the concept of "peak Oil " is blarney

[redyaris]

mwebb

the question is
why is the price
still so high? ...what the market will bare...

and why are we importing oil ...it is the most profitable for the oil companies...

As a confermed left wing nut let me say that it is cheeper for me to drive on 1 hours work now, than it has ever been in the last 30 years. I wil let you guess how and why.

[user removed]

Here is a question. What incentive would an oil company have to reveal the discovery of a huge new untapped reserve of oil?
Here is a prediction. Assuming we are actually intelligent enough as a race of people, oil will be around for centuries in some useful purpose.
Why should domestic producers try very hard to discover new oil reserves when they can just wait and let the price rise.
Oil and gold prices have followed a close parallel for decades. Both are finite materials, but both remain unknown as far as how much is left.

regards
Mech

[user removed]

Is the price really that high. The original owner bought my 1971 CB350 for $692. I bought two points and a double condenser.
Price?
$92
Wonder what they cost in 1971 when a gallon of gas was 32 cents?
Say $7.50, would just about be the same.

regards
Mech

[NachtRitter]

As Mark Twain said: "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Trust me, it is not only the "left wing nuts" that fib and fabricate... if you think one political side or the other speaks the pure truth, you are deceiving yourself.

Why are we still importing oil? Well, because the discovery of (and writing reports on) a particular oil reserve on one day does not translate to the production of 19.5 million barrels a day of usable product the next. Estimates indicate it will be between 15 and 20 years before there can be any useful production, and that is only if it makes financial sense to do so (i.e. there is no cheaper alternative domestically or imported). Extracting oil from shale is not quite as easy as just pulling it out of the ground in liquid form.

I do agree with the premise that we will never run out of oil... but I do believe there will come a point where it is no longer affordable for lower class, then no longer affordable for middle class, and then only the upper class can afford it. At that point, there will be many alternatives available, so while the neighborhood teenage kid won't go ripping down the street with a big gasoline powered V8, I wouldn't be surprised if he did it with a pair of big AC electric motors, along with the V8 soundtrack pounding through external speakers... In other words, I believe economically we'll be fine even if the cost of dino-fuel gets out of reach of the middle class.

What still bothers me is that we insist on digging up a carbon-based material that has been 'sequestered' by mother earth for millions of years and we spew it into the air and spread it on the ground and spill it into our oceans and yet a good portion of our population doesn't think that's a problem or thinks that those actions won't cause / aren't causing a problem... There is no possible good that can come of that. Mother earth will take care of herself, but that does not mean she will take care of her occupants.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

We have demonstrated a virtually infinite demand for a finite commodity. What happens next doesn't seem too complicated.

Exactly.
Finding new oil is only postponing the inevitable.
It's not being renewed at anywhere near the rate we're using it.
Then we'll ask ourselves why on earth did we just burn most of the good stuff instead of putting it to a better use.

The price we'll be paying for getting it out of the ground is always going up - both in $ and in environmental damage.

[gone-ot]

...it's sorta like the soldiers at "Little Big Horn," you KNOW you only have so many bullets, so 'when' do you (a) ration them or (b) wait until the last one and use it on yourself?

[UFO]

It's an interesting subject, but mwebb, why not state assumptions and facts, and draw conclusions for your position? When the first approach is personal attack, I, among others I'm sure, think you don't have a reasonable position. Perhaps you can start again, and just remind us what you think "peak oil" is supposed to be...

[NeilBlanchard]

Is the earth finite, or not?

[IamIan]

My issue is with the horribly low energy efficiency of the oil path... or any 'fossil fuel'... or even any 'bio-fuel' for that matter.

Step #1>
Solar energy converted by photosynthesis into chemical energy ... usually less than 10% of the initial energy is converted.

Step #2>
Most of the chemical energy the plant converts either gets used by the plant itself for living , or by the rest of the food chain above it ... herbivores not 100% efficient ... and need energy to live ... carnivores not 100% efficient and need energy to live ... decomposing organisms of everything are not 100% efficient ... etc.

Step #3>
A small % of the original biomass energy content was not used above might get converted through geological processes into oil ... or other 'fossil fuels' ... but not 100% of it , and not at 100% efficiency.

Step #4>
Of the oil that does get produced naturally it is not found , or extracted without spending more energy... and not 100% of what is naturally produced will be found and extracted.

Step #5>
Of the oil that gets extracted it takes more energy to refine the 'crude' into marketable products in a useful / desirable form ... and it is not 100% of it.

Step #6>
The refined products take more energy to transport around to distribution and retail locations.

Step #7>
The refined goods get used at far less than 100% efficiency at to do useful work.

- - - - - - - - - -

To me the energy efficiency of this path is horrible.

There are Solar cells able to convert light to electricity at over 40% efficiency ( more than 4x that of plant photosynthesis ) ... to then get useful work out of that electricity is much much higher energy efficiency than the oil path is.

To me ... It doesn't matter all that much , what the rate of natural fossil fuels like oil are being produced in the world ... and it doesn't matter all that much to me how much of a head start and build up there is out there to find , and use ... The horrible energy efficiency of the path to get out useful work from the initial energy input is the deal breaker for me.

The only way the horrible energy efficiency of the fossil fuel path like oil ... doesn't itself eventually end up meaning it will eventually become a non-viable option ... is if our total global use it not only stops growing ... ie we stop our increasing consumption rates ... but we also stop well bellow whatever the natural rate of production is.

And whatever that rate of production is ... and even if someone thinks we will just stop our consumption increase well bellow whatever that rate is ... for me personally ... even if all of that does happen ... I still don't like the horribly low energy efficiency of that path to get useful work from the initial energy source.

- - - - - - - - -

We already have devices that can do about 4x the amount of useful work out from the same amount of initial energy input ... than just at the plant biomass chemical energy stage... any further stage above it is even less efficient than that.

[GRU]

This is the way 99% of the companies nowadays decide if they will build/import product from another country or at home..

A. to import it costs $X to labour, + $X for production, + $X for freight/transport and + $X for other = $4.98 total per product

B. make it at home $X to labour, + $X for production, + $X for freight/transport and + $X for other = $5.00 per product

and they will choose A to save the $0.02 per products because it's money in their pockets even though it will support someone elses economy and pollute our earth even more.