Posted on 02/24/2008 1:41:05 PM PST by ScratInTheHat
As we all know but are sometimes reluctant to contemplate, oil is a finite, non-renewable resource. This automatically means that its use is not sustainable. If the use of oil is not sustainable, then of course the added carrying capacity the oil has provided is likewise unsustainable. Carrying capacity has been added to the world in direct proportion to the use of oil, and the disturbing implication is that if our oil supply declines, the carrying capacity of the world will automatically fall with it.
These two observations (that oil has expanded the world's carrying capacity and oil use is unsustainable) combine to yield a further implication. While humanity has apparently not yet reached the carrying capacity of a world with oil, we are already in drastic overshoot when you consider a world without oil. In fact our population today is at least five times what it was before oil came on the scene, and it is still growing. If this sustaining resource were to be exhausted, our population would have no option but to decline to the level supportable by the world's lowered carrying capacity.
On the other hand, if they're right, we're doooooooooooooooomed.
Well, human consumption of whale oil didn’t keep up with production either, and that exactly proves my point. We don’t burn whale oil now, nor would we want to. But it bought us time to develop a better source: coal oil, which allowed us to transition to oil, which will allow us to transition to something better.
Having said that, it took over 50 years to transition from whale oil to coal oil, and roughly the same time to transition away from coal oil. In my youth, I remember that homes commonly had coal bins and outside doors for the truck to dump coal through. (Indeed, there are homes that still have the doors visible from the street, if you know what to look for.) Large commercial buildings had smokestacks. Now, that is all gone. Who wants the pollution even if it wasn’t illegal?
Now me? I heat with wood. We have come full circle because I recently calculated that a pound of oak replaces 9 cents worth of propane which is commonly burned in rural areas. I burn a wheelbarrow of wood a day, or maybe 30 pounds = ~$3 of propane. That is roughly $100/month, but my house is pretty efficient. A nearby elderly in-law has spent almost $800 to heat a very modest house with propane.
While the wood is free, my time has opportunity costs. I figure that cutting and hauling logs of standing dead timber and then splitting them and stacking pays me more than the minimum wage in replacing propane I would otherwise burn.
Tellingly, I don’t see anyone trying to clean up and burn all the standing dead trees that are visible from the highway as was done for a few years following the first oil price shock in the 1970’s. Even with “high” prices today, they are not so high that people are willing to do the manual labor to gather otherwise free heat.
So, there is more to a person’s energy price calculation than just straight dollars per BTU. We include our own value to the environmental burden of our fuel choices, and subjective factors such as how much work we are willing to do to compensate for convenience. Our incredible prosperity gives us the resources to be able to make these choices.
I know people who, in their youth, had no choice. They either burned wood that they had to cut and haul or they froze. Or else they burned coal. This is what their neighbors did and everyone in the community. There was no “electric” heat, nor natural gas.
But consider that for the present it appears the reason we are denied the choice of diesel autos is because of the attitude by just a few states to approve those engines in autos. We also have few states that would entertain construction of any new refineries. We have a federal EPA that has Balkanized the gasoline supply by defining almost two dozen specific blends by region that cannot be cross sold, under penalty of felony jail time. And government refuses to allow drilling for oil and gas on much of our own soil. So, at least some of our ability to choose the best fuels or fuel sources has been taken from us by government. We are left to make do with what is left.
Markets swing. In the late nineties, oil dropped into single digits, due to the “Asian Flu”, the recession in Asia. Oil dropped to about 8 bucks a barrel. There were coups, riots, blood in the streets in oil producing countries. It was bad.
Since then Asia has recovered. China is using about 3 times the oil it was using in 1990, 50% more than in 2000. That puts a lot of pressure on the market. Even so, gas at the gas pump is not really anymore expensive than it was in 2000.
But overall, the oil price was in the mid twenties per barrel at the beginning of the decade, 2000. It has gone up 3 to 4 times since then. Similarly, coal has gone up 3 to 4 times. So has steel, gold, concrete, how about your house? It probably has at least doubled.
The unspoken common denominator in all of this, if everything has tripled since 2000, your dollar is worth approximately a third of what it was. Your dollar is losing value. We have no inflation, supposedly, and yet everything has tripled in its dollar price.
Okay...you got it!
Hm...you might be right, although you can grow a phenomenal amount of food on two acres of land. If you have to throw in cattle, that would increase the amount of land needed for grazing, of course.
I did not intend to insinuate that 35 people per acres was sustainable - did not make that clear, though. Just making that point that the world is a very huge place, and the area that humans populate is practically miniscule.
Good post.
I heat with wood also.
I have a 1000 gallon waterstove.
People keep asking me where I get all the wood.
They don’t realise it’s there for the taking.
With petroleum products you can
And we don’t know that petroleum is limited. Well, we do in the sense that we know there is no more of it than the world could contain. But in that sense, the universe is limited, too. That is, if petroleum is not decaying dinosaurs but a part of the earth’s structure, there may be far more than we could ever use.
Drill ANWR. Fight OPEC to force them to meet the world’s demands. Go nuke for electricity production. Research alternative fuels.
How exactly do you get “people starving” from my post?
As an example, Brazil produces about 15% of their domestically consumed energy from sugar cane. How does that have anything at all to do with starving?
“As we all know but are sometimes reluctant to contemplate, oil is a finite, non-renewable resource.”
-ice methane under the sea
-the vast oil sand reserves in Canada
-The estimated 400 billion to 500 billion barrels in the Baake formation and Williton formation in the north midwest and southern Candada
-Oil Shale
-The heavy tar in Venezuela that exceeds Saudi reserves
-The estimated 45 billion barrels found in the Gulf of Mexico
And, I’m sure there is a lot more than that.
Look at the term ‘resource.’ What is a resource?
One definition is that it is something with value greater than production cost.
Not all petro or bituminous material should be considered a resource in economic terms.
Not near as big as it seems though. Only about 13% of dry land is suitable for agriculture and intensive farming can go through fertile land in short order.
Regards,
GtG
This is something that most overlook.
It’s not just how much oil is there.
It’s how much oil you can get before it’s cost kills it’s extraction. There will be a point that the energy you get out can’t be supported by the economy of the consumer.
So what you mean is that once oil broke the $40 mark, sugar cane-to-ethanol became viable?
Or are you saying that using sugar cane to make alcohol will drive oil back down to $40?
Two words:
Nuclear Power.
Two more words for the enviroweenies:
F**k off.
>> Well, let’s start by not accepting this premise.
Yes!
99% of today’s problems should first be addressed with that brilliant remark!
Oil is finite. When we stop discovering new oilfields, let me know. I’ll start worrying then.
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