What will happen when Oil starts to run out ?

[whimsyfree]

(and as for "Peak Oil"- in the 1970s when I was in college they were claiming we only had a 15-20year supply...)

Yes, I remember 1970s TV documentaries claiming the world would run out of oil before the end of the century.

When we talk about alternatives, well in the shortest run there is gas, though many people consider gas a sufficiently close substitute for oil that they really mean oil-and-gas when they say oil. After all, many vehicles can run on LPG without much conversion, other than the annoyance of a larger fuel tank.

AFAIK fossil gas is overwhelmingly not LPG (propane) but natural gas (methane), and LPG is mostly a by-product of oil production, not natural gas extraction.

Then after that there is coal, which the South Africans did a lot of work on liquifying to a usuable liquid fuel when they were subject to sanctions. And apparently they still do so, and make a profit out of it, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol. There is still a lot of coal around, hence the ability of the Chinese and Indians so to expand their coal-burning capacity of late.

That would imply that there can be no "oil crisis" for a very long time. However, the lack of investment in coal to liquids (and gas to liquids) technology makes me wonder how economically viable these technologies are at current oil prices. Thee are plenty of countries with large gas or coal reserves but little petroleum, yet none of them is competing in the international oil market despite the alleged profitability of the processes.

Especially for air travel. There are a few experimental battery planes, but they're slow, special purpose things. For anything like conventional jets you would need hydrocarbon or hydrogen fuel, and hydrogen is very bulky.

Alcohols, ammonia, hydrazine, dimethyl hydrazine? Either not as good or have other issues, but couldn't they potentially be used?

[Copernicus]

If we reached peak oil and coal conversion to oil is too expensive, than what are we going to do. I guess the question is mute!

[HenrikOlsen]

See #24.

[neilzero]

If oil becomes as expensive as mercury or silver, it will rarely be used for most of the present purposes, so the tiny bit remaining will be stretched out perhaps for centuries. The world ecconomy could contract drastically if substitutes are available only in pilot program quantities. If we roll back to the dark ages, scientific and technical progress will be rare and slow. The bad times could persist for centuries. I can't think of any historical president, other than bad government, so that is encouraging. Neil

[Copernicus]

If oil becomes as expensive as mercury or silver, it will rarely be used for most of the present purposes, so the tiny bit remaining will be stretched out perhaps for centuries. The world ecconomy could contract drastically if substitutes are available only in pilot program quantities. If we roll back to the dark ages, scientific and technical progress will be rare and slow. The bad times could persist for centuries. I can't think of any historical president, other than bad government, so that is encouraging. Neil

I firmly believe that civilization will collapse. Humans will become tribal. But technology will be remembered and civilzation will probably return fairly quickly. Perhaps collapse will occur within 100 years, due to oil running out or becoming rare, wars over oil, leading to starvation, then disease, or other reasons. We are one with technology and it is fragile. Nothing we can do to stop it. At least global warming won't be a problem.

[Ara Pacis]

I firmly believe that civilization will collapse. ... At least global warming won't be a problem.

On the contrary, it already is a problem and will get worse even if we stop now. We're probably past a number of tipping points. But running out of oil isn't as big a problem as running out of coal would be.

[mike alexander]

Historical precedent. Not president.

[RoyScience]

Most of our stuff comes from oil.
If oil were to disappear...that would be scary.

[noncryptic]

According to some, oil "starts" to dry up/run out when the reserves in a field are at about half of what it initially was. That's typically when maximum production capacity (barrels per day) of that field starts to decline. By then all the tricks to increase production capacity have been deployed.

By that measure the oil in most of the biggest fields started to run out in the past decade.

What has happened is that the price of oil has increased five-fold from about $20 a barrel in the 1990s to about $100 now.

Another thing that happens is demand destruction: some people don't use oil based products anymore because it has become to expensive for them.

new reserves will be found

Sure, but not nearly enough. 'Peak discovery' was in the 1960s and '70s. Since the 1980s the amount of new oil found per year is less than the amount that is used.

Ever greater expenses need to be made to get to the oil in ever harder-to-get-to places. Deep water drilling used to be up to 300meters. Nowadays deep means several km of water (and then several km of rock). The cost of a single crane on modern oil platform is as much as an entire oil platform did cost when 300m was deep.

[thoth II]

my views have always been similar to Copernicus. I myself would go so far as to say something, i know not popular on a forum of scientists, that the industrial revolution is an unsustainable failed human experiment; and the initial societies, aboriginal ones, were the correct idea; and humanity will go back to those for the rest of its time on this planet. Good try , humans, but not all ideas work.

[jfribrg]

As we start to run out of oil, previously uneconomical (and politically unpopular) alternatives become viable. Just like in 1974 when opposition to the Alaska pipeline (environmental concerns) vanished overnight, opposition to offshore drilling(environmental), wind farming (estethics and environmental), nuclear energy ( safety concerns) , hydrogen cars ( safety concerns due to memories of the Hindenburg) will disappear if the choice is between that and no energy. If oil was no longer a dominant source of energy, there would be an inevitable redistribution of wealth and wholesale changes in the political and economic systems, but civilization would not fail. I'm not sure that I would want to live through the changes, but I expect that mankind will make it through just fine without losing our position at the top of the food chain.

[HenrikOlsen]

. . . and the initial societies, aboriginal ones, were the correct idea; . . .

It was through lack of ability rather than through lack of will that they destroyed less, and unlike us, those societies didn't have the knowledge to predict and thus prevent the ecological destruction they caused.

Innocent natives living in harmony with nature is a romantic fantasy.

[transreality]

yes the aboriginal societies already destroyed several megafaunas, etc. Also we are not at the top of the food chain, we are still somewhere between the 'pre-softened seed grain' that is the main and indispensable part of most peoples diet, and things that will eat us if we wander about at night without protection, or enter the wrong environment carelessly.

[Ara Pacis]

History also has examples of resource depletion by earlier societies. Rapa Nui and Harappa are two examples.

[whimsyfree]

It was through lack of ability rather than through lack of will that they destroyed less, and unlike us, those societies didn't have the knowledge to predict and thus prevent the ecological destruction they caused.

Innocent natives living in harmony with nature is a romantic fantasy.

True but it's a popular and politically influential fantasy. It's common to hear the great and good, scientists and politicians, spouting platitudes about how we can learn to live in harmony with the environment by adopting the wisdom of native peoples. It's remarkable how much change to the environment people with stone age technology can effect. It's likely that many large grasslands and semi-arid regions were created by people setting forests on fire to flush out game. Of course this is now praised as a wise environmental management strategy, though still not appreciated when non-native people(s) set fire to the local national park.

[transreality]

Nature: Oil's tipping point has passed

[Van Rijn]

Nature: Oil's tipping point has passed

The article is behind a paywall. What's their argument? Is it due to natural gas taking over for oil? I'd be a bit surprised if we've really hit the tipping point since increased oil prices make a lot of previously uneconomic oil resources now worth going after and technology that has helped with natural gas production is also now being used for oil production. That's definitely changing the oil production map. Still, if other choices are cheaper, I can see where that would limit production.

[HenrikOlsen]

Based on the abstract, the argument is that the main reason for people moving away from oil is the increased prices due to the shift to more expensive resources as the cheap ones run out and that environmental concerns are secondary to this.

Note that the shift to more expensive resources is a sign that this increase in price is happening. Oil prices will continue to increase because it will become ever more expensive to use the reserves we have. Not because we're out of oil, but because we're out of cheap oil, because we have been for a while and because it won't come back.

[transreality]

The article is behind a paywall. What's their argument? Is it due to natural gas taking over for oil? I'd be a bit surprised if we've really hit the tipping point since increased oil prices make a lot of previously uneconomic oil resources now worth going after and technology that has helped with natural gas production is also now being used for oil production. That's definitely changing the oil production map. Still, if other choices are cheaper, I can see where that would limit production.

"The economic pain of a flattening supply will trump the environment as a reason to curb the use of fossil fuels, say James Murray and David King."

"From 2005 onwards, conventional crude-oil production has not risen to match increasing demand. We argue that the oil market has tipped into a new state, similar to a phase transition in physics: production is now 'inelastic', unable to respond to rising demand, and this is leading to wild price swings. Other fossil-fuel resources don't seem capable of making up the difference."

"Production of crude oil increased along with demand from 1988 to 2005. But then something changed. Production has been roughly constant for the past seven years, despite an increase in price of around 15% per year2 (at Brent crude (London) prices) from about US$15 per barrel in 1998 to more than $140 per barrel in 2008 (see 'Oil production hits a ceiling'). The price still reflects demand: it declined to about $35 per barrel in 2009 thanks to the 2008–09 recession, and recovered along with the upturn in the global economy to $120 per barrel before declining to its value today of $111. But the supply chain has been unable to keep pace with rising demand and prices."


Perhaps you can get to this report, It is an Australian Government report from 2009, but strangely difficult to find. It is also quite large (474p), but comprehensive.

Transport energy futures: long-term oil supply trends and projections. Report 117


"... when an aggregation is done across the globe, it is predicted that world production of conventional oil is currently just past its highest point (conventional oil is oil pumped from wells on land or in water less than 500 metresdeep). A predicted shallow decline in the short run should give way to a steeper decline after 2016."

[Ara Pacis]

Unfortunately, the numbers they're using may not be entirely accurate. There's been rumors that Saudi numbers are inaccurate so as to influence the market in their favor.

[HenrikOlsen]

Would that be numbers for oil pumped? Because that can't be off by much given that the pumped oil has to be traded internationally.
Or is it numbers for size of unpumped resources? Because that's a minor blip given that we're talking about how the global prizes are shifting use rather than reserve production capacity. The global prizes are to a large extent supply driven and the cheap supplies of enough countries are running out to push the prize up even if the Saudi's are holding back.

[korjik]

I am almost certain that when oil starts to run out, the airplane will be invented and the automobile will go into mass production....

[HenrikOlsen]

[transreality]

Luckily, physics can come to our aid...

Neutrino Beams could reveal cavities inside the earth

... if cavities 200km in size filled with oil exist, that is.

[eburacum45]

I like to recommend this on-line book whenever this discussion comes up;
Sustainable Energy- without the hot air by David MacKay.

One conclusion reached is that the only way to indefinitely maintain a high level of energy use on our planet after oil runs out is to obtain fissile material and/or deuterium from seawater. This requires technology that hasn't been developed yet.

Every other method of generating power falls short.

I would add that another method is possible, but has not been fully considered by MacKay - space based solar power. Using space power we could melt the Earth if we really wanted to.

[transreality]

I'd like to see a global carbon tax, and a large proportion of the funds channeled into international fusion research programs.

[NEOWatcher]

Luckily, physics can come to our aid...
Neutrino Beams could reveal cavities inside the earth
... if cavities 200km in size filled with oil exist, that is.

Along with other seemingly difficult issues they need to overcome too (as mentioned in the article).

[korjik]

I'd like to see a global carbon tax, and a large proportion of the funds channeled into international fusion research programs.

Yes, I want a research program the is to keep the planet habitable to be given unlimited money and then run by the people who gave us the DMV and the IRS.

[NEOWatcher]

I'd like to see a global carbon tax, and a large proportion of the funds channeled into international fusion research programs.

Yes, I want a research program the is to keep the planet habitable to be given unlimited money and then run by the people who gave us the DMV and the IRS.

The people that gave us those two were international entities? Really?
I'd comment further, but giving an opinion (or even expanding on those two comments) would be getting too political.

[transreality]

Sorry I don't really know what the DMV is (your local car inspectors?) or IRS (your local income tax collectors?). Anyway the point is, fusion energy is obviously going to be a game changer in the whole power/emissions realm... but current efforts seem to be national which means a) duplicating effort, and b) underfunded. Even if an economically successful fusion power system was developed by a particular national entity, then this could have negative geopolitical implications that could cause lengthy delays in this technology promulgating to other regions, who would then have to continue using conventional resources. This inequality will lead where similar inequalities have lead in the past... conflict, imperialism, etc. Perhaps this is too pessimistic, perhaps too political... it is difficult to see how the rollout of such an important technology would be handled, in the face of issues that have global impact. Obviously the same applies to solar power satellites, massive atmospheric algae farms, or similar suggested solutions.