4 ms·

When Fossil Fuels Run Out, What Then? (It's 2060) (2019)

17 points by ofou 5y ago

oppositelock 5y ago
The Simon Ehrlich wager comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
srvmshr 5y ago
Here is something which flies under the radar everytime regarding petroleum: "Petroleum is our source of plastics & polymers" We may solve the problems of not having petro-fuel for industry, or ship oil and replace these with gas. We may solve transportation challenges by EVs. But, there is no economically viable alternative to producing polymers and plastics. If at all we are saving, it should be from the viewpoint of saving building materials for the next several decades. Every single piece of plastic or polymer or synthetic fabric you see around you, was born out of a oil rig. Everything, from medical grade plastics used in medicine capsules to hospital equipment, to Falcon 9 parts we send to space, to kevlar building materials, is built from petroleum primitives. Imagine how crippled we would become if we fall in short supply. Like explained, the we must pivot our thinking to conserving building materials for future generations, than calculate them as fuels only.
- narag 5y ago
  If fuels get more scarce, the prices will grow so high that petroleum would be too expensive to be used as fuel, compared to electricity, and the last reserves would be devoted to other uses. Also what about the "indestructible" plastics in dumpsters?
  - ericmay 5y ago
    I’m not sure. I’ve heard compelling arguments that prices will be drastically cheaper when supply is the lowest because we will still rely on it but it’ll be uneconomical to extract by private companies so the government will subsidize the production and sale. A huge run for the hills moment would be if the US nationalized the industry. Doomsday kind of stuff.
  - srvmshr 5y ago
    > Also what about the "indestructible" plastics in dumpsters I am not an expert in polymers, and please do correct me if I am wrong: Thermoplastic materials can be reused for some cycles. But thermosets, like formalin which builds chairs and hard materials are essentially one-time use and hard to degrade.
- ericmay 5y ago
  I think plastics should be strictly regulated and only available for medical purposes or space exploration. Might need to be phased out but we need them for these other purposes. We don’t need them for plastic straws.
- redwood 5y ago
  Wow I just looked to how much oil goes into plastic, assuming a tiny portion. Turns out it's not a straight forward question and a lot of the input is actually natural gas https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 Anyway I saw estimates ranging from 4% to 10% of petroleum going into plastic... higher than I thought
- bsder 5y ago
  If we quit burning petroleum for fuel, we have a century plus of feedstock for plastic. We can make plastic now out of bio feedstock, it's just expensive. If petroleum prices rose sufficiently, bio feedstock becomes reasonable. In addition, a lot of our problems with "alternate" sources of materials are that they would use a lot of electricity to create--which we currently get by, you guessed it, burning petroleum. So, it's more efficient to simply start with petroleum feedstock and skip the conversion losses. If more of our system were based on renewable energy, then converting other feedstock to plastic becomes viable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
infamia 5y ago
I see it's time to bring out this old chestnut again. Here's the slight of hand: > known natural gas reserves, we have about 52.8 years worth of natural gas reserves left. The key is "known ... reserves". The article blithely assumes we won't ever find any more fossil fuels and then gloomily concludes that we have 52 years of gas left - totally absurd and obviously wrong. The fact that this comes out of Stanford is pathetic. I've been listening to this exact line of garbage for over 30 years. Starting in the 90's we were going to run out of fossil fuels in a matter of decades based off known reserves and current consumption.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  See this video from about 1999 - Arithmetic, Population and Energy by Dr Albert Bartlett, about this timestamp[1] for one example. It's mostly about oil, but he cites the work of M Hubbert which was from ~1956 and predicting peak oil production in the USA around 1980 and running out maybe in 2100. Not the "running out soon" that you claim. He also suggests the drops in production which delay the Hubbert peak correspond to OPEC oil price rises. Then see his updated talk from 2011 link[2] which includes "what we're taking out each year is something like three times what we're discovering each year". Wikipedia critiques the Hubbert curve[4] saying "new extraction methods began reversing this trend beginning in the mid-2000s decade, with production reaching 10.07 million b/d in November 2017 – the highest monthly level of crude oil production in U.S. history". The US Energy Information Authority (EIA) explains[3] "much of the increase in 2009 was associated with deepwater developments in the Federal Gulf of Mexico" and "Operators drilling at the Bakken and other shale formations are combining horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing". That is, turning to resources which are harder and more expensive to extract, resources which return fewer barrels of usble oil per barrel of oil of energy put in to extract them than easier to access resources. In the first talk he says "We have very good ways now of estimating how much oil remains undiscovered. Now every so often someone reminds me that a hundred years ago someone did a calculation and predicted that we'd be out of oil in twenty five years. We obviously are not, the calculation must have been wrong therefore, of course, all calculations are wrong. [...] we're not asking today how long will the discovered oil last, we're talking about all the oil". Pumping faster from a limited resource will deplete it sooner. Even if there is twice as much undiscovered oil as geologists estimate, the time remaining won't double as long as production increases, population increases, demand increases. The biggest oil field finds in decades each add only a few months of US usage to the known reserves. > "I've been listening to this exact line of garbage for over 30 years" And in that time, you've likely lived through peak oil production. In his 1999 video Dr Bartlett estimates 75% of total US oil reserves used, 25% remaining. In his 2011 video he updates with new production figures showing closer to 85% used and 15% remaining (including estimates of future discoveries of extractable oil). [1] https://youtu.be/sI1C9DyIi_8?t=2529 https://youtu.be/sI1C9DyIi_8?t=2529 [2] https://youtu.be/o0ghHia-M54?t=2420 https://youtu.be/o0ghHia-M54?t=2420 [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=1130 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=1130 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve#Critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve#Critique

17 points by ofou 5y ago

The Simon Ehrlich wager comes to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager

srvmshr 5y ago

Here is something which flies under the radar everytime regarding petroleum: "Petroleum is our source of plastics & polymers" We may solve the problems of not having petro-fuel for industry, or ship oil and replace these with gas. We may solve transportation challenges by EVs. But, there is no economically viable alternative to producing polymers and plastics. If at all we are saving, it should be from the viewpoint of saving building materials for the next several decades. Every single piece of plastic or polymer or synthetic fabric you see around you, was born out of a oil rig. Everything, from medical grade plastics used in medicine capsules to hospital equipment, to Falcon 9 parts we send to space, to kevlar building materials, is built from petroleum primitives. Imagine how crippled we would become if we fall in short supply. Like explained, the we must pivot our thinking to conserving building materials for future generations, than calculate them as fuels only.

narag 5y ago
If fuels get more scarce, the prices will grow so high that petroleum would be too expensive to be used as fuel, compared to electricity, and the last reserves would be devoted to other uses. Also what about the "indestructible" plastics in dumpsters?
- ericmay 5y ago
  I’m not sure. I’ve heard compelling arguments that prices will be drastically cheaper when supply is the lowest because we will still rely on it but it’ll be uneconomical to extract by private companies so the government will subsidize the production and sale. A huge run for the hills moment would be if the US nationalized the industry. Doomsday kind of stuff.
- srvmshr 5y ago
  > Also what about the "indestructible" plastics in dumpsters I am not an expert in polymers, and please do correct me if I am wrong: Thermoplastic materials can be reused for some cycles. But thermosets, like formalin which builds chairs and hard materials are essentially one-time use and hard to degrade.
ericmay 5y ago
I think plastics should be strictly regulated and only available for medical purposes or space exploration. Might need to be phased out but we need them for these other purposes. We don’t need them for plastic straws.
redwood 5y ago
Wow I just looked to how much oil goes into plastic, assuming a tiny portion. Turns out it's not a straight forward question and a lot of the input is actually natural gas https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=34&t=6 Anyway I saw estimates ranging from 4% to 10% of petroleum going into plastic... higher than I thought
bsder 5y ago
If we quit burning petroleum for fuel, we have a century plus of feedstock for plastic. We can make plastic now out of bio feedstock, it's just expensive. If petroleum prices rose sufficiently, bio feedstock becomes reasonable. In addition, a lot of our problems with "alternate" sources of materials are that they would use a lot of electricity to create--which we currently get by, you guessed it, burning petroleum. So, it's more efficient to simply start with petroleum feedstock and skip the conversion losses. If more of our system were based on renewable energy, then converting other feedstock to plastic becomes viable.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

infamia 5y ago

I see it's time to bring out this old chestnut again. Here's the slight of hand: > known natural gas reserves, we have about 52.8 years worth of natural gas reserves left. The key is "known ... reserves". The article blithely assumes we won't ever find any more fossil fuels and then gloomily concludes that we have 52 years of gas left - totally absurd and obviously wrong. The fact that this comes out of Stanford is pathetic. I've been listening to this exact line of garbage for over 30 years. Starting in the 90's we were going to run out of fossil fuels in a matter of decades based off known reserves and current consumption.

jodrellblank 5y ago
See this video from about 1999 - Arithmetic, Population and Energy by Dr Albert Bartlett, about this timestamp[1] for one example. It's mostly about oil, but he cites the work of M Hubbert which was from ~1956 and predicting peak oil production in the USA around 1980 and running out maybe in 2100. Not the "running out soon" that you claim. He also suggests the drops in production which delay the Hubbert peak correspond to OPEC oil price rises. Then see his updated talk from 2011 link[2] which includes "what we're taking out each year is something like three times what we're discovering each year". Wikipedia critiques the Hubbert curve[4] saying "new extraction methods began reversing this trend beginning in the mid-2000s decade, with production reaching 10.07 million b/d in November 2017 – the highest monthly level of crude oil production in U.S. history". The US Energy Information Authority (EIA) explains[3] "much of the increase in 2009 was associated with deepwater developments in the Federal Gulf of Mexico" and "Operators drilling at the Bakken and other shale formations are combining horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing". That is, turning to resources which are harder and more expensive to extract, resources which return fewer barrels of usble oil per barrel of oil of energy put in to extract them than easier to access resources. In the first talk he says "We have very good ways now of estimating how much oil remains undiscovered. Now every so often someone reminds me that a hundred years ago someone did a calculation and predicted that we'd be out of oil in twenty five years. We obviously are not, the calculation must have been wrong therefore, of course, all calculations are wrong. [...] we're not asking today how long will the discovered oil last, we're talking about all the oil". Pumping faster from a limited resource will deplete it sooner. Even if there is twice as much undiscovered oil as geologists estimate, the time remaining won't double as long as production increases, population increases, demand increases. The biggest oil field finds in decades each add only a few months of US usage to the known reserves. > "I've been listening to this exact line of garbage for over 30 years" And in that time, you've likely lived through peak oil production. In his 1999 video Dr Bartlett estimates 75% of total US oil reserves used, 25% remaining. In his 2011 video he updates with new production figures showing closer to 85% used and 15% remaining (including estimates of future discoveries of extractable oil). [1] https://youtu.be/sI1C9DyIi_8?t=2529 https://youtu.be/sI1C9DyIi_8?t=2529 [2] https://youtu.be/o0ghHia-M54?t=2420 https://youtu.be/o0ghHia-M54?t=2420 [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=1130 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=1130 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve#Critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve#Critique