Toyota warns of "liquid peak"

[GliderGuider]

Toyota Warns World Faces ‘Supply Shortages and Resource Exhaustion’

Toyota Motor Corp. said in a new report that by 2020 there may be 1.5 billion vehicles on global highways, 600 million more than there are today, a situation the automaker warned “increases both the possibility of supply shortages and resource exhaustion.”

The report, Toyota’s Sustainability Report for 2008, echoes a July warning from Toyota’s coordinator for alternately fueled vehicles, Bill Reinert, that the world could hit what he reportedly called a “liquid peak” within a decade. Reinert’s warning, made in Portland, Ore., at a conference on sustainable cities that Toyota sponsored, was first reported on the website Green Car Congress, which noted that Toyota thinks a liquid peak could occur even if all available liquid fuels are produced at maximum capacity without concern for the impact on the environment.

The phrase “liquid peak” would appear to be a more dire warning of the potential for motor fuel shortages than the warnings encompassed in the term “peak oil.” While peak oil refers specifically to oil production reaching a physical limit insufficient to satisfy demand, the term liquid peak suggests that not just oil but also biofuel and nonconventional fossil fuel production could reach maximum output and there would still not be enough liquid transportation fuel for some 1.5 billion cars and trucks.

Of course the denialist spin is going to be that Toyota is just scare-mongering to stampede everyone into buying more Priuses.

[lapfog_1]

1. About 14 years off...

peak oil happened in 2006. 2007 will see a decline and so will 2008.

And none of the "Drill here, drill now" slogans will change that. There are no more super giants to be found.

"The world’s 120 largest oilfields produce close to 33 million barrels a day, almost 50% of the world’s
crude oil supply. The 62 smallest of these “giant fields” account for 12% of the world’s daily oil supply.
In contrast, the fourteen largest account for over 20%. The average age of these 14 largest fields is 43.5 years".

Mexico's Cantarell was the last true "super-giant" and it was discovered in 1976. Cantarell has been in decline for the last 3 years, this year declining production by some 14 percent from last year.

[GliderGuider]

2. And don't forget the net export problem.

As oil producers use more of their supply domestically, their exports will decline faster than their production.

In the first 7 months of this year, Mexico's production declined 10%, but their exports dropped 16.3%...

[lapfog_1]

3. I think Pemex released a statement saying

that within 10 years, Mexico would be an oil importing country.

But I can't find the reference to this so I might be mistaken.

And also, for the "drill here, drill now" crowd... the oil companies have taken remote sensing data from just about every possible promising location in the US, both land and off shore. The technology for this has come a long way in the last 30 plus years, to the point that the geologists pretty much know what's under the rock layers. If there was a giant or super giant oil field in any of those locations they would be clamoring for the leases (not that they would drill now... they might wait a while), and the ONLY place I'm aware of that they want to open for exploration is ANWR... and they already know (+/- a few million barrels) how much oil is there. They already know how much oil is everywhere. This whole "drill drill drill" is a political scam and nothing more.

[joshcryer]

4. Iran and Iraq are not producing anywhere near their capacity.

And the USA has more light crude in the form of oil shale than the rest of the worlds reserviors combined.

[lapfog_1]

5. Again, it's not peak fossil fuels

it's simply peak oil. And it only has to be "peak cheap light sweet crude" to be a huge problem.

As for Iran and Iraq not producing to capacity, that's true, however they cannot make up for the shortfalls in production from the rest of the world, not to mention that the world is facing increased demands from emerging new industrialized economies (China, India, etc). The Saudis kept promising their buddies (Bushco) that they would increase production as well, only to figure out that it's not easy for them to do so anymore.

And Canadian tar sands have more "oil reserves" than the rest of the world combined and are easier to extract than shale oil. However, easier doesn't mean that it will be cheap. Peak oil is about the end of cheap oil.

[hatrack]

6. Yes, oil shale - too cheap to meter!

But not to worry - there was a Los Alamos study that projected getting up to 1 Mbd would only take 20 years from initiation of commercial scale-up.

It gets even easier after that - going to 3 Mbd would only take another decade.

[hunter]

7. Without other sources of inexpensive energy, shale is just shale.

I suspect any society that depended on these shales for oil couldn't afford the machines required to bring it up.

Shale oil and tar sand development is made possible by inexpensive natural gas. No inexpensive natural gas, no shale oil or tar sand extraction.

[joshcryer]

8. In situ extraction has an EROI comparable to Saudi oil.

I guess you guys haven't been keeping up with the state of the art. They don't pull it out of the ground with big bulldozers anymore.

[hunter]

9. Head On. Apply directly to forehead.

Here's a current overview:

http://www.worldoil.com/Magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=3606&MONTH_YEAR=Aug-2008

Comes complete with the usual mangled U.S. News and World Report sort of cheerlead (cough)...journalism, but comprehensive enough I suppose.

Actual developers are a little circumspect with their EROI's (if they put any stock in EROI at all) but I think the general range, is ahhh, ummmm, I dunno, maybe we could get 4.0? or less if they are hard numbers sorts and not cornicopians selling shares in yet another shaky shale oil project doomed to failure.

Shell, who has done some work in this area, seems to be much more exited about their GTL projects these days. Nations that still have large natural gas reserves will probably find it much more profitable to export their gas as value added liquid fuels or nitrogen fertilizers, and not as LNG or pipeline gas, and then the automobile age will sputter to a close and we won't remember why we ever thought shale oil might be important, or comprehend the incoherent stupidity of things like Alberta's tar sand projects.

[joshcryer]

10. I'm really confused by your post.

You note the state of the art and then seemingly dismiss it without anything to support your stance. In situ is only 5-10 year old technology, and they only proved its viabality in the last few years. The BLM has already set royalty rates that take the new technology into consideration. It's going to be a very lucrative business in the next few years.

[GliderGuider]

11. Can you post a link to a good EROEI study of in situ shale extraction?

The numbers I've seen are in the range of 1.5:1 to 5:1, and according to Charlie Hall we probably need an overall EROI of 5:1 to keep civilization's lights on.

When you say "comparable to Saudi oil", I assume you mean in the range of 15:1 or better? I'd need to see some support for that kind of optimism.

A recent examination of oil shale technology was published in April on http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3839">The Oil Drum. It doesn't support your case.

[kristopher]

12. So we're fine.

"according to Charlie Hall we probably need an overall EROI of 5:1 to keep civilization's lights on."

Renewable energy sources solar and wind start at a low of around 20:1 and range to 80:1 - and they are climbing.

So we're fine, right?

[GliderGuider]

13. You do need a sufficient volume of energy, of course.

One lonely megawatt-hour, even at 1000:1, won't take an industrial civilization very far. And shale oil has two factors going against it at this time -- flow rate and net energy.

So no, we're not fine at this point. Far from it.

[kristopher]

14. I really can't envision a scenario where you would think we are fine.

Your response made no sense. Renewables have a high EROI and the resources are vast. "One lonely megawatt-hour" is such a bullshit way of avoiding having to admit your view is irrational.

[GliderGuider]

15. I was talking about shale oil, not renewables.

"One lonely megawatt-hour" was a rhetorical device used to make a point about flow rates through the use of hyperbole: if you don't have enough net energy at the output of your energy-producing process, it doesn't matter how little process energy you used to get it. Civilization needs a minimum flow rate of net energy to function. That amount can be reduced by changing the type of energy and the efficiency of its use (at the cost of changing the energy production, distribution and consumption infrastructure, of course) but the principle holds -- for a given infrastructure and level of activity, a minimum amount of energy is required. If that can't be met, then the level of activity must decrease.

The proposed use of shale oil is an attempt to keep the distribution and consumption infrastructure we already have, by simply feeding it petroleum from a different source. I don't think we can get the flow rates we need from shale oil, and the combination of low net energy and the high levels of environmental disturbance during production make it a dubious prospect IMO.

[kristopher]

16. OK

I don't see how you got to shale oil as a response to this but...

"according to Charlie Hall we probably need an overall EROI of 5:1 to keep civilization's lights on."

Renewable energy sources solar and wind start at a low of around 20:1 and range to 80:1 - and they are climbing.

So we're fine, right?

Well then now that you know; we're fine, right?

[Kolesar]

17. Toyota should invest in locomotives and sailing ships...eom