'Because the costliest stuff is left in the ground, there will always be petroleum to mine later. “When will the world’s supply of oil be exhausted?” asked the MIT economist Morris Adelman, perhaps the most important exponent of this view. “The best one-word answer: never.”'
Yes, but it does not follow: "Effectively, energy supplies are infinite."
This is such a massive failure of basic logic that I really do not think anything more needs to be said. Yet I will say it. The fact that a given energy source requires more energy to produce than it can yield does not make it an infinite source! Nor does a source which can yield a positive flow but does not present a better return on capital than other existing sources off an infinite supply. Just because it will never be used does not mean it is infinite!
You are misreading the author. His sentence is hyperbolic.. He says "effectively" to address your concern --- and then addresses why the whole notion requires further investigation in the next paragraph.
The very next statement is "Sweeping claims like these make Jean Laherrère’s teeth hurt."
Suppose we want to reduce our oil consumption. What can we do?
1) Increase efficiency. Jevon's paradox makes this a fail, if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more.
2) Impose prohibitions or taxes on petroleum consumption, or incentives for alternative energy consumption. This also fails because oil is a global commodity. If you inhibit its consumption in one country, the global price goes down which causes consumption to increase in other countries where the taxes or subsidies don't exist and offsets the bulk of the benefit. The only way this one works is if you can do it on a global scale and prevent anyone from cheating, which you can't.
3) Subsidize research into alternative energy production methods that would be cost competitive with oil on their own merits. Once brought to market, these methods would be more economically attractive than petroleum consumption world-wide and bring about a significant global reduction in petroleum consumption. This is the only one that actually works, and it has the added benefit of reducing energy costs.
> 1) Increase efficiency. Jevon's paradox makes this a fail, if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more.
I'm not sure I'd call this a "fail"; U.S. domestic energy usage per capita has actually fallen slightly since 1990, despite a massive explosion of new electronics and personal devices. (The EU has experienced a 1% per capita growth in energy consumption over the same period.)
People are certainly doing it more, but -- so far -- the recent emphasis on increased efficiency has been keeping this demand from translating into an increased demand for energy.
If improving efficiency alone can entirely halt growing demands for energy, then that's half the battle right there in reducing consumption.
Agreed, the only way to truly get rid of oil is to make it outdated by replacing it with better (where better equals cheaper mostly) energy technology.
if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more
Will that really be a big factor in petroleum use? My driving is not dictated by the cost of Petrol (not yet anyway). I am not going to start driving twice as much if my car suddenly only uses 50% as much fuel.
TL;DR - There seems credible evidence fossil fuels will always exist for us and they'll always be affordable.
So getting past the strawperson replies about how nothing is infinite, fuel x is not oil or limiting factors....
It is interesting. For years naysayers have gone on about peak oil, yet the opposite might be true, technology might be able to rip fossil fuels out of the earth faster than we can use them for hundreds of years.
The fact fracking was only possible due to increased computing power and is now changing local industry due to energy actually getting cheaper shows to me we are in an era of incredibly complex and quick changes.
But it's never been about oil availability. Oil extraction is nowadays far more expensive than it was a decade ago, both in cost and in energy expenditure. Renewables are becoming cost-effective not just because of technical advances, but because oil will continue to get more expensive.
No amount of technical advances will defeat thermodynamics.
That's a bit like saying 'we haven't run out of food' when there's only half a jar of mustard and some salt in the cupboard.
Actually, it reminds of a housemate I once had who often ate other people's food. He would respond "Well, you can help yourselves to the food in my cupboard"... which was, in total, one lemon and a quarter-kilo of flour.
We won't ever run out of oil. What will happen is that oil EROEI will drop and cost will increase until other sources of energy are more cost-competitive and oil becomes obsolete. (... OR if other sources cannot replace oil, economic collapse and demand destruction until demand equals supply.)
"Energy" is a little broad, it's already obsolete for non portable applications. Oil will still be in demand when eroei goes below 1, unless there's a cheaper compatible non fossil replacement.
So, if we switch to using methane hydrates and shale gas instead of coal and oil, we will be emitting less CO2 - obviously not as big a step away from fossil fuels as going all renewable (and/or nuclear), but seemingly better than doing nothing...
It doesn't matter how quickly we put carbon in the atmosphere. It has a 200 year effect - taking 60 more years versus 20 is meaningless if you end up putting it all up there anyway. The only difference would be how soon we suffer the worst effects - it's too fast for adaptation in nature for most evolutionary or migratory processes either way. I suppose you could hope for a technological silver bullet but that's effort made while dealing with a much more costly carbon economy.
Also, we should really avoid the worst effects. Even the middling effects are pretty awful.
No, that's mostly on top of oil and coal extraction. (Also gas isn't big enough improvement on co2 emissions to the small extent it does displace coal or oil)
I wonder how much power we could generate if we really have an affordable solar panel for everyone to use, put a giant sheet of panel up in the space, storing mechanical and wave energy as we walk, drive on the road and move things around the house, convert organic waste (human and animal poop) into energy.
Solar irradience on the surface of Earth is about 1200 W/m^2
Total energy consumption in 2008 was 143,851 TWh
Take panels that have 20% efficiency, and assume they can absorb for 6 hours a day, for 70% of the year (255 days). You can generate 368 kW/year. To generate the total 143851 TWh, you'd need about 3.91e11 m^2 of area. That sounds a lot, but it's only a square of land 625 km per side, or about 90% of the area of California. Note that this is of course a very hand-wavey order of magnitude estimate.
The problem isn't the abundence of energy sources, it's the collection, retainment, transmission and generation reliability of it (those factors overlap - generation reliability can be offset by better transmission and vice versa).
We don't really have to go looking far for energy sources, we just really struggle to harness them with current technology.
I'm optimistic about renewables. Photovoltaic solar is already cheaper than retail power and competitive with wholesale in many markets. The issue now is grid storage. Battery tech is currently improving at around 7% a year, so I think we'll see electric cars go mainstream in the next 5 years and decreasing reliance on centralized power generation shortly afterwards.
As the Wikipedia article itself says, the catastrophe scenario is now "thought unlikely"... I'd add that any such instability just sitting around would have been triggered by now anyhow. It's essentially impossible for the climate to be that unstable. So "thought unlikely" is quite reasonable and well-founded, and probably putting it lightly.
While I'm sure that once we start tapping into these resources environmental groups will subject us to an endless haranguing about the "Clathrate gun hypothesis", it will merely serve as further evidence that many (not all, but many) environmentalists are narrative first, science fourth or fifth.
This is something I know a bit about, and the article is terrifyingly stupid. The more you look into the utter dependence of modern life as we know it on petroleum and natural gas (coal to a much lesser extent), the unbelievable amount of it that we burn, the rate of discovery of new supplies, and the rate of depletion of known supplies... it's very uncomfortable to imagine 70% of the planet's population suddenly dying off over a 5 year period in the next 50 years but it's entirely plausible.
The most sobering part is that given a deep enough interruption in humankind, it's possible we'd never recover since the hydrocarbon frontier is in ultradeep, clathrates, and shale and none of those would be possible without a bootstrapping from easier hydrocarbon sources (which have been long since exhausted)
Could you connect your thoughts to themselves and to the article please? I have no idea why you think the article is stupid, and also no idea how you get to 70% of the population dying over a five year period.
Well the article appeared to contain a lot better information than your post. If you want to share your knowledge then do it. Don't just say something is stupid because you 'know a bit'.
The author doesn't claim that; you ought to read more than the first few paragraphs. He is relating the discovery of methane hydrate beneath the seafloor in the 70s to newer unconventional oil extraction methods, namely tar sands and hydraulic fracking, in terms of their impact on energy markets... not saying that they are the same.
[+] [-] jeremyjh|12 years ago|reply
Yes, but it does not follow: "Effectively, energy supplies are infinite."
This is such a massive failure of basic logic that I really do not think anything more needs to be said. Yet I will say it. The fact that a given energy source requires more energy to produce than it can yield does not make it an infinite source! Nor does a source which can yield a positive flow but does not present a better return on capital than other existing sources off an infinite supply. Just because it will never be used does not mean it is infinite!
[+] [-] redwood|12 years ago|reply
The very next statement is "Sweeping claims like these make Jean Laherrère’s teeth hurt."
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|12 years ago|reply
1) Increase efficiency. Jevon's paradox makes this a fail, if you make consumption more efficient then you effectively make it less expensive and so people do it more.
2) Impose prohibitions or taxes on petroleum consumption, or incentives for alternative energy consumption. This also fails because oil is a global commodity. If you inhibit its consumption in one country, the global price goes down which causes consumption to increase in other countries where the taxes or subsidies don't exist and offsets the bulk of the benefit. The only way this one works is if you can do it on a global scale and prevent anyone from cheating, which you can't.
3) Subsidize research into alternative energy production methods that would be cost competitive with oil on their own merits. Once brought to market, these methods would be more economically attractive than petroleum consumption world-wide and bring about a significant global reduction in petroleum consumption. This is the only one that actually works, and it has the added benefit of reducing energy costs.
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|12 years ago|reply
I'm not sure I'd call this a "fail"; U.S. domestic energy usage per capita has actually fallen slightly since 1990, despite a massive explosion of new electronics and personal devices. (The EU has experienced a 1% per capita growth in energy consumption over the same period.)
People are certainly doing it more, but -- so far -- the recent emphasis on increased efficiency has been keeping this demand from translating into an increased demand for energy.
If improving efficiency alone can entirely halt growing demands for energy, then that's half the battle right there in reducing consumption.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] D_Alex|12 years ago|reply
At some point (IMO already reached) this becomes just "Research". Properly directed R&D pays for itself many times over.
>...into alternative energy production...
And utilisation! Electric cars FTW!!
[+] [-] zizee|12 years ago|reply
Will that really be a big factor in petroleum use? My driving is not dictated by the cost of Petrol (not yet anyway). I am not going to start driving twice as much if my car suddenly only uses 50% as much fuel.
[+] [-] aaron695|12 years ago|reply
So getting past the strawperson replies about how nothing is infinite, fuel x is not oil or limiting factors....
It is interesting. For years naysayers have gone on about peak oil, yet the opposite might be true, technology might be able to rip fossil fuels out of the earth faster than we can use them for hundreds of years.
The fact fracking was only possible due to increased computing power and is now changing local industry due to energy actually getting cheaper shows to me we are in an era of incredibly complex and quick changes.
[+] [-] Daishiman|12 years ago|reply
No amount of technical advances will defeat thermodynamics.
[+] [-] _red|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|12 years ago|reply
Actually, it reminds of a housemate I once had who often ate other people's food. He would respond "Well, you can help yourselves to the food in my cupboard"... which was, in total, one lemon and a quarter-kilo of flour.
[+] [-] sadfnjksdf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfa0|12 years ago|reply
The sun's energy will out last us all, millions of times over. Plants have it figured out. We should ask them.
Plus what happens when we are ready to leave Earth? Surely we'll need a way to feed off of the stars then anyway, so why not start now.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
Just because the supply is finite, doesn't automatically mean we will exhaust it.
[+] [-] api|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fulafel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|12 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5615686
[+] [-] blacksmith_tb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AbsoluteDestiny|12 years ago|reply
Also, we should really avoid the worst effects. Even the middling effects are pretty awful.
[+] [-] fulafel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yeukhon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NamTaf|12 years ago|reply
Take panels that have 20% efficiency, and assume they can absorb for 6 hours a day, for 70% of the year (255 days). You can generate 368 kW/year. To generate the total 143851 TWh, you'd need about 3.91e11 m^2 of area. That sounds a lot, but it's only a square of land 625 km per side, or about 90% of the area of California. Note that this is of course a very hand-wavey order of magnitude estimate.
The problem isn't the abundence of energy sources, it's the collection, retainment, transmission and generation reliability of it (those factors overlap - generation reliability can be offset by better transmission and vice versa).
We don't really have to go looking far for energy sources, we just really struggle to harness them with current technology.
[+] [-] tjmc|12 years ago|reply
I'm optimistic about renewables. Photovoltaic solar is already cheaper than retail power and competitive with wholesale in many markets. The issue now is grid storage. Battery tech is currently improving at around 7% a year, so I think we'll see electric cars go mainstream in the next 5 years and decreasing reliance on centralized power generation shortly afterwards.
[+] [-] fulafel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerf|12 years ago|reply
While I'm sure that once we start tapping into these resources environmental groups will subject us to an endless haranguing about the "Clathrate gun hypothesis", it will merely serve as further evidence that many (not all, but many) environmentalists are narrative first, science fourth or fifth.
[+] [-] throwaway5752|12 years ago|reply
The most sobering part is that given a deep enough interruption in humankind, it's possible we'd never recover since the hydrocarbon frontier is in ultradeep, clathrates, and shale and none of those would be possible without a bootstrapping from easier hydrocarbon sources (which have been long since exhausted)
[+] [-] eloff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gph|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nfoz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comicjk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpwright|12 years ago|reply