[Closed] What happens when all the worlds oil runs out ?

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 [s]almost certainly[/s] 8o110**5)

Coal its the future

[img] http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiUctRyquBzzEB2x3iJKeMZZ3V_ejImTg7m27DeePHJdDzG6nOUQ [/img]

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.

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.

[i]If[/i] 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.

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.

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.

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?

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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.

[i]What happens when all the worlds oil runs out ?[/i]

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[i]Don't be daft molly[/i]

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

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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.

[i]am i the only one thinking "the last of the v8 interceptors"[/i]

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I don't think that'll be the best choice of transport when oil runs out ^

im not sure it is going to run out.
crude oil being a fossil fuel is only a theory, the theory of Abiogenic oil production isn't as popular but neither theory can be deemed to be absolutely true.

if i were peddling crude oil i would probably tell people it is running out too. that kind of marketing does wonders for profit margins.

it fits in nicely with all those really sane creationist types theories too which is always a bonus 😀

We will all visit the Malverns and loot Stoner's wood supplies 😈

There's an awful lot of Sahara desert. I understand it gets a fair bit of sunlight. I'm fairly sure we as a race can figure out a way to use that to make electricity - already done in Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS10_solar_power_tower

Balance of power will shift. The countries that generate fuel will be different. Life may become difficult for transitional periods as we adapt to the new regime. Wars of varying scales will be fought.

TooTall - Member

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.

and it's profitable to dig up and process the cruddy stuff at the current price of around $100/barrel.

it's an environmental nightmare, but that's not going to stop us.

a friend of mine flew to Canada so he could join a protest about the alberta tar sands, he completely failed to see the irony.

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

Don't put words into my mouth - I'm just saying it's not as simple as some people might think, including me before I learned more.

Not when it's evaporated, it's not.

The nice thing about water even when it's evaporated is that it eventually ends up back in the sea, from where you can recover it *relatively* easily. It's a lot easier than recreating petrol from atmospheric CO2.

<Cressers>
Aye, we're doomed all doomed
</Cressers>

Don't put words into my mouth

I didn't - you were the one who started yabbering on about bringing it from iceland. I'm (quite clearly, I thought) talking about generating H2 to balance out peaks and troughs in renewable electricity generation, and the possible expansion of that for use in transport. The UK has a huge renewable energy resource, as do most countries - the problem is energy storage to balance out the peaks and troughs.

The nice thing about water even when it's evaporated is that it eventually ends up back in the sea, from where you can recover it *relatively* easily. It's a lot easier than recreating petrol from atmospheric CO2.

The unfortunate thing is that again, a lot of places are much further away from the sea than your green and pleasant land. They're also where most food is grown. And guess what, it takes a huge amount of energy to run desal plants. The one here in Adelaide has just been mothballed even though it's just been completed because even though we live in an effective desert, piped water from the River Murray is still cheaper. If it's too expensive to run now, how expensive will it be when fossil fuels cost more, a lot more (and days of taking water out of the trickle that is the Murray long gone)?

As I said: if you can't drive your car then you'll be disappointed. If you can't buy any food or have a glass of water, they you'd have a problem

Well obviously, I didn't say it was easy for everyone to get hold of. I'm not a complete idiot when it comes to geography, I did get an A at GCSE so I know some places are dry and a long way from the sea.

I said it was RELATIVELY easy as in, water itself recycles and doesn't all disappear. Oil, when burned up, is not coming back ever anywhere.

if you can't drive your car then you'll be disappointed. If you can't buy any food or have a glass of water, they you'd have a problem

Well it's a bit more complicated than that, as we all know really. Motor fuel isn't just for getting your kids to gym class. It gets the food to the shops, it allows farmers to produce food (as do the fertilisers which are also made from oil), and loads of other things besides.

So if the oil ran out it would be pretty catastrophic, yes. And it would run out everywhere. Water isn't going to run out everywhere, just in marginal places.

I'm not going to say one is more important than the other. Either scenario is pretty bad, and both will require a lot of dedication, initiave and hard work on the part of everyone to fix - policymakers, scientists, industry and all of you lot too.

Recently saw a programme about the rebels in New Guinea. They lived in the jungle and ran their cars on banana oil.