I think that when talking about peak oil to the average person who isn't aware of the problem, they seem to think that market forces will find a solution to the problem.
Here are some of the comments that I get from people:
"The world isn't running out of oil, it's just getting harder to find"
"As the supply of oil decreases, people will tighten their belts in anticipation of higher oil prices".
These comments are quite true. What I'm worried about is the impact on society. If the world currently produces 82 million barrels a day and world production goes down to 75 million in 5 years from now what will be the impact on the economy?
When we adjust our consumption it will mean that our capitalist economy will shrink. Many people will lose their jobs and be thrown on the streets. There will be a lot of civil unrest.
All of this, and we haven't technically run out of oil!
How will the decadent citizens of the West react in the large cities? Will the US political center move towards the radical right or the radical left? Imagine a 2012 US election where the sensible moderate is a Pat Buchanan-type candidate running against an outright Nazi. Or maybe Ted Kennedy might run as a stanch conservative against a Leon Trotsky type candidate?
Peak oil by itself could be a problem that might be fixable. But we live in a world where peak oil and a combination of the following factors:
Peak Oil + Nuclear proliferation
Peak Oil + Ethnic and racial problems in the large cities of the Western world
Peak Oil + Possible Ice Age (we are approaching the end of the 11,500 year cycle in between ice ages!)
PeakOil is You
"We'll never run out of oil" ... Quite true, but..
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"We'll never run out of oil" ... Quite true, but..
by cador » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 13:26:27
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by Geology_Guy » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 14:43:58
I like the way you think. We are approaching another cold stretch in the Milankovitch global cycles. Here is a thought. Maybe global warming will help to avert the next ice age?
I myself find the evidence for a global peak in oil production much more compelling than the evidence for global warming. Yet the media accepts and promots global warming stories while ignoring peak oil-at least until lately.
I myself find the evidence for a global peak in oil production much more compelling than the evidence for global warming. Yet the media accepts and promots global warming stories while ignoring peak oil-at least until lately.
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Peak Oil
by azcjj1 » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 18:56:35
Peak Oil will not be a problem.
Currently oil is only 1/3 of the US energy supply.
We have enough coal to fire our power plants for over 200 years and that projection includes population/demand increases!
Currently Ethanol supplies almost 3% of all gas used in the US and the production of Cellulose Ethanol has not even begun.
There is nothing made with Fossil Oil that could not be made with something else.
You guys are going to scare yourselves into an early grave.
azcjj1
Currently oil is only 1/3 of the US energy supply.
We have enough coal to fire our power plants for over 200 years and that projection includes population/demand increases!
Currently Ethanol supplies almost 3% of all gas used in the US and the production of Cellulose Ethanol has not even begun.
There is nothing made with Fossil Oil that could not be made with something else.
You guys are going to scare yourselves into an early grave.
azcjj1
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Re: Peak Oil
by cador » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 19:44:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('azcjj1', 'P')eak Oil will not be a problem.
Currently oil is only 1/3 of the US energy supply.
We have enough coal to fire our power plants for over 200 years and that projection includes population/demand increases!
Currently Ethanol supplies almost 3% of all gas used in the US and the production of Cellulose Ethanol has not even begun.
There is nothing made with Fossil Oil that could not be made with something else.
You guys are going to scare yourselves into an early grave.
azcjj1
Currently oil is only 1/3 of the US energy supply.
We have enough coal to fire our power plants for over 200 years and that projection includes population/demand increases!
Currently Ethanol supplies almost 3% of all gas used in the US and the production of Cellulose Ethanol has not even begun.
There is nothing made with Fossil Oil that could not be made with something else.
You guys are going to scare yourselves into an early grave.
azcjj1
You've admitted that 1/3 of the US economy is powered by access to cheap oil. Ethanol is an energy loser that is subsidized by the US government.
Coal already supplies 1/4 of the US energy supply and is 2-4 times as heavy as oil. Plus, the 200 year supply figure is misleading -- how much of that is "easy coal" and how much coal can be extracted before it becomes an energy loser?
Switching to coal will mitigate the problem at best by a few years. Besides, do you think that a 19th century-style coal-based economy can prop up the US economy let alone 6.3 billion people in the world?
There will be a die off.
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by cador » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 19:54:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geology_Guy', 'I') like the way you think. We are approaching another cold stretch in the Milankovitch global cycles. Here is a thought. Maybe global warming will help to avert the next ice age?
I myself find the evidence for a global peak in oil production much more compelling than the evidence for global warming. Yet the media accepts and promots global warming stories while ignoring peak oil-at least until lately.
I myself find the evidence for a global peak in oil production much more compelling than the evidence for global warming. Yet the media accepts and promots global warming stories while ignoring peak oil-at least until lately.
It is easier to tell people that they can sustain their first-world lifestyles by paying lip service to recycling than it is to be honest and tell them that life as they know it is about to end.
I know that the first reaction of people when I tell them that an ice age may happen is that "thank God for global warming!". The problem is that the melting of the ice caps is going to be the cause of a rapid climate shift (reversal of the North Atlantic current) which will trigger an ice age.
Besides, how much of the pollution that we produce is actually causing global warming? Global warming is a natural phenomenon. We humans aren't so powerful that we can affect the heat from the sun, can we?
Pollution is a major problem. But I'd say that the pollution that we see coming from smokestacks is fairly benign compared to he pollution (raw sewage) that we are dumping into the oceans. Raw sewage is killing off plankton which is the food supply of ocean's fish. Fish stocks are down to 10% in many parts of the world.
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by cador » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 19:55:52
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geology_Guy', 'I') like the way you think. We are approaching another cold stretch in the Milankovitch global cycles. Here is a thought. Maybe global warming will help to avert the next ice age?
Thanks for the kind words. I'll do a google search on "Milankovitch global cycles" as it's the first time I ever heard of it.
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Milankovich cycles
by Geology_Guy » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 22:35:39
I am incuding the correct spelling for you-Milankovich cycles
Milankovich cycles are cycles in the Earth's orbit that influence the amount of solar radiation striking different parts of the Earth at different times of year. They are named after a Serbian mathematician, Milutin Milankovitch, who explained how these orbital cycles cause the advance and retreat of the polar ice caps. Although they are named after Milankovitch, he was not the first to link orbital cycles to climate. Adhemar (1842) and Croll (1875) were two of the earliest.
For a scientist I am a lousy speller-sorry!
Milankovich cycles are cycles in the Earth's orbit that influence the amount of solar radiation striking different parts of the Earth at different times of year. They are named after a Serbian mathematician, Milutin Milankovitch, who explained how these orbital cycles cause the advance and retreat of the polar ice caps. Although they are named after Milankovitch, he was not the first to link orbital cycles to climate. Adhemar (1842) and Croll (1875) were two of the earliest.
For a scientist I am a lousy speller-sorry!
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by 0mar » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 22:52:15
The media is very misleading; oil is really only used as a transportation fuel when it is used as an energy source.
The real beauty of oil comes from its derivative products such as fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, polymers of Carbon, etc etc. Just about anything that has carbon in it (re EVERYTHING in your house) was derived in some way from petroleum.
There isn't an energy bank where you can take in energy of one form and leave with a totally different form. We don't burn oil for electricity, we use it for fuels and thousands of other products (last I checked, oil made ~5 million products alone). Coal can do this, but remember, we don't have 50-75 years of chemical research on it like we do oil. And you would have to put more coal in to get the same amount of material out, owing to the fact that coal is less dense than oil.
There will be a largescale, systemic problem when the peak hits.
The real beauty of oil comes from its derivative products such as fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, polymers of Carbon, etc etc. Just about anything that has carbon in it (re EVERYTHING in your house) was derived in some way from petroleum.
There isn't an energy bank where you can take in energy of one form and leave with a totally different form. We don't burn oil for electricity, we use it for fuels and thousands of other products (last I checked, oil made ~5 million products alone). Coal can do this, but remember, we don't have 50-75 years of chemical research on it like we do oil. And you would have to put more coal in to get the same amount of material out, owing to the fact that coal is less dense than oil.
There will be a largescale, systemic problem when the peak hits.
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by Specop_007 » Mon 22 Nov 2004, 23:44:50
In the big scheme of things, I'm far more concerned about the sun going supernova and engulfing the Earth in a big ball of flame. THAT worries me.
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
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by cador » Tue 23 Nov 2004, 10:53:36
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', 'T')he media is very misleading; oil is really only used as a transportation fuel when it is used as an energy source.
The real beauty of oil comes from its derivative products such as fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, polymers of Carbon, etc etc. Just about anything that has carbon in it (re EVERYTHING in your house) was derived in some way from petroleum.
There isn't an energy bank where you can take in energy of one form and leave with a totally different form. We don't burn oil for electricity, we use it for fuels and thousands of other products (last I checked, oil made ~5 million products alone). Coal can do this, but remember, we don't have 50-75 years of chemical research on it like we do oil. And you would have to put more coal in to get the same amount of material out, owing to the fact that coal is less dense than oil.
There will be a largescale, systemic problem when the peak hits.
The real beauty of oil comes from its derivative products such as fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, polymers of Carbon, etc etc. Just about anything that has carbon in it (re EVERYTHING in your house) was derived in some way from petroleum.
There isn't an energy bank where you can take in energy of one form and leave with a totally different form. We don't burn oil for electricity, we use it for fuels and thousands of other products (last I checked, oil made ~5 million products alone). Coal can do this, but remember, we don't have 50-75 years of chemical research on it like we do oil. And you would have to put more coal in to get the same amount of material out, owing to the fact that coal is less dense than oil.
There will be a largescale, systemic problem when the peak hits.
Agreed with everything you said. Coal might be the best alternative but how good is coal when it comes to producing these derivative petroleum products? If I just go by the calculation that coal is on average 3 times heavier than oil, then we can expect the prices for these 5 million products to multiply by 3 as well should coal completely replace oil.
I think that anybody with a calculator can figure out that even a 50% increase in prices without a correlating wage increase means that there will be a severe recession/depression. Will the banks provide debt relief in order to avoid social collapse? I doubt it.
To me peak oil means the end of the 40-hour work week. Already, most white collar workers work 50+ hours a week without getting paid overtime and are forced to carry pagers on top of that. A unionized worker from the 1950s had the purchasing power of today's two-income household. In the next few years the minimum wage laws won't be enforced. The politicians might try to raise it to $10 an hour but most people will be glad to be working for half of that.
I remember the year 1998 very well. It was a period of excess. Everybody thought that the good times would never end. When you look at oil prices in that year they are comparable to the low oil prices of the 1950s when you adjust the prices for inflation. It was as if God himself teased us with one brief period of the good life that we used to know before the coming famine. I predicted way back then that the dotcom boom would bust and there would be extreme hardship in the years ahead. Everybody said that I was a pessimistic nutcase. I feel the same way today about Western Civilization overall as I did about the dotcom boom back then. The times will be cruel...
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