POLL: How Many Years of Oil Do You Believe We Have Left, At Current Usage Levels?


Off-Topic Discussions

101 to 143 of 143 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>

.

Make sure you vote. We should be able to get about 75 total hits.
Tell your friends to log in.

.


Grand Magus - apart from a slightly interesting thought exercise... what are you hoping to achieve from the 'survey'?

All well and good if it's just a way to pass the time and what not, but your mentions of 'data' and urgings towards getting friends to log in specifically to add their thoughts tends to indicate that you place a somewhat higher degree of interest in the results?


Don't be silly. Everybody knows that oil is a renewable resource. We'll never run out.


yellowdingo wrote:
Zmar wrote:
...
Any Nation prepared to do right by its populace bringing them out of third world living conditions and establish self sustaining systems to support them will cause a massive price jump on global markets that will. So the availability will be more like a sudden downward drop (near vertical) as the price of oil levels off at double what it is now.

Well, they will want to do that, but it will cost them. And then we get to what will they pay with when they are poor already...

Shadowborn wrote:
Don't be silly. Everybody knows that oil is a renewable resource. We'll never run out.

That theory is not proven yet and we also can't tell what the theoretic renewal rate is or if it won't stop suddenly for a decade or so as it would be based on erratic process. Sure it's that there are constant quakes and other required components of that process, but that doesn't mean that the new oil reservoir will emerge. It can stay trapped elsewhere in the crust, if it is created at all. We're also not taking in account that coal will be probably depleted in next 150 years or so, not to mention increased demand if 3rd world does indeed industrializes itself. I doubt that the oil production would be able to keep up with that.


*sigh* Once again my humor goes over someone's head. Neow!


Ooh, sorry there is too hot in here for me to get that :D


Mark Sweetman wrote:
Grand Magus - apart from a slightly interesting thought exercise... what are you hoping to achieve from the 'survey'?

.

Well, obviously it can be said the variance is a measurement of ignorance.

I may use this for bootstrapping.

.


Ok. I'm using this distribution again for some advanced simulation
assignments. I hope we have enough gas left to make it into space and
off this planet.


Time to update my Year-End data again.
It may be Humans don't have enough Oil left to make it off the planet.


Actually, we may have an unlimited supply of oil. There's been some recent work in the area of engineering bacteria to make oil. If that succeeds, then the world's current oil reserves stop mattering.


MagusJanus wrote:
Actually, we may have an unlimited supply of oil. There's been some recent work in the area of engineering bacteria to make oil. If that succeeds, then the world's current oil reserves stop mattering.

You mean the planet has unlimited oil. What I worry about is how much the Humans on the planet have left to use, before we die out.


Grand Magus wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:
Actually, we may have an unlimited supply of oil. There's been some recent work in the area of engineering bacteria to make oil. If that succeeds, then the world's current oil reserves stop mattering.

You mean the planet has unlimited oil. What I worry about is how much the Humans on the planet have left to use, before we die out.

No, I don't mean that. Even if the oil supply is never fixed, we're still probably going to die out long before we run out; Earth has a shrinking usable water supply. Part of why a lot of environmentalists wanted massive implementation of alternative energy in place is because we could easily end up in a world war over water supplies within the next ten years.

So, I meant that it won't matter simply because there's no chance of humanity running out of oil at any point in what is left of humanity's existence, even if not on Earth.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
MagusJanus wrote:
Grand Magus wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:
Actually, we may have an unlimited supply of oil. There's been some recent work in the area of engineering bacteria to make oil. If that succeeds, then the world's current oil reserves stop mattering.

You mean the planet has unlimited oil. What I worry about is how much the Humans on the planet have left to use, before we die out.

No, I don't mean that. Even if the oil supply is never fixed, we're still probably going to die out long before we run out; Earth has a shrinking usable water supply. Part of why a lot of environmentalists wanted massive implementation of alternative energy in place is because we could easily end up in a world war over water supplies within the next ten years.

So, I meant that it won't matter simply because there's no chance of humanity running out of oil at any point in what is left of humanity's existence, even if not on Earth.

With all the air pollution, we'll probably go to war over diminishing fresh air supplies before we do over lack of fresh water.


Andrew R wrote:
Maybe some of the wealthy folks that want to push this stuff so hard could put their money where their mouth is and help the average american afford what they want

Oil is a finite resource. At some point the average American WON'T be able to afford it, so we better hope we get alternative energy sources to the point where they can fill our needs.


Grand Magus wrote:

Time to update my Year-End data again.

It may be Humans don't have enough Oil left to make it off the planet.

RP-1 is only used as a first stage fuel. First stage is actually the most flexible stage in rocketry (in fuel choices) and solid fuels are highly viable, which are usually not petroleum based.


In an effort to make a rocket's parts lighter for lift-off, maybe new plastics
can be developed.


Maybe, but everything I've seen suggests bioplastic is a dead-end technology and developing new plastics otherwise is just finding creative new ways to use oil.

Bioplastic tends to be a dead end because of either requiring a lot of water (running afoul of the increasing water problems) or specialized fertilizers once soil nutrients run out (which typically require oil to produce). The water issue is also why biodiesel from corn is a dead-end.

Increasingly, it's looking like we're investigating all of the wrong fields and, instead, should be investigating technologies that clean water and be rid of water pollution. Because, increasingly, we're finding we have so many solutions, but we don't have the water supplies for them to be practical.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Celestial Healer wrote:
In this poll, does the majority rule? If we decide there is 500 years left, does that make it so?

No, but maybe Dingo will make a petition on our behalf.


Celestial Healer wrote:
In this poll, does the majority rule? If we decide there is 500 years left, does that make it so?

Yes.


MagusJanus wrote:

Maybe, but everything I've seen suggests bioplastic is a dead-end technology and developing new plastics otherwise is just finding creative new ways to use oil.

Bioplastic tends to be a dead end because of either requiring a lot of water (running afoul of the increasing water problems) or specialized fertilizers once soil nutrients run out (which typically require oil to produce). The water issue is also why biodiesel from corn is a dead-end.

Increasingly, it's looking like we're investigating all of the wrong fields and, instead, should be investigating technologies that clean water and be rid of water pollution. Because, increasingly, we're finding we have so many solutions, but we don't have the water supplies for them to be practical.

So oil has other uses than rocket fuel? Yes, I see your point.

But, it seems fresh air takes precedence over water, because we can
always use hydrogen and oxygen to make water; given we have oil to
power the machines to manufacture it.

My appreciation for oil is increasing, as I realize it is super
powerful, multi-use stuff. Maybe we can find Oil on other planets and
bring it home. There's gotta be more oil on Venus.


Grand Magus wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:

Maybe, but everything I've seen suggests bioplastic is a dead-end technology and developing new plastics otherwise is just finding creative new ways to use oil.

Bioplastic tends to be a dead end because of either requiring a lot of water (running afoul of the increasing water problems) or specialized fertilizers once soil nutrients run out (which typically require oil to produce). The water issue is also why biodiesel from corn is a dead-end.

Increasingly, it's looking like we're investigating all of the wrong fields and, instead, should be investigating technologies that clean water and be rid of water pollution. Because, increasingly, we're finding we have so many solutions, but we don't have the water supplies for them to be practical.

So oil has other uses than rocket fuel? Yes, I see your point.

But, it seems fresh air takes precedence over water, because we can
always use hydrogen and oxygen to make water; given we have oil to
power the machines to manufacture it.

My appreciation for oil is increasing, as I realize it is super
powerful, multi-use stuff. Maybe we can find Oil on other planets and
bring it home. There's gotta be more oil on Venus.

It's all about energy. With sufficient power to work with we can make clean water. Scrubbing pollutants out of the air will be harder.

It also helps if the energy source is clean enough not to pollute your water source further.
Also, we can produce drinking water and maybe farming water, it's less likely we're going to clean the rivers and the oceans.

Bioplastics aren't a dead end. If you have another source of energy. If you're relying on oil for all the inputs, then it's not very helpful.

As for biodiesel, you're right that corn is too fertilizer intensive to be efficient. As the technology improves though, feedstocks that grow with less inputs may be viable.


thejeff wrote:
Grand Magus wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:

Maybe, but everything I've seen suggests bioplastic is a dead-end technology and developing new plastics otherwise is just finding creative new ways to use oil.

Bioplastic tends to be a dead end because of either requiring a lot of water (running afoul of the increasing water problems) or specialized fertilizers once soil nutrients run out (which typically require oil to produce). The water issue is also why biodiesel from corn is a dead-end.

Increasingly, it's looking like we're investigating all of the wrong fields and, instead, should be investigating technologies that clean water and be rid of water pollution. Because, increasingly, we're finding we have so many solutions, but we don't have the water supplies for them to be practical.

So oil has other uses than rocket fuel? Yes, I see your point.

But, it seems fresh air takes precedence over water, because we can
always use hydrogen and oxygen to make water; given we have oil to
power the machines to manufacture it.

My appreciation for oil is increasing, as I realize it is super
powerful, multi-use stuff. Maybe we can find Oil on other planets and
bring it home. There's gotta be more oil on Venus.

It's all about energy. With sufficient power to work with we can make clean water. Scrubbing pollutants out of the air will be harder.

It also helps if the energy source is clean enough not to pollute your water source further.
Also, we can produce drinking water and maybe farming water, it's less likely we're going to clean the rivers and the oceans.

Bioplastics aren't a dead end. If you have another source of energy. If you're relying on oil for all the inputs, then it's not very helpful.

As for biodiesel, you're right that corn is too fertilizer intensive to be efficient. As the technology improves though, feedstocks that grow with less inputs may be viable.

CO2 scrubbing is easy. Algae farms and Cyanobacteria. Algae has the side benefit of being a source for biodiesel.


BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Grand Magus wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:

Maybe, but everything I've seen suggests bioplastic is a dead-end technology and developing new plastics otherwise is just finding creative new ways to use oil.

Bioplastic tends to be a dead end because of either requiring a lot of water (running afoul of the increasing water problems) or specialized fertilizers once soil nutrients run out (which typically require oil to produce). The water issue is also why biodiesel from corn is a dead-end.

Increasingly, it's looking like we're investigating all of the wrong fields and, instead, should be investigating technologies that clean water and be rid of water pollution. Because, increasingly, we're finding we have so many solutions, but we don't have the water supplies for them to be practical.

So oil has other uses than rocket fuel? Yes, I see your point.

But, it seems fresh air takes precedence over water, because we can
always use hydrogen and oxygen to make water; given we have oil to
power the machines to manufacture it.

My appreciation for oil is increasing, as I realize it is super
powerful, multi-use stuff. Maybe we can find Oil on other planets and
bring it home. There's gotta be more oil on Venus.

It's all about energy. With sufficient power to work with we can make clean water. Scrubbing pollutants out of the air will be harder.

It also helps if the energy source is clean enough not to pollute your water source further.
Also, we can produce drinking water and maybe farming water, it's less likely we're going to clean the rivers and the oceans.

Bioplastics aren't a dead end. If you have another source of energy. If you're relying on oil for all the inputs, then it's not very helpful.

As for biodiesel, you're right that corn is too fertilizer intensive to be efficient. As the technology improves though, feedstocks that grow with less inputs may be viable.

CO2 scrubbing is easy. Algae farms and Cyanobacteria. Algae has the side...

It's a matter of scale.


thejeff wrote:
Grand Magus wrote:
MagusJanus wrote:

Maybe, but everything I've seen suggests bioplastic is a dead-end technology and developing new plastics otherwise is just finding creative new ways to use oil.

Bioplastic tends to be a dead end because of either requiring a lot of water (running afoul of the increasing water problems) or specialized fertilizers once soil nutrients run out (which typically require oil to produce). The water issue is also why biodiesel from corn is a dead-end.

Increasingly, it's looking like we're investigating all of the wrong fields and, instead, should be investigating technologies that clean water and be rid of water pollution. Because, increasingly, we're finding we have so many solutions, but we don't have the water supplies for them to be practical.

So oil has other uses than rocket fuel? Yes, I see your point.

But, it seems fresh air takes precedence over water, because we can
always use hydrogen and oxygen to make water; given we have oil to
power the machines to manufacture it.

My appreciation for oil is increasing, as I realize it is super
powerful, multi-use stuff. Maybe we can find Oil on other planets and
bring it home. There's gotta be more oil on Venus.

It's all about energy. With sufficient power to work with we can make clean water. Scrubbing pollutants out of the air will be harder.

It also helps if the energy source is clean enough not to pollute your water source further.
Also, we can produce drinking water and maybe farming water, it's less likely we're going to clean the rivers and the oceans.

Bioplastics aren't a dead end. If you have another source of energy. If you're relying on oil for all the inputs, then it's not very helpful.

As for biodiesel, you're right that corn is too fertilizer intensive to be efficient. As the technology improves though, feedstocks that grow with less inputs may be viable.

Clean energy is the problem. If what Google's engineers have to say is accurate, then we haven't discovered clean energy yet.

The only reason why I call bioplastics a dead end is the resource issue. If we could solve either requirement problem, they would become a massive boon; we could easily replace massive amounts of current fossil-fuel dependent infrastructure with infrastructure made from biodegradable and solardegradable organic materials. The result would mean a higher requirement for replacing materials as time passes, but that would have an overall economic benefit through the creation of permanent jobs and the increased need for unskilled workers for growing and harvesting the crops. Implemented correctly, this could solve several upcoming economic catastrophes before they even have a chance to get started.

I am thinking that corn is, no matter how we engineer it, ultimately a dead end; we need it for far too much outside of biodiesel for it to ever really be a viable solution, and the current usage of it has created some unexpected and some expected problems. It would be far easier to use an engineered sugar cane. The sugar byproduct could replace HFCS, which would have a beneficial effect upon public health. The sugar cane could also serve as a job creation method and, if implemented right, may even serve other cultural benefits. A national sugar cane festival, for example, might help with the ongoing degradation of societal cohesion.


thejeff wrote:
It's a matter of scale.

Agreed, seed the oceans.


BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
It's a matter of scale.
Agreed, seed the oceans.

There's also a matter of unintended consequences.


thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
It's a matter of scale.
Agreed, seed the oceans.
There's also a matter of unintended consequences.

Consequences Shomsequences. Plus, nothing we put in the ocean today will be any worse than what we've put there already


thejeff wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
thejeff wrote:
It's a matter of scale.
Agreed, seed the oceans.
There's also a matter of unintended consequences.

Eh. If human science honestly gave a damn about unintended consequences, it wouldn't be considering most of the solutions it's currently considering for climate change. And we wouldn't even be in this situation to begin with.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

It seems like whenever someone suggests an improvement in one area, it gets shot down because it's not perfect in all other areas. What do you expect, really? That someone will figure out The Perfect Solution for every problem facing humanity any time now? Hate to break the news: It doesn't work like that. An improvement in one area is important, even if it isn't feasible for a mass implementation, because the principles and methods it uses can be extrapolated to other processes. We keep building our body of understanding, and the only thing we can be certain of is that we WILL have more options than we used to have. An advance in bioplastics is not meaningless because we passed peak oil. We can find new ways of doing things. I heard something about how you can irradiate plastics to return them to their pre-molded state and ready them for reuse. The only limit is energy, of course, which is why it's important that humanity seriously start looking at expansion, not just the Holy Mantra of "saving and effectivizing". We're not going to survive by using a little less energy after a massive effort to reduce consumption. Like it or not, we are at the point where we need to find new sources. Meanwhile, we can start building the entire cycle of nuclear plants to use the thousands of warheads for energy. At least, this we already know how to do.


An advance in bioplastics is meaningless if we don't even have the resources to implement a trial run.

Which is the problem: We don't. We don't even have the resources for the U.S. to continue its current biodiesel efforts.

And when you get right down to it, there's far too many petroleum products that are not plastic used in far too many industries, including the medical industry and the alternative energy industries. You can't build effective nuclear power plants without oil; the technology does exist to build them without oil, but no one wants to see the consequences of trying. No matter how you slice it, at the end of the day we simply need more oil.

Something else you typically don't see come up: Rare earth materials. Materials which are not only essential to the alternative energy industries, but which run a lot of our other industries and are essential to developing those alternatives. The supplies of those are lower than oil is; any tech that relies on them is likely a dead-end tech simply because we're probably going to run out of those before we run out of oil. And that's assuming water supplies haven't dropped low enough to cause a world war by the point that happens.

At the end of the day, energy doesn't matter if it doesn't go towards solving those essential supply issues. If we don't have the raw materials to produce the tech, it doesn't matter if we have the energy to do so.


I'm in the 120 years group.
But if it turns out to be 180 years, I'll won't feel shorted.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
meatrace wrote:

If we threw as much money at solar research as we do in oil company subsidies, I'd bet my left [redacted] that we'd have a sustainable energy solution within a decade.

If we threw half as much money at NASA as we spend on defense we'd be living on freaking mars by now.

1. Vested interests such as the Koch Brothers are actively doing their best to squelch solar initiatives. The latest strategy which is working rather well, is to get state legislatures to outlaw local initatives to implement mass solar projects.

2. "Mars isn't the kind of place to raise your kids.... In fact, it's cold as hell. And there's no one there to raise them.... if you did."


King Kong says, "You will never know."


Fletcher Prouty claimed that he was speaking with a few oil men in the 60's who told him that oil had no relationship with fossils and that it was a cover story to perpetuate the supply and demand crisis when it suits big oils goals.


Shadowborn wrote:
Don't be silly. Everybody knows that oil is a renewable resource. We'll never run out.

Interesting perhaps Fletcher was right on this one as well.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Wow! I think I resisted this thread for about 5 years, but like oil, it just keeps pumping along.

The reason I resisted the thread is because I think the question is irreverent. Whether there is still some oil somewhere is essentially meaningless.

The real questions are:
How long oil will last at a level where it is useful to industrialized economies as a fuel cheep enough to allow growth? This is a fairly low price, perhaps something like under $50 a barrel. Oil = Work, and we have become completely reliant on a whole lot of work being done for incredibly little cost. We also grew accustomed to decades of essentially continual growth - highly unusual in a historical sense. We have already reached the point where oil is fairly expensive to extract, and most operations are not very profitable (if at all) at prices below $50 a barrel. So we are at the point where we bounce back and forth between oil not being worth producing, and not worth using. It should be noted that many people predicted the result of Peak Oil would be cycling oil prices, not rising oil prices. Large cycling of oil prices historically ravages industrialized economies, largely because these economies are based on return on investments, which becomes completely unpredictable when the price of "work" is going up and down by 100's of percent.

How long will oil last at a level where it is worth pulling out of the ground at all? This is much harder to wrap my head around, as just about everything done to get oil requires oil inputs. If we are talking about pulling oil out of the ground using solar energy, or even human or animal labor, the use of that incredibly expensive oil becomes very limited.

I think the answer to the first question is probably a dozen or so years, and I'm guessing the answer to the second question is several dozen or perhaps even hundreds of years. The second scenario will look very different then what we currently think of as "modern" society.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Matrixryu wrote:
Just so you guys know, there is a theory going around that oil isn't actually a 'Fossil Fuel'. It may actually be produced deep within the Earth. If this is true, our oil reserves may simply never run out. You just have to wait a bit every once in a while for the right wells the refill themselves.

Pardon me if this has been addressed already (haven't read the full thread), but I had to comment on this. This theory generally speaking very fringe and has little if any support amongst the geology community. From what I have heard, its on par with "vaccines cause autism" or "the aquatic ape theory". Current theories behind how oil is produced also underly commercial extraction. If those hypotheses were wrong, they would not perform so well, nor would Exxon and co still use them.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Fergie wrote:

How long will oil last at a level where it is worth pulling out of the ground at all? This is much harder to wrap my head around, as just about everything done to get oil requires oil inputs. If we are talking about pulling oil out of the ground using solar energy, or even human or animal labor, the use of that incredibly expensive oil becomes very limited.

I think the answer to the first question is probably a dozen or so years, and I'm guessing the answer to the second question is several dozen or perhaps even hundreds of years. The second scenario will look very different then what we currently think of as "modern" society.

Oil's pretty useful stuff in a lot ways beyond burning it. It'll be worth pulling it out of the ground for quite awhile. Plastic and chemical feedstocks and the like. And once we've got effective replacements for it as an energy source, the demand will drop and the price will follow. That leaves most of the marginal sources permanently offline, but we'll likely still have some production in the cheaper fields left. With demand low enough, they can supply those needs for a long time.

I'd expect a steep dropoff curve with a very long tail.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:
Pretty cool movie.

We should be in dire straits by 2000 and almost totally out of oil by 2010...

Wait...

We flew past that prediction already???

I think the best idea is to not set a hard cold date, because they tried that one already and it didn't come to pass.

One can prepare for things like the day no more energy is available, and try to find alternate sources that are more environmental friendly, but trying to predict the unknown as a cold hard fact (such as the specific number of years of oil left) can be somewhat unpredictable and only ends up in people pointing their fingers and laughing at the groups that made those predictions.

Not a good thing when you may be dealing with such serious ideas as the end of the world.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Grand Magus wrote:
doctor_wu wrote:
Actually if you were truly interested in the free market wouldn't you want to create alternative energy to destroy opec a cartel and bring the wonders of the free market to all.

.

95% of the people reading this have no idea what a cartel is.

The other 5% have no idea how to *bust* one.

.

I've seen enough movies to know that you bust a cartel with DEA agents and alot of guns.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Cartel busting is easy. You do the same thing that the railroad did to The Grange. Offer to pay ONE member for ALL their product for a price HIGHER than the cartel is selling for. Then absolutely buy 0 goods from the other members.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
MMCJawa wrote:
Matrixryu wrote:
Just so you guys know, there is a theory going around that oil isn't actually a 'Fossil Fuel'. It may actually be produced deep within the Earth. If this is true, our oil reserves may simply never run out. You just have to wait a bit every once in a while for the right wells the refill themselves.
Pardon me if this has been addressed already (haven't read the full thread), but I had to comment on this. This theory generally speaking very fringe and has little if any support amongst the geology community. From what I have heard, its on par with "vaccines cause autism" or "the aquatic ape theory". Current theories behind how oil is produced also underly commercial extraction. If those hypotheses were wrong, they would not perform so well, nor would Exxon and co still use them.

It would also mean that our plastic dinosaurs were not made out of real dinosaurs, and that would be sad. v.v


Based on new observations, I'm changing my vote to 500-1000 years.

.

Let's re-run the simulations next...

101 to 143 of 143 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Gamer Life / Off-Topic Discussions / POLL: How Many Years of Oil Do You Believe We Have Left, At Current Usage Levels? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Off-Topic Discussions
Deep 6 FaWtL
Quotes Thread
Weird News Stories
Good New Stories
Did you know...?
Ramblin' Man