6 ms·

The key thing to remember is that if we burn all the oil we've already found, we'll exceed safe levels of atmospheric carbon. So there is no point exploring for

by jchrisa 11y ago

The key thing to remember is that if we burn all the oil we've already found, we'll exceed safe levels of atmospheric carbon. So there is no point exploring for more oil or opening new reserves.

wernerb 11y ago
Interesting, do you have a source for more information? (not meant to be snarky, genuinely interested)
- DennisP 11y ago
  This article by Bill McKibben made a pretty big splash, and is a good place to start: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-te...
  - hugh4 11y ago
    I was hoping for something a little more scientific...
    - cossatot 11y ago
      Here's the 35 page exective summary of the IPCC climate change report: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FI... If you want to know more about how realistic implementing substantive technological changes will be before we hit 500 ppm CO2 or some other benchmark, I submitted a link to a talk by Vaclav Smil, who is one of the world's experts on energy and society: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10291516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10291516
jdminhbg 11y ago
Even granting the first sentence, the second doesn't follow. Some sources of oil are cheaper or easier to get to than others; you could put a 100% enforceable ban on oil burning over some limit X, and it would still make sense to explore for oil.
- DennisP 11y ago
  But in the real world a simple limit can't be enforced. We're unlikely to avoid going over the limit unless we put a price on carbon emissions to make burning fossil fuels more expensive. Searching for cheaper fossil fuels is exactly the opposite course of action.
  - eru 11y ago
    Why? Even with a price on carbon, you'd still want to burn the cheapest oil.
    - DennisP 11y ago
      If oil is cheaper on average, you need a higher price on carbon to have the same effect. If you manage to get that higher price, the end result is the same as if your cost of production didn't drop in the first place. So why invest in dropping the cost of production?
      - eru 11y ago
        You are mixing up different actors. At a given tax, the consumer and producer want the lowest production cost. At fixed price to the consumer, the government wants the lowest production cost, so that the tax can be higher.
        DennisP 11y ago
        That's assuming the government's goal is to raise revenue. A lot of carbon tax proposals are revenue neutral, with the goal of achieving specific carbon reductions. Fossil fuel producers may still compete with each other on cost but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking they're somehow benefiting society by doing that.
rjsw 11y ago
Oil is useful stuff, it is a waste to burn it. We will be able to make plastics for a lot longer if we can generate energy from something else.
- eru 11y ago
  We can make plastics from just about any carbon source. But you are right, oil is good for other things besides energy. Uranium and Thorium ain't really.
  - Apocryphon 11y ago
    Well, they're good for the ultimate munition.
    - eru 11y ago
      We use depleted uranium for that. Energy production normally uses enriched uranium.
      - pjc50 11y ago
        Parent was referring to nuclear bombs, which use very highly enriched uranium.
simoncion 11y ago
> ...if we burn all the oil we've already found... Plastics and inorganic fertilizers are two of the things we can make with oil. Both of these things are pretty damn important. I suspect that -one day- burning so much of our oil supply just to produce electricity and locomotion will be regarded as a rather poor decision.
- hugh4 11y ago
  Oil is just big long gooey hydrocarbons that we can make by other means, if we have energy. I'm not too worried about it. If you're desperate you can always squeeze a peanut or scrape a duck.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > If you're desperate you can always squeeze a peanut or scrape a duck. That sounds terribly expensive. A 1,000% increase in the cost of plastics and lubricants won't be fun for anyone. > ...we can make by other means, if we have energy. Hopefully we gather together the political will and launch the anti-misinformation campaigns required to get some form of very-high-capacity non-fossil-fuel-based electricity generation system long before we need to seriously consider "scraping ducks" to get the hydrocarbons we require.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Fertilisers are made of the elements NPK, none of which are found in oil; natural gas is used to power the process and as an intermediate in ammonia production, but it's not intrinsic to the process. (Running out of mineable phosphates is a separate "peak" issue) http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/04/07/were-not-going-to-run-out-of-oil-based-fertilizer/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/04/07/were-not-...
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Apologies. I was being unforgivably imprecise. I should have used the phrase "fossil fuel(s)" instead of the word oil. > ...natural gas is used to power the process and as an intermediate in ammonia production, but it's not intrinsic to the process. Maybe I'm misreading the Forbes [0] article, but it says: > We take methane (the majority part of natural gas) and use the CH4 to fix the nitrogen (N) from the air to make ammonia (NH3) which is then the precursor for the various fertilisers themselves like ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) say. That sounds to me like natural gas is -currently- a vital part of the production process, as well as a power generation fuel. That's -naturally- not to say that a different methane source couldn't be used. [0] Unrelated: Forbes links are always fun. The first time I load an article, I am taken to a "welcome" page whose URL is not the article I intended to load. My back stack is also destroyed, so the back button doesn't work. If I visit the intended URL a second time, I get to read what it was that I wanted to read in the first place. Yaay.
cossatot 11y ago
~85% of the US's energy usage comes from fossil fuels [1]. Despite the unfortunate reality of anthropogenic climate change, the really key thing to realize is that transitions to alternate forms of energy take decades because the scale of such transitions is absolutely enormous; these changes take longer and longer with every major transition, i.e. wood to coal, or coal to oil; oil to whatever's next could take a century [2]. The earth has about 1300 billion barrels of 'proven' oil reserves[3] which at current consumption rates of ~100 million barrels per day [4] gives us about 36 years of oil left. And that assumes that, despite rapid increases in population size and economic development, that consumption won't change. 36 years isn't very long to develop the new energy technology, test it sufficiently, and build the infrastructure. Oil is the hardest to replace of all of our energy sources because it has the highest energy density and is therefore integral to transportation. Replacing coal with solar + nuclear would be a better option because both are based on stationary power plants instead of car engines and jet turbines. But in reality, if oil gets expensive now, we'll just start burning more coal because the pieces are already in place. Like it or not (I definitely do not like it), we are a society very reliant upon fossil fuels, and if fossil fuel accessibility is restricted substantially (i.e. by completely stopping oil exploration) there will be considerable destabilization of society, which will do two particularly nasty things: 1) Harm the poor disproportionately, by making it difficult or impossible for the poor in developed nations to heat their houses and drive to work and school, and raising the cost of food substantially; and by completely stopping if not reversing the economic development of the rest of the world, keeping billions in poverty. 2) Wreak tremendous havoc on the environment, as the forests are cut down to provide wood for heating and cooking, and the fisheries and wild animal stock is razed due to high food prices. There are no great solutions to the problem, but there are some that are much better than the current status quo of doing nothing, or the opposite end-member solution of enforcing an otherwise unlikely peak oil catastrophe by stopping exploration. Taxing carbon and using the proceeds to fund new energy technology as well as ramping up current alternative energy production both domestically and in India and Africa, and implementing more efficient transportation, heating and electricity generation could go a long way. [1] 2012 levels, from Energy Revolution by Mara Prentiss [2] Energy Myths and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate by Vaclav Smil [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves [4] http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/global_oil.cfm http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/global_oil.cfm

by jchrisa 11y ago

The key thing to remember is that if we burn all the oil we've already found, we'll exceed safe levels of atmospheric carbon. So there is no point exploring for more oil or opening new reserves.

wernerb 11y ago

Interesting, do you have a source for more information? (not meant to be snarky, genuinely interested)

DennisP 11y ago
This article by Bill McKibben made a pretty big splash, and is a good place to start: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-te...
- hugh4 11y ago
  I was hoping for something a little more scientific...
  - cossatot 11y ago
    Here's the 35 page exective summary of the IPCC climate change report: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FINAL_SPM.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/syr/AR5_SYR_FI... If you want to know more about how realistic implementing substantive technological changes will be before we hit 500 ppm CO2 or some other benchmark, I submitted a link to a talk by Vaclav Smil, who is one of the world's experts on energy and society: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10291516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10291516

jdminhbg 11y ago

Even granting the first sentence, the second doesn't follow. Some sources of oil are cheaper or easier to get to than others; you could put a 100% enforceable ban on oil burning over some limit X, and it would still make sense to explore for oil.

DennisP 11y ago
But in the real world a simple limit can't be enforced. We're unlikely to avoid going over the limit unless we put a price on carbon emissions to make burning fossil fuels more expensive. Searching for cheaper fossil fuels is exactly the opposite course of action.
- eru 11y ago
  Why? Even with a price on carbon, you'd still want to burn the cheapest oil.
  - DennisP 11y ago
    If oil is cheaper on average, you need a higher price on carbon to have the same effect. If you manage to get that higher price, the end result is the same as if your cost of production didn't drop in the first place. So why invest in dropping the cost of production?
    - eru 11y ago
      You are mixing up different actors. At a given tax, the consumer and producer want the lowest production cost. At fixed price to the consumer, the government wants the lowest production cost, so that the tax can be higher.
      - DennisP 11y ago
        That's assuming the government's goal is to raise revenue. A lot of carbon tax proposals are revenue neutral, with the goal of achieving specific carbon reductions. Fossil fuel producers may still compete with each other on cost but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking they're somehow benefiting society by doing that.

rjsw 11y ago

Oil is useful stuff, it is a waste to burn it. We will be able to make plastics for a lot longer if we can generate energy from something else.

eru 11y ago
We can make plastics from just about any carbon source. But you are right, oil is good for other things besides energy. Uranium and Thorium ain't really.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Well, they're good for the ultimate munition.
  - eru 11y ago
    We use depleted uranium for that. Energy production normally uses enriched uranium.
    - pjc50 11y ago
      Parent was referring to nuclear bombs, which use very highly enriched uranium.

simoncion 11y ago

> ...if we burn all the oil we've already found... Plastics and inorganic fertilizers are two of the things we can make with oil. Both of these things are pretty damn important. I suspect that -one day- burning so much of our oil supply just to produce electricity and locomotion will be regarded as a rather poor decision.

hugh4 11y ago
Oil is just big long gooey hydrocarbons that we can make by other means, if we have energy. I'm not too worried about it. If you're desperate you can always squeeze a peanut or scrape a duck.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > If you're desperate you can always squeeze a peanut or scrape a duck. That sounds terribly expensive. A 1,000% increase in the cost of plastics and lubricants won't be fun for anyone. > ...we can make by other means, if we have energy. Hopefully we gather together the political will and launch the anti-misinformation campaigns required to get some form of very-high-capacity non-fossil-fuel-based electricity generation system long before we need to seriously consider "scraping ducks" to get the hydrocarbons we require.
pjc50 11y ago
Fertilisers are made of the elements NPK, none of which are found in oil; natural gas is used to power the process and as an intermediate in ammonia production, but it's not intrinsic to the process. (Running out of mineable phosphates is a separate "peak" issue) http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/04/07/were-not-going-to-run-out-of-oil-based-fertilizer/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/04/07/were-not-...
- simoncion 11y ago
  Apologies. I was being unforgivably imprecise. I should have used the phrase "fossil fuel(s)" instead of the word oil. > ...natural gas is used to power the process and as an intermediate in ammonia production, but it's not intrinsic to the process. Maybe I'm misreading the Forbes [0] article, but it says: > We take methane (the majority part of natural gas) and use the CH4 to fix the nitrogen (N) from the air to make ammonia (NH3) which is then the precursor for the various fertilisers themselves like ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) say. That sounds to me like natural gas is -currently- a vital part of the production process, as well as a power generation fuel. That's -naturally- not to say that a different methane source couldn't be used. [0] Unrelated: Forbes links are always fun. The first time I load an article, I am taken to a "welcome" page whose URL is not the article I intended to load. My back stack is also destroyed, so the back button doesn't work. If I visit the intended URL a second time, I get to read what it was that I wanted to read in the first place. Yaay.

cossatot 11y ago

~85% of the US's energy usage comes from fossil fuels [1]. Despite the unfortunate reality of anthropogenic climate change, the really key thing to realize is that transitions to alternate forms of energy take decades because the scale of such transitions is absolutely enormous; these changes take longer and longer with every major transition, i.e. wood to coal, or coal to oil; oil to whatever's next could take a century [2]. The earth has about 1300 billion barrels of 'proven' oil reserves[3] which at current consumption rates of ~100 million barrels per day [4] gives us about 36 years of oil left. And that assumes that, despite rapid increases in population size and economic development, that consumption won't change. 36 years isn't very long to develop the new energy technology, test it sufficiently, and build the infrastructure. Oil is the hardest to replace of all of our energy sources because it has the highest energy density and is therefore integral to transportation. Replacing coal with solar + nuclear would be a better option because both are based on stationary power plants instead of car engines and jet turbines. But in reality, if oil gets expensive now, we'll just start burning more coal because the pieces are already in place. Like it or not (I definitely do not like it), we are a society very reliant upon fossil fuels, and if fossil fuel accessibility is restricted substantially (i.e. by completely stopping oil exploration) there will be considerable destabilization of society, which will do two particularly nasty things: 1) Harm the poor disproportionately, by making it difficult or impossible for the poor in developed nations to heat their houses and drive to work and school, and raising the cost of food substantially; and by completely stopping if not reversing the economic development of the rest of the world, keeping billions in poverty. 2) Wreak tremendous havoc on the environment, as the forests are cut down to provide wood for heating and cooking, and the fisheries and wild animal stock is razed due to high food prices. There are no great solutions to the problem, but there are some that are much better than the current status quo of doing nothing, or the opposite end-member solution of enforcing an otherwise unlikely peak oil catastrophe by stopping exploration. Taxing carbon and using the proceeds to fund new energy technology as well as ramping up current alternative energy production both domestically and in India and Africa, and implementing more efficient transportation, heating and electricity generation could go a long way. [1] 2012 levels, from Energy Revolution by Mara Prentiss [2] Energy Myths and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate by Vaclav Smil [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves [4] http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/global_oil.cfm http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/global_oil.cfm