Ireland/the world after the oil peak

Kaiser_Sma

I've had discussions with a few people on this subject recently and i don't believe it belongs in the green issues forum as i really don't see it as being a specifically environmental problem anymore.

A looming and increasingly unshakeable fear is looming over the future. A possible end to postmodernity. The Oil peak will invariably happen (unless it already has) but we will never run out of it, production will fall and prices will rise, enevitably the world will be forced to adjust to a world where it is not such a universal commanage. Travel will become prohibitive, plastics will become expensive and so will the (relativly oppulant) technology we've become accoustomed too, food and almost every product will become less diverese and ultimatly locally produced. The World will grow larger again, nations will become isolationist and nationalisim will be rife. At the very least the 1st world will go into a spiraling depression. Countires like ireland will need to by national products or products from neighbouring countries to reduce crippling fuel costs. The military bite of the powers will enevitably waver and our standards of living will decline. This could all happen with in our life time but every body chooses to ignore it for the sake of more intangible issues such as global warming and moral issues such as terrorism and interventionalism.

It's almost unavoidable that it will have some effect. But what will it be? In order to make ourselves ready we must make our country more self sufficiant and reduce globalization, but in order to improve standards of living else were we must increase it. For this and many other cases we cannnot have our cake and eat it.

My questions are, what effects do you think passing the fossil fuel peak production will have on the world and this country? How soon will it happen? What changes will occur/or be needed in socio-political terms?

I don't particularily want the world to become more isolated or anarchistic, and i certainly hope it doesn't happen.

Captain Trips

Well seeing as there over a hundred wars going on around the world already, it's hardly a time of peace, but at least "our" world has stopped military excursions against one another (although still occupying each other, like americans still in germany).

I would say that the peak oil thing would cause unrest but people can adapt well. A hundred years ago, we didn't "need" oil at all practically. The Roman Empire lasted from around 780BC to around 300 AD, and they didn't rely on plastics as far as we know. Same with other large adminstrative structures - the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottomans, etc., .

The problem is that oil has allowed easy wealth generation for a few, and that few will not let go of their undue wealth and influence easily. The few is not you and me by the way. So if anything like wars happen as the modern resources run scarce, it will be to ensure retention of that wealth and power for that few.

Maybe we would all be healthier. Eat fish more? We are an island so surely that is an option, and most of the land is unpopulated. I would say Ireland is in an okay position with a good climate for crops, relatively isolated from despots (/cautiously looks left and right on the map) and we could use wind and sea power if the will was there. I don't see why we need anything but wind power, plus, the windmills look awesome.

I wonder if there is a way to make something like plastic. ALuminium? SOme other sort of substance or compound. Corvettes are made out of fibre glass, Audi had that all-aluminium body A8. WHat about circuit boards though?

Maybe instead some sort of holographic storage with glass? **** it I don't know, but it's something you wonder about a lot these days.

I am storing up dog food and fingerless leather gloves though, just in case.

Kaiser_Sma

Captain Trips wrote:

(although still occupying each other, like americans still in germany).

A relic of the cold war, but it never really did anything but serve germany. I mean they are occupants in the sense that they live and work there but they aren't a constabulary.

I would say that the peak oil thing would cause unrest but people can adapt well. A hundred years ago, we didn't "need" oil at all practically. The Roman Empire lasted from around 780BC to around 300 AD, and they didn't rely on plastics as far as we know. Same with other large adminstrative structures - the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottomans, etc., .

I don't call regressing hundreds of years adapting well, i know it's possible to survive without oil but not really on the population scale the world has now. Think about the standard of living we have now, what if within our life time it gradually started to eb away, we aren't used to it. Take for example medicines and health care, completly reliant on plastics and large power requirments. Pharmaceuticals these days are made on an industrial scale and many cannot be made on anything smaller.
In many other areas people will suddenly have to adapt very quickly.

The problem is that oil has allowed easy wealth generation for a few, and that few will not let go of their undue wealth and influence easily. The few is not you and me by the way. So if anything like wars happen as the modern resources run scarce, it will be to ensure retention of that wealth and power for that few.

The arab world will suffer a severe regretion, but many countries including saudi arabia have only had this wealth for less than 70 years. Europeans have been wealthy for longer.

Maybe we would all be healthier. Eat fish more?

Intrestingly fish farming is far less fuel intensive than fishing at sea, but the pressures we put on fish stocks may be too much.

We are an island so surely that is an option, and most of the land is unpopulated. I would say Ireland is in an okay position with a good climate for crops,

That will play to our advantage but we are missing many other resources

relatively isolated from despots (/cautiously looks left and right on the map)

If society does begin to regress in the future, govenments will either have to become more authoritarian/ play the nationlisim card or risk loosing power. I would rather live in a police state than an anarchistic one.

and we could use wind and sea power if the will was there. I don't see why we need anything but wind power, plus, the windmills look awesome.

All these things need oil investment to produce and wind power is variable and has low yields.

I wonder if there is a way to make something like plastic. ALuminium? SOme other sort of substance or compound.

There could be but not on any scale large enough

Corvettes are made out of fibre glass, Audi had that all-aluminium body A8. WHat about circuit boards though?

Doesn't matter what the cars are made out of if we can't run them or build them.

Maybe instead some sort of holographic storage with glass? **** it I don't know, but it's something you wonder about a lot these days.

eh?

I am storing up dog food and fingerless leather gloves though, just in case.

Thats a start but remeber to protect your investments. If the governemnt loses control the 'have nots' will take from the 'have's.

Captain Trips

Kaiser_Sma wrote:

eh?



Thats a start but remeber to protect your investments. If the governemnt loses control the 'have nots' will take from the 'have's.

Regarding the eh? I was just thinking of what would happen all the data - everything is electronic these days. When computers go down a lot of systems and people are helpless.

I do suppose a police state is better than an anarchistic one, and it can be done successfully like in Singapore but that is on a very small scale. The citizen militia of Switzerland is also similar I would think. THe big countries like France/UK/Germany would probably regress to the smaller vassal states that made them up a long time ago.

Maybe peak oil is a scam though. I propose that oil is in fact inorganic and is regeneratable by the earths magma layer. All those in favour vote Aye! Problem solved.


You do make an interesting point regarding the populations though - those pre-technology empires had tiny populations relative to modern countries. UK had 5-10 million in 1750-1810 when it was in empire mode, now it's over 64 million and is a mess even with oil AND a police state mentality as the cultural/population thing has become so unstable.

silverharp

Noel Dempsey was on prime time the other night and was not impressed. He said as an aside that PO was 2 decades away. Fat chance, Matt Simmons and Colin Campbell reckon 2008-2010. 10 to 15 years later output drops by 50%. Should be just in time for the new lanes on the M50, ha ha ha ha!

SeanW

The alternatives to our fossil fuel addicted societies are there, we're just not using them yet.

We could all run our cars on biofuels, but they're too expensive for a wholesale conversion to them without government support. We could use public transport more than we do now. We could take a ferry to our European travel destinations, buts its cheaper and faster to fly. We could use nuclear power and renewables to safely and cleanly generate electricity without recourse to hydrocarbons, but renewables are too expensive and unreliable at the moment and some people shove their heads up their rear ends in fear as soon as anyone even mentions "Nuclear Power." We could even do little things like changing to CFL bulbs. We could have our milk, bottled soft drinks, and other consumer liquids put in glass bottles or wax-paper cartons instead of plastic bottles.

But by and large we're not doing any of this because cheap oil enables us to do everything the wasteful way.

It won't be a huge shock to change these ways and indeed many of them may not even be visible to the average person.

When Peak Oil passes:

How hard will it be to fill up your tank with biodiesel, ethanol, electricity or hydrogen instead of petrofuels?
How long will it take Micheal O Leary or someone suchlike to go into the "Express Waterliner" business with fast passenger ferries replacing short haul flights?
How much quality of life would you lose by switching to A-rated electrical appliances?
And I'm pretty certain it would be no big deal to switch to more sustainable forms of product packaging.

I'm not worried about Peak Oil at all because I think we can do what we need to do with less oil and still have a good quality of life.

So a 2008-2010 Peak is fine by me. There will be a little short term pain but we'll all be better off when it's over.

Gurgle

SeanW wrote:

But by and large we're not doing any of this because cheap oil enables us to do everything the wasteful way.

It won't be a huge shock to change these ways and indeed many of them may not even be visible to the average person.

My sentiments in a nutshell.

It'll be a gradual switch-over from oil to renewables as oil production starts to fail to meet demand and the prices really go up.

More specifically: a few million hectares will be planted with GM crops for biodiesel, probably funded by the oil giants who already have the refinement & delivery infrastructure.

More solar, wind, ground-source and various other small scale installations and by the time our grandchildren are teenagers 'peak-oil' will be a historical footnote.

Botany Bay

To sum it up in a nutshell, if any western government was to really take the neccesary steps to change from fossil fuels to renewables in a meaningful way. They'd most likely be commiting political and economic suicide. To change to renewables there would be an economic downturn, loss of jobs, not to mention the short-term economic loss implementing such a system would be. It costs this country a billion odd a year, importing fossil fuels. I costs us hundreds of millions in the short and long term, in Kyoto fines.

The thing is most of the population of the western world are either too stupid,greedy or apathetic to do anything and would vote out of office any government who changed the status quo. Do you think people in this country would accept a drop in the standard of living for a more stable environmentallly viable energy system. Do you think they'd accept more job losses and there plush lives being altered for a fundamental change in energy in this country. Look at all the morons out there who drive SUV's, the most fuel inefficient vehicle you could buy. Do you think they care about the long term implications of their choices. The political, economic and environmental consequences of all this are pushed under the carpet. The oil companies will have you believe that oil is endless, they don't care what happens to society or the environment when it runs out. Neither do most in the west, they'll continue to live their lives, and waste things, pollute and overuse. SUV's, cheap flights(pollution from aircraft is now one of the leading c02 emmiters) and evrything that goes with it. Never bother to try to change things or lobby for alternatives. Because that could mean a change in their comfort zone and most aren't willing to make any sacrifice. Of course it'll be future generations who'll have to deal with the real consequences.

END OF RANT

meepins

An imminent peak oil crisis looks very much like a scam by big oil for further profiteering. Oil is indeed an unrenewable source and a pollutant and we should move away from it for those reasons. However knowing the nature of these monsterous corporations and their control on information, I would be highly skeptical of a peak oil crash anytime soon.
Upon first researching the subject and looking at it in the context of geo political events, I was leaning strongly to buying into it. However I did read Greg Palasts ' Armed Madhouse ' , I recommend everyone do so aswell.

J.S. Pill

Kaiser_Sma wrote:

Travel will become prohibitive, plastics will become expensive and so will the (relativly oppulant) technology we've become accoustomed too, food and almost every product will become less diverese and ultimatly locally produced. The World will grow larger again, nations will become isolationist and nationalisim will be rife. .

Don't forget agriculture - highly dependent on petrochemicals for fertiliser etc. One stat I got claimed that 20% of North america's oil consumption goes into agriculture (Unfortunately It didn't state whether this included transporting produce to its final destination). Maybe Malthus will have the last laugh afterall...

J.S. Pill

With regard to alternatives to Oil, you may notice that in public discourse on Oil, politicians will often pepper their speeches with references to technological developments in alternative fuels. It seems to be a very deliberate effort to placate and reassure the public that we can continue the lifestyles that we are accustomed to - hell, we may be running out of oil but scientists are working on ways to power our cars with grass cuttings from our lawnmowers so don't you worry your litter heads. Now human beings have always been very adaptive and quite adept at finding ways to sustain themselves and I don't doubt that alternative fuels will have a major role to play in coming decades. All I'm saying is that talk of them is something of a rhetorical tool for those who want to justifying doing nothing.

May seem pretty ovbious - just pay attention next time you hear hear them talking

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37464

asdasd

Peak oil is genuine horsehit. If oil begins to run-out, which wont be for decades, it will not hit this "Peak Oil" singularity but merely increase in value ( ay least as a moving average over time) during which time we will replace it with something else - liquified coal, tar sands, heavy oils etc.

all we need is petrol. ( bio is bollocks - we cannot feed the world and use good land for fuel).

And yes we could use more efficient machines.

SeanW

I would agree that Peak Oil probably won't happen for a decade or so, but will happen.

Already, there is need for more expenditure to find new reserves, deeper under the oceans and seas etc. The whole thing is just going to become less and less efficient.

I take exception to your crudely worded statement about biofuels.

#1: There is significant scope to replace petroleum fuels with biofuels. Obviousoly biofuels alone cannot replace fossil fuels 100% and no-ne has claimed so. But they're part of the solution.
#2: The problem with agriculture today is too much capacity and not enough demand, the first world appears to mask this problem in its own markets by a bunch of ban, subsidy and market intervention schemes which turn the domestic market into a sealed, self-enclosed bubble.
This damages the 3rd world and prevents it from developing in 2 ways:
1: 3rd world imports are often restricted or outlawed.
2: the 1st world governments 'intervention' purchase X amount of domestic produce which it has no use for, so these purchases are dumped, at rock bottom prices on 3rd world markets, devastating local agriculture and industry which subsequently cannot compete even in its home market.

Our governments could commission huge amounts of energy crops and could 'dump' them at home - i.e. we could actually use them. And let the 3rd world finally begin to recover from 1st world imperialism.

It makes sense whether you're a liberal who cares about underpriviledged people, or are a BNP type who just wants the Africans etc. to get on with it so that there will be less of them wanting to come here.

Any biofuels initative that ramps up demand for agricultural produce can only be a good thing for all the peoples of the world.
#3: Biofuels have significant environmental benefits.
#4: Other things I think we're going to need more of include renewables, some kind of clean coal/liquid fuels programme (coal is a horrific and filthy mugs game at the moment)
Also think we're going to need to embrance Nuclear power with reprocessing. It's safe, clean and plentiful.

Gurgle

SeanW wrote:

Also think we're going to need to embrance Nuclear power with reprocessing. It's safe, clean and plentiful.

:rolleyes:
You do know that 'reprocessing' is the politically acceptable term for 'dumping in the sea'?

silverharp

QUOTE=asdasd]Peak oil is genuine horsehit. If oil begins to run-out, which wont be for decades [/QUOTE]

Nobody knows for certain when, but the early peakers point to the fact that for instance there is no audit of Saudi claimed reserves. their reserves have stayed the same since the 1980's which is suspicious.
Today the world is only finding 4bn barrels per year but annual consumption is 30bn. (not good)
57 out of 65 countries are in decline (lastest from memory being the North sea Kuwait and Mexico)

Tar sands and shale oil will never produce more then 3-4mbd out of 85mbd currently plus the net energy return is poor.

My assumption is that the establishment won't act in time. Lets be honest the country 9AND OTHER COUNTRIES) ARE run by people in their 50's who wont be around in 10 years time so why should they care.

The point with Peak oil is that one needs a 15-20 lead time to have a smooth transition, life gets more difficult the shorter the time span. The assumption should be that there is an early peak, the cost of being wrong on this is tiny compared to getting it wrong the othe other way

meepins

The lack of information on their reserves can also lead one to believe it's a ploy for profiteering by creating artificial scarcity.Much like, I don't know, invading a country and taking control of their oil production and reserves.

The_Scary_Man

asdasd wrote:

Peak oil is genuine horsehit. If oil begins to run-out, which wont be for decades, it will not hit this "Peak Oil" singularity but merely increase in value ( ay least as a moving average over time) during which time we will replace it with something else - liquified coal, tar sands, heavy oils etc.

all we need is petrol. ( bio is bollocks - we cannot feed the world and use good land for fuel).

And yes we could use more efficient machines.

Oil is running out, thats a fact and inflated Oil Reserve figures may mean the situation is more precarious than we thought. There are a few points that are often not mentioned in terms of the peak oil argument. For one the amount of crude oil in a given oil field is not the amount of crude that can be extracted. As the pressure in the well drops over time seawater is then pumped in to ensure that the oil can still be extracted. This eventually contaminates the well to the point that the remaining oil is useless.

The point about the oil increasing in value as the supply dimishes is valid in that Peak Oil doesn't necessarily mean the end of oil but rather the end of cheap oil but doesn't tell the whole story. The viability of any energy resource is measured in terms of Energy Returned On Energy Invested or EROEI. The more energy it takes to extract the resource the less viable that resource becomes as an energy source. This effectively rules out tar sands, liquified coals and heavy oils as a viable replacement as their EROEI is too low and as oil becomes harder to locate and access the relatively high EROEI of oil will start to slip.

Peak oil is a very real phenomenon and denying it's existence only serves to erode any commitment to developing alternative or supplementary energy sources.

J.S. Pill

Simple question: Hopefully someone with a better understanding of economics than me can answer me this -

Oil increased from $35 a barrel in early 2004 to over $70 a barrel during the summer - howcome we didn't see any major economic earthquakes in our part of the world (maybe they did occur and I just didn't hear about them!).
How long does oil have to stay at such a high price before significant cost push inflation etc kicks in?

It was just interesting to hear Cadbury citing increasing energy price increases as a reason for closing its plant in Dublin (part of a worldwide scaling down of operations I know).

hydra_

Gurgle wrote:

It'll be a gradual switch-over from oil to renewables as oil production starts to fail to meet demand and the prices really go up.

More specifically: a few million hectares will be planted with GM crops for biodiesel, probably funded by the oil giants who already have the refinement & delivery infrastructure.

For a start, growing biofuels is not profitable, money or energy wise.

Secondly, why do you think the oil majors will fund it? Do you think exxon's shareholders will be ok with losing money growing biofuels? Why would they even do that Last time I checked they were about making money,

What these economists fail to tell you is most of these alternatives are net energy losers, ie your losing more energy (oil/gas) making the alternatives that you would have just using the energy in the first place. From an economists point of view it's a waste of money, from a geologists, a waste of energy.

Even if you could make biofuels give you more energy than you put in, how high can they go? No where near as efficient as oil, not by a longshot. Also, if we were to switch to biofuels we would be in a world where the rich drive cars & the poor starve, with the onset of global warming this isn't just irresponsible, it's madness.

My 2 cents

Gurgle

hydra_ wrote:

For a start, growing biofuels is not profitable, money or energy wise.

Not profitabe now because its in competition with cheap oil. Thats the point. I don't know where you get the energy-wise profitability from? Plants grow on sunlight which is still free.

hydra_ wrote:

Secondly, why do you think the oil majors will fund it?

This is about when the oil runs out. Do you think the oil giants are just going to say 'Well thats a wrap folks, thanks all and best of luck in your future careers'?

hydra_ wrote:

these alternatives are net energy losers, ie your losing more energy (oil/gas) making the alternatives that you would have just using the energy in the first place.

Again, what are you talking about?

hydra_ wrote:

if we were to switch to biofuels we would be in a world where the rich drive cars & the poor starve

You haven't seen much of the world then - thats exactly how it is now.

hydra_ wrote:

with the onset of global warming this isn't just irresponsible, it's madness.

Bio-fuels are carbon neutral, like wood pellets. The absorb exactly the same amount of carbon-dioxide while they grow as they emit when they're burned.

hydra_ wrote:

My 2 cents

That wasn't 2 cents, its an old penny and worth more if you recycle it for its copper content.

hydra_

Gurgle wrote:

Not profitabe now because its in competition with cheap oil. Thats the point. I don't know where you get the energy-wise profitability from? Plants grow on sunlight which is still free.

When the cost of oil goes up the cost of growing things goes up. You don't expect it to rain seeds & produce a huge harvest without doing anything but letting the sun do it's job :rolleyes:
Fertilisers are made from natural gas, pesticides are petroleum based. A tractor needs oil to run so it can water/spray/harvest the crops, you then need energy to turn the crop into a biofuel. That's where I'm getting this energy-wise profatibility from!
What you fail to realise is EVERYTHING has an energy input, the world doesn't run on fiat currencys, it runs on cheap energy.

Gurgle wrote:

This is about when the oil runs out. Do you think the oil giants are just going to say 'Well thats a wrap folks, thanks all and best of luck in your future careers'?

erm, ye, it will be the governments problem, how do you think oil is extracted??? They extract it from each individual field until it's energy inefficient, ie if it's taking 1 barrel of oil to extract 1 barrel of oil they are not going to bother extracting anymore are they? In alot of cases this happens when there is over 10% of the oil still in the well.

Gurgle wrote:

Again, what are you talking about?

See above, everything whether you wish to acknowledge it or not has an energy input.

Gurgle wrote:

You haven't seen much of the world then - thats exactly how it is now.

I know that's how it is, but you seem to think it's a great idea to turn over arable land for fuel crops while people starve, fair play to ya :rolleyes:

Gurgle wrote:

Bio-fuels are carbon neutral, like wood pellets. The absorb exactly the same amount of carbon-dioxide while they grow as they emit when they're burned.

That's not what I meant by global warming, I was thinking more along the lines of crop failure due to global warming.

Gurgle wrote:

That wasn't 2 cents, its an old penny and worth more if you recycle it for its copper content.

You must like listening to yourself, the problem is your in the land of make believe where the sun grows crops with no energy input & oil companies piss away their money growing biofuels :rolleyes:

silverharp

Hydra makes a good point. There is an oil subsidy, food is cheap because the mechanised structure that lies behind agriculture was made with cheap oil. Take away cheap oil and you get a negetive feedback loop so in effect bio diesel seems like a good idea but it depends on cheap oil .
Tar sands oil for instance depends on natural gas to heat the frozen Thundra up to a few 100 degrees so that you can melt the oil out, If natural gas is seen as too valuable in 5 years time then the economics of mining the oil go out the window.
Solar technology will even be undermined to some extent when oil begins to run out as it will get more expensive to keep the infrasturucture behind solar going ie mining, factories, transport etc.

oscarBravo

hydra_ wrote:

You must like listening to yourself, the problem is your in the land of make believe...

Let's keep it civil, shall we?

Gurgle

hydra_ wrote:

ie if it's taking 1 barrel of oil to extract 1 barrel of oil

please quote some source for this ridiculous claim
And why does 1l of vegetable oil already cost less than 1l of petrol?

SeanW

I simply couldn't let this claptrap go unchallenged.

Gurgle wrote:

:rolleyes:
You do know that 'reprocessing' is the politically acceptable term for 'dumping in the sea'?

hydra_ wrote:

Even if you could make biofuels give you more energy than you put in, how high can they go? No where near as efficient as oil, not by a longshot. Also, if we were to switch to biofuels we would be in a world where the rich drive cars & the poor starve, with the onset of global warming this isn't just irresponsible, it's madness.

Gurgle: 'reprocessing' does exist. The French do it, so the British, and most recently so does Japan. 'Spent' fuel is actually re-usable many times over if the fission products are removed from the assembly.

For proof that it works: The only two countries now looking at permanent waste storage facilities, the USA and Finland, are both heavy users of nuclear power that do not reprocess their old fuels.

Hydra_: You couldn't be more wrong about the quoted statement, first of all, the problem of starving poor people has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER, to do with worldwide agricultural capacity, the problems are totally and unmistably to do with economics.

For example, you can't buy food if you don't have an income or stored wealth. For the poor masses to obtain either, they need a stable government and an economy. Most economies develop in a path from Agriculture, to Manufacturing and dirty industry, to modern service economies.

But in many of the poor countries, they can't even get on the first floor of that path, for various reasons: incompetence government, war, and First World agricultural subsidies. The worst of these, is price support in the domestic market, whereby the national government purchases X number of tons of domestic produce to keep market prices high for a certain number of farmers of a particular commodity. Of course, the commisioning government has absolutely no use for this produce so it is "exported" (a nice word for "Dumped") on 3rd world markets at a miniscule fraction of its cost.

This has the effect of killing any domestic agricultural industry in the destination country and preventing new ones from competing in its home market.

Undeveloped country + damaged argicultural sector = limited economy, and poverty.

We need biofuels to help the environment, and to enhance our own energy security, and also to help the "developing" world actually develop by putting our prima-donna agricultural sectors to work making something we the people of these countries could actually use. Heck, even the 3rd world might get a chance to EXPORT some stuff to us!!!

And as for the efficiency of biofuel production, Rudolf Diesel might disagree with you, when he said of vegetable oils:

Rudolf Diesel, 1912 wrote:

"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today. But such oils may become in the course of time as important as the petroleum and coal tar products of the present time

The first diesel engines actually ran on peanut oil and Mr. Diesel made it clear that this was his vision. Cheap oil and politics, of course, ended that. It was clearly doable then and it is clearly do-able now, with improved machining and fuel efficiency, science, technology and whatnot that we have today.

hydra_

oscarBravo wrote:

Let's keep it civil, shall we?

sorry, will do.

Gurgle wrote:

please quote some source for this ridiculous claim

I'd be quicker explaining it, I couldn't be bothered getting you a source tbh, ask any oil geologist or someone who knows what they are talking about.

When a new field is drilled, the oil inside is under high pressure so the oil gushes out, giving you an energy return of lets say 1 - 100, it's called the EROEI (Energy returned on energy invested) where you used 1 barrel of oil (in energy terms) and you get back 100 barrels for that 1 barrel you used up.
As you take oil out the table drops & you lose pressure, what then happens is you have to inject something in to keep the pressure up, usually water or natural gas.
As an axample, with Saudi Arabia's largest field, Ghawar, they pump in massive amounts of seawater to keep the pressure up resulting in them pumping out more water than oil.

Gurgle wrote:

And why does 1l of vegetable oil already cost less than 1l of petrol?

Because of cheap & abundant energy supplies. Watch how cheap your food will be when oil prices go through the roof.


SeanW, I don't know where to really start, were going off course here, I think your presuming some things of me. I agree with alot of what you say in your post, ie that rich countries dump subsidised food on third world countries killing their ability to produce their own food or even compete.

I also realise we will probably to some extent have to produce biofuels for transport, just on a much smaller scale than Gurgle imagines. I'm thinking more along the lines of public transport & agriculture where as gurgle (and many others) seem to think it will be no problem to carry on as normal using them.

SeanW wrote:

We need biofuels to help the environment, and to enhance our own energy security

Sorry I don't share your enthusiasm on that one, too little too late imo.
Regardless of what we do the americans & chinese etc will continue pollute as much as they want, it will get worse after peak oil as we have (unfortunately) lots of coal.

SeanW wrote:

The first diesel engines actually ran on peanut oil and Mr. Diesel made it clear that this was his vision. Cheap oil and politics, of course, ended that. It was clearly doable then and it is clearly do-able now, with improved machining and fuel efficiency, science, technology and whatnot that we have today.

It's doable allright, apparently it's meant to be a simple enough job for a mechanic to convert a diesel engine to take vegetable oil.

You shouldn't really be telling people this though, we don't really have enough vegetable oil to go around

Gurgle

hydra_ wrote:

I'd be quicker explaining it, I couldn't be bothered getting you a source tbh, ask any oil geologist or someone who knows what they are talking about.

You're the one making the claim, I'm asking you to back it up not explain it. The opinion of 'someone who knows' is not a convincing arguement. The current efficiencies of taking oil out of the ground are irrelevant.
Here's some info on bio-diesel which I'm confident you won't read but you'll rebut anyway:
http://www.biodiesel.org/
And from their commonly asked questions:

Does biodiesel take more energy to make than it gives back?
No. Biodiesel actually has the highest “energy balance” of any transportation fuel. The
DOE/USDA lifecycle analysis shows for every unit of fossil energy it takes to make
biodiesel, 3.2 units of energy are gained. This takes into account the planting,
harvesting, fuel production and fuel transportation to the end user.

hydra_ wrote:

where as gurgle (and many others) seem to think it will be no problem to carry on as normal using them.

Let me clarify what I think:
Vegetable oil and its derivatives will be the first widespread solution to the transport problem as oil gets more expensive, largely for the simple reason thtat it can be made into a direct replacement. I know one guy in Germany who has been using it in his car for several years.

Other uses of oil include home heating and generation of electricity. Heating oil will be replaced with direct renewables including wood pellets and bio-fuels, and scavenged energy like ground-source and solar. Electricity will be generated with wind and water and of course nuclear.

SeanW wrote:

Gurgle: 'reprocessing' does exist. The French do it, so the British, and most recently so does Japan. 'Spent' fuel is actually re-usable many times over if the fission products are removed from the assembly.

For proof that it works: The only two countries now looking at permanent waste storage facilities, the USA and Finland, are both heavy users of nuclear power that do not reprocess their old fuels.

new 'processing' technique

British Nuclear Fuels stores much of its waste in concrete, which lasts up to 200 years. This has prompted widespread concern that radioactive material will leak into the water supply and pose a serious threat to public health and the environment. Some nuclear waste at Sellafield is already vitrified by British Nuclear Fuels, using a "continuous melting" method that stores the waste in 6ft containers resembling milk churns. The churns are sealed remotely and stored above ground. Last year 341 containers were filled with vitrified waste.

I'm afraid not. What they refer to as 'reprocessing' is a preparation for long-term storage.

hydra_

Gurgle wrote:

You're the one making the claim, I'm asking you to back it up not explain it. The opinion of 'someone who knows' is not a convincing arguement. The current efficiencies of taking oil out of the ground are irrelevant.

OK, here is 1 link explaining it http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/mainpages/jargon.html

Recovery

Primary Recovery

This is the first stage of oil or gas production when the natural pressure of gas or water inside the reservoir forces the hydrocarbons to the surface naturally. As the pressure drops, it is necessary to bring in pumps such as the 'nodding donkeys' to assist but this is still classed as primary production. Only about 10-20% of the source is produced in this stage and it ends when the production rates are too low to be economical or the amount of gas or water in the output is too high.

Secondary Recovery

Here an external fluid such as water or gas is injected into the reservoir to create an artificial pressure, enough to drive the hydrocarbons to the surface. 15-40% of the source can be produced by secondary recovery and it ends when too much of the injected fluid is being returned at the well head.

Tertiary Recovery

In the last stage, sophisticated techniques are used to increase pressure and improve fluid flow. These involve altering the original properties of the gas or oil. The three main methods are chemical flooding, CO2/hydrocarbon injection, and thermal recovery (steam-flooding or combustion). 5-15% may be recovered using tertiary production. Tertiary recovery is also known as "Enhanced Oil Recovery" (EOR).

Recovery Percentages

The chart above shows the amount of oil each form of recovery is likely to extract from a reservoir. It shows that, even at the very (unlikely) best, 20% of the oil will remain in the ground. Usually you could not expect to get more than about 60% from a field.

Gurgle wrote:

Here's some info on bio-diesel which I'm confident you won't read but you'll rebut anyway:
http://www.biodiesel.org/

Why would I rebut it without bother reading it, I have no agenda here.
I think you should re-read that quote of yours a few times, it confirms what I was saying earlier about everything having an energy input.

If it's true they are gaining 3.2 units of energy I'd see that as positive. The problem with their figure though is they are using fossil fuels making it. What happens to that number 3.2 when they have no fossil fuels & need to produce it using their own biofuel? Still though, 3.2 is a start, I didn't know the eroei was that high, at least it's not losing energy.

Gurgle wrote:

Let me clarify what I think:
Vegetable oil and its derivatives will be the first widespread solution to the transport problem as oil gets more expensive, largely for the simple reason thtat it can be made into a direct replacement. I know one guy in Germany who has been using it in his car for several years.

Other uses of oil include home heating and generation of electricity. Heating oil will be replaced with direct renewables including wood pellets and bio-fuels, and scavenged energy like ground-source and solar. Electricity will be generated with wind and water and of course nuclear.

I sort of agree on the above points, I just think you are severely underestimating the problem. What are the government doing about the problem? The muppets never even heard of peak oil 2 years ago, now we have noel dempsey telling us it's 20 years off, ie not his problem.

And what are the US doing? They are sure as hell not implementing loads of alternatives are they, no, there securing as much as they can in the caspian basin. They arent building the biggest US embassy in the world in baghdad for no reason. The cia knew about peak oil since the 70's at least so it's not like they don't know.

In a perfect world all the governments of the world would sit down & discuss this & make a plan to try & avoid disaster, unfortunately they are not though.

Basically, the point I'm trying to make is, we need to powerdown, ie conserve & start implementing alternatives yesterday. If we continue down this path we are in for a nasty shock, all that needs to happen is the US hits iran & the price of oil will go up north of 100 a barrel. If a high oil price is sustained even for a month or two we are looking at a global recession worse than anything any of us ever experienced. If you don't believe me have a look at what happened after the oil shocks of the late 70's / early 80's.

Even without war with iran our predicament still looks bad. OPEC are starting to implement cuts next month to raise the price, here is a report from today

George Bush, the US president, has warned the oil-producing countries that high crude oil prices could wreck economies and reduce demand for their products.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/68AAB834-1F81-407F-96AE-EFF3418D464A.htm

Gurgle

hydra_ wrote:

OK, here is 1 link explaining it http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/mainpages/jargon.html

Thats all about oil - no mention of biofuels.
I'm not arguing that peak oil won't happen, thats established. It may be 5 years away or 50 but its coming.

hydra_ wrote:

Why would I rebut it without bother reading it, I have no agenda here.

Sorry, its a common feature of arguements here.

hydra_ wrote:

I think you should re-read that quote of yours a few times, it confirms what I was saying earlier about everything having an energy input.

Sure, thats a given. Even when crops are produced entirely through manual labour the workers have to be fed.

hydra_ wrote:

If it's true they are gaining 3.2 units of energy I'd see that as positive. The problem with their figure though is they are using fossil fuels making it. What happens to that number 3.2 when they have no fossil fuels & need to produce it using their own biofuel?

Its still 1:3.2 as this is a normalised energy ratio. Makes no difference if the machinery is running on diesel or vegetable oil. Likely to improve of course as more research is put into it, the scale goes up and the technology matures.

hydra_ wrote:

I sort of agree on the above points, I just think you are severely underestimating the problem. What are the government doing about the problem? The muppets never even heard of peak oil 2 years ago, now we have noel dempsey telling us it's 20 years off, ie not his problem.

They are finally doing something about it - Theres tax relief for bio-diesel, grants for solar panels, wood-pellet burners and ground-source installations.

hydra_ wrote:

And what are the US doing?

Burning as much oil as possible in the engines of tanks & planes to speed the whole thing up. Why are they doing this? No idea!

hydra_ wrote:

we need to powerdown, ie conserve & start implementing alternatives yesterday.

But yesterday(figuratively) oil was cheaper than the alternatives. Now the scales are almost balanced and renewables are taking off. Give it 10 years and you won't see many new houses being fitted with oil-based central heating.

hydra_ wrote:

we are looking at a global recession worse than anything any of us ever experienced. If you don't believe me have a look at what happened after the oil shocks of the late 70's / early 80's.

Except in the renewables industries where there will be unprecedented gains. Smart money is already making its way into these technologies and, returning to an earlier point, the people in charge of the oil giants are smart people.