peak oil - this is serious

[nearlythree]

My mum is one of our country's energy experts. She's a sceptic about global warming and deeply embarrassed by my Green Party membership, so when she says we are in the s**t we should listen.

We have reached 'peak oil'. That is, our use is exceeding supply. In thirty yrs (less if China keeps on growing as it is) the oil runs out. This not lonly means no more SUVs and cheap weekends in Prague, but no fridges, freezers, hospital equipment...no electricity in fact. It will also probably mean war (viz. Iraq already happening). Our kids will be about our ages now - we will probably have grandkids too.

Only a a radical rethink can stop this situation.

Think you and I will have to disagree - don't know how sensitive anything else I could say might be. My mum is in the industry, not science or environmental lobby.

Why is your mother a skeptic about global warming, do you actually mean that she truly doesn't think it's happening/going to happen?

flack, tbh it's been a few yrs since I've discussed it with her. Whatever, she thinks we need to invest in renewables and develope alternative technology to using fossil fuels to avert global disaster, which will have the effect (hopefully) of halting the damage.

Must ask her where she stands on this now actually, as her opinion may well have changed esp. given recent weather.

I have a friend who works in a similar field and he was saying recently that in about 100 years London is likely to be under water (from rising sea levels) but no one will take action becuase it's too long-term.

And what of countries like Bangladesh which are likely to be completely under water ... ?

The problem with oil/petrol is not that it will run out, but that it will become more and more expensive. Our gas bills have double in the last 2 years - and it is likely that they will just KEEP rising.

I can imagine that things could end up in a civil war/reverting to cave-men! situation in about 200 years, if things go tits up - energy crisis/fundamentalist crisis/mass flooding. I think a lot of countries could be bankrupted...

we are all DOOMED!

And when London floods there is the question of what to do about Wormwood Scrubs prison - the situation would be very similar to that in New Orleans.

We don't even have gas here, we are reliant on oil heating (we don't have the space for a wood burner) It costs a fortune and we have no watchdog looking after our interests. When we moved here 8 yrs ago a tank was £90. It's now over £300. There probably is an alternative but we can't afford to change our boiler.

Oh, PEAK oil....I thought you meant teak oil - you know, for buffing up all that lovely teak garden furniture from the rainforests.

the technology to run transport on oil alternatives has been around for years. But the oil companies have had a vested interest in delaying the development into commercial propositions until they have sunk their corporate claws into 'fossil fuel alternatives'

viz recent developments in oil companies turning their attention to 'bio-diesel'

gb.

Oh, and I was totally convinced by that nice BP advert.

Running transpor on other fuels isn't the trivial thing Greens would have you believe. Certainly the idea of some conspiracy by the oil firms is quite silly.

Oil is popular because it is very easy to handle. Touch liquid hydrogen and you'll lose fingers or the whole hand, and it explodes given any chance at all.

Fuel cells show great promise, but then again they always have and are constantly beset by technical glitches.

Methane can work quite well, less dangerous than hydrogen, but of course is a fossil fuel, and one that we may run out of before petrol.

Electic cars are good for milk floats, and err umm that's it. That's not down to the oil companies. Huge amounts of money have been spent for over a centruy tryin g to make a decent battery. No one have ever succceeded. You could show the battery in a milk float to Faraday or Edison and they'd recognise their handiwork, since little has changed.

Crop based fuels are simply a way of making American farmers richer. They make no sense in either environmental or economic terms. Ironically of course the only thing that makes them seem even vaguely rational is serious genetic engineering to make crops more efficient.
How many arty greens are for that I wonder ?

DominiConnor. I have plenty of silly ideas - but I KNOW that isn't one of them!

Whilst peak oil is a real concern (and I too work in the business), the discussion on this thread seems to be built around the assumption that the curve drops off like a cliff once peak oil (whenever that is -- don't believe we've reached it) is reached. I don't believe it will happen like that. The curve will come down because it is true that we ("we" being humans on Earth not just my fellow Americans) are using oil and gas at a rate which can not be sustained forever. But, we won't wake up one day to find it all gone. It will just become very expensive. Perhaps only the rich will have their own cars.

It is of course important that we seek alternative forms of energy. But we don't currently have anything that could potentially replace oil. Nuclear is likely to come in to supplement. But I wouldn't expect it to take up anymore than say 40% of the market (as it does now in France).

Whilst peak oil is a real concern (and I too work in the business), the discussion on this thread seems to be built around the assumption that the curve drops off like a cliff once peak oil (whenever that is -- don't believe we've reached it) is reached. I don't believe it will happen like that. The curve will come down because it is true that we ("we" being humans on Earth not just my fellow Americans) are using oil and gas at a rate which can not be sustained forever. But, we won't wake up one day to find it all gone. It will just become very expensive. Perhaps only the rich will have their own cars.

It is of course important that we seek alternative forms of energy. But we don't currently have anything that could potentially replace oil. Nuclear is likely to come in to supplement. But I wouldn't expect it to take up anymore than say 40% of the market (as it does now in France).

Oh and electric cars get their power from the power plant which likely uses gas as a feed stock. So, I'm not sure exactly what is being saved in that plan. And, who really wants to drive an electric car anyway????? Not I. DC, I think milk floats may be a bit heave for an electric motor.

Can someone tell me how organic toilet roll is made? Afraid up not up on the organic processes.

Well I agree with you Uwila that merely reaching Hubbert's (sp?) peak won't suddenly trigger disaster. But at the same time a lot of the world's oil and gas is in less than stable regimes. Whilst there is a still a global market, then raised prices will be one factor (I remember though the days when we made our commerical plans based on $18 per barrel!). But there are also political factors at play which I suspect are slightly harder to predict. There was Radio 4 program on earlier which emphasised the fact that that Russia and Iran have the largest reserves of Natural Gas.

Would the situation in Iraq have been played out differently if the US was still on an upward curve?

To further confuse the situation, you'd expect there to be multiple "peaks".
There are a huge set of oil deposits which are too expensive to exploit, such as those suspected to be around the Falklands.
Thus a pattern we observe in many natural resources is that a sharp rise is followed later by a rise in supply. And it's far from unknown for the new supply to come online after the peak in price has long since passed, and this accelerates the decline in price.

Thus you can expect not only a general drift up in prices but also far greater volatility as prices affect supply, and supply affects prices.

This makes political stability possibly worse.
Many regimes in the ME rely critically on oil prices, and this will screw their cash flow.

Yes, DC, I agree that the curve will have many highs and lows. However, I expect the prices to go up and up so that will probably work out very well for Middle East cash flows.

At one level I agree there will be a lot of cash.
However, the nature of most ME governments that they will not only waste the money and raise the level of internal spending. It is very hard even in a civilised country to trim budgets when cash flow goes down, so an increase in internal strife looks pretty much inevitable.

Even before the downturn, economic growth needs to be coupled to a progressive social framework, else you get a situation like Iran where expansion in the economy coupled with standard Moslem government led to that current mess.

(re DC's post of 3 August 10am)
Methane isn't only available from fossil fuel; it's also possible to reclaim it (partial, but better than letting it go into atmosphere) from landfills and livestock manure.

Another problem with crop-based ("bio-fuels") is that they require huge amounts of water.

I don't know why micro-energy isn't being more widely promoted. Put solar-panals and a wind turbine on every new building.

well as someone sat in a very oil and natural gas rich country right now I have to tell you that environmental issues are low on the agenda here. That said these ME economies are diversifying and training and up-skilling at a dizzying rate of knots, they are intensely aware of the need to generate revenue from new sources, and ploughing profits back into new areas for exactly that reason. The image of Arab governments burning money for the hell of it is a little out of date.

oh and by the way DC - its a very civilised country. The Gulf isn't all camels and bombs.

[steps down from high horse emoticon]

Out of curiosity, meowmix, where are you?

I know this is a zombie thread - it's what came up when I searched for peak oil. I thought it was pretty interesting to see what was being said 16 years ago!

Considering that all the "green" alternatives eg solar panels etc require fossil fuels to produce them, how do you see this going? Can we just eke out the supplies for a bit longer?

It looks peak oil was around 2010 but I suspect much has been replaced by natural gas.