I'm glad I live in Norway. 98% of all electricity comes from hydroelectricity. If it rains, we get electricity. And more than enough of it as well. We are the worlds second largest natural gas exporter, while we don't use any gas ourselves. We export around 2 mbbl/d and only use 0.2mbbl/d. Even though, petrol prices is at $11/gallon. I do think that even though we have all this good stuff, we export too much of it and we will also be affected by the economic effects of high pries.
mmmm....not buying the whole argument... i´m not saying that peak oil is not true, but i don´t think your predictions are acurate. you simplyfied things too much, there are A LOT of factors that determine peak oil , and A SHITLOAD of other factors that determine if we are going to run out of cheap energy, you should investigate some more...
@shreder89 its not peak oil for the world, just peak oil and higher prices for americans at the end. This is the real problem, because crude is only priced on USD via OPEC and the USD can only be printed from US. and US economic system is based on credit creation for growth via crude oil. if US can not grow because of heavy debt and export dependant. At some point, countries like china, russia will question why should they work to make goods for US for USDs to buy oil from OPEC? continue...
@shreder89 instead they would want to price in their currency, or even gold if the USD is losing value. now because US is so dependant on foreign oil and goods, if US can not buy oil with USD on the open market then USDs are worthless because there is no need for china russia japan to hold US debt...thus US will default. then you will see americans try to massively hoard oil and goods with devalue dollars...thus hyperinflation
@shreder89 so because of last decade of credit bubbles, US will have to create more and more USDs via credit to reinflate the system..thus trying to increase demand of crude will also lead to shortages and hyperinflation. this is the dilemma of a credit system based on debt. if US can not grow, and debt is basically means take from tomorrow to use it today, then US will never be able to pay off its debts with no energy.
@shreder89 big problem is the world is stuck with this cancer USDs because it the global currency lifeblood...so does US stop printing to stop world inflation, or keep printing so start up the domestic economy...all based on the value of USD to crude.
@shreder89 im betting the ranch to say since the feds have been pumpng cheap money into system to reinflate every credit crash, they will keep the printing press. that means the world will have to make that choice for US to go away..the question is either slowly thru a managed devalue or a run on the fed, and a massive default of hte system.
Funny, I was just going to say how living on local produce, not global, would be the only way forward, and then you mentioned it yourself. I'm actually look forward to when oil runs out.
when production reaches its peak it may not go down but stagnate and during this period we ll develop new tehnologies to replace oil so dont disturb people with no relevant evidence.
@booze505 As soon as production stagnates,(demand exeeds supplie), the market(wall street) will go bananas, and the export market will then collaps as produsers will take ceare of theyr own needs first. (middle-finger salute to the exportmarket). Prises will rise to un-imaginible hights, this will give normal ppl, and all other industri serious problems (sinse were all somewhere between Bill Gates and an average Nigerian on the economic scale). with 0 grouth the makets always collaps.
@MrEnergyCzar And with less people don't forget this - say goodbye to mass production runs which make all of your appliances, automobiles and knick-knacks affordable.
Get that garden fork out and be prepared to take up a full-time job as a subsistance farmer - that's going to be the scenario with the end of plentiful cheap oil, coal and gas.
Please note that the 1987 estimate includes arctic region coal while the 2009 article notes that arctic coal has become off limits and is thus, not included.
Sources. "Youtube wont let me post sources"
Just go to the USGS energy products database, there you should go to the coal link. This is the place I started at.
OH sorry, It appears I was using old data from 1987. Those estimates were about at 275 billion tons were we would have only exploited about 3% of existing reserves to date. There is new data now coming in for the fist time in almost 20 years. The new data suggests only about 10.5 billion tons or enough for about 40-60 years at current consumption rates.
As peak oil fallows its natural progression to depletion, other sources of energy will fill the gap. 70% of petroleum used in the U.S. is used for transportation. Yet the majority of factory energy consumed is electrical, primarily derived from coal in the U.S..(U.S.G.S survey, continental U.S. has enough coal to maintain current rates of consumption for 300 to 400 years.) So, as oil depletes, another source of energy will take its place gradually over the next hundred years. Electric cars....
@dapple33 - the coal will have to do the job of all the oil so it will be burned much faster, so forget calculations "at current rates of consumption". Also factor in asia continuing to modernize.. maybe the USA will need to sell much of its coal to pay off the debt.
That is quit true, but I only view coal as a stop gap energy source while we develop the technologies to make renewable energy our primary energy source for running our society. Failing that, and with no real source of energy, our society should be doomed to collapse.
Nitrates fertilizers and substitutes for petroleum based chemical compounds can be produce without oil if abundant enough energy is available. The technologies to do this already exist, they just don't get subsidized like the the technologies that support the oil industry and therefore cannot compete in the market place.
>>"can be produce without oil if abundant enough energy is available. "
- Thats the whole point, we used Oil because its the most abundant energy, if other forms were as abundant we wouldn't be going to all the hastle of building offshore drilling rigs.
There is no comparison, the oil industry gets between 15 to 35 billion a year in subsidies from the US and about 10 billion a year from European nations. The International Energy Agency (IEA) places international subsidies for oil industries at about 312 billion a year.
Obama has pushed green tech subsidies to 300 million or less than 1% compared. So oil get 116&2/3 times the amount of investment from the US government than green energy.
I will check these numbers, but in a book i've been reading lately "rising powers shrinking planet" it proposes that past peak oil, the resource will become more State controlled than Free Market: i.e. depends on specific pipelines, arrangements between countries (which army enforces use of specific IOU's for specific oilfields).
So re. subsidies, perhaps this is because the institutions issuing the money (military-state-industrial elite-banking) are so intertwined (money=energy)?
>>"So oil get 116&2/3 times the amount of investment from the US government than green energy. "
- back to 'enforcement of IOUs', global military used to be wind powered, whereas now its oil-powered.
We usually think of money as resource as its what we see on daily basis , but its more of an intermediate variable (incentivizing, calculating heirarchy). Oil is at top of Heirarchy because in real physical terms, it's the most powerful resource.
@dapple33 And from what stuff do you suppose to make plastic, fertilizer and medicines? It's all done with oil at the moment, but we don't really have any other resources to do the job.
Not true, the technologies already exist, they just aren't competitive due to the miss-allocation of government subsidies. We can make plastic form prawn shells and soybeans for crying out loud. And many pharmaceutics companies are already moving away from petro-chemical base formulas to protect them selves from oil price shocks.
You would be surprised to know of all the different sources we can get our chemical compounds from.
@dapple33 That might be true, but we don't have enough agricultural land for completely moving on to those sources of material. For me that means there's one big problem (or opportunity) we have to solve: using less energy and materials or use them in a smarter way.
>>"I think with enough time, research, and investment a wide array of renewable technologies can fill the void left by petro-energy."
- I dont beleive they can, I think we'd have been using windmills all along - internal combustion engine & dynamo/motor were invented at similar times, and windmills look MUCH simpler to me than offshore drilling rigs. That says to me that oil must be 'more powerful' for us to go to that much effort.
>>" We can make plastic form prawn shells and soybeans for crying out loud."
yes, but HOW MUCH. enough plastic, fertilizer etc for 6billion people?
the key point is that oil was accumulating for millions of years. The best analogy is imagine 100 generations of your family had built up huge inheritance by saving and not spending, then you splurge it all in one lifetime.. then your kids wonder why they can't match their parents lifestyle.
Relevant point, but to be fair, we aren't producing enough plastics and fertilizer enough for 6 billion people right now. Mostly these products are consumed in developed countries.
In my view, alternative energy technologies ultimately are our only real choice. My favorite pick of these techs is geothermal power. The nuclear core of our planet will continue to produce thermal energy for at least the next billion years. I feel geothermal is an undervalued tech.
>>"we aren't producing enough plastics and fertilizer enough for 6 billion people right now. "
- and we certainly wont with renewables either.
Regarding "unfair distribution" idea, if you distribute equally we'd all end up with CHINA's standard of living, not europe or america. (India/africa would be upgraded at USA/europes expense)
global-hectare use per person:USA=10; Europe=3-5;China=2;Africa/India=1. Total Global Hectares / world population = 2. See 'ecological footprint'
- Its just "digging a hole and energy comes out", and less easily transported than oil. I don't beleive Geothermal will make much difference. Its a local solution that suits some countries e.g. iceland.
Remember you have to PAY for oil, all countries lacking oil supplies have a strong profit-motive to use alternatives instead of handing over money.
>>"The nuclear core of our planet will continue to produce thermal energy for at least the next billion years"
[1]- we already get huge benefit from this: I gather the heat drives motion of the molten core, generating the van alan belt, producing a hospitable planet.
(I wonder if some of these fringe 'free energy' machines are just 'drawing down' the energy that drives earth's magnetic field). I suspect mass exponential use (as we did with oil) would affect the planet?
Simple and right to the point! Too bad all the people responding are making it too complicated... They are just scared... accept our fate and fend for yourself! It's not to late to prepare.. And once you accept it you will enjoy the fossil fuel driven life a little more:) Simplify your life and grow your own food.
le géant prospécteur du maroc en l'occurence mr. omar bouzalmat , doté de forces surnaturelles en matière de détection de pétrole à distance , en offhore et onshore , avec rapidité et maitrise des milliers de kms carrés dans qqs heures demeurent la force qui servera au futur pour protéger les baleines de canons d'air stupides dans les mers et oceans - voir son blog - petroleonline.unblog.fr
ok ok... too much of a conspiracy THEORY... Oil Peak is an issue but all the things he GUESS are gonna happen after it are so false and are not backed by any proof or argument.. stop scarring people like that! Humanity will find ways for alternative sources of energy
wrong. Straightforward rational thinking based on the same science that made oil usefull in the firstplace e.g. quantifying amount of work that can be done.
we MIGHT find alternative. but we WILL run out of oil.
In the past, e.g. whale oil - we hadn't figured out all uses.
1850 - 1.5billion people
today - 6.7billion - because oil adds to sunlight growing more food, powering machines to sustain more people.
I agree we're doomed but I dont agree with his exact reasoning for why the electric truck will be $350 vs oil $400 - "if they want to compete".
The issue will be **Energy Shortage** making ALL activities & alternatives more expensive... not electric trucks charging nearly as much as oil "to compete".
(hydrocarbons -> electricity or hydrocarbons -> fuel.. just micromanages energy)
The world is doomed, no matter what we do. What is left to decide is how fast we destroy it and our selves. So, eat drind and be merry, and it will all crash soon and hard, or plan some intelligent conservation, a moderate life style, and the transition to post peak oil and everything else will be slower and easier to accept. However, 12 billion people on earth in only 50 years without abundant oil and farm land,will just not work, and that is where we are heading.
Our life style is the problem, not fuel sources or technology. You can live very comfortably on half the fuel, then the existing supplies will last twice as long. The rest of the world manages that. Or, we can focus on depleting gas even faster, on the theory that if we deplete it faster, everything will turn out just fine.
@manderssteve - yes i'd actually argue wasting the finite resources on non-essentials is far better than using them to feed more babies who are doomed to starve when the resources run out..
if we were really smart we'd be using it to develop renewables, but renewables are only viable in longrun if you can build them *without* using oil power..
If we swithch to natural gas from oil, then natural gas would go way up in price, and we will deplete it much sooner too. It buys a bit of time, but it does not change the story. it is like switching from gasoline to diesel, that does not reduce oil consumption. Battery powered cars will rely on coal to make power to charge the battery, Our cities are built around cars and will not function well with public transportation. Outch.
@walter0bz Here in Quebec we have legalized a car that can go on the roads (exept highways because of it's low speed) that only runs on electicity, and our province porducess 94% of it's electicity from hydro-power. Alternatives CAN work, the problem is people just don't care.
i'm not that worried about cars - its more the total energy needed for the whole of industry.
You might have 94% hydro but if you need to multiply electricity production to replace everything oil does.. nuclear is the only way.(which not everyone is happy with, it has its own problems)
if solar could do it, solar-driven industries would have exponentially grown over the worlds deserts already
e.g. how safe would shipping be if it was all nuclear powered? (nuke sub tech)
@dave19941000 More like entrenched interests and their tools in high office don't want to change the way things are. Follow in money and you will know why politicians say and do the things they do. The US Supreme Court this year stated that there can be no limits to campaign contrabutions. Lord help us now.
Meh. It started out interesting but his predictions on how things will work out are horrible. The transition will be slow. Localization will be slow and done on basis prioritized by economics. Big heavy expensive things like steel production will be first. Small high-value items like smart phones can still be shipped since the shipping cost is small relative to the item's cost.
I clicked over just now to the YouTuber populartechnology to see the lies & myths they are promoting. I am proud to say that these fascist assholes have blocked me from posting comments! Proves that the way the anti-environmentalists & anthropogenic global warming deniers want to "win" arguments is simply by silencing critics & dissent.
@vengencefrom1979 What does one have to do with the other? Once I didnt eat meet for 10 years, someone saw me smoking and drinking coffee, they said " your a vegetarian but you smoke and drink coffee? like it was hypocritical. What does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
@vengencefrom1979 I was responding to the smart ass comment. "people believe oil is infinite while maintaining rapture is imminent." What did it have to do with the price of tea in China? if only smart ass please disregard.
Where the hell have you been pal. Brazil found 100billion barrels, Anwar 40billion, N.Dakota 40billion, off shore 100s of billions, shale oil in Colorado more than Saudi oil. Alberta Canada etc. We have NO SHORTAGES, but if they drill we'll have a glut and prices will go way down, why would they want to do that? A short supply means higher prices as you said. why pump more when you can control supply and get more money for less work and less product ?
@fudgedogbannana Brazils proven oil reserves totaled 12.6 billion barrels last year, according to London-based BP Plc. The pre-salt region located along the Brazilian coast includes the Tupi field, the biggest oil discovery in the Americas since 1976.
@fudgedogbannana I dont want to burn oil for energy, its too dirty, stinky and expensive, its seem so primitive, I know we can do better than that, but I'm not falling for government/ corporate con jobs that outlaw drilling and exploration then claim shortages.
I changed my life to prepare for peak oil and converted my home to a net-zero solar home...I made video showing what I did called, "Preparing for peak oil"...
The same will happen to uranium in about 8 years, Well done on that choice Obama ;-) It is rather interesting to look at a map of where world resourse are.
This will not happen if we ran out of oil, but it will if we ran out of energy.
Nuclear energy is just as efficient and cheap. Take France for example, more than 75% of their energy demand is supplied by their nuclear plants.
Reusable energy sources are not as efficient, not even close, but they work and people will be forced to use less electricity and buy dozens of solar panels to save money.
It could happen if we ran out of oil, is there an alternative to oil right now? No. Is there going to be an alternative to oil in the next 15 years? Doubtful.
We would need to create 10,000 of the biggest nuclear plants to even match the energy we produce today, that doesn't even account for increased demand. That is not going to happen in the next 15 years.
3rd point is correct, but millions of the poor and underclass will die in the process.
Most nuclear plants produce an average of 350 GW, and the average residential monthly use is 920 KW hours. Thus, 350,000,000 / 920 = 380,000 homes. (Not to mention that there are some plants in the US that power over 2 million homes.)
(112,000,000 homes * 920 KW) / 350,000,000 = 294 average nuclear plants needed to power all homes in the US.
The demand for oil is increasing because it's cheap, and when some countries run out, production will not increase as fast as the demand and prices are gonna go sharply up. Therefore, the demand on oil is gonna decrease because it's not going to be cheap anymore.
The world is not going to run out of oil suddenly. Oil is gonna get ridiculously expensive and production is gonna decrease because there will be few countries that have it and it's gonna be used better uses. Maybe air transportation.
@BeboBebopson Actually hydrogen cars are already developed, A few years ago actually. There is even hydrogen fueling stations in California. The the only hydrogen car I know to exist is the Honda clarity. The problem is getting this technology all over the world.
It won't wipe out oil instantly or even in our lifetime, but it will before oil runs out. Gas could then just be used for recreation, while the hydrogen vehicles could be used for everything else.
"The phenomenon called "economies of scope" (a related term is "economies of scale") - meaning the greater efficiency of larger-scale production - has been known for centuries."
"(1) A bigger population implies a bigger market, all else equal. A bigger market promotes bigger manufacturing plants that likely are more efficient than smaller ones, as well as longer production runs and hence lower setup costs per unit of output."
instead, bring more of the existing people into the same market.
problem is, there isn't enough material to go round, rather people who have preferential access to the resources will try and hold onto that advantage
I do agree that Nuclear is the only way to keep civilization going
Nuclear plants will be more difficult to build as oil power gets more expensive.
The argument that market forces will smoothly guide everything is BS
look at the Kondratief Wave theory that places major destructive wars after depressions (following overshoot following technological progress). Thats where we are now, except with each cycle the wars get bigger and the destructive tech get better.
"now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward"
"If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million."
"Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.
"Zooming in by a further power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in state-based conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements rather than being fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent."
@walter0bz "I do agree that Nuclear is the only way to keep civilization going"
In order for an agreement to be valid, wouldn't another party have to affirm the same thing?
We know that other party couldn't logically be me, since I have been saying here instead that energy in general (rather than nuclear in particular) is the Master Resource:
only Nuclear can match the huge boost oil gave us, and we'll need it to minimize collapse whilst oil is running out
renewables are pathetically feeble energy sources compared to oil and nuclear.
VP followers are creating a delusion that renewables will match oil.
Economic prices signals measure that renewables dont match oil, because their tech & suitable locations are more abundant but we dont choose to use them... they can't satisfy our needs as well
@hitssquad - well I agree the modern world is less violent thanks to the fact that modern technology is so destructive, i.e. up until C19th, war between states was viewed like sport to europeans, and it was only the horror of mechanized trench warfare that changed peoples minds.. and only the threat of mutually assured destruction that held peace between the super powers.
When oil runs out and mechanized weapons can no longer be fueled, I expect a return to the middle-ages.
@walter0bz "oil energy [is] providing more food [...]
so when the oil runs out and people are facing lack of food"
If oil were to run "out" -- which is a notion that conflicts with Peak Oil theory, and is therefore a Peak Oil Denialist claim -- why wouldn't people simply use more fission-fuel to make food (or use more coal and/or natural-gas, which few Peak Oilers would claim are peaking as soon as oil, and which even-now are used more than oil to make food)?
I just reject on principle idea of exponential pop growth burning through finite energy stores.
and before you say "population is levelling off in developed countries", exponential increase in resource burn will continue if all 6billion inhabitants develop to American levels.
thorium may be a game changer I admit, but I'll only change my mind on pop control AFTER its developped. Peeps who want a 2kids should have 1, +invest in energ&elec-free infrastructure
@hitssquad - so, does one 'hoard' ones own energy supplies or gamble them on risky alternative research - e.g. - look at fusion, billions spent and nothing to show for it after 50 years.
we continue with oil-infrastructure because of this huge risk. I suspect using fission to synthesize fuels will be more expensive than using hydrocarbons, i haven't looked into it though
it only takes 3 kids per woman to double population every 42 years.
and I suspect its only threat of economic hardship (i.e. locally imposed scarcity) that stops people having the 4+ that they're designed for (in wild it would have been R-strategist)
i agree with malthus basic statement - (his catastrophe only defered) - the power of population is greater than the power of the earth* to provide sustenance
@walter0bz "the power of population is greater than the power of the earth* to provide sustenance"
You already admitted that living-standards rose between 1971 and 2005. So, you're saying (or assuming, or implying) population dropped over that period?
living standards rose BECAUSE OF THE ENERGY IN OIL
whilst oil remains, living standards & population can continue to rise
when production peaks (i.e. now) living standards and/or population peaks
after peak, living standards and/or population declines
when the finite energy store is fully depleted, living standards AND population will be significantly lower than today. Modern KNOWLEDGE may mean both are greater than in 1800, but they wont match current "golden age"
"energy is the master resource" - this is why this one factor, oil, is so important.
Economics is secondary to logic common sense. You CANNOT just extrapolate curves forward without understanding the basic processes involved.
Technology+economics makes incremental improvements to how efficiently we can use available energy, but this has also been multiplied by a massive energy boost from oil - prior, energy = land, but during oil age we could use it as fast as we could drill
@walter0bz ""energy is the master resource" - this is why this one factor, oil, is so important."
Actually, it's the reason oil is irrelevant. This is because oil is -- in terms what society values it for as a resource -- for the most part, not energy. We know that society does not value oil for its energy content, because it pays about the same each for one barrel of oil and kilogram of uranium -- despite the uranium holding over 13,000x the energy of the barrel of oil.
If oil were ever to become critically scarce, why wouldn't oil-production companies simply substitute other fuels to supply the heat that could help produce the oil?
As it is right now, oil -- since it is so cheap -- is being used to produce oil.
What you seem to be suggesting or assuming is that at some possible future time of oil scarcity, it would be impossible for the price of oil to rise. For, without some assumption of an oil-price ceiling, your theories don't work.
Besides discrete-compulsion (slavery), and love, the only thing in this world that has produced anything of value has been price. Unless you are planning on taking over the world and fixing all prices, you aren't going to get the long-term scarcities you theorize about.
Prices produce resources. Prices produce oil. Higher prices --> more production. How could they not?
What you need to do here is give examples from history of price-rises failing to produce long-term abundance.
You need to cite examples of your theory working (accurately predicting trends) on historical data (not just tell us that price-theory is counter-intuitive to you). Here are myriad examples of how to do so:
juliansimon. com/writings/Ultimate_Resource
"L A N D"
The history of land markets doesn't support your theory. This is explained at the link above.
I do think telecommuting is the future. move your mind, there are enough hands all over the planet.
but people drive because they like to - employers want control, people want to live far away from industrial areas where they work, etc. end of car is downgrading peoples quality of life.
I do think of price signals as a "supercomputer" interconnecting our brains, BUT like any computer you have to be careful ask the right questions, and know how to interpret the results.
"when the price of food goes up, people will starve, reducing the demand for food"
The issue with oil powered infrastructure is excessive *momentum*
Biofuels are becoming economical, aren't they? but this is a VERY poor utilization of land for human value.
It is like function-solver getting caught in a local 'minima', the price system can't see the big picture that we need a big reboot. people's day to day purchase signals are based on short-term thinking
@walter0bz, hitssquad is wasting his time debating with you. You know nothing about economics or anything about anything. You throw a few economic terms around like, fundamental and short-term but in reality, you work from 8 to 5, live in a small flat, and you watch your mainstream news a little and from that you think you can come here and solve the world economic problem. So he is wasting his time and intelligence on you because you know nothing.
@walter0bz "The issue with oil powered infrastructure is excessive *momentum*"
It is the very wastefulness we see all around us -- again, in my opinion, the result of people simply minimizing their own perceived costs (if you arbitrarily choose to value "energy" or "oil" more than they are the market does, that isn't their problem) -- that would make the adjustment you predict so easy.
If people were, instead, barely making it -- no vacations, minimal calories, minimal clothes, minimal washing and bathing -- then, yes, I would be concerned about possible scarcity.
But what you are describing not only implies that adjustment would be very easy and would occur smoothly with no need for government intervention, but brings to mind this essay:
ejsd. org/public/journal_article/16
"The notion of a centrally directed social order brings with it an implicit elitism."
If people were, instead, barely making it -- no vacations, minimal calories, minimal clothes, minimal washing and bathing -- then, yes, I would be concerned about possible scarcity.
But what you are describing not only implies that adjustment would be very easy and would occur smoothly with no need for government intervention, but brings to mind this essay:
ejsd. org/public/journal_article/16
"The notion of a centrally directed social order brings with it an implicit elitism."
@walter "so we save some oil by ending private car & mass jet transport"
I didn't say that. I said people have ability to respond to price cues, and people choose to do what they perceive is least-expensive for them.
"you must still factor in"
Not if wastefulness causes abundance. Does it not?
.
This the reason you don't need to control the people you see around you who seem to be acting wastefully. They are each minimizing their own costs. The seeming wastefulness is causing abundance.
@hitssquad - my example, which is absolutely central to the current economic situation where I live, shows that "Price" taken away from "common sense" becomes utterly useless.
What I dont understand is why someone who says "I vote with my wallet that the future has Scarce Houses!!" would then go on to make babies that will suffer that scarcity.
@hitssquad What the original poster failed to mention is that 10 000 nuke plants would use up all the worlds uranium in 10 years and leave us with a steaming pile of radioactive waste
@devonkeim "10 000 nuke plants would use up all the worlds uranium in 10 years"
Please show your math. 10,000 of the largest (~1.6 GWe) nuclear reactor units ( = 16 terawatts = the current total human power use) would actually use up all the world's 40 trillion tonnes of uranium, and 160 trillion tonnes of thorium, in 32.4 billion years -- if operating at 100% efficiency. At a more-realistic 50% efficiency, those 10,000 reactors would use up all the world's fission fuel in 16.2 billion years.
@hitssquad it was the rest of the quotation...but here is a few points "economically recoverable at a price of USD$130/kg, are enough to last for some 80 years at current consumption" from wikipedia with reference. You 40 trillion tonnes is WAY off the mark, is that counting like all the uranium in the world that has a negative EROEI ? 5,404,000 tonnes from world-nuclear (dot) org which is less than 1/7 000 000 of what you said And Thorium? I am surprised you didn't mention breeder reactors ;-)
@hitssquad "To replace the energy the world currently gets from fossil fuels would
require us to build 10,000 of the largest nuclear power plants worldwide. We
do not have the capital to do that nor the uranium to power them for more
than a few years." from a Green Party pdf, I have seen it elsewhere (mentioning a specific number of years) but can't find it at the moment. How can you question my calculations when your estimate is 7 MILLION times the official ammount of uranium?
@devonkeim "your estimate is 7 MILLION times the official ammount of uranium"
There's an "official" amount of uranium? Source?
It's been known to geologists, since at least as far back as 1980, that there are 40 trillion tonnes of uranium in the crust: nuclearinfo. net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution "The following table is from Deffeyes & MacGregor, "World Uranium resources" Scientific American, Vol 242, No 1, January 1980, pp. 66-76."
@hitssquad see my previous comment you ignored, the one referencing world nuclear association, here is the specific url "world-nuclear (dot) org/info/inf75.html" . It doesn't matter how much is in the crust, 99.999% has too shitty of an EROEI for it to make any sense in mining it. You really seem to have only the most basic understanding of energy production.Check out the green party's pdf. it has a lot of info about the drawbacks expanding nuclear power search "previous generation- green party"
Given that the 200 trillion tonnes of fission-fuel in the crust would last 32.4 billion years (fueling all of the world's current 16 TW power draw), limiting ourselves to the top 99.999nth percentile of that would still last us 324,000 years.
We can deduce from the table I linked that mining all of that top percentile would force us to tap into the volcanic deposits. With their abundance of 100-200 ppm, they would return an EROEI of at least 160x, if burned in current thermal-spectrum reactors.
@devonkeim "You 40 trillion tonnes is WAY off the mark, is that counting like all the uranium in the world that has a negative EROEI ? 5,404,000 tonnes from world-nuclear (dot) org which is less than 1/7 000 000 of what you said"
As we can see on the table at the link I posted, to mine all of the most-concentrated 5.4 million tonnes of uranium in the crust, we would be forced to dig up all of the vein deposits (10,000+ ppm), all of the Pegmatites and unconformity deposits (2,000-10,000 ppm),
and some of the fossil placers & sand stones (1,000-2,000 ppm). Even with current low-efficiency mining techniques, and burning that uranium in current thermal-spectrum reactors, at the current efficiencies of about 34%, at the current low burn-up rates, and at the current low breeding-ratios, the worst-case EROEI would still be 1,600x.
However, since there are 80 million tonnes of those deposits vs. only the 3.2 million tonnes we would need from them, the EROEI might not drop far below 3,200x.
@hitssquad why do some people give their own comments a thumbs up every single time?
Are you factoring in mining, refining, transporting the ore, building/maintaining nuke plants, storing nuclear waste + security for everything? theoildrum(dot)com/node/3877
@devonkeim "Are you factoring in mining, refining, transporting the ore, building/maintaining nuke plants, storing nuclear waste + security for everything?"
By far the largest energy cost is in the enrichment stage, which uses on the order of 1% of the energy potential of the fuel (again, in current thermal-spectrum reactors).
.
"theoildrum"
The Oil Drum uses SLS figures, again addressed at the link in this comment.
@devonke physicist B. Cohen proposed that uranium is effectively inexhaustible & could therefore be considered a renewable source of energy
cohen: "We thus conclude that all the world’s energy requirements for the remaining 5×10^9 yr of existence of life on Earth could be provided by breeder reactors without the cost of electricity rising by as much as 1% due to fuel costs. This is consistent with the definition of a “renewable” energy source in the sense in which that term is generally used"
@Zander101084 based on my quoting someone? maybe u should just think of me as an internet errand boy delivering some views on energy, but dumbass? gosh!, thats a bit harsh and too quick to judge, right?
please help me out of this dumbassness, show me the way... enlighten me with your bouts of fanciful intellectualism and feats of brainy power, thank u
@glorp896 by 5x109, I presume you mean 5x10^9, meaning 5 billion years. the earth is only 4.54 I believe. I don't really know what you're talking about.
And to think that uranium is effectively inexhaustible (I don't care who you quoted), obviously hasn't grasped anything from high school physics and is a complete moron. I presume that you think that uranium power (or more appropriately nuclear power) has enough power to get all of humanity through x amount of years? Need I say more.
@Zander101084 i guess u are correcting it, its a wiki quote with no proper scientific notation? its a quote and to know what i'm talking about you can wiki it and click on SEE ALL to see who is commenting to who and about what... u should care who i quoted, perhaps u'd like to see his work? or not, the dumbasses might just like to label people as such without examining their data... i remember hearing about the feasibility of deuterium in breeder reactors in 1980!, how about u? yes, say more
LOL, you'll love the read, it reminds me of some global warming math - broad range estimates, mass generalizations, many variables - thats dated and the source of dumbassness?, but its peer review journal material - if u wish to debunk it with more current data, do so. i can give u this link - feel free to DEdumbass it, i'm just an errand boy, took physics in high school and college but i certainly didn't merit any peer review publication! did you?
@Zander101084 dumbass lack of scientific notation has been removed and replaced... and yes, we do have enough to get us through X amount of years, because X could be anything, its a variable... read the article i sent...
@glorp896 yes, i'm glad you understand that about x.
look, I'm sorry for calling you a dumbass. Maybe I shouldn't be so immature, so I'm sorry. I was just going be first impressions.
It just seems like you're not very informed on the subject. I don't really know anything about it, but from your one sided arguments, you sound more like a conspiracy theorist than someone who actually knows what their talking about.
I was also relating to the caliber of the video as well.
@Zan i suspect alot of people on utube are far more civil and intelligent, not being able to type leads people into terse judgments and name calling, not to mention the anonymous unaccountable nature of things here and your odds based chances of finding PLENTY of dumbasses whose vidiot culture expresses little more than frivolous indulgence, fun times and thinking u can be a comedian on the net... i've been informed many times over - you every read the BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS? 6 min. til!
@Zand whats funny is the conspiracy of nuke not being a renewable resource, cohen has proven it is... its a hilarious yet highly technical peer review assessment of nuke energy in the early 80s long before we started going nuts about it (peak oil, nuke disasters
i actually try to debunk the conspiracy theory stuff simply by obfuscation of MANY competing conspiracies (like they can't all be true or under one rubric - this approach works great with religions as well, collectively self cancelling
@Zander101084 "I don't really know what you're talking about."
The Bernard Cohen quote is taken from this Wikipedia article: en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Uranium_depletion
That Wikipedia article cites this source: "Cohen, Bernard L. (1983-01). "Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source" (PDF). American Journal of Physics 51 (1): 75–76. doi:10.1119/1.13440. Retrieved 2007-08-03."
@glorp896 further more, you're taking everyone on this page seriously. I think that also says a lot about who you are. I came on here to learn about the mechanisms of oil production and its economics. Instead, I got some doodles by some guy, probably living in his mom's basement, talking about hypothetical shit he likes to rant about. I may be a sophomore in high school but my mother has a M.A. in chemical engineering, and my dad, a P.hD. in geology, and I can confidently say, you're a dumbass.
@glorp896 thanks to zander, this should read 5x10^9 years (as best we can do with our limited keyboards), as per more proper scientific notation that didn't translate well during the copy-paste... so it is dumb ass looking, sorry and thank you sir zander... may u successfully make many more scientific corrections ad infinitum - Spock be with you
I'm glad I live in Norway. 98% of all electricity comes from hydroelectricity. If it rains, we get electricity. And more than enough of it as well. We are the worlds second largest natural gas exporter, while we don't use any gas ourselves. We export around 2 mbbl/d and only use 0.2mbbl/d. Even though, petrol prices is at $11/gallon. I do think that even though we have all this good stuff, we export too much of it and we will also be affected by the economic effects of high pries.
sangolt88 1 month ago
@sangolt88 Can we come live with you?
123gwf 2 weeks ago
Resource-Based Economy FTW
mirandansa 2 months ago
Where the synthesis of your argument?
Cienstin 3 months ago
mmmm....not buying the whole argument... i´m not saying that peak oil is not true, but i don´t think your predictions are acurate. you simplyfied things too much, there are A LOT of factors that determine peak oil , and A SHITLOAD of other factors that determine if we are going to run out of cheap energy, you should investigate some more...
shreder89 5 months ago
@shreder89 its not peak oil for the world, just peak oil and higher prices for americans at the end. This is the real problem, because crude is only priced on USD via OPEC and the USD can only be printed from US. and US economic system is based on credit creation for growth via crude oil. if US can not grow because of heavy debt and export dependant. At some point, countries like china, russia will question why should they work to make goods for US for USDs to buy oil from OPEC? continue...
HermandLo 2 months ago
@HermandLo either way...your kids are @#$#ed
HermandLo 2 months ago
@shreder89 instead they would want to price in their currency, or even gold if the USD is losing value. now because US is so dependant on foreign oil and goods, if US can not buy oil with USD on the open market then USDs are worthless because there is no need for china russia japan to hold US debt...thus US will default. then you will see americans try to massively hoard oil and goods with devalue dollars...thus hyperinflation
HermandLo 2 months ago
@shreder89 so because of last decade of credit bubbles, US will have to create more and more USDs via credit to reinflate the system..thus trying to increase demand of crude will also lead to shortages and hyperinflation. this is the dilemma of a credit system based on debt. if US can not grow, and debt is basically means take from tomorrow to use it today, then US will never be able to pay off its debts with no energy.
HermandLo 2 months ago
@shreder89 big problem is the world is stuck with this cancer USDs because it the global currency lifeblood...so does US stop printing to stop world inflation, or keep printing so start up the domestic economy...all based on the value of USD to crude.
HermandLo 2 months ago
@shreder89 im betting the ranch to say since the feds have been pumpng cheap money into system to reinflate every credit crash, they will keep the printing press. that means the world will have to make that choice for US to go away..the question is either slowly thru a managed devalue or a run on the fed, and a massive default of hte system.
HermandLo 2 months ago
Y2K, 2012, Oil Running Out:
all stupid ideas made by excited, uneducated, uninformed, stupid people who went to community collage
Zander101084 7 months ago
end of Oil will be in 2247 A.D.
33k72 8 months ago
Funny, I was just going to say how living on local produce, not global, would be the only way forward, and then you mentioned it yourself. I'm actually look forward to when oil runs out.
CoN0R115 11 months ago
when production reaches its peak it may not go down but stagnate and during this period we ll develop new tehnologies to replace oil so dont disturb people with no relevant evidence.
booze505 1 year ago
@booze505 As soon as production stagnates,(demand exeeds supplie), the market(wall street) will go bananas, and the export market will then collaps as produsers will take ceare of theyr own needs first. (middle-finger salute to the exportmarket). Prises will rise to un-imaginible hights, this will give normal ppl, and all other industri serious problems (sinse were all somewhere between Bill Gates and an average Nigerian on the economic scale). with 0 grouth the makets always collaps.
hwplugburz 11 months ago
No cheap oil = No cheap food. No cheap food = less people.
MrEnergyCzar 1 year ago 28
@MrEnergyCzar I heard OIL turned to DEISEL a lot easier than making GASoline, and uses thousands of gallons of WATER <:)
TheNoobnub 11 months ago
@MrEnergyCzar And with less people don't forget this - say goodbye to mass production runs which make all of your appliances, automobiles and knick-knacks affordable.
Get that garden fork out and be prepared to take up a full-time job as a subsistance farmer - that's going to be the scenario with the end of plentiful cheap oil, coal and gas.
gibbonsand 9 months ago
@MrEnergyCzar sure
Zander101084 7 months ago
Comment removed
Zander101084 7 months ago
@MrEnergyCzar good thinking. I see you've given a lot of thought to this issue
Zander101084 7 months ago
Please note that the 1987 estimate includes arctic region coal while the 2009 article notes that arctic coal has become off limits and is thus, not included.
Sources. "Youtube wont let me post sources"
Just go to the USGS energy products database, there you should go to the coal link. This is the place I started at.
dapple33 1 year ago
OH sorry, It appears I was using old data from 1987. Those estimates were about at 275 billion tons were we would have only exploited about 3% of existing reserves to date. There is new data now coming in for the fist time in almost 20 years. The new data suggests only about 10.5 billion tons or enough for about 40-60 years at current consumption rates.
dapple33 1 year ago
As peak oil fallows its natural progression to depletion, other sources of energy will fill the gap. 70% of petroleum used in the U.S. is used for transportation. Yet the majority of factory energy consumed is electrical, primarily derived from coal in the U.S..(U.S.G.S survey, continental U.S. has enough coal to maintain current rates of consumption for 300 to 400 years.) So, as oil depletes, another source of energy will take its place gradually over the next hundred years. Electric cars....
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33 - the coal will have to do the job of all the oil so it will be burned much faster, so forget calculations "at current rates of consumption". Also factor in asia continuing to modernize.. maybe the USA will need to sell much of its coal to pay off the debt.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz
That is quit true, but I only view coal as a stop gap energy source while we develop the technologies to make renewable energy our primary energy source for running our society. Failing that, and with no real source of energy, our society should be doomed to collapse.
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33 - much oil is wasted, but the part that isn't allows billions of extra people to eat. oil's loss will be a serious problem
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz
Nitrates fertilizers and substitutes for petroleum based chemical compounds can be produce without oil if abundant enough energy is available. The technologies to do this already exist, they just don't get subsidized like the the technologies that support the oil industry and therefore cannot compete in the market place.
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>"can be produce without oil if abundant enough energy is available. "
- Thats the whole point, we used Oil because its the most abundant energy, if other forms were as abundant we wouldn't be going to all the hastle of building offshore drilling rigs.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>"The technologies already exist, they just don't get subsidized & therefore cannot compete in the market place. "
-They do get subsidized - Green incentives, Carbon Tax.
They don't compete as they're not as good.
We already had renewable powered transport (*sailing ships*) and industry (*windmills*). man+bicycle for transport, .. electric trams.
Any country lacking oil has strong incentive to use alternatives
People chose the superior power & versatility of fossil-fuels.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz
There is no comparison, the oil industry gets between 15 to 35 billion a year in subsidies from the US and about 10 billion a year from European nations. The International Energy Agency (IEA) places international subsidies for oil industries at about 312 billion a year.
Obama has pushed green tech subsidies to 300 million or less than 1% compared. So oil get 116&2/3 times the amount of investment from the US government than green energy.
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33 -
I will check these numbers, but in a book i've been reading lately "rising powers shrinking planet" it proposes that past peak oil, the resource will become more State controlled than Free Market: i.e. depends on specific pipelines, arrangements between countries (which army enforces use of specific IOU's for specific oilfields).
So re. subsidies, perhaps this is because the institutions issuing the money (military-state-industrial elite-banking) are so intertwined (money=energy)?
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>"So oil get 116&2/3 times the amount of investment from the US government than green energy. "
- back to 'enforcement of IOUs', global military used to be wind powered, whereas now its oil-powered.
We usually think of money as resource as its what we see on daily basis , but its more of an intermediate variable (incentivizing, calculating heirarchy). Oil is at top of Heirarchy because in real physical terms, it's the most powerful resource.
(otherwise solar-military would rule)
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33 And from what stuff do you suppose to make plastic, fertilizer and medicines? It's all done with oil at the moment, but we don't really have any other resources to do the job.
IngeniusDutchDesign 1 year ago
@IngeniusDutchDesign
Not true, the technologies already exist, they just aren't competitive due to the miss-allocation of government subsidies. We can make plastic form prawn shells and soybeans for crying out loud. And many pharmaceutics companies are already moving away from petro-chemical base formulas to protect them selves from oil price shocks.
You would be surprised to know of all the different sources we can get our chemical compounds from.
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33 That might be true, but we don't have enough agricultural land for completely moving on to those sources of material. For me that means there's one big problem (or opportunity) we have to solve: using less energy and materials or use them in a smarter way.
IngeniusDutchDesign 1 year ago
@dapple33 - the alternatives simply aren't as good, so we voluntarily gave the oil companies all the money.
Spending millions of years of stored solar as fast as you like will always exceed renewables.
People dont want to accept the reduced living conditions and population that renewables require.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz
I think with enough time, research, and investment a wide array of renewable technologies can fill the void left by petro-energy.
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>"I think with enough time, research, and investment a wide array of renewable technologies can fill the void left by petro-energy."
- I dont beleive they can, I think we'd have been using windmills all along - internal combustion engine & dynamo/motor were invented at similar times, and windmills look MUCH simpler to me than offshore drilling rigs. That says to me that oil must be 'more powerful' for us to go to that much effort.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>" We can make plastic form prawn shells and soybeans for crying out loud."
yes, but HOW MUCH. enough plastic, fertilizer etc for 6billion people?
the key point is that oil was accumulating for millions of years. The best analogy is imagine 100 generations of your family had built up huge inheritance by saving and not spending, then you splurge it all in one lifetime.. then your kids wonder why they can't match their parents lifestyle.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz
Relevant point, but to be fair, we aren't producing enough plastics and fertilizer enough for 6 billion people right now. Mostly these products are consumed in developed countries.
In my view, alternative energy technologies ultimately are our only real choice. My favorite pick of these techs is geothermal power. The nuclear core of our planet will continue to produce thermal energy for at least the next billion years. I feel geothermal is an undervalued tech.
dapple33 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>"we aren't producing enough plastics and fertilizer enough for 6 billion people right now. "
- and we certainly wont with renewables either.
Regarding "unfair distribution" idea, if you distribute equally we'd all end up with CHINA's standard of living, not europe or america. (India/africa would be upgraded at USA/europes expense)
global-hectare use per person:USA=10; Europe=3-5;China=2;Africa/India=1. Total Global Hectares / world population = 2. See 'ecological footprint'
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>" feel geothermal is an undervalued tech. "
- Its just "digging a hole and energy comes out", and less easily transported than oil. I don't beleive Geothermal will make much difference. Its a local solution that suits some countries e.g. iceland.
Remember you have to PAY for oil, all countries lacking oil supplies have a strong profit-motive to use alternatives instead of handing over money.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33
>>"The nuclear core of our planet will continue to produce thermal energy for at least the next billion years"
[1]- we already get huge benefit from this: I gather the heat drives motion of the molten core, generating the van alan belt, producing a hospitable planet.
(I wonder if some of these fringe 'free energy' machines are just 'drawing down' the energy that drives earth's magnetic field). I suspect mass exponential use (as we did with oil) would affect the planet?
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dapple33 Love to know where you get your facts from, coal to last for 300 to 400 years? According to a reputable newspaper it is 130 years at max.
afurrypanda 1 year ago
Simple and right to the point! Too bad all the people responding are making it too complicated... They are just scared... accept our fate and fend for yourself! It's not to late to prepare.. And once you accept it you will enjoy the fossil fuel driven life a little more:) Simplify your life and grow your own food.
summershred 1 year ago 2
le géant prospécteur du maroc en l'occurence mr. omar bouzalmat , doté de forces surnaturelles en matière de détection de pétrole à distance , en offhore et onshore , avec rapidité et maitrise des milliers de kms carrés dans qqs heures demeurent la force qui servera au futur pour protéger les baleines de canons d'air stupides dans les mers et oceans - voir son blog - petroleonline.unblog.fr
PETROLEONLINE 1 year ago
ok ok... too much of a conspiracy THEORY... Oil Peak is an issue but all the things he GUESS are gonna happen after it are so false and are not backed by any proof or argument.. stop scarring people like that! Humanity will find ways for alternative sources of energy
arxidamos13 1 year ago
@arxidamos13 -
wrong. Straightforward rational thinking based on the same science that made oil usefull in the firstplace e.g. quantifying amount of work that can be done.
we MIGHT find alternative. but we WILL run out of oil.
In the past, e.g. whale oil - we hadn't figured out all uses.
1850 - 1.5billion people
today - 6.7billion - because oil adds to sunlight growing more food, powering machines to sustain more people.
WW2 = germans/japs seeking oil supplies..
USA already started oil-wars
walter0bz 1 year ago
2:05
I agree we're doomed but I dont agree with his exact reasoning for why the electric truck will be $350 vs oil $400 - "if they want to compete".
The issue will be **Energy Shortage** making ALL activities & alternatives more expensive... not electric trucks charging nearly as much as oil "to compete".
(hydrocarbons -> electricity or hydrocarbons -> fuel.. just micromanages energy)
walter0bz 1 year ago
The world is doomed, no matter what we do. What is left to decide is how fast we destroy it and our selves. So, eat drind and be merry, and it will all crash soon and hard, or plan some intelligent conservation, a moderate life style, and the transition to post peak oil and everything else will be slower and easier to accept. However, 12 billion people on earth in only 50 years without abundant oil and farm land,will just not work, and that is where we are heading.
manderssteve 1 year ago 2
Our life style is the problem, not fuel sources or technology. You can live very comfortably on half the fuel, then the existing supplies will last twice as long. The rest of the world manages that. Or, we can focus on depleting gas even faster, on the theory that if we deplete it faster, everything will turn out just fine.
manderssteve 1 year ago
@manderssteve - yes i'd actually argue wasting the finite resources on non-essentials is far better than using them to feed more babies who are doomed to starve when the resources run out..
if we were really smart we'd be using it to develop renewables, but renewables are only viable in longrun if you can build them *without* using oil power..
walter0bz 1 year ago
If we swithch to natural gas from oil, then natural gas would go way up in price, and we will deplete it much sooner too. It buys a bit of time, but it does not change the story. it is like switching from gasoline to diesel, that does not reduce oil consumption. Battery powered cars will rely on coal to make power to charge the battery, Our cities are built around cars and will not function well with public transportation. Outch.
manderssteve 1 year ago
@manderssteve - so many people mistakenly refer to Hydrogen Fuel cells as an "Alternative Energy Source" - BS, it's a type of "rechargeable battery"
there isn't enough copper to make enough motors for battery powered cars anyway (apparently)
cycling + electric trains is the future of transport, and anyone car dependant basically has to evolve out of it fast or perish.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz Here in Quebec we have legalized a car that can go on the roads (exept highways because of it's low speed) that only runs on electicity, and our province porducess 94% of it's electicity from hydro-power. Alternatives CAN work, the problem is people just don't care.
dave19941000 1 year ago
@dave19941000 -
i'm not that worried about cars - its more the total energy needed for the whole of industry.
You might have 94% hydro but if you need to multiply electricity production to replace everything oil does.. nuclear is the only way.(which not everyone is happy with, it has its own problems)
if solar could do it, solar-driven industries would have exponentially grown over the worlds deserts already
e.g. how safe would shipping be if it was all nuclear powered? (nuke sub tech)
walter0bz 1 year ago
@dave19941000 More like entrenched interests and their tools in high office don't want to change the way things are. Follow in money and you will know why politicians say and do the things they do. The US Supreme Court this year stated that there can be no limits to campaign contrabutions. Lord help us now.
rdsanchez1966 1 year ago
With natural gas so plentiful and inexpensive, Mr. Cramer and Mr. Pickens
also see it as the solution to the age-old problem of weaning the U.S. off
its dependence on foreign oil. Moreover, say the two, if the U.S. were to
ramp up drilling, building of pipelines and conversion of power plants and
vehicles to natural gas, it would be a major generator of the jobs so
desperately needed at this time.
Willyboy933 1 year ago
Energy experts on the Potential Gas Committee declared in
June, 2009, that recoverable U.S. gas reserves stood at 2,000 trillion
cubic feet in 2008.
A more recent report (in February) by J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. concludes
North America has 8,000 trillion cubic feet, four times more than the
committee’s calculation. If the committee’s estimate meant U.S. needs were
met for a century, then J.P Morgan’s estimate implies U.S. needs are
covered for several centuries.
Willyboy933 1 year ago
The new chestnut is that innovations in extraction technologies, notably
hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, have made many more deposits
of natural gas accessible. Along with ongoing expansion in the
transportation infrastructure for liquefied natural gas, this has resulted
in a much more abundant and cheaper fuel source.
Indeed, estimates of U.S. gas reserves have skyrocketed because of the new
drilling methods.
Willyboy933 1 year ago
What do high-profile investors Jim Cramer, George Soros and T. Boone
Pickens have in common? They are all bullish on natural gas playing a
larger role in meeting energy needs over the coming years. Solar and wind
power may eventually emerge as the face of renewable energy but natural gas
can be the bridge until these alternative energy sources are fully viable.
Why natural gas now? The old chestnut is that it is cleaner than the other
fossil fuels.
Willyboy933 1 year ago
Meh. It started out interesting but his predictions on how things will work out are horrible. The transition will be slow. Localization will be slow and done on basis prioritized by economics. Big heavy expensive things like steel production will be first. Small high-value items like smart phones can still be shipped since the shipping cost is small relative to the item's cost.
speculawyer 1 year ago
you mean go back to the way people used to live before technology came it sounds stupid but true most African are all ready doing that.
sharafudin2 1 year ago
I clicked over just now to the YouTuber populartechnology to see the lies & myths they are promoting. I am proud to say that these fascist assholes have blocked me from posting comments! Proves that the way the anti-environmentalists & anthropogenic global warming deniers want to "win" arguments is simply by silencing critics & dissent.
duck24x 1 year ago
@duck24x lol
TheKickerboy99 1 year ago
Great video!
duck24x 1 year ago
thanks for ur childish vidoe as if ur talking to 10 year olds get a life u sad man.GOOD BOY I HOPE MOMMY LOVED YOU MORAN.
cassyfromgarry 1 year ago
some people believe that oil is infinite in supply while maintaining that the rapture is imminent. how queer.
vengencefrom1979 1 year ago
@vengencefrom1979 What does one have to do with the other? Once I didnt eat meet for 10 years, someone saw me smoking and drinking coffee, they said " your a vegetarian but you smoke and drink coffee? like it was hypocritical. What does it have to do with the price of tea in China?
fudgedogbannana 1 year ago
@fudgedogbannana i'm not clear as to which comment u r responding to. was meant as smart ass, the other factual.
vengencefrom1979 1 year ago
@vengencefrom1979 I was responding to the smart ass comment. "people believe oil is infinite while maintaining rapture is imminent." What did it have to do with the price of tea in China? if only smart ass please disregard.
fudgedogbannana 1 year ago
Where the hell have you been pal. Brazil found 100billion barrels, Anwar 40billion, N.Dakota 40billion, off shore 100s of billions, shale oil in Colorado more than Saudi oil. Alberta Canada etc. We have NO SHORTAGES, but if they drill we'll have a glut and prices will go way down, why would they want to do that? A short supply means higher prices as you said. why pump more when you can control supply and get more money for less work and less product ?
fudgedogbannana 1 year ago
@fudgedogbannana Brazils proven oil reserves totaled 12.6 billion barrels last year, according to London-based BP Plc. The pre-salt region located along the Brazilian coast includes the Tupi field, the biggest oil discovery in the Americas since 1976.
sep 29, 2009, bloomberg
vengencefrom1979 1 year ago
@vengencefrom1979 Brazil up grade it estimates by 2500% , Off shore
fudgedogbannana 1 year ago
@fudgedogbannana I dont want to burn oil for energy, its too dirty, stinky and expensive, its seem so primitive, I know we can do better than that, but I'm not falling for government/ corporate con jobs that outlaw drilling and exploration then claim shortages.
fudgedogbannana 1 year ago
I changed my life to prepare for peak oil and converted my home to a net-zero solar home...I made video showing what I did called, "Preparing for peak oil"...
MrEnergyCzar 1 year ago
5 star video btw.
BrutusCass 1 year ago
The same will happen to uranium in about 8 years, Well done on that choice Obama ;-) It is rather interesting to look at a map of where world resourse are.
BrutusCass 1 year ago
Fusion power ! , google it
Xmuxxue 1 year ago
This will not happen if we ran out of oil, but it will if we ran out of energy.
Nuclear energy is just as efficient and cheap. Take France for example, more than 75% of their energy demand is supplied by their nuclear plants.
Reusable energy sources are not as efficient, not even close, but they work and people will be forced to use less electricity and buy dozens of solar panels to save money.
s05s050 1 year ago
It could happen if we ran out of oil, is there an alternative to oil right now? No. Is there going to be an alternative to oil in the next 15 years? Doubtful.
We would need to create 10,000 of the biggest nuclear plants to even match the energy we produce today, that doesn't even account for increased demand. That is not going to happen in the next 15 years.
3rd point is correct, but millions of the poor and underclass will die in the process.
BeboBebopson 1 year ago 6
Most nuclear plants produce an average of 350 GW, and the average residential monthly use is 920 KW hours. Thus, 350,000,000 / 920 = 380,000 homes. (Not to mention that there are some plants in the US that power over 2 million homes.)
(112,000,000 homes * 920 KW) / 350,000,000 = 294 average nuclear plants needed to power all homes in the US.
s05s050 1 year ago
The demand for oil is increasing because it's cheap, and when some countries run out, production will not increase as fast as the demand and prices are gonna go sharply up. Therefore, the demand on oil is gonna decrease because it's not going to be cheap anymore.
The world is not going to run out of oil suddenly. Oil is gonna get ridiculously expensive and production is gonna decrease because there will be few countries that have it and it's gonna be used better uses. Maybe air transportation.
s05s050 1 year ago
@BeboBebopson Actually hydrogen cars are already developed, A few years ago actually. There is even hydrogen fueling stations in California. The the only hydrogen car I know to exist is the Honda clarity. The problem is getting this technology all over the world.
It won't wipe out oil instantly or even in our lifetime, but it will before oil runs out. Gas could then just be used for recreation, while the hydrogen vehicles could be used for everything else.
b4igetu 1 year ago
@BeboBebopson "We would need to create 10,000 of the biggest nuclear plants to even match the energy we produce today"
Would that be hard to do? Isn't everything cheaper to produce in quantity?
juliansimon. com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR27. txt
"The phenomenon called "economies of scope" (a related term is "economies of scale") - meaning the greater efficiency of larger-scale production - has been known for centuries."
hitssquad 1 year ago 6
"(1) A bigger population implies a bigger market, all else equal. A bigger market promotes bigger manufacturing plants that likely are more efficient than smaller ones, as well as longer production runs and hence lower setup costs per unit of output."
hitssquad 1 year ago 3
@hitssquad -
there's no need to increase the number of people.
instead, bring more of the existing people into the same market.
problem is, there isn't enough material to go round, rather people who have preferential access to the resources will try and hold onto that advantage
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad -
I do agree that Nuclear is the only way to keep civilization going
Nuclear plants will be more difficult to build as oil power gets more expensive.
The argument that market forces will smoothly guide everything is BS
look at the Kondratief Wave theory that places major destructive wars after depressions (following overshoot following technological progress). Thats where we are now, except with each cycle the wars get bigger and the destructive tech get better.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "the wars get bigger"
Then, where are the bodies?
google. com/search?q=steven+pinker+violence+cat-burning
"now that social scientists have started to count bodies in different historical periods, they have discovered that the romantic theory gets it backward"
"If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million."
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
"Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
"Zooming in by a further power of ten exposes yet another reduction. After the cold war, every part of the world saw a steep drop-off in state-based conflicts, and those that do occur are more likely to end in negotiated settlements rather than being fought to the bitter end. Meanwhile, according to political scientist Barbara Harff, between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent."
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@walter0bz "I do agree that Nuclear is the only way to keep civilization going"
In order for an agreement to be valid, wouldn't another party have to affirm the same thing?
We know that other party couldn't logically be me, since I have been saying here instead that energy in general (rather than nuclear in particular) is the Master Resource:
masterresource. org/2009/07/energy-as-the-master-resource-where-left-right-and-center-agree
Beyond that, institutions and human-resources are needed.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad
only Nuclear can match the huge boost oil gave us, and we'll need it to minimize collapse whilst oil is running out
renewables are pathetically feeble energy sources compared to oil and nuclear.
VP followers are creating a delusion that renewables will match oil.
Economic prices signals measure that renewables dont match oil, because their tech & suitable locations are more abundant but we dont choose to use them... they can't satisfy our needs as well
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - well I agree the modern world is less violent thanks to the fact that modern technology is so destructive, i.e. up until C19th, war between states was viewed like sport to europeans, and it was only the horror of mechanized trench warfare that changed peoples minds.. and only the threat of mutually assured destruction that held peace between the super powers.
When oil runs out and mechanized weapons can no longer be fueled, I expect a return to the middle-ages.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - if the relative number killed off has reduced again it is due to oil energy providing more food and hence less war.
so when the oil runs out and people are facing lack of food they'll go back into killing mode instead of waiting to starve peacefully
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "oil energy [is] providing more food [...]
so when the oil runs out and people are facing lack of food"
If oil were to run "out" -- which is a notion that conflicts with Peak Oil theory, and is therefore a Peak Oil Denialist claim -- why wouldn't people simply use more fission-fuel to make food (or use more coal and/or natural-gas, which few Peak Oilers would claim are peaking as soon as oil, and which even-now are used more than oil to make food)?
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad ok, ok peak energy not peak oil. finite fuels dug up from the ground dominate. (coal, gas, and even uranium are similar)
from a local perspective, we dont have the fission plants in the UK
fission plants take a long time to build you can't just suddenly ramp up.
There is massive momentum in the oil-based infrastructure.
the madness of biofuels illustrates this - they're very poor utilization of land, but becoming economical because they can re-use oil infrastructure.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "finite fuels dug up from the ground dominate. (coal, gas, and even uranium are similar)"
In terms of a constant 16-terawatt-thermal global burn-rate, how many years purely-each are there of over-unity:
1. coal?
2. natural gas?
3. fission-fuels (uranium and thorium)?
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad - i dont know for sure..
I just reject on principle idea of exponential pop growth burning through finite energy stores.
and before you say "population is levelling off in developed countries", exponential increase in resource burn will continue if all 6billion inhabitants develop to American levels.
thorium may be a game changer I admit, but I'll only change my mind on pop control AFTER its developped. Peeps who want a 2kids should have 1, +invest in energ&elec-free infrastructure
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - so, does one 'hoard' ones own energy supplies or gamble them on risky alternative research - e.g. - look at fusion, billions spent and nothing to show for it after 50 years.
we continue with oil-infrastructure because of this huge risk. I suspect using fission to synthesize fuels will be more expensive than using hydrocarbons, i haven't looked into it though
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad -
it only takes 3 kids per woman to double population every 42 years.
and I suspect its only threat of economic hardship (i.e. locally imposed scarcity) that stops people having the 4+ that they're designed for (in wild it would have been R-strategist)
i agree with malthus basic statement - (his catastrophe only defered) - the power of population is greater than the power of the earth* to provide sustenance
(*earth or human ingenuity)
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "the power of population is greater than the power of the earth* to provide sustenance"
You already admitted that living-standards rose between 1971 and 2005. So, you're saying (or assuming, or implying) population dropped over that period?
hitssquad 1 year ago
@hitssquad -
living standards rose BECAUSE OF THE ENERGY IN OIL
whilst oil remains, living standards & population can continue to rise
when production peaks (i.e. now) living standards and/or population peaks
after peak, living standards and/or population declines
when the finite energy store is fully depleted, living standards AND population will be significantly lower than today. Modern KNOWLEDGE may mean both are greater than in 1800, but they wont match current "golden age"
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad -
"energy is the master resource" - this is why this one factor, oil, is so important.
Economics is secondary to logic common sense. You CANNOT just extrapolate curves forward without understanding the basic processes involved.
Technology+economics makes incremental improvements to how efficiently we can use available energy, but this has also been multiplied by a massive energy boost from oil - prior, energy = land, but during oil age we could use it as fast as we could drill
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz ""energy is the master resource" - this is why this one factor, oil, is so important."
Actually, it's the reason oil is irrelevant. This is because oil is -- in terms what society values it for as a resource -- for the most part, not energy. We know that society does not value oil for its energy content, because it pays about the same each for one barrel of oil and kilogram of uranium -- despite the uranium holding over 13,000x the energy of the barrel of oil.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@walter0bz
If oil were ever to become critically scarce, why wouldn't oil-production companies simply substitute other fuels to supply the heat that could help produce the oil?
As it is right now, oil -- since it is so cheap -- is being used to produce oil.
What you seem to be suggesting or assuming is that at some possible future time of oil scarcity, it would be impossible for the price of oil to rise. For, without some assumption of an oil-price ceiling, your theories don't work.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@walter0bz
Besides discrete-compulsion (slavery), and love, the only thing in this world that has produced anything of value has been price. Unless you are planning on taking over the world and fixing all prices, you aren't going to get the long-term scarcities you theorize about.
Prices produce resources. Prices produce oil. Higher prices --> more production. How could they not?
What you need to do here is give examples from history of price-rises failing to produce long-term abundance.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad
The recent property bubble should show just how foolish it is to blindly follow price without connecting FUNDEMENTALS. and common sense.
price quantifies opinions, sure, but herd consensus can go down the wrong route.
Rising House Prices = SCARCITY of houses. Overpopulation.
But here in England the public wants this, because they made leveraged bets on it.
They thought "if my house goes up, i'm rich!! i'll buy 2!!"
walter0bz 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@hitssquad
"What you need to do here is give examples from history of price-rises failing to produce long-term abundance."
L A N D
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad -
Even people versed in economics jargon talk about objects with *inelastic supply*
higher land prices do not produce more land.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - thats because, the oil is logistically far superior to uranium.
I can't carry uranium around with me in a private transport.
we can't use uranium to fly
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "common sense"
You need to cite examples of your theory working (accurately predicting trends) on historical data (not just tell us that price-theory is counter-intuitive to you). Here are myriad examples of how to do so:
juliansimon. com/writings/Ultimate_Resource
"L A N D"
The history of land markets doesn't support your theory. This is explained at the link above.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad - I have given counter example.
House Prices are going up, UK does not have abundance of houses, due overcrowding.
Quite rightly, planning laws keep green-belts & preserve agri-land.
political factor: **majority** already steaked livelyhood on future rising prices by taking out loans against houses, expecting rise to pay off.
Government appeases the majority by fudging the monetary system itself to keep prices going up.
For Market Forces to work, the money itself must be stable.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - I have given counter example.
House Prices are going up, UK does not have abundance of houses, due overcrowding.
Quite rightly, planning laws keep green-belts & preserve agri-land.
political factor: **majority** already steaked livelyhood on future rising prices by taking out loans against houses, expecting rise to pay off.
Government appeases the majority by fudging the monetary system itself to keep prices going up.
For Market Forces to work, the money itself must be stable.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "we can't use uranium to fly"
Are you saying, if the price of flying were higher:
1. people wouldn't fly less?
2. flying wouldn't be more-restricted to those on more-urgent errands?
3. planes wouldn't be lighter?
4. planes wouldn't be more fuel-efficient?
5. ticket-prices wouldn't be more-closely tied to mass?
6. people wouldn't fly with less baggage?
7. baggage and cargo wouldn't more-often ravel by ship?
8. people wouldn't more-often travel by ship, or simply telecommute?
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad -
I do think telecommuting is the future. move your mind, there are enough hands all over the planet.
but people drive because they like to - employers want control, people want to live far away from industrial areas where they work, etc. end of car is downgrading peoples quality of life.
I do think of price signals as a "supercomputer" interconnecting our brains, BUT like any computer you have to be careful ask the right questions, and know how to interpret the results.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "I do think telecommuting is the future"
I never said telecommuting was the future. I said people have the ability to respond to price movements.
Please stop projecting your technology fixation.
"but people drive because they like to [...] people want to live far away"
And your theories require that people not be responding to price cues when they make such choices.
.
What if your theories were wrong, and instead people were doing simply what was least expensive for them?
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad
>>"technology fixation"
well you're the one who thinks its ok for humans to breed in a way that makes them dependant on Oil, Nuclear, etc..
>>"were doing simply what was least expensive for them?"
They are raising quality of life, using Oil.
When oil is "More expensive", quality of life will drop.
Price just arbitrates between people & guides resource allocation (better than central planning)
But, it absolutely does NOT *create* resources.
You have the exact opposite delusion to VP
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad
>>"people have the ability to respond to price movements"
price movements do sometimes demand wars.
dealing drugs is very profitable.
Price must be combined with common sense.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "we can't use uranium to fly"
Are you saying, if people flew less, the entire global-economy would collapse (with accompanying famine, disease, and early-death)? Please explain.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@hitssquad -
I was just about to reply,
"when the price of food goes up, people will starve, reducing the demand for food"
The issue with oil powered infrastructure is excessive *momentum*
Biofuels are becoming economical, aren't they? but this is a VERY poor utilization of land for human value.
It is like function-solver getting caught in a local 'minima', the price system can't see the big picture that we need a big reboot. people's day to day purchase signals are based on short-term thinking
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz, hitssquad is wasting his time debating with you. You know nothing about economics or anything about anything. You throw a few economic terms around like, fundamental and short-term but in reality, you work from 8 to 5, live in a small flat, and you watch your mainstream news a little and from that you think you can come here and solve the world economic problem. So he is wasting his time and intelligence on you because you know nothing.
moniequa 1 year ago 2
@moniequa -
no need to be so condascending.
Please point out any flaws in my arguments.
, and i'm always open to new ideas & knowledge, please do share your superior wisdom!
my thinking does not come from mainstream, news, it comes from my education & extrapolation of whats going on around me.
i am well aware that mainstream news has bias.
Economics is secondary to science which deals in physical reality.
We have already seen how economic signals can be perverted & misinterpreted.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@moniequa - Please do not make assumptions or judgements about me, I'm quite confident in my place in the world thank you.
Please stick to the arguments I present.
Hitsquads claims we dont value oil for energy because of uranium price.
I figured out thats because oil's energy is in a more usefull form, i.e. not toxic, requiring lighter apparatus to harness.
Hitsquad had more *knowledge* but interpretted it badly. My reasoning is superior.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - so we save some oil by ending private car & mass jet transport
you must still factor in increasing demand from LEDC's modernizing.
are there enough resources for china & india to reach USA lifestyle?
walter0bz 1 year ago
@walter0bz "The issue with oil powered infrastructure is excessive *momentum*"
It is the very wastefulness we see all around us -- again, in my opinion, the result of people simply minimizing their own perceived costs (if you arbitrarily choose to value "energy" or "oil" more than they are the market does, that isn't their problem) -- that would make the adjustment you predict so easy.
The more wastefulness, the easier the adjustment.
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
@walter0bz
If people were, instead, barely making it -- no vacations, minimal calories, minimal clothes, minimal washing and bathing -- then, yes, I would be concerned about possible scarcity.
But what you are describing not only implies that adjustment would be very easy and would occur smoothly with no need for government intervention, but brings to mind this essay:
ejsd. org/public/journal_article/16
"The notion of a centrally directed social order brings with it an implicit elitism."
hitssquad 1 year ago 2
If people were, instead, barely making it -- no vacations, minimal calories, minimal clothes, minimal washing and bathing -- then, yes, I would be concerned about possible scarcity.
But what you are describing not only implies that adjustment would be very easy and would occur smoothly with no need for government intervention, but brings to mind this essay:
ejsd. org/public/journal_article/16
"The notion of a centrally directed social order brings with it an implicit elitism."
hitssquad 1 year ago
@walter "so we save some oil by ending private car & mass jet transport"
I didn't say that. I said people have ability to respond to price cues, and people choose to do what they perceive is least-expensive for them.
"you must still factor in"
Not if wastefulness causes abundance. Does it not?
.
This the reason you don't need to control the people you see around you who seem to be acting wastefully. They are each minimizing their own costs. The seeming wastefulness is causing abundance.
hitssquad 1 year ago
@hitssquad -
then why the iraq war...
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad - my example, which is absolutely central to the current economic situation where I live, shows that "Price" taken away from "common sense" becomes utterly useless.
What I dont understand is why someone who says "I vote with my wallet that the future has Scarce Houses!!" would then go on to make babies that will suffer that scarcity.
walter0bz 1 year ago
@hitssquad What the original poster failed to mention is that 10 000 nuke plants would use up all the worlds uranium in 10 years and leave us with a steaming pile of radioactive waste
devonkeim 8 months ago
@devonkeim "10 000 nuke plants would use up all the worlds uranium in 10 years"
Please show your math. 10,000 of the largest (~1.6 GWe) nuclear reactor units ( = 16 terawatts = the current total human power use) would actually use up all the world's 40 trillion tonnes of uranium, and 160 trillion tonnes of thorium, in 32.4 billion years -- if operating at 100% efficiency. At a more-realistic 50% efficiency, those 10,000 reactors would use up all the world's fission fuel in 16.2 billion years.
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
@hitssquad it was the rest of the quotation...but here is a few points "economically recoverable at a price of USD$130/kg, are enough to last for some 80 years at current consumption" from wikipedia with reference. You 40 trillion tonnes is WAY off the mark, is that counting like all the uranium in the world that has a negative EROEI ? 5,404,000 tonnes from world-nuclear (dot) org which is less than 1/7 000 000 of what you said And Thorium? I am surprised you didn't mention breeder reactors ;-)
devonkeim 8 months ago
@devonkeim "it was the rest of the quotation"
What does that mean? What are you referring to? What was "the rest" of what "quotation"?
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
@hitssquad "To replace the energy the world currently gets from fossil fuels would
require us to build 10,000 of the largest nuclear power plants worldwide. We
do not have the capital to do that nor the uranium to power them for more
than a few years." from a Green Party pdf, I have seen it elsewhere (mentioning a specific number of years) but can't find it at the moment. How can you question my calculations when your estimate is 7 MILLION times the official ammount of uranium?
devonkeim 8 months ago
Comment removed
hitssquad 8 months ago
@devonkeim "your estimate is 7 MILLION times the official ammount of uranium"
There's an "official" amount of uranium? Source?
It's been known to geologists, since at least as far back as 1980, that there are 40 trillion tonnes of uranium in the crust: nuclearinfo. net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution "The following table is from Deffeyes & MacGregor, "World Uranium resources" Scientific American, Vol 242, No 1, January 1980, pp. 66-76."
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
@hitssquad see my previous comment you ignored, the one referencing world nuclear association, here is the specific url "world-nuclear (dot) org/info/inf75.html" . It doesn't matter how much is in the crust, 99.999% has too shitty of an EROEI for it to make any sense in mining it. You really seem to have only the most basic understanding of energy production.Check out the green party's pdf. it has a lot of info about the drawbacks expanding nuclear power search "previous generation- green party"
devonkeim 8 months ago
@devonkeim "It doesn't matter how much is in the crust, 99.999% has too [poor] of an EROEI for it to make any sense in mining it."
What lower-threshold EROEI ratio would you consider economically sufficient?
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
Given that the 200 trillion tonnes of fission-fuel in the crust would last 32.4 billion years (fueling all of the world's current 16 TW power draw), limiting ourselves to the top 99.999nth percentile of that would still last us 324,000 years.
We can deduce from the table I linked that mining all of that top percentile would force us to tap into the volcanic deposits. With their abundance of 100-200 ppm, they would return an EROEI of at least 160x, if burned in current thermal-spectrum reactors.
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
@hitssquad lol you took the off the the top of my head percentile and calculated it ;) You are sooo precious! Have fun in your nuclear paradise!
devonkeim 8 months ago
@devonkeim "You 40 trillion tonnes is WAY off the mark, is that counting like all the uranium in the world that has a negative EROEI ? 5,404,000 tonnes from world-nuclear (dot) org which is less than 1/7 000 000 of what you said"
As we can see on the table at the link I posted, to mine all of the most-concentrated 5.4 million tonnes of uranium in the crust, we would be forced to dig up all of the vein deposits (10,000+ ppm), all of the Pegmatites and unconformity deposits (2,000-10,000 ppm),
hitssquad 8 months ago 5
and some of the fossil placers & sand stones (1,000-2,000 ppm). Even with current low-efficiency mining techniques, and burning that uranium in current thermal-spectrum reactors, at the current efficiencies of about 34%, at the current low burn-up rates, and at the current low breeding-ratios, the worst-case EROEI would still be 1,600x.
However, since there are 80 million tonnes of those deposits vs. only the 3.2 million tonnes we would need from them, the EROEI might not drop far below 3,200x.
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
@devonkeim Is an EROEI of 3,200x therefore the absolute-minimum you are willing to accept as physically feasible?
hitssquad 8 months ago 3
This has been flagged as spam show
@hitssquad why do some people give their own comments a thumbs up every single time?
Are you factoring in mining, refining, transporting the ore, building/maintaining nuke plants, storing nuclear waste + security for everything? theoildrum(dot)com/node/3877
devonkeim 8 months ago
@devonkeim "Are you factoring in mining, refining, transporting the ore, building/maintaining nuke plants, storing nuclear waste + security for everything?"
Yes. See: nuclearinfo. net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeEnergyLifecycleOfNuclear_Power
By far the largest energy cost is in the enrichment stage, which uses on the order of 1% of the energy potential of the fuel (again, in current thermal-spectrum reactors).
.
"theoildrum"
The Oil Drum uses SLS figures, again addressed at the link in this comment.
hitssquad 8 months ago 2
This has been flagged as spam show
@devonke physicist B. Cohen proposed that uranium is effectively inexhaustible & could therefore be considered a renewable source of energy
cohen: "We thus conclude that all the world’s energy requirements for the remaining 5×10^9 yr of existence of life on Earth could be provided by breeder reactors without the cost of electricity rising by as much as 1% due to fuel costs. This is consistent with the definition of a “renewable” energy source in the sense in which that term is generally used"
glorp896 7 months ago
Comment removed
glorp896 8 months ago 2
@glorp896 you're a dumbass
Zander101084 7 months ago
@Zander101084 based on my quoting someone? maybe u should just think of me as an internet errand boy delivering some views on energy, but dumbass? gosh!, thats a bit harsh and too quick to judge, right?
please help me out of this dumbassness, show me the way... enlighten me with your bouts of fanciful intellectualism and feats of brainy power, thank u
glorp896 7 months ago
@glorp896 by 5x109, I presume you mean 5x10^9, meaning 5 billion years. the earth is only 4.54 I believe. I don't really know what you're talking about.
And to think that uranium is effectively inexhaustible (I don't care who you quoted), obviously hasn't grasped anything from high school physics and is a complete moron. I presume that you think that uranium power (or more appropriately nuclear power) has enough power to get all of humanity through x amount of years? Need I say more.
Zander101084 7 months ago
@Zander101084 i guess u are correcting it, its a wiki quote with no proper scientific notation? its a quote and to know what i'm talking about you can wiki it and click on SEE ALL to see who is commenting to who and about what... u should care who i quoted, perhaps u'd like to see his work? or not, the dumbasses might just like to label people as such without examining their data... i remember hearing about the feasibility of deuterium in breeder reactors in 1980!, how about u? yes, say more
glorp896 7 months ago
Am. J. Phys. 51(1), Jan. 1983
LOL, you'll love the read, it reminds me of some global warming math - broad range estimates, mass generalizations, many variables - thats dated and the source of dumbassness?, but its peer review journal material - if u wish to debunk it with more current data, do so. i can give u this link - feel free to DEdumbass it, i'm just an errand boy, took physics in high school and college but i certainly didn't merit any peer review publication! did you?
glorp896 7 months ago
@Zander101084 dumbass lack of scientific notation has been removed and replaced... and yes, we do have enough to get us through X amount of years, because X could be anything, its a variable... read the article i sent...
glorp896 7 months ago
@glorp896 yes, i'm glad you understand that about x.
look, I'm sorry for calling you a dumbass. Maybe I shouldn't be so immature, so I'm sorry. I was just going be first impressions.
It just seems like you're not very informed on the subject. I don't really know anything about it, but from your one sided arguments, you sound more like a conspiracy theorist than someone who actually knows what their talking about.
I was also relating to the caliber of the video as well.
Zander101084 7 months ago
@Zan i suspect alot of people on utube are far more civil and intelligent, not being able to type leads people into terse judgments and name calling, not to mention the anonymous unaccountable nature of things here and your odds based chances of finding PLENTY of dumbasses whose vidiot culture expresses little more than frivolous indulgence, fun times and thinking u can be a comedian on the net... i've been informed many times over - you every read the BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS? 6 min. til!
glorp896 7 months ago
@Zand whats funny is the conspiracy of nuke not being a renewable resource, cohen has proven it is... its a hilarious yet highly technical peer review assessment of nuke energy in the early 80s long before we started going nuts about it (peak oil, nuke disasters
i actually try to debunk the conspiracy theory stuff simply by obfuscation of MANY competing conspiracies (like they can't all be true or under one rubric - this approach works great with religions as well, collectively self cancelling
glorp896 7 months ago
@Zander101084 "I don't really know what you're talking about."
The Bernard Cohen quote is taken from this Wikipedia article: en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Uranium_depletion
That Wikipedia article cites this source: "Cohen, Bernard L. (1983-01). "Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source" (PDF). American Journal of Physics 51 (1): 75–76. doi:10.1119/1.13440. Retrieved 2007-08-03."
hitssquad 7 months ago
@hitssquad good for you. I take back everything I said! :)
Zander101084 7 months ago
@glorp896 further more, you're taking everyone on this page seriously. I think that also says a lot about who you are. I came on here to learn about the mechanisms of oil production and its economics. Instead, I got some doodles by some guy, probably living in his mom's basement, talking about hypothetical shit he likes to rant about. I may be a sophomore in high school but my mother has a M.A. in chemical engineering, and my dad, a P.hD. in geology, and I can confidently say, you're a dumbass.
Zander101084 7 months ago
@glorp896 thanks to zander, this should read 5x10^9 years (as best we can do with our limited keyboards), as per more proper scientific notation that didn't translate well during the copy-paste... so it is dumb ass looking, sorry and thank you sir zander... may u successfully make many more scientific corrections ad infinitum - Spock be with you
glorp896 7 months ago