Back By Popular Demand - And Because You LOVE It! The Whale-Oil Analogy!!!

[hatrack]

We’re running out of oil. Whale oil, that is. And if an American prophet had said that in about 1850, he or she would have been right. But so what? In the early 1800s, the future wasn’t about whale oil, it turned out. Even though whaling was one of America’s biggest industries and most Americans lit their lamps with whale oil at night.

The future was about energy, hindsight shows. People responded to the high price of whale oil (among other indicators) by looking for substitutes. Lo and behold, those substitutes for turning night into day were found.

The same process continues today, as Thursday’s announcement about the Bakken Formation in North Dakota shows. That’s good news because it suggests humanity will avoid the modern version of the “running out of whale oil” scenario: “peak oil” predictions of a global energy collapse.

“North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation,” the U.S. Geological Survey announced Thursday. The agency’s assessment “shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency’s 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.”

EDIT

http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=73485§ion=Opinion&freebie_check&CFID=25692826&CFTOKEN=63681511&jsessionid=8830a8d320e14397b4d4


Thanks, Invisible Hand!!

[pscot]

1. I think the keword here is "undiscovered"

The Grand Forks Herald seems to see this report as a thumb in the eye to the Peak Oil crowd. The Dickinson Press takes a more temperate view.

"Dickinson’s Mike Armstrong has 30-plus years of experience in the oil and gas business with his Armstrong Corp. prospecting firm. He told Press reporter Archie Ingersoll Thursday, “I think they’re stretching it – a lot,” when the U.S. Geological Survey reported up to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil is in the Bakken formation. Thursday’s recoverable total is about 25 times more than the last USGS estimate in 1995, thanks in large part to advanced technology.

“How about this: Don’t over react. A study is just that, it’s a study. There’s no guarantee,” Armstrong said.

His comments were echoed by Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., who told the Associated Press he believes the USGS assessment may be high.

“That’s a lot of zeros,” Kessel said. Kessel told the AP that oilmen have known for more than 50 years that the Bakken formation holds vast oil reserves. But the price has never pushed demand high enough to develop technology to capture the oil, he added"


http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/articles/index.cfm?id=14912§ion=Opinion

If they can really prove 4 billion barrels of recoverable crude, that would amount to about five years of U.S. consumption at current rates. Not enough to really forestall Peak Oil, but a nice hole card to have as world supplies dwindle.

[NMDemDist2]

3. woohoo!! one half of one day's oil supply! WOW!!

and we won't mention how it will impact the clean water supplies in the area OK?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x142785

[SlicerDicer-]

16. not to worry 33gb was discoverd by petrobas

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN1440058920080414?rpc=44

WERE SAVED!!! errr well not really..

[NickB79]

11. Actually, I think it's a lot less than 5 years of US consumption

The number I keep seeing thrown around is 21 million barrels of oil is used by the US per day. That would translate into 7.6 billion barrels per year. The theoretical 4 billion barrels of oil in Bakken would amount to less than 1 year of US oil consumption, if my math is correct.

Ouch.

[Nihil]

13. Especially when you take out the energy required to extract it ... (n/t)

[SlicerDicer-]

15. well look at current use... 74 billion barrels a day.. that makes umm? yeah...

[SlicerDicer-]

2. shale oil

You do realize that its extremely difficult to extract this oil? It is shale if it was easy to extract oil from shale we would be hitting other deposits with ferocity as we have HUGE reserves in shale oil. But lets look at the surface here shall we?

27gb consumed every year.. that 151gb wont make a dent.. thats 6 years of oil.. good luck next time :/ this should show our problem. Peak Oil is very real.. The rate we are consuming oil is astounding..

Oil is running out.. And sadly people who call these reserves as saviors are just diluting themself.. All it does is either extend the plateau or create slight boost in production that creates the "undulating plateau"

[SlicerDicer-]

4. Ohh I screwed the pooch on this one :/

Yeah well my numbers are even worse off now..

I thought it said 151 billion barrels.. not 151 million holy moly.. If this is our savior and helpful wow.. I guess we will be flying jetson cars next year this is nothing more than snakeoil at 3-4.3 billion barrels..

Thanks AZdem for making my post look absurd.. but still even if it was 151gb it still shows the problem :) given that its 6 years of oil there.. and thats HUGE by comparison....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulxe1ie-vEY

[Agony]

5. A (not so little) side note about Whale Oil...

Last week I sent my tractor in for service... one issue I hoped to have addressed is a groan in the rear brakes. To my surprise the dealer said that there might not be anything to do about it because they could no longer use WHALE OIL as an anti-howl agent in the differential housing (rear tractor brakes are in the differential). As of 3 years ago!!! Crap! I have been depending on whale oil up to only 3 years ago... Makes my head spin.

Then I found this... http://www.secondchancegarage.com/public/725.cfm Automatic Transmissions and Detroit's Dirty Little Secret

snip---8<--------
"By the 1960s up to 30 million pounds of whale oil were used each year, chiefly as the main additive to automatic transmission and locking differential fluids. It was whale oil that made these devices so reliable and efficient and it was primarily the auto industry's requirements that maintained the demand for whaling during the mid-20th Century.

Automatic transmissions ran smoothly and reliably using whale oil in lubricating fluids, as long as engine coolant temperatures ran below 173 degrees F. Fortunately for the whales, by the 1970s engines became subject to tighter emissions regulations and engineers had to design them to run hotter."

Where else are we still using whale oil? You mean there isn't an anti-howl replacement for differentials? Couple of reasons here why education is so important.

edit:typo

[eppur_se_muova]

17. That is really astonishing. I think it says mostly they haven't tried that hard ...

to find replacements. Check this out: http://faculty.ucc.edu/biology-ombrello/POW/jojoba.htm

Spermaceti is mostly cetyl palmitate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermaceti , which could be made from esters found in palm oil. The 'transesterification' reactions currently used to convert vegetable oils to biodiesel could just as well be used to make synthetic cetyl palmitate. This is just institutional laziness.

Thanks for posting this info. It was interesting, albeit appaling.

[diane in sf]

6. Let's take the analogy even farther, oil is our current whale oil and clean energy

wind and sun in combination with better batteries and plug-in vehicles and maybe switch grass and hemp oil and plastics generated from algae or other things that can generate carbon are what will fill the gaps.

[IrateCitizen]

7. Those are some pretty damned big "gaps"...

The thing to always keep in mind with fossil fuels is that they are literally millions of years of stored solar energy. That is why they are so potent.

Expecting any of the forms of energy you mentioned to provide anything approaching the ERoEI of oil is a false hope, IMHO.

[SlicerDicer-]

9. indeed

we are only 1 cubic mile from freedom!

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320

[depakid]

8. Part of the problem with the denial lobby is innumeracy

Aside from desperately wishing that they can continue indefinitely with their wasteful, unsustainable lifestyles- they simply have no sense of proportion. Even if they got "their wish," it wouldn't be enough, particularly over time.

[SlicerDicer-]

10. You really do have to wonder how diluted they are

at the lobby firms that do this. Although its quite possible that these are the same people who think if a farm goes under they just go to a different grocery store!

[Viking12]

12. USGS Fact Sheet Online

As usual, the news reports the science without proper qualification.

According to the USGS there is only a 1 in 20 chance of more than 4 billion barells of technically recoverable oil: 95% 3.06 bbo; 50% 3.65 bbo; 5% 4.32 bbb. At the mean value, that's 175 days worth of oil for the US if that were our only supply. If production were ramped up to 200,000 barells/day, it will provide a mere 0.95% of US daily use.

Interestingly, the report omits another useful metric, economically recoverable oil. Maybe they assume that oil prices will remain >$110/barell and don't bother calculating that figure anymore.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3021/

[SlicerDicer-]

14. I wish the USGS

would just bitchslap them into a oblivion... Really I mean come on now..

And yes I have loads of respect for those dudes at USGS most are far braver than I :/
At least the volcano dudes :)