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#21
03-22-2005, 03:15 AM
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Re: Oil will not go much higher than $50/ barrel
Yes, of course you are correct, alternatives will come online.
But the conclusions in the Hirsch report are still a sobering read, we need to start 20 years ahead of time, not when prices starts to rise due to depletion. And he is very optimistic in some aspects. The hit the world economi will take if steps are not taken to mitigate the problems are enourmous. How long was there a shortage in -73 and -74, a few month? That resulted in a recession. Try a shortage for 20+ years, depression, here we come. 
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#22
03-22-2005, 03:31 AM
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Re: The Hirsch report on Peak oil
[ QUOTE ]
The market will react faster than any govt could. But govt could easily screw things up by getting too involved. [/ QUOTE ] I simply don't belive this to be true. What evidence or resaning do you have that market forces will start a crash-program to move society away from oil 20 (or more realistically 30) years before we start to see depletion really start? I call that idea ridiculous on it's face. [ QUOTE ] When electricity gets expensive enough, panels become economical. It's pretty simple. [/ QUOTE ] Except of course that you need cheep oil to produce the PV panels. If they are to be cheap. [ QUOTE ] Coal powerplants are more common than gas and nuclear. These will increase, along with nuclear. [/ QUOTE ] And then we will run out of coal next. Not to menition CO2 emissions. And uranium, unless we can get breeders to really really work. [ QUOTE ] Farm equipment will almost certainly run entirely on diesel alternatives. While this may increase the base cost of food, that is still a far cry from the peakoil alarmist view of mass starvation. [/ QUOTE ] And how do you expect to grow all the crops needed to run the farming machines? Remember, you need all arable land to produce food... (at least you will need in 20 years time, if population forecasts are true for the US). I don't really belive in mass starvation, but I belive there will be a move back to having 25% or more of the population working directly in agriculture. [ QUOTE ] Frankly it's ridiculous to assume we've already hit a wall on every alternative energy path. Some may go nowhere, but for the doomsday scenario all alternative technologies must go nowhere. That's obviously not going to happen [/ QUOTE ] Of course they are going to improve. The problem of course is that without cheap oil everything else will also become more and more expensive. [ QUOTE ] Just a few random thoughts. [/ QUOTE ] Unfortunately a bit too random, IMO. [ QUOTE ] Don't panic. Pay attention, certainly. But don't panic. [/ QUOTE ] Absolutely. [ QUOTE ] he apocalyptic types are that way by nature. If they didn't have peak oil to latch onto, they'd be in a cult waiting for the end times. [/ QUOTE ] Sure. But you also need to remember that there is a long string of civilizations that has gone under when facing depletion in their main resources. We might very well do too. Not overnight, but during the next couple of centuries. And if we go under, there will most probably never be a civlization as advanced as ours. It's inconsivable that it would be possible to move directly from animal- to wood- to nuclear energy. And that is what will be needed if we use up all the oil and all the coal, which I don't have many doubts we will. And exponential growth will get us in the end.
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#23
03-22-2005, 08:02 AM
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Re: The Hirsch report on Peak oil
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] The market will react faster than any govt could. But govt could easily screw things up by getting too involved. [/ QUOTE ] I simply don't belive this to be true. What evidence or resaning do you have that market forces will start a crash-program to move society away from oil 20 (or more realistically 30) years before we start to see depletion really start? I call that idea ridiculous on it's face. [/ QUOTE ] Well this is probably right. However I don't see any indication that goverments would start making any such efforts either. That's just human nature, very few people will take actions with that kind of time perspective. Some people will start early investments (some allready have) in alternative energy and some of them will make a nice fortune. Some people in goverment will also be early with this but as long as the threat is not iminent it will be hard to get public suport (i.e. votes) and hence any large scale funding. As for goverments screwing things up. Isn't the US goverment allready in effect SUBSIDISING SUVs and Pickups with tax breaks making it in effect cheaper for many small buisnesses to buy an SUV even if they could just as easily use a normal sedan? [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Don't panic. Pay attention, certainly. But don't panic. [/ QUOTE ] Absolutely. [/ QUOTE ] This is sound advice for most problems. /Bjorn
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#24
03-22-2005, 08:28 AM
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Another scenario
Personally I don't think it is neccesarily so that we are close to peaking very soon. However there is still a possiblity that access to oil can be a problem.
Even if oil supply is still increasing (worldwide) and we are far from the peak we may still find ourselves in a situation where demand is increasing even more rapidly leading to a huge rise in price. This would most likely be caused if a large portion of the worlds population would manage a dramatic increase in productivity and prosperity in a short time span. Overall this should have a very positive effect on world economy and quality of life but will cause shortages of certain limited resources. Lets just not hope this scenario happens to coincide with the peak scenario, that could get ugly... /Bjorn
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#25
03-22-2005, 08:34 AM
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Re: Another scenario
[ QUOTE ]
Personally I don't think it is neccesarily so that we are close to peaking very soon. However there is still a possiblity that access to oil can be a problem. [/ QUOTE ] We are probably not at the peak yet. There seems to be reason to belive that we will see demand outstripping supply even before we hit the real peak though. Refineries are a short sector today, as are tankers. This is good news, it might cause a bit of demand destruction (as the popular term is today, noone want's to use the R-word) and thus giving us some more time. [ QUOTE ] This would most likely be caused if a large portion of the worlds population would manage a dramatic increase in productivity and prosperity in a short time span. [/ QUOTE ] China, anyone?
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#26
03-22-2005, 11:30 AM
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Re: Oil will not go much higher than $50/ barrel
I believe the cost to extract oil from oil shale is about $30 per barrel. So to make money from oil shale the price of oil must THEORETCALLY be $31/barrel but realistically the price needs to be around $50/ barrel since the oil-shale plant investors will want a high enough price before they risk the capital to build a plant. The worst case scenario for builders of an oil shale plant is to build the plant and then see the price slip below $31/b.
The oil produced from shale is a heavy crude that sells for MUCH less than the light-sweet varieties that we refine for transportation. Heavy crude is very high in sulfur content and many other highly toxic impurities. The cost to further refine this product into fuels of the quality derived from light-sweet is still prohibitive. Another point many people dont understand is that oil production from shale requires large quantities of natural gas and water. Any sizable increase in (world) shale oil production would drive an already tight Natural Gas market sky high. Published Reserve figures are misleading as well. They do not take into account the fact that only 5 to 15% of reserves are recoverable using current processes. The industry hopes to get to 20% eventually.
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#27
03-22-2005, 08:18 PM
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Oil Shale
Felix,
The Wall Street Journal just did an article on this topic a couple of weeks ago stating exactly what you said. Currently the United States is sitting on 2 trillion barrels of oil shale (yes, trillion). For comparison, Saudi Arabia has about 261 million proven reserves of oil. By the way, don't waste your time trying to explain economics to Il Mostro. I had a similar discussion with him a few months ago about the differences between shortages and scarcity. He didn't get it then and he doesn't get it now. Fialka, John J. "In Oil Quest, U.S. Says Rock On." The Wall Street Journal 10 Mar. 2005, sec. A: 4.
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#28
03-22-2005, 09:12 PM
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Re: Oil Shale
There are engineering problems with processing oil shale but solving problems is what engineers get paid to do. NONE of these problems are insurmountable.
With the price of oil as high as it is, the profits from oil shale processing will pay for a lot of SOLUTIONS....
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#30
03-23-2005, 04:48 AM
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Re: Oil Shale
[ QUOTE ]
Currently the United States is sitting on 2 trillion barrels of oil shale (yes, trillion) [/ QUOTE ] Use of big numbers to impress. [ QUOTE ] By the way, don't waste your time trying to explain economics to Il Mostro. I had a similar discussion with him a few months ago about the differences between shortages and scarcity. He didn't get it then and he doesn't get it now. [/ QUOTE ] Of course I do. Do you understand extraction rates and energy return on energy input? [ QUOTE ] The Wall Street Journal just did an article on this topic a couple of weeks ago stating exactly what you said. [/ QUOTE ] Is it possible to read it online? As of now, I'll take the words of geologists and petro-engineers over an article in a newspaper.
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