crude oil wont be around for much longer, so what are the plans for the given time when the supply runs out?. howcome buisnesses and government arent already manefacturing mass amounts of machinery that dosent rely on fossil fuels?. why isnt a bigger effort going into this obviously serious situation, everyones transportation will just have to be scraped or converted?.

How much longer, do you think?

wasnt it estimated at about 40 years or so awhile back?, but i think at the expinencial rate the military is consuming fuel for its tanks/planes/and other mobile machinery, and the amount of drivers on the road these days, i personally think we have about 20 years maximum, and about 10-15 years minimum,

Peak oil is not the end of oil. The price will rise. The most profitable years for the oil industry may be in the future when the total oil produced globaly in a year is half what it is now.

The desires of the oil industry are the most important force shaping American energy policy.

There is a limmit to how high the price of oil can go. That limmit is reached when alternative fuels are cheaper than oil.

It will be interesting to see how much cheap dirty coal we choose to burn when we are stuck between rising oil prices and global warming.

Unbelievably we are still "flaring" off natural gas as a waste product in oil production. We need to build much more LNG transport capability.

wasnt it estimated at about 40 years or so awhile back?, but i think at the expinencial rate the military is consuming fuel for its tanks/planes/and other mobile machinery, and the amount of drivers on the road these days, i personally think we have about 20 years maximum, and about 10-15 years minimum,

Much longer than that, actually. I believe you've forgotten (or perhaps didn't know?) about tar sands and oil shale. There are tremendous deposits of those in the U.S. alone. They are much more difficult to process (at present) and that alone will drive the price to over tripple what is is now. But we're a very long way from running out.

Naturally, that big of an increase in price will help to nudge other alternative sources of energy. It just remains to be seen how much of a nudge it will be.

we are an intelligent society right? then why are we bieng so primative burning so much fuel even if there is alternate types of oils to burn why burn anything atall and fuck up the world with pollution, we have the ability for electric powered cars with no pollution levels atall!, why arnt we bieng wise with the choices of fuel we have at our disposal.

Burning something to make electricity to power electric cars would create more global pollution than having the car burn something because when energy is converted from one form to another form some energy is lost.

Hydro power is nice but the dams have changed the evironment and hurt salmon.

Wind is good but nobody wants to live next to it because it's noisy and ugly. It kills birds. It does not seem to be as cheap as burning coal for electricity. Also, the wind may not be there on a hot summer afternoon.

I thought maybe we could use tides and the motion of buoys to split water into hydrogen and oxygen out in the ocean and then bring the hydrogen back to the cities to burn, but hydrogen burns too hot and creates Ozone. Fuel cells cost too much for now.

How does bio diesel compare with gasolene for pollution?

We should look at genetic engineering to see if we can create a fuel producing algae. That will take time and scare enviromentalists.

Nuclear power has never paid for itself and could not be economically viable if it had to pay for any of the following: liability insurance, an endowment for 10,000 years of babysitting for spent fuel, plant decommisioning.

Future cities should be based on the bycicle. We should build covered bicycle paths, elevators for bycicles to get them up hills, and trains for bycicles for the long parts of commutes. But this is for the future.

We are going to burn a lot of stuff for fuel the next fifty years and the prices for burnables will rise.

we are an intelligent society right? then why are we bieng so primative burning so much fuel even if there is alternate types of oils to burn why burn anything atall and fuck up the world with pollution, we have the ability for electric powered cars with no pollution levels atall!, why arnt we bieng wise with the choices of fuel we have at our disposal.

Nirakr answered this question well. The energy to run electric cars still has to come from somewhere. Right now, that "somewhere" is power plants fueled primarily by coal and natural gas (and some oil).

The truth is that at the moment there isn't any other source of energy that's more abundant or cheaper than petroleum to power automobiles. And until it crosses over that magic line of economics (costs more than something else), it will continue to be used.

So we're back to what I said in the beginning. Until we have to depend on expensive oil from tar sand and oil shale, there's not enough economic driving force (read that as "money") to make any changes. People just aren't interested in paying $200 (orconsiderably more for the equivalent of filling up the car's gas tank with what is now about $60 worth of gasoline.

yes i agree but you do realise we need to look for alternate fuels aswell but i just dont see why governments arent all pulling together on this 1 and solving this (wich could be done if all the majour governments started participating in a group effort o solve this fuel dilemna, seriously we could fuel everything with a non pollutant if we really tried hard enough. if they put as much time money and effort into things like this and medicine, as they do with military weapons we would go far.


greed will enslave us all.

yes i agree but you do realise we need to look for alternate fuels aswell but i just dont see why governments arent all pulling together on this 1 and solving this (wich could be done if all the majour governments started participating in a group effort o solve this fuel dilemna, seriously we could fuel everything with a non pollutant if we really tried hard enough. if they put as much time money and effort into things like this and medicine, as they do with military weapons we would go far.


greed will enslave us all.

Very well. Then just what IS this non-polluntant that we could use? If you know something that all the rest of us don't, we'd sure like to hear about it. ;)

yeah man i do know of a source of energy and you all know it aswell, but maybe i think differently, use the elements of the earth do you know of the 5 elements.? well i have a little something here to put forward to everyone, i know there are alot of clever intelligent people who post on this forum, with alot more credentials and degrees than me, im just a martial artist who is 21 years old living in a crappy area, but i have good ideas for mankind,


ok everybody knows that the moon controls the tides, so this means we use this to our advantage, we know the water patterns, we could globally devise huge worldwide turbines to actually reap all of that hydro power from the whole ocean itself, not a mere river or stream, im talking full scale ocean power harvesting with every modern government participating and at every coastal area that has these hydro generators this also means that we know the wind will be blowing the same direction of the tide so we could also harvest that huge wind source with gigantic never seen before windmills, and ontop of this, we could construct the tallest structures on earth at every critical lightening osition, to act as huge conductors wich could pick up the majority of lightening that strikes earth to be routed. if we construct thousands of these we could gather much energy and store it in some kind of huge conservation batterys.


i have many more ideas that involve the whole world getting involved in, i will present my ideas to leading government reaserch teams once it is properly set out, and after consuting alternate ideas with other great minds, on that note i will start a new thread about this actual topic soon and would greatly appreciate it if people cooperated with the progress of these ideas and not critisize because this is serious to me and the earth i think as a whole.

radiation for you and radiation for me,
radiation for us, we love,
radiation is our god, we go nuclear,
don’t care - two eyes of three,
radiation kicks my ass,
radiation I radiate

Big ocean dams and turbines would create environmental problems.

Think big buoys with a whole in the middle sliding up and down a pole as the tide rises and falls. The pole would rise out of the sea up into the air on one end and would be anchored to the sea floor on the other end. As the Buoy moves it spins a gear attached to the pole.

there are many types of sea generators that each country could develop and then decide wich is most effective then all incorperate those designes into each of there turbines, then advance from there, same with the lightening conducting method, also with the wind powered source, and i dont mean do this on a small level it should all be connected together, programmers should make programs simular to Sim City computer game simulations to test theorys and methods out, and all modern countrys contrabuting would easily fund this type of energy creating, yes it could cause problems ofcourse, but i know for sure less problems than we are causing now with how things are going. and problems can be sorted out with proper effort and dedication atleast its a step forward in maintaining our moder societys without damaging nature, also people will be healthyer and generally live in nicer cleaner conditions in cities. a new type of universal battery that can fit into things everywhere that all comes from this natural energy harvesting method could be an option,

have huge gears that the tide and waves itself spin around creating energy, just like a hydro dam system but on a mch more epic scale, hey could people give input into this idea of mine, some flaw seekers would be helpfull to see loop holes and flaws in the theory and design, also posative thinkers to help the progress of the idea maybe we could together make a realistic proposal to the governments to get this idea looked at by top scientists and designers of the government,


im serious by the way helping the world is very impotant to me and i think its something we should all work on as a collective,


peace

We have fish ladders at hydro plant but still fish are disrupted. Sitlting and flood cycles are changed. Every new on land hydro plan is fought by environmentalists because we understand the problems now.

Building walls in the sea that segment the oceans into smaller peices is a more serious intrusion into the environment than the land based hydro is. Sea life migrates.

They are probably crackpots but there are people out there who claim that extensive use of tidal power would slow down the earth's rotation.

Yeah, well you know the way ballet dancers make themselves spin faster and faster by drawing their arms closer in to their bodies. Physicists call it conservation of angular momentum. So as we chop down the trees in the topical forests, that will have just the same effect, and make the earth spin faster. Think about it! So that will offset the tidal power making the earth spin more slowly. :) :) :)

crude oil wont be around for much longer, so what are the plans for the given time when the supply runs out?. howcome buisnesses and government arent already manefacturing mass amounts of machinery that dosent rely on fossil fuels?. why isnt a bigger effort going into this obviously serious situation, everyones transportation will just have to be scraped or converted?.
First of all you never will run out of oil. why?
IF you start and A and plan to go to D but for each step you only go half way, how long will it take you to get to D????

Second:
What about magnetic power??? Is that feasable?

I did some serious thinking about this topic a couple of years ago, to the extent of starting a thread on another forum, getting down to the maths and physics involved, and corresponding with the UK Liberal Democratic Party's spokesperson on environmental affairs. Here, very briefly, is my idea.

A most overlooked form of power is BAROMETRIC power! Air pressure at around sea level averages about 1 bar (or 1000 millibars). However, consider a point around the low tide mark in Britain's Severn Estuary. At low tide, pressure = 1 bar. At high tide, under 30 feet of water, pressure = 2 bars. (The weight of a 30ft column of water is about the same as that of the column of air, from sea level to the stratosphere, above it.)

Now, if an economic means of generating power from changes in barometric pressure were feasible, this would be very good news for countries with long coastlines and big tides. So how might this be done?

Well, imagine two connected air-filled tanks, one rigid, the other flexible, each of 100,000 litres capacity, moored just below sea level at low tide. At full tide, pressure has doubled and the volume of gas has halved -- so the flexible tank is now empty.

Suppose we put a turbine, capable of generating electrical power, between the two tanks. We allow it to operate when the pressure differential between the two tanks is greatest, modified to some extent by the timing of demand for electricity.

I have made things simple so far. Thirty foot tides are exceptional; and we do not need to be near the shore to tap barometric power -- an increase from 3 bars to 4 bars can be harnessed just as well.

In the calculations I made a couple of years ago, I considered an area of 1 square kilometer of the Bristol Channel (a tiny fraction of the overall area available) experiencing a twice-daily change in sea level of 8 metres. Covering this area of seabed with "pressure pods" of 33% efficiency would harvest 60,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per day, enough for a small town.

The feasibility of this scheme would be down to the economics of the large-scale manufacture of "pressure pods".

However, AND THIS IS WHERE THE REST OF YOU COME IN, I cannot help thinking that there must be other, and cleverer ways, of harvesting barometric power. I have outlined only the crudest and most obvious. Any ideas?

Peak oil is the same as running out. Even though only half of the world's oil will ever be recovered, most of it would take more energy to remove than it would give back. Sand and shale deposits can be mined, but at great cost and environmental damage.

There are alternative sources of power, but none will replace oil, at least not anytime soon. When oil becomes too expensive, alot of these grand construction projects people suggest may become impossible.

Magnetic power? Where's that?

What about lightning?

James Howard Kunstler (http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary15.html) makes a good case today that the war in Iraq is a direct result of peak oil.

Peak oil is the same as running out.

"Peak oil" is the split second at which oil producers are extracting the largest amount of oil from the earth that the oil producers will ever be able to extract from the earth in a split second.

"Running out" started the first day that men extracted more oil than nature created. To most people running out is more like the the time when most people can't afford to use oil the way that they used to because supply and demand has pushed the price of oil up to the point at which using oil is no longer is intelligent.

"Peak oil" is the split second at which oil producers are extracting the largest amount of oil from the earth that the oil producers will ever be able to extract from the earth in a split second.

"Running out" started the first day that men extracted more oil than nature created. To most people running out is more like the the time when most people can't afford to use oil the way that they used to because supply and demand has pushed the price of oil up to the point at which using oil is no longer is intelligent.

The government SHOULD BE DOING MORE...one day we will wake up and all the oil will be gone. NOW is the time to start phasing out petroleum-product machines. You can visit the Department of Energy's site on renewable resources, and they have an interesting and detailed site, but you get the feeling the research is just not really being put to good use...all the efforts are into damn oil. The DOE makes it sound like solar, wind, and biomass programs are expanding and gaining ground, but they will continue to be just expensive and sparce until Congress decides to get its head out of its anus and do some environmental work.

Just a little side note...I sent an email to my state representative trying to get him to sponsor a bill phasing out MTBE use in gasoline and replacing it with ethanol (several states have done this already). Of course I didn't hear back...how can we get through to the airheads that represent us????????

oil is abiotic,it is not made from old swamps and dinosaurs.

oil comes from chemical processes inside the earths mantle and it bubbles up to the crust.most likley we have hundreds of years of oil left.

That's wrong.

Evidently mars hasn't heard the concensus that fossil fuels will be expired in as little as 40-50 years....Last time I checked oil isn't just bubbling up everywhere...

yes lightening we could harvest mass amounts of electrical power from this source, personally the best way to harness lightening in my opinion is to erect seriously tall pylonsin lightening hotspots wich direct down to big generators, to erect something like a conductor is not expesive atall, and as its already in electric form theres no need for mass energy conversions, so hardly no energy loss does anybody have other ideas on lightening as an energy source? i cant see any flaws personally, apart from overloads and a few explosions while in the testing stages,


any thoughts?




even if we have got hundreds of years worth of oil left, could the earth handle another 200 years of industrialised pollution on a global scale? even if we arent gonna fully transfer to alternative fuel for the reasons of oil epirery then shouldent we atleast do it for the sake of the earths health? we are intelligent enough globally now to think and achieve alternate wys to fuel things arent we, so we should put our intelligence to good use, because think about it, we are the smartest species on the planet, and yet we cause the most destruction and harm, we should actually be the ones trying hardest to preserv this world and all of its inhabbitants i think personally.


peace

God made the oil 4,000 years ago. God just made it look like the oil was formed from old swamps and dinosaurs. If we would just kill all the homosexuals and pray more then God will make some more oil for us.

good idea, but lets call that plan B for the moment.

peace

...The truth is that at the moment there isn't any other source of energy that's more abundant or cheaper than petroleum to power automobiles. And until it crosses over that magic line of economics (costs more than something else), it will continue be used....Alcohol, produce from sugar cane is cheaper than current gas prices by approximately a factor of two. Why I fill my "flex fuel" car with it. As the cane takes all of the carbon it contains from the air and only a small fraction ends up in the Alcohol, alcohol fueled cars REDUCE global warming. (The bulk of the carbon goes thru cows to improve the soil quality here in Brazil.This displacement of fertlizer requirements also helps reduce petroleum demand and clean the air.)

Most of of reason why US does not follow Brazil's 30 years of experience with alcohol fuled cars is political. - Iowa corn growers lobbly has supported the current "ex-oil exective government" of US. In exchange, import quotes prevent the average "Joe American" from cutting his driving cost in half with renewable, clean-burning, cheaper, global-heating-reducing, alcohol fuel, imported from tropical countries.

Alcohol, produce from sugar cane is cheaper than current gas prices by approximately a factor of two.

that sounds like a nice thing to say, however I doubt it's accuracy. Can you provide sources that show it to be true?

Also, keep in mind that that the ethanol currently being produced in the U.S. is being done so under some pretty generous subsidies.

ethonal and alcohol fuels require more enrgy to produce then they get back.

both are worthless as an alternitive to crude oil.


also,oil gets pumped out of the ground,far below any layer of rock that is composed of organic matter.some oil is being pumped out almost near the mantle[which we are about to breach ].

the fact is,the dinojuice theory was created by some random idiot in the 1820s or something,the russians[who produce more oil on earth thne anyone] have been using the abiotic theory for 50 years and increase their oil production every year.

its true that we may someday out strip the earths ability to produce oil leading to a decline,but that doesnt mean oil comes from swamps and dinos.

its been proven crude oil can be made using inorganic processes ,like those found in the mantle.

dont be fooled by retoric like ''fossil fuels'' or ''peak oil'',both are scare tactics used by the oil industries to justify the enormous price increases they impose on us.

ignorance is the true opiate of the masses.

Mars13 that is not true. The government is currently trying to boost ethanol production, because some states are banning methyl tertiary butyl ether as a gasoline additive and replacing it with ethanol. California is an example. Ethanol is being increasingly produced from biomass like corn stover, and already supply meets demand.

Hydrogen power, on the other hand, is more expensive to produce than what its worth.

My theory is that there is no shortage of oil that was just a lie made by the oil companies so they could raise oil prices.

that sounds like a nice thing to say, however I doubt it's accuracy. Can you provide sources that show it to be true?

Also, keep in mind that that the ethanol currently being produced in the U.S. is being done so under some pretty generous subsidies.I agree that Iowa with its high cost labor, high cost land and limited growing season can not economically compete without subsidies, but where land is very chaep, labor is literally at starvation wages, and sugar cane can grow 12 months (three annual crops) THE STORY IS VERY DIFFERENT.

In the last few weeks the local price of alcohol at the “gas station” has significantly increased. It is now R$1.24/ liter (was around R$1.00 only three weeks ago) and gasoline is R$2.30/L If you will not take my word for this, perhaps I can attach a digital photo of the prices with pumps of the staion in the back ground. The alcohol industry here in Brazil is private, many competing small distilleries etc, but the gas industry is pretty much controlled by PetroBrass, which has most of the stock owned by the government and is under a lot of political pressure to keep prices below the world market. So if there is any subsidy, it is to lower the price of gas at the pump, not alcohol. (This is why the cost of alcohol has gone up about 20% in the last three weeks, but it is still quite a bargain compared to gas.) You are just thinking (I bet) “Hey that is too good to be true.” Check it out and you will find it is. Perhaps you can visit a Ford or VW web site in Brazil and learn that more than half the cars no being sold here are ‘flex fuel” Two decades ago 90% were alcohol only.

About a decade ago the price of sugar on the world market was high, and alcohol was in short supply for cars, so the vast percent of cars sold were gas only, now that the technology is able to burn either fuel in any ratio, (flex fuel cars) the population is buying mainly flex fuel cars to take advantage of the saving available with alcohol and yet not worry that the price of sugar may go up again.

Alcohol, produce from sugar cane is cheaper than current gas prices by approximately a factor of two. Why I fill my "flex fuel" car with it.

Does Brazil subsidize the ethanol? How much tax on the Gasoline? Are you burning 100% ethanol? No additives needed? What are the prices for Gasoline and ethanol where you live?


I thought the price of gasoline had to rise about 50% more before ethanol was cheaper.



Gasoline 116, 090 BTU (LHV) per gallon
Ethanol 76,330 BTU (LHV) per gallon
1 gallon = 4.544 liters

Yes I burn “pure alcohol*“, but think there must be some additive in it to keep people from drinking it. They do sell sort of a “vodica” of cane alcolhol but it is several times more expensive per liter. (And more highly tax.) I do not know what % of the fuel alcohol or gas is tax, but think it is equal in the energy content sense. I.e. about 40% less on the alcohol per liter, but I will try to find out. The cane/ alcohol industry employees a lot of low skill labor and I am sure it is not without its representation in politics.

I gave the new prices in prior post: R$1.24/l for alcohol, just tonight when I filled up, and R$2.30/l for gas. Both are lossing some market to natural gas, but less than 1 in 20 stations sell LNG, which here is called GNV (translating: Gas, Natural, Vehicular)
________________________________________
* Car has a small (about one gallon) tank for gas that is used to start it. It lasts 6 months or so and I only remember to put gas in when I have trouble starting. I do not have the slightest idea why it is hard to start on Alcohol, I would think hjust the opposite would be true, but it is not.

what about solar power, how many solar power reseviours could be made worldwide, e could create mass amounts of solar pannels all over the hottest parts o the world and use this as energy along with tidal hydro power, lightening, and wind.



????????

Thanks, sorry I did not read.
1.24 Brazil Reais = 0.555355 United States Dollars x 4.544 rounds to $2.52 per gallon of ethanol

2.30 Brazil Reais = 1.03009 United States Dollars x 4.544 rounds to $4.68 per gallon of gasoline.

Here in California we were bitching and moaning about paying $3 a gallon. Price came back down to about $2.60 a gallon for gasoline.

One more calculation. With ethanol having less BTUs per gallon you would expect that you would have to burn more more ethanol per kilometer than you have to burn gas per kilometer. Posters on other web sites who may or may not know what they are talking about disagree with each other about whether the ethanol delivers less gas mileage.

If and BTU is a BTU is a BTU and miles/kilometers per volume is determined by BTUs then the adjusted Brazilian prices for ethanol would be R$1.89 per liter or US $3.84 per gallon.

I saw two answers for why ethanol is hard to start on cold days. Again I don't know if these guys know what they are talking about. One: it absorbs too much water from gas tank condensation so fuel injecters must be claen and spark plugs must be extra hot. Two: Ethanol needs a higher heat to ignite so spark plugs should be hotter.

There was also discussion about ethanol and gasoline working better different compression levels from each other so a car engine can not be optimized for both fuels.

Thanks, sorry I did not read.
1.24 Brazil Reais = 0.555355 United States Dollars x 4.544 rounds to $2.52 per gallon of ethanol
2.30 Brazil Reais = 1.03009 United States Dollars x 4.544 rounds to $4.68 per gallon of gasoline....If and BTU is a BTU is a BTU and miles/kilometers per volume is determined by BTUs then the adjusted Brazilian prices for ethanol would be R$1.89 per liter or US $3.84 per gallon.
I saw two answers for why ethanol is hard to start on cold days. Again I don't know if these guys know what they are talking about. One: it absorbs too much water from gas tank condensation so fuel injecters must be claen and spark plugs must be extra hot. Two: Ethanol needs a higher heat to ignite so spark plugs should be hotter.
There was also discussion about ethanol and gasoline working better different compression levels from each other so a car engine can not be optimized for both fuels.
The Real has gotten a little stronger (R$2.23 /US$ last night on TV) and as Brazil is doing well in trade surplus it probably will stay strong for a while. (net BoP gain has already exceed that of all last year, despite much stronger Real.) The dollar is dropping still, and is down about 20% this year which with the 20% increase in Alcohol is noticable for me. We have a pretty good government scandel going now, and it is almost envolving the president, so that is helping me not to need to pay too many dollars for expenses.

Your BTU approach is correct. You do burn more alcohol per mile. I don't know how they do it, as what you say about compression ratios is what I have always believed, and that alcohol added to gas improves the octane rating (I think) so perhaps the older alcohol only cars may be higher compression and more efficient than the new flex fuel design, but if true it is not very big effect. With computers in control, fuel injection, timing, etc to play with, they seem to have done a good job with "flex fuel" but when the tank is nearly empty, about every 4 to 6 months, I put 20 or 30L of gas in as they say only alcohol is not good, as you need the additives in gas to clean engine occasionally. - I don't know if this is true, or only gas companies trying to stem the migration to Alcohol, but I do it.

The higher ignition temp idea may be correct and can be checked, but I strongly doubt the "absorbes water" theory. - tank is nearly sealed and H2O disolves in alcohol in any ratio - even the "anhydrous" has some water in it, so the little in the air above the fuel level would not seem very significant to me. In fact, I know that water could be injected with fuel in some old prop planes to boost power temporarily. There is too much energy in fuel and cooling is a problem in IC engines, so if you even if you get cooler temperatures (but still as hot as you can cool) with more expanding gas (steam) you are more efficient. I.e. you throw out a colder, but higher volume of exhaust per liter of fuel burnt.

One summer,between school years, I worked for an oil company and drove a little more than 100 miles, on road with few cars, each way every weekend to eat home cooked meals, get laundry done, etc.. Before starting the trip, I stopped by the dynamonitor lab and got "new" (used 100 hours) spark plugs, gapped them the same, stopped at the one red light on highway, even if it was green, etc. I filled the tank at start of trip and at end to exactly the scratch line in fill tube I had made with car in exactly the same location etc. etc. I was trying to learn what improves fuel consumption myself. None of my data made any sense, until someone told me that the humidity in the air is important. Sure enough, my best milage was on days when it had recently rained or was about to. I toyed with idea of adding a water tank and wet rag for the intake air to the motor to pass thru, but never did it -I wrecked car first. :(

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47169

It doesn't seem that abiotic deep oil is a credible theory.

I doesn't seem that abiotic deep oil is a credible theory.I tend to agree. Thomas Gold was strong supporter of abiotic gas/oil and did select location in Sweeden to "prove" his theories. It was an ancient metior impacts in a type of rock that fractures under shocke waves. There was a melted rock zone above to drill thru and then a deep fractured zone thru which the gas (or possible oil) was supposed to flow from the cooking of carbon near the mantle. They had some problems with broken bits/ drill rods etc in the fracture zone and were not able to go as deep as they wanted, but got no indication of hydrocarbons and this idea pretty much died with this expensive failure.

so becasue they failed in one experiment before they rewached there goal,abiotic oil is debunked?

if oil is running out,how do we increase production every year?less oil means we would have less to pump out of the ground.

Google about and look at the links related to abiotic oil. I don't get the feeling that the oil industry believes that abiotic oil theory will be of any use to them in figuring out where to drill.

From: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_abiotic_oil.shtml


Secondly, petroleum geology is an empirical field which has evolved largely by trial and error. Petroleum geologists have learned the hard way where to drill (and where not to drill); in the process they have developed a theoretical model that WORKS. It is somewhat difficult to believe that generations of smart petroleum geologists missed huge amounts of oil. Gold tried to demonstrate just that, and all that he managed to do was to recover 80 barrels of oil in total, oil that was later shown to be most likely the result of contamination of the drilling mud. Nothing prevents others from trying again, but so far the results are not encouraging.

So, the abiotic oil theory is irrelevant to the debate about peak oil and it would not be worth discussing were it not for its political aspects. If people start with the intention of demonstrating that the concept of "peak oil" was created by a "Zionist conspiracy" or something like that, anything goes. In this case, however, the debate is no longer a scientific one. Fortunately, as Colin Campbell said, "Oil is ultimately controlled by events in the geological past which are immune to politics."

the russsians have been using the abiotic mdel for 50 years and increase production every year since then.

the fact is the fossil fule theory has almost no evidence to support it.

the sheer volume of oil pumped from the ground brings the whole ''fossil'' theory into question.

how much swamp land got turned into oil? it must have been a large percentage of the land to produce the trillions of barrels of oil we pump every year.

and what about the oil from the ocean?was that all from swamps too?
and why can we make oil using abiotic means?
and where does the helium come from in oil,as it cant be produced by any known organic means?

its like global warming,someday you will have to accept it.

especialy when we still are using oil in 25 years,and in 50 years,or until we have battery tech that will be more effecient then internal combustion.but until then oil WILL NOT RUN OUT.

if its was running low production would DECREASE,not increase.
hell gas is still cheaper then milk per gallon,its the cheapest liquid other then clean water.we are not even close to running out or gas would be $100 a gallon,not $2.50.

its very simple economics,demand increases,supply decreases,prices would skyrocket.but that hasent happened.
and it wont happen,all gas price fluctuations are fuelled by greed and curroption,not low oil reserves.

heres a fact, crude prices have increased 60%[from demand not supply] while oil profits have increased 130%.that proves is about greed not supply,if it was supply,then crude prices would rise sharply while profits would fall .

did any of you learn anything about basic economics?

I think refiners are coluding to not compete with each other and keep refinined oil stocks low in the USA.

I don't believe that world wide crude drillers beyond OPEC are coluding to not find new wells. Why would they get involved with expensive tar sands, north slope, and deep sea oil if there was plenty of cheap oil arround?

If the rate of oil being brought up to the earth surface was high enough for us to not run out of oil it would have covered the earth back when humans were not burning oil (unless the crazier Christian 4000 year old earth theory was true). Therefore even if abiotic oil theory was real it would be at a slower rate that would not effect peak oil unless the understanding of where to drill was revolutionized by the theory. Abiotic oil is not such a crazy theory but it won't affect peak oil.

Things I read indicate that Russia is using conventional biotic oil theory for choosing it's drilling sites. Russia's getting past a peak in human apathy, chaos and disorganizaton in it's oil industry accounts for it's rebound in oil production.

Abiotic and biotic theory both rely on cap rock to find drill sites so drill sites will not settle the debate.

If for a billion years 10% of organic material got burried and went down the path of becoming oil and coal that would make a whole lot of oil and coal.

As for Russia, you might want to read this: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011205_no_free_pt2.shtml




Abiotic theory versus biotic good arcticle does not take sides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Organic molecules in oil may settle the debate.

but its almost impossible to drill down thousands of feet into solid rock and obtain a sterile uncontaminated sample of crude oil.once you reach new uncontaminated oil,it is now contaminated.its the nature of the beast.

helium in natrual gas and oil cannot be made from an organic material break down.

it must have been formed/deposited throu other means,either abiotic oil or majical seepage from billions of tiny pockets of helium stuck in the earth.

either way,you have to belive at least some of the ''fossil fuels'' are coming from the earths core,not surface plants and animals.

and if some of it is coming from the earths core,then why not most of it or all of it?

its true some oil does in fact come from organic decay,but that doesnt mean that the majority of earths oil is biotic in origin.
oil can be formed throu both biotic and abiotic means.

but heres a good rule of thumb-if W says its true,its probably a lie.

and he belives oil came from dinos.

...helium in natrual gas and oil cannot be made from an organic material break down.
it must have been formed/deposited throu other means, either abiotic oil or majical seepage from billions of tiny pockets of helium stuck in the earth...Your argument for abiotic origin of most oil is weakened, not strengthened, by inclusion of Helium. There is Helium formed with the more dominant Hydrogen when the energy of the Big Band has cooled enough to form matter. Some of it no doubt was trapped in the formation of planets, but most of what comes to the surface is old alpha particles that have captured two electrons to become neutral Helium.

I think all of the He3 is of Big Bang origin. I believe that the He4/He3 ratio of the helium gas found mixed with natural gas is higher than the models of the Big Bang condensation to form matter predict for the initially formed helium. That is the Helium in natural gas appears to be the Big Bang formed Helium plus a significant addition of He4 from radioactive decay of the unstable heavy elements, which do tend to end up deep in the interior of planets.

Thus you are correct to state that the Helium in natural gas does not come from biotic formed oil but foolish to include the part of your text quoted above and now bold.

if the inorganic molocules are found in natrual gas,how does that support the biotic oil theory?

helium is collecting in the gas for a reason. ts not just randomly collecting in natrual gas pockets of dead swamps.thats just stupid.

if helium is found in signififcant quantities,then that oil most likely bubbled up from the mantle with the helium. thats the only way it would have collected with the oil,if it was formed at the same time.

....if helium is found in signififcant quantities,then that oil most likely bubbled up from the mantle with the helium. thats the only way it would have collected with the oil,if it was formed at the same time.Most Helium is found in natural gas, not oil (all comercial sources are gas wells.) Helium is very mobile, much more so than oil when it comes to seeping thru small pores in rocks etc. If there is any truth to what you are saying it is the helium helping the oil rise, not as you suggest.

I do not know the extent to which helium disolves in oil, but suspect that at a given pressure and temperature, a ton of water will hold more than a ton of oil.

May I point out that while it might be better in terms of how much it cost to harvest and environemntal power and energy and whatever all these other fuel sources could be criplled by people so much easier, becaus eafter all its not like everybody loves each other and ths is a happy fuzzy bunny world. I mean what is easier to crippel oil being "harvested" all over the world while it is protected by armed gaurds and dogs or a massive dam that is already being pushed to near destruction by the power of THE ENTIRE OCEAN or a massive 600 foot pole that is catching essantially one of the most destructive forces in the world whiile powerful winds batter it or maybe even we could have something is blatently stupid like fertilizer, i think the marketing slogan would go like this. " hey you there, yes you wouldent you much rather buy this biodeisel, its very cheap and doesn't hurt the environment, and it even is unlimited, oh wait i forgot its made of alochohal so if your car blows up were really sorry". so in short what I am trying to say is that while oil is not the "best" source of fuel you must consider every angle of the next fuel until you start balsting about how great this massive dam is or the fuckng huge pole that is going to catch such and such. Oh and by the way whilst you might think it would be fun to have an unlimited fuel source the people who are capitalist don't because that essentially means free fuel, and that is not a good thing for the capitalists.

a suggestion for Sir. Brilliance:
In view of your post below, re-register at sciforums with a new name.

I'd just like to bring up the fact that oil companies don't search for more oil unitl they need it, so a 20 year figure can be misleading. In reality the figure is probably closer to 100 years at current rate of consumption as much as oil companies would like you to think otherwise.

I'd just like to bring up the fact that oil companies don't search for more oil until they need it, so a 20 year figure can be misleading. In reality the figure is probably closer to 100 years at current rate of consumption as much as oil companies would like you to think otherwise.First sentence not quite correct and second is simply wrong.

It may seem strange, but low interest rates make two important effects on the quantity of proven oil reserves held / developed by oil companies, just as they do in the design of electric power lines and many other investment that have current costs and future returns. For example, in the power line case, which is easier to understand, the size or the wire is increased, until the cost of the financing to increase it more (basically short term interest rate) is more than the saving in (I^2)R energy losses (the current value or discounted value of the future energy that will be saved during the life of the line by the increase in wire size.) This discounted value of the future energy saved is more related to the power companies economist's guess about long term interest rates and other factors.

What I am trying to get you to understand is that the idea that "oil companies don't search for more oil until they need it" is an extremely simple minded view, with little relationship to reality. For example, UnoCal was recently sold (China tried to buy it for even higher price but was not allowed to.) Why did it look so attractive to many? Because it had large proven reserves. That is, investing in exploration is costly (but that cost is related mainly to short term interest rates) and immediately increase in value of company that finds more oil in the ground, but the current value of that is related to the discount rate and projections as to future oil prices. UnoCal did not need the great quantity of oil it developed, but was wise to do so while interest rates were low.

Again “needs” have little to do with oil’s proven reserves. America is soon to learn this. There will be “needs,” but no economically affordable (for debt ridden Americans) oil available. Many SUVs will just be put up on blocks to save their tires in vain hopes of “better times.”

Thus the oil companies tend to have more years of proven reserve when current interest rates are low than when they are high. (It cost less to get and hold them, especially when rising oil prices make the current value of more oil in the ground large.)

Your 100 year guess is in serious conflict with the fact that Hubble's curve, which is based on production, has fit the "bell shape" he predicted 30 years ago very well although when that prediciton was made, production was rapidly rising and far from the current peak. It still fits very well now that production is near / at the peak and basically flat. One can thus be quite confident that soon production will start to fall despite the soaring price. There is considerable math and science in this, not simple guessing, but it is not an exact science. Best hope for oil at less than $100 in five or ten years at max, is the discovery of it in the Caspian Sea area. There are good prospects, not fully explored, there. (Part of reason US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan was to secure pipeline routes to the west, not going thru Russia. Also why Russian are dying in the area, trying to keep their control of at least part of it.) The world is much more complex than you seem to understand and you completely missed even the simple economics that determines how many years of oil reserves is economically optimum for the oil company. Do not for a minute think they exist to supply "needs" They are keeping you from knowing that the cost of driving on alcohol, as Brazil has been doing for 30 years, is cheaper than on gas. They don't care about "needs" it is "profits" that motivate them.

Burning something to make electricity to power electric cars would create more global pollution than having the car burn something because when energy is converted from one form to another form some energy is lost.

I thought the idea behind electric cars was that you can convert energy far more efficiently in a large centralised generator than in thousands of smaller car engines?

I thought the idea behind electric cars was that you can convert energy far more efficiently in a large centralised generator than in thousands of smaller car engines?

No, not really. The primary reason for the push of electric vehicles is to reduce air pollution in heavily urban areas.

I wonder how much energy will be lost in then thousand miles of copper cable.

I'd just like to bring up the fact that oil companies don't search for more oil unitl they need it...

No, that's absolutely false. I know two people who work for oil exploration companies - one of them is my own brother - and they have been very busy for the past ten years. The reality of economy is that it's considerably cheaper to search for oil than it is to wait. Delaying the search would be very foolish. Waiting only causes the expenses for equipment and manpower to increase. (Not to mention that someone else may beat you to it if you wait too long. Granted, exploration leases are long but not that long.)

No, that's absolutely false. I know two people who work for oil exploration companies - one of them is my own brother - and they have been very busy for the past ten years. The reality of economy is that it's considerably cheaper to search for oil than it is to wait. Delaying the search would be very foolish. Waiting only causes the expenses for equipment and manpower to increase. ...No quite right. Read my longer post a few post earlier to have better grasp on the economics of oil exploration and several similar activities with “up-front” cost and returns only years latter.

The reason why your brother et al have been very busy (low interest rates and rising oil prices) is explained there. At times time of high interest rates and stable or falling oil prices it is not foolish, but smart to wait.

Unfortunately, for your brother's real take home pay's purchasing power it has, if he is typical of most working Americans, not been going up much and he is in a high demand industry. (He may be working more overtime etc. and getting more total pay, but I am speaking of the hourly wage.) So recently the increase cost of labor has been little reason to wait, however, I am told by one who should know and worked in the oil pipe delivery business for years, that the pay of an oil pipeline welder in Iraq is a $1000/day now. Thus there may be a shortage of some oil related workers in US to make this generalization false. -Ask him and let us know if it is easier now for him to pay his bills than it was 10 years ago.

why dont your species just use the perpetual motion machine you talk about so much it is posible you know

fossil fuels expire soon, and before they expire the countries have to make use of evey last drop of these fossil fuels. Once no oil is left, well turn to hydrogen, nuclear, and other sources of energy.

fossil fuels expire soon, and before they expire the countries have to make use of evey last drop of these fossil fuels. Once no oil is left, well turn to hydrogen, nuclear, and other sources of energy.
Sadly, hydrogen isn't an energy source. It's just an energy storage mechanism. You still have to get the energy to make the hydrogen from somewhere.

water.... actually I say go get your kids to play in a new McPower cheese....kids get free food, while they play, run like crazy, thye create energy for the government. Or...produce a genetically altered animal that when is fed uses all of its power to produce electricity for people....Muhaaa! Enslave the animals....theyve got what it takes to produce the energy.... :D

Yeah, you can get hydrogen from water, but you have to put energy in to do it. You can use solar energy, nuclear energy, or whatever to make hydrogen from water, but the hydrogen is just acting as an energy store for you. The energy itself had to come from somewhere else.

yeah man i do know of a source of energy and you all know it aswell, but maybe i think differently, use the elements of the earth do you know of the 5 elements.? well i have a little something here to put forward to everyone, i know there are alot of clever intelligent people who post on this forum, with alot more credentials and degrees than me, im just a martial artist who is 21 years old living in a crappy area, but i have good ideas for mankind,


ok everybody knows that the moon controls the tides, so this means we use this to our advantage, we know the water patterns, we could globally devise huge worldwide turbines to actually reap all of that hydro power from the whole ocean itself, not a mere river or stream, im talking full scale ocean power harvesting with every modern government participating and at every coastal area that has these hydro generators this also means that we know the wind will be blowing the same direction of the tide so we could also harvest that huge wind source with gigantic never seen before windmills, and ontop of this, we could construct the tallest structures on earth at every critical lightening osition, to act as huge conductors wich could pick up the majority of lightening that strikes earth to be routed. if we construct thousands of these we could gather much energy and store it in some kind of huge conservation batterys.


i have many more ideas that involve the whole world getting involved in, i will present my ideas to leading government reaserch teams once it is properly set out, and after consuting alternate ideas with other great minds, on that note i will start a new thread about this actual topic soon and would greatly appreciate it if people cooperated with the progress of these ideas and not critisize because this is serious to me and the earth i think as a whole.


oh yea,.. why don't you start your project with ur terrific ideas? u could probably make millions of dollers..... well.. you might be a millionaire by now since your post have been posted quite a while ago :)

Or since necromancy is so acceptable these days, why don't we raise the dead and put them to work turning generators?

Zephyr:

I dub thee a prophet of the Prince of Anti-Thread Necromancy. You may spread your message in my name.