Quote2050? 2100? Never? That's understandable given the IPCC models access to oil until 2100; politicians like Rishi are betting big on North Sea deposits. Petroleum is the life blood of our global economy, and it's difficult to imagine it drying up. More often, when we talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels, it's because of the necessity to limit global warming—not because we run out.

But a team in Scotland are warning exactly that—we're running out. Fast. Alister Hamilton is a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and the founder of Zero Emissions Scotland. He and his colleagues self-funded research into oil depletion around the world and the results are shocking: We will lose access to oil around the world in the 2030s.

They calculated this by establishing the Energy Return On Investment (EROI) and found that whilst there will still be oil deposits around the world, we would use more energy accessing the oil supply than we would ever get from burning it. This is because we're having to mine further into the earth's crust to access lower-grade oil. According to their calculations, the oil in the North Sea will be inaccessible—in a dead state—by 2031, and the oil in Norway by 2032. Around the world, oil reserves see the same trend through the 2030s.

Petroleum is the life blood, and we haven't yet built out a different circulatory system to support renewable energy—in less than a decade, the world as know it could crash.

I fixed it.  Will Crash

Rachel Donald did good on this one!

Critics of peak oil conveniently forget about EROEI.  Oil will be left, shale rock will hold oil.  But fracked oil will become unobtainable long before it is gone.  EROEI screws the pooch.

46 minutes in Alister Hamilton mentions Sterling Engines.  I am going to build one.  I have been looking at them recently.  That part of the discussion is off point.  But interesting to me.  I want something that will use the earth as a heat ballast and take the air temperature difference to operate from.  On a hot day perhaps the cool reservoir could be cooled with evaporation.  All I am after is a few watts which I think I can do.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 03, 2024, 11:42 AM46 minutes in Alister Hamilton mentions Sterling Engines.  I am going to build one.  I have been looking at them recently.  That part of the discussion is off point.  But interesting to me.  I want something that will use the earth as a heat ballast and take the air temperature difference to operate from.  On a hot day perhaps the cool reservoir could be cooled with evaporation.  All I am after is a few watts which I think I can do.

Stirling Engies have long been my favorite low-tech means of converting Solar-Mechanical energy directly, or Solar-Mechanical-Electric by using a simple electric generator instead of needing silicon wafers grown in a laboratory.

Fresnel lenses provide a cheap means of concentration the solar radiation to heat your liquid reservoir to vaporization temprature, then you use the vapor pressure to do the mechanical work of turning a pump or a generator magnet-coil for the electricity.



alternatively or in combination with the fresnel lens, you can use solar heated piping to preheat the cool liquid as it returns from the condenser to the storage tank for heating to vapor stage.



If you can't get your water tank to boiling temperature, you can use a heat exchanger to take the hot water and vaporize a liquid like methanol with a low boiing point.  You work with lower pressure so not as much power per stroke, but at lower temperatures it does the job of converting heat to work.

A nice goal to start I think is enough juice to keep cell phones charged, then move up to laptops.  Also run a water pump to raise water up to a high storage tank.  Then you could use that as a battery to drive a micro-hydro electric generator to make electricity as the water coming down turns a turbine, like a waterfall.

Take some pics or make a video when you get going on the project!

RE

I am watching this:


A very cogent discussion.  I have been waiting for someone to piss me off, and they have not so far.  Pictures of futuristic cities are hopium (unless they are ruins) with green vines growing on them.

Eighteen minutes in Roxanne Meadows mentions George Mobus and systems theory.  She questions the Earth's ability to provide endless abundance for all.  She says it was possible, but because of bad decision is may not be anymore.



Not your Daddy's Utopia .  I ignored Jacque Fresco's Venus Project as a fantasy divorced from reality.  It that was true it no longer is.  Likely never was, but future hopium tech has not been my thing.  Maybe it was bad marketing.  The core values seem correct.

The people at the Moneyless Society also have their shit together.

RE and I had Dinner with George Mobus the last time RE came down to Seattle.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 03, 2024, 03:09 PMRE and I had Dinner with George Mobus the last time RE came down to Seattle.

That was a fun trip and good chat with George.  I stayed at a native run casino where I got all my meals comped for gambling, which you could do just by spending a couple of hours at the dime slot machines.  Most you could lose was a couple of dollars, and you got $25 to spend at any of 3 restaurants, a big buffet, a sit down Asian or an Italian Pizza/Hero deli.  They had all you can eat Lobster on Wed & Sun at the buffet.  I also did real gambliing at the Blackjack tables and won enouggh to cover my hotel bill, so all the trip cost was plane fare.  I also got a 1st Class upgrade from my AA miles on the way home.

The real adventure was trying to fit my folding electric scooter of the era into Kdogs trunk of his Mercedes.  Hilarious.

Far as the futurist ideas are concerned, the killer was the exponential population growth.  If we could have implemented sane birth control policies in the 3rd world and not simply dumped cheap surplus food from the "green revolution" on them, we might have had a shot at the techno utopian dream right up to the early 1980s.  That was not to be however, as capitalism saw the growing population as an endless source of cheap labor and voracious consumers.

A utopian future is still a possibility IMHO, but only after a very large population knockdown of 90% or more.  Unfortunately, the devastation resulting from such a knockdown probably prevents that from happening also.  If I was young and healthy, I'd try to survive to help that be a long term outcome, after the current crop of Masters of the Universe have been sent to the Great Beyond.  Perhaps one of my few young readers will carry the torch after I am carved up for dinner for the staff of CNAs here when the food runs out. 

RE

Ninety percent of people consider the I.E.A. International Energy Agency a reliable source.  It is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization that provides policy recommendations, analysis, and data on the global energy sector.

Main stream respectable.  People involved pass for civilized.

Member countries provide the funding.  I do not think the data can be trusted.  No country is going to tell the truth about their energy reserves.  Since they control the money they never will.  This makes the agency a data laundry.

On page 299 of the report there are 235 billion barrels of conventional oil claimed for North America. But Prudhoe Bay only yielded 13 billion barrels of conventional oil.  Something stinks.  But the current American export rate could not be justified with the truth known so it makes sense.  This highly respectable autonomous agency can't be trusted.


Thoughts ?

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 07, 2024, 10:49 PMNinety percent of people consider the I.E.A. International Energy Agency a reliable source.  It is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization that provides policy recommendations, analysis, and data on the global energy sector.

Main stream respectable.  People involved pass for civilized.

Member countries provide the funding.  I do not think the data can be trusted.  No country is going to tell the truth about their energy reserves.  Since they control the money they never will.  This makes the agency a data laundry.

On page 299 of the report there are 235 billion barrels of conventional oil claimed for North America. But Prudhoe Bay only yielded 13 billion barrels of conventional oil.  Something stinks.  But the current American export rate could not be justified with the truth known so it makes sense.  This highly respectable autonomous agency can't be trusted.

<iframe src="https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/86ede39e-4436-42d7-ba2a-edf61467e070/WorldEnergyOutlook2023.pdf" width="100%" height="600px"></iframe>

Thoughts ?

I know Lars Larsen predicts late 2020s as the end of 'available net exports' which is global net export - China+India net imports, thence collapse cus interdependent economies no longer work, war etc etc. I haven't looked into it in detail but an interesting angle. People need to believe in the oil market, which in turn requires assuming it will last til they and preferably the next couple generations are dead.

QuotePeople need to believe in the oil market, which in turn requires assuming it will last til they and preferably the next couple generations are dead.

Or at least everyone has to believe the can can get kicked down the road for a while.  Enough time for green tech and space aliens to rescue humanity and change the game.  Roll the dice one more time.


NO, an agency that curates truth for and funded by governments will give a truth that is half snake oil, but with the credentials of hard science to bounce the can one more time.

This is where most men of my demographic make themselves irrelevant.  Ultimately their fame and fortune depends on the system.  Their esteem and identity comes from the system.  The system made them what they are, yet they imagine themselves unique.  That is a contradiction that sanity must ignore. Consequently an ability for such made men to look within, at themselves.  Is not easy to cultivate.  As it is said in 'A few good men' - They can't handle the truth.


They can't give up faith in the system.  The system has given them special papers which say they know stuff and are special.  Somehow they get money.  They are threads in the fabric who imagine a system integrity that was never there.  They will hear no talk about how sausage is really made and what the ingredients are.  New truth must be documented in books before it can become real to such men.  They must continue to be deceived.

They cannot howl on the wild side.

What is the point. -- Only that the truth of our predicament will not have a day in the sun anytime soon.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 08, 2024, 03:14 PMWhat is the point. -- Only that the truth of our predicament will not have a day in the sun anytime soon.

Well, we can still stay out of the sunlight and sleep during the day in coffins like Vampires. 

We are the Undead, Doomer Vampires sucking blood out of the neck of Capitalism.



RE

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 08, 2024, 03:14 PM

QuotePeople need to believe in the oil market, which in turn requires assuming it will last til they and preferably the next couple generations are dead.

Or at least everyone has to believe the can can get kicked down the road for a while.  Enough time for green tech and space aliens to rescue humanity and change the game.  Roll the dice one more time.

I was OBSESSED with this song after hearing it in the Sopranos finale. Every hipster prestige drama nowadays is 'ummm capitalism is bad actually?' but that's the only one that somewhat got it right. Like all great art it shows, doesn't tell.

The book/paper I mentioned https://archive.org/details/oil-exports.-34odt-1/Oil%20exports.95odt.odt%285%29.pdf

It's five editions of the same 'book' so just download the last one. Dude's 36, a little older than me and already a cranky old prepper living in the woods lol.

If we take a very conservative, linear approach, and project a global oil production decline of 1,2% upon the future, ten, fifteen years from now, then the decline of global net oil exports is at least the double of that (3), i.e. a 2,4 % yearly decline, which is 2,4 mbd lost per year (if we fix the amount of decline, because in percentage declines the amount of decline slows down with time, which it doesn't do in our case), which gives us almost 13 years if we begin with 30 mbd of global net oil exports (which is a very conservative estimate. Oil geologist Jeffrey J. Brown said we were at 30 in the end of 2021, but there has been a sharp recovery in oil production since, therefore I think we are still at 30 mbd), which brings us to the year 2036.This year must be the absolute upper limit in our calculations.

If we then go to the decline of "ANE" ("Available Net Exports"), which is "GNE" ("Global Net Exports", the totality of global net oil exports) less the Chindia (China and India) region's combined net oil imports, then the decline goes a lot faster, by at least 3 % per year, conservatively estimated. So 3 % of global oil production is ~3 mbd. We have 30 mbd of global net oil exports left, at most (we might in fact be already at 28, 27 or even 26 mbd, which takes us to the end point a bit sooner). This give us only 10 years of "ANE oil". And this brings us to the fall of 2033 (or to 2030-2032 if we are now at 26-28 mbd of global net oil exports, which we very well could be).

This, 2030-2033, is pretty much the best case scenario for the end of global net oil exports, and has been the result of professional licensed oil geologist Jeffrey J. Brown's net oil export calculations. Observe that I have not taken into account that the real decline of both global oil production and global net oil exports is exponential (it's a mathematical certainty), i.e. have an accelerated rate of decline, goes faster and faster. With that in mind, the end of available global net oil exports (ANE) could very well happen well before 2030, which is the thesis in my book on the end of global net oil exports. I could certainly have been a bit too radical in my calculations in this book, but I think the core of it is solid and valid. It will be interesting to see how it all will play out, if there is any out there who tracks these things, which I think we should do.

But this, that we lose at least 3 mbd of "ANE oil" this year, is staggering, unfathomable. And I would also like to add to my book, that if I'm wrong in my predictions, I'm then not wrong by a lot of years, not by a decade, maybe only by one year or two, three at most, five to six years if miracles happen, which is not much in the grand scheme of things (as I said, 2030-2033 is the best case scenario). This should be clear to all who have studied my calculations. Do not shoot the messenger too easily. "The wolf came at last" (read the story I allude to here).

He doesn't count natural gas and light-tight shale and thinks they aren't as 'useful' as diesel. Which is highly debatable. Not my field so idk.

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 09, 2024, 03:13 AMHe doesn't count natural gas and light-tight shale and thinks they aren't as 'useful' as diesel. Which is highly debatable. Not my field so idk.

Well, when his latest suspension finishes, I'm sure MKing(Tddos) will drop in his expert opinion on these calculations.  If he can manage to do it without insulting us or violating one of the other conditions of his participation on this forum, I might even leave it up.

RE

Quote from: RE on Apr 09, 2024, 08:17 AM

Quote from: jupiviv on Apr 09, 2024, 03:13 AMHe doesn't count natural gas and light-tight shale and thinks they aren't as 'useful' as diesel. Which is highly debatable. Not my field so idk.

Well, when his latest suspension finishes, I'm sure MKing(Tddos) will drop in his expert opinion on these calculations.  If he can manage to do it without insulting us or violating one of the other conditions of his participation on this forum, I might even leave it up.

RE

Yes, he hosed himself good.  Got his foot real wet. 

After his juvenile insults got his ass banned, half a dozen things he would like to deny were posted.

These guys make for an interesting conversation.
More than sea level will rise.


Short term thinking increases.  People with money seem to be getting richer.  The divide grows.  The world does not change its ways.

For the second month in a row the CO2 concentration increase exceeds 1% for the year.  And the devil isn't doing it.  Rich people are.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 09, 2024, 06:22 PM

These guys make for an interesting conversation.

2 hours?  Can you give us a brief synopsis of this marathon talk fest?  Maybe give us the time on a coupe of highlights?  Last time I listened to Simon I was not impressed.

RE

A brief synopsis:

I am an hour and twelve minutes in now.  Simon went through a divorce ten years ago and his wife character assassinated him.  She messed up an intentional community he was involved in or something.  Did more than the sea level rise perhaps?  We do not have to know.

Talk of sea level rise, iron powder and other magic bullets that would take more organization than short term thinking will or can do.  The panel has the good sense to know as the future unwinds, the cost of doing everything is going red queen.  Despite a few burps of technonarcissism the panels digestion of reality is reasonable. 

The faster you run, the more you stay in the same place.  A lot of talk about making Hawaii into a food forest and thorium reactors to make the big island into a self-sufficient micro civilization able to reproduce enough modern technology on a sustainable basis to stay modern.  Simon pointed out while that is a great plan, nothing in Hawaii is organized to make this happen.

A mix of sanity and wild-assed dreaming.



Fun facts, if Britain had half the population and used 1/8 the energy they now do the Island would be sustainable.  Like Sandy said in the comments.  She learns something new every time.

Quote from: K-Dog on Apr 09, 2024, 07:10 PMA lot of talk about making Hawaii into a food forest and thorium reactors to make the big island into a self-sufficient micro civilization able to reproduce enough modern technology on a sustainable basis to stay modern.  Simon pointed out while that is a great plan, nothing in Hawaii is organized to make this happen.

Forget the organization, Hawaii is far too overpopulated for it's available resources for growing food or water to drink.  Before you even think about reorganizing and making it a sustainable food forest, either 90% of the population has to emmigrate off the Island or die off.  Also helpful would be sea level to stop rising and rainfall to return to preindustrial levels.  Then you also need to wait for the chemicals to rinse out of the aquifer.

This idea ranks right up there with micro-nukes solving our energy deficit problems.  Simon and his crew are hopium addicts.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hawaii-water-crisis-climate-change/

Hawaii is "on the verge of catastrophe," locals say, as water crisis continues

RE