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This is quite scary when you think about the fact that so most economies are ultimately tied to their oil prices (except Greenland). Because peak refers to pro

by manglav 13y ago

This is quite scary when you think about the fact that so most economies are ultimately tied to their oil prices (except Greenland). Because peak refers to production, as the world goes, we have some more time to prepare, but price will increase in the meantime. What's interesting is that I'm more hopeful that the oil companies will find a common ground solution than the governments of the world will, because at least the companies are motivated by their collective wallets.

eru 13y ago
> This is quite scary when you think about the fact that so most economies are ultimately tied to their oil prices (except Greenland). Oil can only get so expensive. We have lots of alternative sources of energy that put a lid on the oil price. Just to give some examples, at some point, making artificial oil out of coal will become viable on a large scale (just like Germany did during WWII), and there's always nuclear power. And there's also lots of oil at sea that we have barely started to explore.
- waps 13y ago
  Except for nuclear, what technologies are you talking about ? If we expect oil to do what this article says it'll do we'll need at least 50 new nuclear plants across the US in 10-15 years, maybe less. They're not interchangeable with oil at all. Even if we did have those plants, we'd still need to replace half the current infrastructure.
  - eru 13y ago
    There's plenty of coal, and natural gas. And solar is already viable at high prices, with costs falling fast. Wind energy is also well understood. Methane hydrate might work, too, but I don't know enough about it. And more boringly, energy conservation and increased efficiency can have the same effect as new sources. A `smart grid' becomes a more and more lucrative investment as energy prices go up.
- manglav 13y ago
  I don't understand your comment. 1. How can oil "only" get so expensive? By oil, we are referring to the act of gathering existing oil. There is no limit to the cost of gathering. Going deeper and deeper, or from lower concentration will become more expensive as time goes on. 2. We have a lot of alternative sources of energy that put a lid on oil price. Can you explain the mechanism for this? Are you referring to the true cost of oil, or just at the fillup station? Are you saying the major cost of gathering oil is the input energy, and because the input energy is alternative, the EROIE is infinite? Please elaborate. 3. making artificial oil out of coal will become viable on a large scale. Making artificial oil has nothing to do with gathering oil. The reason they did that was that oil was a more valuable energy medium than coal, because it can be used for many products, not just trains/ships/electricity. 4. There's always nuclear power. I am a big fan of nuclear power, but have no faith in governments making a sound scientific analysis. So unless nuclear power becomes cheap (infrastructure-wise), I think peak oil is still a big concern. 5. Lot's of oil at sea we haven't explored. There's a reason we haven't explored it - it costs way, way, too much. But I'm sure we will as the EROIE goes down.
  - eru 13y ago
    Let's ignore technical progress for a while. You can order every Joule of oil by how much effort the extraction is. There's basically no limit on the effort here. But, if you add all energy from other sources into your line-up, you will see that we won't touch the crazy difficult oil until we have exhausted the easier alternative sources. So, if oil ever gets expensive enough, nobody will use it until we have used up eg more coal. While we use the coal and _not_ the oil, oil won't become scarcer, and thus won't increase in price. Of course, it doesn't really make sense to go for oil that has less energy output than what its extraction costs. At any price. [0] Technologic progress will take care of some of that. [0] Unless you use the oil as a kind of battery. Ie use 100J of solar power that's only available during the day, to extract 50J of oil usable anytime---that might be worthwhile, but it would compete with battery technology not with energy sources.

by manglav 13y ago

eru 13y ago

> This is quite scary when you think about the fact that so most economies are ultimately tied to their oil prices (except Greenland). Oil can only get so expensive. We have lots of alternative sources of energy that put a lid on the oil price. Just to give some examples, at some point, making artificial oil out of coal will become viable on a large scale (just like Germany did during WWII), and there's always nuclear power. And there's also lots of oil at sea that we have barely started to explore.

waps 13y ago
Except for nuclear, what technologies are you talking about ? If we expect oil to do what this article says it'll do we'll need at least 50 new nuclear plants across the US in 10-15 years, maybe less. They're not interchangeable with oil at all. Even if we did have those plants, we'd still need to replace half the current infrastructure.
- eru 13y ago
  There's plenty of coal, and natural gas. And solar is already viable at high prices, with costs falling fast. Wind energy is also well understood. Methane hydrate might work, too, but I don't know enough about it. And more boringly, energy conservation and increased efficiency can have the same effect as new sources. A `smart grid' becomes a more and more lucrative investment as energy prices go up.
manglav 13y ago
I don't understand your comment. 1. How can oil "only" get so expensive? By oil, we are referring to the act of gathering existing oil. There is no limit to the cost of gathering. Going deeper and deeper, or from lower concentration will become more expensive as time goes on. 2. We have a lot of alternative sources of energy that put a lid on oil price. Can you explain the mechanism for this? Are you referring to the true cost of oil, or just at the fillup station? Are you saying the major cost of gathering oil is the input energy, and because the input energy is alternative, the EROIE is infinite? Please elaborate. 3. making artificial oil out of coal will become viable on a large scale. Making artificial oil has nothing to do with gathering oil. The reason they did that was that oil was a more valuable energy medium than coal, because it can be used for many products, not just trains/ships/electricity. 4. There's always nuclear power. I am a big fan of nuclear power, but have no faith in governments making a sound scientific analysis. So unless nuclear power becomes cheap (infrastructure-wise), I think peak oil is still a big concern. 5. Lot's of oil at sea we haven't explored. There's a reason we haven't explored it - it costs way, way, too much. But I'm sure we will as the EROIE goes down.
- eru 13y ago
  Let's ignore technical progress for a while. You can order every Joule of oil by how much effort the extraction is. There's basically no limit on the effort here. But, if you add all energy from other sources into your line-up, you will see that we won't touch the crazy difficult oil until we have exhausted the easier alternative sources. So, if oil ever gets expensive enough, nobody will use it until we have used up eg more coal. While we use the coal and _not_ the oil, oil won't become scarcer, and thus won't increase in price. Of course, it doesn't really make sense to go for oil that has less energy output than what its extraction costs. At any price. [0] Technologic progress will take care of some of that. [0] Unless you use the oil as a kind of battery. Ie use 100J of solar power that's only available during the day, to extract 50J of oil usable anytime---that might be worthwhile, but it would compete with battery technology not with energy sources.