OIl is now $80 a barrel. Does this mean Peak Oil has hit?

Question

Peak Oil is that piont when half of all the world's oil resources have been used up, and as it gets rarer and more difficult to obtian the price will just go up and up, crippling the economy and causing profound changes that cannot be predicted with any great certainity.

There is no alternative to oil that is not really a derivative of oil, nothing as dense or as energy rich.

After peak oil there will be Peak gas, and without gas you can't process the oil sands and tars to liberate the oil in those. Besides, you need a lot of water for the process, and most of the tar sands are in deserts. Without oil, how do you truck in the water?

Nuclear is not the answer as you can't put nuclear power in a petrol tank, and there is already a shortage of Uranium.

Without oil, how do you build and fit the 32,000 wind turbines you would have to build and fit every year for at least 50 years,

or build and fit the 91,000,000 solar panels needed every year for 50 years. Hydrogen? No.

Answer 1

It is likely that peak oil has hit. There is still alot of oil under the ground; to pump it out we would have to put more energy into the process than we would get out, but we don't have the technology to pump it out yet. As for the price, as long as that oil lays underground, and the demand keeps growing, the price will continue to skyrocket. And pretty soon you can say goodbye to things like free plastic grocery bags, and anything with plastic in it is going to skyrocket in price.

To combat the oil crisis, aggressive laws and tough punishments have to be enforced on the auto industry for efficiency. ATV's offroad vehicles and other such items, including the hummer, should not be allowed to burn oil and petroleum products. As for power generation, new and more efficient wind turbines, biomass generators, and other technology is coming online to ease the problem.

Answer 2

What has the price of a barrel of oil got to do with Peak oil?  Sounds like a bit of "hypochondria" going on here.  Not to worry, there are alternatives to oil, and more are being developed, just calm down and go back to sleep.

Answer 3

The price today doesn't mean peak oil has hit.  The entire Peak Oil argument is based on the proposition that production levels will hit a plateau and then decline.  No one knows for sure exactly where we are on that process due to the unknowns surrounding middle eastern oil reserves and unknowns about areas so far not fully explored.

However, it is pretty certain that the "easy" oil -- oil that is easily found and extracted -- is on the decline and that new discoveries will present formidable technological and economic hurdles.  Although there is occasional news about potential large discoveries offshore, those discoveries require much more drilling to ascertain the field size and area, the cost of drilling in deep water is extraordianarily high, there is no present infrastructure to pipe oil from deep water to mainland and so on.  

There has already been what looks like "peak gas" in the continental US.  The US imports a significant portion of its natural gas from Canada and Canada's production has actually been declining lately as gas prices have dipped and costs of extraction have risen.  In fact, Canada has been using extraordinary amounts of matural gas to extract oil from the oil sands in Alberta and as companies ramp up production there, more natural gas will be diverted from export use to oil production.  Canada is generally believed to have the largest oil sands reserves in the world and it is not a desert, but the local population is beginning to grumble about air and water pollution and dieversion of water supplies.

I think we will have hit Peak Oil for certain when OPEC cannot expand its production.  Some people believe that is already happening.  It is hard to tell -- OPEC members have historically cheated on quotas when oil prices were high and they have been high for some time with no obvious cheating.  Does that mean their productive capacity is constrained?  Maybe.

I will believe Peak Oil is here when the cheapest grades of oil are at $200 a barrel and there is no bump in production levels.

Answer 4

It's very difficult to say when we've reached peak oil, because we're not even sure how much oil reserves there are left.  We'll almost certainly reach it this century, probably within the next few decades, and it's even possible that we've already reached it.

Fortunately even when we reach peak oil, we'll still have oil reserves for many decades.  We'll be producing less and the cost will increase rapidly, but there will still be oil to use in order to build renewable energy plants.  We're also starting to develop alternative fuel options, such as hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles.  This one is my personal favorite:

http://autos.msn.com/advice/article.aspx...

My guess is that we haven't hit peak oil yet, but we will hit it fairly soon, and oil prices will continue to rise.  We need to do more to develop renewable energy infrastructure in the very near future.

Answer 5

we are NEVER going to run out of oil. ever..

here is the current situation:

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

when that oil is gone, we have this oil:

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

when that oil is gone, we can make some more:

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

Answer 6

Yeah, that's kind of a problem isn't it.

I think long term, that

Forced geothermal, Wind and some flavor of solar will allow us to continue to have a semblance of normal domestic life, but as far as some aspects of our culture, they're screwed.

I think about it this way, What does a post-oil economy look like.

We use 1/2ths of our oil for cars, so cars are probably not long for the world.

We use another 1/3 of our oil for industry and home use, so that will have to change, the other 1/6th of our usage goes to petrochemicals/farming etc.

1/2 of all that energy production is WASTE , which we do not currently recover.

So practically if we are smart about simply efficiency we can probably use only 60-70% of our current use. High efficiency cars, centrally planned living probably buys us another 15-20% of that remainder, after that I doubt there is much efficiency we can squeeze out of our lifestyles and then things start to hurt. That last 1/6th is pretty non-negotiable but solar rechargeable augers and combines might be possible.

Additionally, there is that necessary replacement, I suspect that we may eventually be in a situation where we use a non-trivial percentage of the recovered tar-sands to recover the other percentage the tar-sands of Alberta, I think there is a possibility of discovering some larger oil deposits in far-remote sections of the deep oceans or where-ever but I don't hold my breath either.

So we might be able to have a semblance of normalcy on about 50-60% of what we currently use, but make no mistake about it, the much touted MARKETPLACE, has definitely not come to the rescue in time. So 5 years from now Americans will in the coming months bid a fond farewell to their SUV's and Exurban Mc Mansions and learn how to get by in low-mileage Prius' or Smart Car and a 1000sqft mid-city apartment.

Answer 7

there is an alternative to oil

check these out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlyYWQ8_M...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjiXPUcpy...

Hydrogen can be produced from water using electricity that is produced by solar  or wind  power, using and electrolysis process (similar to how your car battery works)

It burns cleanly and the only emissions are water vapour

Answer 8

It is very likely that we have hit "Peak Oil," and that we could start to expect declines in the oil production in the next decade/s.

I think that it is time to invest in renewable, clean, and inexpensive (yes inexpensive) energy resources to avoid a mass energy crisis like we saw in the 70's or worse.

Answer 9

O relax. There are enough fuel sources to last the next three or four hundred years at the rate we are using them. The trick is that they won't be economical until we reach 90 dollars a barrow.

And if we truly got desperate:

If you remove extra oxygen from any carbon material and then heat the material, it becomes a fuel.  I forget what the name of the process is, but it produces a solid, liquid and gas fuel. Literally it takes 1 btu for every 20 btus of fuel produced.

The reason it isn't used for more than specialty purposes is the result is a very smelly fuel that could be poisonous if made from a material with natural poisons or processed materials with the wrong chemicals.

So stop being dramatic. There is plenty of sources for fuel. Just none of them are prepared to replace crude oil yet.

  

If my grammar is baad it is because I'm tired right now.

Answer 10

Oil will always rise in price.

Answer 11

No.I suspect some day oil will become for government use only.

Answer 12

SO we really are a global village.

Answer 13

Very strange really but the word walk walked walkers walking, stroll strolled strollers strolling or similar dont seem to appear The words car,hibrid,aircraft,do seem to. What a shame we let our railroads go with such ease,even horse barges would still have a place with non urgent cargo Could we reassemble the railways and perhaps enlarge our waterways or does it have to be us v car Stay lucky

Answer 14

They have been saying peak oil for many decades now. But the the rapidly growing consumption in China and India, maybe this is it. Instead of lower supply it will be higher demand that makes the permanent shortage. Then prices will go way up and all those alternatives that were formerly too expensive to compete (methanol and all kinds of bio fuels made from sewage, or trash or whatever, coal gasification, solar, wind) will suddenly be big selling products.

Answer 15

The oil price is that high because people have proved that they will pay that much.

Answer 16

There is no real evidence for or against peak oil because oil reserves are tightly held secrets by state owned oil companies. I personally don't feel 80 a barrell is that big of a deal, in 1981 inflation adjusted oil was still higher than it is today, and consumed a higher percentage of american's salaries.

Is peak oil a problem? yes. Yet when peak oil hits, that signifies the end of the party is coming, there is still time to remedy the situation. Just its going to be costly because oil will be somewhere between 150 and 200 dollars a barrell.

Transportation will be the biggest affected and the airlines since there is no substitute. Our commuter train system needs to be vastly improved with electric high speed trains.

Electrical generation needs to become more de-centralized with homes doing better jobs to generate electrical capacity and local communities (wind co-ops etc)

If cars can transition to electrical, more plug in hybrid or hydrogen (which is just a battery, yet if you can generate 70% of the fuel in the home it can be more viable.

These technologies and effieciencies should create enough of a wedge to give us time to truly find a true substitute for oil and oil products

Answer 17

Synthetic gasoline can be made from coal, as well as synthetic oils, and there is enough coal to last for centuries.  While there is no one alternative that can completely replace oil next year there are many alternatives which can reduce our dependence on oil.  Draconian laws against cars and high taxes are not an answer because they restrict individual freedom.

Every source of energy is opposed by some environmental group. If they had their way the world would have a population measured in hundreds of thousands and they would be vegetarians, use no animals for food, clothing or labour and scratch in the dirt with wood and stone tools to raise food, by law.  

Solar power requires huge collectors, plus batteries for cloudy days and night.  Wind turbines are ugly and they kill birds.  Hydroelectric dams change the environment.  Geothermal is dangerous and difficult to locate. Tidal or wave generation is too subject to storm damage. Nuclear has dangerous byproducts.  Fossil fuels are limited and some say their byproducts are too dangerous.  Bio-fuels compete for farmland with food crops.  So the environmentalists and the bleeding-heart crowd oppose all energy production.

Hydrogen is not a fuel, it is an energy storage system, because it must be manufactured from another source. Most of it is made from Natural Gas from petroleum fields and some is made by electrolysis of water. Both methods use a lot of electricity and we would have to more than double the number of electrical generating plants to make enough H. Those plants will be nuclear, coal-fired or hydroelectric and the radical environmentalists will not allow it.  H can be used as a fuel in a car, just reduce it to a liquid at hundreds of degrees below zero and keep it cold with a big freezer, or compress it to 10,000 psi in a tank 5 times the size of a petrol [gasoline] tank or perhaps use it from a hydride storage weighing 1500 lbs.,  all just to have the range of a regular car.  Not very practical.

Now we can use a truly multi-fuel system which can use any liquid or gaseous fuel with only minor adjustments, that is a flame with forced draft for the cleanest combustion.  The flame heats a medium which turns to vapour and operates an engine.  The vapour is then cooled into a liquid and reused within a sealed system.  This is a steam engine.  However it has 3 drawbacks when used to power autos, it takes 30-90 seconds to get to operating pressure, if you stomp on the accelerator it hesitates due to loss of pressure and it can freeze in cold weather.

Then you have the plug-in Electric Vehicle, it shifts its pollution to the generating plants, but it has short range, unless using very expensive batteries, and can take 6+ hours to recharge.  You use air conditioning, heat, lights, power steering, power brakes and other accessories at the cost of range.  On a hot day you may run out of power 3 blocks from home.  You may drive to work,  which is at the limit of your range, then have to go see someone in an emergency, only to have the batteries go dead out on the road.

To solve this you could use the multi-fuel, low pollution steam engine to run an onboard generator.  It would start automatically when needed to recharge the batteries.  No worries about being stuck on the road and longer trips could be made as needed.  Since 80-90% of driving is done within 30 miles of home you would seldom use fuel, so the mpg would be very high.  If you were to replace all cars with steam-electric hybrids using furnace oil as fuel the added mpg would cut demand for oil by a great amount.  The fact that they could use ethanol, vegetable oil, other bio-fuels, hydrogen or liquid fuel made from coal, or even various gasses, would reduce dependence on oil further.

The steam-electric hybrid could be put into production in less than 3 yrs, it would look like a normal car, drive like a normal car and be just as safe.  No, water tube boilers do not blow up.  Even the Stanley Steamer never had a boiler blow up.  The steam cars were killed by the Great Depression, not because there was anything technologically wrong with them.  All those who have anti-steam comments need to do some research and open their closed minds.

Another souce of fuel could be from genetically engineered plants that could also grow well on marginal land. For instance a prickly pear cactus altered to grow twice as fast and produce a lot of sugar, starch or oil. But that would be unnatural and the environmentalits a soft-heads are so afraid of genetic engineering that they won't allow it.

Steam purists won't consider a hybrid, EV purists think they have the perfect answer and they can't see that together they have the answer to the problem of replacing the Internal Combustion autos.  Most IC people can't see anything else either and want to make them even more complex.  The fleet avg. mpg of all car companies is about 28 mpg.  The Model T Ford got 28 mpg in 1925. What great progress!!

To see more, e-mail  [e-mail]  and ask about steam-electric hybrids.

Answer 18

Scientists have found a way to make salt water burn.  If they can develop it into a practical energy source, I would say we are good to go for a long time!

And no, you cant put nuclear in a power tank, but nuclear can produce a lot of electricity that you can run your electric car with..

Answer 19

No.  I know the website you've been to.  You're right there is no current alternative to oil, just derivitives.  The largest tar sands are in Canada (second largest oil reserves in the world)  Most desert countries actually have nice light crude, infact Libyan oil you can pour straight into a desiel vehicle and drive away, it even smells like diesel.  Although the major finds have trailed off considerably in the past 50 years, we are still finding it.  Ultra deep water drilling technology is coming along at a fast pace, and they reckon they will be able to get to it in the next 10 years. But the actual reserves are just speculation.  The price increases in oil these days are directly related to booming economies, ever time an economy doubles, so does oil consumption.  So the ultra strong Chinese and Indian economies are demanding double their previous consumption every 3-5 years.  Where normal economies are doubling every 10 years.  Is peak oil coming....yes. Is it here....not yet.  Some countries have reached peak oil in their own country, the UK is one of them.  Peak gas, that's a ways off, there is loads of gas, but the demand for that is increaseing all the time as well.  The best guesses(and I stress guesses) for peak oil is sometime after 2020.  However the days of 35 dollars a barrel are never coming back.  OPEC is just managing production now to keep oil at less than 100 dollars a barrel.  When peak oil hits you'll know, estimates are that a 10% permanent drop in production vs. demand will cause a 400% increase in the price of a barrel of oil.  And that will hit every sector, as all the economies on the planet are driven by....you guessed it....oil.