Thanks for posting this, Kells. This is freaky stuff, ain't it? Peak Oil, The End of Oil, The Comming Collapse... the decline of oil as a natural resource heralds the apocalypse in many presentations. Whether it will happen as fast or as destructively as some predict is highly debateable, but high prices for natural gas energy certainly seems to be here to stay (whereas prices in the 1980s for energy dropped after the late 1970s energy crisis.) And, it will undoubtedly change the world as we know it. A fantastic history of oil, The Prize by Daniel Yergin, won the Pulitzer in the early 1990s and has since been made into a wonderful 12-part documentary. You can view the individual documentaries for free at Google Video. Episodes 1 and 2 are really interesting. And episode 4 on WWII is amazing. I'm still working my way through the rest. In another post, I also mentioned a much shorter documentary called the End of Oil, which can be viewed piece-meal at YouTube. What do you guys all think about this End of Oil stuff? Is it real? What should we be doing differently if it is?
We are certainly going to be looking for something hybrid (at the minimum) whenever we get the next car (thankfully, the Passat's pulling 36 mpg [somehow] at 110,000 miles). I think the End of Oil is totally real, and in its own way necessary and ultimately beneficial. Now the market will respond, engineers and inventors will work on useful renewable energy sources, and we might start turning this behemoth around yet. Or at least slowing its progress.
That said, people who are on shoestring budgets and need to pay for heating oil come winter are going to need help and should get it from all of us in the form of governmental subsidies to keep the price of home heating oil where it was last winter.
But that's just me, a tax and spend (on something useful) liberal.
Personally I don't think that there's going to be an "end of oil" crisis, meaning I don't think that there is an end to the oil supply the world has. However, I do think that the readiness and ease of getting oil will become more and more difficult and result in higher prices to attain it.
My biggest thought on all this is that there's something that a lot of the predictors of a crisis fail to point out, invention. I mean what happens to our oil supply and demand if tomorrow someone figures out how to turn the oil we use into a completely efficient resource? What if we discover a way to turn the ordinary combustion engine into a ultra efficient device that slows the consumption of gasoline? These things would stop the "crisis" wouldn't they?
Now granted it wouldn't end the problem of greenhouse gases and such so that's another issue that I think gets confused with the issue b/c they're two entities. That is something that needs immediate attention and change but I don't believe there is a limited supply of oil out there and we're running out.
Hey, Tom: As the kids say, are you whacked? Perhaps there's not an impending crisis and that could be an arguable point. But to say that there's not a limited supply of oil? The oil we're using now is from the Jurassic period, like 180,000,000 years ago. It's from plankton and the long, long, long process of turning it into oil (just Google "where does oil come from" for specifics). In terms we can appreciate, oil is a limited resource (one could argue, I'd imagine, that if we live millions of years without using oil, then we'd be able to use the oil that gets made in the interim).
Here's another interesting tidbit from Kenenth Deffeys' book "Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage." It's circumstantial, but pretty darn persuasive--oil companies have stopped opening new refineries and refitting old or building new oil tankers. Seems they know something about the future need for these things--which is to say, not much.
Anyhow, I just don't think there's any logical support for claims about oil not being limited. One could say the remaining pool is still quite large, and argue yay and nay on that, but factually, oil is limited.
I don't get it. How can you say that oil is limited? It's a renewable resource. If we are using oil from 180 million years ago then fine, that's only 5% of the estimated age of the earth. Granted the entire time the earth was around it wasn't supporting carbon based life to produce oil but if you add a billion years to that figure it still only supports the fact that the oil we're using is 1/4 of the earth's age. I think that there's plenty of time to add more oil to that supply during the meantime, not to mention the oil that's being produced constantly as we speak.
I still argue that this "shortage" or "limited supply" is based on an ease of availability basis. If we can't get to it without spending substantial dollars then it's not there, or if there are road blocks to getting it then it's not there. Personally I think that's panic inducing. We should be concentrating on how to better equip the world to handle the other resources that won't be in such limited hands so prices won't shoot through the roof. Why do you think we want ethenol based engines made from corn. We got tons of the stuff. If we could make engines run off bad movies and crappy tv shows we'd be tied with England I'm sure.
Hey, Tom: I'm so glad we started having this debate--it's lead me to learn something that puts my argument into grave doubt and gives great strength to yours. This is why I love discussion!
So, it turns out oil might indeed be renewable--not from old plant and animal remains but from inorganic sources. One major scientist, Dr. Thomas Gold, keeps coming up in all the articles I read about it. Here's a link to a thorough overview I found that seems to address the bits and pieces I've found elsewhere: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html
In a nutshell, Gold theorizes that a chemical process operating on inorganic sources causes "fossil fuels." The fuels have biologic material in them because this liquified material seeps up through the layers containing fossils. And this is why it seems oil comes from fossils. There are several persuasive bits to this argument; for instance, human remains have been found in coal. Now, since this coal should have formed long before humans were around, there must be something else at work (and this is part of the discussion of the liquid moving up through the strata of the earth collecting fossil bits).
So, if the traditional way of viewing oil's origins is correct, then it is definitely not renewable in any useful sense. However, this theory of Gold's seems entirely plausible--meaning "fossil fuels" may well be quite plentiful and "renewable" for hundreds of years.
Any way, those of you really plugged into this stuff (ROG and BRAD, I'm talking to you), if you can take a look into this subject of Gold's theory. Let us know if it carries water or if it's been refuted to your knowledge.
UPDATE: Well, I've looked into it a bit more, and sought the input of Mike, Sara's brother, who has a geographic/environmental something Master's. Sounds like the theory's not panning out, and here's Mike's response below. I'm going to invite Mike to the blog, too, and ask him to read and contribute to this thread.
(1) He incorrectly assumes that one form of creating hydrocarbons excludes the other. (2) No citation for finding a human skull embedded in Pennsylvanian coal deposits. (Pennsylvanian was 320 - 380 Million Years Ago. Man started a few million years ago.) Also, see any history book regarding how, yes, a fossil can be formed from a leaf. (3) I've heard of the alternative hypothesis, which doesn't seem to be well reflected in this essay (or whatever it is). But - the fact remains that no one has yet reliably pointed to a deposit and determined that it was not from biological origins. Since so much of the world's wealth and resources is being used to capture and sell oil and think that suggests that we can say with some certainty that this alternative theory, even if correct, is not significant. (4) Nowhere in the article does he address the renewability of this resource. He doesn't point to tapped out reservoirs that have refilled. Nor does he address the amount of time we should expect to wait for the resource to be renewed. In conclusion - the alternative theory may be correct but it does not support an argument that oil and coal are renewable resources. I look forward to discussing.
It's my understanding that it is renewable...but not at the rate in which we need it to renew (you know brazillions of years tee hee) ... and that is not the "crisis" that scares me... what scares me is the reality of our alarming rate of consumption and are dependency on oil from sources outside the U.S. (I think it's like 60%/40%, 60 from outside and 40 from inside that we get our oil)...we are I think the top third producer of oil (I think it's Saudi Arabia, Russia then us) and we are the TOP consumer...we make up like 4.6% of the population and we consume 25% of the world production of oil... There's some interesting info on the U.S. Energy Info Administration website - http://www.eia.doe.gov/ and the U.S. Department of Energy site - http://www.doe.gov/
I see a crisis in our vulnerability due to our dependence on a scarce resource that we - in house - have only limited amounts of…
If that were true what the article said, think of what could be next... oil on other planets. We could have an Exxon planet orbiting Mars or something like that. Crazy.
9 comments:
Thanks for posting this, Kells. This is freaky stuff, ain't it? Peak Oil, The End of Oil, The Comming Collapse... the decline of oil as a natural resource heralds the apocalypse in many presentations. Whether it will happen as fast or as destructively as some predict is highly debateable, but high prices for natural gas energy certainly seems to be here to stay (whereas prices in the 1980s for energy dropped after the late 1970s energy crisis.) And, it will undoubtedly change the world as we know it.
A fantastic history of oil, The Prize by Daniel Yergin, won the Pulitzer in the early 1990s and has since been made into a wonderful 12-part documentary. You can view the individual documentaries for free at Google Video. Episodes 1 and 2 are really interesting. And episode 4 on WWII is amazing. I'm still working my way through the rest.
In another post, I also mentioned a much shorter documentary called the End of Oil, which can be viewed piece-meal at YouTube.
What do you guys all think about this End of Oil stuff? Is it real? What should we be doing differently if it is?
We are certainly going to be looking for something hybrid (at the minimum) whenever we get the next car (thankfully, the Passat's pulling 36 mpg [somehow] at 110,000 miles). I think the End of Oil is totally real, and in its own way necessary and ultimately beneficial. Now the market will respond, engineers and inventors will work on useful renewable energy sources, and we might start turning this behemoth around yet. Or at least slowing its progress.
That said, people who are on shoestring budgets and need to pay for heating oil come winter are going to need help and should get it from all of us in the form of governmental subsidies to keep the price of home heating oil where it was last winter.
But that's just me, a tax and spend (on something useful) liberal.
Personally I don't think that there's going to be an "end of oil" crisis, meaning I don't think that there is an end to the oil supply the world has. However, I do think that the readiness and ease of getting oil will become more and more difficult and result in higher prices to attain it.
My biggest thought on all this is that there's something that a lot of the predictors of a crisis fail to point out, invention. I mean what happens to our oil supply and demand if tomorrow someone figures out how to turn the oil we use into a completely efficient resource? What if we discover a way to turn the ordinary combustion engine into a ultra efficient device that slows the consumption of gasoline? These things would stop the "crisis" wouldn't they?
Now granted it wouldn't end the problem of greenhouse gases and such so that's another issue that I think gets confused with the issue b/c they're two entities. That is something that needs immediate attention and change but I don't believe there is a limited supply of oil out there and we're running out.
Hey, Tom:
As the kids say, are you whacked? Perhaps there's not an impending crisis and that could be an arguable point. But to say that there's not a limited supply of oil? The oil we're using now is from the Jurassic period, like 180,000,000 years ago. It's from plankton and the long, long, long process of turning it into oil (just Google "where does oil come from" for specifics). In terms we can appreciate, oil is a limited resource (one could argue, I'd imagine, that if we live millions of years without using oil, then we'd be able to use the oil that gets made in the interim).
Here's another interesting tidbit from Kenenth Deffeys' book "Hubbert's Peak:
The Impending World Oil Shortage." It's circumstantial, but pretty darn persuasive--oil companies have stopped opening new refineries and refitting old or building new oil tankers. Seems they know something about the future need for these things--which is to say, not much.
Anyhow, I just don't think there's any logical support for claims about oil not being limited. One could say the remaining pool is still quite large, and argue yay and nay on that, but factually, oil is limited.
Tamo,
I don't get it. How can you say that oil is limited? It's a renewable resource. If we are using oil from 180 million years ago then fine, that's only 5% of the estimated age of the earth. Granted the entire time the earth was around it wasn't supporting carbon based life to produce oil but if you add a billion years to that figure it still only supports the fact that the oil we're using is 1/4 of the earth's age. I think that there's plenty of time to add more oil to that supply during the meantime, not to mention the oil that's being produced constantly as we speak.
I still argue that this "shortage" or "limited supply" is based on an ease of availability basis. If we can't get to it without spending substantial dollars then it's not there, or if there are road blocks to getting it then it's not there. Personally I think that's panic inducing. We should be concentrating on how to better equip the world to handle the other resources that won't be in such limited hands so prices won't shoot through the roof. Why do you think we want ethenol based engines made from corn. We got tons of the stuff. If we could make engines run off bad movies and crappy tv shows we'd be tied with England I'm sure.
Hey, Tom:
I'm so glad we started having this debate--it's lead me to learn something that puts my argument into grave doubt and gives great strength to yours. This is why I love discussion!
So, it turns out oil might indeed be renewable--not from old plant and animal remains but from inorganic sources. One major scientist, Dr. Thomas Gold, keeps coming up in all the articles I read about it. Here's a link to a thorough overview I found that seems to address the bits and pieces I've found elsewhere: http://www.321energy.com/editorials/bainerman/bainerman083105.html
In a nutshell, Gold theorizes that a chemical process operating on inorganic sources causes "fossil fuels." The fuels have biologic material in them because this liquified material seeps up through the layers containing fossils. And this is why it seems oil comes from fossils. There are several persuasive bits to this argument; for instance, human remains have been found in coal. Now, since this coal should have formed long before humans were around, there must be something else at work (and this is part of the discussion of the liquid moving up through the strata of the earth collecting fossil bits).
So, if the traditional way of viewing oil's origins is correct, then it is definitely not renewable in any useful sense. However, this theory of Gold's seems entirely plausible--meaning "fossil fuels" may well be quite plentiful and "renewable" for hundreds of years.
Any way, those of you really plugged into this stuff (ROG and BRAD, I'm talking to you), if you can take a look into this subject of Gold's theory. Let us know if it carries water or if it's been refuted to your knowledge.
UPDATE: Well, I've looked into it a bit more, and sought the input of Mike, Sara's brother, who has a geographic/environmental something Master's. Sounds like the theory's not panning out, and here's Mike's response below. I'm going to invite Mike to the blog, too, and ask him to read and contribute to this thread.
(1) He incorrectly assumes that one form of creating hydrocarbons excludes the other. (2) No citation for finding a human skull embedded in Pennsylvanian coal deposits. (Pennsylvanian was 320 - 380 Million Years Ago. Man started a few million years ago.) Also, see any history book regarding how, yes, a fossil can be formed from a leaf. (3) I've heard of the alternative hypothesis, which doesn't seem to be well reflected in this essay (or whatever it is). But - the fact remains that no one has yet reliably pointed to a deposit and determined that it was not from biological origins. Since so much of the world's wealth and resources is being used to capture and sell oil and think that suggests that we can say with some certainty that this alternative theory, even if correct, is not significant. (4) Nowhere in the article does he address the renewability of this resource. He doesn't point to tapped out reservoirs that have refilled. Nor does he address the amount of time we should expect to wait for the resource to be renewed.
In conclusion - the alternative theory may be correct but it does not support an argument that oil and coal are renewable resources. I look forward to discussing.
It's my understanding that it is renewable...but not at the rate in which we need it to renew (you know brazillions of years tee hee) ... and that is not the "crisis" that scares me... what scares me is the reality of our alarming rate of consumption and are dependency on oil from sources outside the U.S. (I think it's like 60%/40%, 60 from outside and 40 from inside that we get our oil)...we are I think the top third producer of oil (I think it's Saudi Arabia, Russia then us) and we are the TOP consumer...we make up like 4.6% of the population and we consume 25% of the world production of oil...
There's some interesting info on the U.S. Energy Info Administration website - http://www.eia.doe.gov/
and the U.S. Department of Energy site - http://www.doe.gov/
I see a crisis in our vulnerability due to our dependence on a scarce resource that we - in house - have only limited amounts of…
Tamo,
If that were true what the article said, think of what could be next... oil on other planets. We could have an Exxon planet orbiting Mars or something like that. Crazy.
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