Ironically it was Sir Isaac Newton who predicted 2060 may be the end of the world in about 1704. ( btw I am aware there is much ongoing debate on this point)
What climate change is not
- Thread starter billvon
- Start date
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
We are already past peak production and closing spent wells.
The reason for the poor predictions is that is every estimate is always based on "current use" which is also subject to exponential function along with population growth.
Of course we will run out of oil at some point.
Oil is a limited non-renewable resource. There is 100% certainty we will run out of oil at some time, and it will be this century, regardless of new "major" discoveries, which will at most add a few months, maybe years, even at "current" rate of use.
The "worldometer site" is a real time measurement. If you open it, you'll see it counting from day to day use. Looks like we're pumping 1000 barrels of oil every second of every day.
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IMO there won't be time for either...but that is just me..Mother Nature is going to be the one to force our hand.Well, my point is that if you decide to go with low density energy sources that we don't have the resources or time to pull off, then in 20 years we are no better off. Even today, tidal generators generate tiny amounts of energy.
If you pick your location well. But on average. . . .
A huge amount.
But you are squeamish about nuclear. And other people are squeamish about wind. (o the poor birds, and it causes cancer.) And other people are squeamish about solar. And you add all that up and we don't change, because whatabout this and whatabout that.
Are YOU willing to make the hard calls to switch away from fossil fuels, even if it means more nuclear?
Great map btw.
An interesting thought occurred as I was lightly exploring this piezoelectric effect.
We have an abundance of pressure differentials other than tidal.
The average ocean depth is about 3500 meters. (35159.04 kPa)
Sink a suitably designed, scaled and cable tethered piezoelectric crystal ( no moving parts) into 3500 meters of water with built in adjustable buoyancy for the resurfacing mode and see what happens, then repeat and so on...
Electricity generated going down and then electricity generated going up....hmmm 24/7 here we come...
Sounds easy but I bet it ain't...
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I think we are going to run out of Rare Earth Load Stone before we run out of oil...
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
+ 43 years, end of oil!
Seriously though as other posters/members have pointed out it is not about generating energy it is about stopping our rabid consumerism and radically reducing our demand for energy that is.
the race is on....
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Yep, that'll extend oil reserves, but we would have to invest all remaining oil reserves to change-over to alternate renewable resources. Maybe building space-based solar collectors. That's where unlimited energy source exists for the next few billion years.
Worth a few trillion dollars investment.
Thats what i have been suggesting. Using our resources to prepare for the future before it is too late to do so.
Some other recent predictions:
2011 Comet Elenin wipes out Earth
2012 Ronald Weinland's date for the return of Jesus
2012 José Luis de Jesús's date for catastropic government and economic failure. On that day, he and his followers would undergo a transformation that would allow them to fly and walk through walls.
2013 Grigori Rasputin - storm would take place on this day where fire would destroy most life on land and Jesus would return.
2015 John Hagee - the blood moon prophecy, beginning the Messianic end times. Utah Mormons were into this one.
2017 David Meade - Nibiru (planet) would become visible in the sky and would "soon" destroy the Earth.
2019 Ronald Weinland's revised date for the return of Jesus
2020 Jeane Dixon predicts that Armageddon will take place sometime in 2020.
2021 Pastor F. Kenton Beshore - Second coming of Jesus will occur between 2018 and 2028 and the rapture by 2021 at the latest.
2026 Messiah Foundation International - the world will end in 2026, when an asteroid collides with Earth.
So we've got all those ends-of-the-world to get through first.
And yet production keeps increasing.
I saw the exact same predictions in 1990. There is NO WAY that oil production can continue increasing past 2015 at the very latest. Wells are pumped out. There are no new discoveries. The oil just isn't there. The math doesn't lie! OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE!
And yet here we are in 2020 still increasing oil production
We will never, ever run out of oil, and I am willing to bet you $1000 (payable to your favorite charity) that that is the case.
We will certainly run out of oil that is cheap enough for a given purpose. For example, gasoline. We may get to a point where gasoline is so expensive (say $50 a gallon) that it's used only by the rich, and the poor use ethanol, electric cars or ebikes to get around. At that point demand will drop, and we will pump less oil.
Then as it gets more scarce, and economies of scale start going away, we will use different feedstocks for plastic. And use will drop again.
But there will always be oil left in the ground. It will just be so expensive to get that we don't bother. That's basic economics; if something is cheaper you use that.
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
where did you get that stat?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Yes that's the problem. We're exhausting existing wells, we're not finding much new oil.
We are currently applying a the paradigm of "strength through exhastion" , i.e. the more oil we use from existing sites the better off we are? What you are missing is that we never were pumping at full capacity from existing wells. We are now, that why production is increasing.
Remember the slogan "Drill baby drill"! We're no longer drilling, we're fracking for shale oil now.
You're making the argument that having "not enough useable oil left in the ground" is not the same as "end of oil". That is a very dangerous economic argument, because it is true. But there is no solution to the problem and the fact that oil is a limited resource and there is no "something cheaper" to replace it. You are identifying the problem but not offering a solution, other than we're smart and will find something to replace oil. You are neglecting to consider that our entire industry is oil based.
We're pumping 1000 barrels of oil every second of every day to feed the industrial monster.
Look at the chart and you'll see where we are with production v resources. It's all downhill from now, not sometime in the future.
Dr Albert Bartlett has an old but excellent video on one of the "greatest shortcoming of the Human race is our inability to understand the exponential function".
Now you may say that you understand the exponential function, as I did when I saw this statement. But have you actually used this mathematical truth in any calculation of steady growth of something?
I urge all to take the time to watch this lecture by this eminent Professor Emeritus and expand your actual *understanding* of the consequences of the exponential function in the steady growth of anything.
Well, the better off we are NOW - but the worse off we will be in 20 years. (Which is the underlying problem.)
That's one of the claims that people back in 1990 made. And the reason we are increasing capacity is not that we are pumping old conventional wells faster; the reason we are increasing production is that tight oil is now a big source of oil, something nothing believed would happen back in 1990.
Not at $45 a barrel there isn't. At $200 a barrel there are a lot of sources of energy that are cheaper (like tar sands.) At $1000 a barrel, most sources of energy (including nuclear electric) are cheaper.
Not neglecting that at all. That's the whole problem.
Solutions -
Changeover to EV's for personal transport, public transport and freight.
Electrification of railways and highways.
Rapid construction of conventional and Gen 4 nuclear reactors to power all that.
Continuing incentives for construction of renewables and BESS.
Pumped hydro storage everywhere it is feasible.
HTGR's for process heat for thermal dissociation of water, cement kilns and aluminum smelting.
Biofuels in areas that are efficient for their production.
Well, given that production is increasing and oil prices are dropping, it's not downhill from _here._ If you claim it's downhill at some point in the future that's more believable.
Regularly, yes. One thing that people often forget about the exponential function is that it's a mathematical expression, and often does not represent the real world. It's easy to calculate the growth of bacteria on a culture plate, extend that forward in time, and calculate that within three months the bacteria culture will weigh more than the Earth does. But in the real world that growth runs into physical limitations (size of the plate, amount of food.)
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
See link in Post #179 Worldometers is a real time website that keeps track of several real time statistics. It's an excellent reference site, well worth keeping in your "favorites".
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
You just identified all the obstacles that must be overcome. At what cost?. This problem goes far beyond any oil shortages, it is an entire culture that needs to be changed .
Note our current president declaring that windmills cause cancer. This is progressive thinking? This is where we're at folks. Who is going to tell this dunce we're running out of oil?
No, that is the very problem Dr. Bartlett is addressing. The exponential function is a real world mathematical function, not some abstract idea that does not really affect us . That is naive thinking.
But that is precisely the physical problem regardless if it's bacteria or oil, or any limited non-renewable resource, that experiences a steady growth.
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sculptor
Valued Senior Member
ok
nice site
I do not know how they get their numbers, so cannot dispute their source.
That being "said"
I think them in error
just looking at the production rates of the 9 largest reserves and expected oil left we have a number of @ 126 years
as you can see, our numbers are far apart.
and
as easy access oil is depleted, the expense of production will rise
and the cost to end user as well
so, people will look to finance alternatives
.....
we already have several energy alternatives under development, with more likely to follow.
I cannot predict the technological changes that will happen over the next 4-12 decades
however
I would hazard the guess that our energy use will be continually more efficient.
.....................
my numbers from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
In short, as long as we a have growth in the use of oil the exponential function applies. Look at the site again and expand the (+) sign, that's where you'll find their reference sources. I listed them above in post # 195.
The current wells are beginning to run dry, but until that time they'll produce full capacity. Oil companies know this. And there are no new finds that make a significant difference. Why else are they beginning to use fracking for lower quality oil at a higher cost? And many oil companies are subsidized or exempted from safety regulations.
And fracking has many undesirable side effects and states are beginning to prohibit fracking in habitated areas.
One thing is absolutely clear, the estimate of 126 years is totally wrong, if not intentionally misleading. You may want to consider that gasoline powered cars and diesel powered trucks cars are still the standard fare, without any real effort by car manufacturers to produce cars with alternate fuels, other than electric. And bulk electric power is still mainly produced by burning oil, except for some hydropower which destroys our rivers.
We've got about 40-45 years left of usable oil production, then the era of oil based economy is over. Why the resistance, often accompanied by accusations of over-reacting to this pending national crisis? What difference do a few years make if you are not prepared to begin with, and the barn burns down?
If you look at China, you can get an idea of prudent planning. They are investing billions in alternative resources. These guys think long term, whereas US is instant gratification, never mind the future of our children. This theme of "we'll always find something to replace" is nothing short of stupid, unless your are actively investing in finding something to replace.
Current production rate means nothing. A well is at full capacity until it runs dry, there is no slow petering out.
The current wells are beginning to run dry, but until that time they'll produce full capacity. Oil companies know this. And there are no new finds that make a significant difference. Why else are they beginning to use fracking for lower quality oil at a higher cost? And many oil companies are subsidized or exempted from safety regulations.
And fracking has many undesirable side effects and states are beginning to prohibit fracking in habitated areas.
One thing is absolutely clear, the estimate of 126 years is totally wrong, if not intentionally misleading. You may want to consider that gasoline powered cars and diesel powered trucks cars are still the standard fare, without any real effort by car manufacturers to produce cars with alternate fuels, other than electric. And bulk electric power is still mainly produced by burning oil, except for some hydropower which destroys our rivers.
We've got about 40-45 years left of usable oil production, then the era of oil based economy is over. Why the resistance, often accompanied by accusations of over-reacting to this pending national crisis? What difference do a few years make if you are not prepared to begin with, and the barn burns down?
If you look at China, you can get an idea of prudent planning. They are investing billions in alternative resources. These guys think long term, whereas US is instant gratification, never mind the future of our children. This theme of "we'll always find something to replace" is nothing short of stupid, unless your are actively investing in finding something to replace.
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There definitely is. Drive through Southern California; there are still hundreds of pumps pumping oil. Many of them have been declining in production for decades. But as long as they are producing a little oil it's often worthwhile to run them.
That's not true at all. As wells produce less, oil companies resort to more and more dramatic measures (like injecting water, reboring the well, changing out the pump etc.) to keep production up.
Fracking began as a way to rejuvenate conventional oil wells.
Oil supplies less than .5% of the electricity in the US. Worldwide it's less than 2%. Not sure where you got that odd claim.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Fracking is a completely different method of extracting oil from conventional drilling . L
Really, and you are counting all tangent uses of spent oil?