"Huge Oil Discovery" - Will Last 5 Days

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1097622,00.html

The oil industry is buzzing. On Thursday, the government approved the development of the biggest deposit discovered in British territory for at least 10 years. Everywhere we are told that this is a "huge" find, which dispels the idea that North Sea oil is in terminal decline. You begin to recognise how serious the human predicament has become when you discover that this "huge" new field will supply the world with oil for five and a quarter days.

Every generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our lives have been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial.

Oil itself won't disappear, but extracting what remains is becoming ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of new reserves peaked in the 1960s. Every year we use four times as much oil as we find. All the big strikes appear to have been made long ago: the 400m barrels in the new North Sea field would have been considered piffling in the 1970s. Our future supplies depend on the discovery of small new deposits and the better exploitation of big old ones. No one with expertise in the field is in any doubt that the global production of oil will peak before long.

[FDRrocks]

1. I agree..

Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I look around everyday at people doing 'normal' things... and realize how screwed up our daily lives really are. We have the means to live sustainable lives... we just choose(?) not to.

[theivoryqueen]

2. serious question - not just about supply, but purpose

what does oil do? Geologist claim it is like the blood of the planet, it acts as lubricant and coolant. What are the geological/global ramifications if even part of that claim is true? Not to dismiss the serious threat of running out of fuel - ohmygod having to take a bike to work (already do) and not use HVAC - no prob... switching to renewable energy sources - about damn time. Oh, and maybe getting to see a clean sky, ever - YAY!!!

[bryant69]

3. I think there are more changes

That will need to be made besides just taking a bike to work. Switching from Oil to something else may be necessary, but lets not kid ourselves that there's not a huge downside, particularly for North America and Europe, to making this transition.

What's the source on the planet needing oil to continue? What Geologist said that?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Ediacara]

4. they claim it's the blood of the planet?

Where did you hear that?

[underpants]

8. Production of plastic goods too (seen any of those around?)

Michael Moore has a fictitous discussion in the future with his grand daughter. Oil could be used up bu 2054

BTW plastics products and by-products:
Furniture upholstery
grocery bags
toys
bottles
clothes
medicines
baby diapers

aspirin
golf balls
cameras
car batteries
detergents
footballs
shampoo
glue
computers :scared:
CD
pens
hose
toothpaste
toilet seats
food preservatives

just to name a few

[electricmonk]

16. Plastics use very little oil overall

About 3-5% of total oil production is used to make plastics. So if cars and SUV's were made more fuel efficient the amount needed for plastics would last a long time.

[Frodo]

17. Also.

When you burn oil in a car you've got nothing left to show for it. If you make plastic... you at least have the plastic. And though it CAN fill up landfills, it can ALSO be used to make something else out of plastic if you want.

[Fovea]

5. Bush says

Drive more, peasants!

[Minstrel Boy]

6. Discoveries peaked in the 1960s

and despite technological advances, discoveries have been in steep decline since.

A petroleum geologist, Colin Campbell, explains US war policy:

Future historians may look back and identify a degree of choreography in the present war on terror. At all events, the US is paying for troops to defend a Colombian export pipeline; it was implicated in a failed coup to depose the Venezuelan president, who was taking a tough line on oil; it has overthrown the government of Afghanistan on a proposed pipeline route; it has established military bases around the Caspian oilfields; and it threatens to invade Iraq, one of the last places left with substantial oil.

...

The stone age did not end because we ran out of stone. It ended because we found better options as we moved through the bronze and iron ages to reach the computer age at the pinnacle of the industrial revolution. This last chapter, which opened only 250 years ago, was fuelled by cheap energy from coal, oil and gas.

Now, we have to retrace our steps to find ways to live with less energy from these sources. This time, there is no better substitute fuel in sight that comes anywhere close to matching oil in terms of cost and utility. It is a shattering discontinuity as option gives way to raw necessity. It is also a time of growing international tension, the first salvoes of which are already being fired.
http://www.bpamoco.org.uk/industry/02-05-17thes.htm

And be sure to read "The Bush/Cheney Energy Strategy: Implications for US Foreign and Military Policy," a paper prepared for the second annual meeting of the Association for Study of Peak Oil:
www.peakoil.net/iwood2003/paper/KlarePaper.doc

[TexasPatriot]

7. 5 days of oil is a lot of oil

the petroleum industry is a lot like the banking industry - too big to not have a massive influence on everything around it. There's bad in there - but it's pretty obvious and probably not worth rehashing.

One day the petrochemical companies know they will go the way of the horse and buggy - but they dont talk about it because it's not in their interests to do so. Right after the electricity debacle 2 years ago, I remember FERC people talking about how it'll all be better soon since there were 18 powerplants being built. Of course, if i remember, they were all natural gas powerplants... so expect your gas bills to skyrocket as a result (and, of course, your electric bills as well)

At least there are people outside this country working on solutions.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/10/02/solar.cells.reut/index.html

America forgets that there is a 'rest of the world' sometimes.

[Ediacara]

10. not that I'm trying to defend the oil industry...

but the oil industry DOES know that oil is running out. Believe it or not, they'd like to keep their companies solvent and financially viable past 2050. Believe it or not, economically viable fusion reactors will be first produced by the likes of Exxon and BP. They have both the R&D cash, and the incentive to make them.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. and how are fusion reactors

going to, for instance, keep planes in the air, cars and trucks on the road, and replace the oil-based plastics industry?

[Ediacara]

13. they won't

But, they will slow the consumption of oil, so that 50 years of oil may last 300 years instead.

Plastics can be recycled, and as unpleasant as it sounds, large scale landfill plastic salvages may become a thing of the future.

Cars (and other land vehicles) can use fuel cells.

Airplanes and rockets are the only vehicles that I can't think of a clean energy source for, but that may just be the result of being on my first cup of coffee :-)

[Beaker]

21. plastics can be made from plant resins.

Hemp, for instance.
Henry Ford originally envisioned making car bodies out of such agriculture-based plastics.

[Guaranteed]

9. You're totally right.

Alternative energy should be the number one issue of our time. Any President who would take on the huge task of retrofitting and retooling the entire United States would probably "save the world," but, they're all too easily overwhelmed by the huge nature of the task.

Someone's gotta step up, one of these days.

[davekriss]

11. Grim Reality

I recommend that, if interested in the subject, you check this thread out at urban75.com, "A petroleum geologist explains US war policy", found here:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45251

It's been active since June and contains some enlightening links throughout its (now) 8 pages. Ignore the politics if you must (especially my dystopic rants); but you may find the science interesting.

Bottom line is we are plateauing now at Hubbert's peak; alternate energies known today do not replace the socioeconomic sustaining energy kick of oil and no amount of neo-liberal market economics changes this fundamental fact; and the carrying capacity of the planet sans oil is several billion less than carried today. We are not talking 100 years before there is grim impact (if there's not already), but a few decades. However, this does seem to be a relatively taboo subject in the major media.

[Johnyawl]

15. This is the really scary part

the carrying capacity of the planet sans oil is several billion less than carried today

What will the earths population be by 2050? I don't remember the exact prediction, but it's going to be considerably more than the current 6 billion.

The kind of intensive modern agriculture needed to sustain those numbers is wholly dependent on oil.

There will be famine on a scale that is hard to imagine.

[davekriss]

18. Soylent Green

yummy!

No, I shouldn't make light of this very serious topic. Though alternative energy does not and cannot replace oil (for example, bio-mass fuels would require something like 6.5 times the landmass of the earth to replace the BTU's obtained from oil), they can soften the downward slope past Hubbert's peak. Meaning full exploitation of alternative fuels might buy us time to reorder ourselves into more sustainable social structures. And maybe to delightful energy-rich discoveries, too.

However, there seems to be a lack of political will to engage along these lines and, instead, we see elite-desired wars in oil- and natural gas-rich territories. Wasted time. And Malthus' grinning portrait peers over the horizon. 2050? 2100? "Too soon, too soon, cry the falling autumn leaves!"

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

22. That's an interesting read

thanks for the link

[Frodo]

14. Or, it's enough oil to supply the city of Cleavland for 200 Years.

Math is a funny thing.

Divide something out by seven billion people and you end up with pretty small numbers.

Would enough food to feed the world for five days be worth growing?

[El Mariachi]

19. are you insane?

It would supply us for 4,000 years since our local energy company tends to let its system completely shut down. ;)

[davekriss]

20. Your point?

"Would enough food to feed the world for five days be worth growing?"

And your point? Glass half full vs. half empty? However that's not a static state; we continue to drain the reserves in that glass and will do so at an increasingly alarming rate as oil demand outpaces discovery of new supplies. Reserves will be consumed at a geometrically accelerating rate -- meaning we might have far less time than is generally believed to prepare for the certain future disruption of this fundamental input into life sustaining systems.