I call bullshit.
Evidence please.

Should be pretty easy to find 🙂
US patent search : http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/search/
EU patent search : http://worldwide.espacenet.com/advancedSearch

I think what the optimists ignore is that whilst it is true that societies always move on when new technologies become available, it isn’t necessarily a smooth transition. A awful lot of history consists of states which flourished and then sank without trace once the foundations on which they depended collapsed. I’m not saying it is going to happen, but I can certainly see modern (post)-industrial society ceasing to function before being replaced by something different & it wouldn’t be a process I would volunteer to live through..

Squeaky chains and sticking gear cables are our future.
Oh the humanity.

I’ll be dead by then, so who ****ing cares. Now wheres my massive chauffeur driven car, to take me to the airport?

This.

Why would they do that, each time there is a revelation about oil, it isn’t that they have been hiding how much they have, it is that they don’t have as much as they said they did.

Because these are oil companies that you’re dealing with – probably the most devious, hypocritical, dishonest, machiavellian organisations on the planet outside of the Catholic Church.

Remember hydrogen fuel cell cars? The next Big Thing about 20 years ago? No? That’s because the oil companies have bought the technology and shelved it. There’s only Honda who are man enough to stand up to them about it, and even they don’t shout very loud about the fact that they’ve had an H-cell car on sale in the USA for the last 10 years.

That’s because the oil companies have bought the technology and shelved it.

Again I’d like to see the evidence.

Fuel cell technology is common knowledge, it’s not a secret, but it requires hydrogen which is very hard to handle.

And you need energy to generate the hydrogen in the first place.

And you need energy to generate the hydrogen in the first place.

Hydrogen, rather than being a substitute fuel, makes most sense as a means of energy storage to smooth out peaks and troughs in production. If we were willing to build a lot more renewable or nuclear electricity production capacity, H2 could be produced and used for transportation fuel.

Right now however we have enough issues making electricity just for current demand, without trying to power everyone’s car etc too.

The low hanging fruits that have made our oil so cheap are running out rapidly. It is indeed going to get more and more expensive, but it is not just extraction that will affect the price, we have to think about burgeoning demand and protectionism. If it were so abundant why are the Saudi’s now drilling offshore? They apparently have the largest reserves in the world under their feet.

H2 could be produced and used for transportation fuel.

Extremely difficult and expensive.

A tanker of crude oil has far more value than a tank of H2 would. That is, IF you could actually store the H2 long enough to transport it from say Iceland or wherever.

No need for squeaky chains, we’ll just have belts instead. Oh..

Torminalis – Member

If it were so abundant why are the Saudi’s now drilling offshore? They apparently have the largest reserves in the world under their feet.

they claim* they’ve something like 300billion barrels of oil – which is a piffling amount when you start looking at oil shale/tar sands/whatever.

(*if it’s true, it’s enough to supply the entire world for 10 years, and it’s almost certainly 8o110**5)

Coal its the future

There is currently more production capacity in the world than there is demand for oil. The growing demand from India and China is estimated to fill that gaop somewhere between 2016 and 2018. Then the price will rise sharply and alternative technologies will become more attractive.

How about railway style pantograph lines on motorways to give electric cars and lorries greater range?

We’ll have eaten all the horses….

Because these are oil companies that you’re dealing with – probably the most devious, hypocritical, dishonest, machiavellian organisations on the planet outside of the Catholic Church.

I am a catholic and I am OFFENDED !

At some point, someone who the oil companies haven’t bought off or killed will present their engine that runs on poo or nasal hair and we’ll all start using those.

In fact, we’re probably doing that already. When you’re filling your car up, you’re not pouring petrol in, it’s poo. They release a faint wiff of petrol to trick you otherwise but what you’re really pumping in there is the output from Father Bob’s cattle herd which as everyone knows is much cheaper than petrol.

meanwhile all the real petrol is being stockpiled to run the tories jags which won’t run on poo.

That’s because the oil companies have bought the technology and shelved it.

Do you actually believe this?

If so, I suggest you seek medial help for paranoid delusions….

But really, don’t the oil companies just pretend there’s no oil to keep the price high?

lazybike – Member
We’ll have eaten all the horses….

I do not shop at Tesco.

There are many thinks that we will not have available that are of concern. Oil is finite but so are many other things, water being one of them.

Yeah but it’s a lot easier to recycle water than it is petrol.

Oil is finite but so are many other things, water being one of them.

Water does get replenished so its not finite as such, population growth means there won’t be enough for everyone.

samuri – Member

But really, don’t the oil companies just pretend there’s no oil to keep the price high?

no.

1) oil companies like us to think they’ve got access to loads of easy oil, cos that’s the stuff which makes loads of profit – and that’s good for investors.

(ie: “we’ve got loads of easy oil” = strong share price / vs: “we’ve go no oil left” = collapsed share price and a buy-out)

2) the price isn’t high – it’s just not fantastically cheap anymore.

There is quite a lot of oil but:

* It’s in environmentally difficult sites requiring some innovation in extraction technologies to safely access e.g. Macondo well – Deep Water horizon disaster, Canadian tar-sands etc

* It’s in countries with dubious politics

* It’s damaging the climate and the air we breath

But really, don’t the oil companies just pretend there’s no oil to keep the price high?

Historically, oil companies have tended to over-estimate supplies. At the end of the day they need to inspire confidence in the future supply of oil, otherwise they’re on a downward spiral while other technologies are sought.

It’s a very interesting topic. In reality the shift will probably be slow. It’s already begun. And we’ll mould around it as a society, as we have done for thousands of years.

But it’s interesting because our entire modern society revolves around oil. Our lifestyles are a distant whisper of the ones our ancestors lived 100 years ago. Almost every product we buy contains oil, was manufactured by oil, or at the very least was delivered through the use of oil.

If there was any serious disruption in supply it would have a direct impact on our ability to continue living. It would be a bit of a mess.

2) the price isn’t high – it’s just not fantastically cheap anymore.

It isn’t really is it?

After all, a pint of beer will cost you up to £6 in a posh bar and it must cost a fraction of the price of oil to produce.

If there was any serious disruption in supply it would have a direct impact on our ability to continue living.

If there was any serious disruption in supply it would have a direct impact on our ability to continue living in the same manner that we are used to living now.

You lot do know that ‘oil’ isn’t just ‘oil’ don’t you? All that light sweet crude is getting scarce and the cruddy stuff is mostly what is left.

If there was any serious disruption in supply it would have a direct impact on our ability to continue living in the same manner that we are used to living now.

You can interpret that in different ways. Of course we could all become farmers and the like, living off the land as we have done for thousands of years.

The fact is, if oil production stopped tomorrow, food would be scarce, there’d be no jobs to go to. It would be a fight for survival and we’d probably see civil war. Many of us would die.

2) the price isn’t high – it’s just not fantastically cheap anymore.

It isn’t really is it?

You can pay as much for water.

Economic leveling will of course prevail, and current non viable technologies will replace a proportion of the conventionally located energy sources.

It’s important to understand the difference between energy harvesting, and energy storage. Oil is actually energy storage, the harvesting process occurred millions of years ago, and without any invervention from Man. We are now reaping those riches. Any susbtitutional energy system will need to carry about BOTH processes, the harvesting and the storage.

2 options exist for harvesting: Nuclear and “sun powered” (be that solar, wind, wave, or biomass etc)
Multiple options exist for storage as distribution, including hydrogen.

The intesting things are what happens to technologies that currently completely depend upon oil, like plastics (as someone mentioned earlier), and transport systems like aeronautics which must have a high energy density fuel to work (fly!)

Currently, 95% of hydrogen is chemically cracked from, yup, you guessed it, oil……..

This really leaves the same two options: Nations become self sufficient on a mix of nuclear and renewables for harvesting, and a mixture of direct demand electricity usage (grid powered) and hydrogen storage (electrolysis of water (v inefficient!).
OR:
Countries close to the equator become net exporters of energy, either directly via electricity over massive cables, or into a storage medium, again, probably hydrogen. This is probably the greenest, and highest efficiency solution, but leaves all other nations onces again in a political trap very similar to what we have with the middle east nations and their oil reserves.

What is clear is that any of those solutions will be massively expensive and politically difficult. Certainly, i believe it is likely that we may once again enter an “age of austerity” where millions of average working people once again have to work very hard, and have much less expendible income and leisure time to which we have become very familiar. It is perhaps suprising how quickly we have forgoten how we lived as little as 60-70 years ago.

You can interpret that in different ways. Of course we could all become farmers and the like, living off the land as we have done for thousands of years.

The fact is, if oil production stopped tomorrow, food would be scarce, there’d be no jobs to go to. It would be a fight for survival and we’d probably see civil war. Many of us would die.
Perhaps, but we don’t *need* oil to survive as such.

If there was no water we would die, but not oil.

Countries close to the equator become net exporters of energy

Or ones with easy geothermal sites. Iceland, New Zealand, East Africa maybe.

Perhaps, but we don’t *need* oil to survive as such.

If you want to argue semantics, no. However, the transition from the current ‘need’ for oil to ‘not needing’ oil would probably kill several billion people.

Page 3 and no Mr Fusion?

Who knows?
Deal with it when it happens.

Just glad I own a bike and understand a life which is not car dependent.
A lot of people will struggle with adapting to a non-car dependent lifestyle…

Extremely difficult and expensive.

A tanker of crude oil has far more value than a tank of H2 would. That is, IF you could actually store the H2 long enough to transport it from say Iceland or wherever.

So we’ll never be able to do it? Don’t be daft molly – a H2 economy is possibly something that would happen in the long run – not least because it fits the current model of being able to drive somewhere and fill up, rather than wait to charge a vehicle. Also, if renewables are to become a larger part of the energy mix then H2 also represents the most plausible current tech for large-scale energy storage to even out the peaks and troughs.

Yeah but it’s a lot easier to recycle water than it is petrol.

Not when it’s evaporated, it’s not.

And also not on the scale required to irrigate vast areas of semi-arid agricultural land to make it productive. And with climate change, demand for irrigation will increase. Most of this water is effectively mined – abstraction rates far exceed aquifer recharge. Typically we don’t think about water in the UK because it rains a lot. Yet the SE is suffering from chronic water shortages.

Oil is but a sideshow by comparison. Food and water are the biggies, and as modern agriculture is dependent upon fossil-based energy both for working on farms, but also to make fertiliser, the cost of food will be squeezed from both sides. Fertiliser and fuel become scarce increasing food production costs, and limited water for irrigation increasing pressure on what were the more fertile, wetter areas. Then there’s the transportation costs of said food.

If we can’t afford the petrol to go for a day out to the beach that will be an inconvenience. When bread is over $20 a loaf, and you have to get your water from a rationed stand-pipe, then you have a problem.

What happens when all the worlds oil runs out ?

Don’t be daft molly

W/R Isn’t that like asking the Sun not to be hot ?.
😉

Mr Woppit – Member

No-one here gets out alive.

Well played sir.

xiphon – Member

There’s probably far more oil in the ground (that the oil tycoons know about) than they are letting us (and each other) know about.

If not, I suspect they have some highly secret R&D departments.

Might be. Alternatively they might just be doing capitalism- as long as it works for their lifespan/tenure as CEO then it’s good enough, if the company fails the day after it doesn’t matter.

ahwiles – Member

my dad’s a bit of a hippy, he’s worried that we’re not running out fast enough…

Probably right tbh. We’re going to get more and more into the marginal schemes for fossil fuels- methods previously unacceptable on ecological or environmental grounds will become “there is no alternative”, fracking and massive open casts and drilling in wildernesses, all that jazz. And we’ll chuck resources at these increasingly expensive approaches to preserve the status quo, rather than at improving the alternatives- because extracting a bit of oil from these sources isn’t that hard but extracting as much oil as we do now will be harder.

And eventually, it’ll all get so marginal that the alternatives will become viable- but that’s not a good result, because they’ll still be underinvested and substandard, just they’ll be a less bad option than oil, and we’ll be choosing from 2 bad options.

am i the only one thinking “the last of the v8 interceptors”