Are we reaching peak oil?

My question would mirror the one that was asked before: how high do prices have to esclate before it is economically feasible to make the withdrawl of the heavyer forms of the oil ie. tar, oil shale,etc.. worth the while of the bigger oil players.? And also do you think that the U.S. is trying to use the rest of the worlds proven reserves in order to protect our own and those who are close to us like Canada and Mexico and most of the Sothern Hemisphere?

What most dont relize is peak oil isent just about if were running low on oil but also a big part is no matter how much there is you can only pump it so fast and with china and india both comming up fast in there use of oil the out put would have to be nearly Tripled and the info structer isent there to pump or transport this amount of oil .
In effect there could be a whole ocean of oil and prices and the amount avalable will still go down. But of corse there isent an ocean of oil and the sand and slug and shale oil is not an alterinitive as tonns of it must be prossed per barrel .
the price would be hundreds of dollors a barrel if we have to rely on it for our fuel sorces. farther more the teck to get this oil doesent accutly excist except on paper and setting it up would cost trillions and take a decade .
The sad fact is we should have been moving away from oil 50 years agaio when we started getting the tek we needed. Then by now our relience would probly be 25% of our fuel and the rest for plastics and in ten more years 10% left .
but the money was way to good for these companys to support new tek.

I am actually glad I live to see Peak oil, this means, that at $60 dollar a barrel it will becoming financially attractive and even necessary to put more money in alternative energy sources and even improved nuclear energy (like GT-HMR))

Economics of scale, will further push down the price of these alternative energies once the iinitial expensive infrastructures are laid...


Peak oil does, what Peta and Greenpeace couldn't get done in their dreams


Nanotech will save the day, under that thick layer of Chinese smog I see gold, giant solar towers and OTEC in the oceans.....

But first it has to get worse before it gets better...


[edit on 26-2-2005 by Countermeasures]

[edit on 26-2-2005 by Countermeasures]

Originally posted by BattleofBatoche
Billions of more barrels of oil are being found everyday.

Really? Where? I just read an article(which I cannot find right now still looking...) that stated that we have discovered ALL of the Sweet stuff and we have discovered 97% of ALL the types of oil in the world.

South America has untouched reserves, Western Canada has billions left and more is discovered everyday. Oil/Tar sands have the opportunity to produce billions upon billions of barrels of oil.

Maybe true, but where do you think all that is going to go? N. America? India and China are fast becoming the largest mega-consumers of Oil in the world, thier thirst threatens everything, remember it's the sweet stuff that the world is addicted to, the rest is an expensive alternative as it takes more energy to refine the stuff. FYI The largest untapped Oil Reserve in the world is in...[Drum Roll] IRAQ at 112 BILLION Barrels. And that is the Sweet stuff I believe. More reliance in fossile fuels could spark future resource wars, and let me tell you it won't be pretty.

There are oil sands in Forth McMurray Alberta and a new one discovered in Preeceville Saskatchewan near Yorton Sask. There are massive amounts of heavy crude sludge that hasn't even been tapped yet because it costs so much to refine and pump out of the ground.

Exactly my point, it would be in our best interests to start to look at alternatives, like Biodiesel for one. Sask. could become an energy province like Alberta you know.

Manitoba & Saskatchewan have billions of barrels of this sludge in deep deposits as well as Venezuala, Peru, & Brazil. Prices have to go up in order to make these deposits economically affordable to pump out of the ground. Natural gas is also being used a a fuel source and now any region that has coal can be used to produce coal bed methane for heat and transportation. Once the world's population hits 9 billion I would start to get worried.

It's sludge, its yield is lower then the sweet stuff, so even assuming technology makes it cheaper and easier to work with it will still yield less usefull stuff.

Saskatchewan already is Canada's 2nd largest energy producer.

Originally posted by BattleofBatoche
Saskatchewan already is Canada's 2nd largest energy producer.

Really? I thought Sask. was gearing thier economy towards High Tech stuff? You live there? If you do then I guess you would know heh. Care to discuss any of the other points I raised?

.
BattleofBatoche,
but those oil sands are more expensive to extract oil from. (expensive = money/extraction energy)

At some point when it takes a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil it simply isn't cost effective. As the world becomes more and more desperate for oil the maintance of the environment will get worse and worse, because it is just one additional expense.

Then we will likely have to fall back on coal again like the 1900s. Have you ever seen pictures of coal industrialized cities? They are filthy with soot, not to mention sulphur and mercury. You know how damaging strip mining is?

With happy go lucky morons that are now in charge of much of the economy and government what can we expect but blind stupidity. It appears a lot of the American public isn't any smarter either. Too busy sitting on the couch watching TV & stuffing their faces with twinkies and pizza and praising the lord who is supposedly going to take care of everything for their lazy arses.

You know, The human species doesn't appear to be collectively all that bright.
.

yet another post about this oil, so many of them already...

while i agree we need to lay off the oil.... i think we should lay off this subject in the forums....

Originally posted by eXtenz
yet another post about this oil, so many of them already...

while i agree we need to lay off the oil.... i think we should lay off this subject in the forums....

heh heh, I was thinking that same thing.

PEOPLE, WERE NOT RUNNING OUT OF OIL!

China & India (and others) demand for oil will greatly increase over the coming decade, but not to the point where we run dry, if we really need oil the can always drill deeper.

Car manufacturers and power and oil companies are working on future oil replacments...which will be hydrogen fuel cells. Currently there predicted time of hitting the market is around a decade away. But companies are also making hybrid cars, even Ford now sells a hybrid vehicle. It takes time to make fuel cells the norm, the whole gas network in the US is huge, its hard not to find a place to fill up, so it will take awhile to incorporate hydrogen fueling stations into the allready built gas ones.

There is plenty of oil to last us until we convert to hydrogen.

The demand for oil will become great in the next few years but we won't run out just yet. The world will pay for the more costly processes if it comes to that. The current lively-hood of oil consumption won't end unless something drastic happens.

I'm a speculative kind of guy and I feel mankind shouldn't be messing with Earth's secretions in the first place. The nasty smog covered cities will get worse and health problems will rise. The planet will get warmer and the weather will be more severe. After a while the earthquakes will be more numerous and with greater magnitude.

Yeah, this guy didn't say anything about the light crude reserves aound the world.

I do respect what he is saying though. When a species consumes most of its resources it is due for a population decrease. Yet forecasts are predicting a 50% population increase by 2050.

The South Africans have developed the coal-to-oil process over the years. There is a heck of a lot of coal that can be used to convert, and of course bio sources can be used to create 'diesel'.

The peak oil idea is that the planet is will soon reach a point when we are out of viable, cost-effective sources of oil. At that point, we will reach a critical economic turning point where the price of oil will skyrocket, forever changing our lives.

You also have to remember that WE EAT OIL. We wear oil. We live in oil. Oil isn't just for driving our cars and heating our homes. Oil and gas are used in everything from our clothes to our drugs to our foods to our building materials. Most of the alternative energy sources are not going to provide the materials to make televisions, wall-to-wall carpets, latex paint, or to lubricate the machines needed to make everything.

Sure, we can convert coal to oil and there are numerous alternative energy sources, but the Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI)--or the amount of energy needed to produce this new energy source actually is greater than the resulting product.

Oil is still needed to keep the machines going to mine coal, and the actual mining of coal is costly because it is labor intensive and dangerous. Do YOU want to be a coal miner?

Hydrogen is not a viable solution because it requires more energy as an input to product the desired output. Hydrogen still relies on fossil fuels as an input--how will that be a viable solution if fossil fuels are scarce and expensive?

Oil companies and the government are well aware of peak oil and have begun making preparations. Does it make sense that oil prices have doubled in the past four years, yet oil companies are making only minor investments for new explorations? This is probably because the new discoveries made in the past few years were mostly duds and haven't offset declines. Just 8 million barrels of oil per day are expected to be added per day by 2007, however this will not replace depleted reserves. Also, the cost of this new exploration was tremendous and just gets more expensive (remember EROEI?)

More critical is the fact that each American currently expends 25 barrels of oil a year. There are no official conservation plans in place--none are even discussed. I was 6 years old in 1976 and I can remember the gas rationing and waiting in line with my parents on our designated day at the gas station--where are these plans today?

It's not as if the government doesn't recognize peak oil. One of the signposts is a speech given by Dick Cheney 1999 where he stated that by 2010, the world would need to find a way to produce an additional 50 million barrels of oil per day. His comments also indicated that it was clear that this oil is located in the Middle East and that the government is responsible for ensuring that this demand is met. However, according to OPEC estimates, they will fall short by at least half.

Puts the events that took place since 1999 in perspective, eh?

References & more on peak oil....
www.fromthewilderness.com...
www.fromthewilderness.com...
www.energybulletin.net...
www.fromthewilderness.com...
www.eroei.com...
www.eroei.com...
www.ems.org...
Crossing The Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, Michael Ruppert

Who cares how much is left to sustane the human way of life.

I worry about how much is left to sustain its natural purpose!!!

Nobody ever mentions that aspect of it?

We know in great detail what the consiquences are for cutting down too many trees...dumping too much stuff in our water....we even understand the after effects of how we use the oil.

But what does our planet need it for? I'm sure their are answers, I dont know them though...IMHO its not actually meant for us to use it ALL, or even too great of a percentage

Actually natural gas which at one time was simply flared off into the atmosphere is now being used for heat and electricty. Natural gas is used in heating the heavy crude & sludge during refining as well as used in Fort McMurray to extract oil from the tar sands. There are billion upon billions of of cubic meters of natural gas in Canada alone. You can also retrieve three times the amount of natural gas from coal bed methane production then gas trapped in sedimentary & carbonate rocks. Thus the amount of natural gas hasn't even been calculated yet. Natural gas is cheap versus oil and this is the resource we are starting to use in increasing oil recovery. So it doesn't take 1 barrel of oil to get another barrel of oil. I'm drilling a natural gas well as we speak in Fort Nelson B.C. for Encana. PLUS the water left over from coal bed methane production can be used for injection wells in older oil fields.

Originally posted by BattleofBatoche
Actually natural gas which at one time was simply flared off into the atmosphere is now being used for heat and electricty. Natural gas is used in heating the heavy crude & sludge during refining as well as used in Fort McMurray to extract oil from the tar sands. There are billion upon billions of of cubic meters of natural gas in Canada alone. You can also retrieve three times the amount of natural gas from coal bed methane production then gas trapped in sedimentary & carbonate rocks. Thus the amount of natural gas hasn't even been calculated yet. Natural gas is cheap versus oil and this is the resource we are starting to use in increasing oil recovery. So it doesn't take 1 barrel of oil to get another barrel of oil. I'm drilling a natural gas well as we speak in Fort Nelson B.C. for Encana.

PLUS the water left over from coal bed methane production can be used for injection wells in older oil fields.

Peak oil does not mean running out of energy sources--it means running out of CHEAP energy sources. There might be "billions and billions of cubic meters of natural gas reserves in Canada", but it is costly to tap--and not sufficient to meet the projected 5 trillion cubic meter increase in North American demand over the next five years (EIA report-2004).

The issue with Natural Gas is transportation. To maintain a higher EROEI, it must be transported via pipeline. To transport it overseas, it must be liquified and sent in specially refrigerated ships, resulting in a significant energy loss & much higher cost. This means that the U.S. will look first to meet it's NG demands on North America.

However, North American production is near peak--meaning that it is going to get increasingly more expensive to produce natural gas (decreasing EROEI.) U.S. production is flat. Canadian production is increasing, however new Canadian reserves are scattered throughout untapped smaller fields, which require a significant investment in infrastructure. There is more in the Artic regions of Canada & Alaska, and in the Rocky Mountains--again requiring significant investment (and further legislative battles considering protected areas.) In addition, it takes anywhere from 5 to 7 years from the time contruction begins to actually begin producing output.

The Canadian Nat'l Energy Board & the International Energy Board are bearish on the yields of coal bed methane production and have revised the projections for Canadian natural gas output significantly lower. The fields that initially showed promise apparently haven't been producing the yields expected.

A 2003 National Petroleum Council report (U.S govt-sponsored w/ participation by all major energy company heads) on the future of natural gas production makes clear that current & near-term production levels in the U.S. & Canada will not meet future natural gas demands. The report also makes clear that the current supply level will remain level to about the year 2012, where the supply should begin to increase somewhat due to finally reaping the benefits of Artic exploration, however not nearly enough.

Interestingly, the NPC report indicated that in order to keep prices stable in the face of flat supply for the next 7 years, it is vital that demand is tamed via government-sponsored electricity and oil conservation programs--where are these? Also, the report indicates that they are counting on firms relocating outside of North America as resources become costly---as a source of reduced energy demand... the implications of that assumption are truly mind-boggling.

It is clear that the U.S. is going to meet its future natural gas demands via expensive liquified natural gas imports--from Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.... This means building more costly LNG regassification terminals and transport ships. As proof of the need to import LNG, there were two LNG terminals operating in North America in 2001. At the end of 2003, two more opened and two have been approved. 8 are pending approval and 25 more are in the planning stages. If the pipelines carrying natural gas from fields in Canada provided enough to meet North America's future demand (or if oil production wasn't past it's peak), the move to LNG wouldn't be happening in such a big way.

Of course, politics as well as supply/demand will play a role in setting prices as all of the countries that house NG reserves are not surprisingly in "problematic" regions. I don't see any indication that this will result in increased supply or a permanent reduction in energy costs in the near-term or even longer-term.

The key to all this is that even if peak oil is BS, the world is behaving as if it is real. Little exploration and refinery construction indicates that oil companies realize that there will be no return on their investment. There is a constant and escalating hum of news regarding oil and gas deals and then political friction between the U.S., China, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, the Ivory Coast, the Sudan.... all of this percolating tension over increasingly scarce resources is eventually going to erupt into something.

www.npc.org...
www.eia.doe.gov...
www.fromthewilderness.com...
www.copvcia.com...
www.neb-one.gc.ca...
www.financialsense.com...
www.globalpublicmedia.com...