7 ms·

This is something I know a bit about, and the article is terrifyingly stupid. The more you look into the utter dependence of modern life as we know it on petrol

This is something I know a bit about, and the article is terrifyingly stupid. The more you look into the utter dependence of modern life as we know it on petroleum and natural gas (coal to a much lesser extent), the unbelievable amount of it that we burn, the rate of discovery of new supplies, and the rate of depletion of known supplies... it's very uncomfortable to imagine 70% of the planet's population suddenly dying off over a 5 year period in the next 50 years but it's entirely plausible. The most sobering part is that given a deep enough interruption in humankind, it's possible we'd never recover since the hydrocarbon frontier is in ultradeep, clathrates, and shale and none of those would be possible without a bootstrapping from easier hydrocarbon sources (which have been long since exhausted)

eloff 13y ago
Could you connect your thoughts to themselves and to the article please? I have no idea why you think the article is stupid, and also no idea how you get to 70% of the population dying over a five year period.
- throwaway5752 13y ago
  I really offered no thoughts to connect, just my opinion... To sketch it out, though: easy oil has been found, there are widely available charts on the count/size of new discoveries by decade. Newer sources like clathrates, subsalt, and bitumen are exceedingly difficult to extract (ie, lower net energy production). In particular, shale depletion is extremely rapid per well, and there is some question as to how net-energy positive/economically viable it is. Clathrate reserve estimates have dropped _dramatically_ over time. As to why I think it could result in a permanent reversal in civilization: transportation is key to modern life. Low energy requirements per capita in urban settings are only possible by mass transportation of goods and services. Petroleum is the overwhelming transportation fuel. Plastics and high-density agriculture are fundamental to modern life, and both are dependent on natural gas (PE feedstock or Haber process). The world generally has 3-6 months of inventory or less of oil, less of gas. A supply crisis would not have good effects. Some people point to the US supplies of coal and the Fischer Tropsch process, but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/28210_2012_flow_chart_high_res.jpg http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/28210_... is a useful chart. There's another for global usage that I can't find right now, but shouldn't be hard if you look for it. You might also look at the fracking depletion curves in various shale plays (they differ based on reservoir characteristics). You may also note from that chart that a huge percentage of energy is wastage from transmission loss, which makes the tragedy of postponing a widescale (Manhattan project level) deployment of solar PV even more depressing. edit: random, somewhat informative article on shale fracking: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-...
  - gph 13y ago
    Alright, now that I've had some time to read through your sources let's get down to it. First of all, I agree that civilization is wholly dependant on petroleum, and that's probably not going to change much even in the next 30 to 50 years. If we are unable to find new sources of petroleum and/or migrate to another energy source there will be a collapse and likely the vast majority of humanity will die off. That probably would be the death kneel of civilization. Now it looks like part of your argument is that shale oil and fracking is not going to produce nearly the amount of petroleum as is forecasted. That businessweek article gives some good information I didn't know about, so good source on that. However, it looks like there is still debate around how much oil is recoverable from shale deposits. Sounds like the debates of peak oil from the past decades with one side optimistic and the other side pessimistic. I'm not a geologist, and only time will really tell who is right. But I think there is a good chance that technology will continue to improve and oil prices will rise enough to make recovery of more oil possible. Now you also say that Clathrate reserve estimates have continually dropped over time. In the OP article it says, >Estimates of the global supply of methane hydrate range from the equivalent of 100 times more than America’s current annual energy consumption to 3 million times more. It sounds like no one has a very firm grasp of how much Clathrate is available. But even if we take the low estimate given, that's a substantial amount. It would likely be enough to fulfil global energy needs for a couple decades. Unless you have good proof that Clathrate reserves are overestimated or that it's unlikely we can viably tap those sources, I'm going to say that you haven't refuted anything in the original article. You said the OP article was terrifyingly stupid, but all I see as a rebuttal is that shale oil reserves are debatably not as large as we think. Or are you trying to say that our energy consumption and reliance on petroleum is at such a high and rising level that even sustaining our current production isn't enough? To that I would argue that hopefully alternative energy sources will free up enough petroleum from electricity production to keep us above water so to speak.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway5752 13y ago
      I hardly know how to respond. The decline curve of frac wells was new information to you, and you have no idea how much gas is present in clathrate deposits (but assume I have no insight). Why do you want to continue this discussion? Why do you imagine that I would? Let me leave you with some thoughts: 1. One random mistake in the article is the characterization of bitumen production in Alberta. He describes in situ, but a larger portion is still open pit. 2. One thing the author is correct about is judging energy by EROIE. What do you suppose is the EROIE of clathrate methane production? It either requires heating or CO2 substitution. What is the value of using more than one bboe to produce a single bboe? 3. "I would argue that hopefully alternative energy sources will free up enough petroleum from electricity production" - as is clear from the chart I posted, of the 34.7 quadrillion BTUs of petroleum consumed by the US, 0.22 goes towards the production of electricity. That is true across the world except in some very oil rich countries, very isolated countries, or very poor countries.
gph 13y ago
Well the article appeared to contain a lot better information than your post. If you want to share your knowledge then do it. Don't just say something is stupid because you 'know a bit'.
- throwaway5752 13y ago
  Piss off. If you know better, you can dispute my assertion on a factual basis instead of objecting on optics. There's an enormous amount of written material on the internet that's well indexed by Google, freely available to you if you care to look it up. edit: Also, if you'd managed to ask in a less snide way or even asked something specific, I'd have given a substantive response.
  - gph 13y ago
    Piss off? How nice of you. Anyway, you did drop a bunch of claims with nothing backing them up in your first post. Am I supposed to google myself a comprehensive knowledge of our energy crisis to argue against some random person on the internet just because they say they have knowledge about it? You basically retorted a fairly well developed article with "I'm an expert and this is stupid. There's a good possibility a lot of us will die in the next 50 years because our use of fossil fuels is way higher than our supply. I'm not going to actually list any of my expert knowledge though..." I see in a post above you gave a good response, so thanks for that. But I don't see why you feel my response was unwarranted. Just because you say you know a bit about a subject doesn't mean people on the internet have to take your word for it. Perhaps you read my comment a bit harsher than I wanted, but that is a hefty article and an even heftier subject matter to brush off with the half a paragraph you originally typed.

eloff 13y ago

Could you connect your thoughts to themselves and to the article please? I have no idea why you think the article is stupid, and also no idea how you get to 70% of the population dying over a five year period.

throwaway5752 13y ago
I really offered no thoughts to connect, just my opinion... To sketch it out, though: easy oil has been found, there are widely available charts on the count/size of new discoveries by decade. Newer sources like clathrates, subsalt, and bitumen are exceedingly difficult to extract (ie, lower net energy production). In particular, shale depletion is extremely rapid per well, and there is some question as to how net-energy positive/economically viable it is. Clathrate reserve estimates have dropped _dramatically_ over time. As to why I think it could result in a permanent reversal in civilization: transportation is key to modern life. Low energy requirements per capita in urban settings are only possible by mass transportation of goods and services. Petroleum is the overwhelming transportation fuel. Plastics and high-density agriculture are fundamental to modern life, and both are dependent on natural gas (PE feedstock or Haber process). The world generally has 3-6 months of inventory or less of oil, less of gas. A supply crisis would not have good effects. Some people point to the US supplies of coal and the Fischer Tropsch process, but that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/28210_2012_flow_chart_high_res.jpg http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/28210_... is a useful chart. There's another for global usage that I can't find right now, but shouldn't be hard if you look for it. You might also look at the fracking depletion curves in various shale plays (they differ based on reservoir characteristics). You may also note from that chart that a huge percentage of energy is wastage from transmission loss, which makes the tragedy of postponing a widescale (Manhattan project level) deployment of solar PV even more depressing. edit: random, somewhat informative article on shale fracking: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-...
- gph 13y ago
  Alright, now that I've had some time to read through your sources let's get down to it. First of all, I agree that civilization is wholly dependant on petroleum, and that's probably not going to change much even in the next 30 to 50 years. If we are unable to find new sources of petroleum and/or migrate to another energy source there will be a collapse and likely the vast majority of humanity will die off. That probably would be the death kneel of civilization. Now it looks like part of your argument is that shale oil and fracking is not going to produce nearly the amount of petroleum as is forecasted. That businessweek article gives some good information I didn't know about, so good source on that. However, it looks like there is still debate around how much oil is recoverable from shale deposits. Sounds like the debates of peak oil from the past decades with one side optimistic and the other side pessimistic. I'm not a geologist, and only time will really tell who is right. But I think there is a good chance that technology will continue to improve and oil prices will rise enough to make recovery of more oil possible. Now you also say that Clathrate reserve estimates have continually dropped over time. In the OP article it says, >Estimates of the global supply of methane hydrate range from the equivalent of 100 times more than America’s current annual energy consumption to 3 million times more. It sounds like no one has a very firm grasp of how much Clathrate is available. But even if we take the low estimate given, that's a substantial amount. It would likely be enough to fulfil global energy needs for a couple decades. Unless you have good proof that Clathrate reserves are overestimated or that it's unlikely we can viably tap those sources, I'm going to say that you haven't refuted anything in the original article. You said the OP article was terrifyingly stupid, but all I see as a rebuttal is that shale oil reserves are debatably not as large as we think. Or are you trying to say that our energy consumption and reliance on petroleum is at such a high and rising level that even sustaining our current production isn't enough? To that I would argue that hopefully alternative energy sources will free up enough petroleum from electricity production to keep us above water so to speak.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway5752 13y ago
    I hardly know how to respond. The decline curve of frac wells was new information to you, and you have no idea how much gas is present in clathrate deposits (but assume I have no insight). Why do you want to continue this discussion? Why do you imagine that I would? Let me leave you with some thoughts: 1. One random mistake in the article is the characterization of bitumen production in Alberta. He describes in situ, but a larger portion is still open pit. 2. One thing the author is correct about is judging energy by EROIE. What do you suppose is the EROIE of clathrate methane production? It either requires heating or CO2 substitution. What is the value of using more than one bboe to produce a single bboe? 3. "I would argue that hopefully alternative energy sources will free up enough petroleum from electricity production" - as is clear from the chart I posted, of the 34.7 quadrillion BTUs of petroleum consumed by the US, 0.22 goes towards the production of electricity. That is true across the world except in some very oil rich countries, very isolated countries, or very poor countries.

gph 13y ago

Well the article appeared to contain a lot better information than your post. If you want to share your knowledge then do it. Don't just say something is stupid because you 'know a bit'.

throwaway5752 13y ago
Piss off. If you know better, you can dispute my assertion on a factual basis instead of objecting on optics. There's an enormous amount of written material on the internet that's well indexed by Google, freely available to you if you care to look it up. edit: Also, if you'd managed to ask in a less snide way or even asked something specific, I'd have given a substantive response.
- gph 13y ago
  Piss off? How nice of you. Anyway, you did drop a bunch of claims with nothing backing them up in your first post. Am I supposed to google myself a comprehensive knowledge of our energy crisis to argue against some random person on the internet just because they say they have knowledge about it? You basically retorted a fairly well developed article with "I'm an expert and this is stupid. There's a good possibility a lot of us will die in the next 50 years because our use of fossil fuels is way higher than our supply. I'm not going to actually list any of my expert knowledge though..." I see in a post above you gave a good response, so thanks for that. But I don't see why you feel my response was unwarranted. Just because you say you know a bit about a subject doesn't mean people on the internet have to take your word for it. Perhaps you read my comment a bit harsher than I wanted, but that is a hefty article and an even heftier subject matter to brush off with the half a paragraph you originally typed.