Peak oil, energy crisis, global warming - real problems or minor obstacles?

[The Jedi Master]

Is there climate change? Yes. Is it a possibility that fossil fuels will one day run out? Yes.

Will any of this happen in our lifetimes, or with our grandkids not having the tech to fix it?

NO.

[czokletmuss]

As the presentation from Stanford shows, peak oil may happen as soon as in next 10-20 years.

Also, "NO" is not an argument - some facts, sources or at least decent sentence would be in place

BTW if you have some time guys you should watch this, very interesting:

Edited April 30, 2013 by czokletmuss

[The Jedi Master]

As the presentation from Stanford shows, peak oil may happen as soon as in next 10-20 years.

Also, "NO" is not an argument - some facts, sources or at least decent sentence would be in place

Well, the thing is, we discover new sources for fossil fuels everyday. Just look at Alaska-lots of untapped oil. Scandinavia is another example, and so is the Middle East. And climate change is much slower than An Inconvenient Truth would have you believe. We will not all be burning to a crisp by 2050.

[magnemoe]

Agreed. That's why I listed it under "poorly established."

However, the archaeological evidence you cite is no better than the reconstructions cited by the climate science community; at best, all they can to is demonstrate that in specific locales it was warmer at certain times in the past than it is today, and unless there's a lot more such evidence than I'm aware of I'm not willing to extrapolate that out to estimates of the global climate in the past. The point is that we don't really know, one way or the other; however, in the lack of evidence we default to the null hypothesis (which is that the present temperatures are the result of natural variation). There are some epochs where we can pretty clearly say definitively say that it was warmer or cooler in the past - for instance, the complete lack of glaciation during the Jurassic period even at high latitudes - but temperature variations since the end of the last ice age have been small enough that it's difficult to be certain.

Also, regarding the lack of warming over the last 15 years, that may be due to the fact that we appear to be entering into a prolonged solar minimum. Sure, the models didn't catch it (because they are, frankly, junk) but it might still be the case that the minimum is suppressing the warming that we should be seeing as a result of the added CO2, and that the warming will return when the minimum ends. Of course, that would mean that at least part of the warming of the 20th was also attributed to the increase in solar activity during that period, which would indicate that the climate is less sensitive to carbon than the climate scientists say.

As I said before, I'm agnostic on the question of global warming. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that CO2 makes some difference, but not nearly so much as the catastrophic global warming crowd claims.

Edit:

Actually, that graph is a total fabrication.

I'm guessing that it's based on either the GISS or HadCRUT "adjusted" surface temperature record. It should be pointed out that the adjustments made by GISS and HadCRUT to the raw data are on average actually larger than the total change in climate anomaly over the period shown. If you examine the raw data, the climate trend looks completely different. That said, it's well known that there are many siting problems and inconsistencies within the raw data, so the raw data is not to be trusted. Purportedly, the adjustments made by GISS and HadCRUT are designed to correct for these problems; given that the authors of both records refuse to release their methodology it is impossible to know.

Various graphs from temperature since the ice age has been around, remember I was I kid and thought it was unfair then I saw the graph. Naturally it has been variations, for Europe and especially the northern part the gold stream has major impact.

An yes we pretty much agree here, its an effect but its probably pretty small. As in I support far more monitoring few limits on money for satellites and supercomputers, and yes the bonus of being able to predict with some certainly that next summer will be cold and wet or warm and dry will pay for the cost in one year because of better harvests.

They are far from good enough to set energy policy on an global scale. Also notice the national view on this, China is simple we want cut in the west so their industry moves to China. Russia is funny, they supported Kyoto as they was shutting down lots of old non economic industry so they got lots of carbon credits, now they are building up and predictable.

Thanks for the info about the graph.

[Tw1]

Plus how do you "fix" an ecosystem, where the balances have been totally upset? That's not that simple.

[Holo]

As the presentation from Stanford shows, peak oil may happen as soon as in next 10-20 years.

Also, "NO" is not an argument - some facts, sources or at least decent sentence would be in place

The international energy agency claims that we've already reached peak oil.

[The Jedi Master]

The international energy agency claims that we've already reached peak oil.

Well, the IEA is wrong. Look, if we were running out of oil, we would notice. Don't just think higher prices. Think chaos. Huge traffic jams. Riots in the streets.

[magnemoe]

As the presentation from Stanford shows, peak oil may happen as soon as in next 10-20 years.

Also, "NO" is not an argument - some facts, sources or at least decent sentence would be in place

Peak oil is an condition where oil supply go down dramatically over a few year creating an crisis as you can not get oil for almost any price.

Its not an gradual process as seen from 2000-2010 where increased demand raises prices, this process will continue, oil in 2020 will be more expensive than today 200$ barrel look realistic. At these prices other methods as coal to oil become economical and this will level out the price.

An civil war in Saudi Arabia will also give an oil crisis, this however is an political issue and would be resolved pretty fast.

[czokletmuss]

Well, the thing is, we discover new sources for fossil fuels everyday. Just look at Alaska-lots of untapped oil. Scandinavia is another example, and so is the Middle East. And climate change is much slower than An Inconvenient Truth would have you believe. We will not all be burning to a crisp by 2050.

I've never watched Al Gore's movie - I'm focused on facts, not on political propaganda. Alaska = 3 years of global demand

Well, the IEA is wrong. Look, if we were running out of oil, we would notice. Don't just think higher prices. Think chaos. Huge traffic jams. Riots in the streets.

We did in a conventional oil. And JediMaster - peak oil means peak of supply. It doesn't mean that since Friday there is not even a drop of oil on a whole Earth. It means that we won't have more than current 80-90mln barrels per day. Add to this huge population in a developing countries and you have a formula for a economic disaster.

[czokletmuss]

Peak oil is an condition where oil supply go down dramatically over a few year creating an crisis as you can not get oil for almost any price.

Its not an gradual process as seen from 2000-2010 where increased demand raises prices, this process will continue, oil in 2020 will be more expensive than today 200$ barrel look realistic. At these prices other methods as coal to oil become economical and this will level out the price.

An civil war in Saudi Arabia will also give an oil crisis, this however is an political issue and would be resolved pretty fast.

No, peak oil means is "the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production is expected to enter terminal decline." There won't be dramatic reduction in supply - we're on plateau now. Also peak oil and peak cheap oil aren't the same things. And "rising prices will mean other methods will be economical" - yes but what does it mean? It mean that it will be profitable to extract oil with bigger investments, which means that the oil will be more expansive. In a sense, there will always be enough oil to economically extract it - even if the barrel will cost $1500 there will be people who would want to buy it. So yes, there will be market, but much smaller than today. Think for a moment of an impact which rising oil prices can have.

This is from 2010 IEA report with some two notes:

Do you see problems hidden in this image?

[magnemoe]

I don't think that the argument "there may be more" is a good one. Still, even if there is there's also a problem of costs involved in extracting resources. Drilling in Texas in the beginning of XXth century and drilling 5km under the ocean bottom is a completely different thing. So even if it will take "millenia" (why not decades with an increased demand?) I doubt that the energy price will be as low as today.

True, the capital investment are somewhat larger. Other factors like transport are much cheaper.

And to compare oil and uranium are pretty flawed, world demand for uranium is an very limited number of ton, think of it as an rare earth metal.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Supply-of-Uranium/#.UYAB-7WeOmU

You extract where its cheapest, nobody would mine a place who is 10 times as expensive. Also uranium cost is just an small fraction of running an nuclear plant. Finally breeder reactors can get energy from uranium 238.

I would be more afraid of running out of iron.

I guess you're talking about Spain. Yes, I don't think so that this is only "corrupted government" problem. Gigantic real estate bubble and high costs of work are amongst the sources of spanish crisis, not only politicians. You think changing Rajoy for someone else (who?) would stop the emigration of young Spaniards? I don't think so - in my country there is a pretty big economic emigration too (to the UK for instance). But enough with the politics - point is, in current situation Spain wouldn't be able to fund thorium reactors or some other emerging technology. And in a world in an energy crisis not so much countries will be able to do this.

But it's not the problem of quantity but of a price. "We are prepared to invest more effort to get it" - oh really? Is everyone prepared to "invest more" in a form of a higher bills every month? High investments means higher prices, there is no way around that. Here in Andalucia unemployment rate is more then 30% - you think that after spending billions to find new energy sources and selling them with a proportionaly higher price to make profit everybody will be able to afford it? Peak oil doesn't mean a situation in Earth is somehow transformed to a desert - the biggest issue is affordability. Increasing prices means bigger part of your budget goes to food and transportation and less is left for entertainment, education and so on, which helps the unemployment to rise even more.

In theory, yes, there is plenty of space. This is science fiction now, because we send a dozen of people above the LEO for a less then 2 weeks but theoretically yes, you are right. Problem is yet again not in quantity. If China would live on a wasteful level of USA prices will go up very soon and the world will be sucked dry from the resources. There is no point in discussing the colonies on Moon or astereoids right now - if we fail to find a new cheap energy source we may not be able to found such colonies. Andy by cheap I mean high EROEI.

Earth can support 10 million humans. Then we reached the limit we cheated the system and started with farming.

Anyway birthrates are way down over almost all the world. Not only Europe and China is below 2 but most of the Arab world and lost of south America

[czokletmuss]

I'm not afraid of overpopulation. The problem is energy - in 2012 in China they were sold 20mln cars. Each one of them is burning oil. As the countries develop, societies use more energy - computers, telephones, factories, vehicles, lights and so on. This is the issue - global oil supply frozen around 80-90 mln barrels per day with still growing demand. Ceteris paribus this will have to lead to shortages - not everyone will get as much oil (energy) as he needs. Take a look at this:

Source:http://peakoil.com/consumption/oil-supply-and-demand-to-2025

One more thing - I have an impression that some people in this thread didn't even read the short wiki article. Please do this as there is no point in discussing the subject without the basic facts. If you feel this is too long you can always read the conclusions from the Hirsh report: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_Report I'm not trying to be rude, I don't know everything myself (vide thorium reactors - never heard of them and they could have a big impact) but discussin peak oil withou basic knowledge about current consumption worldwide for instance is kinda pointless I think.

Edited April 30, 2013 by czokletmuss

[czokletmuss]

This article should be very interesting as well: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9901

and it has some important charts: