|
skatealex2
////////////////


Registered: 07/04/08
Posts: 18,699
Last seen: 3 months, 25 days
|
The oil industry ....
#19168462 - 11/21/13 02:09 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Do you think the oil industry will still be booming in 20 years?
Could electric cars take over anytime soon or is oil likely to be in demand for years to come?
Is the cost of gas is likely to go up or lower in the next few years?
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: skatealex2] 1
#19168472 - 11/21/13 02:12 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
skatealex2 said: Do you think the oil industry will still be booming in 20 years?
It will still be a huge economic factor. But its decline will be a widely accepted fact by then and global oil revenues may even have peaked.
Quote:
Could electric cars take over anytime soon or is oil likely to be in demand for years to come?
Yes and yes. By the first yes, I mean that within 20 years, electric cars will be the standard. By the second yes, I mean that road transportation is just one of the many, many uses of oil, so taking cars out of the equation doesn't eradicate the need for oil.
Quote:
Is the cost of gas is likely to go up or lower in the next few years?
Up, obviously.
|
schwarg



Registered: 07/15/12
Posts: 2,817
Loc: San Diego
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19168608 - 11/21/13 04:06 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
In 20 years we will have passed peak oil. Then the dwindling oil reserves will be unable to fuel growing economies and society as a whole will begin to wind down. Unless we can master nuclear fusion, I'd say we're fucked.
--------------------
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: schwarg]
#19168610 - 11/21/13 04:10 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
That's a bit too pessimistic. Supposing that oil is the only viable energy source beside nuclear fusion is a disregard of all the other means of organizing the energy infrastructure that are out there and that are developing really fast as we speak.
|
schwarg



Registered: 07/15/12
Posts: 2,817
Loc: San Diego
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19168612 - 11/21/13 04:14 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Well wind and solar energy as they exist today don't really offer the greatest payoff as we'd have to build insanely MASSIVE fields of the things to support our incredibly large population. so the cost of construction would be huge.
--------------------
Edited by schwarg (11/21/13 04:15 AM)
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: schwarg]
#19168619 - 11/21/13 04:23 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
The costs of extracting oil from the earth rise, while the costs of renewable energy exploitation drop. So there's a clear tipping point, that has gotten within reach by now depending on the exact technologies and energy sources you're comparing.
And in the end, so-called prohibitive costs aren't really prohibitive, since energy is a requirement to sustain (human) life. This means two things: * as costs increase, we'll conserve energy more * we'll only conserve energy to a certain point and beyond that point, we will muster up the investment (in whatever form) to get our energy, because it's do or die anyway.
The fact that the current energy infrastructure is unsustainable doesn't mean we're doomed; it just means we're going to make drastic changes to it.
|
Bikerfool
Your Local Edgelord


Registered: 11/21/05
Posts: 1,577
Last seen: 5 months, 13 days
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19168647 - 11/21/13 04:57 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
New oil is being discovered all the time. New technology is allowing us to drill much deeper, and old wells are also coming back online. Maybe we have a ways to go before "peak oil." If consumption of oil is going to slow in the next 20 years, it's going to have to be the consumer's choice. When society decides that it's done with oil, we will find alternative sources of energy.
-------------------- Just an angsty teen contributing to the pubs decline with contentless posts.
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Bikerfool]
#19168668 - 11/21/13 05:21 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Those new reserves are much harder (=less efficient) to exploit. Look at this interesting wiki page about EROEI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Returned_on_Energy_Invested The EROEI of tar sands is about 3, which means that you get about 3 times as much energy out of tar sands than you'd need to put in to get the useful energy out. For conventional oil, that number is between 8 and 30; 8 being the new discoveries. 35 were the imports in the 1990s, which shows that recent oil discoveries are already 4 times as inefficient as the oil we got some 20 years ago, and exploitation of tar sands is another 3 times less efficient. It's quite easy to see how this trend continues and other energy sources become vastly superior in terms of EROEI. In the end, economic ROI will catch up with EROEI to some extent, making oil just economically and energetically unattractive.
|
Smushroom
Avid Learner

Registered: 02/02/05
Posts: 2,806
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19168706 - 11/21/13 06:07 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
You guys are only thinking of oil as a source of energy. Crude oil is also where 99% of plastic comes from as well. With all the wastefulness in the world the demand for plastics will only increase. Yes there are bio plastics but they are extremely expensive to produce and we keep putting more and more demand on the same agricultural products to make them, ethanol, animal feed, and our own food so I don't see them surpassing petroleum based plastics. Also as 3rd world countries keep developing there will be a huge increase in demand for plastics.
With the current rate of growth for our energy needs we will eventually get to the point where we can't supply the needed energy, renewable or not. It isn't a matter of making things more efficient, even at 100% efficiency I think our energy demands (given current demand growth rate) will surpass the amount of energy the earth can generate within 100 years.
I think we are basically blind to the amount of energy we use and waste. At some point that will end up biting us in the ass when energy prices start to increase at an astronomical rate, and it will happen eventually. I think using up some oil and/or coal reserves wil be the trigger or the price jump.
******** I read this somewhere a while back and thought it was relevent to this post:
Since when was it more efficient to locate an oil reserve, drill into that oil, pump the oil into a tanker ship, ship that oil across 10,000 miles of ocean, transfer the oil to a refinery, refine that oil into plastic beads, ship that plastic to a factor, mold that plastic into a fork, package that fork in a box, ship that box to a store, put that box on a store shelf, drive your car to the store to buy the box, and then drive home than to just wash the damn metal fork in the first place.
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Smushroom]
#19168719 - 11/21/13 06:14 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Valid point concerning the use of oil for plastics - and other things, such as the fertilizer and pesticides that we need to supply the world with food (energy for humans!) in the way we have currently organized things. But I'm again less pessimistic about the possibilities to replace the need for oil with other solutions. Re-use, like you mentioned, but also other means to turn energy from sustainable sources into energy fit for human consumption. We do need to look at the energy system in an end-to-end, integrative manner though.
Quote:
With the current rate of growth for our energy needs we will eventually get to the point where we can't supply the needed energy, renewable or not. It isn't a matter of making things more efficient, even at 100% efficiency I think our energy demands (given current demand growth rate) will surpass the amount of energy the earth can generate within 100 years.
Nah, the world population and the living standards in now developing countries won't continue to increase exponentially as they are doing today. Also, like I said above, the need for energy will be capped and filled in by other means as the economics shift. We will become more efficient and more sustainable - not out of idealism, but for practical and economic reasons.
Nice example about the fork btw. Although it's a bit iffy, as well. You don't drive to the store just to pick up one fork and you don't have an oil tanker sail across the ocean just to produce one fork. And the fork may be recycled, and if it isn't, it will be incinerated, feeding its stored chemical energy back into the energy system. If you're fair, you calculate the total energy costs of that one plastic fork and the total energy costs of reusing that one metal fork. Only then can you make an informed comparison. The way it is formulated now, it is sure to induce an enormous bias without actually giving more insight.
|
NotTheDevil
Transhuman


Registered: 01/08/13
Posts: 5,436
Loc: US
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19168724 - 11/21/13 06:22 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
koraks said: Valid point concerning the use of oil for plastics - and other things, such as the fertilizer and pesticides that we need to supply the world with food (energy for humans!) in the way we have currently organized things. But I'm again less pessimistic about the possibilities to replace the need for oil with other solutions. Re-use, like you mentioned, but also other means to turn energy from sustainable sources into energy fit for human consumption. We do need to look at the energy system in an end-to-end, integrative manner though.
Quote:
With the current rate of growth for our energy needs we will eventually get to the point where we can't supply the needed energy, renewable or not. It isn't a matter of making things more efficient, even at 100% efficiency I think our energy demands (given current demand growth rate) will surpass the amount of energy the earth can generate within 100 years.
Nah, the world population and the living standards in now developing countries won't continue to increase exponentially as they are doing today. Also, like I said above, the need for energy will be capped and filled in by other means as the economics shift. We will become more efficient and more sustainable - not out of idealism, but for practical and economic reasons.
Nice example about the fork btw. Although it's a bit iffy, as well. You don't drive to the store just to pick up one fork and you don't have an oil tanker sail across the ocean just to produce one fork. And the fork may be recycled, and if it isn't, it will be incinerated, feeding its stored chemical energy back into the energy system. If you're fair, you calculate the total energy costs of that one plastic fork and the total energy costs of reusing that one metal fork. Only then can you make an informed comparison. The way it is formulated now, it is sure to induce an enormous bias without actually giving more insight.
Nitrogen fertilizers are or were I forget which, synthesized from energy and air via the birkeland-eyde process
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
|
Were. I understand from wiki that it's not used anymore. Natural gas is now used as input for the Haber-Bosch process to produce nitrogen fertilizer. So I stand corrected; I should have said 'natural gas' instead of 'oil' when I was speaking of fertilizer.
|
NotTheDevil
Transhuman


Registered: 01/08/13
Posts: 5,436
Loc: US
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19168757 - 11/21/13 06:38 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
koraks said: Were. I understand from wiki that it's not used anymore. Natural gas is now used as input for the Haber-Bosch process to produce nitrogen fertilizer. So I stand corrected; I should have said 'natural gas' instead of 'oil' when I was speaking of fertilizer.
With a sufficiently cheap source of renewable energy, Nitrogen fertilizers could be practically made with the birkeland-eyde process.
|
koraks
Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 26,672
|
|
Absolutely. Potassium and phosphorus are another story though.
|
Smushroom
Avid Learner

Registered: 02/02/05
Posts: 2,806
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: koraks]
#19169196 - 11/21/13 09:52 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Currently the US uses 3.5 times as much energy per person as the rest of the world (average). As standards of living increase in the developing world the energy demands will grow exponentially over time.
That doesn't even account for the increasing population of the world and of developed countries like the US. Until the world population stabilizes energy demand will keep increasing.
A huge factor in energy usage is that it is cheaper to manufacture things in foreign countries and ship them in as well as shipping in non-seasonal foods. Economically they are saving money on labor but they are using more energy reserves which are not infinite. Eventually it will catch up to itself.
And yes the fork metaphor isn't perfect, the fact that you can buy plistic forks so cheaply goes to show how little they cost in terms of both resources and energy. However when plastic is recycled you have to use additional energy and don't get 100% of the material back, it can only go so long. Also I'm not sure what country you are in but very little garbage in the US is incinerated, it is usually just dumped in landfills. Northern Europe is the only area I know that efficiently incinerates their garbage to be used as energy (it isn't that efficient but it recovers some energy as opposed to just dumping it).
****** Gas prices were artificially low in the late 80's and 90's. When they started to rise in the 2000's the majority of people were like "Oh i just bought a big ass SUV and now gas is going up. I didn't think gas prices would go up". The majority of people (at least Americans) only think about the present and don't think about how their actions effect the future.
IMO the cost of energy (and somewhat oil still) is artificially low and that is promoting excessive usage. Eventually the price of energy will start rising pretty quickly and people won't be expecting it.
I do agree with you that eventually our energy production and energy needs will level out however by your posts it seems like you think it will be gradual. I think that we will continue to peak until we can't meet our energy demands which will shoot the price up astronomically and that will create a decent sized economic and societal colapse. It definitely won't be the end of the world but I think people will basically be slapped in the face with the realization that they have screwed themselves and will have to make drastic changes quickly and not have the luxury of changing slowly over time.
|
mpd
Lammen Gorthaur



Registered: 10/22/12
Posts: 9,660
Loc: Mostly at home... Mostly....
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Smushroom]
#19169204 - 11/21/13 09:55 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
By 2015 the United States is expected to be the world's largest oil-producing country. Electric cars don't stand a chance at this point. Just a fad for liberals to hang on to like everything else.
-------------------- There is no truer calling for mankind than that of true conservatism.
|
NotTheDevil
Transhuman


Registered: 01/08/13
Posts: 5,436
Loc: US
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: mpd]
#19169232 - 11/21/13 10:09 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
mpd said: By 2015 the United States is expected to be the world's largest oil-producing country. Electric cars don't stand a chance at this point. Just a fad for liberals to hang on to like everything else.
And there not really "green" when people charge them with power from a plant that took coal, converted it to heat energy (burning), then into mechanical energy (turbines), and then into electricity that has to travel many miles to your home losing a fraction of a percent of its energy in the power lines as well.
|
Beanhead
IS IRONIC PARADOX


Registered: 10/11/08
Posts: 17,257
Loc: Geospatial inversion.
Last seen: 3 years, 5 months
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Smushroom]
#19169285 - 11/21/13 10:23 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Boyan slat - Ocean cleanup
There's plenty of it floating around why do we even bother producing more
|
dontknow
It's all in the reflex


Registered: 07/05/13
Posts: 3,889
Last seen: 7 years, 3 months
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Beanhead]
#19169301 - 11/21/13 10:27 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
So would you experts suggest a college student to go for petroleum or electrical engineering?
--------------------
The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly. -Proverbs 15:14
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of Life’s coming attractions.” Albert Einstein
|
skatealex2
////////////////


Registered: 07/04/08
Posts: 18,699
Last seen: 3 months, 25 days
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: dontknow]
#19171774 - 11/21/13 06:41 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
|
pwnasaurus
Stranger



Registered: 07/16/08
Posts: 12,317
Loc: Canada
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: dontknow]
#19172053 - 11/21/13 07:37 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
dontknow said: So would you experts suggest a college student to go for petroleum or electrical engineering?
Either are good. <insert discipline here> engineering is never a bad plan. I would say electrical engineering and take all the programming / computer science courses you can. That's what I did, it's working out pretty damned well.
|
Xingu
Stranger

Registered: 10/20/12
Posts: 932
Loc: NC
Last seen: 6 years, 7 months
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: mpd]
#19172062 - 11/21/13 07:39 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
No matter how much oil we do produce, it's still expensive to do so. Solar is in freefall, with significant research phase breakthroughs regularly:



There's the added benefit of individuals being able to play the role of an investor with these technologies as well, as they generally produce energy for decades after they pay themselves off. That instead of a model where you can never possibly achieve a net gain seems much more desirable for anyone except energy executives.
Quote:
mpd said: By 2015 the United States is expected to be the world's largest oil-producing country. Electric cars don't stand a chance at this point. Just a fad for liberals to hang on to like everything else.
A fad? Hardly.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/12/owner-satisfaction/index.htm
A 35k coupe with 200 mile range comes out in 2015, with larger car companies projecting regular significant range increases with models that are currently at ~100 mile ranges. Research phase batteries using graphene and nanomesh's which are a not distant reality are achieving charge rates and energy densities that are orders of magnitude better than lithium ion.
Even if you produce the electricity for the vehicles with oil or gas, it's more energy efficient to use electric motors and batteries charged with industrial turbines that kick the shit out of any internal combustion engine, it's the unavoidable nature of the thermodynamic realities of both of those technology types.
How this is a liberal or conservative issue is beyond me, unless, of course, you're one of the people that believe you're more informed than the consensus of the scientific community in that climate change to the speed it's currently occurring is a primarily human caused phenomenon. Conservatives, in terms of claimed values, should be far more concerned about the transition to more efficient powertrain and power production systems than liberals.
As to the price, I think that's still up in the air. Just depends what the true supply numbers are like and where demand goes when the energy landscape shifts to new technologies.
Edited by Xingu (11/21/13 07:46 PM)
|
Khii Khwaay
black tooth grin

Registered: 04/16/12
Posts: 2,277
|
Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Xingu]
#19172379 - 11/21/13 08:01 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Now, I'm no engineer, but from what I've read about solar and wind technology, it seems that there is the problem of energy being generated at times when it in not necessarily needed, thus requiring some type of system of energy storage. As far as I've read, the most efficient way of storing large amounts of energy is pumped storage, which is very expensive to build, and only about 70% efficient.
Electric vehicles are pretty cool, though. Electric motorcycles are lapping the Isle of Man mountain course at over 100 mph now.
|
|