Oil Prices at new high!
- Thread starter teaboy5
- Start date
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Sounds good to meteaboy5 said:
The increased prices are just because some camels have been shot. A few oil baron sheikhs want another solid ivory extension to their palaces so are sticking another couple of dollars on a barrel while they have an excuse, then laughing all the way to the bank while the rumours of "omg peak oil" spread like wildfire.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
How does the alleged availability of several trillion barrels of oil in 'shale' in Colorado and Utah affect the doom-mongers peak oil projections?
Extraction was stopped in the 1930's as its expensive to extract and generally unprofitable at prices under $30/barrel.
But prices are now much higher..
Extraction was stopped in the 1930's as its expensive to extract and generally unprofitable at prices under $30/barrel.
But prices are now much higher..
Soldato
teaboy5 said:
Again these are all guesses and opinions, I just cant see any factual evidence.
It's all to do with flow rates, these unconventional sources can never produce oil at rates anywhere near the flow rates of conventional oil. The potential reserves may be large by unless they can be accessed at millions of barrels per day they are no 'solution' at all.[TW]Fox said:
Any the reason I'm up at 4AM? I'm going the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas annual conference in Italy this week. I should have a lot more to say on the subject next week!
Clv101 has already seen this, but I thought I'd post up this link.
Comes at PO from another angle, but people should have a listen and just work through things in their head. Once you done that, people should come to realise that PO (the concept and approx dates, not the exact dates) makes sense.
Linky .
Comes at PO from another angle, but people should have a listen and just work through things in their head. Once you done that, people should come to realise that PO (the concept and approx dates, not the exact dates) makes sense.
Linky .
Soldato
Chrisp7 said:
Please take the time to read this entire page. Completely. Take it all in. And remeber this guy is retired, doesn't work for anyone, so he has no agenda to prove, he's just presenting some facts.
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/645
Soldato
I for one am not too worried about oil running out. I know that mankind has always found a way, and with every company in the world needing oil, someones bound to invest hundreds of billions of pounds into finding something else, its just at the moment, i don't think anyone can really be bothered as there is still oil around. This is what humans do, they shine when it comes down to necessity.
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Gold was a good investment at the start of the year, it's a bit late to get on that ship now, in my opinion. Note: not an IFA etc disclaimer blah.Energize said:
OvertoneBliss said:Great post, and my thoughts, also.
There are alternatives, plenty in-fact, to keep the world running. They may cost a lot, but you can be damn sure they'll suddenly cost a lot less when needed.
If this were true then peak oil wouldn't be the big issue that it is. Do you think people haven't considered what you are saying and already rejected it.
dirtydog said:
Of course people have rejected what I'm saying, but you know as well as I do, that there are alternative energy sources. I personally believe the theory that the government "shushes" certain advances to more effective energy.
Alternative sources may cost more to produce, but governments will be willing to spend hundreds of billions of pounds when they have to.
Let's just hope we produce them while we still have energy.
OvertoneBliss said:Of course people have rejected what I'm saying, but you know as well as I do, that there are alternative energy sources. I personally believe the theory that the government "shushes" certain advances to more effective energy.
Alternative sources may cost more to produce, but governments will be willing to spend hundreds of billions of pounds when they have to.
Let's just hope we produce them while we still have energy.
That we will have energy is not in question. You don't seem to grasp peak oil and its consequences very well. The point is that there is nothing that is going to replace the *cheap* energy that our society and way of life is dependent on. Oil is quite miraculous in the amount of energy it contains, and in the amount of other uses to which it can be put.
I am sorry but some people seem to say that the cost of the oil is going to pretty much destroy our society not taking into account that once the cost of the oil becomes so great that it will encourage the rapid development in technologies like hydrogen fuel cells, which really could be viable in the next ten years.
Surly people in the west would not be so retarded that they would overlook the opportunity of making a fortune on any new tech that would be the only forms of alternative to oil based energy.
Also the effects that the oil will have in manufacturing seems to have been overlooked, where will all our nice shiny plastic things be coming from if we run out of the black stuff?? hehe come on the bio revolution
Surly people in the west would not be so retarded that they would overlook the opportunity of making a fortune on any new tech that would be the only forms of alternative to oil based energy.
Also the effects that the oil will have in manufacturing seems to have been overlooked, where will all our nice shiny plastic things be coming from if we run out of the black stuff?? hehe come on the bio revolution
iraiguana said:
Yes they are taking it into account
Why do you assume the West wouldn't be retarded? Faced with declining energy supplies, what are we doing? Are we doing the sensible thing and trying to reduce our consumption of energy? Or are we powering full steam ahead and continuing to grow, and increasing our energy needs every year? Indeed our entire economic system is dependent on perpetual growth in this manner. Sounds pretty retarded to me.
Also the effects that the oil will have in manufacturing seems to have been overlooked, where will all our nice shiny plastic things be coming from if we run out of the black stuff?? hehe come on the bio revolution
Again, this has not been overlooked - it's another reason why the effects of peak oil are so wide-ranging and not always immediately obvious.
Soldato
One blatant downfall of hydrogen fuel cells is that they use platinum for the force-membrane.
And because of the pressures and temperatures they run at, the platinum only lasts about a year or two under continuous useage.
The entire world's supply of platinum would make enough fuel cells to replace every running car on the road right now.
So in a year or two we will have used up the planets resource of platinum and therefor not be able to make any more fuel cells, and we will have all these cars that are designed to operate on them with no power source.
Another thing to consider is that hydrogen has to come from somewhere. The current refining processes are through electrolysis of water or separating it from natural gas. Electrolysis of water uses about 12KW of energy to get 5KW worth of hydrogen. Then the 30% efficiency of the fuel cells drops that down to about 1.5KW. So you've used up 12KW of fossil-fuel-generated electricity to make 1.5KW of useable power out of a fuel cell. And removing the hydrogen from a hydrocarbon fuel like natural gas or porpane is slightly LESS efficient than electrolysis.
So yes, the fuel cell powered car is producing less emmissions itself, but its fuel source creates MUCH more in its refining.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a pipe dream. At least for use in the family car.
Nope, the best way of using hydrogen as a fuel in a car is to substitute it for an LP conversion and burn the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine. Store the fuel in metal hydride canisters, not as a gas or liquid.
And because of the pressures and temperatures they run at, the platinum only lasts about a year or two under continuous useage.
The entire world's supply of platinum would make enough fuel cells to replace every running car on the road right now.
So in a year or two we will have used up the planets resource of platinum and therefor not be able to make any more fuel cells, and we will have all these cars that are designed to operate on them with no power source.
Another thing to consider is that hydrogen has to come from somewhere. The current refining processes are through electrolysis of water or separating it from natural gas. Electrolysis of water uses about 12KW of energy to get 5KW worth of hydrogen. Then the 30% efficiency of the fuel cells drops that down to about 1.5KW. So you've used up 12KW of fossil-fuel-generated electricity to make 1.5KW of useable power out of a fuel cell. And removing the hydrogen from a hydrocarbon fuel like natural gas or porpane is slightly LESS efficient than electrolysis.
So yes, the fuel cell powered car is producing less emmissions itself, but its fuel source creates MUCH more in its refining.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a pipe dream. At least for use in the family car.
Nope, the best way of using hydrogen as a fuel in a car is to substitute it for an LP conversion and burn the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine. Store the fuel in metal hydride canisters, not as a gas or liquid.
iraiguana said:
Costs is irrelavent when year on year you are physically extracting and refining less and less oil!!
And, where do you think we are going to get all that hydrogen from... you need to use energy to produce it in the first place. At the moment, solar/wind etc does not produce enough energy to allow you to produce hydrogen, which can then be used as some form of stored energy.
I like to use this analogy... Oil reserves are like a piggy bank. The earth has been accumulating solar energy for millions for years, plants absorbed it at a slow rate, and they eventually died and decomposed. This process is like putting 1p in a piggy bank over millions of years.
Then 100 years ago, we started spending the energy in that piggy bank at a rate a hell of a lot faster than it was orginally accumulated. We can't keep doing that....
1. We either cut down the energy we use, significantly, which means Solar/Wind/whatever energy we can get hold of becomes sufficient.
2. We invent some kind of super-duper technology that is A LOT MORE efficient at extracting and transforming the solar/wind energy around us to maintain the status quo.
However, ultimately, the modern economic system cannot continue to function because it relies on relentless growth, within a closed system (the planet earth with finite resources).