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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.
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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.
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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.
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