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> Once we use it, it's pretty much gone. Oil is as renewable as any other renewable resource. It's made from plants. We're only at risk of running out of chea

> Once we use it, it's pretty much gone. Oil is as renewable as any other renewable resource. It's made from plants. We're only at risk of running out of cheap crude mined from the earth with a positive net energy return at a low price. We aren't ever at risk of not being able to have oil. It's an open question whether our access to cheap fossil fuel will outlast our demand for it.

deleted 7y ago
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BoiledCabbage 7y ago
> We're only at risk of running out of cheap crude mined from the earth with a positive net energy return at a low price. We aren't ever at risk of not being able to have oil. A: Our business is running out of money we can no longer get any loans at any interest rate. B: False. You're not running out of money or access to loans. You can still get loans as long as you're willing to put down more collateral in cash upfront than the amount you're borrowing. I think see why you used a throwaway for this insight.
- throwaway373438 7y ago
  You're mistakenly assuming that our only use for oil is energy production. Oil has many uses besides as an energy source. Even in transportation, oil is still useful as an energy transfer system even if it isn't an energy source. Net-loss energy systems are very useful. Fuel cells and batteries fall into this category. The latter has already begun to function as a replacement good for oil in the automotive industry.
  - BoiledCabbage 7y ago
    While yes we can use oil for other purposes, the vast majority of use of oil is for net positive energy use. If oil were net negative the majority of it's demand would disappear.
    - throwaway373438 7y ago
      Well sure, because it's cheap and available! The point here is that when price points change replacement good emerge causing us to never actually run out of the good in question. This process of substitution is a cornerstone of cornucopian theory, as described by the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager. It's not clear demand would evaporate, by the way. Right now we produce oil at a variety of price points - from cheap light crude at a few dollars per bbl to shale oil at ranges from $30-90/bbl. Most folks expect electric cars to undercut oil at higher price points. It's certainly possible we might some day develop technology to obsolete even oil at light crude extraction prices. But it's also possible that we would opt to produce petrol products in a net-negative energy process because petrol is just so damned convenient for energy transportation. In a sense we already have, as Fischer-Tropsch can produce at around $40/bbl. We see it used today in special cases such as on aircraft carriers to work around logistical complexity. Producing jet fuel from seawater is very handy, if costly in terms of energy consumption. Oil and oil products are very much renewable. The price points relative to substitution tech will change over time and some day we likely will decide that oil just isn't attractive anymore. Above, I suggested this might happen before we run out of light sweet crude (mostly from Saudi). I think this is a very reasonable thing to wonder.
mywittyname 7y ago
Those plants require petroleum-based fertilizers to produce at industrial scale.
- throwaway373438 7y ago
  No, they do not. We use fossil fuels in fertilizer production because it is cheap. It is not the only alternative, nor are fertilizers required to operate at scale in the first place. Fertilizer increases yield but has nothing to do with our ability to scale an operation.
woodandsteel 7y ago
Yes, the problem is the energy that could be used to produce oil would be much more efficiently used by applying it directly to what the oil was going to be used for.
- throwaway373438 7y ago
  Not always. Oil has many uses outside of energy production. It's also important to distinguish between energy production and energy transfer. Petrol products are very useful for energy transfer even if they aren't energy producing. Batteries and fuel cells are other examples of useful net-negative energy transfer systems.

deleted 7y ago

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BoiledCabbage 7y ago

> We're only at risk of running out of cheap crude mined from the earth with a positive net energy return at a low price. We aren't ever at risk of not being able to have oil. A: Our business is running out of money we can no longer get any loans at any interest rate. B: False. You're not running out of money or access to loans. You can still get loans as long as you're willing to put down more collateral in cash upfront than the amount you're borrowing. I think see why you used a throwaway for this insight.

throwaway373438 7y ago
You're mistakenly assuming that our only use for oil is energy production. Oil has many uses besides as an energy source. Even in transportation, oil is still useful as an energy transfer system even if it isn't an energy source. Net-loss energy systems are very useful. Fuel cells and batteries fall into this category. The latter has already begun to function as a replacement good for oil in the automotive industry.
- BoiledCabbage 7y ago
  While yes we can use oil for other purposes, the vast majority of use of oil is for net positive energy use. If oil were net negative the majority of it's demand would disappear.
  - throwaway373438 7y ago
    Well sure, because it's cheap and available! The point here is that when price points change replacement good emerge causing us to never actually run out of the good in question. This process of substitution is a cornerstone of cornucopian theory, as described by the famous Simon-Ehrlich wager. It's not clear demand would evaporate, by the way. Right now we produce oil at a variety of price points - from cheap light crude at a few dollars per bbl to shale oil at ranges from $30-90/bbl. Most folks expect electric cars to undercut oil at higher price points. It's certainly possible we might some day develop technology to obsolete even oil at light crude extraction prices. But it's also possible that we would opt to produce petrol products in a net-negative energy process because petrol is just so damned convenient for energy transportation. In a sense we already have, as Fischer-Tropsch can produce at around $40/bbl. We see it used today in special cases such as on aircraft carriers to work around logistical complexity. Producing jet fuel from seawater is very handy, if costly in terms of energy consumption. Oil and oil products are very much renewable. The price points relative to substitution tech will change over time and some day we likely will decide that oil just isn't attractive anymore. Above, I suggested this might happen before we run out of light sweet crude (mostly from Saudi). I think this is a very reasonable thing to wonder.

mywittyname 7y ago

Those plants require petroleum-based fertilizers to produce at industrial scale.

throwaway373438 7y ago
No, they do not. We use fossil fuels in fertilizer production because it is cheap. It is not the only alternative, nor are fertilizers required to operate at scale in the first place. Fertilizer increases yield but has nothing to do with our ability to scale an operation.

woodandsteel 7y ago

Yes, the problem is the energy that could be used to produce oil would be much more efficiently used by applying it directly to what the oil was going to be used for.

throwaway373438 7y ago
Not always. Oil has many uses outside of energy production. It's also important to distinguish between energy production and energy transfer. Petrol products are very useful for energy transfer even if they aren't energy producing. Batteries and fuel cells are other examples of useful net-negative energy transfer systems.