Pickup's looks more important than tone?

[David Schwab]

Yeah! But not like that synthetic crap! It's gotta be Pensylvania-grade crud, er, I mean crude.

We will be running out of oil in about 15 years. Things will get real ugly soon...

[Mark Ingram]

Yum... 'chewy'

Reminds me of a time I was working in London (England, not Arkansas). I ordered a pint of Guinness - my Brit co-worker advised me to be sure to chew my beer well...

[Joe Gwinn]

We will be running out of oil in about 15 years. Things will get real ugly soon...

We've been running out of oil for a century so far. If we really start to run out, people will revert to making oil from coal and water. The process was invented by the Germans, and used during WW2 to fuel the war effort. The South Africans also used the process during the embargos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process

[David Schwab]

We've been running out of oil for a century so far. If we really start to run out, people will revert to making oil from coal and water.

And how long will the coal last? We are dealing with a finite supply of fossil fuel.

The Environmental Literacy Council

Long thought to be inexhaustible, fossil fuels have been used extensively since the Industrial Revolution. However, many believe that the world is using fossil fuels at an unsustainable rate. Some experts believe that the world has already reached its peak for oil extraction and production, and that it is only a matter of time before natural gas and coal follow suit.

The US reached peak oil back in the 70's. The Saudi's haven't found a new large oil deposit since the 60's.

Years of production left in the ground with the most optimistic reserve estimates (Oil & Gas Journal, World Oil)
Oil: 1,277,702/77/365= 45 years
Gas: 1,239,000/47/365= 72 years
Coal: 4,786,000/52/365= 252 years

In 2005 the government of Sweden announced their intention to make Sweden the first country to break its dependence on petroleum, natural gas and other ‘fossil raw materials’ by 2020.

[Joe Gwinn]

And how long will the coal last? We are dealing with a finite supply of fossil fuel.

Depending on how one defines the term "coal", I've heard estimates up to 2,000 years. Don't know where the 250-year estimate came from, but it must require a very narrow definition of "coal". And after coal there are oil shales, tar sands, et al. These cost more to utilize than coal, but if the coal really runs out will be used.

The Environmental Literacy Council

This is one side of the debate, one point of view.

The US reached peak oil back in the 70's. The Saudi's haven't found a new large oil deposit since the 60's.

In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:H...world_2004.png, notice the peak sliding to the right as new areas and more difficult areas come online. Estimating oilfield capacity is notoriously difficult, and to further confuse things people are now using new technology to extract oil from fields thought to be exhausted.

More generally, ten billion people are not going to just curl up and die. A way will be found. The history of coal in England is instructive. Before the industrial revolution, people used wood for everything, and the initial industrialization did the same. Coal was known, and it had been known since ancient times that those black stones would burn, a curiosity. Then, industry started to outrun the wood supply in England. Trees just don't grow back (renew) fast enough, and so the switchover to coal began, and coal powered the industrial revolution.

[Mark Ingram]

the peak sliding to the right as new areas and more difficult areas come online

As someone who has just signed a mineral-rights lease to allow extraction of natural gas from the Barnett Shale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Shale) you are correct to point out that the easy stuff may be going/going/gone, but we have no idea how much of the less-easily-accessible stuff is down there waiting for someone to figure out a financially-viable way of getting it to the consumer.

I recall reading a newspaper article several years ago about a well-known (at least to other scientists) scientist who theorized that oil reserves were not the remains of prehistoric critters/varmints (how did they fail to fossilize?) but that those oil deposits were formed by some process happening underground and that that process continues today and we will never run out of oil, though we may be able to drain the "basin" faster than it can be refilled.

I don't recall the scientist's name; I'll write more when I remember. I just wanted to provoke some thought/discussion.

Apologies for contributing to the hi-jacking of this thread...

[Joe Gwinn]

As someone who has just signed a mineral-rights lease to allow extraction of natural gas from the Barnett Shale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Shale) you are correct to point out that the easy stuff may be going/going/gone, but we have no idea how much of the less-easily-accessible stuff is down there waiting for someone to figure out a financially-viable way of getting it to the consumer.

Yes, but if we really run out, the rise in price will solve the "financially-viable way" part of the problem.

I recall reading a newspaper article several years ago about a well-known (at least to other scientists) scientist who theorized that oil reserves were not the remains of prehistoric critters/varmints (how did they fail to fossilize?) but that those oil deposits were formed by some process happening underground and that that process continues today and we will never run out of oil, though we may be able to drain the "basin" faster than it can be refilled.

I don't recall the scientist's name; I'll write more when I remember. I just wanted to provoke some thought/discussion.

It's this I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin.

[David Schwab]

More generally, ten billion people are not going to just curl up and die. A way will be found.

Oh I'm sure we will figure out something. We have no choice. But it will become cost prohibitive to do things like flying. If we have to put more energy into something than we get out, than that's not really a good alternative.

And remember, it's not just oil for fuel, we make a LOT of plastics and things from petroleum.

We really need to be running vehicles on hydrogen, which is a byproduct of many industrial processes, and do more solar heating and stuff.

Humans are just wasteful in general. You know just in the US we throw away over 100,000 aluminum cans a day. Only half of those get recycled.

The following resources are used to produce one ton of aluminum: 8,766 pounds of bauxite, 1,020 pounds of petroleum coke, 966 pounds of soda ash, 327 pounds of pitch, 238 pounds of lime and 197 million BTU of energy.
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, “Rethinking Recycling: An Oregon Waste Reduction Curriculum,” 2001
http://www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwa...hinkrecyc.html

The pollutants created in producing one ton of aluminum are 3,290 pounds of red mud, 2,900 pounds of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), 81 pounds of air pollutants, and 789 pounds of solid wastes.
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, “Rethinking Recycling: An Oregon Waste Reduction Curriculum,” 2001
http://www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwa...hinkrecyc.html

The average aluminum can contains 40 percent post-consumer recycled aluminum.
Environmental Protection Agency, Last updated, May 2005
http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/alum.htm

In 2001, Americans bought 351 aluminum beverage cans per person (twice as many as in 1980) and wasted 70 more cans per person than in 1980.
Container Recycling Institute, Jennifer Gitlitz, “Trashed Cans: The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America,” 2002

In 2004, 55 billion aluminum cans were landfilled, littered or incinerated, 9 billion more than were wasted in 2000. This is enough cans to fill the Empire State Building twenty times. It is also a quantity equivalent to the annual production of three to four major primary aluminum smelters.”
Container Recycling Institute, “Stemming the Tide of Trashed Aluminum Cans: Industry Efforts Fall Flat,” May 23, 2005

[David Schwab]

I recall reading a newspaper article several years ago about a well-known (at least to other scientists) scientist who theorized that oil reserves were not the remains of prehistoric critters/varmints (how did they fail to fossilize?) but that those oil deposits were formed by some process happening underground and that that process continues today and we will never run out of oil, though we may be able to drain the "basin" faster than it can be refilled.

One reason why the vegetation might have turned to hydrocarbons is that unlike today, microbes could not digest the lignin and cellulose in the first tree trunks, which then didn't decay and eventually got buried and tuned into coal.

As far as why animals fossilized.. that's a good question!

It's the biogenic theory that says petroleum is derived from fossil remains, and was first introduced by Mikhail Lomonosov in 1757.

Oil is formed from the preserved remains of prehistoric zooplankton and algae which have been settled to the sea (or lake) bottom in large quantities under anoxic conditions. Terrestrial plants, on the other hand, tend to form coal.

The other theory is the Abiogenic petroleum origin

That was probably Thomas Gold you are talking about.

I think there's problems with both theories.

Just to bring this back into the thread, we'll need wooden bobbins when that time comes!

[Mark Ingram]

Yes, but if we really run out, the rise in price will solve the "financially-viable way" part of the problem.

Runnout of the easy-to-get stuff is what paved the way for Venesuela's petroleum industry. If market prices ever go below $50-55/bbl Venesuela will have to shut down production and wait for prices to come back up.

It's this I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin.

Yes! "Abiogenic": That's the word I couldn't remember. Thomas Gold was the scientist quoted in the article.

Thanks for the link. That has been buggin' me for years...

[Mark Ingram]

{URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin"]Abiogenic petroleum origin[/URL]...Thomas Gold

Yes! Thanks to you and Joe Gwinn I don't have to rack my brain anymore to try to remember what it was called or who was quoted in the news article.

Back to Bobbins: I was thinking of something in a nice bovine femur. But then there is the dilema: diary or beef? If dairy, holstein or jersey? Or beef, hereford or angus?

[Joe Gwinn]

Oh I'm sure we will figure out something. We have no choice. But it will become cost prohibitive to do things like flying.

Oh, I bet that flying will be the last thing to go, as there is no real alternative. Something else will give. And flying is actually quite energy-efficient per passenger-mile.

If we have to put more energy into something than we get out, then that's not really a good alternative.

This is a very big problem with many biofuel schemes, especially ethanol from corn. Between the net energy loss and huge water demand of ethanol from corn, I expect that this will be the first scheme to collapse. But not before wasting billions.

Net energy yield is also a problem with solar, if you count the energy cost of making the solar collection and conversion apparatus. And if one needs storage as well (all small-scale users do), net loss is even larger. I've seen studies claiming that parity has been achieved, but not from anybody that has done it and has the profits to show for it. To date, all such schemes have depended on subsidies.

And remember, it's not just oil for fuel, we make a LOT of plastics and things from petroleum.

Yep. But plastics can be made from many things, including coal and seawater. And there are such things as bioplastics.

We really need to be running vehicles on hydrogen, which is a byproduct of many industrial processes, and do more solar heating and stuff.

Hydrogen is a byproduct today, given the miniscule demand. But if we were to try to run Transportation on hydrogen, we would have to make immense quantities, orders of magnitude more than current production, and hydrogen is expensive to make and difficult to store. Hydrogen is not an energy source, it's an energy transmission medium.

More generally, there simply are not so many sources of energy on the scale necessary to power Civilization, and even if we had the perfect alternative in hand today, switching to this new source would take a major fraction of a century. If history is any judge, The Solution will be messy, will be a mess of independent and evolving solutions, without rhyme or reason. And will be nothing like what we thought the solution would or should be.

[ken]

Actually, biofuel from anything edible is probably a bad idea, as the price of the foodsource goes up with the added demand.. Look at Mexico, farmers selling their corn to biofuel producers have made the price of food corn skyrocket there.

Solar heating may be a good way to go in the southern parts of our country, but not so much 'up north'. When I was in the service I lived in a solar heated barracks, and if the outside temp dropped below zero it wasn't too pleasant until the gas? heat came on. It didn't work very often either. IMO It may work sometimes, but I wouldn't rely on it for a main source of heat right now.

I like hydrogen power myself, but you would need an entirely new distribution system and 'consumer education' program to make it work. Most people thinking about hydrogen gas think about one thing - the Hindenburg. The public would have to be shown that hydrogen can be used safely, like when people were switching from coal to natural gas heat in their homes.

As for bobbins... Forbon is made of wood cellulose, so if you think about it playing with singlecoil pickups can be considered good for the planet. <G> One more thing - instead of cow for 'raw materials', try a deer. I tried an acoustic set up with a bridge saddle and nut made from a deer pelvis, and it had a tone all its own.

Ken

[Mark Ingram]

As for bobbins... Forbon is made of wood cellulose, so if you think about it playing with singlecoil pickups can be considered good for the planet. <G> One more thing - instead of cow for 'raw materials', try a deer. I tried an acoustic set up with a bridge saddle and nut made from a deer pelvis, and it had a tone all its own.

Ken

I heard recently from a hunter acquaintance that elk emit as much greenhouse gas annually as driving a car 3000 miles. I thought, "Cool! that means I can bag 7 elk and be carbon-neutral for a year!"

[ken]

Maybe what we need are 'cowtalytic converters' - we put these onto large quadruped animals to keep them from methane gas generation. Or, we can seal the barns airtight, give the cows oxygen masks for air intake, and pump the cowgas from the barns into a tank for fuel. Maybe we can do the same with politicians too (see below). This would work - politicians in general no matter what party they are from are the biggest 'hot air' producers I know. Whatever you do... don't use the resulting gas to cook your food with, then your significant other would actually have an excuse for why the cooking tastes like shi... lately.
<G>

I lifted this from David - Quote:
In 2005 the government of Sweden announced their intention to make Sweden the first country to break its dependence on petroleum, natural gas and other ‘fossil raw materials’ by 2020.

Ken