We are not running out of energy

[Aeyra]

I've noticed that a lot of people are worried about Peak Oil. I believe peak oil is somewhat real according to the data we are receiving, but there's more than meets the eye.

1. Origin of Petroleum

If Petroleum is biological in nature (dead dinosaurs and plants crushed into this stuff), then why in the hell do we find hydrocarbons and methane gas (also supposedly produced by 65 million year old dino meat) on comets and the moons of the larger planets? Even if there wasn't any hydrocarbons outside of Earth, I don't think that even all of the dinosaurs and crap alive could amount to the reserves of natural gas and oil and coal within the earth, and that's assuming all of the biological matter was present to be crushed into petroleum. The meteor that hit the Earth 65 million years ago incinerated a good chunk of the living things in the Western Hemisphere, and the global temperature rise killed off the rest of the larger animals on the planet. I can't see how their dead bodies, including the ones in the ocean, could sit around and not rot away for such a long time before being covered by sediment and being crushed into petroleum.

2. Why are gas prices so low relative to this 'crisis' scenario?

If Peak Oil is real like how Kunstler and the rest of them say, then prices need to be MUCH higher. We hit global 'peak' in 2005. If that is the case, then even with all of the manipulations by our government and OPEC gasoline shouldn't be $3.10/gal, it should be around $7 - 9 per gallon. Supposedly if you lose 5% of your supplies for oil your prices quadruple. Either those numbers are way off or our supplies are greater than we think.

3. Bermuda Triangle Methane pocket

Recently an underwater pocket of methane was discovered in the northern part of the Bermuda Triangle area. While we don't have the ability to use this methane yet due to lack of infrastructure, but this methane bubbles up from the bottom of the sea floor, possibly from the mantle. This could also be why planes and ships go missing in this area due to the methane gas possibly incapacitating people when they breathe in the gas. Why is methane coming from the bottom of the ocean (in an area that has NEVER been dry land at all) if it is a biotic product?

4. Petroleum is NOT the most effecient form of energy

Here is the relative energy densities for various sources of energy (MJ/KG):

Mass/Energy Equivalent of Matter - 89,876,000,000
Nuclear Fusion - 300,000,000
Nuclear Fission - 90,000,000
Liquid Hydrogen - 143
Crude Oil - 41.87
Ethanol - 30
Gasoline -  46.9
Biodiesel - 42.2
Anthracite Coal - 32.5
Food Sugars and Carbs - 17
Iron Oxide - 4.9
LI Ion Battery - .54
Compressed Air - .27
Water  - .001

(Note that some forms of energy like Fusion are experimental at this point)

5. With today's technology, we can run out of petroleum but it's damn near impossible to run out of energy. (TW is one tera Watt = one Trillion Watts)

Current Power usage of humanity - 15 TW
Total amount of Renewable Wind Power Available - 370 TW
Total amount of Renewable Solar Power Available - 89000 TW!

Yes, we certainly can run out of petroleum, but I'd say that if we started building solar and wind power turbines at a much higher rate, we'd be hard pressed to run out of energy.

6. We don't need electricity to forge metals

The Peak Oil crowd assumes that without petroleum, we as a society will revert back to 1700's standards of living, without any forms of metallurgy or windmills, nada. No food production, we all live like little sheep on farms controlled by 'them'. Reality check: metallurgy doesn't require electricity to work. We've been forging metals and woodworking long before electricity was put into homes. Last time I checked, we didn't have coal power plants in 1790 (I hope not anyway). You don't need electricity to garden and water your flowers or even to cook! Wow! If we actually required electricity to cook and grow food, we'd never had gotten out of the stone age.

My honest opinion, this increase in gas prices and such is a sign of a dying economy; does anyone here really think that we could sustain 301 million people on a real estate economy? I'm not saying that Peak Oil is a scam, but take it with a grain of salt. Peak Dollar is what I think we really are running into. I honestly feel that the Iraq War wasn't fought for WMDs or to get rid of Saddam or chase Bin Laden. I think we went to war partially as a distraction from the collapsing US economy (without the real estate bubble housing and the stock market would have sunk down much worse. Ironically we dropped interest rates quite a bit while we were debating Iraq. This was well planned out if you ask me) and also because Saddam was planning on selling his oil in euros only. That would have messed over the US Dollar big time as the dollar is partially backed by oil due to how geopolitics are laid out. I believe that both oil and gold (yes we never left the gold standard) back the dollar, and competition or trouble in either commodity would be bad for the US dollar. I think a dumbass geopolitical screwup by the US government is more of a threat to humanity than whether "dead dinosaur goo" dissappears.

Just my thoughts on the matter. 

[LostInTime]

The current oil and gas prices are due to the increase in demand from China and India. India already sports an impressive amount of nuclear energy and is planning on more, providing that it is approved there and with the international nuclear community. China has never really had much in the way of oil reserves but now that it requires so much additional to cover energy needs, they have begun building a large strategic depository much like other nations have in the past and present.

The US has been having refinery issues. One there are not enough of them. No one wanted one nearby and when they were actually proposed, they were usually run off. On the flip side, the companies have not really built any new ones because they are extremely expensive and with the previous super low price of oil, it was not really cost efficient. Add to that the fact that others have shut down due to new pollution regulations that would have made them too expensive to regulate.

Solar and wind energy collection and use is very inefficient at this time but there are improvements being made every year. They are not without a consequence though. Wind energy devices are said to disrupt migratory paths of birds and even slaughter them. Other means of energy collection have their own drawbacks as well, above and beyond the cost. Remember not everything is positive. We could effectively pull off a ton of cars from the highway (pollution wise) by using compact fluorescent bulbs. However, these bulbs cannot be just thrown away, they have to be recycled or they pose a serious risk of polluting land and groundwater.

Peak oil is nowhere nearby, that is the truth. Oil sands, oil shale, etc are all possible sources and there's more than enough to go around. Not to mention that technology improvements means that more and more oil in some deposits will be able to be brought up. SA recently had to re-figure numbers due to increased capability to get at already available oil.

There are other factors to consider as well. Political tensions with Iran, the upcoming Hurricane season, and unrest in areas such as Nigeria makes oil a risky business. Is it over inflated? yes. Will the bubble pop? Let's hope not because it will mean a big hit to the world economy. This is why OPEC stresses that there is more than enough oil already being put onto the market, they are trying to get prices down to where it would be a bit more stable. Oil prices are going to fall and by quite a bit. What we have to do is gently ease the prices down in the market across the next few years. Then pile on that a weak dollar....

There is no one single factor. Never has been and never will be. We need oil for plastics, roads, etc, etc and will for some time and our current production capacity will never be able to provide all that we need unless we find some rather large and easy to reach deposits. What we can do in the meantime is continue to improve alternative energy markets and start to push for a hybrid approach. It will lessen the increase in demand and hopefully make our planet a little bit greener.

[cindianna_jones]

Check out:

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf

It's a way to provide 200 years worth of energy for the good ole USA and clean up our nuclear waste at the same time.  No, this isn't a kook story, this was published in Scientific American.

The reasons why we don't do it?  I have no idea.

Cindi