[Antimatter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell what about European Energy Commision saying that uranium resources will peak and run out around 2020-2030?

[Taskforce_Unity]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Antimatter', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell what about European Energy Commision saying that uranium resources will peak and run out around 2020-2030?

[Ludi]

According to this guy:

"Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations and Research,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN.Tel./fax 01295 261864. Email meir@fraw.org.uk.
© Paul Mobbs, March 2005. Released under the Gnu Free Documentation License.

Published in Oxford Energy Forum, the quarterly journal of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies,
Issue 61, May 2005. (see http://www.oxfordenergy.org/ for details of the OIES).


At the current level of uranium consumption (67,000 tonnes per year) known uranium resources (2.8 million tonnes of uranium) would last 42 years – a fact highlighted by the European Commission in their Energy Green Paper [EC 2001]. The known and estimated resources plus secondary resources (such as the military inventory), a total of around 4.8 million tonnes, would last 72 years. Of course this assumes that nuclear continues to provide just a fraction of the world's energy supply. If capacity were increased six-fold then 72 years would reduce to 12 years. This is because nuclear energy, in terms of global energy supply, must increase by a factor of four to eight to make any significant difference to the use of fossil fuels around the globe. Consequently the expected lifetime of the uranium resource would fall by a similar factor.

The actual lifetime of the uranium resource will depend upon the technologies adopted as part of any new nuclear capacity. New reactor designs are more thermally efficient (up to 45% to 50% rather than 30% to 35%) which could extend the lifetime of the uranium resource by a factor of 1.7. Introducing a number of fast breeder reactors, to increase the efficiency of uranium consumption, might increase the lifetime of the uranium resource by a factor of 2. Even so, taking these two factors together alongside a six-fold increase in capacity, the lifetime of the known and estimated uranium resource would still be less than 50 years...


It would be unwise to advocate adopting the nuclear option when we have no realistic idea of how long the uranium resource will last. Clearly the 'once through' cycle has no future – if the world were to adopt the 'once through' option the world's uranium resources would be exhausted in a few decades. We would very quickly shift from shortages of oil and coal to shortages of uranium [Mobbs 2005]. The principle solution to the problem of the 'once through' cycle, adopting a more 'closed' cycle using fast breeder reactors, is itself fraught with dangers. There is no tried and tested fast breeder technology. In addition the scale of the increase in nuclear capacity required to displace fossil fuel is such that the lifetime of the resource would still be a matter of decades, not centuries. For this reason it may be that the longevity of the uranium resource, quite apart from the issues of waste or radioactivity, could be more significant to the future viability of the nuclear industry."

http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/papers/oies_article.html

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he actual lifetime of the uranium resource will depend upon the technologies adopted as part of any new nuclear capacity. New reactor designs are more thermally efficient (up to 45% to 50% rather than 30% to 35%) which could extend the lifetime of the uranium resource by a factor of 1.7. Introducing a number of fast breeder reactors, to increase the efficiency of uranium consumption, might increase the lifetime of the uranium resource by a factor of 2. Even so, taking these two factors together alongside a six-fold increase in capacity, the lifetime of the known and estimated uranium resource would still be less than 50 years...

[orz]

50 years is more than enough time. We could easily make a full transfer to solar technology within that period.

Pick up the book Nanofuture, written by a Scientist working at one of the foremost commercial nanotech R&D companies(name escapes me at the moment). The power of this technology can not be underestimated. And the timescale he gives for these accomplishments is 50 years.

Also, I like him because at the end he bashes the people who think that we're too high tech and need to back off and just live in harmony with nature until a comet crashes into us and wipes us out. Would piss off a good percentage of this board.

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('orz', 'A')lso, I like him because at the end he bashes the people who think that we're too high tech and need to back off and just live in harmony with nature until a comet crashes into us and wipes us out. Would piss off a good percentage of this board.

[orz]

That's the one, Omni. A very interesting read. It is what got me turned onto the idea of going into nanotech(not that I'm there yet). And the potential... the doomers on this board can't understand. Just need some more time. 20 years, just 20 would do very nicely, especially after the shock of hitting the peak. Here's to hoping for the president to grow some balls and address the issue properly.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('orz', '5')0 years is more than enough time. We could easily make a full transfer to solar technology within that period.

[Taskforce_Unity]

The point about nuclear is not actually what the amount of reserves are but what the European commision thinks. They say 20-30 or 40 years from now nuclear power is gone. So that means they will NOT heavily invest in nuclear. That's already policy in Europe actually.

[Ludi]

There's a link to the European Commission report in the reference section of the article I posted the exerpt from..is all...yep, there it is, right in there....

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Taskforce_Unity', 'T')he point about nuclear is not actually what the amount of reserves are but what the European commision thinks. They say 20-30 or 40 years from now nuclear power is gone. So that means they will NOT heavily invest in nuclear. That's already policy in Europe actually.

[Flow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', '
')

I seriously question the accuracy of the data you've cited. Those three spreadsheets you linked to seem to present impossible data, unless i'm just misinterpretting them (quite possible as I didn't explore the website and so only have the data itself as context).

But if you sum the data for 2004 across all three sheets, the numbers are outrageous. The header on each spreadsheet says that the numbers represent thousand of barrels per day production from each listed country by month. If we take them as simply representing that on what I would take to be a common reading, and do the sums, we'd get that the world produced 712 billion barrels of oil in 2004, or about 1.9 billion per day.

If we take it that this is total production, then the world only produced 1.9 billion barrels in all of 2004. The first number is way too high, the second way too low.

The closest I can get these numbers to come to other production numbers I've seen is by taking each cell to represent thousands of barrels per month (not day). Doing that, we get 23 billion barrels--at a rate of consumption set at 85 million barrels, though, that's only 275 days of supply. While that comes much closer than the other numbers, it's still obviously flawed. We should have produced roughly 30 billion barrels in 2004.

[Flow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('clv101', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Flow', '
')
A simple calculation shows what would be required for even a 2025 peak. Peak in 20 years time assuming a very conservative 1% annual increase from today (the last 5 years has seen ~1.8% growth) would require an additional 675 billion barrels extracted before peak (suggesting a URR of over 3 trillion barrels) and an extraction rate of just over 100 million barrels per day. A 5% decline in today’s 84 mbpd would leave us with just 31 million barrels of today’s extraction still available in 20 years time so we’d need 70 mbpd of new production.

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Flow', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Flow', 'I') have estimated that we will need 730 billion barrels of oil from 2006 through 2025 based on EIA estimates. You are assuming that we have already peaked in the last paragraph which nobody has predicted (Hell, Campbell and Savinar both say we have about 3 years left at least).

[Taskforce_Unity]

I suggest Flow takes a look at my report released today:



http://www.peakoil.nl/images/ponlreport.pdf

[ashurbanipal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') guess I don't know how the numbers of past production can be flawed. They are actual numbers of what countries have produced as reported by the US Energy Information Adminstration. I can understand future predictions in production levels is truly anybody's guess but past production levels are what they are.

[ashurbanipal]

Nevermind; the data is already annualized. I was assuming it was not. I withdraw my objection, as this would make the production numbers close to correct.

This does not, however, validate any of the rest of you analysis.

[Flow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'C')ampell is suggesting that we've already peaked in conventional oil, with unconventional peaking in a couple of years.

[Taskforce_Unity]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Flow', '
')As far as predicting the future, can anybody really tell? How can anybody make any kind of prediction without accurate reports of how much oil really exists?

[TonyPrep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Flow', '[')This is news to me. I guess at some point in time, in one of Campbells many predictions he may have predicted this. But the last time I checked, Campbell said we had until 2015 (or it is 2007 - I can't keep it straight it changes so often).