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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?"
Suggest you read this:
http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/04/we-wish.html
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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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
I doubt we will ever run out. What will happen is that it will become more expensive as the low hanging fruit gets used up and efficiency and alternatives become a better bang for the buck and we migrate to other technologies. I'd rather be on the early adopters end of this one.
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.
One thing I've always wondered about regarding large desert solar arrays, is what happens when there's a sandstorm? I mean, what fills the generation gap when the sky is blanked out, and how does sand get removed from the array afterwards? Are the panels safe from damage from the scraping of sand being blown about or will this damage them? Will the weight of deposited sand after a sandstorm cause them to break or collapse?
I think people assume solar arrays in deserts are a magical problem-free solution, and I understand not all deserts are prone to particularly bad sandstorms, but the sahara is and it's often cited as a place for such a solar array. Has any effort been made into researching and finding solutions to such problems?
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_a.htm
Last year, we consumed 6.8 billion barrels of oil. This has been a pretty consistent average over the past 5 years, all things considered (5 years prior it was 7.5B, but seems to mostly fluctuate around 7B). And this is US consumption *alone* -- not even factoring in the increased rate of Chinese consumption, or any of the European, African, Asian, Australian, South American nations (Antarctica gets a pass, because it's effing cold down there and they can use a little oil to not die while watching penguins)
7.4B to 11B barrels is 2 years AT BEST if we pare down our oil consumption. Then those resources are GONE.
Considering "oh, but there might be more than we think left over!" is pretty pointless when we alone are consuming oil at this rate. Absorbing the mild inconvenience of reducing our oil consumption should be priority #1 for all of us. It doesn't solve the problem but it will (a) give us a *little* more time to get off the sauce and (b) start altering our habits and consumption practices in a direction that will prepare us for the inevitable end of oil reserves, which are guaranteed to happen someday.
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.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
The SEGS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Energy_Generating_Systems in California near Edwards Air Force Base uses pressure washer systems to wash sand and dust off the heat-concentrating mirrors. They use water from the local desert aquifer which is running out. They also use water from that aquifer to cool the condensers on the output side of their steam turbine setup since there's no convenient river or ocean to dump the heat into.
“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.
The free market is not the answer. The free market may be the efficient decision maker, but it lacks the things we say makes us human. The free market has no empathy, compassion, intelligence, foresight, or shame. Would you ask a person lacking those trait to be your boss?
Space Shuttle was a program that strapped humans to an explosion and tried to stab through the sky with fire and math
The best "decision" we could make as a society is to get rid of all the government distortions in the market.
There has never been a society with both a functional government and no government distortions in the market. That's because *any* government action distorts the marketplace.
If the government has a police force to enforce laws, suddenly there's a demand for cruisers, tasers, nightsticks, pepper-spray, etc that wasn't there before, distorting the market. If the government has a fire department (with a very real government interest that its cities don't burn down), there's a demand for hoses, trucks, pumps, hydrants, etc that wasn't there before, distorting the market. If the government builds a road (to ensure that its police and fire departments can get to where they're needed), that distorts the property values around the road (e.g. look at what happens at nearly every exit ramp of major highways). If the government fights a war, that causes major distortions in the markets for clothing, weapons, ships, fuel, food, and just about everything else. If the government sets up any kind of court system, then that creates an entirely new market for people who know how to navigate that court system (a.k.a. lawyers). And of course any kind of tax or fee system set up to pay for the government's existence also distorts the market.
And that's just the basic functions of what we typically see has government.
There's a legitimate question of whether a government should have specific involvement in the energy sector. But the idea that there can be no government distortion of the free market is simply wrong.
I am officially gone from