleting and moving on ran up against the Atlantic Ocean. Fenced-in wheat agriculture is like rice agriculture. It balances its equations with famine. In the millennium between 500 and 1500, Britain suffered a major “corrective” famine about every ten years; there were seventy-five in France during the same period. The incidence, however, dropped sharply when colonization brought an influx of new food to Europe.

The new lands had an even greater effect on the colonists themselves. Thomas Jefferson, after enduring a lecture on the rustic nature by his hosts at a dinner party in Paris, pointed out that all of the Americans present were a good head taller than all of the French. Indeed, colonists in all of the neo-Europes enjoyed greater stature and longevity, as well as a lower infant-mortality rate—all indicators of the better nutrition afforded by the onetime spend down of the accumulated capital of virgin soil.

Walk from the prairie to the field, and you probably will step down about six feet, as if the land had been stolen from beneath you. Settlers' accounts of the prairie conquest mention a sound, a series of pops, like pistol shots, the sound of stout grass roots breaking before a moldboard plow. A robbery was in progress.

When we say the soil is rich, it is not a metaphor. It is as rich in energy as an oil well. A prairie converts that energy to flowers and roots and stems, which in turn pass back into the ground as dead organic matter. The layers of topsoil build up into a rich repository of energy, a bank. A farm field appropriates that energy, puts it into seeds we can eat. Much of the energy moves from the earth to the rings of fat around our necks and waists. And much of the energy is simply wasted, a trail of dollars billowing from the burglar's satchel.

[pai mei]

I have just seen "Three Days of the Condor"
The movie was made in 1975. If this stuff was in a movie at that time, I am sure it also was thought about by those in power, and the wars that are going on now are less of a surprise

- Today it's oil right ? In ten or fifteen years : food, plutonium, and maybe even sooner. Now what do you think the people are going to want us to do then ?
- Ask them ?
- Not now, then. Ask them when they are running out. Ask them when there is no heat in their homes, and they're cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You want to know something ? They won't want us to ask them, they'll just want us to get it for them

[Nimetic]

Man. That's exactly the spooky vision that I had....

The conservative governments in various countries would allow migrants in from the third world, under "789 energy visas". They'd get to ride generators. Or better yet, pull us around in carts. Good for the economy, good for the planet. Good for them. Wins all around.

[tangledweb]

I've read up on Peak Oil - on and off - for the last 5 years. Peak Oil is going to happen but no one has the ability to say exactly when that is going to happen.

Current thoughts are that we will be 2 to 5 years into 'Peak Oil' before the world realizes it and then we hit the cliffs edge. Basically, Oil Companies are probably going to throw their reserves into play while quietly trying to find a way out from under the demand. By the time their reserves run out, (and heres where most of the 'IF' stuff falls in) there won't be another viable, produceable energy source to meet the demand. Instead of a steady decline in oil availability, 'Peak Oil' suggests that there will be such a sharp drop in oil that enconomies collapse, many countries will have major financial collapses and, basically, life as we know it will instantly change.

Whether or not 'Peak Oil' is going to happen exactly like that is where your particular nightmare of choice lies. I suspect that many countries will adapt and not have the 'commuting' problems that countries like the US will have. The problem with a global economic system is that if one of the BIG players falls, everyone else is dragged under with them.

That is the part that I believe is the most likely and the most frightening. I also keep a good supply of ammo handy for those 'fun' times.

[pai mei]

Peak oil happened in 2006 ,from then on the production is on a plateau :
http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/update
If in the future the production will rise over the 2006 level that means the peak oil did not happen in 2006.
The graph is based on data from the EIA :
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/internat...roduction.html
Most of oil producing countries have already peaked , look at the graph from the first post.
The last major oil discoveries were in 1970-1980:

[pai mei]

Frontlines - Fuel of War
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[pai mei]

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...ne.aspx?page=1

New research by a University of California petroleum engineering professor suggests that worldwide crude oil supplies will start to run so low over the next nine years that resource-blessed countries like Saudi Arabia will begin to hoard them for domestic use instead of exporting -- and states with large reservoirs of natural gas, like Montana, will seek ways to avoid sharing with less-advantaged neighbors like Oregon.

Attempts to forestall the political and economic damage by turning aggressively to agriculture for "renewable" transportation fuel in the form of ethanol will prove futile, according to professor Tad W. Patzek, as new calculations show that the entire surface of the Earth cannot create enough additional biomass to replace more than 10% of current fossil fuel use.

The process of sowing, fertilizing, reaping, distributing and refining corn and grasses for ethanol feedstock uses up nearly as much carbon energy as fuel farmers claim to save, and it generates so much soil degradation and toxic byproducts that widespread use will leave the Earth denuded and hostile to human life within decades, according to the professor's data.

[Ustwo]

Let me get this straight.....

Global warming bad.
Humans cause global warming.
Humans using fossil fuels, especially oil is to blame.

but...

Oil running out bad.
Oil is important for everything.
Humans will run out of oil.

What we need is a hero!

[roachboy]

or we might need to rethink certain consumption models.
like transportation in the states and its nearly exclusive emphasis on cars.
i dont see the downside of that, and moving in that direction seems reasonable from any number of directions.

but if you'd rather look for a celluloid hero, you might as well have a soundtrack:

[casual user]

the technology to replace oil is already here. it just isn't commonplace yet for economic reasons. once oil starts to become economically unfeasible, it will be replaced naturally with alternatives. i mean, it's already started.

[filtherton]

Weee Don't Neeeed Another Heeeeeeero
Weee Don't Neeeed To Know The Way Hooouououououme
All We Want Is What's Beeeeyoooooooooond
The Thunderdome

[Baraka_Guru]

Here is another indicator; this time a report from CIBC. It suggests that soaring prices will be a result of the following combination:

• the depletion of existing fields,
• delays on new oil-extraction projects,
• a surge in car ownership in countries like Russia and China, and
• the further increase in demand from developing and oil-producing countries alike.

Basically, the gap between supply and demand is widening.


How should we respond to this report from a major financial institution? Are we doing enough? Is it time to pick up this thread again at least?