I keep seeing these 'energytommorow.org' commercials with the blond gal saying we've got enough resources here to power things with oil and natural gas for xx years and create jobs. Even the American Petroleum Institute talks about the environment, who'da thunk... "Between 2000 and 2010, the U.S. oil and natural gas industry invested $71 billion in technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, far more than the federal government ($43 billion) and almost as much as the rest of private industry combined ($74 billion). These large investments are critical to provide the low-carbon energy we will need in the years ahead." http://energytomorrow.org/environment-and-safety/#/type/all Drilling Down Into The Oil Reserves Numbers | Blog | Energy Tomorrow I'm still interested in conserving, but API wants to drill, frack or whatever all over the place, of course.
I like how they conveniently classify shale gas as a "greenhouse gas mitigation investment". You can tell that they know this is a joke, since all of the figures also include "without shale" numbers.
I hear as an argument all the time that we should drill and use the resources here because at current rates we can go for 90 or so years... Ok... Then what? People live longer than that, it is a very small timescale. When it takes millions of years to be put back in there, and 90 years to take out, there is a problem. Doesn't matter if you agree politically or not, or if you don't understand climate change (or deny it all together), the best case scenario is that we can power the country for less than a human's life span. I just don't get it. Why do today what you can shove off for later and let your kids figure out?
Because it's really not a case of "get it", its a case of "live it". I've still have a way to go, and until I get there I've got to make sure the stones I cast are really small.
Cool I read some historical documents from the 70s and it said we'd be almost out by 2000 Nope, when we run out of fossil fuel, life expectancy will drop greatly 90 years is a big exaggeration, it doesn't include the unconvential reseraves. That doesn't the human batteries when the machines take over after the nuclear winter. Watch the matrix I don't believe that for a second, but we can be much more efficient and transition to more reusables. Doom and gloom always is running out. But remember if you are having kids they use a lot more oil than a prius, and they have kids, and it all goes on. In the 1970s population was supposed to exceed agriculture. Lets find solutions, but not get caught up in the exagerations. Lets also not get caught up in the commercials from people that make there money drilling Read Swift's "A modest proposal".
Lived it...quite true there was a panic that oil was running out. Crude oil was very expensive, like today or higher adjusted for inflation. Energy industry staffed up big time to go after the oil shale in Colorado. By the mid 80's, due to new oil finds, the crude oil cost bubble burst. Colorado was returned for residential development. We are sort of re-living that scenario all over again. Little different this time.
Natural gas is the obvious solution. Screw OPEC.We have a plentiful domestic supply. Even has less CO2 to satisfy the doomers.
90 years, 100 years, 150 years, whatever the highest claims are, that is small scale. Oil is used in so many things, that wasting it on vehicle transport fuel knowing that it will run out is silly. If we count the Ubaid period of Mesopotamia as the start of "civilization" (urbanized colonies/groupings) we are saying that it is ok to use every known oil reserve from now until it is completely gone in 150 years of 5300 BCE to 2012 CE + 150. So 7462 years of "civilization", and we are perfectly happy with depleting a valuable resource in 150 years that takes millions to produce? The math just doesn't compute. The fact that cannot be disputed is that there is a finite supply of oil as current consumption rates. The volume of that finite supply is heavily disputed, but it is a finite supply. It does self replenish but at a rate in the millions of years whereas we are pumping it out at a much higher rate. So unless we get average consumption below average natural production, peak oil exists. That's just math. The date of peak oil is also what is disputed because it obviously relies on the approximation of known reserves which is also disputed. But knowing that "peak oil" exists, shouldn't something be done to mitigate it rather then just hoping the date is pushed far enough away that it doesn't effect us right now, but they can figure it out in the future?
I was being a little faceous. Somehow we are always about to run out. Now 2k1toaster is saying this much bigger number of years is too little What about the old number Some pretty bad assumptions were made, and we should not make them again. But reducing use today is one of the best mitigating strategies. The estimates of conventional oil are about 40 years at current rates. The rate of oil use is increasing world wide, but oil is currently being produced from non-conventional sources. This quantity is much higher. Yes, but its a story problem, and you have set up the equation improperly. One must also use economics. As a commodity becomes more scarce its price goes up. When its price gets high enough other commodities are substituted. We should anticipate this and start substitution early and reduce use of this scarce commodity to reduce economic impact, but this greatly affects the time table. Peak oil in the US could be estimated because other world wide oil could be substituted. This is not the case world wide. Substitution is already starting to happen, and we should speed this up. That is why we have already passed the dates predicted for peak oil. Peak oil, if you resrict it to conventional light crude may have already passed. Plus don't watch commercials and expect an unbiased pov.
