Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Somebody correct me; back in the 70's a bunch of academics declared that we were at peak oil then. We had gas lines 2 blocks long and we thought we only had a few years before there was no oil.
You are incorrect. You are conflating the ARAB OIL EMBARGO with the theory of PEAK OIL.
The theory of PEAK OIL, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil,
Peak oil is the theorized point in time when the maximum rate of extraction of petroleum is reached, after which it is expected to enter terminal decline.
The concept of peak oil is often credited to geologist M. King Hubbert whose 1956 paper first presented a formal theory. Peak oil occurs when the cost of oil extraction exceeds the price consumers will pay. (I can recall gasoline at $0.19/gallon, reaching $4/gallon, 21 times greater)
Hubbert's original prediction that US peak oil would occur in about 1970 appeared accurate for a time, as US average annual production peaked in 1970 at 9.6 million barrels per day [U.S. consumes roughly 20 million barrels per day] and mostly declined for more than three decades after. However, the use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling caused US production to rebound starting in about 2005.
One of the reasons why the ARAB OIL EMBARGO failed was due in part to the discovery and exploitation of the NORTH SEA OIL FIELDS. Oil production started from the Argyll & Duncan Oilfields (now the Ardmore) in June 1975 followed by Forties Oil Field in November of that year. This oil wealth is what funded the Norwegian Socialist system.
Oil poor England also got a boost, as they claimed a share of that oil, and BRITISH PETROLEUM (BP) became a major player.
Another factor was the Alaska Oil Pipeline. The pipeline was built between 1975 and 1977, after the 1973 oil crisis caused a sharp rise in oil prices in the United States. This rise made exploration of the Prudhoe Bay oil field economically feasible.
Quote:
For the next 50 years every few years the experts declared we were at or close to peak oil. It's hard for me to take any predictions of peak oil seriously. [Ignorance will do that]
BTW if we actually ran out of oil there would be no environmentally associated products being made like electric cars, solar collectors, and wind mills. Oil is required to manufacture almost every product.
"Running out" is not the issue - the economic cost to extract petroleum will rise and rise, to a point at which consumers will choose alternatives. As the cost goes up, so must the price.
And if prices drop, some technologies, like shale oil, can't be sustained.
If oil consumption remains at 19 - 20 million barrels / day, there will come a time when the price for a gallon of gasoline may hit $8 - $10.
At that price point, electric cars might appear "economical". However, in the big picture, they're not.
Electric traction rail is the real answer for the remainder of the 21st century - barring a technological breakthrough.
Possible breakthrough: large Halbach arrays to enable cheap magnetic-levitation trains and catapults to be built.
People who don't want to change their lives will find excuses to avoid change. There's nothing more to say to them.
Modifying infrastructure to accommodate energy conservation will take decades. That was feasible to start in the 1980s when the nation had spare energy to spend on projects, but voters weren't ready to accept less convenience and luxury for long term benefits. What's left is the decision to use less energy in our own lives, by choice of home location, how to commute, how to spend leisure time, how to do household chores, etc. Living tomorrow's life today can make tomorrow easier.
To put it simply, we will all be living extremely austere lives in contrast to orgy of consumerism and decadence that Americans have known for the past several decades.
You may not, but the immense majority of people will desperately long for their cruises on the Diamond Princess, or their spring break vacations, or their trips to Disneyland, or the days when they could drive their big trucks/SUVsv to Wal-Mart or watch pornography on their phones laying in bed while ordering pizza. To lose all that will be so traumatizing that they will descend into complete psychosis. We're partially seeing that now- look at all the political hysteria, insane thinking, violence etc. It is a psychotic reaction to the collapsing techno-industrial economy — a feature of it, actually. When all familiar social and economic arrangements are threatened, people lose their minds.
peak oil isnt the problem, its peak chicken. we can only raise so many chickens and no other food is quite like chicken. once we reach peak chicken, the economy will collapse.
We will never "run out" of oil, I never said that we would.
However, we will experience a peak and then precipitous decline in global oil production due to the thermodynamics of oil depletion.
Eroi: Energy Return On Investment- how many energy units you get out of production for every equivalent energy unit you put in.
Declining oil production= declining GDP=colossal debts longer able to be serviced=global economic collapse like we've never seen before.
Looks like it has been steady since1960. There will be a slow decline. Energy costs in fifty years will be a lower percentage of a working man s budget than now.
In 1875 Scientific American published an article theorizing Boston, Philadelphia And New York would be knee deep in horse manure by 1950.
Again: peak oil is not about the scarcity or abundance of oil, it is about the declining net energy of oil/oil that is increasingly expensive and difficult to extract
.
You've said that several times as if that's the way to think about it....It's not the key to the problem.
The problem is that it's the easiest (and cheapest) oil reserves that are tapped first. As the supplies become diminished, they get more difficult to extract...Compare it to trying to suck that last little bit of your root beer float out of the bottom of the glass-- a lot of effort and noise just to get one more drop....It applies to each oil well, but also to the total supply. Compare it to picking apples-- the low hanging fruit is easy to get, but you need a ladder to get the high ones.
Your posted picture of an oil barrel is another diversion. They're conflating energy efficiency (an application of The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) with the concept of Peak Oil-- not at all related. Cf- improvements in gas mileage from the V8 behemoths we drove in the 50s & 60s to the tiny , computer controlled 4 cylinder cars on the road today. We're getting more work done per gallon today than we used to-- just the opposite of what that diagram infers....In fact, the US was using 60M gals of gasoline a day 20 yrs ago. We use 20M/d now, despite more cars on the road.
The other problem here is that Peak Oil cannot be accurately estimated because we continue to find new reserves...That can't, of course, continue forever, but for now it's our grandchildren & great grand children who may (or may not) have to contend with it.
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 09-30-2020 at 04:23 PM..
We're partially seeing that now- look at all the political hysteria, insane thinking, violence etc. It is a psychotic reaction to the collapsing techno-industrial economy
About a decade ago, Christopher Steiner wrote, "$20 per gallon." Some of his predictions (High Speed Rail comes to America, imports become more expensive than domestic goods, cleaner air, etc) make you wish it would happen but I don't think so. Electric Vehicles are gaining ground, there is even talk of electric airplanes. Peak oil is coming as consumption slows. Very little electricity, maybe 2%, is generated with oil.
peak oil isnt the problem, its peak chicken. we can only raise so many chickens and no other food is quite like chicken. once we reach peak chicken, the economy will collapse.
Some people eat nothing but, so they might starve. But I think if pizza and hamburgers became unavailable there would be mass starvation in the USA!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
