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Guest Post: What Happens When The Wells Run Dry
Submitted by Claude Salhani of OilPrice.com, Originally published at: http://oilprice.com/article-what-happens-when-the-wells-run-dry.html
What Happens When The Wells Run Dry?
One nagging question that the industrial world has been asking itself since the discovery of the first oil well is what happens when the wells begin to run dry. The answer is relatively simple to imagine. We had a dry run, so to speak, when Dubai’s economy tanked a few years ago. And although the causes of Dubai’s ills and ails were financial and not oil related, the drama which unfolded gave us a watered-down version of what might transpire if and when the oil wells stop producing.
But before we run the Armageddon tape that the world will stop functioning because of lack of oil, let’s all take a deep breath and think again. The oil companies, the people who manufacture cars and airplanes and legions of scientists and inventors have all been planning for that day. And as far-fetched as it might seem to some of us, that day will undoubtedly come, very probably within our lifetime.
So what is likely to happen? First, the car manufacturers and people who build commercial aircrafts, the two largest consumers of fossil fuels have no doubt plans on what their next generation models will look like and what they will run on. Already some car manufacturers are producing hybrid cars that run partially on electricity. What will transpire will be a massive turn to nuclear energy. It may not be the safest of energies, however nuclear energy remains the cleanest. Or perhaps solar and wind.
So your average American will still be able to drive to the drive-thru bank and restaurant. The above average Chinese will still be able to afford his car and the average European will still be able to enjoy Sunday outings with Grandma sitting in the back seat between the bambinos.
What will change – and drastically so – will be the social-economic face of much of the oil producing countries as well as other nations, where overnight tens of thousands of workers will find themselves suddenly unemployed, broke, and with practically no prospects for any future whatsoever. And herewith lies the danger of a social eruption of near Biblical proportions. Think if you will of the ripple effect that would occur if one of the major oil producers stopped producing.
Take the United Arab Emirates (UAE) one of the major oil-producing states in the Gulf where the local population is outnumbered five-to one. Out of a population of some 4.8 million less than 20 % are nationals of the country; and even among the nationals, a good percentage very probably hail from other neighboring countries, such as Palestine, Lebanon or other countries in the region. The bulk of the population -- a whopping 50 percent -- are from the Indian sub-continent; from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Balouchistan or from Iran and Afghanistan.
The same holds true in the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council states; Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman.
They are the people who really make the country function on a day-to-day basis. They are the day laborers who have constructed much of this almost fairy tale-like wonderland, thanks to the petro-dollars which kept pouring in over the decades. They are the workers in the oil fields who drilled for this black gold in oven-like temperatures or helped refine it while earning pittances but still being able to sustain an extended family back home.
They are the shopkeepers who know no Sabbath and no rest, the money changers, the taxi drivers, the gardeners who keep hundreds of miles of lush green lawns and vibrant flower beds carefully manicured and watered in the middle of the desert.
They are the people who do the “small jobs” which are of prime importance to the economy of the land but that receive no credit for their contribution.
The outcome of oil running out would have a ripple effect on every segment of the economy. Similar to what happens when you place hundreds of dominos in a complicated pattern and then knock the first one down.
The first to be affected from the dry wells will those poor souls mentioned in these preceding lines. They would no longer have oil fields or refineries to work in. Overnight, thousands will find themselves unemployed, unable to pay their rent. As was the case in Dubai when the economic crunch hit, thousands will abandon their cars at the airport and hop on a flight home, where they will add to the already heavy load of unemployment.
Now here comes the ripple effect. The sudden departure of these workers will force landlords, restaurants and other businesses to make their staff redundant. The “small jobs” will vanish one after another. The taxi drivers will first run out of gas and second run out of customers. The shop owners will find that their fresh fruits and legumes will begin to wither as their clientele fights for seats on the few remaining flights back home.
Eventually, tens of thousands of stranded expatriates, jobless, penniless and at wits ends will begin to riot. That’s when things begin to turn ugly.
The ripple effect of course will be felt back home with thousands returning to little prospect of anything better than what they had left behind years earlier, and in some instances, decades or entire lifetimes ago.
Of course oil not being an issue any longer the once darling children of the West will be quickly forgotten with the industrialized world concentrating on how to keep their cars running and their planes flying. That is until the disturbances begin to affect the West once again.
This article was written by Claude Salhani for Oilprice.com who focus on Fossil Fuels, Alternative Energy, Metals, Oil Prices and Geopolitics. To find out more visit their website at: http://www.oilprice.com
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Yes it will be difficult for them. Until then
legions of Americans are turning their thermostats
down, wearing coats in their homes, driving
a lot less, bearing price increases on all
their goods, and funding the bailout of
banks that ran oil to 147.
btw I did like the article. Other commentors
have issues but the central thought - the
unemployment impacts on foreign workers
will be an incredible problem. It has already
begun and many have not set aside money
to return home. Even if people wanted to
help they really won't be able to. Generating
sympathy for their plight in the west will
be extremely difficult.
This article is brutal. So one day all the wells are going to go *poof* and the oil will stop? Or maybe one day the fairy tale of cheap renewable energy will happen overnight ending the need for all hydrocarbons. Well I could see if you believed that to be the case, the conclusions here aren't hard to come to.
Here's an alternate hypothesis:
When oil becomes more scarce the price goes up.
When oil becomes more scarce it requires MORE WORKERS and MORE MONEY to get it out.
Peak oil will INCREASE oil indistry employment and investment in the Middle East.
Example: USA
Are there less oil and gas workers employed in the USA now than before it hit peak production so many years ago?
How about Mexico? Are they laying off all the oilfield staff and causing shockwaves in the economy because the oil is running out???
What a stupid article. Not ZH worthy at all.
Maybe its an analogy for central bank liquidity... when the well dries up, we are all going to be in poop
[Peak oil will INCREASE oil indistry employment and investment in the Middle East]
From your tone, it sounds like you think that is a GOOD thing.
Who's side are you on here, anyway?
My tone is disgust at the poorly thought out article.
I'll give you a more detailed response, but I'm going to need some pics first, cougar_w ;-)
For an economics based web site, it is a poor article.
The primary economic effect of oil depletion is compound inflation.
As oil becomes more scarce, it rises in price. As virtually all goods are manufactured using oil, oil derivatives, and then distributed with yet more petrol and plastice (oil derivatives) , higher crude oil prices results in inflation being passed down each stage of the chain to the consumer.
This will cause the dreaded social impact. This article is a bit infantile inferrign that one day the tap runs dry and only then do the social implications hit.
This to me, seems like a poorly written article for Zero Hedge. The senerio the auther outlines, 'overnight unemployed oil workers' impossible. Oil fields decline plays out over a very long timeline. Wells do not 'run dry' overnight. Oil fields are oceans of oil that follow an often predictable decline curve. Actually, that isn't true. Advances in technology routinely extend the life of major fields as more oil that initially was thought un-recoverable becomes available.
In my opinion, when the oil runs out, the global economy collapses and the vastly over-shot human population of the earth will correct, much like the stock market in 2008. People that have mananged their relationship with reality will fair better than others.
I can answer the authors question on more practical terms. When a well does run dry, often a P&A or plug and abandon operation is performed. Cement is pumped down the tubing and annular voids, the resevoir is isolated and the surface wellhead equipment is cut off and buried below grade.
Most excellent response. Being correct is always a plus.
While I agree that this article sucks, I have to disagree with your conclusion on "reality relationship mgmt". What an apt metaphor: stocks in 2008. What I assume will happen at the end of oil will be identical to 2008 stocks: privatized reward + socialized risk. Those that have operated with reality in mind will find themselves supporting (either through governmental means or mob rule) the unwashed masses who did not. Look at Argentina, man. People don't just give up when the SHTF, they go out and get "theirs", and by "theirs" I mean "yours".
You did say it was an opinion, and good thing you did (in the sense of accuracy). Oil will only run out when we decide it isn't worth looking for it.
In a sense we already did that by defunding schools the past 40 years. This hurt our tehcnological ability, and we are now where we probably should have been around 1990. That said, if we actually fund our schools, and not fill them with 'busy work', then you will develop the technologies needed to get to the oil in the ocean - which is far more than we have every pumped out of the ground. This amount of oil is there, for us to take, if we man up and actually fund education, R&D, etc.
If we meet a crunch, it's because we failed to do this. So far we have. So peak oil won't be from actual peak oil, it'll be peak recoverable oil by our current technology. This is FAR less than the amount of oil out there.
Now when we run out of oil on Earth, don't fret, if we kept up with education, we should be able to fly to other planets, and carry oil back....it seems unfeasible, but so did crossing the Atlantic ocean in a few hours, but that won't always be the case.
But that isn't our only hope. With fusion you can create base elements. In time we can create oil out of thin air, if we need it.
Most green energies are a dead end. They cost too much energy and provide too little in return. Nuclear is the only way, until once again a focus on education and R&D creates fusion. That is our only feasible alternative fuel. Nuclear or fusion. Not solar or wind.
Can solar and wind still do things, sure! But if we want them to be the energy we depend on to power our lives and our economy, we'll run out of raw materials, oil, and electricity before we meet that goal.
Don't forget, it's ENERGY FLUX DENSITY that matters. Human need, and always strived to find/discover a higher from of energy flux density. NONE of the so-called GREEN TECHNOLOGIES ARE of higher energy flux density. Meaning we're going to spend all our resources for NO BENEFIT!
The global economy can collapse far before that, if anything, I guarantee that. *which holds no water, but I guarantee you the 1.4 quadrillion in derivatives collapse before we run out of oil on this earth.
Human population is not overpopulation. If you're not malthusian, you should think about changing that viewpoint, because they got you believing their crap.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It is a FACT that you could fit ALL HUMAN BEINGS into TEXAS with ROOM TO SPARE.
If you think we're overpopulated, I'll then KNOW you've bought into propoganda. No amount of PROPOGANDA should allow you to believe the Earth is overpopulated. Don't forget the same minded type of people thought that when Earth had 100 million people, not 6.7 billion. They'll say the same thing when we're 100 billion. Unless of course, society as a whole becomes the idiot and believes the propoganda.
It's not hard guys. Education. Nuclear reactors. Fusion research.
We can get to Mars in 3 days if we wanted to. 18 month round trip my ****. Only if you want to use liquid fueled rockets, aka the stone age. Nuclear pulse engines.
It's sad when people try not to see the solutions to the problems, and would rather just let the problem happen. The author of the original article was right about one major thing.
We aren't doing anything about this, and since education is about as important as in the backwoods hills of west virginia, think deliverance, when it comes, millions of people wil suffer, and terrorism will increase.
Yep, and terrorism will also increase with the rise in food prices. (which is the result of poor planning, or non-planning lassiez faire attitude)
But of course, we don't actually care about terrorists until they strike. Then we cover up where they came from (Londonistan), and what they're pissed off about (imperialsim). Of course half of them are created, the other half follow the created.
But if you want to end terrorism, spend a few billion dollars (hell even 1 trillion would be worth it, hell 10 would) and increase the world's food supplies, quit letting the oligarch control our foreign policy, and end imperialism. You want an end to the vast majority of terrorism, that's all you need to do. But instead of doing things to relieve the serious pressures amongst our societies we 'pretend and extend', until such time a breaking point occurs, like 9/11, and then we do a piss poor job of reacting to it.
There is peak oil, but our peak oil will come from complacency.
There is terrorism, but if it's not manufactured it comes from well known and ignored human strife
Imperialsim is the driver the creates the conditions (and mindset) for the previous two, to exist. Case in point - overpopulation - there is none, and we're nowhere NEAR the limit.
Sloppy, sloppy "article." Some points:
Overnight, you say? So one day those oil wells are pumping at 100% capacity and literally the next day they stop and produce 0.0000? Do you have a clue? Ever heard of Hubbert's Peak? Oil wells, and fields, decline over time. It is not overnight, it is rarely in the space of a year, it is typically over 5-10 years for a field, and longer for a country that has multiple fields. So the entire premise is absurd.
And then:
You desperately need basic geography. Just look at a map, PLEASE. Palestine and Lebanon do not neighbor the UAE, not anywhere close. Why are you listing both Pakistan and one of its provinces (Balouchistan)? And did you notice that Iran and Afghanistan are not part of the Indian subcontinent?
While I agree with the bigger concept that declining oil production will cause social change and strife in countries that are currently oil producers, all the details are so botched that it's hard to see anything else useful from this "article."
Yea, so why was this junk posted Tyler?
All very good points.
This was a part of the article that I found most absurd:
"The oil companies, the people who manufacture cars and airplanes and legions of scientists and inventors have all been planning for that day.
So your average American will still be able to drive to the drive-thru bank and restaurant. The above average Chinese will still be able to afford his car and the average European will still be able to enjoy Sunday outings with Grandma sitting in the back seat between the bambinos."
No one has been 'planning' for anything, and that is a serious concern. Everyone has been too absorbed with attending business school and worshipping at the alter of technological fundamentalism to even recognize the fact that there truely is no alternative.
I for one am convinced that the idea that Americans will still continue on with our 'Happy Motoring' economy to borrow a phrase from JHK is patently absurd.
Haven't seen too many Hybrid-electric 747's yet!!!
The 'hybrid' 747's are sitting right there next to the 'hybrid' global farming operations, mining equipment and industrial manufacturing industries.
I will help you find them. Two stars to the right, and straight on 'til morning. Ask for Tinkerbell.
Actually most subsurface mining equipment and a lot of the larger surface mining equipment IS electric, generally powered from the grid (aka coal, hydro and nuclear stations far away). In Wyoming there is actually a coal mine that feeds a power plant a mile away, and guess where the mining equipment is powered from?
Manufacturing - well some is all electric, others require a lot of natural gas, oil, coal or coke (a coal product). If you've got a big river, you have an aluminum smelter.
Farming, umm, yeah that's a little (did I mean big?) problem. I'll bet that oil imports are reserved for defense and farming when oil gets scarce.
+100 Best post of the day!!!!
"They are the people who do the “small jobs” which are of prime importance to the economy of the land but that receive no credit for their contribution."
And what credit should they receive? Nonsense.
The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly, Ben.
Running out of oil means running out of all the by products of the oil refining process. For example, plastics are manufactured from oil (and from natural gas), obtained during that refining.
I was thinking that as well... what's this mysterious substance that is going to replace plastic so easily once oil is gone...
How awesome is this: we lube up our collective cocks (and vaginas) with petroleum products every day in this country.
The writer has a naieve and simplistic worldview, but marks for effort, though has much to learn.
The coming energy crisis can only be understood by understanding that energy is not manufactured - it is dug up, having been placed there by nature in the form of oil, gas, uranium, thorium, hot aquifer water, etc., or captured with hydro, wind and solar.
We don't *make* energy - we *find* it and use it up.
It is a limited natural resource, and will not obey supply/demand 'laws' when there's not enough to go around.
Think of trees on Easter Island.
Not only that, but the worlds food-producing/packaging/delivery system - many millions of vehicles - all depend on very concentrated liquid fuels, which are particularly difficult to replace.
As for technologists having plans to replace all the current energy systems (withing budget?!) - they must the best kept secrets since JFK..
Well, lessee. I can't complain about this article because it mentions oil/energy and does not say we have plenty. We don't.
However ... Peak Oil took place in 1998, measured by dollars (which is the only measurement that matters). We've been 'into it' for ten years and the economy is ... (drumroll, please) falling apart, just as many predicted. I'm not surprise, are you surprised?
Funny how the real estate bubble/so many JOBS depended on REALLY CHEAP OIL. Oh well ... the cheap oil is all gone and the not so cheap oil is also all gone.
It gets really ugly as the months pass and the giant pickup trucks and SUV's roll ...
He does bring up the interesting point as what do you do with millions of imported workers when the party supplies run out. I suspect that the vast majority of those countries will have no moral quams about trying to repatriate those workers as the oil boom peters out. The next question would be what would happen if the countries of origin decide they don't want these people back considering the conditions faced at home.
As we see in Dubai, thousands of lower tier workers are being sent home since the RE debt implosion. And even if the oil fields do take years to peter out, the amount of money coming in can in no way support the level of lifestyles when oil production was at its peak.
Mexico will be a good test case as the government was practically totally dependent upon the oil produced by its fields and those fields production are plummeting precipitously. Its estimated that Mexico will be a net importer of oil within five years.
Although some of his points may be silly, what does one do with millions of workers when jobs disappear with no prospects of ever coming back because they were either outsourced to China, Mexico, or India. Does this sound familiar?
We have approximately 30 million unemployed/under employed individuals in this country, around 20 million illegal aliens with approximately 5 to 10 million still working jobs that Americans didn't want to do, and the Federal government importing up to 150,000 legal immigrants into the country every month, while millions still try and cross our southern border every year.
With predictions of unemployment hovering in the 10% range for the predictable future, how long before the still employed are willing to support through increased taxes this mass of humanity. If the Federal Reserve is intent on destroying the middle class and transfering as much wealth to the top 5% we can expect American cities to resemble Detroit/Rio slums within this decade.
The next question would be what would happen if the countries of origin decide they don't want these people back considering the conditions faced at home.
Those abroad-workers tend to have family back home. Care to imagine what kind of heck would break loose if famillies were not allowed to unit? And further, many times those working abroad happen to have more skills than those in their country of origin.
No other nits to pick with yout comments, which I found to be very good.
I think this is pretty accurate. Mexico has been chilly to the idea of its citizens returning from the US because they can't find work here. And China has demonstrated that when it sends laborers to a project in Africa (often times prison laborers) it does not want them coming back.
Very poorly written article. Not worthy of ZH.
As other commentators have pointed out, wells don't run dry over night. Declines occur over an extended time period (see the Cantarell Field for an example of how this works).
One only needs to look at the natural gas area over the last 12 months (rig count down by a shade less than 50% and production down 1.3%) to fully grasp the advances technology can bring to the energy sector.
Moreover, a far more pressing issue will be the effect of $150.00 oil (if bernanke & co have their way give it 12 months). I don't think the average American (with declining wages and 17.5% unemployment) will be hitting the drive-thru (given the impact on gasoline and food prices) with any regularity.
"The answer is relatively simple to imagine."
Yes, it is.
It is called 'reality'.
Collapsing capitalist industrial stuctures. Resource warfare. Terrorism. Falling living standards. Poverty. Civil disobedience.
It is all right there in front of our face.
Surprising how the 'what happens when cheap, easy oil is running out' conversation is still framed in a yet-to-be-determined, far off, point in the future. That shows off our stunning intellectual dishonesty side by side with our fantastical dellusions about the world in which we live in.
Let's not pull punches. This article is drek. Someone at ZH needs to get some OIL (not energy, OIL) expertise up to speed so this drek doesn't happen.
>>
So what is likely to happen? First, the car manufacturers and people who build commercial aircrafts, the two largest consumers of fossil fuels have no doubt plans on what their next generation models will look like and what they will run on.
>>
No, they don't, you moron. Why should they? That doesn't put quarterly earnings per share on the table. Sashay up to Seattle and ask to see Boeing's waiting-in-the-wings electric 747. And let's go further, since you got it wrong anyway. Go ask ship builders to show you their electric container ships.
The guy just doesn't understand physics. There aren't going to be electric agricultural combines at 400 horsepower. There aren't going to be container ships with rubber band motors turning the propeller. There aren't going to be electric 747s.
Just sit down and recalibrate your brain, dufus. There Is No Law Of The Universe That Says There Must Be A Happy Ending. The most probable scenario is mass starvation. Try to find some mathematical rationale to conclude otherwise, in a probability spectrum based in something other than hope.
Bullseye! Well stated!
I've got one additional point to add, and it's the real weak spot in our current infrastructure- truck transport. Not a chance in hell that we're going to be able to change the fuels that our trucking fleet uses without a huge disturbance. All the happy talk is about rescuing the car culture, when the biggie is the trucking industry. We don't talk about it because we don't want to think about what will happen when those trucks stop bringing food to our local supermarket.
Where will the world look for oil derivatives once the wells run dry?
Why, Walmart, of course, your source for cheap, plastic shit.
If plastic is forever, per those global warming and green ads, once the wells run dry, the price of that garbage will become valuable enough for salvage operations in overflowing landfills. Everything organic will have rotted into dirt except for metal and plastic.
Seems to me that simple supply/demand will enable recycling for profit, and we'll have all the plastic we'll need for the foreseeable future.
This article is something i would write after reading Kunstler for 2 days and while im high on oxycodone and cocaine ...
Primus writes -
'the oil runs out, the global economy collapses and the vastly over-shot human population of the earth will correct, much like the stock market in 2008. People that have mananged their relationship with reality will fair better than others.'
'As for technologists having plans to replace all the current energy systems (withing budget?!) - they must the best kept secrets since JFK...'
Maybe they're the best-kept secrets of your alternate reality where:-
[1] the Fischer-Tropsch coal liquefaction process didn't emerge ninety years ago and the regimes of Nazi Germany and apartheid SA didn't run fairly efficiently on it, despite the opposition of most other nations;
[2] liquid natural gas (LNG) doesn't exist in such profusion that the free release of its main component -- methane -- via the melting of the polar icecaps is potentially the most threatening 'tipping point' scenario resulting from global climate change.
In OUR reality, however, Fischer-Tropsch and LNG do exist as well-known, long-established facts.
As regards the former, the US happens to be a continent-sized Saudi Arabia of coal. As regards the latter, there are some 9.6 million NGVs (natural gas vehicles)running in various nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_vehicle
Furthermore, there looks to be plenty of LNG in US shale deposits. Even if there weren't, the Russians have claimed a giant swathe of Arctic seafloor as far as the North Pole, sent nuclear icebreakers to map it, and started constructing a fleet of floating nuclear reactors to power their undersea drilling there(yes, those crazy folks who brought us Chernobyl).
I'm as fond of the arguments about EROEI and failure cascades as the next doomster. But history has already demonstrated that Fischer-Tropsch and LNG are there and scalable, and can be rolled out as needed. Peak oil is real -- I think it could have happened somewhere in 2005-2007 myself (though Steve from Virginia may have placed it correctly in 1998)-- but it's probably not going to be the Die Back you seem to desire so fervently. Sorry.
In fact, Primus, maybe it's you who needs to manage your relationship with reality if you have to continually ignore major chunks of it -- Fischer-Tropsch and LNG -- in order to believe what you want to believe.
But history has already demonstrated that Fischer-Tropsch and LNG are there and scalable, and can be rolled out as needed.
Your "scale" measurement is lacking (was there even one given?).
Saying that there's a lot of something is meaningless without adding in the usage/growth component. For more (which will clearly put a massive dent in your optimism, unless, that is, you want to continue to wear blinders) see Dr. Albert Bartlett's presentation Arithmetic, Population and Energy.
That stated, if your thinking prevails then I'll definately want to buy up railroad stock cause there's going to be a LOT of rail cars running coal! This is clearly closer to doable (though it would fall far short) than the arguments for biomass-produced energy (i.e. "switchgrass"), which would require the processing/movement of mass of such scale that it would boggle the mind. The point here is that people completely overlook the logistics: easy enough to get a rough idea by comparing the energy densities and looking at the current shipping arangement (of oil); e.g. 1 tanker of oil = 30 tankers of bio-mass (numbers not factual, just given to illustrate the issue).
OK, with regards to LNG, I can hardly wait for those big LNG tanker ships to come to a port near me. And, all the required new pipelines! Oh, and all the "terrorists" lurking out there who will salivate over these targets. NOTE: I tend to agree with T. Boone Pickens' notion of shifting to LNG for transport and wind for other (electical), but this is still nothing more than a buffer on the down slope...
BTW - I recommend people learn about the energy densities of the various resources we're talking about here: nothing compates to oil (for energy density, portability and, at least up to now, abundance).
Seer, you're, ahem, a prophet! Energy density is the key. No substance besides liquid hydrocarbons offers an equivalent bang for the buck when viewed in light of cost to acquire, transport, etc. In that respect, the future will truly be challenging, notwithstanding the fact that airplanes can fly on liquified coal. As crazy Kunstler never ceases to point out, there is no substitute for cheap hydrocarbons.
Think about it this way. It is very accurate to call it 'Alternative' energy opposed to 'Substitute' energy.
It is very simplistic and I am still amazed how many people don't seem to accept this basic arguement. Cheap, easy energy is solely responsible for our current living situation. The cheap and easy portion of this equation is what is really going away. There will be plenty of alternatives, however, they will not be cheap, nor easy. Thus a collapsing standard of living.
Problem is - rare earth elements for the hybrid/electric cars are actually rare.
And for the planning oil companies ? Please. All they do is reap profits, thats all business do.
If they were planing there would never be intentional spils of products of oil refinery and tracking and discrediting designers of electric vehicles.
But onto rear earths : http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/science_technology/rare%2Bearth%2B...
Or if you want , a zero hedge article :
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/rare-earth-thought-being-green-and-supp...
Worst article I've yet seen on ZH.
However, to ruminate on the theme of oil running out, it will be gradual but cause abrupt disruptions outside the developed world. And we've seen a preview of this already.
The number one issue that will result from sustained higher oil price levels is food price rises. It currently takes 10 calories of petrochemical energy to produce one calorie of food energy delivered to the plate of a western consumer.
In the west we'll face declining standards of living. As other posts mentioned, we'll wear coats indoors, travel less, buy less, etc. But the effect on the other 5 billion people in the world will be much more dramatic as many start to fall below the level where they can afford sufficient food.
There's an old saying that China is just two missed meals away from revolution, and this is true in much of the world. It was only 18 months ago we saw food riots across the world that faded away as the oil price came back down and food prices with it. If oil prices are higher due to permanent declines in supply and not just a temporary speculative rise, then the food riots won't go away but will continue to enlarge and intensify to be met with increasingly brutal responses by governments to maintain order.
The only lasting solution to declines in oil production is going to be lower populations. I'm an optimist, but the depopulation is likely to be a series of abrupt actions rather than a managed decline. These abrupt events are going to make the savagery of the 20th century look like a cartoon
How about we hook up all the uber-fat-azzes in America to treadmills to generate electricity? Would easily supply electricity needs for many years.
Just tell the uber-fat-azzes that it is the new government sponsored 'free' health club memberships.
Everybody wins!
A third grader could have written a better article. But at least the comments were worthwhile.
I'd just like to comment here how pleased I am to see that an overwhelming majority of folks understand the energy situation. I completely agree that this article sucks :-(
Important things for people to know:
1) Jevons Paradox;
2) What exponential growth means (refer to Dr. Albert Bartlett's presentation Arithmetic, Population and Energy).
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PEAK OIL............
The day it takes more energy to extract and refine oil than the amount of energy that would be contained in the oil, will be the day that peak oil is hit. That is the problem with tar sands, oil shales, and the like.
Another comment for the folks here that actually understand the OIL CRISIS (there is no energy crisis, there is an oil crisis, 400 Hp engines don't run on solar power and never will), even you guys -- you guys that understand -- don't know how bad it is.
Go look up the starvation mechanisms in the most infamous ones of history. Bangladesh, Ireland and potato famine, Rwanda. You get numbers like 25% of populations disappearing.
See, it's easy and glib to write things like "the population will adjust to the food supply available", but when you write that you don't understand the mechanism. It's not a rational decision not to breed. Animals breed whenever they can, and that includes humans. Certainly human teenagers. So then you have extra mouths to feed and they can't be fed. People outright starve.
It's not a gentle, benign process. You'll see 40% population declines in a decade -- and none of that will be from lower birthrates.
Agree with 1164. Way back I figured the reason poor people had so many kids was that sex is cheep entertainment. Of course the results are not, this was pre-abortion. When no one could afford tv they could still afford have ses.
Paint the walls with my brains. This article is terrible.
Whoever the contributor is should be banned....
1 year!!
NO SOUP!!!
Before the well runs dry the EPA would be abolished so nuclear and drilling permits could be issued with practically zero red tape.