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Ask Slashdot: What If We Don't Run Out of Oil?
symbolset writes "The Atlantic recently ran an in-depth article about energy resources. The premise is that there remain incalculable and little-understood carbon fuel assets which far outweigh all the fossil fuels ever discovered. The article lists them and discusses their potentials and consequences, both fiscal and environmental. 'The clash occurs when renewables are ready for prime time—and natural gas is still hanging around like an old and dirty but reliable car, still cheap to produce and use, after shale fracking is replaced globally by undersea mining of methane hydrate. Revamping the electrical grid from conventionals like coal and oil to accommodate unconventionals like natural gas and solar power will be enormously difficult, economically and technically.' Along these lines, yesterday the U.S. Geological Survey more than doubled their estimate of Bakken shale oil reserve in North Dakota and Montana to 7.4-11 billion barrels. Part of the push for renewables over the past few decades was the idea that old methods just weren't going to last. What happens to that push if fossil fuels remain plentiful?"
Oil is a finite resource, it will inevitably run out eventually. In the meantime it is getting harder to get out of the ground and tends to involve us with countries we would rather not be too closely involved with.
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What happens if we don't run out of oil? We continue to pump out CO2 until we turn the planet into Venus. Switching to renewables isn't just about running out of oil.
Environmentalists are not saying we're running out of oil. "Peak Oil" does not mean the end of oil. Indeed it's believed to happen when around half the oil has been extracted, and half is still in the ground. The reason production goes down is because the remaining oil gets more and more difficult to extract. Costly both financially and in terms of energy. And if it cost > 1 joule of energy to extract oil that gives 1 joule, it's not worth it.
Note that the first 50% of oil was mostly consumed in a century. Because of increased consumption, even if the second 50% were easy to extract, it wouldn't last a century.
Environmentalists ARE saying that oil is polluting, both in terms of traditional pollutants, and releasing green house gasses. And if we have to switch to renewables anyway, why not do it as soon as possible.
There are a couple of economic reasons that will drive renewable adoption:
It's not the size of the reserves but the cost of extraction that will drive adoption of renewables. As long as natural gas is cheap (and prices can be hedged) utilities will build natural gas plants at the expense of renewables. If prices rise sharply, gas becomes less attractive (since much of the cost per KW is for fuel) and other energy sources become viable options.
The energy density of the energy source. If a lot of space is required per BTU fossil fuels will dominate in many places. For example, a gas plant is relatively compact compared to a wind farm of similar capacity; so it is much easier to acquire land for a gas plant. For small scale uses, such as automotive or home fuels, the ability to get a long range or have a reasonably small supply pipe vs large panels favors fossil fuels currently. The economic driver here is "what fuel source gives me the best return on my needs;" such as the ability to travel or not want a roof full of solar panels.
Economics is what limits OPEC's ability to rise prices - eventually alternatives are viable on a cost basis as well as an energy self sufficiency one.
Quite frankly, global warning is not as major concern to most people than the ability to afford fuel drive, cook, and heat their houses; so selling renewables on that basis is very difficult.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This question is easier to ask when you're making well-above-average computer-programmer-level salaries and quadrupling the price of electricity and fuel (or something) and the various manufactured things which depend on that price isn't going to really ding your lifestyle. But given the number of people in this world who make a trivial fraction of that, it gets more complicated.
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The major oil companies are promoting "No peak oil" stories to influence google results. They need to do this to keep asset prices up, soothe investors and keep the financing on which they depend flowing.
For a numerate look at exactly what we're facing, start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
"Peak oil" itself is a bit of a straw man. The problem is declining net energy from hydrocarbons. Net energy from shallow easy wells that produced light sweet crude was great. Net energy from deepwater gulf wells producing heavy sour crude or oil sands where the bitumen has to be heated in order to be liquid? Not so great.
So bottom line. The absolute quantity of net energy in the first half of the oil on the plant is much greater than the net energy in the second half. Oil supply is NOT the same as energy supply.
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So let's say we take the high end estimate. 11 billion barrels of shale oil available.
Current US oil consumption runs around 19 million barrels per day. You just discovered enough oil to last the United States for twenty months.
I guess you might be correct, for very small values of plenty.
“When will the world’s supply of oil be exhausted?” asked the MIT economist Morris Adelman, perhaps the most important exponent of this view. “The best one-word answer: never.” Effectively, energy supplies are infinite.
This is dead wrong. The economic argument says that oil production is tied to the profitability of ever-more-expensive production technologies. We will never "run out of oil" because eventually we won't be able to afford to extract it, but this will happen while there's still oil in the ground. There's a similar physics argument, based on "energy return on energy invested": fossil fuel production ends when the energy required to pull it out of the ground is greater than the energy of the fuel itself. There will still be some in the ground, and it might be useful for making expensive chemicals, dyes, or lubricants, but it's pointless as a fuel.
So no, we won't ever run out of oil. But we will reach a point where you can't have any. To characterize this situation as "infinite supply" is ludicrous.
I wish we could differentiated environmentalist from the scientists and the raving hippy nuts.
Every choice has a trade off. We need to diversify our energy sources vs finding the magic bullet of perfect energy that just doesn't exist.
Fossil Fuels offer a good energy per unit ratio, they can be transported, and stored. They can be used in small affordable machines, and it is rather cheap. The down side is when spent it produces harmful gases, and creates increases global warming.
Nuclear Energy can offer a lot of energy, raw material can be transported and stored, its output doesn't create toxic gasses. However, it does create radioactive waste that is hard to manage, and energy needs to be processed at large power plants.
Hydroelectric (They don't talk about this much, I am not sure why), Good source of energy, clean (assuming you don't kill too many fish). However you will need power plants, and an infrastructure to send energy, and you need to build it around water sources, not portable. (the best location is also what people would say is prime vacation areas and dosn't want the nature in that area to be spoiled with a large building. ...
You start seeing the point. What ever energy we choose to use will have its good side and bad side. The trick is to get the right balance, and improve efficiencies where possible.
Do we put solar panels on our homes, and have a smaller natural gas or nuclear plant to cover the rest?
Can we make more efficient cars such as hybrids, or plugin electric with gas backup? Can you do this with more powerful cars/trucks people want?
Could we have a small generator in a creak powering a few local home?
They are a lot of options. The trick is to get the right balance.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This question is easier to ask when you're making well-above-average computer-programmer-level salaries and quadrupling the price of electricity and fuel (or something) and the various manufactured things which depend on that price isn't going to really ding your lifestyle. But given the number of people in this world who make a trivial fraction of that, it gets more complicated.
That sounds a lot like figuring the cost of something based solely on what you paid at the cash register.
How about this, instead? We invest in alternative energy technologies R&D now? Then when (or if, if you prefer) the cost of oil-based energy becomes prohibitive, we'll be prepared, instead of waiting until the last moment and running around like the denizens of Tokyo when Godzilla comes to town? We'll have already learned the expensive mistakes and false starts, and be able to more efficiently deploy the most cost-effective alternatives when we need them.
I realize that there is a large segment of the population that screams we're absolutely utterly helpless whenever a problem comes up that cannot be solved by invading and pillaging, but I have a little bit more faith in both Nature and the human race. If we just take some responsibility and do something instead of waiting around quivering until the oil taps run dry, we just might achieve something worthwhile.
We always seem to be able to find the money to fund wars, so I don't buy into the idea that we cannot afford to provide for our own future. What's the point of winning the wars if the country is destroyed by its own negligence?
and quadrupling the price of electricity and fuel (or something)
Or something? You're making an argument when you don't even know? Check out green energy tariffs. They are a bit more expensive than ordinary ones. But not 4 times, that would be ridiculous.
But that's by the by. Fossil fuels are not a repeatable bargain. The human race can extract them once every several million years. What makes you think that you saving a bit of money is justification for using up all of a particular resource, and polluting the place in the process? Why do you deserve it more than your grandchildren, great grandchildren and so on.
Remember, oil isn't just for energy. It's a raw material for manufacturing most products too. Do you really think it's wise to burn it off in the next generation, leaving nothing left for the thousands of generations to come?
The problem with using cost as a major argument against renewable energy sources is that the price of gas has skyrocketed in the last decade. The price this year is close to three times what it was when I started driving (about 12 years ago, bigger difference for older folks I'm sure) and I don't see anything to suggest the price won't continue to go up. This is in contrast to renewable energy which, while still far more expensive than fossil fuels, are decreasing in price. So while the easy thing to say is renewable energy is too expensive, the facts actually suggest that in another decade or two it'll be the other way around even if we don't increase our efforts in studying renewable energy. I don't believe we can magically switch tomorrow, I do believe we need to start taking a switch seriously now though and begin what will be a long, slow transition period. It's going to cost more in the short term, but it'll be cheaper long term.
Not to mention a massive waste of opportunity to use what cheap reserves are left more appropriately, i.e., as a stepping stone to more sustainable energy sources.
If you're going to use the word "invest", let's talk investment and ask the tough questions, see if we can come up with some good answers. What is the return on this investment? Is it financial, or non-financial? Are the returns earned by the owner of the investment or by third parties? Who is qualified to estimate the size of these returns in an unbiased manner? (If non-financial returns are being earned by the third parties, it may be better understood as an exercise in philanthropy than in investment.) What is the opportunity cost of this investment: are there other investments which could make a non-philanthropic investor more money, or, if we're operating in the realm of philanthropy, are there other worthier philanthropic endeavors with larger and more immediate returns that we ought to be investing in, instead of this? (There are a lot of candidate investments in the class of "get clean water to $african_village".)
By "let's invest" do you primarily mean "let's have the government levy taxes and attempt to make this happen"? What sort of incentives are in place to make sure that the "investment" actually is done wisely, rather than becoming an exercise in corporate leeches clamoring for government funds but producing nothing of value? Or even just bankruptcy a la Solyndra? (There's room enough for criticism about where the money gets to when the government "always seem[s] to be able to find money to fund wars", and wars are relatively easy to measure results on.) What is the real price of this investment to taxpayers, in terms of taxes or debt and debt-service (and the effects of debt like the government calls "crowding out"?) And if "we always seem to be able to find the money to fund wars", what about the ~50% increase in US government spending combined with ~0% increase in government revenues since 2007, and the commensurate increase in the annual deficit to ~50% of revenues? That's easily more spending than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined; should we roll some of the new programs back in order to pay for this proposed investment? How do you sell the policy changes to people as politically active entities, especially if they will suffer material setbacks (taxes or higher energy costs)? Even if they're willing to suffer setbacks in theory, do the people trust these investments to actually deliver meaningful value of some sort?
Not that all these questions are unanswerable. But let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's easy.
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What is the return on this investment?
Jobs, future markets, less pollution, energy security, advancement of science
Is it financial, or non-financial?
Yes and yes.
Are the returns earned by the owner of the investment or by third parties?
Yes and yes.
Who is qualified to estimate the size of these returns in an unbiased manner?
Banks, actuaries, scientists
What is the opportunity cost of this investment
The influence of existing interests (Koch/Exxon, etc.) will wane.
Electricity usage will come down (see the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which covers 20% of the US economy, which grew relative to the rest of the US economy) giving factories a competitive advantage.
New economies will grow -- a small portion of Exxon's profits gets injected directly into the local economy creating jobs that improve energy efficiency in industry and housing.
It's really a non-brainer, and there is empirical proof that these are the effects, because other parts of the world (and the US) have already started trying these thing.
I found this amusing:
"let's have the government levy taxes and attempt to make this happen"
Conservatives harp on about incentive structures, so, to adopt a neo-liberal (market fundamentalist) approach to solving GHG emissions, let's tax what we don't want (carbon), and let the market sort out the rest. Heck, we can reduce taxes on what we do want (labour/entrepreneurship).
You want to talk opportunity cost? Do you want more carbon in the atmosphere and higher taxes on labour, or less carbon in the atmosphere and lower taxes on labour?
I could go on about Solyndra, but I think that's enough for now. Just look further into the program that funded Solyndra and ask yourself home much money was wasted/earned in *totality*, and how that compares to typical venture capitalism.
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Gas is cheaper in inflation-adjusted dollars than when I started paying attention to it. Commodity prices are cyclical. Fearing that they will go to infinity because you've only experienced on upswing is just like fearing the oceans will all boil during the first Summer of your life.
If solar ever does become cheaper than natural gas (and eventually it will), everyone will switch then. Trying to force other people to consume some product that you think is cool is about being a control freak, plain and simple.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.