[extropy-chat] Debate on Peak Oil

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Mon Apr 25 04:37:40 UTC 2005


Peak Oil exists for certain nations and certain oil companies, based on
who has the rights to certain oil fields and which fields are being
allowed to be developed by governments. The world is nowhere near any
sort of impending oil shortage. We have a minimum of 100 years of oil
available at todays market prices.

The Canadian oil tar sands contain more oil (over 3,000 billion
barrels), as do Venezuelan tar sands, that the idea that we are running
out of oil is simply ludicrous. Technologies for affordably extracting
oil from these sands is now perfected and is being implemented. In the
shorter term, China, the Phillipines, Vietnam, and Indonesia are
sitting on 19 billion barrels under the Spratlys, while the US has an
equivalent amount sitting under ANWR, plus additional reserves
elsewhere. The oil and gas fields of Wyoming, I am hearing are seeing a
boom-time.


--- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> I find the case for Peak Oil and quite soon compelling.  But whether
> we  
> are nearing the Peak rapidly or not is in a way irrelevant.   If most
>  
> of the major players believe we are nearing Peak Oil and act  
> accordingly then most of the Peak Oil scenarios will quickly follow. 
>  
> My take is that a lot of the world's current events are much easier
> to  
> explain if it is assumed most of the players believe Peak Oil is fast
>  
> upon us.
> 
> - samantha
> 
> On Apr 24, 2005, at 10:25 AM, Hal Finney wrote:
> 
> > The Los Angeles Times has a debate today between Peter Huber,
> author of
> > "The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste and
> Why
> > We Will Never Run Out of Energy," and Paul Roberts, author of "The
> End
> > of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World," on the topic of Peak
> Oil.
> > This link will probably only work for a few days:
> > http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op- 
> > edebate24apr24,0,7963584.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
> >
> > The debate unfortunately quickly departs from the topic of whether
> we
> > will see a near-term peak in oil production and what its impact
> might  
> > be.
> > Instead the authors fall back to arguing about the need for a
> carbon
> > tax and the role of nuclear energy.  The main value for me was the
> > pointer to Huber's book, which I hadn't heard about.  It sounds
> like a
> > useful source of contrarian commentary.
> >
> > I did read one other Peak Oil book, "Out of Gas" by David
> Goodstein,
> > who was my physics professor when I was in college in the 1970s,
> and
> > again my son's instructor three years ago.  Unfortunately this very
>  
> > thin
> > volume was a disappointment.  Much of the content was a recap of
> the
> > scientific discovery of conservation of energy and the meaning of  
> > entropy.
> > The information specific to Peak Oil was basically what you can
> easily
> > find online.
> >
> > The best factual backgrounder on the Peak Oil situation I've found
> > is <http://www.hilltoplancers.org/stories/hirsch0502.pdf>, a Feb
> 2005
> > report by a government think tank.  One weakness is that it is
> America
> > centric and doesn't have much information about the rest of the
> world.
> > But for America, the report notes that in 1973 the U.S. used 35
> quads
> > (quadrillion BTUs) of oil; then after the "energy crisis" usage  
> > declined
> > to 30 quads by 1983.  Since then it has grown and has reached 39
> quads
> > in 2003.  Personally, I think it is amazing that oil usage has
> grown so
> > little in the U.S., from 35 to 39 quads in 30 years of overall
> strong
> > economic growth.
> >
> > In most sectors of the economy, oil usage has become much more  
> > efficient
> > in the past few decades, and consumption has remained the same or
> even
> > decreased.  The one glaring exception is transportation.  Almost
> half  
> > of
> > oil goes for gasoline, and an additional 20% for diesel fuel.  This
> is
> > where the U.S. has been unable to economize effectively, and this
> is
> > where the economy would first feel the pinch as oil prices rise due
> to
> > a production peak.
> >
> > Anyone who has driven in the U.S. recently will be aware that the
> > current fleet of vehicles is not optimized for low fuel
> consumption.
> > The good news is that tremendous efficiency improvements are
> possible
> > even just given current technology.  The bad news is that this
> takes  
> > time
> > and is expensive.  Under normal circumstances, half the cars on the
>  
> > road
> > will be replaced by consumers in the next 10-15 years at a cost of
> 1.3
> > trillion dollars.  If gas prices continue to rise this will
> probably
> > accelerate, but the costs are likely to be even greater.
> >
> > One other concept which has come out of my reading is an acronym
> used
> > by Peak Oil supporters, EROEI: energy return over energy invested.
> > It is mostly used to disparage alternative sources of energy like
> > ethanol, solar panels or tar sands.  The idea is that for many of
> these
> > alternatives, you have to put in a great deal of energy to produce
> a  
> > unit
> > of energy out.  That makes them look artificially inexpensive today
> (or
> > at least last year) with generally low energy prices, giving a
> too-low
> > estimate of break-even pricing.  With oil becoming more expensive, 
> 
> > these
> > alternatives will also be more expensive to produce and the
> break-even
> > cost will climb.
> >
> > Saudi oil is said to have an EROEI ratio of about 30: spending the 
> 
> > power
> > of 1 barrel of oil produces 30 barrels.  But many of these
> alternative
> > fuels have EROEI ratios of more like 2-5 and some are even less
> than 1,
> > depending on the production methods.  This is a problem with
> government
> > attempts to jump-start alternative fuels; the subsidies and market
> > stimulation may make it profitable to exploit low-EROEI,
> energy-wasting
> > methods of production.  The result is an alternative fuels industry
>  
> > that
> > is unsustainable when energy prices rise.  The subsidies can
> actually  
> > be
> > counter-productive by encouraging work on wasteful production
> methods
> > instead of technologies that will be efficient even when energy
> becomes
> > expensive.
> >
> > Hal
> > _______________________________________________
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> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo/extropy-chat
> 
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> 


Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://intlib.blogspot.com

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