Head of exploration for Total: World 'cannot meet oil demand'

...I wonder what the 'abiotic oil' folks have to say about this...

Which could be a good thing! At least it's going to push the hydrocarbon resources out a little longer. It's a very good position to be in to start getting away from hydrocarbon-based fuels and turning to alternative sources.

And what this lady is saying is true. It's not just rhetoric to back them jacking gas prices (which I believe they are doing, so don't get me wrong). In other words, she's just using the truth to back something that's making her company a lot of money! lol

There are huge reserves out there of both oil and natural gas, but the majors are still trying to figure out how to produce them. Some are extremely deep sea gas reserves (Asia/Pac area), and then the heavy crudes to bitumens (Canada). But then you have reserves that can be produced but can't get to refineries (like in the Caspian Sea countries or CAR region as it is called). And then you have the fact the world doesn't have enough refineries if the pipeline infrastructure DID exist.

I'm not sure about abiotic oil, but I found it strangely reassuring that the guy seemed to say that the problem wasn't oil in the ground, rather the refinery capacity on the surface.

I just saw a feel-good tv commercial by some oil company, which said they were teaming up with Russia to go after oil deposits there. I really don't want to go after more oil deposits. I want to know what the United States can do to get us off oil!

you can't really get off oil. there are so many things made from oil. plastic, tires & ruber, clothes, fertalizer,lubricants (general and specialized)

anything that is plastic around you was made with oil. synthetic oil like amsoil does not mean it contains no oil. mineral oil is a byproduct from refineries.

Agghhh! Yes, so many things made from oil. What can we do to lessen usage of these products? Are all Americans aware of oil for other than fuel? I had forgotten about all these products. Can we substitute another kind of oil, no not from whales either.

Yes a lot of things are made from oil, which is why quite a few believe that using it for fuel is a big waste, as well as extremely hazordous to ecosystems where their drilled up, mined from, and transported through(if a spill takes place...).

What can we do to lessen usage of these products?

Never, at least not in my lifetime. We are becoming more and more dependant on the compounds and elements found in Crude and other Carbon rich substances. Burning a good portion of that stuff up is a huge waste IMO. Plastics can be recycled, fuel cannot be unburned.

[edit on 9-4-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by bigx01
you can't really get off oil. there are so many things made from oil. plastic, tires & ruber, clothes, fertalizer,lubricants (general and specialized)

anything that is plastic around you was made with oil. synthetic oil like amsoil does not mean it contains no oil. mineral oil is a byproduct from refineries.

Yes, it is true, but nearly 90% of oil is used to produce energy and not materials.

The advancement in materials science will lead to the in all likelyhood push towards the deep; deep offshore drilling that is. The engineering problem that prevents these reserves hundreds of miles off of coastal lands is that current materials are not strong enough to withstand these environments, and current materials which can be used are very expensive. Per pound of still is well more than 10 times cheaper than the latest and strongest in composite materials per pound.

But....

Necessity is the mother of invention. I don't believe that humans are inept enough to simply discard the idea that because it is too expensive now, it will never happen. Instead, what you will see is that in the next 15-20 years, is a sort of birth in the engineering of the required composites. This, first and for most, diminishes the western world's dependence on middle east oil.

I still think abiotic oil is a long way off. There is no need to go off of an oil based economy and energy production network. That is, if the only reason is to reduce pollution in the atmosphere and environment by 15% is the only reason, you must keep dreaming. There are hundreds of billions of barells of oil out in the oceans untapped and far from the nearest rig.

Right now, there are people thinking, researching and development methods and schemes to apprhened this oil, and natural gas. Sooner than later, their work will pay off, though in all likelyhood, not in the prime of their lifetime.

Global warming is not a good enoguh reason to be abiotic-oil. So a few island nations must withstand harsher hurricanes and the danger of erosion of coast. Most people do not live on small islands in the Pacific. And the idea of Global Warming being a threat to all coastal lands is far from definitive. There may be large contingencies of researchers who think that the coastal lands and land hundreds of miles inland will flood, but their are also many that feel their is too much uncertainity, and that people are acting irrational.

So the icecaps melt twice as fast as they did yesterday. There is nothing to suffest it will continue, because researchers may point to numerous times during the earth's lifetime when this same event has happened before, far from mankind's use of hydrocarbons.

Unless you can figure out how to take a cup of water, pour it into an auto and make it run at the same level of effeciency as today's auto's, then the world can meet the oil demand.

Yes Global Warming by itself is not enough, it's when you combine all the problems into one craptacular pacakge that the verdict is, something has to change.

Rising Asthma rates is just the first shot across the bow. Back when I was growing up, we were considered an odditiy(asthmatics and puffers and all that). Nowadays no one bats an eyelash because it's just so damn common. Linking rates at specific causes is futile, but common factors like Refinery, Dumpsites, Coal/Oil/Gas(In my case it was an incinerator plant and a Gas fired plant) without adequete scrubbers are all there, as well as high traffic roads(DVP Expressway block and a half), pesticide use(in the former dumpsite turned Park), etc. are all there in my childhood environment. Combustion, when you look at it, is really just a small portion of a much larger conflict. I'm not demonising it, I just think we can use the technology quite a bit more responsibly then we have in the past.

This is an interesting story.

Do you have a link for the original interview? I'd like to share it with a few people ...