The great tsunami, the giant wave that will change our lifestyles forever

[4dsc]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_508.shtml

Another hardhitting article..


To conclude, while I could go on and portray many other elements of the devastating effect that Peak Oil will have upon our society, my message to the American people is just this. To the millions upon millions of Americans who are content to be safely tucked into their protective cocoons, in a self-imposed state of apathy and disinterest relating to these massive problems that America faces, this may be the very final wake-up call. If we, as a nation do not collectively recognize the threat of this great tsunami, refuse to think more deeply or get educated and involved, we will be sealing the fate of our children, our grandchildren and those who follow. They are the ones who matter. We simply cannot refuse to address this monumental issue that threatens their very future existence!

When Peak Oil slams into our society with its tsunami-like force, there will be an instant negative effect on each and every one of us. The US government will have to take immediate measures to prioritize the uses of petroleum for the good of the nation in an effort to overcome the horrendous obstacles that we will face. I am sure that the military, our national police forces, energy providers, the agriculture industry, water supply sources and other critical users of gasoline and natural gas will be given the highest priorities. All other uses of petroleum will be given much lower priorities and will not be considered critical. And that is exactly why lifestyles will be altered drastically.
We simply cannot let our insatiable, our totally out-of-control thirst for oil, cripple our nation and our society as we stand in a completely docile, sheep-like state and just let it happen; just let nature take its course. Just as the Titanic went down with the loss of more than 1,500 passengers who believed she was invincible, Peak Oil will bring down America (and actually the entire world) if we, collectively, do not have the heart and the desire to get involved and demand solutions.

[BOHICA06]

1. If Shale Oil is profitable at

$60 to 70/barrel - peak oil will mean nothing.

If Oil Sand Oil is profitable at $60 to $70/barrel - peak oil will mean nothing.

[rustydad]

2. God do.....

...you have a lot of catching up to do. Bob

[InvisibleTouch]

3. Last I heard...

...it takes far more energy to extract oil from shale, than you'd get back for your trouble.

[Massacure]

11. Not really.

Instead of inputting a barrel of oil to get 100 barrels back, you input a barrel of oil to get 2 or 3 barrels back. Its not negative, but it sure is a hell of a lot less efficient than 'traditional' reserves.

The big problem with oil shale is that you need to move a mountain to get it; pronounced: E_C_O_L_O_G_I_C_A_L_L_Y D_E_S_T_R_U_C_T_I_V_E

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. It will never be 'profitable'

It takes more energy to get it out than you get in the end.

The only way they have figured out to do it is using nat. gas, which is also in decline.

just like hydrogen - it's not going to get us anywhere.

[megatherium]

7. We don't lack energy so much as we lack liquid petroleum.

Some suggest building nuclear power plants in Alberta to provide the heat necessary to produce the tar sands. Not my idea of a good time, but the economics aren't so easy to dismiss. Nor is coal gasification, which is also in the cards now.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. I'm not up on the Coal Gasification process yet, but I know when it comes

to Nuclear, I would rather learn to do with out.

[NickB79]

12. Water and energy are two limiting factors

You need water to wash the sands and ground-up shale to extract oil. The primary oil sand extraction sites in Alberta are already stressing the local rivers for water.

You need energy to cook the oil precursors out. Currently they use natural gas, which is declining in production on the North American continent and becoming more expensive, as many home-owners have found out.

Unless water pipelines and nuclear reactors are built on the oil sand and oil shale ranges, they will do little to remedy the impact of Peak Oil.

[depakid]

15. That is sarcasm, right?

Where are you going to get the energy to remove the shale oil? or the tar sands (much less the tremendous amounts of water).

Natural gas? Sorry- that's in depletion in North America. If you want the Alberta tar sands- you're going to have to divert much of the production of natural gas from the Mackenzie gas fields.

Unfortunately, American homes and electrical generating plants also need that gas. What are they going to do?

Nope. The estimates on the EROI of the tar sands runs about 1.5. That means the returns on extracting oil from tar sands is approximately 3 barrels of oil for every 2 consumed. And the marginal return on that will diminish- economically- as the costs of natural gas inevitable rise.

[hatrack]

19. I heard a presentation from the head of Shell's R&D on kerogens

He's been in charge of a test oil shale program in western Colorado, and they've come up with a new process which is far less destructive than the old strip-mining approach. They insert what are essentially big heating coils into the rock, turn them on and wait for a while (months and months) for the kerogen to melt out of the rock.

Spread into surrounding formations was prevented by the drilling of water injection wells. The water so injected was then frozen so that the test well was surrounded by a subterranean wall of ice. And after considerable investment of time and energy, they were able to draw light oil up out of the formation using an electrical submersible pump.

Couple of problems, though. The test platform for the test run he was talking about was about ten feet on a side, and to fully exploit the formations would require building electric generating capacity equal to that of the entire state of Colorado.

You can probably see why oil companies aren't falling over themselves to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in this process.

[BOHICA06]

21. Here is a small overview of SHell's process

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

If you can produce it and make a profit at $60-70/barrel but OPEc cuts their price of the their ever dwindling supplies to $30 .... you have a gas war, which we all know can turn into a shooting war.

[JohnWxy]

34. HEATING MILLIONS OF TONS OF ROCK TO 700 degrees AND THEN

REFRIGERATING THE OIL DERIVED SO IT DOESN'T FLOW AWAY? THIS WOULD REQUIRE VAST AMOUNTS OF ENERGY. YOU WOULD PROBABLY BE EXPENDING ABOUT TWICE AS MUCH ENERGY JUST TO RECOVER THE CRUDE (EVEN BEFORE REFINING IT) AS YOU GOT OUT OF IT IN GASOLINE. NOW THIS IS A RUBE GOLDBERG IDEA IF EVER I HEARD ONE.

This could only become feasible with very cheap electricity (much more wind generated electricity than we now have) and extremely high oil prices too.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. There are so many ways we can voluntarily cut back

on our spend and consume habits, that we wouldn't have to worry about peek oil, if we just conserved and switched to alternative technologies. Remember when Jimmy Carter made everyone turn off the lights and wear sweaters? Guess what, it worked and the greedy oil mongers didn't like it one bit.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

6. our biggest obstacle is getting piggy Americans to realize

that they are absolutely spoiled rotten little piggies.

By US standards, I live in poverty, by the standards of most of the rest of the world, I'm rich. I mean jeez, look at all the stuff I own!

[glitch]

8. So true. Even good people are callous piggies. Our callous piggie culture

reinforces the piggishness at every opportunity. It's a sickness.
However, I take consolation from the words of Paul Hawken, who ended one of his many speeches:
"I may be preaching to the choir, but the choir is getting bigger."

[GOPBasher]

48. You echo my thoughts exactly.

We are just so gluttonous in this country. The more we can change that, the better.

[4dsc]

13. There is not switching to another technology

Remember that energy depletion and technology are two different subjects. One will not help the other..

If we conserve, we may put off the day of peak but its regardless of what we do now.. We should have been building and conserving since the Carter era but you're right, the greedy oil mongers didn't like that.

[DoYouEverWonder]

14. There's plenty of other fuels

other then oil. It doesn't need to be an all or nothing deal. However witha combination of available technology and conservation and we could easily cut our usage in half. We just need the leadership and the will. Has things get more expensive, people seem to be finding the will. Now we just need to get the Repugs out of office, and we might have half a chance.

[4dsc]

16. There is no VIABLE alternative to oil

at this time. Nothing that can be grown or manufactured or produced can replace what we get from oil now. NOTHING!

And I see you're still confused about techonology and oil depletion..

Half a chance?? That's what I give us have at surviving the next two decades as our oil resources decline in a big way!!

[Dead_Parrot]

17. Sadly, what he said.

Lots of individual aplications of oil have replacements: but replacing all of them, at once, seems to be beyond our abilities. Which is a bit of a pisser, if you happen to be a human.

[Odin2005]

18. BS, biofuels are a perfectly good alternative.

The doomers are rediculous. you can't reason with them. If you try they will say you're in denial. :eyes:

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Bullshit.

You can't make plastics or bitumen out of ethanol. Yeah, we might be able to replace gasoline, but you can't make your telephone handset out of corn unless you have a serious shitload of energy to spare. And we don't, in case you hadn't noticed.

Replacing gas with ethanol is pointless if you've go no tires on your car.

[4dsc]

22. We cannot GROW our ways out

We cannot grow out of this mess we have gotten ourselves in. No amount of biofuels will replace what we get from oil!!

Biofuels will have a future in a permaculture where local biofuels are produced for local use..

[Odin2005]

23. Peak oil DOES NOT MEAN NO OIL!

You doomers requiring 100% no oil solutions imediately are nuts.

[4dsc]

24. We are not claiming no oil

We are making viable claims that there is no viable alternatives to oil!! Nothing will replace what we get from oil.. We are not stating alternative are not out there, they are.. They will simply not replace oil on the scale needed to continue our way of life!!

[NNadir]

26. Can you name a specific substance produced from oil that qualifies?

As a chemist, I would love to hear of a compound that can be only produced from oil and by no other means.

[phantom power]

27. Speaking of that...

what is your view of what an economy would look like, where we had to produce all of our various chemicals without the super-cheap shortcut of starting with fossil crude oil?

With sufficient energy, we can pretty clearly do anything. But the way events are unfolding, it appears that we won't have that kind of energy.

[NNadir]

29. Here's what I'm afraid of:

I'm afraid of the world looking like 1940's Germany or 1980's South Africa. I am not (in this case) speaking of the racism, which we all abhor, but of the energy industry in those countries.

In both cases all of the chemicals now made from oil were made from coal, including gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel.

This is the immediately available (and relatively easy) solution. (This technology, by the way, was the core of the Carter era "syn fuels" program - but Carter was proposing it before global climate change was well understood.) The chemistry (called Fischer-Tropsch chemistry) is well known, has been scaled industrially, and, being coal based, is extremely dirty.

Biological sources have some potential roles. I note that one of the first widely used plastics, cellophane, is not a derivative of oil, but of wood based cellulose.

The less well proved alternative is to provide hydrogen as a reaction intermediate and use it to hydrogenate carbon dioxide to address any requirement we may have. This is less well scaled and less well proved but I think it is viable and well within the realm of technical possibility.

What do I think will happen? Fischer-Tropsch chemistry followed by a world wide collapse of the population in an Easter Island type scenario due to out of control environmental collapse.

What do I think should happen? We should tip toe away from the global population crisis - which has translated into a crisis in the atmosphere represented in part by global climate change - through the agency of massive nuclear expansion and (to the extent they are practical and available) renewable technologies. This would probably require draconian international laws requiring two child (max) families, open borders for migration, raising the retirement age to near death and many similar approaches that will not be politically popular.

My basic belief is that humanity is not too bright and will address this matter by half measures, fantasy, and denial right up to the last moment.

[JohnWxy]

35. You said: "hydrogenate carbon dioxide using hydrogen as an intermediate?

"The less well proved alternative is to provide hydrogen as a reaction intermediate and use it to hydrogenate carbon dioxide to address any requirement we may have."

This sounds interesting in that it would be using CO2 as a raw material for other products. This would imply an economically viable process for taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Got any links to share?

[NNadir]

39. The topic is covered extensively in a monograph at the Princeton

University Chemistry library. I do not have the title readily available in my head, but I know where the book is located in the library, since I love to leaf through it as a guilty pleasure when I am there. I will write the title down next time I am there, and report it in the future if you remind me.

I note that carbon dioxide is relatively easy to remove from the atmosphere since it is an acidic compound. However removal through the use of base such as sodium (or other) hydroxide is itself energy intensive.

In general carbon dioxide which readily complexes with amines can be removed from air by equilibrium driven processes. This is in fact how it is done in biological systems, through the complexation of carbon dioxide with an amine (lysine residues in proteins). These processes are equilibrium driven in the sense that, IIRC, carbon dioxide is phosphorylated and then reduced by hydride ions ultimately provided by solar energy. The end product of this reduction in biological systems is, of course, glucose, but many other products are possible depending on the type of catalyst.

In this sense we know that the favorable removal from air of carbon dioxide is possible at relatively low energy expense, just as we knew that heavier than air flight was feasible from the existence of birds and insects.

Carbon dioxide is currently obtained from air as a side product of the liquefaction of air, which is a huge industrial undertaking. The carbon dioxide obtained in this case is generally not reduced, but is used in applications like refrigeration or the carbonation of soda pop. Carbon dioxide is also obtained from some exhaust gases, including those of natural gas. Many reserves of natural gas are highly contaminated with carbon dioxide, which must perforce be removed before the gas can be burned. This is especially true of landfill gas, although the actual potential for landfill gas is small.

[NNadir]

47. Here is a link that discusses the general idea.

http://uregina.ca/ghgt7/PDF/papers/nonpeer/243.pdf

This link reports on a scheme using flue gases, where the concentration of carbon dioxide is higher than in air, but the basic conception is the same.

Note that one of the references in the article refers to the removal of CO₂ from air in submarines.

[4dsc]

30. Think SCALE!!

Lets frame it another way. What compound will replace what we get from oil. What compound will replace the 1 billion barrels of oil the world uses every 11 days!! It not whether there are compound that can replace oil but its the scale of the problem of replacing oil..

And its not just replacing oil we have to worry about but the infrastructure that is support by oil..

[phantom power]

31. We don't lack for compounds...

There is plenty of water and CO2 around, which can be synthesized into any compound we currently synthesize from fossil oil. What's lacking is the energy input required to do that synthesis. And, of course, the new infrastructure that such synthesis would require.

[JohnWxy]

36. The Wind Power potential of the U.S. is 1.5 times current total energy

demand. IF we built enough wind farms to reach this potential would this provide enough energy?

Wind power is now the cheapest source of energy we have. It's just a matter of getting this information out (over the disinformation cloud generated by Coal and Oil industry) to the people and getting Government to AGGRESSIVELY PROMOTE AND BACK WIND POWER (obviously, it will have to be another administration than the one we have now).

IF WIND FARMS WERE ALLOWED TO BE FINANCED THE SAME WAY UTILITIES FINANCE TRADITIONAL COAL AND OIL FIRED PLANTS THE COST OF WIND POWER WOULD DROP ANOTHER 40%.

[phantom power]

37. Given our current political/economic climate, that's a big "if."

[NNadir]

40. I do think scale.

I think a sense of scale informs most of my posts in this forum.

Again, which compound(s) do you think cannot be produced on scale from alternate sources?

Oil, for the record depending on the source, contains many hundreds of compounds, all of which in my mind are producible from synthesis gas. There are many hundreds, if not thousands of ways to make synthesis gas on an industrial scale and many of these processes have been industrialized.

I am looking forward to the depletion of oil, but only if it does not involve an increase in the use of coal.

[Dead_Parrot]

41. Therein lies a problem...

It is the nature of any form of production, that it will be done as cheaply as possible: so whilst it is technically possible to extract CO2 from the air, throw in some H and wrangle syngas out of it, it's going to be cheaper to cook up coal and use that instead.

Solutions to our problems are not just bound by physical laws, but economic ones as well: The works of Fischer and Tropsch are nothing compared to the works of Keynes and Galbraith - which is why we're in this shit in the first place.

Sorry, it's one of those days. Again.

[NNadir]

42. I agree. That is a serious problem. n/t

[JohnWxy]

38. Rather than sitting back predicting the future disaster I think it's

preferable to do what we can, while we can.

Now, renewables will provide some relief. Predictions vary, but most experts are expecting Fuel Cell cars to be practical in 20 to 30 years. Fuel Cell cars should eliminate the use of oil for cars (heavy applications like trucks, not so - leave that to ehtanol and bio-diesel). But rather than wait till Fuel Cell cars are developed we need to act now.

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has predicted that ethanol can meet 30% of the gasoline demand (I don't know if energy crops such as switchgrass were included in this estimate). Switchgrass is several times as productive as corn for ethanol, requires little to no fertilizer and virtually no pesticides, and it grows on land which is marginal (at best) for food agriculture (this means new additional area will be added to that producing ethanol crops). Aslo, I doubt that this estimate took into account that FFVs can be designed to take advantage of the higher octane of ethanol (SAAB 9-5 Bio-Power gets just as good as mileage on ethanol85 as when it is using gasoline) by using compouter controlled turbo, or super-charging. This would increase the 30% figure a bit. Hybrid vehicles, though expensive will continue to be developed and prices will come down in time. Combining hybrid technology with ethanol we could see a 50 - 60% reduction in demand for gasoline (no, this is NOT 100%, but it's better than doing NOTHING). Bio-diesel will further reduce demand for oil for transportaion and heating and some industrial processes - how much I do not know. But the total reduction of all above could be 70-75%. That's not perfect but it is significant. By the way the crops that are grown for ethanol, while they are growing they are taking Carbon Dioside OUT of the atmosphere. This is something no fossil fuel can do (well, it did it, but it was millions of years ago).


Now on the subject of oil supply shortages due to human (terrorist activities) or natural disasters (another hurrican season like 2005) we can expect to get a supply shortage in the next 3 to 5 yrs . What the odds are nobody knows but I think it's between 50% and 100% chance. That is why we need to double production of ethanol as quickly as possible - to provide some protection from a disruption of supply of say 5 - 8%. Without some protection against this we will experience a serious recesssion which will put many out of work and not help out our economy. Ethanol, which we are currently producing, provides the most economical and quickest way to provide this short term protection against supply disruption.

Beyond that we should be aggressively developing cellulosic ethanol (practical within 5 yrs), bio-diesel (practical right now) and even hybrid technology (I only hope we have thoroughly thought out the environmental ramifications of the production and disposal of those batteries). Also, aggressive promotion of increased efficiency of all vehicles and powered appliances can't be forgotten.

We may not be able to replace all the oil but we should certainly try to reduce our use of it for national security reasons, economic reasons as well as of course, Global Warming.

I don't think doing nothing is an option we can afford.

A note on the SAAB 9-5 Bio-Power FFV:

BioPower models make up a staggering 60% of all sales of the Saab 9-5 range in Sweden. 400 cars alone have already been bought by the car rental giant Avis, and Hans Larsson, Director of Procurement at Avis Sweden, was enthusiastic about their purchase:

“The flexibility of the Saab 9-5 BioPower also makes it far more practical to use when compared to some hybrid and CNG-powered cars we have tried."

[JDPriestly]

9. It will be up to the American people --

You are right. Peak oil will mean tremendous changes -- as did the Depression. Whether they bring people together and enrich our democratic culture or whether they result in economic wars will depend on how we choose to deal with the changes as a society. That is why it is so important to be organizing now in a positive way so that we have a coherent voice as the need to adopt and accommodate to new technologies becomes more apparent to ordinary people. Form support groups for liberals in your community. You don't have to "fight the system." You need to be joining together in positive efforts in your communities to get good people elected to office, to develop positive alternative means of spreading information to your neighbors and the community at large. A lot of our political efforts have been focused on combating the negative aspects of Republican rule. By developing Democratic support groups in our areas -- whether it is a Democratic sports club or a reading group or a knitting circle, you can prepare your neighbors and friends to develop a social structure of working and playing together in harmony with democratic values. And it is by having that social structure in place that we can help our communities adjust to that inevitable tsunami out there. Yes, peak oil is coming. And we are going to face societal upheaval. That is why we need to organize in a positive way in our communities. Start now.

We need better public transportation -- transportation that can potentially run on alternative energy. We need social service safety nets that will help people who may be cold or hungry. We may all need to rely on this one day.

Republicans have their hunting clubs, golf clubs, country clubs, symphony auxiliaries and run the fundamentalist churches. Liberals are not even organized on that basic social level. And many of us are run ragged in our jobs. We really WORK the long hours that keep the country going. We don't have time to develop our social contacts. That is why our movement is lagging behind Republicans' cabals. Instead of criticizing Republicans for cronyism, we need to develop a competing social network. That is really our biggest job at this time. Demonstrations are fine. But, frankly, they aren't effective at building the kind of deep-based social network I am advocating. We need something that appeals to working people with families and retired people in our areas.

My comments may seem to be a digression from the peak oil tsunami theme, but I am responding to how we can deal with the social and economic crisis that the peak oil tsunami will mean for our nation. If we continue to follow the Republican solution -- free market economics -- and the concentration of wealth in the rich that that means, we will end up as serfs.

[4dsc]

25. I think we need to POWER DOWN

but trying to educate the masses, when they perceive there's not problem, is going to be the hard part..

I do agree that we need to change but until there's leadership, people won't change..

[Odin2005]

43. Why? The vast majority of power plants don't use oil or natural gas.

Peak oil means the end of car culture and McMansions, we arn't going back to the horse manure economy.

[Nihil]

44. Have a look at your groceries.

I don't know if US stores label things the same way as UK ones
do but unless you are pretty picky, there will be a lot of
(oil) transported stuff in your shopping basket.

I try to get local stuff (i.e., < 5 miles) where possible but
there is other foodstuff that is only "packaged" in the UK.

Peak oil means the end of that too.

You will be closer to the "horse manure economy" than you'd
think.

[Dead_Parrot]

45. You should come to NZ...

they actually have farmers markets in most towns, you can get the food with the soil still on it... very nice...

(It beats Luton, no mistake)

[Odin2005]

46. What the problem with shipping?

biofuel and electric vehicles will make up for a good bit of the oil deficit while the rail system is expanded. Most of the post-PO problems will be a result of desuburbanization and contraction of the automobile sector.

[Nihil]

49. Well, that would have a 'beneficial' side effect ...

... in that a good chunk of the population will starve while your plans
are started up from square one (with no funding) so there will be fewer
mouths to feed if and when the ideal solution eventually arrives.
I agree that it would be the thing to do in a society with foresight
but I disagree that it will happen in the current short-term, greed-driven
environment.

> Most of the post-PO problems will be a result of desuburbanization
> and contraction of the automobile sector.

I disagree. I suspect most of the post-PO problems will be a result
of the (rapid) breakdown of the infrastructure due to a lack of planning
and the subsequent anarchy/repression when those with the resources
decide to lockdown those without.

[4dsc]

50. Powerdown isn't talking about power plants

This is Powerdown: Which option do you choose??

Book review..http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865715106/102-2567134-0186556?v=glance&n=283155


If the US continues with its current policies, the next decades will be marked by war, economic collapse, and environmental catastrophe. Resource depletion and population pressures are about to catch up with us, and no one is prepared. The political elites, especially in the US, are incapable of dealing with the situation and have in mind a punishing game of "Last One Standing."

The alternative is "Powerdown," a strategy that will require tremendous effort and economic sacrifice in order to reduce per-capita resource usage in wealthy countries, develop alternative energy sources, distribute resources more equitably, and reduce the human population humanely but systematically over time. While civil society organizations push for a mild version of this, the vast majority of the world's people are in the dark, not understanding the challenges ahead, nor the options realistically available.

Powerdown speaks frankly to these dilemmas. Avoiding cynicism and despair, it begins with an overview of the likely impacts of oil and natural gas depletion and then outlines four options for industrial societies during the next decades:

Last One Standing: the path of competition for remaining resources;

Powerdown: the path of cooperation, conservation and sharing;

Waiting for a Magic Elixir: wishful thinking, false hopes, and denial;

Building Lifeboats: the path of community solidarity and preservation.

Finally, the book explores how three important groups within global society-the power elites, the opposition to the elites (the antiwar and antiglobalization movements, et al: the "Other Superpower"), and ordinary people-are likely to respond to these four options. Timely, accessible and eloquent, Powerdown is crucial reading for our times.

[phantom power]

28. Hey, let's have some respect for the ACTUAL great tsunami....

which may also change our lifestyles forever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/mega_tsunami.shtml


You better recognize.

[4dsc]

32. Oil depletion will change our lifestyles

peak oil represents that "extraordinary phenomenon" you are looking for!!

[phantom power]

33. Well, there's such a smorgasborde of disasters, we don't have to choose!

There's no special reason that we couldn't get hit with the luxury package: peak oil, catastrophic climate change, bird flu, a mega-tsunami, the collapse of America's massive debt-economy, the collapse of the dollar due to petro-euro competition... In fact, a multiple hit is quite likely, since many of these disruptions are capable of causing others.