When the Oil Runs Out

[Clara T]

When the oil runs out

Are we heading for the end of civilization -- or are the warnings of a coming apocalypse just another case of Chicken Little?


JONATHON GATEHOUSE

The Four Horsemen have upgraded to SUVs. Not the hybrid ones either, but those gas-guzzling, bunny-crushing behemoths that Arnold Schwarzenegger favours. In oil-rich Babylon, whores are so thick on the ground that it's a little hard to pick just one. Although everyone can agree on what the Antichrist is up to -- running a multinational petroleum company. Yes, the End is nigh, if you believe the consensus that has been brewing in the halls of academe and the non-fiction aisle at the local bookstore. Starting in 2010, no later than 2020 or 2030, according to the latest vision of secular apocalypse, global oil supplies will peak, and the world will begin to unravel at the seams.

<snip>

It will be a fiery storm indeed, to hear some tell it. "One week -- one apocalyptic week -- a germ of panic will take root and then spread like wildfire through the markets. The price of oil, on which modern human society has allowed the stability of its economic system to rest, will begin to climb toward the ceiling," Jeremy Leggett writes in The Empty Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and the Coming Financial Catastrophe (Random House, 2005). "The crisis will play out in television images around the world. Frantic oil traders will scream at each other on trading floors, eyes wild and hair akimbo."

Leggett, an Oxford-trained geologist and professor at the Royal School of Mines, underwent a road-to-Damascus-style conversion in 1989, resigning his job to become Greenpeace's chief scientist. After falling out with the environmental group in the mid-1990s, he again transformed himself, into a green entrepreneur, launching his own solar power company. Time Europe has declared him one of "the key players in putting climate change on the world agenda." What he shares with other proponents of the End of Oil theory is a conviction that we are dangerously near the "topping point," where half the world's petroleum reserves are gone.

Big Oil and its government partners are covering up the depletion, says Leggett, while holding back alternative technologies. And when the truth can no longer be obscured, the price will spike, the economy nosedive, and the underpinnings of our civilization will start tumbling like dominos. The U.S. -- Consumer No. 1 in the lingo of Leggett's book -- will be the most vulnerable, having allowed its citizens to pile up mountains of debt. "The price of houses will collapse. Stock markets will crash. Within a short period, human wealth -- little more than a pile of paper at the best of times, even with the confidence about the future high among traders -- will shrivel." There will be emergency summits, diplomatic initiatives, urgent exploration efforts, but the turmoil will not subside. Thousands of companies will go bankrupt, and millions will be unemployed. "Once affluent cities with street cafés will have queues at soup kitchens and armies of beggars. The crime rate will soar. The earth has always been a dangerous place, but now it will become a tinderbox."

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20060213_121197_121197

[phantom power]

1. I think of it this way...

Oil is, indeed, going to begin running out. If we do not have energy subsitutes in place to replace it, then it will indeed be "that bad."

If the oil extraction rate is maintained relatively high, until a fast collapse is forced upon us, then it's most likely that we will not have those replacements in place. Our best hope is that peak oil comes upon us as gradually as possible, which allows some warning and time to adapt. I don't know which scenario (gradual or fast) is most likely. Heavy use of "water forcing" argues for the "fast" scenario.

[Ezlivin]

3. According to Matthew Simmons, that's what's taking place in Saudi Arabia

In "Twilight in the Desert" he talks of primary, secondary and tertiary recovery methods. The injection of CO2 or water into a well is considered tertiary recovery. According to Simmons, the fact that the Saudis are using this method indicates that their largest fields are already in decline. He says that with the oil extraction rates held high with injection, when the field fails it will not be a slow tapering off, but a sharp drop.

[phantom power]

7. Yes, that was my source as well. Disturbing implications.

[McKenzie]

8. yup, "water cut" techniques

as you will know from Simmons' book, the upping of Saudi production has almost certainly damaged the Ghawar field which is the biggest in the world.

Someone else replied to mention natural gas supplies being plentiful. They might be but the gas reservoirs gush out gas then stop without warning.

People aren't taking this as seriously as they should. We know that global warming is a big problem - oil depletion will screw us up long before climate change kills off much of homo sapiens.

[Ezlivin]

10. Blindsided? I don't think so

You and I and many others on this board will not be blindsided by this. Unfortunately we are greatly outnumbered by the ill-informed or ignorant.

This is a "Body Snatchers" situation. You know, the kind where you're running around trying to inform people and they are all cavalier or dismissive of your warnings?

[yurbud]

13. People won't change until they feel pain. I thought $3 a gallon would do

it, but it wasn't quite enough.

Hopefully, it will be like the switch from whale oil to kerosene and kerosene to electric lights.

[400Years]

2. looking forward to it myself

[n2doc]

4. Article in the WSJ this week talkied about declining wells

They noted that the biggest fields in Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are all thought to be in decline. Mexico recently confirmed that theirs was, a field that produces a majority of their oil output. We are at Peak Oil, folks...any momentary respite that we experience (like now with the falling gas prices) is going to be shortlived unless we have a global recession.

[hatrack]

12. There have been four and only four 1 mbd+ fields brought online since 1960

Da Qing, China - discovered 1961, peaked (probably) 1990-91
Samotlor, Russia - discovered 1967, peaked 1983
Prudhoe, Alaska - discovered 1968, peaked 1989
Cantarell, Mexico - discovered 1976, peaked 2005.

There's been one supergiant discovery in the Caspian Basin, Kashagan in Kazakhstan. It probably has between 9-12 billion barrels EUR, but it's extremely sulfuric (as in hydrogen sulfide content poses risk of death to rig crews) and will require costly refining to get it up to standard re. sulfur content.

And other than some moderately large finds off Angola, Nigeria, the Gulf of Guinea and the Gulf of Mexico, there's been nothing truly world-shaking. We need to find a couple of Ghawars to give ourselves some breathing room, and the odds of the majors somehow "overlooking" an 87bb field anywhere in the world, save perhaps north of Greenland or in Antarctica, isn't very bloody likely.

Time's up.

[Nordmadr]

5. Sort of puts this Administration's actions in a bit of perspective

eh?

From article:

By 2010, predicts Leggett, democracy will be on the run. As with the Great Depression, economic hardship will bring out the worst in people. Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support. These new rulers will find the tools of repression -- emergency laws, prison camps, a relaxed attitude toward torture -- already in place, courtesy of the war on terror. And if that scenario isn't nightmarish enough, Leggett predicts that "Big Oversight Number One" -- climate change -- will be simultaneously making its presence felt "with a vengeance." On the heels of their rapid financial ruin, people "will now watch aghast as their food and water supplies dwindle in the face of a climate seemingly going awry." Prolonged droughts will spread, decimating harvests. As oceans warm, fish catches "will fall off a cliff," and protein will become a luxury.



Olafr

[ktlyon]

6. as the oil drys up we will move on to natural gas

we have a lot of that left to use around the word

then there is coal, we have lots of that
we can pulverize it to a dust

We have plenty of time to destroy the planet before stuff to burn runs out.

[Ezlivin]

9. Actually we have less NG than oil

In the US, we must import the bulk of our NG. If we were to try to increase our importation of NG from abroad, that calls for the construction of more LNG terminals, an expensive proposition. In addition, we'll need specially constructed tankers to deliver the volatile gas.

We have "250" years of coal if used at the present rate. If oil and NG are short, our rate of usage will deplete current coal reserves within an estimated 50 years.

And it's not about "running out", it's about ever-increasing prices coupled with dwindling (not exhausted) supplies. The world's economy is predicated on discovering and using increasing amounts of energy. Once the demand outstrips supply, the economy will take a big hit. Every year after the peak is reached, the gap between supply and demand will grow. This will negatively affect economic growth (think of a continuous worldwide recession).

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Ah, such optimism, Master Pangloss.

[Clara T]

14. Canada has 8 years of natural gas reserves remaining- Not much different

Elsewhere, meaning the natural gas reserves in other places are in steep decline. When natural gas declines the fall is precipitous unlike oil which falls in, more or less, bell shape fashion.

2nd largest reserves of Natural Gas in world- Iran.

Suggested reading "High Noon for Natural Gas", by Julian Darley.

From article linked to below:


Natural gas has eight years left
A Natural Resources Canada presentation in the heart of Canada’s energy industry lays bare the stark reality of energy resources

by Dan Crawford

The University of Calgary’s Geology Department played host to a presentation given by Dave Hughes: “The Coming Energy Sustainability Crisis: Alternatives to Oil, Implications of Demand Growth and the Way Forward.”
Hughes is a full-time employee at Natural Resources Canada. He spends much of his time delving into North

America’s energy situation, heavily focusing on the natural gas component. In recent years, his research and presentations have garnered interest across Canada, as well as globally. As a result, Hughes has spoken at more than 90 engagements in the past three years and 40 in the past year alone.

The auditorium in Calgary was filled nearly to capacity with people from all walks of life—a surprising turnout for a Friday night lecture.

Hughes began with a slide showing the resource pyramid. Located at the top of the pyramid are the high-quality resources normally found in large distinct pools. Going down the pyramid to the base, the resources become more abundant but of lesser and lesser quality and dispersed over larger and larger areas. Exploiting these resources eventually leads to a point where the energy used for the extraction and distribution equals the amount of energy recovered, marking the transition between energy source to energy sink.

A look at global primary energy growth showed that over the past four decades, growth has been 165%, with 4.3% growth in 2004 alone. Overall, natural gas has been the fastest growing fuel source in percentage terms at 283% since 1965. In most recent years, from 2001 to 2004, the fastest growing fuel source has been coal.
For natural gas, North America is now on what Hughes calls an “exploration treadmill,” meaning that the number of wells drilled must be continually increased in order to hold production steady.

http://republic-news.org/archive/131-repub/131_crawford.htm

[Nomen Tuum]

15. But my aunt says when Jesus comes back he'll make all the oil we need!

Sadly. millions of other idiots brainwashed by the Rapture BS will swallow that too...