When will oil run out and how will this affect transport infrastructure?

dubhthach

Wild Bill wrote: »

Just reading an article in this week's "Economist" (:D) and it is concerned about the effect of fracking shale gas will have on global warming.

They reckon it as the potential to replace all coal production and bring energy prices so low that it will threaten nuclear, wind and other "non-carbon producing" sources of energy.

It will do this be being cheap and cheerful. :cool:

Israelis have recently discovered that they could potentially have 240billion barrels worth of "Shale oil" . Given their dependency on foreign Russian Oil and their history when it comes to "doing stuff for themselves" I wouldn't be surprised if most of the tech for extracting Shale oil at economical prices will eventually come out of the Israeli High-tech sector.

To put that find in perspective Saudi currently has 250billion barrels worth in proven reserves.

dowlingm

Shale has major problems to overcome - the companies involved seem to be still messing about when it comes to what exactly is in their fracking fluid (diesel has been used for instance) and the effect on water tables. This would be important if the shale deposits around Silvermines were explored given its position near the R. Shannon. There is also questions about the effects on geological stability of this stuff.

As for shale, the Israelis need only look at the billions being pumped into northern Alberta to see what works and what doesn't. Water is a big requirement for current technologies so that might be a problem given climate and population pressure unless as part of the project they could commission desalination plants to get water pure enough to use - that's a lot of water to treat though, and tailings too.

Getting back to the original topic.
One of the main uses of oil in this country is road freight, any significant rises in oil prices will have a knock on affect on prices if all goods in shops everywhere. If there are any reductions in supply then there could be shortages as there will be insufficeient fuel for the current levels of freight traffic.

One possible solution could be to employ "roadtrains".




Such a vehicle would, of course be restricted to motorways and certain primiary routes, but they would provide more efficient transport per litre of fuel, at a fraction of the cost of rebuilding a complete rail freight network.

Wild Bill

Deleted User wrote: »

Getting back to the original topic.

Not sure we have strayed from the original topic, which was the alledged "certainty" that "peak oil" would result in less driving and hence a lesser need for roads and motorways.

The evidence (from the posts) is mounting that there will be no such effect. :cool:

Judgement Day

What evidence?

dubhthach

Thorium power car anyone? via Slashdot
http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/

Wild Bill

dubhthach wrote: »

Thorium power car anyone? via Slashdot
http://wardsauto.com/ar/thorium_power_car_110811/

Indeed; and these "rare earths" apparently are mostly not that rare atall atall - just they don't occur in seams so you must process vast quantities of suitable countryside to extract them.

Kinda like shale fracking only more so!

I can see the day coming soon when the Greenies will be soon lamenting the "good ole days" before peak oil!

Wild Bill

Wild Bill wrote: »

Indeed; and these "rare earths" apparently are mostly not that rare atall atall - just they don't occur in seams so you must process vast quantities of suitable countryside to extract them.

Which requires vast amounts of energy of course, lots of fossil fuel sourced energy.

Wild Bill

Deleted User wrote: »

Which requires vast amounts of energy of course, lots of fossil fuel sourced energy.

Yep. The shale fracking will compliment the rare earth recovery. A win-win :cool:

Judgement Day

Wild Bill wrote: »

Yep. The shale fracking will compliment the rare earth recovery. A win-win :cool:

I bet you waltz through life with a Laser card as well. :rolleyes:

Yahew

Judgement Day wrote: »

I bet you waltz through life with a Laser card as well. :rolleyes:

SOunds like a ad hominem to me.

I had a pdf somewhere ( from some energy group) of the ratio of economically recoverable reserves, to technically recoverable reserves, to all known reserves in years left at present consumption and the ratio was 30:90:1,200.

Technology bleeds the third column into the second, and increases in price bleed the second column into the first. So there are at least 90 years price dependent years left in conventional oil plus additions from gains in technology, if the situation continues ( i.e. prices continue to rise). Lets say 200 years assuming that not all in column 3 can be recovered ever.

Thats nothing to worry about. Remember the lad in 1800 who worried that at the rate of then growth, London would be neck deep in horse poo.

CerebralCortex

Yahew wrote: »

SOunds like a ad hominem to me.

I had a pdf somewhere ( from some energy group) of the ratio of economically recoverable reserves, to technically recoverable reserves, to all known reserves in years left at present consumption and the ratio was 30:90:1,200.

Technology bleeds the third column into the second, and increases in price bleed the second column into the first. So there are at least 90 years + technology changes in conventional oil plus additions form gains in technology, if the situation continues ( i.e. prices continue to rise). Lets say 200 years assuming that not all in column 3 can be recovered ever.

Thats nothing to worry about. The lad in 1800 who worried that at the rate of then growth, London would be neck deep in horse poo.

I hate Malthus.

Yahew

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I hate Malthus.

Acutally in any other era, at any other time, he would have been right. The scientific revolution is a sort of "singularity" - you get into a whole new world when you go through one.

The problem with technically recoverable reserves is the fact that they will be so expensive that the cost of their recovery will collapse the economy, thus rendering them worthless as almost no one would be able to afford to recover them.

One thing to keep in mind is just how much fossil fuel is used to maintain our current BAU lives, it should be possible to reduce our consumption by at least 50% without too much hardship!

All that is needed is for people to move closer to where they work, JIT to be replaced by scheduled deliveries, roadtrains (see earlier post) on primary routes, an 80kmh speed limit on all roads, phasing out of high consuming vehicles, high insulation standards to be enforced on all housing, etc

None of these steps would be considered draconian , but would all contribute to "riding the decline" without hardship.

corktina

slightley different question....when the oil runs out, how will we tar the roads?

Yahew

You are assuming the decline, which is the thread's to prove.. anyway the cost of technically recoverable reserves will decline with time. The low hanging fruit is gone, but it was gone when they built oil platforms on the North Sea. People would have been amazed at that a generation earlier.

Yahew

Yahew wrote: »

You are assuming the decline, which is the thread's to prove.. anyway the cost of technically recoverable reserves will decline with time. The low hanging fruit is gone, but it was gone when they built oil platforms on the North Sea. People would have been amazed at that a generation earlier.

The most important cost is the amount of energy that is used to extract the oil, when it was simple rigs in Texas it needed less than one barrels worth to extract about 200 plus barrels. with the north sea one barrel of energy was needed to extract only about 30 barrels, the current generation of deep sea platforms the return is less than ten and with tar sands etc it's less than five.

The cost in energy expended to recover the oil can never decline, the harder it is to get, the more energy needed to get it and the less that is available to pass on to consumers. This is the main reason that oil prices are rising relative to the cost of living.

Yahew

dolanbaker wrote: »

Yahew wrote: »

You are assuming the decline, which is the thread's to prove.. anyway the cost of technically recoverable reserves will decline with time. The low hanging fruit is gone, but it was gone when they built oil platforms on the North Sea. People would have been amazed at that a generation earlier.

The most important cost is the amount of energy that is used to extract the oil, when it was simple rigs in Texas it needed less than one barrels worth to extract about 200 plus barrels. with the north sea one barrel of energy was needed to extract only about 30 barrels, the current generation of deep sea platforms the return is less than ten and with tar sands etc it's less than five.

The cost in energy expended to recover the oil can never decline, the harder it is to get, the more energy needed to get it and the less that is available to pass on to consumers. This is the main reason that oil prices are rising relative to the cost of living.

True but still an energy surplus. Prices won't be $15 again but the armagedon of peak oil is not going to happen either.

Yahew

Yahew wrote: »

True but still an energy surplus. Prices won't be $15 again but the armagedon of peak oil is not going to happen either.

That's the key point!

Our current way of life is based on (very) cheap oil and it simply can't function this way with expensive oil, that's why we have all the current financial difficulties!

You're right, there won't be a "Mad Max" (well very unlikely, barring a civil war in Saudi Arabia) but there will be less oil per capita, thus putting an end to the traditional growth bases economy.

Wild Bill

Judgement Day wrote: »

I bet you waltz through life with a Laser card as well. :rolleyes:

:eek:
:eek:
:eek:

ei.sdraob

http://www.iea.org/weo/docs/weo2011/WEO2011_GoldenAgeofGasReport.pdf

* Conventional recoverable resources are equivalent to 120 years of current global consumption
* while total recoverable resources could sustain today's production for over 250 years

Couple the above with gas-to-liquids technology and we will be driving cars for a very very long time, phew doomsday averted
And gas is useful for making fertilisers, so wont be starving much either...

Zubeneschamali

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Couple the above with gas-to-liquids technology and we will be driving cars for a very very long time, phew doomsday averted

One possible doomsday, the oil-runs-out-and-we've-no-fuel one, maybe, but if so, the greenhouse gas/climate change doomsday just got worse.

Sponge Bob

No it didn't South africa ran a coal to oil system for 40 years when internationally isolated. It was a German WW2 technology initially. Read up on SASOL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol

dubhthach

Sponge Bob wrote: »

No it didn't South africa ran a coal to oil system for 40 years when internationally isolated. It was a German WW2 technology initially. Read up on SASOL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol

I posted abit about the German project earlier in the thread, here's the details, including an article from Popular Mechanics 1979 where it was mentioned as a popular solution to Federal gov plan to reduce imports of oil by 4.5m barrels a day by 1990 (result of oil crisis caused by Islamic revolution in Iran)

dubhthach wrote: »

The germans perfected synthetical crude production in the 1930's. A very large amount of the Nazis fuel supply was from turning coal into crude. There's no reason the same can't occur again, it's just that it's cheaper drilling oil out the ground. It's sort of like the Canadian Oil Sands. It's only viable when the price of crude is at a certain level as it's quite expensive process.

Tbh the ideal longterm solution is that we switch to Hydrogen, however the technology to produce Hydrogen cheaply and in mass amounts isn't there let. Once you can produce the energy equivalent in Hydrogen of a barrel of Crude for cheaper then you can extract Crude you will start to see a switch.

--edit--
Links on Synthetic fuel and World War II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergius_process
www.caer.uky.edu/energeia/PDF/vol12_5.pdfiaYOlA&cad=rja (Germany's Synthetic Fuel Industry 1927-1945)
http://books.google.com/books?id=ls8DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=nazi+synthetical+fuel&source=bl&ots=scE--T3LJx&sig=V6G61apej6pUVKBFtNqsGyGxsq8&hl=en&ei=0k00TrH0MY-xhAfay_GKCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CGkQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false -- Popular Mechanics November 1979

ei.sdraob

Dont they run cars on natural gas in certain european countries? No need to convert to petrol... and its cheaper much cheaper
Anyways my heart warmed up seeing a 4.6L X5 running on LPG

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

One possible doomsday, the oil-runs-out-and-we've-no-fuel one, maybe, but if so, the greenhouse gas/climate change doomsday just got worse.

Gas is much less polluting that oil, turf, coal since its mostly hydrogen, no point of being proud of your weakling Nissan Leaf if its being powered by coal from the likes of MoneyPoint

Wild Bill

Why

ei.sdraob

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Dont they run cars on natural gas in certain european countries? No need to convert to petrol... and its cheaper much cheaper
Anyways my heart warmed up seeing a 4.6L X5 running on LPG




Gas is much less polluting that oil, turf, coal since its mostly hydrogen, no point of being proud of your weakling Nissan Leaf if its being powered by coal from the likes of MoneyPoint

Not just in Europe, I believe that Pakistan has a large percentage of gas vehicles as well. The problems will come if there is a large scale switchover to gas, it will rapidly deplete the reserves even quicker than the oil.

One thing for certain is the fact that the gas will be taxed to bring the cost in line with petrol, even if it's compressed from the domestic supply.