Comments on: The End of Oil? Not Yet!

By:

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:39:03 +0000

Yes, barakn, I think you’re right on some of these points. There are those who claim that oil is not a finite resource though, aren’t there? They claim that there is evidence that rather than being a fossil fuel it is a constantly formed material, based on continuously replenishing archaea/bacteria deep within the crust. Sounds a bit cranky to me, but almost anything’s possible. It’s not 20 years since they discovered these ancient microbed deep in the crust where you wouldn’t expect them in the first place.

By: barakn

barakn — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:39:25 +0000

Fallacy #1:
“Oil `ran out’ first in 1885, and perhaps another five times since then. Every time, new finds, new technologies and changes in oil use confounded the pessimists.” The fallacy here is assuming that since oil has fooled the pessimists six times, it will always fool them. Since the supply of oil is finite, the pessimists will eventually be right.

Fallacy #2:
“Capturing the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, and storing it underground, is entirely practical and should be a major part of climate change policy.” In reality, CO2 sequestration reduces the available energy from a fossil fuel by something on the order of 30%, and the technology is still quite experimental.

Fallacy #3:
“So there is no need to fight `resource wars’ to `secure’ oil. Invading oil-rich countries is vastly expensive and makes oil supplies less, not more, secure.” Then why are they being fought right now? And if you think I’m trying to score some political point by referring to Iraq, look at Nigeria.

By: cjwirth

cjwirth — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:00:30 +0000

According to energy investment banker Matthew Simmons and most independent analysts, global oil production is now declining, from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%.

This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always be higher than production; thus the depletion rate will continue until all recoverable oil is extracted.

Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.

We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from "outside," and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.

This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207.

By: dcsobral

dcsobral — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:20:47 +0000

The article is high on “magic” solutions (ie, expecting things WILL get solved), and very low on actual facts, aside from the link.

And it ignores two main points of the “oil crisis”.

The first point is that the oil peak refers not to when oil yield cannot increase, but when supply ceases to increase as fast as demand.

The second point is that the untapped reserves mentioned are expensive to extract and/or convert into oil fuel.

There would be no point, for instance, in extracting brazilian pre-salt oil reserves at US$ 10/barrel prices. Lots of recent new sources only exist because the price is high enough.

Overall, the article seems to be a well thought-out, if overly brief, rebuttal to the wrong arguments.