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131 = The Number of Years to Replace Oil
By Dian L. Chu, Economic Forecasts & Opinions
It seems the panic time for both green enthusiasts and peak oil pundits.
According to a new paper by two researchers at the University of California – Davis, it would take 131 years for replacement of gasoline and diesel given the current pace of research and development; however, world's oil could run dry almost a century before that.
The research was published on Nov. 8 at Environmental Science & Technology, which is based on the theory that market expectations are good predictors reflected in prices of publicly traded securities.
By incorporating market expectations into the model, the authors, Nataliya Malyshkina and Deb Niemeier, indicated that based on their calculation, the peak of oil production could occur between 2010 and 2030, before renewable replacement technologies become viable at around 2140.
The estimates not only delayed the alternative energy timeline, but also pushed up the peak oil deadline. The researchers suggest some previous estimates that pegged year 2040 as the time frame when alternatives would start to replace oil, could be “overly optimistic".
As I pointed out before, despite the excitement and hype surrounding a future of clean energy, a majority of the current technology simply does not make economic sense for regular consumers and lack the infrastructure for a mass deployment….even with government subsidies, tax breaks, and outright mandates.
In addition, the supply chain of renewable technologies is not as green as people might think. Most alternative technologies rely on rare earths for efficiency. However, the radioactive waste produced by rare earths mining process makes oil sands look like a green energy. This overlooked (or ignored) fact just now received some attention due to the sudden shortage caused by China’s embargo and export quotas on rare earths.
Another case in point – In China, the city of Jiuquan in Gansu province needs to build 9.2 gigawatts of new coal-fired generating capacity as backup power of the 12.7 gigawatts wind turbines due to be installed by 2015. More wind farms would need more coal-fired power plants, with little or possiblyly no carbon reduction.
Capitalism means investment naturally flows to the more profitable proposition....and vice versa. With more data and information becoming available, not much could go unnoticed by the markets, particularly in a relatively new sector such as renewable energy. And this harsh reality is clearly reflected in this new study.
Now, in its latest long term outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that oil demand, prices and dependence on OPEC all set to continue rising through 2035, and that global oil supplies would be near their peak in 2035 as China, India and other emerging economies keep on trucking.
So the world needs to come to a common understanding that
- The alternative energy is not mature enough to completely repalce fossil sources any time soon.
- Energy security means a diversified and balanced portfolio inclusive of every bit of resource, fossil as well as renewables, just to meet the projected demand.
- Real "green" energy is easier said than done.
Furthermore, the increased rare earths dependency, and the latest food vs. fuel debate when the food industry slapped a law suit against the EPA over E15 ehtanol, underline some of the unintended (we hope), yet nasty consequences that often come with ill-informed and poorly-planned policies. (In the case of E15, the EAP is an easy mark considering one in eight Americans is on food stamps.)
All this requires a balanced and unbiased government policy to guide exploration and development of technologies to unlock the new fossil fuel reserves, expanding the R&Ds of emerging technologies, while effectively practicing and promoting energy efficiency and conservation.
Otherwise, we may literally witness $300 a barrel oil before the electric vehicle could even make one percent market penetration. Unfortunately, there's no easy fix, and the clock is seriously ticking.
Related Reading: The Alternative Fuel Vehicle and $300 Oil
Dian L. Chu, Nov. 13, 2010
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Anyone notice how the Obama administration and their minions will not support natural gas which is known to be cleaner burning than coal yet they won't come out and support it or invest in it? Could it have anything to do with unions? Plus the cap and trade nonsense. Help me understand the big believers in climate control think this is fatal for the earth, however, if you pay enough tax you can still do it. If it's proven bad should it be allowed no matter how much you pay. We won't harm the atmosphere unless you have enough money to pay the government, then it's ok. What hypocricy!
Jesus, THERE IS NO ENERGY CRISIS! THERE IS AN OIL CRISIS.
They are not the same thing.
The tractors that harvest crops before they rot in the 10,000 acre fields run on diesel and gasoline. They always will. NO EXCEPTIONS. They do not run on coal or electricity or methane hydrates.
They Run On Oil. Oil is going to disappear.
So are you.
We have coal, we have natural gas and we know how to build nuclear power plants. I've been hearing this "freezing to death in the dark" business for decades. It is something to take note of and it would be a good idea to think of alternatives. It is not something that requires panic. We are humans. We adapt more quickly than other species. I like to think that's what keeps us at the top of the food chain.
We can't has coal?
There is no shortage of oil. The BP leak illustrated that. Deep oil will satisfy our needs for the next 100 years. Unforunately we'll be choking to death on the emissions. Natural gas and methane hydrate utilization will lower the amount of carbon per unit of energy generated. This calls for real planning by our governments. The first ever.
Ummm, how about government stays the fuck out of it! We have enough central planning idiots running around as it is. M. King Hubbert is most likely right, although calling the timing is an inexact science and is also complicated by governments' intervention into markets - your planners in action. If governments could find oil and prevent blowouts PEMEX would would be a shining star.
Let me get this straight. Most people are willing to believe Al Gore's "science" in which he and thousands of politicians and "scientist" make millions off the government teat concerning man made climate warming in order to line their pockets with taxpayer money and totally disregard the findings of geologist M. King Hubbert's mathematical calculations of peak oil back in the late 1950's in order to alert the world to find alternative energy solutions. Just because Gore invented the internet everyone is ready to believe he is the authority on climate science notwithstanding the fact that he leaves a larger "carbon footprint" in a day (a douche bag term) than my family of five will leave in our entire lifespan. Hard to believe America and the world as a whole is going to hell in a hand basket. I'm just sayin'.
Both the bogus global warming fraud and the Peak Oil fear shilling are founded on a common controlled scarcity: objective science.
This research is RUBBISH - "what's the price" ?
A buck four fifty.
The miracle of the solution to falling oil production is a nice thing to think about.
Miracles are always nice things to think about.
But they are almost always bad bets.
Trucks bring food to your grocery stores. Nothing else does. It required a population of 300,000 horses in NYC during the year 1900 to haul food in every day for NYC's 1 million human (and horse) citizens. When the trucks can't get fuel, you die.
Soon.
No Worries,
Oil is a fad that will play out someday.
We will probibly replace it with human "squeezn's" to burn in our vehicles as Humans will have reached maximal density just about the time Oil starts to fade.
Can't those Bio-Reactors turn just about anything into usable fuel?
I think DARPA (Not the ZH DARPA but the "other" DARPA) already has a play on the "Man as Fuel" thing:
The EATR --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energetically_Autonomous_Tactical_Robot
Good grief! Soylent Crude.
Squeez'ns!
Loves it!
something big overlooked here. oil comes from the Arab countries lately. the profit from oil sales that the Arabs get would be used to spread sharia, which is really bad for business, thus, decreasing demand.
http://covert2.wordpress.com
You are lazy and stupid and should avoid posting on the internet. The largest producer of oil in the world is Russia, with daily production of 10 million barrels per day, a full 1.5 million barrels per day more than Saudi Arabia. The Russians are not spreading Islam. They are spreading pipelines to China so that US attack subs can't cut off China's supply.
Necessity is the mother of invention! Greed is the father of the bastard who slept with invention and gave us lethargy, ignorance and Congress!
:)
Energy solutions:
THORIUM
Cheap, plentiful and can be used to fuel a new type nuclear reactors.
Non-toxic, non-radioactive and can't be weaponized like uranium.
Already been done. The uranium kind still work, too!
COAL, NATURAL GAS
The USA is an energy superpower in these two resources.
Greenies won't let us use them. Let's use them and tell them
it's to power electric cars and blenders to make alfalfa smoothies.
ABIOTIC OIL
Nearly inexhaustible supply of oil seeping up from Earth's core thru deep fault
lines in the crust. It is thought most oil is seepage from Earth's core to the
surface this way. Helium is found in oil which is nearly proof this is the case.
Russians have already tried super-deep wells. A guy named Gold (really) tried
drilling into fault lines under Sweden 20 years ago. He hit oil but at 20,000+ ft
but the technical challenges were great. Rock behaved like putty at those deeps.
Let's try some more.
@gwar
Thorium not radioactive? Abiotic oil? Ever analysed the compounds in fuel? They are the same compounds found in plants and animals.
You sir are a fuckwit.
And I hear Detroit has been buying up all kinds of good patents and sitting on them so they can keep producing shitty cars to burn all that abiogenic crude. Can I interest you in this here abiogenic oil field company?
Electric cars will never subplant gasoline cars, and even if they tried, at production runs of a few 10s of thousands a year they will take decades to make a dent in global consumption of oil. Death will arrive long before then.
There has never been, and never will be, any commercial production of alleged abiotic oil. Your information is wrong about this and should be removed from your brain. It is wasting your time and the time of others. If it existed, empty fields in Oklahoma would refill and there would never be drilling in 6,000 feet of water offshore Brazil or offshore Louisiana. The US greenies have no control of Brazil. If oil were in the jungle, it would be drilled for there and not in 6000 feet of water.
Face it. The party is over.
Quote: "There has never been, and never will be, any commercial production of alleged abiotic oil."
And the theory of abiotic oil or... "modern petroleum science - or what is called often the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins.."
http://www.gasresources.net/
was founded in what country?
Hint: They are second largest oil producer and second largest oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia a country that just happens to be located above one the shallowest parts of the Earth's crust (i.e. closest points to the upper mantle)
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922041.html
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=KjgPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=84UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2...
Abiotic oil formation is theorized to occur in the Earth's upper mantle not the core.
There's a lot going on a depth that is simply not clear.
(e.g. The Moho Discontinuity)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohorovi?i?_discontinuity
To my knowledge, it has never been substantiated. Both Siljan Ring tests (Gravberg #1 & Stenburg #1) were failures. Hydrocarbons generated (if any) are volumetrically and economically inconsequential. They both only served as assets disposal wells. The scientific data gathered to support the theory was not conclusive or even that encouraging.
Like I indicated, as a function of true science, it is still a theory... unlike global warming or Peak Oil which because of a paucity of data but an abundance of salesmanship are considered incontrovertible laws...paging Dr. Galileo
Here are some of my favorite links (posted previously) that support the potential of the abiotic oil generation argument:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/266424
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Peak_Oil___Russia/peak_oil___russia.html
http://www.gasresources.net/energy_resources.htm
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/full/ngeo591.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/02/17/337289/index.htm
With some particularly real science here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4848193/Methane-Generation-at-High-PT-NobelHerschbach-0405930101v1
Cheers
I don't believe anyone with a little paleoclimate study in geology doubts that global warming occurs. That isn't the question. The question is whether anthropogenic global warming is consequential. Geology generally supports the view that what we have experienced since the dawn of the industrial age is easily within the paleoclimatic range documented in the rock record. A second question is whether the rate of warming is anomalous and, thirdly, is the evidence of related climatic phenomena consistent with the anomaly. This things are where the train really leaves the track. The preponderance of climatologists are apparently willing to sacrifice scientific integrity to gain political control. They seem willing to conduct the best junk science government and the UN can buy to support that view. Backed by the globalist and politically ambitious UN and its closely held NGO chorus, they recommend draconian command and control measures to political establishments as required in an emergency to thwart a crisis that is poorly supported by rigorous science. These phonys find they need to bend their data to fit the theory to paint consistent support for their arguments, not unlike the Federal Reserve and economic bureaucrates, really.
I agree. Command and control is their m.o. They loves their central planning: central banks, communism, collectivization of resources (of which humanity is considered just another type) and the eradication of the plurality of finance, intellectual expression and civil rights are the hallmark of the globalists banksters through the past couple of centuries just as the feudal oppression of the European aristocratic elite had the cartel on this behaviour prior to these perps.
Peak Oil like global warming is a convenient half-truth. There is ostensible superficial evidence to support the claim but a complete analysis is co-opted by forces that prevent access to all the potential science and data to confirm or disprove the allegations. These forces are the same that have a vested interest in central planning and social engineering.
Yes, the widely distributed shallow reservoirs of hydrocarbons are being depleted and lack of access to the potential of deep source abiotic reservoirs (if they exist) will make Peak Oil a fait accompli if not a true scientific fact. The important consideration in this is the commonality of the forces that want global warming, and hence a restrictive carbon tax, and Peak Oil as established myths. The two work hand in glove with central planning control and the neo-feudal agenda of domination by forces fully invested in both camps.
The usual suspects support the fake green agenda (carbon tax) yet are mute on genetically modified food used to cartelize another critical resource of the masses, are fully invested in British Petroleum (a primary pimp for scarcity and the fake green agenda) and are primary owners of the main oil companies with access to data on Peak Oil and the technology that can prove or disprove its veracity. These usual suspects are invariably chronicled as members of the British and Dutch royal families, Bilderberg members and elite banking family dynasties that have a long and suspicious past that suggests a stealthy social engineering of many of history’s greatest atrocities. These are the primary shareholders of private central banking schemes established throughout the globe (e.g. the FED and the BoE) whose currency defines the value of petroleum by the monopolistic oil bourses they have constructed.
Peak Oil has too little science and too much salesmanship at present to be considered a fact and when you consider the possible influence of the usual suspects (that logic and probability says is consistent with their past efforts towards resource collectivization) all bets are off.
Helium 3 on the moon.. fuel without creating radioactive waste in nuclear powerplants.
With enough reactors, 3000 lbs could power all energy needs for a year.
So when you spend 700Billion per year on foreign oil, I bet it would be enough to finance a moon mission and get some of that stuff, too bad the Oil lobby is too strong for that
Well it would need to be processed, nonetheless it make more sense to go to the moon instead of the orbital erector-set that is the worthless international space station. (Where goobermints send their space tourists ahh, I mean astronauts the make their country proud)
It would need to be done by the private sector- government is incapable of anything except waste and inefficiency.
Space Tourons!!!
I am battling local, senile, retired NASA cotton-tops who think that spending my local tax dollars on The Good Sir Richard Branson's Space Tourism and Global Hairstyle Initiative, AKA The Southern New Mexico Space Port is the best idea they ever heard of!. These dementia addled seniors think there we have "so much to gain" by shooting fat ass tourons into low earth orbit so they have something to talk about at cocktail parties. I wouldn't care if my local taxes weren't going to support Branson's "great space theft" but they waste this god-damned money on runways in the middle of the fucking desert when the streets I drive to work on everyday are so bad, I have to use a Dual-Sport motorcycle to get there if I don't want to damage the suspension on my fucking Four Wheel Drive!
Space is for the Military.
The only productive thing a typical Civilian can do in space is die. That way we don't have to WASTE the fuel to bring the idiot up into space again!
I'm actually 100% against government funding for any more space endeavors. And this is coming from a great fan of the space program in the past. There are myriad examples of the private sector doing things faster and more efficiently than the guvinment. The best idea I've come across in space travel is the speeds that you can ship cargo at suborbital flight. It gives a new meaning of getting it there yesterday.
lol, since when does the military do something productive?
I am quite sure that if we solve our energy problems and there is a future for humanity... then the space will be conquered by private and commercial firms, and pioneers...
... of course the military doesn't want that I understand...
Dian L. Chu better hide..
Without comment here, Trav7777- must be in route to disembowl him at this very moment.
131 years?
So I guess we should have tried to break our dependance on oil/oil derived products before oil/oil derived products were even discovered!
nice
You do not understand the problem.
You do not have to be "out of oil" to die from its scarcity.
Demand is not the same as consumption and oil reserves are not the same as supply.
Oil production, not reserves, is supply. Consumption will soon be far less than demand. That's when wars start. You'll die during them, or before.
Peak Oil is an fraud of epic proportions, perpetrated by none other than Goldman Sachs.
Remember that $200 crude forecast right before it collapsed from $145 to $32?
LOL....
You may not have the physics background to understand the problem. Those who do not will retreat to a nervous confidence that price will tell them all they need to know -- even if China's long term contracts securing long term supply do not reveal price and prevent price discovery.
But please understand that you need not be concerned. You're likely going to be dead in 10-15 years regardless of whether you understand it all or not. Enjoy what little time you have left.
yup, and let's not forget one of the founders of it, ken lay and enron:
On Aug. 4, 1997, Lay and seven other energy executives met with Clinton, Gore, Rubin and other top officials at the White House to discuss the U.S. position at the upcoming conference on global warming in Kyoto, Japan. Lay, in a memo to Enron employees, said there was broad consensus in favor of an emissions-trading system.
"emmissions-trading system"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37287-2002Jan12?language=printer
IF we were sheep, and believed everything these people put out as true.
Why has the world not gone to LPG for the majority of their vehicle use, and other ICE's?.
This would slow consumption of crude depletio by over 50%,making the tables moot.
Some people are to stupid to get out of the rain.the answer is RIGHT in front of us, and we have so many Natural Gas Reserves worldwide, we could almost stop using crude for FUEL now.
More Ehrlichian nonsense..
Infrastructure is in if you're talking about compressed natural gas vehicles. natural gas is abundant and growing in supply. The pipes that deliver the gas go almost everywhere in the U.S. You can currently buy a natural gas powered car from Honda or convert a standard gasoline engine and then place a dedicated compressor in your garage that will fill it up overnight. The problem only lies with the quick fill ups. To few of these stations around the country exist but the pipes to gas stations are everywhere. Just need the market to force the issue.
Orly Gas.
You heard it here first!
The elites swing and miss again. Thank you interwebs.
http://www.thedailybell.com/1362/Peak-Oil-Bites-the-Dust.html
Maybe the SteamPunks are just ahead of the curve...we've got tons of coal.
All aboard! (the brown-air express)
Love them Steam Punks..........
My wife is a scientist [PhD in molecular biology]. Many of our friends are at the bench as well. In the frequent conversations we have had with all of our friends on the topic of scientific advancement, resource depletion, decreasing marginal returns, etc., UNIVERSALLY it is the NON-scientists in the group who keep saying "don't worry, the scientists will think of something."
Pisses my wife off something fierce.
Sure, somebody could come up with "Mr. Cold Fusion" tomorrow. But people don't seem to realize that even existing technology takes a long time to ramp up and integrate into common use. Witness nuclear development, or any trend to run vehicles on natty gas as mentioned above.
And the stark fact remains that "the next big advance" just might not come. Folks like Mark Haynes love to point out how "wrong" Malthus was, without realizing that if not for the petroleum revolution, he would have been correct.
Constantly betting on the scientific establishment to facilitate ever increasing levels of consumption with "just in time delivery" sets us up in two ways:
1. One of these days, that bet will be a losing one; and
2. The longer we're successful in putting off the inevitable - the harder our fall will be. And it will be hard.
My favorite quote on the topic:
"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned."
-- Quoted in "The Olduvai Theory: Sliding Towards a Post-Industrial Stone Age" by Richard C. Duncan
If you took all the coal, oil and natural gas that has already been produced plus all that remains to be produced, it would not come near the energy resource that is found in methane hydrates. We could last a millennia just using it as an energy source. Julian Simon won his bet!
Secret be told, methane hydrates can literally be scraped off the bottoms of deep-dwelling oceans, such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Black Sea.
See? It's easier than you thought!