Anyone heard of the phrase "Peak Oil"?

ess0two

Believe there have been some recent 'fresh' finds in the North sea,considering the place was deemed to be in decline.
I aint sure on quantity but have'nt tax hikes over the years scared off exploration companies.


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100829/tbs-uk-encore-oil-03c9bed.html

sabretoothtigger

Its a discovery but not enough to start a new age of oil there. Good news all the same, they'll be finding new stuff for years.
The argument was the rate of discovery was going to peak and vs rising demand it'd cause a spiralling price, however that ignores any progress in the world.

Kohoutek

ess0two wrote: »

Believe there have been some recent 'fresh' finds in the North sea,considering the place was deemed to be in decline.
I aint sure on quantity but have'nt tax hikes over the years scared off exploration companies.


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100829/tbs-uk-encore-oil-03c9bed.html

It is in decline. New discoveries by quantity of oil discovered peaked in the 1970s, production peaked in 1999. Of course there will still be new discoveries, but 200 million barrels is tiny – that's what the world uses every 2 1/2 days.

daveyjp

There are billions of barrels under the North Sea from closed wells - once the pressure which forces the oil out goes the well is closed, but this does not mean the well is empty - just like a bottle of champagne, shake it and open it and 25% may come out, the rest needs your energy to pour out. These 'empty' wells need technologies to get the rest of the oil out.

Once the price increases more expensive methods will be used to release it, at the moment we are still able to go after the easy to get oil.

Remember the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

Bullfighter

daveyjp wrote: »

There are billions of barrels under the North Sea from closed wells - once the pressure which forces the oil out goes the well is closed, but this does not mean the well is empty - just like a bottle of champagne, shake it and open it and 25% may come out, the rest needs your energy to pour out. These 'empty' wells need technologies to get the rest of the oil out.

Once the price increases more expensive methods will be used to release it, at the moment we are still able to go after the easy to get oil.

Remember the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

Sigh. Not the old "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone" line.

Of course there is oil left in the ground. "the rest needs your energy to pour out" is exactly the problem that Peak Oil refers to. The oil left is much harder to get to (deep sea) or is much lower quality (tar sands) or even 'spent deposits' and hence takes much more energy to extract... so much energy in fact that oil would become too expensive to burn.

When oil costs $150bbl then it will become 'cost effective' to recover spent oil fields, tar sands and shale etc. The problem is, sustained $150bbl oil will cause the western world to collapse. This is Peak Oil.

Kohoutek

daveyjp wrote: »

Remember the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.

We never used stones as an energy source.

If you deplete your primary energy source without replacing it, you're in a lot of trouble.

In the UK, we moved to coal when wood reserves became depleted, then we moved to oil when coal reserves because depleted. On Easter Island, they depleted their primary energy source (wood) until there wasn't a single tree left, with no coal or oil to move to. That was the end of their civilisation...

Fortunately we've not as short-sighted as the Easter Islanders, but I don't think we're making a transition away from oil quickly enough.

sabretoothtigger

Theres no chance of us running out of oil in any of our lifetimes. Maybe your grandkids but probably not even they will suffer a lack of oil especially

Whats needed for apocalypse now is exponential demand which chimes in with overpopulation and humans are killing the planet logic, etc . So everyone in china starts riding a harley or whatever and in India through the recession they carried on increasing car sales apparently

In the last ten years I'd say we've greatly increased accessible oil and the reason isnt clever (or not so much) deep drilling and such like but the fact iraq just opened back up for the first time in decades.

It has more oil then any other country in the world, it will be a long time before that tidal wave of potential is all tapped or discovered even

ceridwen

Kohoutek wrote: »

Another reason is that the best way to overcome peak oil, or peak resources is simply by having fewer people – and only government can direct policies on family planning.



.

A very true point.:T

You're brave to make it - hope you've got your "hard hat" on. I'm starting to lose count of the number of times those MSE posters who want their supposed "right" to have however many children they want regardless (and take money off the State to help support those children) have tried to bully me off the Boards by throwing nasty personal comments at me. But I've come to the conclusion that I will have to break the taboo that prevails on this and point out that there is another viewpoint here and many of us hold it - even if it does mean a bout of namecalling at me at intervals:(

It needs both action at Government level (the last Government sent out totally the wrong message by steadily increasing the various bits of "benefit" people could claim for having children - obviously those who arent particularly "bright" or "want to hear what they WANT to hear" would have taken that as meaning "The Government thinks it's acceptable to have more than two children - they must do, as they are paying us to do so in effect"). Also action is needed by people themselves - as in developing a conscience and deciding not to have more than two children and stopping pleading the "It was an accident Guv" if they have more. Even mothers in my own generation (middle-aged) have told me they don't believe in "accidents" - I wouldnt go QUITE that far - I don't believe 99% of "accidents" ARE really accidents. My own mother is now very old (ie the Pill and abortion weren't around in her day) - but decided to stick to two children (if for her own personal reasons) and duly had only two children.

michaels

I agree - not only do we need to limit the number of children but as a consequence of this we need to make sure that the ones we do allow are as beneficial as possible for society - no point in breeding benefits scroungers when with careful selection of the right parental genetics we could be producing scientists and PPE graduates.

The safest would probably be mandatory vasectomies and hystorectomies for those deemed as having unsuitable genetic make up and probably some controls on the make up of relationships to ensure that the superior genetic material is only combined with others from the master race.

ceridwen wrote: »

A very true point.:T

You're brave to make it - hope you've got your "hard hat" on. I'm starting to lose count of the number of times those MSE posters who want their supposed "right" to have however many children they want regardless (and take money off the State to help support those children) have tried to bully me off the Boards by throwing nasty personal comments at me. But I've come to the conclusion that I will have to break the taboo that prevails on this and point out that there is another viewpoint here and many of us hold it - even if it does mean a bout of namecalling at me at intervals:(

It needs both action at Government level (the last Government sent out totally the wrong message by steadily increasing the various bits of "benefit" people could claim for having children - obviously those who arent particularly "bright" or "want to hear what they WANT to hear" would have taken that as meaning "The Government thinks it's acceptable to have more than two children - they must do, as they are paying us to do so in effect"). Also action is needed by people themselves - as in developing a conscience and deciding not to have more than two children and stopping pleading the "It was an accident Guv" if they have more. Even mothers in my own generation (middle-aged) have told me they don't believe in "accidents" - I wouldnt go QUITE that far - I don't believe 99% of "accidents" ARE really accidents. My own mother is now very old (ie the Pill and abortion weren't around in her day) - but decided to stick to two children (if for her own personal reasons) and duly had only two children.

ceridwen

michaels wrote: »

I agree - not only do we need to limit the number of children but as a consequence of this we need to make sure that the ones we do allow are as beneficial as possible for society - no point in breeding benefits scroungers when with careful selection of the right parental genetics we could be producing scientists and PPE graduates.

The safest would probably be mandatory vasectomies and hystorectomies for those deemed as having unsuitable genetic make up and probably some controls on the make up of relationships to ensure that the superior genetic material is only combined with others from the master race.

I rest my case Kohoutek - a case in point of what I said happens to me:rotfl::rotfl:
So - as I said to you - you're brave:T