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Peak Oil Production. - 5/13/2006 11:31:54 PM   
Kedikat


Posts: 680
Joined: 4/20/2006
Status: offline 		Oil/natural gas is a finite resource.
It is being created here and there, but it is a multi million year process.
Aside from running our cars. Oil/natural gas is the basis for plastics, quick easy fertilizers, a lot of electric power generation. And so many other things that are vital to our lives.

Oil/gas has allowed us a huge population growth while still having better standards of living and health, life expectancy.
A look at reputable figures from oil and gas industries themselves, show a marked decline in new finds and declines in present sources of production. Make no mistake, we are on the downward side of oil and gas production, but still on the upward side of consumption.

Whatever stopgap in supply a few wars and oil/gas rich landgrabs might get us. It won't last long. Hydrogen is nice, but still takes more energy to make than it puts out. Oil shale and oil sands waste land and energy to produce poor grades of oil.

The upshot is. Too many people, living too good a lifestyle on a rapidly ending fuel.

And governments with their head in the sand, to avoid harsh, vote costing, reality.

What do you see coming? What do you think you will do, or your children will do? What solutions are you willing to support, at what costs?
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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 2:30:18 AM   
Level


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Joined: 3/3/2006
Status: offline 		More and more it looks like ethanol will be the answer (or one of the answers, rather), and sooner than later. Brazil is totally "oil-independent", and there's no good reason others can't be as well.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Business/story?id=1959047&page=1

< Message edited by Level -- 5/14/2006 3:02:21 AM >

(in reply to Kedikat)
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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 2:59:29 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Kedikat

What do you see coming? What do you think you will do, or your children will do? What solutions are you willing to support, at what costs?



Reality is just down the road.

One can't trust human innovation to come up with all the technological answers and even if we solve the problem of fossil fuels, we still have the problem of global warming and that is increasingly looking like a fact, unless someone can explain the gap in the maths about the planet warming.

We really need to reduce our dependence of finite resources while we can, rather than wait for a crisis, though it seems we are prepared to wait and let our children and grandchildren deal with it.

I look around my home and most of my possessions I don't really need, I'm like everyone else, consuming for the sake of consuming, it's just plain dumb. It doesn't bring happiness into my life, just comfort and convenience and cushions me from the sensuary experience of life.

We could ease the daily grind and reduce our consumption and free up more time to live, rather than spending a third of our lives doing a job most of us don't want to do. Time is the only asset a human being has and if I'm honest with myself, I hate wasting it on work I don't want to do and consumption.

Remember the time when we were promised modern technology would give us more recreation time? That promise is never going to happen so let's just slow down and consume less and talk to each other more.

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:28:29 AM   
sharainks


Posts: 499
Joined: 12/13/2004
Status: offline 		Ethanol is not the answer unless you want to end up waterless in a few years.  The amount of water used to irrigate crops to make ethanol is staggering.  If they could restrict it to areas or crops that didn't require irrigation or minimal irrigation it might be feasible. 

In my state the farmers are gloating over the new market for their crops as the water falls in area reservoirs.  When the water from the reservoirs is gone then they will begin to drain the aquifers.  The aquifers are already low throughout most of the country.

Point two...gas mileage drops significantly when ethanol is added.  At least in practice.  People who make a habit of comparing their mileage tell me its about a 10 percent decrease in mileage. In other words for every 10 gallons of gas you buy with ethanol you lose a gallon to milage decrease.  Thats supposed to save on gasoline how?

Next point all the irrigation systems are powered with either electricity or diesel.  There is an energy cost to producing ethanol.  To me this whole debate is just another sign that our govt. wants to hand us something to pacify us without fully understanding the consequences of what they are pushing for.

Why?  Well when the elected officials come to those "meet the public" things they often have who comes?  The farmers.  They aren't tied to a set work schedule.  They have the time to show up and lobby for what they want.  They put forth things that benefit them, not the public in general. 

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:31:15 AM   
Level


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Status: offline 		So the government is going to go towards ethanol soley to pacify farmers?


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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:39:46 AM   
Lafiel


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Status: offline 		  Yes they are soley to pacify farmers.....ethanol is a natural bi-product of beer making....believe it.  Yet we can't use the ethanol they create naturally because well it didn't come from corn.   Go figure that one out and write your congressmen on that.  If they are going to add more ethanol, then get it form every source possible.
Also you if you have a diesel engine, you can run your car on filtered used vegatable oil from a resteraunts used oil bin.  Yes you get 10% worse gas millage....but think about the fact that your using this br-product instead of dumping it in a land fill?

Real conservation works.....the kind of consevation we use is useless because of the way we let congress impliment it.

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:40:10 AM   
sharainks


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Status: offline 		No, Level,  to pacify the public in general who now believes that ethanol is the answer.  Its been pushed by the farmers to benefit themselves. 

However, don't underestimate the power of the farmers and ranchers.  They have a huge lobby and get listened to.  They are also the recipients of vast amounts of taxpayer dollars.  The USDA gets lobbied long and hard by those who profit from the money they recieve.  In return they vote where the money comes from.  When I went vegetarian I started looking at how the USDA works and was appalled at what I found. 

Thats another whole topic about how farmers and ranchers benefit at the expense of the health of the American public.

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:54:34 AM   
Level


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Status: offline 		Yes, lobbyists of all sorts seem to bugger up things for the rest of us.
 
As for the water depletion scenario you mentioned, why couldn't we build a few desalination plants, purify ocean water, ship it to the ethanol producers, etc?
 
 

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:55:49 AM   
Level


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Lafiel

Also you if you have a diesel engine, you can run your car on filtered used vegatable oil from a resteraunts used oil bin. 


And there's the smell of french fries everywhere

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 7:16:48 AM   
sharainks


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Joined: 12/13/2004
Status: offline 		Level, do we really want to start draining our oceans to supply us with fuel?  There is a price to pay for everything we do. 

In my home state of Kansas we run the gamut.  We have oil in KS.  In parts of the state that have oil production the water is polluted due to "injection wells" meaning they pump salt water in to get more oil, but it also leeches into the ground supply.  Then there are the sink holes.  What happens when you remove a layer under the earth?  Eventually the area weakens and collapses.  These aren't small holes.  They can swallow areas over a block in area, they can jeopardize housing in that area. 

Then there are the farmers and ranchers with the pollution from livestock.  I would like to invite you to visit me the day after a rain when its 80 degrees out and the manure is wet and fermenting.  I live in a small town and the whole town reeks of this smell to the extent you can't open your windows.  Even then the reek permeates your home eventually.  The urine and feces from the cattle leech into the water supply too.  It raises the nitrate level to the point many water wells can't be run because they exceed allowable nitrate levels. 

Maybe we can find a way to turn cow poop into fuel.  That might work. The original settlers to this area used to pick up dried buffalo manure (chips) and burned it to heat their homes in the winter. 

Then back to the irrigation and I harped on that already. 

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 7:46:53 AM   
Level


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Joined: 3/3/2006
Status: offline 		So what do we do, nothing? That won't work lol.
 
And we would hardly be draining the oceans.... there is more than enough water there to supply some crops.
 
As for smelling cow poop, no thanks, I grew up on 14 acres of pasture. I do empathize with you on that one, though.... I remember a few years ago, in North Carolina maybe?... tons of pig shit from one of the "superfarms" got into the neighboring towns water supply.
 
Level

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 9:37:06 AM   
Chaingang


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Joined: 10/24/2005
Status: offline 		Archer Daniels Midland Company, corporate welfare...

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 9:52:36 AM   
sharainks


Posts: 499
Joined: 12/13/2004
Status: offline 		Level, I just think we need to bear in mind the consequences of anything we use for fuel and that includes gas.  I'm not the one with the answers but I think with a bit more effort this country could become a whole lot less dependent on other countries.  Brazil has, and if they can we can.  If the US had started when they did I doubt this would be the issue it is today. 

The problem goes back to a govt. that chooses to continue to support the oil industry because the oil industry provides a lot of campaign contributions. 

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 12:00:03 PM   
UtopianRanger


Posts: 3251
Status: offline 		quote] Oil/natural gas is a finite resource.
It is being created here and there, but it is a multi million year process.
Aside from running our cars. Oil/natural gas is the basis for plastics, quick easy fertilizers, a lot of electric power generation. And so many other things that are vital to our lives.[/quote]

Sure it's finite resource; but ''Peak oil'' as we know it now... is a scam that's been proliferated by both the petroleum industry and those with ties to the ''perma-culture'' folks.   But, I most definitely agree with those advocating alternative fuels. At this point in time, I'm willing to do almost anything in order to sever our ties with a bunch of scrawny, filthy dudes in beards and pajama bottoms.


If you tell a lie often enough, eventually it becomes to truth - Bet!


 - R

_____________________________

"If you are going to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do... the body is never tired if the mind is not tired."

-General George S. Patton


(in reply to Kedikat)
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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 12:14:52 PM   
Level


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Joined: 3/3/2006
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quote:

ORIGINAL: sharainks

Level, I just think we need to bear in mind the consequences of anything we use for fuel and that includes gas.  I'm not the one with the answers but I think with a bit more effort this country could become a whole lot less dependent on other countries.  Brazil has, and if they can we can.  If the US had started when they did I doubt this would be the issue it is today. 

The problem goes back to a govt. that chooses to continue to support the oil industry because the oil industry provides a lot of campaign contributions. 


sharainks, Brazil did it with ethanol.

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 1:59:03 PM   
sharainks


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Joined: 12/13/2004
Status: offline 		I knew that was a part of it but there were also other things.  Burning trash for fuel etc.  Brazil is also a lot wetter than most of the US. 

A week or so ago there was another thread on this.  There are so many ways to go that would help yet we don't seem to be trying them.  Wind power, water power, etc. 

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 2:04:50 PM   
Level


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Status: offline 		And solar. That's one of the ones that I think has much promise.

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 6:59:13 PM   
asyouwish72


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Status: offline 		The big difference between ethanol in Brazil and ethanol here isn't the availability of water... it's the crop used to make the ethanol. We use corn, in part due to our temperate climate, but mostly due to the fact that we have an established agricultural base growing it and a structure of existing subsidies that can support it. The Brazilians use sugar cane... unfortunately for us, sugar cane returns 8 times as much fuel relative to the costs of producing it as corn does. Corn is not all that much better than break-even in net energy balance. There's talk of using switchgrass and cellulose waste for ethanol production here (sugar cane isn't an option outside of Florida and maybe the southwest), which may improve things somewhat, but it's unlikely we can achieve the sort of energy independence that Brazil has just with ethanol.

We DO have other options, though... while we may (possibly, possibly not) be at the point of peak oil production, the world has decades, and maybe centuries,worth of coal stockpiles remaining. The US is basically the Saudi Arabia of coal- we're loaded with it. It's possible to convert coal into liquid fuels- it's just not as cheap or convenient as refining oil. According to today's NY Times, the air force is actually working to develop a coal-based aviation fuel, so this isn't pie-in-the-sky stuff; it's commercially feasible with current technology. If things get really dicey with gas and oil, this is one of the things that'll take up the slack.

And of course, as much as most folks hate it, there's always nuclear fission. If you need to produce A LOT of electric power, fission reactors(especially fast-breeder plants) are pretty tough to top.

Just my 2 cents...

< Message edited by asyouwish72 -- 5/14/2006 7:01:08 PM >

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/14/2006 9:06:51 PM   
NeedToUseYou


Posts: 2297
Joined: 12/24/2005
From: None of your business
Status: offline 		I reade about this in discover magazine a few years ago, and they have a operational plant in Missouri. They are selling what they produce on the market, and it's not just theory, it actually functions, I remember they said warren buffet was a investor in this company. So, it's got credibility since billionaires don't tend to invest there money lightly. Anyway, they process biological waste anything biological, into oil in a process that uses it's own generated heat to run the process. The current plant is at 30% capacity, and scheduled to be full capacity within the year.

Anyway, here's a link to the companies website.

http://www.changingworldtech.com/

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RE: Peak Oil Production. - 5/15/2006 5:27:39 AM   
philosophy


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Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline 		when it comes to  energy production the biggest problem has always been centralisation. This then causes distribution problems. The solution clearly has to be decentralisation of power production. Windy country? lots of wind turbines and electric cars........sunny place? solar cells everywhere..........by the coast? tidal barrages............got the right sort of geography? thermal boreholes?
....here in Britain, over the last year or two, there has been a rise in solar cell powered streetlights. Particulary useful in rural locations where running a cable would be prohibitively expensive. Yes, i did say Britain and solar cells in the same sentence. These things are efficient enough nowadays to run streetlights in Britain  over winter.......imagine what they could do in a country with actual sunshine?
Mind you, one big drawback with all this.........decentralise power production, you decentralise money......and politicians prefer all their money in one place with one set of easily pleased donators, sorry voters.

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