Posted on 03/02/2017 4:08:34 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee
Oil is more plentiful than you can imagine. And we keep figuring out easier and more economical ways to get it out of the ground.
In 1938, the famous geologist M. King Hubbert came up with the concept of peak oil, which is defined as having extracted half of the recoverable, conventional oil reserves. After that, oil production declines and cannot keep up with growing demand as the population continues to rise.
In Hubbert’s time, most of the conventional oil reserves had already been discovered. Hubbert went on to predict that U.S. production would peak in 1969, and it did appear to peak in 1970. World reserves were supposed to peak around 2010 (see figure).
However, about 20 years ago, the industry really leapt forward on the technologies to find oil and to extract it. Particularly fracking.
This changed everything.
BP’s Spencer Dale summed it up nicely, “For every barrel of oil consumed over the past 35 years, two new barrels have been discovered.” And this shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Peak oil has probably moved out a hundred years or more.
While we talk about decreasing our fossil fuel use, it’s easy to forget that humans find it really hard not to use what they have a lot of. And we have a lot of oil. And gas. And coal. In fact, the United States has more oil, gas and coal together than any other country in the world. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
But there must come a point where the demand exceeds the supply.
But there must come a point where the demand exceeds the supply.
Uranium reactors, Thorium reactors, Nuclear fusion, He3 from the moon, Solar power collectors in space are all viable options as we increase our technological prowess.
Hard to know what we will be able to do two hundred years from now.
Two hundred years ago, we were just starting utilize coal and steam power. No internal combustion engines. No electricity. No airplanes. No large scale metal production.
That was only 200 years ago.
Years ago, I took an extension program course in Petroleum Engineering. University of Texas, I believe. The first part of the course dealt with geology and the origin of oil. I was surprised to learn that the source of petroleum in the ground was a mystery. Since nobody knew where it came from, nobody could say for certain that it wasn’t still being produced by an as yet undiscovered natural process.
Thee was once accepted “knowledge” that if you sailed over the horizon, you wold fall off the edge of the world. That was until 1492 when Columbus mistakenly found the other side of the world.
My point is why make the assumption that those who control the product of oil would do anything else but let us all assume that the supply was finite?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/18/oil-where-did-it-come-from/
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/03/what_if_oil_and_natural_gas_are_renewable_resources.html
Abiogenic petroleum origin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
That is not necessarily true. Did you read the article? The world still has vast reserves. For every barrel used in the last 35 years 2 more have been discovered. And there are huge amounts unexploited reserves thought to be in arctic and Antarctic regions.
Many of the reserves which were being exploited when oil was at higher prices are now mothballed until prices rise again. There is currently a great amount of excess capacity that is being left in the ground until some future date.
Demand has not increased at the rate that was expected. We are looking at 50 or 100 years of more of plentiful fossil fuels. In that time period nuclear reactors that use plentiful materials such as thorium will come on line. It is likely that other processes using other sources of energy will be discovered and exploited. So the demand is not very likely to exceed the supply in any of our lifetimes.
Does that mean that petroleum engineers and chemical engineers will be relegated to the dustbin of history? Should these engineering students consider changing their majors? I think that crude oil will soon enough be replaced by LNG as an energy source.
I am sure the Snowflakes still spout the failed theory of “peak oil” at every opportunity. The brainwashed are incapable of learning.
The Japanese and the US have been working on extracting dissolved uranium from sea water. We can do it, but we are trying to get the cost down to the same as land mined uranium. If that happens, and we are close already, we can run the entire world's current electrical demand off nuclear reactors for the next two million years.
Yes and no.
If no other alternative energy sources are developed and expanded, then demand for oil could someday exceed supply. But if CHEAPER sources than oil were to be found and widely implemented, because the market likes the lowest cost product, then demand for oil could plummet.
The first was high-pressure steam and CO2 gas injection. Then came fluid injection, using a fluid related to dishwashing detergent. Now, we use fracking sands to get to reserves that used to be uneconomical to extract out in the past. And now, they're looking at mining methane hydrates from the ocean floor to tremendously expand our natural gas supply.
In fact, there is such an excess of natural gas supply that it's being used to make plastics, motor oils and even motor fuels. No wonder why coal is going out of favor--natural gas burns extremely cleanly, which means the air in our cities could dramatically improve.
100 years from now, I expect energy generated to be a mix of thorium-based nuclear power and fusion power. And so much power will be generated that most of our trains will run on electric power and there will be massive seawater desalinization projects that will make the Sahara Desert bloom again and permanently eliminate the threat of drought in the southwestern continental USA.
I should restate my question: But there must come a point where the demand of FOSSIL FUELS exceeds the supply. Solar and wind energy can be converted to electricity which can power electric cars but fossil fuels and LNG are still more efficient in powering transportation vehicles. When you studied petroleum engineering, the emphasis was on crude oil while gas was less important then. But now we have the technology to develop an LNG-driven industry. LNG is the fuel of the future (I think) also because it is environmentally friendly and therefore more acceptable, worldwide. What Saudi Arabia is to oil, the US can be to LNG. We’ve got the gas and the world wants it. Europe depends on Russian gas which can use it as strategic blackmail. The US can supply Europe with LNG and thereby draw Russia to the negotiation table. Same with China. The beauty of LNG is that it can be delivered and will require very little further processing to become useable for power generation and for use in the transportation industry. Crude oil still requires processing from its raw state.
Don’t these people realize we ran out of oil in 1990?
Fukushima and the problems at the French reactor come to mind. Also calculate in the problem with Muslim terrorism.
The world is still weary when it comes to nuclear energy. Notice how today we worry about Iran and N. Korea and their nuclear programs.
They still don’t realize they ran out of brains in 1990.
All through school in the 70s and a good part of the 80s, there was a comrade teacher saying that there would be no cars and the like.
An estimated 20 billion barrels has been found in Midland Texas alone. Just a matter of extracting it.
It could be the next Dubai. Or not.
There are oceans of hydrocarbons on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter and I don’t think there were ancient dinosaurs and jungles on those moons. We have only drilled a few miles down into the Earth. We will never run out of oil and natural gas. Most all of the life on Earth is carbon based. The wackos and creepozoids have successfully labeled a plant food, CO2, as something evil. We used to teach the Carbon Cycle as something natural. The Great Northern Ice Sheet will spread down from Canada and there is nothing we can do to change this. There are plenty of science fiction scenarios where we released massive amounts of CO2 to warm the planet, but science fiction is not real. The Globull Gloaming the creepozoids preach depends upon deeply flawed computer ‘models.’ Those models cannot yet figure out, take into account, clouds. Creepozoids all.
20 billion barrels does not seem like a lot - have to find one every 3 years for the next 30- 40 years in the US to be self sufficient
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) includes biofuels in consumption of petroleum products. In 2015, the United States consumed a total of 7.08 billion barrels of petroleum products, an average of about 19.4 million barrels per day. EIA uses product supplied as a proxy for U.S. petroleum consumption.Mar 17, 2016
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