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Peak Oil

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YippySkippy
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08 Apr 2011, 9:21 am

I watched "Collapse" a few days ago, and am interested in peoples' thoughts on the subject of peak oil.

Do you think we have reached it? Why or why not?

If you think we have, what are your political and economic predictions for the next 5 to 10 years?



ZeroGravitas
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08 Apr 2011, 9:28 am

Paul Erlich already lost that bet.


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YippySkippy
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08 Apr 2011, 9:37 am

Could you be a little more vague? :lol:



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08 Apr 2011, 9:52 am

Perhaps.


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08 Apr 2011, 10:00 am

ZeroGravitas wrote:
Perhaps.


:lol:


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YippySkippy
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08 Apr 2011, 10:16 am

Touche. :D



graywyvern
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11 Apr 2011, 12:38 am

i have seen the future--and it is dog carts.


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11 Apr 2011, 12:39 am

Dog carts? Genius! Everyone, invest now!

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psychohist
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11 Apr 2011, 1:26 am

I think we are at or close to peak oil. However, I don't think it will be a sharp peak; it will be a broad peak lasting a couple of decades. I think fuel efficiency improvements like hybrids and mylar sandwiched insulation will keep the impacts from being disastrous during this time.

Food will continue to get more expensive, and I expect the current policies of giving away excess food to overpopulated third world nations - and incidentally wiping out their own indigenous agricultural sectors since it's so hard to compete with "free" - will probably be wound down over this period. Personally I think that will be a good thing in the long run, though it may cause a lot of unrest for a few decades.



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11 Apr 2011, 5:00 am

psychohist wrote:
I think we are at or close to peak oil. However, I don't think it will be a sharp peak; it will be a broad peak lasting a couple of decades. I think fuel efficiency improvements like hybrids and mylar sandwiched insulation will keep the impacts from being disastrous during this time.

Food will continue to get more expensive, and I expect the current policies of giving away excess food to overpopulated third world nations - and incidentally wiping out their own indigenous agricultural sectors since it's so hard to compete with "free" - will probably be wound down over this period. Personally I think that will be a good thing in the long run, though it may cause a lot of unrest for a few decades.


We are always close to peak oil. Improved technology will keep us on the sunny side of almost running short.

ruveyn



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12 Apr 2011, 4:16 pm

ruveyn wrote:
psychohist wrote:
I think we are at or close to peak oil. However, I don't think it will be a sharp peak; it will be a broad peak lasting a couple of decades. I think fuel efficiency improvements like hybrids and mylar sandwiched insulation will keep the impacts from being disastrous during this time.

Food will continue to get more expensive, and I expect the current policies of giving away excess food to overpopulated third world nations - and incidentally wiping out their own indigenous agricultural sectors since it's so hard to compete with "free" - will probably be wound down over this period. Personally I think that will be a good thing in the long run, though it may cause a lot of unrest for a few decades.


We are always close to peak oil. Improved technology will keep us on the sunny side of almost running short.

ruveyn


l doubt technological improvements will be made indefinitely in response to falling oil supplies; I imagine it will follow a law of diminishing returns.


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13 Apr 2011, 9:56 am

ryan93 wrote:

l doubt technological improvements will be made indefinitely in response to falling oil supplies; I imagine it will follow a law of diminishing returns.



The definition of an oil "supply" is technologically dependent. What about tar sands? What about shale oil? What about coal transformed into oil? You are talking about easy to get at oil. That has been exhausted decades ago.

No doubt there is a finite supply but we have not gotten anywhere near that yet.

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psychohist
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13 Apr 2011, 12:48 pm

ruveyn wrote:
We are always close to peak oil. Improved technology will keep us on the sunny side of almost running short.

Prior to 1970, oil production was increasing exponentially, and we were not close to peak oil.

ryan93 wrote:
l doubt technological improvements will be made indefinitely in response to falling oil supplies; I imagine it will follow a law of diminishing returns.

True for extraction technologies. It's not so clear how true that is for usage technologies improving energy efficiency. There's no theoretical limit to how efficient transportation or climate control can get; with perfect insulation, heating becomes unnecessary, for example.



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13 Apr 2011, 1:26 pm

Quote:
True for extraction technologies. It's not so clear how true that is for usage technologies improving energy efficiency. There's no theoretical limit to how efficient transportation or climate control can get; with perfect insulation, heating becomes unnecessary, for example.


Sure there is.

Image

The second part pretty much says that entropy increase is inevitable in an engine. So there has to be heat loss, which means inefficiency.

As for perfect insulation, it has to be transported, often by oil consuming vehicles. In any case, oil is probably used in some point of the production of the insulation.


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ruveyn
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13 Apr 2011, 1:30 pm

ryan93 wrote:
Quote:
True for extraction technologies. It's not so clear how true that is for usage technologies improving energy efficiency. There's no theoretical limit to how efficient transportation or climate control can get; with perfect insulation, heating becomes unnecessary, for example.


Sure there is.

Image

The second part pretty much says that entropy increase is inevitable in an engine. So there has to be heat loss, which means inefficiency.

As for perfect insulation, it has to be transported, often by oil consuming vehicles. In any case, oil is probably used in some point of the production of the insulation.


The only perfectly efficient heat engine is one with its sink temperature at absolute 0. In short, there is, as you say, no perfectly efficient heat engine. The best we can do with combustion engines running very, very hot is maybe 35 to 40 percent and that is stretch.

ruveyn