505 replies to this topic

[Athanasios]

One of the obstacles to creating a hydrogen/electric economy is the production of hydrogen. Some big name people are now working on it.

Thanks Mind.

As an avid investor, I have been interested in peak oil for some time. It isnt an issue which we should be afraid of in the long-term. In the long-term, it is very likely that we will have the tech for our power needs.

In the mean time, we have plenty of coal. Yes, coal can be burned in a clean manner. Do a bit of research and figure out how much we have! Many quotes you will find are like this one:

"Estimates of the world's total recoverable reserves of coal in 2002 were about 1,081 billion sort tons. The resulting ratio of coal reserves to production exceeds 200 years, meaning that at current rates of production (and no change in reserves), coal reserves could in theory last for another two centuries. The distribution of coal reserves around the world varies notably from that of oil and gas, in that significant reserves are found in the United States and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) but not in the Middle East."

This is an ace up the U.S.'s sleeve, and it is widely known amoungst the big money.

I do have a stake in oil, as it is a good hedge, and peak oil does mean higher prices before people get their act together. The environmentalists do hold some of the blame for not allowing nuclear power. Nuclear power is very safe at this point in time, it is just not popular. But there is a lot of big money connected with government that does not mind the power gap, and can be argued that they are making sure it happens in the U.S.. The way the politics work is they will do nothing until it gets bad enough that the public will let them do it however they want. That is when they will hook up their big money friends with subsidies, etc. Of course, people will be profiting all the way through the cycle.

anyway enough rambling...

there is no doom and gloom here....just crooks.

[Mind]

We can hope but the prices haven't dropped to as low as they were before the post Katrina fall run-up now have they?

Since you wrote that (May 22nd) the prices have actually fallen well below the pre-Katrina levels. Pre Katrina it was very near $8.00 per mmbtu. Just this month it has fallen below 6.00 a couple of times. see here

[Mind]

I while back in this thread I linked to a study that showed we can get more energy out of ethanol than what goes into its production. I emailed it to some Peak Oil theorists for comment. They trashed it and said it was bunk.

Here is another university study that claims the same thing. U of Minnesota and St. Olaf researchers claim we can get 25% more energy out of ethanol than what is used in its production and 93% more out of biodiesel. check it out here

[Athanasios]

An article on a possible solution to nuclear waste that would "render it harmless on timescales of just a few tens of years"

http://www.physorg.c...ws73578268.html

[advancedatheist]

The Prudhoe Bay corrosion crisis could turn into a big deal. Prudhoe supplies 400,000 barrels a day, which the market can't replace readily from other sources because the world oil system has lost its "surge capacity."

http://news.google.c...tnG=Search News

[Lazarus Long]

I think we need to put the good news here too.

Big New Oil Field Discovered in Gulf

NY Times
By JOHN HOLUSHA
Published: September 5, 2006
What could be a major discovery of domestic oil in the Gulf of Mexico was announced today by a trio of companies led by Chevron Corporation.

The discovery, in the deepest water yet explored in the Gulf, could be the biggest domestic oil field since the northern Alaska field opened a generation ago.

The news pushed the price of crude oil to a five-month low of $68.38 a barrel in midday trading, although tensions in the Middle East and the threat from hurricanes remained as concerns for traders.

The new field’s location near the coast of the United States makes it particularly attractive, said J. Larry Nichols, the chairman of Devon Energy Corporation of Oklahoma City, which holds a 25 percent interest in the find. The discovery “could not have happened in a better place,” he said in a news conference.

The prospective yield of the area, called the lower Tertiary, could approach six billion barrels of oil, Devon said. The other owner, with a 25 percent interest, is Statoil of Norway. Chevron owns 50 percent.

Statoil said the test results were “very encouraging and may indicate a significant discovery.” It said the company and its partners plan to drill another well in the area next year to try to determine the extent of the field.

Chevron said the well, known as Jack #2, and located 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, produced a “sustained flow rate of more than 6,000 barrels of crude oil per day” in a production test. The company said it found the oil producing formation about 20,000 feet below the bottom of the Gulf, with the well drilled to a total depth of 28,175 feet.

(excerpt)

[Mind]

Natural Gas prices are now below 5.00 per mmbtu.

And for the first time in recent memory Boone Pickens got a prediction wrong. Early last month he predicted that oil (light sweet crude) would hit 80 dollars a barrel before it hit 60. He has been making this type of prediction for a couple years now (the price will hit X before Y), and he has been correct everytime. Well, it hit 78 per barrel when it looked as if Hurricane Enesto might travel into the Gulf of Mexico, since then it has dropped dramatically and it dropped below 60 in intraday trading earlier this week. It appears there was almost 20 dollars worth of speculation and fear built into the price of oil. Most traders now say that barring any extra political/war disruption, oil will stay between 55 and 65 for the next few months.

Even though it seems the long term trend in oil production will be downward, I am amazed at how the supply and demand reacted during the recent rise in prices. It was below 20 per barrel in the late 1990s and many thought 40 dollars a barrel would send the world into recession. It took 78 dollars a barrel before economies started to cool down. Each time there is a price shock, economies react. Demand for oil flatlined when the price rose above 70 and there was more adoption of alternative energy. As long as the price of oil stays relatively high, those alternatives will remain in place and help in the long run.

If you read through this thread there are many many articles about how wells are going dry and no new ones are being found. Norway, Indonesia, and Iraq are no longer oil exporting countries, according to the articles. Canada has been drilling record numbers of natural gas wells but output has not grown. Oil company reserves are declining dramatically. ETC. Given all this news (some of it 3 years old....the first post in this thread warns of a natural gas shortfall), I would think we would be much worse off going into 2007 (the date that was once preditced as the beginning of the crash...it has now been pushed off to 2008). I still think there will be price shocks, but it still seems unlikely there will be a crash that sends us back to the stone age.

[Mind]

This is the type of technology I expect to help out with declining fossil fuel supplies. Researchers have isloated the protein that allows bacteria to transfer electrons across the cellular membrane. They hope to make bio-fuel cells with this protein.

[Mind]

Not sure how many people caught this one, CERA estimates there is three times more recoverable oil than was once predicted by Peak Oil theorists. Even CERA expects supply disruptions due to well problems and geopolitical rifts, but they do not foresee a "crash" that sends society back to the stone age.

[Mind]

Here is a story from a local TV station about farmers using biofuel made from soybeans.

The amazing part is that the farmers claim that they would still save money with the soybean oil even if diesel fuel dropped to 1 dollar per gallon!! It has long been discussed whether making fuel from crops (bio-fuel, or ethanol) is a net energy positive. Anecdotally, these farmers are a sign that it is. I also posted a couple other university studies earlier in this thread that claimed the same thing.


Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes dead.

GALLOWAY -- "I would say one year ago. I couldn't have two sentences to say about Bio-diesel. Basically all you would know is what Willie Nelson told you," says Mark Walder.

Now Mark and his other family members who farm with him, are singing a different tune with some new machines.

They help the Walders make their own fuel out of soybeans.

The Walders say they couldn't afford not to.

"We started out last year with three dollar diesel fuel. We had to do something different to make it in farming," says Mark.

The presses take soybeans and squeezes oil out.

Oil that can be put right into vehicles.

Using the bio-diesel saves them thousands of dollars.

Up to one-third the amount they would spend on regular diesel.

"Our goal is to make four thousand gallons. That will be enough to run all the farm equipment. And our pickup trucks and everything," says Mark's dad, Dan Walder.

In fact, it saves them more money than just fuel costs.

The other by product from the process is fed to their cattle.

"We only have around 70 head. So we're saving $1200 a year on feed costs," says Mark's brother, Ed Walder.

Besides saving money, the machines also make them money.

Other farmers call often to find out how they can get one.

And the Walders are happy to let them know where they can buy a machine, they now sell them.

They say it's a business that's not going away.

Even if the un-thinkable happens to fuel prices.

"Even if fuel went back to a dollar. These machines will still make you money," says Mark.

[Mind]

Just another article about advances in solar technology. About every week or two, someone claims a big breakthrough in solar technology. The "breakthrough" linked here claims the greatest efficiency yet acheived by a solar voltaic cell - 40.7%. That is quite dramatic. The only thing left out is the cost and time table to mass manufacturing. Solar panels still haven't come down into a price range the common man can afford but progress is progress and it seems solar will continue to replace oil in coming years.

[caston]

There also some SERIOUS deposits of methane hydrate in our oceans.

[rahein]

I don't have the link handy, but an Australian researcher has found how to cut normal solar cells into thin layers that are still 20% efficient. He claimed these thin film cells cost 60% less to produce and could be made with existing installed manufacturing processes

[advancedatheist]

BP's annual Statistical Review of World Energy (SRWE) for 2007 indicates that world oil production may have already peaked, growing a tiny 0.4 percent from 2005 to 2006 despite near-record high prices:

Oil (.pdf)

I would almost bet money that next year's SRWE will show ~ 0.2 percent growth or even a small decline.

[Mind]

and U.S. automakers are still making gas guzzling vehicles...sad.

[advancedatheist]

I notice that BP can't get its official story straight, despite its own statistics:

World still has 40 years of oil, says BP

The world still has enough proven oil reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates, in spite of a small fall last year, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. . .

Peter Davies, BP's chief economist, dismissed the arguments of the "peak oil" theorists who believe that oil production is already at or near its peak.

"We don't believe there is an absolute resource constraint," he said. "When peak oil comes, it is just as likely to come from consumption peaking, perhaps because of climate change policies or for some other reason, as from production peaking." However, he acknowledged there were challenges for the world and for large companies such as BP in getting access to the oil that remains. Almost two-thirds of the proven reserves are in the Middle East.

Versus,

North Sea running dry says BP

Britain only has enough gas and oil left under the North Sea to last six years at current production rates, leaving us increasingly exposed to volatile supplies from Russia and the Middle East.

The UK saw one of the most precipitous output declines of any nation last year, exceeded only by Saudi Arabia and Norway, BP's Statistical Review of World Energy revealed. The biggest jumps were achieved by the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Despite major finds such as the Buzzard field, the outlook here is one of steady decline, with costs spiralling and yields sliding, the firm warned.

[Athanasios]

Business week has a new article called:

'The Problem's Not Peak Oil, It's Politics'
http://www.businessw...gn_id=rss_daily

Some "peak oil" cassandras warn that global energy production will soon fall into permanent decline. But a more immediate danger to world oil supplies may be the tempestuous politics of many producing countries. Witness Venezuela's move to wrest control of key oil projects from global companies on June 26. The move echoes steps taken in other nations that will likely either decrease production or slow its growth in coming years. "The oil is in the ground, but serious doubts are being raised about whether countries have the desire and means to produce it," says Leo Drollas, deputy director of the Center for Global Energy Studies, a London think tank...

[PWAIN]

Just another article about advances in solar technology. About every week or two, someone claims a big breakthrough in solar technology. The "breakthrough" linked here claims the greatest efficiency yet acheived by a solar voltaic cell - 40.7%. That is quite dramatic. The only thing left out is the cost and time table to mass manufacturing. Solar panels still haven't come down into a price range the common man can afford but progress is progress and it seems solar will continue to replace oil in coming years.

I have seen estimates of 46% in the next few years. The companys producing these are making slow but steady progress. It should be noted that these cells are expensive and tiny. They need to be used in concentrated light conditions.

I have set up a group for developing an open source specification for home brew concentrated photovoltaic systems. The aim is to take some of this technology and produce a economic home based power source. A small but worthwhile step I think.

Resvhead
http://tech.groups.y.../group/SunGrid/

[Athanasios]

I have seen estimates of 46% in the next few years. The companys producing these are making slow but steady progress. It should be noted that these cells are expensive and tiny. They need to be used in concentrated light conditions.

Are you talking of Spectrolab's stuff?:
http://www.physorg.c...ws99904887.html

With their conversion efficiency measured at 40.7%, the metamorphic multijunction concentrator cells surpass the theoretical limit of 37% of single-junction cells at 1000 suns, due to their multijunction structure....The Spectrolab scientists also predict that with theoretical efficiencies of 58% in cells with more than three junctions using improved materials and designs, concentrator solar cells could achieve efficiencies of more than 45% or even 50% in the future.

[PWAIN]

Yeah, they are talking about up to 45% (sorry not 46%) and they seem to be achieving their targets from what I can see. Emcore and Azure are also doing good things.

http://www.spectrola...s/cell-main.htm

The nice thing with developing a CPV system is that you can make the cells replaceable so that when higher efficiency cells become available, you can just swap them out. Most of the cost comes from the hardware around the cell, tracker/mount, cooling, fresnell lens, soe etc etc. The actual cell is relativlely cheap.

We are hoping to do something like 1200 sun concentrations which will yeild a slightly lower efficiency but higher overall power output.

[dave111]

Good things humans are rational and we have a relatively free market. Malthus did not include human ingenuity in his projections of mass starvation. Neither did Ehrlich. How many of us here think people are going to just keep on using more and more electricity until the world stops going? The blackout of 2003 caused quite a stir and people are working on solutions. They don't just sit by and say "oh well, I guess the world will end now...nothing I can do" When gas prices rise people buy smaller cars and drive less. If the supply of electricity runs short, the price will go up, and people will conserve - or get to work developing new sources of electricity and power. And... the great thing is...the people who develop new sources of electricity will get rich.

Humanity apparently faces numerous existential challenges, many of them involve collective action problems. I think it's an open question whether "people" are going to successfully solve every colllection action problem we face. with some, irrationality may triumph. With others, even if we're asymptotically rational our abilities may not meet the demands of the challenge. Alternatively, we might be lucky enough that as a species we can solve all these challenges. I do think you and I are vested in these challenges being solved, Mind. But I'm wary of whether it's a functional opiate to rely passively on "human ingenuity", rationality, or free markets. These sounds like tools to help the two of us (and others persist), not magical suits of invincible armor.

[Mind]

Correct Dave, I am using inductive reasoning to project continued ingenuity and technological progress into the future, not bayesian reasoning. It is not guaranteed, but the historical succes rate of human society overcoming large problems is very high.

Anyway, most oil analysts expect 100 USD per barrel of oil (light sweet crude) within the next year. They point to both demand and supply concerns. Worldwide economic growth (especially in Asia and surprisingly in the middle east - think Dubai), is creating surplus demand, while production capacity has levelled off. More and more experts believe that we have hit the peak of production (which right now is around 85 to 86 million barrels a day). Which is a few million barrels higher and about a decade later than Hubbert originally predicted. While, experts predict price increases they do not predict a crash and the whole world going dark (as most peak oil theorists do). Extracting oil from shale and the oil sands is now profitable and will continue to be so into the foreseeable future. The U.S. already gets most of its oil from Canada (number 1 foreign supplier), and that will likely increase, as will the use of alternative energy. Growth in wind, solar, other alternative energy, and biofuels (even though biofuels are not the best long term option) is explosive, as was expected.

Here is a recent CNBC article about the price of oil

[krillin]

I'm not enthusiastic about oil shale. Based on Robert Rapier's analysis, the EROI is near 1 like corn ethanol.

http://i-r-squared.b...t-imminent.html

At least it's not as bad as cellulosic ethanol, which almost certainly has a sub-unity EROI.

http://i-r-squared.b...our-way-of.html

production of 1 BTU of cellulosic ethanol requires a distillation step that consumes 1.55 BTUs.

I do note that if you take full credit for the heating value of the lignin, it just barely satisifies the distillation requirement. If you run through the math, the lignin BTU credit gives an energy balance of 1.05, which is worse than the 1.3 of corn ethanol plus by-product credits. But remember, the lignin in the process is not dry. It is very wet. Drying co-products in a corn ethanol plant requires a substantial input of energy. If lignin is to be used in a cellulosic ethanol plant, it will have to be dried.

[Mind]

I agree that bio-fuels are not a great option, however, there have been a couple university studies (referenced in this thread) that have calculated a positive EROI, not much, not enough to justify investing much of our future in it, but positive none-the-less. Also, mass flow fermentation (just recently developed) shaves another few percent off the process. Distillation can be accomplished via solar, but then why even distill it? We would be better off just using the solar energy to create electricity.

Thankfully battery (and ultra capacitor) technology is also improving by leaps and bounds.

[advancedatheist]

This illustration from an article from IEEE Spectrum shows the fundamental problem with proposing "substitutes" for petroleum. The world currently extracts about one cubic mile of oil every year. Study this graphic, and note especially the fine print about "each year for 50 years":

[niner]

This illustration from an article from IEEE Spectrum shows the fundamental problem with proposing "substitutes" for petroleum. The world currently extracts about one cubic mile of oil every year. Study this graphic, and note especially the fine print about "each year for 50 years":

Not to belittle the chemical energy content of 1 cubic mile of hydrocarbons, but everything else that it's compared to is electrical output, which can be converted to useful work with very high efficiency. Much of that oil is refined into gasoline, a process with a significant energy loss, then it's burned in an internal combustion engine with something like 15% efficiency. All told it would probably be fair to divide all the electrical sources by a factor of 8 or so, such that you are comparing useful work to useful work. It strikes me that whoever created the graphic has a hidden agenda- they want to make it look very hard to replace oil with other sources of energy. In fact, it will not be all that hard to replace much of it, and we are moving in that direction.

[biknut]

If this report is true then our global warming problems may be solved.


Steep decline in oil production brings risk of war and unrest, says new study

· Output peaked in 2006 and will fall 7% a year
· Decline in gas, coal and uranium also predicted

Ashley Seager
Monday October 22, 2007
The Guardian

World oil production has already peaked and will fall by half as soon as 2030, according to a report which also warns that extreme shortages of fossil fuels will lead to wars and social breakdown.
The German-based Energy Watch Group will release its study in London today saying that global oil production peaked in 2006 - much earlier than most experts had expected. The report, which predicts that production will now fall by 7% a year, comes after oil prices set new records almost every day last week, on Friday hitting more than $90 (£44) a barrel.

"The world soon will not be able to produce all the oil it needs as demand is rising while supply is falling. This is a huge problem for the world economy," said Hans-Josef Fell, EWG's founder and the German MP behind the country's successful support system for renewable energy.
The report's author, Joerg Schindler, said its most alarming finding was the steep decline in oil production after its peak, which he says is now behind us.

The results are in contrast to projections from the International Energy Agency, which says there is little reason to worry about oil supplies at the moment.

However, the EWG study relies more on actual oil production data which, it says, are more reliable than estimates of reserves still in the ground. The group says official industry estimates put global reserves at about 1.255 gigabarrels - equivalent to 42 years' supply at current consumption rates. But it thinks the figure is only about two thirds of that.

Global oil production is currently about 81m barrels a day - EWG expects that to fall to 39m by 2030. It also predicts significant falls in gas, coal and uranium production as those energy sources are used up.

Britain's oil production peaked in 1999 and has already dropped by half to about 1.6 million barrels a day.

The report presents a bleak view of the future unless a radically different approach is adopted. It quotes the British energy economist David Fleming as saying: "Anticipated supply shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month. For government, industry and the wider public, just muddling through is not an option any more as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a complete meltdown of society."

Mr Schindler comes to a similar conclusion. "The world is at the beginning of a structural change of its economic system. This change will be triggered by declining fossil fuel supplies and will influence almost all aspects of our daily life."

Jeremy Leggett, one of Britain's leading environmentalists and the author of Half Gone, a book about "peak oil" - defined as the moment when maximum production is reached, said that both the UK government and the energy industry were in "institutionalised denial" and that action should have been taken sooner.

"When I was an adviser to government, I proposed that we set up a taskforce to look at how fast the UK could mobilise alternative energy technologies in extremis, come the peak," he said. "Other industry advisers supported that. But the government prefers to sleep on without even doing a contingency study. For those of us who know that premature peak oil is a clear and present danger, it is impossible to understand such complacency."

Mr Fell said that the world had to move quickly towards the massive deployment of renewable energy and to a dramatic increase in energy efficiency, both as a way to combat climate change and to ensure that the lights stayed on. "If we did all this we may not have an energy crisis."

He accused the British government of hypocrisy. "Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have talked a lot about climate change but have not brought in proper policies to drive up the use of renewables," he said. "This is why they are left talking about nuclear and carbon capture and storage. "

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Department of Business and Enterprise said: "Over the next few years global oil production and refining capacity is expected to increase faster than demand. The world's oil resources are sufficient to sustain economic growth for the foreseeable future. The challenge will be to bring these resources to market in a way that ensures sustainable, timely, reliable and affordable supplies of energy."

The German policy, which guarantees above-market payments to producers of renewable power, is being adopted in many countries - but not Britain, where renewables generate about 4% of the country's electricity and 2% of its overall energy needs.


http://www.guardian....2196435,00.html

[Mind]

The amount of oil being produced is a hard number to pin down. Boone Pickens was on CNBC last week along with some other oil analysts and they claimed global oil production was around 85 to 86 million barrels a day....right now. A couple years ago it was only 81 million barrels per day. A lot of people think there is about a 20 dollar risk premium in the price of oil, but considering how the "intelligence" of markets runs wide and deep and is quite accurate, I wonder if more of the recent price rise is due to actual perceptions from the pumping stations. If the risk premium deflates this winter and the price drops into the upper 60s (maybe low 70s), I am jumping in to the oil futures market. A couple years ago (2004) when the price was about 42 dollars a barrel, I commented in these forums, that the best way to double your money in a year was oil futures. In 2005, when hurricane Katrina hit, the price hit 78 (almost a double).

Anyway, like I mentioned in the AGW thread, the GCMs (global climate models) are currently initialized with wildly unrealistic fossil fuel production for the next 100 years.

[Mind]

I'm not enthusiastic about oil shale. Based on Robert Rapier's analysis, the EROI is near 1 like corn ethanol.

Maybe this new technique will prove feasible.

In the study, Tayfun Babadagli and colleagues point out that oil trapped in the world's oil shale deposits exceeds the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. An estimated one trillion barrels of oil, for instance, are in the so-called Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. However, existing technology for recovering that oil, termed pyrolysis, is uneconomical because it requires high temperatures (about 900 degrees F.) and large energy inputs, but yields little usable oil.

The scientists describe laboratory scale experiments in which addition of inexpensive iron powder to oil shale, combined with heating with electric heating coils, substantially increased oil production — by more than 100 percent for some shales. "The experimental and numerical results show that field-scale oil recovery from oil shales by electrical heating could be technically and economically viable," the report concludes.

I find this thread very interesting in that it has remained active for a few years now and is an interesting perspective on shifting opinions and economic realities. At the beginning of this thread, if someone mentioned that in 2008 the price of oil would hit $148 a barrel some would have said bullocks, other would have said "we're screwed". It does seem that oil production has reached a peak, however, it doesn't look like there will be a dramatic decline that will send human society back into the stone age in the next decade. Alternative energy production and alternative fossil fuel sources seem to be filling in the gaps left by the old easy-to-recover light sweet oil fields.

[Mind]

IEA says AGW will be worse than IPCC assessment, says there is plenty of fossil fuel to go around.