ec2-18-219-73-146.us-east-2.compute.amazonaws.com | ToothyWiki | RecentChanges | Login | Webcomic This is how the economics of oil was once explained to Jumlian. It's crude economics (sorry for the pun, but it's true).
It is often said that there are only 20 or 30 years of oil left. And yet after 10 years there is still 20 or 30 years of oil left. This leads many to the complacent attitude that it is actually an unlimited resource because we're finding it faster than we can use it.
This is, of course, a fallacy. The oil industry is very much au fait with the concept that oil is limited and does not want to see its own demise in 20 or 30 years time. However only a fraction (under half) of the apparent increase in oil reserves is due to actually finding more oil deposits, much of the rest is oil in already known deposits that has become economically viable since the last survey. There are two reasons why the oil is now economically viable when it wasn't before, these are:
Oil recovery techniques and technology are better.
Oil prices are higher.
Now, the technology is improving really as fast as the oil companies can throw cash at it. You have heavy investment in deep-water drilling technology, needed to access much of the oil idly burping onto the seabed off the coast of Venezuela or the Falklands. You have guided drilling technology, as employed at wych farm oilfield off the coast of Devon / Dorset where you can drill 3 miles horizontally out to sea and pump from the land oil that is markedly offshore. You have other fringe benefits such as the better harnessing of natural gas, the separation of methane from CO2 to make the coincident gas and oil supplies more viable, and the use of the stripped out CO2 to pressurise the reservoir and allow more oil recovery from a strike, increasing its production lifespan over what could be gotten before. In effect, this advance in technology works much like Moore's law of computer processor development. The cost of recovery and extent of recovery get lower and higher respectively, as time passes, offsetting a net decline in the volume of known deposits.
Now, obviously, there has to come a point where the technology reaches a limit and the Moore's law of oil recovery breaks down. (Obvious, because there is only so much oil available). And then it will all be governed by the second factor, price. Demand will have to fall by pricing countries out of the market. What will the burgeoning economies of China and India, and their population of 2.3 billion do? Will Americans stop driving their Porsche SUV's with a marvellous fuel efficiency of 6 mpg? Will people start actually using car-share schemes or will they all insist on taking a ton of metal, each, to work, every day? How many wars can we expect due to this? Will the oil companies actually put their money where their mouth is and develop viable renewables? (BP have claimed for years to be at the forefront in developing renewables, but it isn't in their best interests economically to damage their oil trade).
Predict the political fallout of spiralling oil prices given the following:
America (and the rest of the west) has bigger guns and bigger greed for oil. The developing world has more people and more need for oil. The UN is apparently impotent.
I've actually been to a few talks on this sort of thing (being in the Geology department you tend to find yourself being invited to talks by both sides of the climate change people) and from what I can tell form these talks:
A lot of the development of the new drilling technologies is in response to the far from ideal political situation in the Middle East. Extending the life-time of the industry is one half of the reasoning but removing the reliance on OPEC oil is another.
The North Sea oil and gas will be running out in the next 20 years. The results of this will probably include a large chunk of the British oil industry being laid off and a massive change in European foriegn policy. Expect to see the EU backing Isreal a lot more in future.
The demand for oil and gas is set to go through the roof when India and China really start flexing economic muscle. Right now not too many Chineese can afford to be a one let alone two car family, current economic trends suggest this is going to change in a big way in the next 20 years. Forget the American SUV, worry about the Chineese and Indian ones.
Especialy important as by the numbers developing countries use their fuel far less efficently than developed ones (yes, even the USA).--King DJ
Fossil fuels could last a few hundred more years, as prices rise and technology improves then alternate sources such as oil-rich shales will become viable. These sources are generally dirtier and require more effort to extract useful fuels from. One consequence of this is that Canada would contain similar quantities of viable fuel as Saudi Arabia.
Most of the oil industry has recognised that there is a serious problem, not only with lack of viable resources but with climate change, getting them to do something about it is another matter. BP were very much into alternative energy sources, BP no longer stands for British Petroleum, it stands for Beyond Petroleum. Unfortunetally after a rather bad patch they decided this no longer meant things like making solar cells but instead exploiting gas reserves too.
Sorry to blow the trumpet but Shell has a similar program "Shell Renewables" and is also developing fuel cells.--King DJ
Shell and BP are the ones who are actually making an effort towards climate change, this is why Esso are getting so much flak over the issue --Edith
There is still a hell of a lot we do not know about climate change. New factors are still being discovered, a rather neat cycle involving volcanics and a rising of the sea bed (thus partially cutting off the gulf stream) is a good example of this.
Some of the best data on climate change comes from the oil industry as they have much more data on various strata world-wide than anyone else. Ironically the best people qualified to talk about climate change over the last 200 million years have a slight vested interest. This hasn't always stopped them from publishing, although it sometimes has, mainly for reasons of commercial confidentiality.
It is still not viable to run the country's power solely off renewable reasources, the technology just isn't well developed enough yet. Having said that, the government could be doing more.
I wish people would stop blocking all the wind farm proposals for all sorts of short sighted reasons. I don't think they are ugly or that much of a danger to shipping (are you going to build them in the middle of deep water shipping lanes?).--King DJ
We like wind farms. It would be neat if we could get a nice cottage in the country for peanuts 'cause there's a wind farm next door... - SunKitten
StuartFraser, who spent the first two years of his life with one "next door" (ish) wonders if they're the reason he's hypersensitive to ultrasonic sound now. (Wind Farms do indeed produce ultrasonic-range soundwaves), and generally thinks that they ought to be kept as far away from inhabited areas as possible.
Surely that would make you less sensitive, if anything? -- Xarak
Are there any studies on their effects on people? - SunKitten
I tired googling for it but didn't find anything. Can't say I've ever heard of it being a problem.--King DJ
Could be worse. Could be California.
As DouglasReay understands it, there are three factors going on.
1. Energy Production. Renewable energy sources are already the most economically efficient sources in some areas, without subsidy. At some price level of fossil fuels a tipping point will be reached: renewable energy will be cheaper means of putting energy into the national electricy grid in the uk than oil or gas or coal. At that point, the renewable sources will gain additional efficiency from bulk investment in research and mass production of components.
2. Energy storage and transport. Right now hydrogen cells and other forms of electric battery seem nowhere close to a tank of petrol in terms of energy per storage weight. This is going to be the big issue in 20 years. Expect any uses of oil besides vehicles and the chemical industry to be severely curtailed.
3. Fusion. Fission. Microwaves beamed down from solar satelites. We need a good economic model that really lets us balance the costs and risks of power sources that have small chances of causing lots of one off damage, rather than a high chance of medium ongoing damage. Do we have a page discussing weird and wonderful ways of producing energy? If not then here's a start:
Biosolar energy
They're already genetically engineering plants (algae I think) to produce petrol when given sufficient energy; why not cut out the middle man and have them use photosynthesis to break water into hydrogen and oxygen (or have them produce hydrocarbons if you're worried about explosions)? One scifi book I read envisaged vast mats of algae in plastic casing floating in the ocean sucking up sunlight. If you ignore the problems of shipping, this would be an excellent solution - if you wanted to go nuts, you could even build in a parallel wave-fuelled system to provide energy in the less sunny but more turbulent winter months. - CorkScrew
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