Political Crossfire Forums

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

Selfish_Meme wrote: 100% of Oil in the world

90% of Oil is easy to find and tap (generous estimate)

10% of Oil is difficult to find and hard to extract

It is not because we havn't looked for oil that we havn't found it, its just that it is harder to get to and maybe economically not feasible.

The oil will run out, it probably won't cause the collapse of society everyone goes on about. Though I do think there will be a few million starving muslims.

that's just completely false
i dunno where you got all those numbers--you're just wrong

oil is not getting any harder to find
that's why we know it's not running out

oil will never run out

social · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:09 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: The amount of "proven reserves" is just a tiny fraction of the amount of oil in the earth.

There is a lot more than 1.349 trillion barrels of oil out there. That number is meaningless.

And how exactly do you know this?

social · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:13 pm Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: oil will never run out

Do you have any idea of how oil is formed?

Oil is going to run out because it is not being produced as fast as we are consuming it. Period.

perdidochas · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 15424 Location: Florida

social wrote: ieatfood wrote: oil will never run out

Do you have any idea of how oil is formed?

Oil is going to run out because it is not being produced as fast as we are consuming it. Period.

Google "Eugene Island"

social · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:57 pm Post subject:

Are you suggesting that oil is being produced on the day? The most likely explanation, according to one of the sites I visited, was that oil from Eugen ilsand was being continually replenished by another source deep below the surface... Which would of course mean that that source would also run out of oil at some point in time.

mathurin · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:58 pm Post subject:

oil will not run out in the near future, it will be several hundred years at least, the most conservative estimate i have read says 100 years, anybody else is just an alarmist, and helping the oil companies by increasing their profits

perdidochas · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 15424 Location: Florida

social wrote: Are you suggesting that oil is being produced on the day? The most likely explanation, according to one of the sites I visited, was that oil from Eugen ilsand was being continually replenished by another source deep below the surface... Which would of course mean that that source would also run out of oil at some point in time.

Yes, but none of the sources fit the conventional "fossil" fuel model for oil. The soviets suggest that oil is being produced constantly, and their successful drilling programs are based on that model.

Just something to think about.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

social wrote: ieatfood wrote: The amount of "proven reserves" is just a tiny fraction of the amount of oil in the earth.

There is a lot more than 1.349 trillion barrels of oil out there. That number is meaningless.

And how exactly do you know this?

Saudi Arabia alone has over 80 known
fields and exploits only nine. Of course, there are many more
fields, known and unknown. The Saudis do not invest to dis-
cover, develop, and produce more oil because more production
would bring down world prices.
http://mit.edu/ceepr/www/R2004-171.pdf

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

social wrote: ieatfood wrote: oil will never run out

Do you have any idea of how oil is formed?

Oil is going to run out because it is not being produced as fast as we are consuming it. Period.

oil will never run out because there is more than enough oil in the earth for human needs

MLBrandow · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 105 Location: Tallahassee, FL

mathurin wrote: oil will not run out in the near future, it will be several hundred years at least, the most conservative estimate i have read says 100 years, anybody else is just an alarmist, and helping the oil companies by increasing their profits

You know, I just did a whole bunch of math because I forgot to carry a couple zeros and was like "wait a minute, according to these clowns there's more oil on this earth than water."

Actually according to this it's about 1:1000.

It makes sense to me mathematically that in 40-50 years there will be no more oil.

mathurin · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 6:57 pm Post subject:

only if you assume proven reserves are all we have, only if you buy into the common knowledge lie that everybody is selling, you have to reach low before you get to running out, we arent even low yet, its just a ruse to raise prices/brainwash new environmentalists

bob.appleyard · Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 7747 Location: Manchestar, innit

mathurin wrote: only if you assume proven reserves are all we have, only if you buy into the common knowledge lie that everybody is selling, you have to reach low before you get to running out, we arent even low yet, its just a ruse to raise prices/brainwash new environmentalists

Which would the oil companies rather you thought:

"Oh no, we're running out of oil!"

or

"Bah, it's an oil company conspiracy!"

The oil companies want you to think there's plenty of oil left, and they're exploiting you with high prices. You won't then be thinking what they're thinking, and getting off it while there's time.

Obviously, this tactic won't work forever.

Regarding discoveries:

Statistically, it looks like this one's gonna be a toughy.

Quote: BP’s statistics do not make any predictions for discovery but some people have made estimates. One of the ASPO members, Colin Campbell, estimates undiscovered oil at 130 GB (less than five years of oil at present consumption rates). But that oil will not all be discovered at once.

One example of the optimist (oil industry) view is Wolfgang Schollnberger’s presentation to the IP Week conference in February 2002. He estimates a further 500 GB to be found with 280 GB to be found by improved recovery. To put this staggering 780 GB figure in proportion, the proved reserves of the whole Middle East in the BP Review was 100 GB smaller!

But even if this figure was accurate, it would not be as cheerful as you might think. As mentioned, oil is not all discovered at once. If we spread it over fifty years, that equates to 15.5 GB a year. Remembering that consumption is 27 GB/year and growing, even this massive (and unlikely) addition would not stop the decline, just slow it a little.

http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/mainpages/discoveries.html

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

estimating how much oil is left in the ground is impossible

you cannot know how much oil is in ground that you have not explored

you also do not take into account technology to know what exploration capabilities will be available in 50 years.

they made these same "estimates" 20 years ago and they were horribly horribly wrong.

your chart means nothing

suffice it to say that there is enough unexplored and undeveloped land as well as newly developed technology to be sure that oil will never run out.

perdidochas · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 15424 Location: Florida

bob.appleyard wrote: mathurin wrote: only if you assume proven reserves are all we have, only if you buy into the common knowledge lie that everybody is selling, you have to reach low before you get to running out, we arent even low yet, its just a ruse to raise prices/brainwash new environmentalists

Which would the oil companies rather you thought:

"Oh no, we're running out of oil!"

or

"Bah, it's an oil company conspiracy!"

The oil companies want you to think there's plenty of oil left, and they're exploiting you with high prices. You won't then be thinking what they're thinking, and getting off it while there's time.

Why would the oil companies want us to think there's plenty of oil? It makes no sense. It's better for them to get us to think oil's scarce, and keep us at this threshold where oil is cheap enough to keep away alternatives, and expensive enough to maximize profits.

poweRob · Joined: 14 Jul 2004 Posts: 22713

ieatfood wrote: social wrote: ieatfood wrote: oil will never run out

Do you have any idea of how oil is formed?

Oil is going to run out because it is not being produced as fast as we are consuming it. Period.

oil will never run out because there is more than enough oil in the earth for human needs

That being said, should we continue to rely on oil as much as we currently are?

Selfish_Meme · Joined: 31 Jan 2006 Posts: 726

ieatfood wrote: estimating how much oil is left in the ground is impossible

you cannot know how much oil is in ground that you have not explored

you also do not take into account technology to know what exploration capabilities will be available in 50 years.

they made these same "estimates" 20 years ago and they were horribly horribly wrong.

your chart means nothing

suffice it to say that there is enough unexplored and undeveloped land as well as newly developed technology to be sure that oil will never run out.

http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v38/oil.html

Apparently having land area has got nothing to do with oil production. Oil production in the United States has plummeted since its richest fields were discovered in the 30's-50's. From a high of 8 billion barrels a day to 1 billion, so where are the new US Oil deposists that should just be sitting under any new bit of land?

Oil is the leftover of forests that have formed over geological ages in a very particular way, it is rare and only formed where those forests where long ages ago.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/fulltext.html

1 billion barrels is a significant find in the US and it's in the ocean, they are drilling 5km's down out in the ocean for less than an eigth of the daily ouput of the states in 1950's.

Yes oil is just lying around.....

perdidochas · Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 15424 Location: Florida

poweRob wrote: ieatfood wrote: social wrote: ieatfood wrote: oil will never run out

Do you have any idea of how oil is formed?

Oil is going to run out because it is not being produced as fast as we are consuming it. Period.

oil will never run out because there is more than enough oil in the earth for human needs

That being said, should we continue to rely on oil as much as we currently are?

probably not. Personally, I'm waiting on solar. It's slowly but surely coming in to it's own. In 20 yrs, most of us will be producing electricity via solar roof panels.

social · Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:58 am Post subject:

ieatfood wrote: social wrote: ieatfood wrote: The amount of "proven reserves" is just a tiny fraction of the amount of oil in the earth.

There is a lot more than 1.349 trillion barrels of oil out there. That number is meaningless.

And how exactly do you know this?

Saudi Arabia alone has over 80 known
fields and exploits only nine. Of course, there are many more
fields, known and unknown. The Saudis do not invest to dis-
cover, develop, and produce more oil because more production
would bring down world prices.
http://mit.edu/ceepr/www/R2004-171.pdf

Since these oil fields haven't yet been discovered, the only accurate thing you can say about them is that they might exist, that it is probable that they exist. Nothing more, nothing less.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

Selfish_Meme wrote:

http://pr.caltech.edu/periodicals/CaltechNews/articles/v38/oil.html

Apparently having land area has got nothing to do with oil production. Oil production in the United States has plummeted since its richest fields were discovered in the 30's-50's. From a high of 8 billion barrels a day to 1 billion, so where are the new US Oil deposists that should just be sitting under any new bit of land?

Oil is the leftover of forests that have formed over geological ages in a very particular way, it is rare and only formed where those forests where long ages ago.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/fulltext.html

1 billion barrels is a significant find in the US and it's in the ocean, they are drilling 5km's down out in the ocean for less than an eigth of the daily ouput of the states in 1950's.

Yes oil is just lying around.....

you really don't understand the situation at all
the reason why oil production is low is not because oil is becoming more scarce--that is a common misconception
in fact, we know that oil is not becoming more scarce--why? because it isn't becoming harder to find oil. The price of exploration, and building oil wells is not rising. So what has caused oil exploration to decrease? The answer: the low price of oil over the past few years. We think of oil prices as being real high right now, but not too long ago, it was quite low. And when prices are low, it doesn't make economic sense for oil companies to invest all the money to explore, build and extract more oil. The same thing is true of refining capacity--why would you build more refineries if the price of oil is low? You wouldn't. Thus, the US has not built any new refineries in a while. If I were to make a chart of new refineries built, it would look a lot like that chart of new oil exploration (that people falsely use as "evidence" of oil scarcity). We would see that refinery building peaked a couple of decades ago and is very low today. Does that mean we are running out of refineries in the world? Of course not, just like it doesn't mean that we are running out of oil.

Now that oil prices are high, oil exploration will increase. However, it takes a few years for new oil wells to become operational. Thus, we will continue to see high oil prices in the near future.

ieatfood · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 6505

social wrote:

Since these oil fields haven't yet been discovered, the only accurate thing you can say about them is that they might exist, that it is probable that they exist. Nothing more, nothing less.

given the experience of oil exploration in Saudi arabia and around the world, given the amount of unexplored oil fields, and given the amount of new technology that's soon to become available, I'think it's pretty safe to say that oil will never run out.