What to do if we run out of oil?

[DeeDeeJack]

We have enough natural gas to last several hundred years and vehicles can run on natural gas quite efficiently. It is also a good bridge fuel for power plants as it is much cleaner than coal. Nuclear is a clean fuel, but has a problem of where to store the spent fuel rods. We should re-look at reprocessing the rods. Also, minig uranium has its own issues. Many families near shuttered mines till suffer larger than normal occurences of cancer. Water will actually be our next big problem considering the last few years of drought in the SW and all those who rely on that water.

 

[RGR]

We have enough natural gas to last several hundred years and vehicles can run on natural gas quite efficiently.

True, we have plenty of natural gas, but at what price. And yes, natural gas is great for running internal combustion engines. But there is just something about the silent rush from the torque of an electric motor which can't be beat.

 

[JiggsCasey]

Jiggsy! You just get back from a long vacation in the pokey, or maybe you ran off to peak oil churchcamp to try and get a better handle on all the stuff you were ignorant about before? In either case, welcome back! Lets hope you brought a few more billion brain cells with you though, you were getting a bit long of tooth before.

Cool story, bro'. Actually, I was reducing you to the babbling, goalpost-shifting, self-adulating fraud that you are. It got boring crushing you on the same fundamental points over and over again, so I stuck with theoildrum and resilience.org for a while, where people don't cling to faith-based ideology like you and "Kiss Me" do day after day here.

yes...that is what people do when they know they can't participate anymore because they can only take so much looking incompetent.

What? Jack themselves over the same retarded premises like you do? Yeah, I know. ... Ah well, at least you're admitting it, finally.

No fear, you are hardly the first!

The first to leave you cornered with no out besides personal insinuation? I'm hardly surprised, considering how much of a douche you are in your delivery, in addition to being so fundamentally wrong.

Well, oil production in the United States in the past 15 years has had an aggregate depletion rate of...WAIT FOR IT....0 PERCENT! Thats right, 15 years of decline erased by the tight oil of the Bakken and Eagleford.

And because of that desperate detour to heavier crap, the cost is up some 500-600%, WAY ahead of normal inflation. You get how this equation works, do you not? We've been over it some 15 times, and you're still stuck on stupid.

But don't you worry Jiggsy,

LOL. I'm not. Not even a little bit. The debate is long over, as confirmed by industry men much smarter and better paid than goofy you.

peak oil is so bad lately that I've been driving the monster truck just because gasoline prices have dropped so much.

Ah yes. Your final rallying point, whereby you pretend it's not happening because well-off asshats like yourself don't feel it yet - as they have more discretionary spending than most. Replete with arrogant condescension, of course.

I suppose the spring gouging will start soon, so I'll be back on the scooter or bicycle, but that's the breaks until we can get some more decent peak oil price increases back into crude.

Considering how much you've lied about the past two years, you'll forgive me for not believing for one second that you ride a bike to work nor market. Meanwhile, oil price is up some 10% since the last time we spoke? Meanwhile, less and less people can afford it (and everything it provides) with each passing month.

Good thing that most crude is used to move fat Americans around in SUVs then! So we just get them off into a decent EV and presto, all the oil they wasted can go to the things it should really be used for. And really, come to think of it, if I consider commuting "people freight", then certainly nuclear, wind and solar can all be used (individually or in combination) to move "commuting freight" as it were. I already use all three! Well, two anyway, no nukes in my neck of the woods. Lots of wind, reasonable amounts of solar though.

So for all your blather, you finally admit that conversion and conservation are desperately needed components. Surrender accepted. We can agree on that much. I guess the difference being that you feel it will all be a seamless transition, and growth won't miss a beat. Ooops, nope. Growth will never be the same, because cheap energy from abundant light crude IS what allows for growth - a basic concept you can't seem to get your flat head around.

And the explosion in natural gas production, no need to talk about that.

And with good reason, considering you avoided the challenge put to you to acknowledge their painfully awkward annual ldepletion rates. Keep being you.

You need to catch up on things Jiggsy,

No, apparently I need to keep reminding you of the same things you run from each time I return.

that exponential growth in types of power generation hasn't been sleeping while you were finding a new rock to pop out from under.

Do you even know what the word "exponential" means? Because you appear to be using it wrong here.

Oh, lets give the old Jiggsey nonsense a break, try some NEW Jiggsey nonsense instead!

If any of what I've said while engaging you was "nonsense," you'd have responded to any of the many challenges put to you. You haven't. Instead, you've changed your argument, ignored perspective, and generally acted like an 11-year-old while pretending to be an industry insider.

Crude gets more expensive, and us consumers buy an EV and stop worrying about it.

By "us consumers" you must mean the out-of-touch, gated community drones like yourself? I'm sure you're not worried about it, as the global economy continues to come apart at the seams. That's just the kind of person you are.

Admittedly mine still uses a little every now and then, but seriously, once you replace liquid fuels with electricity, it is tough to go back except for the fun factor, sportcars, motorcycles and the like. The pure rush of hydrocarbon powered transport does have an appeal, but so does the quiet "whoosh!" of the electric off to work. Try one Jiggsey, you'll like it, and maybe then you'll stop bleating like a sheep.

Sounds good in your empty head, I'm sure. But the reality is that electricity made from magic, like the kind you curiously are attempting to convey here, doesn't move frieght in any commercially productive capacity yet, despite decades of trying. It also doesn't pave roads, provide plastics nor fertilize crops.

Got any links to that huge factory pumping out e-cars and e-trucks using electricity made by non-fossil fuel sources? I'll wait. ... As for natural gas, why aren't the majors converting the world's fleet of vehicles to run on it? Because they know the (front-loaded) "fracking craze" you masturbate over isn't gonna last very long - what with their laughable depletion rates you can't dare to acknowledge.

In this equation, the only sheep is you. You'll eat up whatever tools like Yergin and David Frum offer. It's a faith-based religion for you zealots. Oh, the irony.

Run along now, little cornucopian.

 

[RGR]

The first to leave you cornered with no out besides personal insinuation? I'm hardly surprised, considering how much of a douche you are in your delivery, in addition to being so fundamentally wrong.

Jiggsy! And here I figured you had found a more comfortable rock. How is your end of world religion coming along, what with the new highs in production and whatnot?

So for all your blather, you finally admit that conversion and conservation are desperately needed components.

Always have, you were just so busy making crap up you never actually stopped to read what I was writing. Why do you think I drive EV? So I can ignore those silly numbers jumping around at the gas station. You should get one, maybe then you wouldn't be so scared of the world.

Growth will never be the same, because cheap energy from abundant light crude IS what allows for growth - a basic concept you can't seem to get your flat head around.

Cheap energy shouldn't be confused with abundant light crude, and only a moron like you does it...continually. I recommend a library book on the topic, your religious education, as usual, is failing you terribly.

Do you even know what the word "exponential" means? Because you appear to be using it wrong here.

Oh please Jiggsy. Last time you calculated EROEI incorrectly you sort of gave away your mathematical (in)ability. Like I said, find a good library, do some reading, lay off the weed, etc etc.

If any of what I've said while engaging you was "nonsense," you'd have responded to any of the many challenges put to you. You haven't. Instead, you've changed your argument, ignored perspective, and generally acted like an 11-year-old while pretending to be an industry insider.

I have never pretended, because I am not in industry, something I've explained but, as usual, your reading comprehension didn't spot. Admittedly, I am also no longer a scientist, having moved on to another job just within the last 2 weeks. But it would require words with more than 2 syllables to explain what I do now, so you wouldn't understand.

But it is nice to see you tempting the light of day again, but I expect you'll be back under a rock pretty soon. It appears to be a habit of yours, and is undoubtedly more comfortable.

 

[polarbear]

What to do if we run out of oil? I understand that electricy doesn't really rely on it that much, but our trains certainly carry the coal(40 percent of energy) and food certainly does. Should we decrease our need of coal and oil by going over to nuclear, wind and solar??? For transport maybe we can make "electric" trains that run on the energy grid?

I"M talking about building nuclear and other means that don't have to rely on it. Can it be done and continue having the civilization that we have today.

And what if we don`t run out? (...in the next 3 centuries)
According to alarmists we should have run out already. But then there were huge deposits discovered in Russia and Canada.

And if that runs out we do what we did in Germany when we were cut off crude oil during WW2.
We made synthetic fuel,...as in project Blechhammer.
Heat Limestone + Coal excluding Oxygen===> Calcium Carbide.
Calcium Carbide + H2O ===> Acetylene (C2H2) + Calcium Oxide (CaO)
Acetylene at 400 C over Copper wool catalyst===> Benzene (C6H6)
which is a prime fuel for Diesel engines and can be cracked and reacted to almost every hydrocarbon that can be obtained from crude oil.
The calcium oxide is recycled and the only other input is electricity, coal and water.
When South Africa was under an embargo a lot of the old "Blechhammer" Nazi Chemists found gainful employment there, making a huge amount of synthetic fuel exactly like that.
I know, what comes after the Calcium Carbide process is not in Wikipedia or mentioned in any other social media, so I must be making it up...Eeeh?

 

[Mr. Peepers]

Back to the question... who needs corn? The world is starving. We have starving kids in this country. If you argue that ETOH corn is not food-grade, then I'd argue that we should devote those acres to food-grade ag products.

95% of corn grown here is not food-grade when harvested - it is only grown for its starch content. It is heavily processed & goes into the makings of HFCS and other processed "food product" crap FOR BIIIIGGG profits - and also to feed cows, who are not meant to eat corn and thus bloat and get sick (which is why their "food" is laden with antibiotics) - but that's another thread! It does not nourish starving people. That's just the lie that Big Ag spreads around about "feeding the starving".

Sweet Corn Vs. Field Corn | Garden Guides

 

[Mr. Peepers]

How'd that work out turnin' food into fuel?

Corn grown for ethanol is not edible.

 

[tjvh]

There are many things that can produce 'oil'. However, use these, you have to increase the price of the end product in order to cover costs. At a certain point, it becomes cheaper to use other forms of energy. And that is leaving out the environmental and climatic costs that the use of oil for fuel creates.

But the reality is we have not reached a point where alternatives are cheaper than Oil. And we are a long way from reaching that point. Destroying the Oil industry in the name of Environmentalism in the hopes that technology might one day alter our dependency on Oil is... Absolute fucking lunacy.

 

[tjvh]

How'd that work out turnin' food into fuel?

Corn grown for ethanol is not edible.

The point is that it is farm land and resources which are being wasted in the name of Environmentalism, and it is a leading factor in driving our (and the World's) food prices to record highs, and it is starving people in poor nations.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

The point is that it is farm land and resources which are being wasted in the name of Environmentalism, and it is a leading factor in driving our (and the World's) food prices to record highs, and it is starving people in poor nations.

Horse shit. It is being wasted in the name of CORPORATE PROFITS.

 

[RGR]

But the reality is we have not reached a point where alternatives are cheaper than Oil.

Sure they are. You just need to calculate the actual cost of oil correctly. For example, a military capable of defending international shipping lanes and blow up foreigners who try and stop the flow of it on a regular basis, the lung cancer for those living near refineries, dirty air, etc etc. Right about then you realize that solar panels on the roof of the garage aren't a bad deal after all.

And we are a long way from reaching that point. Destroying the Oil industry in the name of Environmentalism in the hopes that technology might one day alter our dependency on Oil is... Absolute fucking lunacy.

The oil industry isn't going to be destroyed anytime soon. Might be made pricey by regulation and whatnot, but there is so much of the stuff around, it isn't going away anytime soon.

 

[RGR]

The point is that it is farm land and resources which are being wasted in the name of Environmentalism, and it is a leading factor in driving our (and the World's) food prices to record highs, and it is starving people in poor nations.

Horse shit. It is being wasted in the name of CORPORATE PROFITS.

Corporate profits aren't waste. Buy some stock, participate in the profit.

 

[realinvestment]

What to do if we run out of oil?

Such a great question. For the last few decades, the media has continually warned that we could run out of oil within a few years.

Now we are finding that thousands of years supplies exist, it's just that some of it is more expensive to get.

But to answer your question, the human mind would have to innovate and come up with an economical substitute.

 

[RGR]

What to do if we run out of oil?

But to answer your question, the human mind would have to innovate and come up with an economical substitute.

Oh and for transport, that is an EASY answer.

 

[Katzndogz]

Oil is a renewable resource. We won't run out of oil.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

Corporate profits aren't waste. Buy some stock, participate in the profit.

You were bitching about the land resources being "wasted" due to an environmental concern. I called you on your lie and told you exactly what that land is being "wasted" on, which is corporate profit... but that's ok, right? Of course, I know that reading comprehension is not exactly found in spades in RWers. And by the way, those corporate profits are NOT feeding hungry people here nor starving people anywhere else, so yes, they are a waste for this country, according to your original post.

And I will not buy stock in anything containing GMO's nor their parent corporations, thank you very much. I stand against big agra and with the farmers. I vote at the ballot and with my fork.

 

[Ernie S.]

What to do if we run out of oil? I understand that electricy doesn't really rely on it that much, but our trains certainly carry the coal(40 percent of energy) and food certainly does. Should we decrease our need of coal and oil by going over to nuclear, wind and solar??? For transport maybe we can make "electric" trains that run on the energy grid?

I"M talking about building nuclear and other means that don't have to rely on it. Can it be done and continue having the civilization that we have today.

use the fat from fat people

I was thinking environmentalists.

 

[JakeStarkey]

What to do if we run out of oil? I understand that electricy doesn't really rely on it that much, but our trains certainly carry the coal(40 percent of energy) and food certainly does. Should we decrease our need of coal and oil by going over to nuclear, wind and solar??? For transport maybe we can make "electric" trains that run on the energy grid?

I"M talking about building nuclear and other means that don't have to rely on it. Can it be done and continue having the civilization that we have today.

Run out of oil?

Invade Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. We can also tax our new citizens, take away their rights to collectively bargain, establish FEMA camps to re-educate our far lefties and reactionary righties, and create at least four new MLB franchises.

 

[KissMy]

Despite the 130 years of predictions to the contrary, we have not peaked in oil production. But we may have peaked in net oil energy. 100 years ago it only took 1 barrel of oil to produce 100 barrels of usable oil energy. That was an Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) rate of 100:1. Today the newer oil production being brought on-line like Canada's Tar Sands only has an EROEI of 3:1. Oil production is rising but useful oil energy may be declining. It won't be long before other sources of energy are cheaper than oil. Energy storage like Ambri battery, Isentropic Energy & Gravity Power LLC will be the key to energy & economic growth. No we will never run out of oil, but oil's useful energy will decline.

 

[RGR]

Corporate profits aren't waste. Buy some stock, participate in the profit.

You were bitching about the land resources being "wasted" due to an environmental concern.

Not me. I am agnostic about environmental concerns without a corresponding consideration for the benefit involved. For example, if we could obliterate the Sahara desert in its entirety in exchange for complete energy supplies for the entire world, people would say...sure! If however we obliterate the Sahara in exchange for $5, well, obliterating the Sahara isn't worth it.

And by the way, those corporate profits are NOT feeding hungry people here nor starving people anywhere else, so yes, they are a waste for this country, according to your original post.

Corporate profits are not SUPPOSED to feed hungry people, they are supposed to be distributed among the shareholders. So you don't get to pretend that is what they are supposed to be doing.

And I will not buy stock in anything containing GMO's nor their parent corporations, thank you very much. I stand against big agra and with the farmers. I vote at the ballot and with my fork.

Good for you. So do I. And so does most everyone in America. Which is why some corporations have profits, and others do not. Want to bet those creating GMO's have those profits because fewer people vote against with their fork, then for?