Peak Oil

[davidm]

Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere, and if it has, please point me to the thread. I did a search on “Peak Oil” and came up empty.

Peak Oil is the very plausible idea that we are at or near the peak of global oil production. It supported by a lot of data, and dovetails with the fact that most nations have already peaked. The United States, for instance, hit peak oil production in the early 70s, which is why we are an oil importer. Global peak oil discovery was in 1964. A number of geologists and people in the oil industry think we will hit peak in this decade, if we haven’t already. After that, oil production will decline yearly, at a time when demand for oil will be greater than ever.

The general thought seems to be that when oil is in decline, the marketplace, or inventors, or the government, or somebody, will come up with something to replace oil. Most people, if they think about it at all, assume that some combination of solar, hydrogen, wind, biomass, nuclear and the like will replace oil (and natural gas, which is also in depletion).

Unfortunately, these assumptions do not seem to make any sense at all, from the information I have been able to discover. You are not going to run a fleet of cars and trucks on windmills or solar panels. Nor, President Bush notwithstanding, are you going to do this on hydrogen, either. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. And to use hydrogen, you’d have to replace, probably at a cost of scores if not hundreds of billions of dollars, our existing infrastructure of pipelines, delivery vehicles, service stations and the like, which are totally unsuited to hydrogen. Furthermore, those who think we can just “switch inputs” from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources usually fail to grasp that making the components of stuff like high-tech windmills and solar panels requires a robust fossil-fuel infrastructure which, if Peak Oil is right, is not going to exist a few decades hence.

There are tar sands and oil shale and the like that can be exploited, but the cost of extraction is so high that it may not be worth the effort. We could return to coal, at the price of producing vast new quantities of greenhouse gases, and with the proviso that coal, like oil, is limited. We don’t know how much extractable coal remains. All of these problems are compounded by the fact that the demand for fossil fuels is at a record high and soaring. The economies of China and India alone will need vast new fossil fuel inputs just to sustain (never mind grow) their current economies.

I realize that this is a forum of skeptics, and there seem to be a fair number of scientists hanging about, so I am hoping that someone can debunk Peak Oil — show that oil really isn’t at or near peak, despite what seems to be a preponderance of evidence that it is; or else show that there is some plausible scenario under which we can account for more than a fraction of our current energy needs with alternative energy sources. Because if Peak Oil is true, and if alternative energy sources don’t scale to support industrial high-tech society, then in a few decades we are not going to be marveling at Rovers on Mars or anticipating the construction of the next great space telescope or sending astronauts back to the moon and beyond. Instead, we are going to be struggling to feed ourselves in a post-industrial world. Comments are welcome.

[TheBlackCat]

You seem to be missing one key fact here. As the price of something goes up, its use declines. Additionally, as the price of something goes up, the use of alternatives that were not economically feasible when the price was low will start becoming economically viable. People, companies, and the entire infrastructure won't suddenly switch overnight. As oil becomes expensive it will gradually be phased out, first by groups for which oil is least useful (probably groups that are close to alternative energy production facilities or have their own), and as oil gets progressively more expensive maintaining the infrastructure will become progressively less profitable and building alternative energy infrastructure will become progressively more profitable. The infrastructure will gradually shift. Remember that no infrastructure is permanent, everything has to be replaced eventually anyway. And if it is not profitable for someone to maintain a particular infrastucture they will cease to do so.

Additionally, alternative energy research is not a high priority because petroleum is so cheap investors do not expect much reward from investing in such research. As petroleum gets progressively more expensive alternative energy technology will become more profitable and companies and investors will be much more inclined to invest in the research since there is greater potential for reward. Even if, as you suggest, oil is at its peak (which it may not be), we still probably have decades of oil left, plenty of time to gradually phase out an infrastructure as it becomes less profitable and phase in a new one as it gets more profitable.

Remember, we won't go from cheap oil to no oil in a day. As the existing oil supplies dry up companies will be forced to start exploiting oil fields that are either harder to reach and/or more expensive to extract from, driving up prices and reducing the quantity demanded. As they get pushed towards more and more expensive oil fields the price will go up and up and people will use less and less oil. Eventually we will be force to start processing coal, tar sands, oil shale, etc, which are far more expensive. These will only be exploited after every even slightly more profitable field has been exploited (or rather, phased in as the least profitable existing oil fields become less profitable than these sources). This will be a gradual process, as less and less profitable oil fields are used. It may even reach the point where it is so expensive to extract oil that more profit will be made by using all-alternative energy, at which point most or all oil extraction will cease even if some reserves remain. That is simple economics.

[davidm]

This is the economic argument that is often heard. It presupposes what is at issue: that there is, or will be, a replacement for fossil fuels that is economically viable, and that can scale to sustain (never mind account for the growth that is required of) industrial civilization. It is far from clear that this presupposition is correct, and it looks as if it’s false. Hence, the economic argument won’t work.

From a study by the United States Army Corp of Engineers:

Oil wars are certainly not out of the question. Disruption of world oil markets may also affect world natural gas markets as much of the natural gas reserves are collocated with the oil reserves.

Quote edited by davidm to make it shorter

This Web site has all the visual hysterics and tabloid-like headlines typical of woo-wooism, but the content does not seem hysterical or woo-woo at all. It presents a number of cogent arguments that are difficult (for me) to refute. As to the economic argument presented above, here is its reply:

As economist Andrew Mckillop explains in a recent article entitled, "Why Oil Prices Are Barreling Up," oil is nowhere near as "elastic" as most commodities:

One of the biggest problems facing the IEA, the EIA and a
host of analysts and "experts" who claim that "high prices
cut demand" either directly or by dampening economic
growth is that this does not happen in the real world.

Since early 1999, oil prices have risen about 350%. Oil
demand growth in 2004 at nearly 4% was the highest in 25
years. These are simple facts that clearly conflict with
received notions about "price elasticity". World oil demand,
for a host of easily-described reasons, tends to be bolstered
by "high" oil and gas prices until and unless "extreme" prices
are attained.

edited by davidm because these quoted passages are a bit long for the rules of this site.

[Van Rijn]

This is the economic argument that is often heard. It presupposes what is at issue: that there is, or will be, a replacement for fossil fuels that is economically viable, and that can scale to sustain (never mind account for the growth that is required of) industrial civilization. It is far from clear that this presupposition is correct, and it looks as if it’s false. Hence, the economic argument won’t work.

Conventional nuclear is the most obvious economic and environmental choice. I hope we won't need to use too much of it, but methane hydrates appear to be a longer term hydrocarbon source. See here:

http://marine.usgs.gov/fact-sheets/g...tes/title.html

[davidm]

Here is more on methane hydrates. So far as I know, zero methane hydrates have been commercialy recovered to date. Granted the possibility of technological innovations, methane hydrates may prove economically infeasible to extract.

As to nucelar, we are not going to run cars, buses, planes and trains via nuclear power plants, are we? It's also very unclear that nuclear power plants can be built and run at all absent an underlying, relatively inexpensive fossil-fuel infrastructure.

[TheBlackCat]

This is the economic argument that is often heard. It presupposes what is at issue: that there is, or will be, a replacement for fossil fuels that is economically viable, and that can scale to sustain (never mind account for the growth that is required of) industrial civilization.

I don't think it is not a presupposition. The analyses I heard said that there is enough coal to last us into the next century, enough uranium to supply us on fission power for several centuries, and there is no reason to think that fission power, which can last us indefinitely, cannot be completed within that time frame. This is ignoring supplemental power from wind, water, sunlight, and biomass that, although most likely not able to completely sustain us, could certainly lighten the load on our main energy sources.

It is far from clear that this presupposition is correct, and it looks as if it’s false.

What makes you think it is false. You have claimed this, but have yet to provide any energy backing up this claim.

Since early 1999, oil prices have risen about 350%. Oil demand growth in 2004 at nearly 4% was the highest in 25 years. These are simple facts that clearly conflict with received notions about "price elasticity". World oil demand, for a host of easily-described reasons, tends to be bolstered by "high" oil and gas prices until and unless "extreme" prices
are attained.

A gross oversimplification. The fact is that a issues that drive demand up a lot can overshadown issues that drive demand down less. This does not show that the forces driving demand down are not relevant, they only show that at this point in time those particular forces are outweighed by other forces.

The amount of energy contained in that barrel of oil would cost between $100-$250* dollars to derive from alternative sources of energy. Thus, the market won't signal energy companies to begin aggressively pursuing alternative sources of energy until oil reaches the $100-$250 mark.

Once again, a gross oversimplification. Economic profit isn't an all-or-nothing thing, companies move in and out of the market continuously as economic profit changes. Industry does not wholesale shift from one thing to another the instant one becomes cheaper than another, the shift happens gradually and contiuously as the prices come closer together. Remember the economy is not uniform, for some sectors the cost of using alternative energy sources and the cost of using petroleum are different than they are in other sectors of the economy. Sectors that have the most to gain from alternative energy and/or the least to lose from abandoning petroleum will reach the point where it is economically beneficial to make the switch sooner. As they invest in alternative energy, it will drive the price down (the more units of something are built the less it will cost to build each additional unit), allowing sectors that could previously not afford it to use it.

Take, for example, accelerometers. It used to be that they were extremely expensive to use, way to expensive to use in most mainstream applications. That is no longer the case, they are now pretty cheap and are showing up all over the place. What changed? Air bags. Air bags, which are used in every car, often several times, require an accelerometer. The massive number of accelerometers needed for car air bags drove the price down for anybody else who wanted to use them. The same would happen with alternative energy, as it is implemented by those who it costs least its price will go down, allowing more to implement it, further driving down costs, allowing more to implement it, etc. You cannot use the current cost of alternative energy when it is hardly used and take that as some fixed value that will never change. It can and will change as alternative energy can and does get more popular.

This does not even account for the amount of money it would take to locate and refine the raw materials necessary for a large scale conversion, the construction and deployment of the alternatives, and finally the retrofitting of the world's $45 trillion dollar infrastructure to run on these alternative sources.

As I keep saying, the infrastucture will have to be replaced sooner or later anyway. And you have to locate and refine petroleum as well, so an increase in the gross costs of locating and refining alternative energy sources would be offset by a reduction in the gross costs of locating and refining petroleum.

Once they do begin aggressively pursuing these alternatives, there will be a 25-to-50 year lag time between the initial heavy-duty research into these alternatives and their wide-scale industrial implementation.

Hardly. Fission energy is already well-established, it would not require any additional research. Wind and freshwater hydroelectric power is relatively simple and already widely implemented. Solar energy is more a question of figuring out which technique is better for a given location. Hydrogen itself is relatively straightforward, it is more the storage that needs work. The real one that will require work is fusion, and research is already well underway in that.

However, in order to finance an aggressive implementation of alternative energies, we need a tremendous amount of investment capital - in addition to affordable energy and raw materials - that we absolutely will not have once oil prices are permanently lodged in the $200 per barrel neighborhood.

Ooh, a little slight of hand here. First he argues that it will become economically viable between $100 and $200 a barrel (note he said it is already $75). Then he goes and ignores the low end of the estimate and take the high ened, $200, as the definitive value (note he says prices "are" going to be permanently lodged at that value when we begin the implementation, not "might"), without actually telling anyone he is doing it or giving any reson why we should ignore the low, or even middle, of the estimate and automatically accept the absolute maximum value. That is an underhanded tactic that does not belong in a civilized, academic discussion. It is, however, exactly the sort of argument you would expect from "woo-wooism", as you put it.

[clop]

To be perfectly honest I can't wait for the oil to run out, or for a nice big asteroid to hit the earth, or for the sea level to rise and start to reclaim the low-lying land, or for a pandemic, or for anything at all that will make life interesting in again. Let's face it, we live in a contrived, restrictive, man-made environment. It's totally unnatural. Our responsibilities are no longer life responsibilities - they have no intrinsic importance. Our happiness is not based on true life happiness - our happiness is based on a series of perceived successes in a purely artificial system.

I'd love for everything to break down so that we can go back to being humans again. Hunting for food and living outside and being happy to be alive, instead of worrying about whether someone let you in at a road junction, or whether your windows are clean, or whether your clothes are fashionable, or whether you've tied your tie properly, or whether your phone has got bluetooth, or whether you're allowed to walk on the grass or not.

clop

[Van Rijn]

Here is more on methane hydrates. So far as I know, zero methane hydrates have been commercialy recovered to date. Granted the possibility of technological innovations, methane hydrates may prove economically infeasible to extract.

Possibly. Most likely, however, the key issue is that there hasn't been sufficient interest yet in developing the resource. As the resource picture changes, there will be more interest.

As to nucelar, we are not going to run cars, buses, planes and trains via nuclear power plants, are we?

Why not? See here for example (note, this is a pdf):

http://www.getenergysmart.org/Files/...ionNuclear.pdf

You can produce hydrogen with nuclear reactors, which can be used directly in transportation or as a feedstock for further processing into other fuels. Again, we don't do it today because there hasn't been much interest in it. As economics shifts, this will change.

In the long run, our primary energy sources will be nuclear and solar. The "fossil fuel era" will just be another transition phase in human history. By the end of the 21st century, I expect that total energy use will be substantially higher than it is now, even with more efficient use.

It's also very unclear that nuclear power plants can be built and run at all absent an underlying, relatively inexpensive fossil-fuel infrastructure.

I don't understand that at all. What is supposed to be special about fossil fuel? Nuclear power isn't terribly expensive, and it can support itself.

[Van Rijn]

To be perfectly honest I can't wait for the oil to run out, or for a nice big asteroid to hit the earth, or for the sea level to rise and start to reclaim the low-lying land, or for a pandemic, or for anything at all that will make life interesting in again. Let's face it, we live in a contrived, restrictive, man-made environment. It's totally unnatural. Our responsibilities are no longer life responsibilities - they have no intrinsic importance. Our happiness is not based on true life happiness - our happiness is based on a series of perceived successes in a purely artificial system.

I'd love for everything to break down so that we can go back to being humans again. Hunting for food and living outside and being happy to be alive, instead of worrying about whether someone let you in at a road junction, or whether your windows are clean, or whether your clothes are fashionable, or whether you've tied your tie properly, or whether your phone has got bluetooth, or whether you're allowed to walk on the grass or not.

clop

Oooohkay. You do realize that we've been living "unnaturally" since we developed the first technology, long before we developed agriculture? That agriculture was one of the major technological transitions (the earth couldn't support more than a few tens of millions of humans without agriculture).

Me, I want to see humans and other species from this planet spread out into the universe, not die off from some stupid natural accident sooner or later. And I have no interest in living like a caveman.

[clop]

Oooohkay. You do realize that we've been living "unnaturally" since we developed the first technology, long before we developed agriculture? That agriculture was one of the major technological transitions (the earth couldn't support more than a few tens of millions of humans without agriculture).

Me, I want to see humans and other species from this planet spread out into the universe, not die off from some stupid natural accident sooner or later. And I have no interest in living like a caveman.

Not as far back as being a caveman. Just back away from the hell of what we have created on the earth. Back to living in small communities in unspoilt forests. Back away from the global arrogance. Back away from the ambition - the obsession to achieve better things, to go faster and be richer or make things more convenient. Things are not improving. We've created a situation where we spend our leisure time watching ****e like Neighbours on the television or playing computer games on an XBox. Fat people everywhere stuffing sugar and fat into their mouths. Insular families. Rules that in many cases prevent us from doing the things that life is really all about.

I have spent time living with hill tribes on the Laos/China border. They live in wooden shacks, farm chickens and pigs, grow rice. They've never been in a car or seen a computer. But they are really happy. Really happy.

And you're going to die anyway. It is inevitable.

clop

[davidm]

I’m not going to reply to all of what Black Cat said in a single post. We might as well first back up and look at a few things, and incidentally, it would be helpful if there are any geologists, oil people, engineers, energy experts and the like who would lend their expertise to this matter. I am a layman in these issues, but some of the data looks pretty compelling. Of course I could be missing something, but Black Cat’s economics argument is unpersuasive, at least so far. The central flaw in it is the assumption that something is out there that can be marketed/invented/technologized that will replicate the energy density that fossil fuels provide. This is by no means at all clear, and if it can’t be done, then the free market is not going to help us out of this situation.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the following, especially the predictive parts — and I don’t think anyone else can, either, because much of the relevant data is unknown. Still, the U.S. chart, at least, corroborates with everything else I have seen. These are the oil depletion charts for 42 nations.

Next, if you wish to characterize the above-linked site as “woo-woo,” that’s fine; it would be interesting, though, to see your point-by-point rebuttals of the information presented therein. At any rate, if that site is “woo-woo,” perhaps Sprott Asset Management will have more credibility, specifically Peak Oil: Are we there yet? From the linked PDF:

If one superimposes the actuality of the US oil production experience (which peaked in 1970) with global production today (as this chart tries to do), then the world is on the verge of having
substantially less oil production in the not too distant future. As unappealing and perhaps even
downright scary as this chart is, we believe this is the situation the world currently faces. World
oil production is “peaking” and about to go into precipitous decline following a period when new
oil discoveries have already been in sharp decline for almost three decades. The writing is on the
wall.

Quote edited down by davidm to keep its length within the rules of this site.


As to coal, it’s possibly true that we have a hundred, maybe even a couple of hundred, of year’s worth of the stuff lying in the ground. But this assumes current levels of demand and extraction. If we are forced to go to coal big-time, then the amount of time that coal will last will drop dramatically, almost certainly to a few decades. Of course, coal is horribly dirty and expensive to recover, would require vast strip-mining and would substantially contribute to the very greenhouse gases that we are now trying to suppress.

What makes you think that fission can last for centuries? Do you know how much recoverable uranium there is in the ground? I don’t. I’m not sure anyone else does, either. But even assuming that there’s lots of it, the question remains, what good is nuclear power for anything more substantial than keeping the lights on? Are you going to run a fleet of trains, cars, buses and airplanes on nuclear power? How?

Again, there is the further problem I’ve mentioned, and which needs to be addressed: Right now, anyway, (perhaps this can change?) one needs, in order to build, mass produce and maintain things like nuclear power plants, and the fine equipment necessary for wind turbines, solar panels and the like, a fossil fuel infrastructure. And so the question is, can alternative energy be detached from a fossil fuel platform? I don’t know. Do you know?

[Van Rijn]

Not as far back as being a caveman. Just back away from the hell of what we have created on the earth. Back to living in small communities in unspoilt forests. Back away from the global arrogance. Back away from the ambition - the obsession to achieve better things, to go faster and be richer or make things more convenient. Things are not improving.

Well, I'm not going to agree with you, and this is off-topic, so I'm not carrying this much further. I'll just say that I have a very different picture of the situation: Not perfect (nothing ever is), but the last thing I want is to go backwards.

I have spent time living with hill tribes on the Laos/China border. They live in wooden shacks, farm chickens and pigs, grow rice. They've never been in a car or seen a computer. But they are really happy. Really happy.

So go live there. Myself, I'd go crazy trying to live that way (that's assuming I'd still be alive - shorter life span and all that).

And you're going to die anyway. It is inevitable.

Again, off-topic, so this will be my last word on this: If we go backwards as you suggest, yes, the human species is doomed. However, if we do continue to develop, both here and eventually spreading off the earth, there is no reason why we, or our descendents cannot continue.

[davidm]

Van Rijn, I didn't see your reply to me before my latest post. Will respond later.

[Van Rijn]

The central flaw in it is the assumption that something is out there that can be marketed/invented/technologized that will replicate the energy density that fossil fuels provide. This is by no means at all clear, and if it can’t be done, then the free market is not going to help us out of this situation.

The energy density of uranium is far higher than that of fossil fuels. Mind you, low density energy sources can also be useful if the production cost is low enough - with advances, various types of photovoltaics will have a larger and larger impact in the energy market. I expect thin-film designs will be the bigger players because of lower materials requirements and associated production cost differences.

What makes you think that fission can last for centuries? Do you know how much recoverable uranium there is in the ground? I don’t. I’m not sure anyone else does, either.

Uranium is everywhere - in granite, in seawater. Because it is a high density energy source, the cost of produced energy is relatively insensitive to the cost of uranium production. Even with current generation nuclear reactors and with minor increases in production cost, there are centuries of uranium available.

But it can last, far, far longer with better reactors and somewhat higher costs. See here:

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

Note that this doesn't consider thorium which improves the picture even more. The short version: There is plenty of this stuff.

[davidm]

The energy density of uranium is far higher than that of fossil fuels.

That is true, of course, and thanks for pointing that out. I haven't had a chance to read your links yet, so maybe some of these answers are supplied, but off the top of my head there are these questions:

1. Nuclear energy is used to produce electricity. Can it be harnessed for manufacturing processes?

2. How many such plants might we need? Can it technically and profitably be used to meet mass transportations needs? (Maybe your first link answered that; as I say, I'll need a chance to read it.)

3. What is the time frame for getting up the plants we would need, in the number that we would need them? The problem that not a few people have pointed out is that if peak oil is real, and if we are at or near peak, then the trouble begins, not when the oil runs out, but when oil production begins to fall. At that point the world gets poorer and poorer; and if demand is driven down that's tantamount to talking about a global recession or depression. One must wonder, then, whether in such an environment, it would even be possible to pay for the number of nuclear plants needed, and whether they could be brought on line in any realistic time frame. That's the real threat of peak oil, if it's true: it quickly knocks the props out from under the industrial West, making it difficult if not impossible to make the switchover to potential alternative energy sources, even if those soruces could be made to scale to meet modern industrial demand.

Will read your links and get back later, probably tomorrow.

[Ken G]

In terms of economics saving us from oil dependence, I think the lesson of Easter Island is interesting. It was a very small economic system, with no real alternative to trees, so for both those reasons it may not apply to us and oil. Let's hope not. What happened there is they cut down all their trees, and they died, horribly. In the end, they were having to kill and eat each other. I don't know how much of this story is completely reliable, but there you have it. Again, let us hope that the much larger resources offered by a planet rather than an island will lead to a very different outcome, but I note that seeing the impending end of trees did not save the Easter islanders-- they simply found no viable alternative.

[Tinaa]

1. Nuclear energy is used to produce electricity. Can it be harnessed for manufacturing processes?

Electricity is used in a local steel mill in Texas.

http://www.cmcsteeltexas.com/manufacturing/eaf.aspx

[TheBlackCat]

I’m not going to reply to all of what Black Cat said in a single post... it would be interesting, though, to see your point-by-point rebuttals of the information presented therein.

I see, so you refuse to discuss what I say and just dismiss it out of hand but demand a point-by-point refutation of what you say. That is a bit unfair.

The central flaw in it is the assumption that something is out there that can be marketed/invented/technologized that will replicate the energy density that fossil fuels provide. This is by no means at all clear, and if it can’t be done, then the free market is not going to help us out of this situation.

It isn't energy density that matters, it is the price of a unit of energy. And I listed a bunch of energy sources, some that are known to be able to replace petroleum to a degree. You don't want to seem to discuss the specifics, instead just dismissing them all for no obvious reason.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the following, especially the predictive parts — and I don’t think anyone else can, either, because much of the relevant data is unknown. Still, the U.S. chart, at least, corroborates with everything else I have seen. These are the oil depletion charts for 42 nations.

That paper is from 1997. That allows us to compare their predictions to what really happened. According to them 19 countries were supposed to peak between the release of the study and up to 1995, that last data available. Of those 19, 5 peaked at least 1 year early, 1 peak at least 1 year late, and 2 peak within a year of the prediction. So only 8 of the 19 countures that were supposed to peak actually did. 10 of the remaining countries have not peaked, 2 are in fact producing oil at an accelerating pace in recent years. 2/3 of those that haven't peaked were supposed to have peaked at least 4 years ago. One country I don't have data for. So it doesn't look like their results have spent the test of time, we are talking just over a 40% success rate just in terms of getting the peak within a 8-year window, and 2/3 of those that haven't peaked were off by at least half the time since the study. This does not speak well for the predictive power of these results.

Next, if you wish to characterize the above-linked site as “woo-woo,” that’s fine;

Hey! You're the one who said the site looked woo-woo, not me. I am just saying his argument was consistent with that interpretation.

As to coal, it’s possibly true that we have a hundred, maybe even a couple of hundred, of year’s worth of the stuff lying in the ground. But this assumes current levels of demand and extraction. If we are forced to go to coal big-time, then the amount of time that coal will last will drop dramatically, almost certainly to a few decades.

Do you have any data to back up this claim?

Of course, coal is horribly dirty and expensive to recover, would require vast strip-mining and would substantially contribute to the very greenhouse gases that we are now trying to suppress.

Yeah, if it is a choice between that and the collapse of civilization I don't think people will care much. That is what you are saying will happen if the oil runs out, so talking about strip-mining is completely irrelevant when faced with the alternative.

What makes you think that fission can last for centuries? Do you know how much recoverable uranium there is in the ground?

All the analyses I have heard put it at least a hundred years, maybe a few hundred.

But even assuming that there’s lots of it, the question remains, what good is nuclear power for anything more substantial than keeping the lights on? Are you going to run a fleet of trains, cars, buses and airplanes on nuclear power? How?

Hydrogen. We use alternative power sources to make hydrogen. Hydrogen powers vehicles. Problem solved.

Again, there is the further problem I’ve mentioned, and which needs to be addressed: Right now, anyway, (perhaps this can change?) one needs, in order to build, mass produce and maintain things like nuclear power plants, and the fine equipment necessary for wind turbines, solar panels and the like, a fossil fuel infrastructure. And so the question is, can alternative energy be detached from a fossil fuel platform? I don’t know. Do you know?

Really? What, exactly absolutely requires fossil fuel that can't be replaced with alternatives?

As for the article:
There is no point discussing the first paragraph. it is based on predictions that I have already shown to be wrong, so any conclusions based on those results are inherently baseless. It is just wild conjecture without data to back up their claims. The second parapraph simply assumes that no alternative energy sources exist without showing any reason why this is the case. The author is simply trying to pass off a hypothetical scenario as real life without actually warning anyone that is what he is doing. So we have one paragraph based entirely on wrong data, and one paragraph based entirely on conjecture with no data at all. What else needs to be said?

[davidm]

I really have no interest in arguing with anyone, and the adversarial rhetoric of Black Cat is off-putting, to say nothing of juvenile. I would like to have a discussion, not an argument. Black Cat’s rhetoric is typical of someone who wants to argue a point, and will amass and interpret the data in any way that he can to reinforce what he want to argue for. I’ve no interest in that.

Of course the bloody charts aren’t going to be perfectly accurate, because there are so many unknown and unknowable variables. But in their broad outlines they are certainly accurate. The broad outlines show a bell-curve progression of increase, plateau, and decrease in oil production. That’s the key point. A further discussion of peak oil is here. In fact, do a Google on peak oil, and you will come up with 34,600,000 hits! The New York Times Sunday Magazine made it the cover story last August. See, Black Cat, it’s like I’m making this stuff up, OK?

Hydrogen. We use alternative power sources to make hydrogen. Hydrogen powers vehicles. Problem solved.

Nonsense! (To adopt the rhetorical stance that unfortunately seems to be favored here.) How about demonstrating, in detail, how this is to be done? If peak oil is correct (I don’t insist that it must be correct, but I look at the data and find disturbing reasons to think that it might be) the problem is this: as soon as the peak of world oil production is passed, then by definition production declines year after year, even as demand is skyrocketing. This plunges the world into global recession, if not depression. Now the suggestion that we are going to use alternative power sources to make hydrogen to power vehicles might be feasible, over a long period of time, under flush circumstances. How is it going to be feasible in a world of permanent declining incomes and productivity?

Are we going to build nuclear power plants to make hydrogen to power cars? How? In what time frame? How many nuclear power plants have we built in the last ten, twenty, thirty years? How many such power plants would we have to build to achieve your glib “problem solved?” How much would it cost? How would we pay for it in a world in which fossil fuel inputs are declining year after year? How are we going to store and transport hydrogen in a gas-oil network that is utterly inappropriate for storing and transporting hydrogen? How much would it cost to rip up that network and replace it with one suitable for hydrogen, even assuming that we can fabricate such a network? Ten billion dollars? A hundred billion dollars? Who is going to pay for it in a world in which the peak of oil production is passed and nations are getting poorer and poorer? You?

What about agriculture? The green revolution, which has fed so much of the world, was made possible only by fossil fuels. Pesticides and fertilizers are made from massive fossil fuel inputs. What’s going to replace those inputs, if indeed peak oil takes place and fossil fuel production declines year after year? Are you going to make pesticides and fertilizers from hydrogen? Wind? Solar? Nuclear? How? Do tell.

[Kesh]

To be perfectly honest I can't wait for the oil to run out, or for a nice big asteroid to hit the earth, or for the sea level to rise and start to reclaim the low-lying land, or for a pandemic, or for anything at all that will make life interesting in again. Let's face it, we live in a contrived, restrictive, man-made environment. It's totally unnatural. Our responsibilities are no longer life responsibilities - they have no intrinsic importance. Our happiness is not based on true life happiness - our happiness is based on a series of perceived successes in a purely artificial system.

I'd love for everything to break down so that we can go back to being humans again. Hunting for food and living outside and being happy to be alive, instead of worrying about whether someone let you in at a road junction, or whether your windows are clean, or whether your clothes are fashionable, or whether you've tied your tie properly, or whether your phone has got bluetooth, or whether you're allowed to walk on the grass or not.

clop

... okay.

You go first.

[Kesh]

I really have no interest in arguing with anyone, and the adversarial rhetoric of Black Cat is off-putting, to say nothing of juvenile. I would like to have a discussion, not an argument. Black Cat’s rhetoric is typical of someone who wants to argue a point, and will amass and interpret the data in any way that he can to reinforce what he want to argue for. I’ve no interest in that.

Then why did you post here?

It sounds like you mean "listen to me and agree" rather than "discuss the issue," honestly. If you make a point, someone is bound to challenge it. And on this board, that means responding with evidence to back up your point, rather than simply saying "it is so."

[davidm]

Then why did you post here?

It sounds like you mean "listen to me and agree" rather than "discuss the issue," honestly. If you make a point, someone is bound to challenge it. And on this board, that means responding with evidence to back up your point, rather than simply saying "it is so."

I have not said, "It is so." I have said, we have strong data suggesting that the world is at or near the peak of global oil production. Of course we can't know this with certainty; and indeed we can only know that Peak Oil is real after the peak has passed, a probably a few years after its passage. We will know it then, because oil production will be seen to be declining.

I am asking, if this happens, and if you follow the links I have given, you will find strong defeasible evidence that it is probably going to happen rather soon, then what can be an adequate response? To say that we are going to build nuclear power plants to produce hydrogen to power cars is entirely too quick and glib. We must have some reasonable scenario that makes this possible. Again: How many power plants will we need? How fast can they come on line? How will we overcome the challenges of distributing and transporting hydrogen? What will we do with agriculture? What challenges need to be overcome to make nuclear power, even supposing that we can build the large number of plants that we need, feasible for other than electrical generation? Can nuclear power plants feasibly be used for industrial and manufacturing purposes? There are a huge number of unanswered questions here, and so if someone says, "Problem solved," you'll pardon me if I am unpersuaded.

[peteshimmon]

Welcome to the forum davidm. I think you will
find/have found that many around here are of
the "believe it when I see it" persuasion
Thanks for the links.

[Demigrog]

Sheesh, amazing how heated a simple question of economics can get.

First, oil reserves are a very complicated subject that involves at least as much politics as it does economics; wary as I am of Wikipedia, I think their article is pretty good.

Bottom line is that oil will not run out over night; prices will go up over time, with a few possible sudden jumps due to wars and/or demand increases from developing nations.

People are not stupid; everyone in the energy industry sees this coming and every energy related company has ongoing R&D into alternative energy sources. We will not be required to switch overnight, and new technologies can be phased in as they become economically competitive. Many already are—wind turbines are way outselling gas and coal in developed countries at the moment.

In the short term, fuel efficiency will improve. In the medium term, hybrid vehicles will begin to really sell, followed by duel-fuel (hydrogen/gasoline) and some pure-electric vehicles.

To charge the electrics and produce hydrogen (as well as power the other three quarters of our energy consumption that are not transportation related), we’ll build more power plants.

In the short term, Gas turbines, wind turbines, some hydroelectric (particularly in Asia), and trace amounts of solar, biomass, and other alternatives.

In the 2010-2015 timeframe, IGCC coal plants (basically zero emission, other than CO2) will take the brunt of the load in the US.

In the 2015-2040 timeframe, IGCC coal with carbon capture (zero emission) and Gen III+ nuclear.

After 2040 is anybody’s guess, but likely Gen IV nuclear (breeder reactors), and possibly fusion (still hard to say if it will ever be commercially viable—we still haven’t even achieved ignition).

So, our energy needs are clearly going to be met by a changing array of sources in the years to come, but it is hardly a crisis.

[tofu]

I am hoping that someone can debunk Peak Oil

Well, the concept that oil is a limited resource and that its availability will follow a simple bell curve, is not really open to debate, is it? I mean, it is a simple, easily understood fact. So, I'm not sure that Peak Oil as a concept needs to be debunked. It's not bad science.

What is open for debate is what we as a civilization are going to do about it. While Peak Oil isn't bad science, I do believe that much of the alarmist talk surrounding it is. To understand why I say this, try answering the following question.

How is Peak Oil different from Peak Food? Way back in 1798 the respected economist Thomas Malthus made the simple (and scientifically correct) observation that population grows at an exponential rate, while food production grows linearly. That would be bad enough, but there is the additional observation that food production will peak (just like oil) as we reach the point where we have converted most of the good land into farms. Looking at his data, Malthus predicted that we had two generations left (let's say 60 years, or until the year 1858) before we hit a wall and ran out of food, after which there would be mass starvation.

So, way back in 1798, there was a theory very similar to Peak Oil. I just want to point out that every argument for and against Peak Oil's predicted effects can be made about Peak Food. If you and I were around in 1798, and you said to me, "we will hit Peak Food just like Malthus predicts, and then most of us will starve to death or die in the inevitable food wars." I might reply to you, "well don't worry, when food gets more expensive, people will eat less and the food we have will last longer - also, new technologies will come out that allow us to grow more food." And your response would be the same as your responses in this thread. You'd say that we can't survive on less food and that no new technologies look promising - and even if there were new technologies, that doesn't change the fact that the amount of land available is decreasing, so new technologies only delay the problem by a few years, they don't solve it.

So just to repeat my question: how is this situation different from Peak Oil? Why were the arguments against Peak Food valid, but those same arguments against Peak Oil are invalid?

In 1967, William and Paul Paddock wrote a book that made the same predictions as Malthus. The title of the book was Famine, 1975! As the title suggests, they predicted terrible worldwide famines by 1975. Had the internet been around back then, and had you posted a thread asking someone to "debunk Paddock" you would gotten many of the same arguments that you are getting now, and you would have responded to many of those arguments in the same way that you're responding here. But you would have been wrong.

Finally, imagine a peak oil discussion in the early 1950s. This was before there were any offshore drilling platforms. If you and I had engaged in a peak oil discussion at that time, I might have suggested to you that the world has additional oil reserves under the oceans. All we have to do is get to them. Your counterargument would have been the same as the argument you make against shale oil and other technologies now. You would scoff at the idea of drilling for oil in the middle of the ocean. You would say that there is no evidence that this will ever be economically feasible. But you would have been wrong.

And I humbly submit that you (and others) are wrong about some aspects of Peak Oil as well. Peak Oil is coming, I don't doubt that. But it wont be the unmitigated disaster that some people make it out to be. I think that the climate change caused by burning oil is going to cause bigger problems than running out of oil.

[Demigrog]

To say that we are going to build nuclear power plants to produce hydrogen to power cars is entirely too quick and glib.

Nobody within the industry is quick or glib about it; politicians tend to be, but their audience has a notoriously short attention span, so I forgive them.

We must have some reasonable scenario that makes this possible. Again: How many power plants will we need? How fast can they come on line? How will we overcome the challenges of distributing and transporting hydrogen?

One piece of the puzzle at a time. The entire world will not switch over night. Hawaii and California are the obvious candidates to do it first. Hawaii in particular has invested a lot of resources into developing hydrogen technologies and will likely be the first state to have ubiquitous hydrogen fuel stations. Since nobody can drive on a long trip in Hawaii, obviously its easy to geographically distribute hydrogen stations and reach the bulk of the population. Big cities also have this advantage—the bulk of driving miles are commuters or fleet vehicles like taxis that will rarely be far from the city, allowing a relatively small distribution system to reach a large market.

Obviously not every trip is going to be short and in a hydrogen enabled city, so I expect dual fuel cars to be popular for the first few decades of the hydrogen transition. This isn’t really all that different than existing hybrid electric cars—a gasoline engine supplementing a hydrogen fuel cell for recharging a chemical battery.

Over time, more markets will join the hydrogen infrastructure, with rural areas last as always. As the transition gains momentum, there will probably be a federal mandate to complete the switch for all new vehicles, similar to the analog to digital TV mandate (and expect delays, just like with HDTV. )

What will we do with agriculture?

Presumably what we do today, except with hydrogen powered engines. I also expect gasoline will stick around in some applications for a long time—the “gas pump” will be like the “kerosene pump” is today.

What challenges need to be overcome to make nuclear power, even supposing that we can build the large number of plants that we need, feasible for other than electrical generation?

Well, nuclear power is already feasible, and plants could be built in large numbers if we needed to. The only thing holding it back is regulatory burden and the NIMBY effect every time a new plant is proposed. Assuming Yucca Mountain is built, there really is no major issue for nuclear power beyond what Glom calls FUD—fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Can nuclear power plants feasibly be used for industrial and manufacturing purposes?

Obviously yes; the electricity is just as good as from other sources. In fact, a switch to nuclear might drive prices down enough to make certain industries like Aluminum profitable in the US again.

Industry requiring steam in its processes can also use nuclear power directly, or hydrogen indirectly. In fact, a lot of industries would be ecstatic to have hydrogen-driven steam boilers, as they currently have emissions caps on other fuels that limit their factories’ uptime.

Also, it is important to note that nuclear power is important in hydrogen production not just to produce the electricity for electrolysis, but to provide high levels of heat to make electrolysis more efficient.

A final plus for hydrogen is that it may make renewable energy more economical. Currently the major limiting factor on wind power is that wind resources are often far beyond the range of existing transmission lines. If the wind farm was powering an on-site hydrogen facility, the energy could then be transported and sold elsewhere—simultaneously solving both the transmission problem and the wind variability issue.

There are a huge number of unanswered questions here, and so if someone says, "Problem solved," you'll pardon me if I am unpersuaded.

Well, the answers to your questions are not really hard to find. It is a common problem with messageboards, really; experts get tired of posting the same answers over and over, especially when you can Google them.

[Trantor]

I hear that Brazil is very close to being completely energy independent. Brazil has been working hard at converting their economy to ethanol since the energy crisis in the early 70's.

Their vehicles all run on ethanol, which they make from sugar cane and citrus peel. They make enough ethanol for their use and actually export what they don't need.

Brazil is also advancing very rapidly in nuclear technology and has one of the biggest uranium reserves in the world.

They are now in the process of building their own uranium enrichment plant. In the past, Brazil has had to ship their uranium for enrichment to Europe for processing. Yes, this is what Iran is currently in trouble for, but Brazil is staying under the radar. Not too many terrorists in Brazil it seems.

Brazil may be in good shape when things start heating up due to the coming energy crisis.

[Van Rijn]

Well, the concept that oil is a limited resource and that its availability will follow a simple bell curve, is not really open to debate, is it? I mean, it is a simple, easily understood fact. So, I'm not sure that Peak Oil as a concept needs to be debunked. It's not bad science.

What is open for debate is what we as a civilization are going to do about it. While Peak Oil isn't bad science, I do believe that much of the alarmist talk surrounding it is. To understand why I say this, try answering the following question.

Well, it depends what you mean by "peak oil." If you mean by that there will come a point of peak production of conventional fossil oil, well, yes, that's true. Along with that will be a shifting to more heavy oil, tar sands, oil shale, coal, quite possibly methane hydrates, along with nuclear and so-called "renewable" energy sources. Where transportation fuel comes from would shift over this time, as would demand, due to changing economics. This will continue to shift over time, until at some point all fossil fuels are out of the picture. There would still be oil for those things it is still needed for (lubrication, for instance) and whatever is the most convenient/economical/clean energy carrier medium (hydrogen, methane, methanol, whatever).

So rather than this proposed hopeless peak, you get a spread out period of shifting production and demand.

[Van Rijn]

Nonsense! (To adopt the rhetorical stance that unfortunately seems to be favored here.) How about demonstrating, in detail, how this is to be done? If peak oil is correct (I don’t insist that it must be correct, but I look at the data and find disturbing reasons to think that it might be) the problem is this: as soon as the peak of world oil production is passed, then by definition production declines year after year, even as demand is skyrocketing.

Except that production and demand would continue to shift as it does today. I expect there will be occasional temporary economic shocks, as there was in the '70s. That's when people buy different/more efficient cars, add insulation, change their actions. That's when companies and governments make a real effort to change production, do more R&D, change policy, etc.

What about agriculture? The green revolution, which has fed so much of the world, was made possible only by fossil fuels. Pesticides and fertilizers are made from massive fossil fuel inputs. What’s going to replace those inputs, if indeed peak oil takes place and fossil fuel production declines year after year? Are you going to make pesticides and fertilizers from hydrogen? Wind? Solar? Nuclear? How? Do tell.

Well, yes, you will make pesticides and fertilizers from hydrogen. Are you familiar with the Haber process? Today, hydrogen is split out of methane because hydrogen is such an important industrial chemical. You can go the other way, of course. If you have hydrogen and a carbon source you can make methane. Add oxygen and you get methanol. In a refinery, you can make any number of hydrocarbons, many types of "oil." See here, for example:

http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/chemweek.../hydrogen.html

Hydrogen is often used to "sweeten" heavy oil. Nuclear hydrogen production would be a good way to stretch oil supplies and help produce synfuels from coal.

I expect to see primary energy production shift over this century to nuclear, solar and related energy sources. For transportation, we will see a shifting to other fuels over time that can be easily integrated - increasing percentages of ethanol or methanol, for instance - that can be more easily be produced (note though, that it is quite possible to make synthetic gasoline). Eventually, we may see more direct use of hydrogen, though that isn't really necessary.

[publius]

David,

Ah, the coming peak oil catastrophe. As others have pointed out, history is packed with similiar doom and gloom predictions, with no way out seen at the time. Somehow, civilization finds a way.

Peak oil is based on equating on "oil" with "energy" (really "wealth", but it takes energy to make new wealth. We can't really say wealth = constant*energy though because it is a lot more complex than that, but for now we'll go with proportionality).

If we did reach peak energy, then we would indeed be screwed as all the peak oil arguments detail. Our economic system is based on exponential growth. In very crude terms, consider the old saying, "it takes money to make money". We get the money to make money by borrowing it, and borrowed money is really "created out of thin air" (many will balk at this statement, but when you deposit $100 in the bank, do they tell you can spend $10 of that because they're going to loan $90 of it out? No, this is "fractional reserve" banking, and $1 "seed" money balloons into, IIRC,
$1/(1 - r) total possible money. {EDIT: Whoops, if r is the reserve fraction, that is 1/r. r = 1 - q, where q is the fraction you can lend out}The original $1 is sometimes called "high powered money" by bankers and this 'r' is one of the main levers of control the Federal Reserve system uses).

At first blush, creating money out of nothing would seem inflationary. After all, inflation is "too much money chasing too few goods". Well, it is only inflationary if the increased money chases the same fixed amount of wealth. If the additional money can create more wealth to match, then it is not inflationary. In reality, some variation does a occur and a dollar is not a fixed "yardstick" for wealth, and that makes things more complicated to analyze, sort of like trying to build a house with a variable length ruler :-), so you can have both inflation and wealth creation. This is why its important to understand the difference between money and wealth. Money is a variable, not fixed, measure of wealth.

But for the system to work, you've got to keep the wealth increasing, and increasing at a certain minimum geometric (exponential) rate, depending on a variety of factors. the reserve fraction, 'r' above, as well as interest rates are important throttles on the process.

If wealth ever stopped increasing, then the system would collapse in a *deflationary* period (sort of like a "Big Crunch" following a Big Bang). The value of money would actually increase, but the supply would dwindle as a cascade of "loan foreclosure" process kicked in and shrunk the money supply. This is what a depression is as opposed to a recession.

To keep the wealth increasing geometrically, our energy consumption must increase geometrically as well (assuming wealth is directly proportional to energy as above, and for the most part it works this way -- you can make things more efficient, but the rate of increase remains exponential).

In light of this "energy conservation" (not in the law of physics sense, but the ecomomizing sense) seems silly. :-) If we ever did reduce our energy consumption, the system would collapse. What we really mean is "smarter, more efficient" use of energy, ie increase the constant of proportionality between wealth and energy.

Again, all the gloom and doom would be true if oil was the only source of energy we had left. It is not, and far from it. As existing oil gets scarcer, that expontential economic engine is going to generate enormous forces to find other sources of energy. In 500 years, I guarantee you'd wouldn't believe what happened. Energy consumption will have continued to increase exponentially, and the wealth ("stuff", if you will) that energy was turned in to will be wonderous.

-Richard