Peak Oil - How big is the Risk?

[Standuble]

3:05 - I bet if Peak Oil heats up old Richard Branson will just retire away on his private island, do you think he would accept any refugees?

[DanFrederiksen]

after the imminent peak oil crash there will no longer be gasoline cars. that's how dramatic a situation we are facing. and while that might sound good the problem is that because we are not prepared, the effect on the world economy can be so severe that we can hardly afford to electrify the cars as well as similar transitions on other parts of our energy use.

[DanFrederiksen]

given the ignorance and obtuseness that still dominate politicians and car makers of the world, it seems a given that global financial disaster is imminent. oil is at 113/135$ now and it will rapidly continue to rise until the economy snaps again. like a tsunami each wave will hit harder and unlike a tsunami it will never end this time. each hit will get worse and since we are not prepared it will be a plane crash. first break will be within the year and the disaster horizon will be ~4 years

[DanFrederiksen]

way too lame. it has to be made absolutely clear that it is certain that oil supply will wither away forever and that if we remain dependent it could be catastrophic for the world economy on a scale that can make even the great depression look like a picnic. now it's 2011 and given the carmakers responsetime of at least 4 years per car model I think we are frankly too late to avert disaster now. if we act strongly right now we can only hope to soften the blow, not avert it. any further delay..

[MrEnergyCzar]

Most oil producing countries are past their oil production peaks and its only a matter of time until the world peaks in oil production....

[KilonBerlin]

@MrEnergyCzar But some other Countrys are increasing their production or will begin to produce oil (Caspian Sea, Africa, Brazil and deep offshore worldwide), and the OPEC still got many potential. Especially the Iraq could produce much more, there are only 2000 old oil wells working in the WHOLE country, in many western oil fields on a single field there are 15.000 wells or so.

[MrEnergyCzar]

@KilonBerlin the decline rates of the existing mature fields worldwide is 3 - 9 percent a year..we need to be discovering a new saudi arabia every few years and we are not...there hasn't been any supergiant fields even discovered in decades...all those areas you mentioned, except Iraq, are not big discoveries at all...they are deeper and take more energy to get at....

[KilonBerlin]

@MrEnergyCzar They are still big founds and Kazakhstan will produce soon 4 - 5 times more than it did before the founds. (now over 3x more). The founds before the coast of Brazil you don't call big? The estimates still are unsure, but most call the reserves over around 15-30 billion or so.

[MrEnergyCzar]

@KilonBerlin all great points and oil finds but those finds might/hopefully just keep up with the decline rates of the existing fields in decline...the world uses 30 billion barrels per year...I hope we can at least stay at an oil production plateau for a few decades but there are just too many huge fields in decline to think we could even do that...we could hope China and India won't drive also but they all want to ...

[KilonBerlin]

@MrEnergyCzar And that we don't find every 3 years a new Ghawar doesn't mean we hit peak soon... old fields are in most cases giving more than it had been expected... look @ russia, many fields in western siberia were called to de almost depleted in early 90's... now russia produces around 20% more than Saudi Arabia and is biggest producer and exporter of oil in the world.

[hitssquad]

google. com/search?q=crop+circles+in+t­he+desert+saudi+oil

"Campbell applied the same flawed logic in his 1991 book, arguing there was no likelihood of major new discoveries in the U.K. North Sea and only large fields mattered; thus, production would be falling by 11% annually. This led him to forecast that output would drop to 352,000 barrels per day (b/d) by 2004, when the actual level was 2.029 mbd."

[florgat91]

peak oil is finished

[emmazedbend]

If this is a real report its remarkably up-beat; perhaps its designed to be so as not to 'scare the horses' as they say. See Peak Oil - The Credit Crunch Predicted In 2005 by Dr Colin Campbell for the monetary implications.

[fleurdelaurier]

20/12/2012 is coming...

[whykhr]

The video is correct except for their belief in Renewable Energy. Renewables can not even come remotely close to replacing Fossil Fuels. We have only ONE OPTION. Nuclear. That is NEW NUCLEAR. We need factory of production of Modular Nuclear Reactors in the 10-500 MWe range. We need 100's of factories that can produce 100's of reactors per year each. This is on the level of large Aircraft production, during a time of War.

[Anothercoilgun]

Fail. Need not come close because its is Renewed. Its not a use once and never use again foolish endeavor.

[TheClimatePost]

New nuclear power has been calculated to cost roughly 20% less than wind power by energy companies in my country, Sweden.

There are huge problems associated with nuclear power, one of which is safety. One of Sweden's reactors, Ringhals, had over 60 high risk incidents during 2008 and will likely be put on a special watch list by inspection authorities. And this is in a stable country...

The answer is a wide mix of energy sources - go for the least risky and most rewarding sources first.

[hitssquad]

@TheClimatePost "There are huge problems associated with nuclear power, one of which is safety. One of Sweden's reactors, Ringhals, had over 60 high risk incidents during 2008"

How many people did it kill? How many days of life-expectancy did it remove?

"The answer is a wide mix of energy sources"

Why not a wide mix of nuclear-fission types?

"go for the least risky and most rewarding sources first."

That would be nuclear-fission, since its fuel is the densest.

[TheClimatePost]

@hitssquad "How many people did it kill? How many days of life-expectancy did it remove?"

The incidents did not cause any deaths. There were incidents causing permanent damage to a worker handling nuclear fuel for the plant (Westinghouse).

There were many deaths related to uranium mining in Africa (where we get our fuel).

Death toll of the Chernobyl accident is estimated around 4000. Another 4000 has gotten thyroid cancer but 99% survives. Still no fun disease.

Nuclear will always be risky.

[TheClimatePost]

@hitssquad Also consider energy security. Nuclear power plants require well refined and processed fuel rods of uranium. Right now that fuel is quite cheap, but is expected to grow much more expensive as our stocks of decomissioned nuclear war heads is used up. This accounts for a significant portion of the fuel, and we lack capacity to run the worlds nuclear plants when the stocks deplete.

The price of wind as a fuel will always be 0.

[pseudotruth]

Hubbert's technique can be extended to coal or any other depleteable resource.

Peak coal is predicted for 2025 - 2030 and the world is apparently close to running out of mineable phosphate (peaked 1989). Declining phosphate has dire implications for the world food supply and the world population.

[KilonBerlin]

@pseudotruth America was/is a big oil producer and has substancial oil resources itself... maybe that is/was a problem, but US-Production is declining since 1971. In Germany we now pay over 1,40€ for one litre of gas. Which is around 1,90$ only due to the low €, usually 2$. Results in a price of almost 8$ per gallon. US takes almost no tax on oil,but people only learn through money.

[pseudotruth]

Our food supply relies heavily upon oil

In the US to produce one kg of food on the farm uses one kg of oil.

In the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents [~ 9.5 barrels or 1,500 litres] are expended annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994). This excludes the energy expended to transport the raw food to the factory, or to process it [e.g.: convert grain into bread], or transport it to the store, or get it home.

Food for thought indeed!

[KilonBerlin]

@pseudotruth You are right the Americans waste the oil, and they don't have a higher standard of living than other European countrys that don't even use half as much as the americans (per person), even a lower one. Norway, Island, Sweden, Switzerland or other Countrys are good examples for that.

[pseudotruth]

King Abdullah began shaking the [Saudi] Kingdom out of its petroleum hangover by declaring in 1998 that the "boom is over and will not return — all of us must get used to a different lifestyle."

[pseudotruth]

In 1974, M. King Hubbert predicted that world oil production would peak in 1995 this forecast is confirmed by numerous sources that most countries' oil reserves are in decline and that Saudi oil has already, or will soon start to do likewise. This discrepancy supports the view that the magnitude of stated oil reserves especially in the Middle East, are more a fiction derived from political machismo, rather than the hard reality of extractable oil in the ground.

[niruobas55]

Check out Chris Martenson's free "Crash Course" on this subject and some other compelling issues like exponential population growth, debt, and inflation, enjoy.

[PeterSodhi]

There is an answer. It is called the 19th Century. We are in a time of regression.

[AKAGl]

This.

When you really start to study the issue in-depth, you'll discover that even aggressive implementation of a combination of the best alternative energy resources we have only have the potential to replace a fraction of the energy we're getting fron fossil fuels at best.

This coupled with inaction and the depression we're now seeing unfold that is killing funding in existing energy tech and doubly so for alternatives that require expensive energy to be viable = predictably bad outcome

[InnocentByproduct]

This is one of the most straightforward videos on Peak Oil I've seen. It perfectly captures the seriousness of the issue without resorting to dramatics. Instead it keeps things dry and unembellished. Yet in spite of the dryness it's not boring, simply because of the number of heavyweights involved in the video --Sir Richard Branson being the chiefest among them.

The sheer forcefulness of this video and its calm matter-of-factness make it ideal for convincing the most diehard skeptic.