Alternative energy bubble is next

[mulder]

"The engine of economic growth for the past 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20. That was consumer spending. Basically, we turbocharged this economy based on cheap credit." But the days of easy credit are over, Obama said, "because there is too much deleveraging taking place, too much debt." A new economic turbocharger is going to have to be found, and "there is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy ... That's going to be my No. 1 priority when I get into office."

 

[badasshairday III]

unk:

Can't wait! Here's to the next bubble of good living! :bravo:

 

[Avery]

Horray for that. =p

 

[Bryan]

I don't even know for sure what Obama means by "a new energy economy". I very much think that Matt Savinar is right on the money in his analysis of the "Peak Oil" phenomenon. I agree with him that we are very likely headed back to a simple agrarian society. It won't happen in our lifetime or even our children's lifetime, but it's probably inevitable.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Dear Reader,

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, bankers, and investors in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil."

Oil will not just "run out" because all oil production follows a bell curve. This is true whether we're talking about an individual field, a country, or on the planet as a whole.

Oil is increasingly plentiful on the upslope of the bell curve, increasingly scarce and expensive on the down slope. The peak of the curve coincides with the point at which the endowment of oil has been 50 percent depleted. Once the peak is passed, oil production begins to go down while cost begins to go up.

In practical and considerably oversimplified terms, this means that if 2005 was the year of global Peak Oil, worldwide oil production in the year 2030 will be the same as it was in 1980. However, the world’s population in 2030 will be both much larger (approximately twice) and much more industrialized (oil-dependent) than it was in 1980. Consequently, worldwide demand for oil will outpace worldwide production of oil by a significant margin. As a result, the price will skyrocket, oil dependant economies will crumble, and resource wars will explode.

 

[Hammy070]

I don't even know for sure what Obama means by "a new energy economy". I very much think that Matt Savinar is right on the money in his analysis of the "Peak Oil" phenomenon. I agree with him that we are very likely headed back to a simple agrarian society. It won't happen in our lifetime or even our children's lifetime, but it's probably inevitable.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I used to believe that too, for a few years. As a result of the exact same source, and same article. :shock:

I don't anymore, I think Matt has become dogmatic about his energy predictions. If we predicted our world thirty years ago, we'd be way off mark. I think the world will be very different in 2050, but in such a way that it will be seemless, little frequent transitions that are made every couple of years in a variety of ways that will, given enough time make a change. Compound growth is not only financial, but in science and technology too. We can barely think of significant differences in the internet between now and a year ago, and between any two years before that, but the 10 year difference is enormous, astounding almost. Our energy economy as Obama puts it, will follow a similar mechanism of change. In fact, Matt Savinar will always be in a state of warning, because the change he expects to arrive is ALREADY happening and always was, and always will, and he will never experience his 10 or 20 years change in the manner he expects. Humans have a funny way of adapting in that they are unaware of their adaptation most of the time.

The question of course is, will it be better or worse? The question should be "is it better or worse?" and should be asked to the old people today. The answers will be about similar to old people in 2050.

 

[HughJass]

I don't anymore, I think Matt has become dogmatic about his energy predictions.

x2

I've spent time on a peak oil forum. Those kind if boards are full of the most narrow minded, rigid and inflexible individuals who all claim to be certain about knowing how the future will pan out.

some good reading-
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... oomer.html
http://www.naboo.us/peakoil/debunk/savinar.html

 

[badasshairday III]

I don't anymore, I think Matt has become dogmatic about his energy predictions.

x2

I've spent time on a peak oil forum. Those kind if boards are full of the most narrow minded, rigid and inflexible individuals who all claim to be certain about knowing how the future will pan out.

some good reading-
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... oomer.html
http://www.naboo.us/peakoil/debunk/savinar.html

You should tell them to shut the hell up.

 

[Harie]

I don't even know for sure what Obama means by "a new energy economy". I very much think that Matt Savinar is right on the money in his analysis of the "Peak Oil" phenomenon. I agree with him that we are very likely headed back to a simple agrarian society. It won't happen in our lifetime or even our children's lifetime, but it's probably inevitable.

So you think that in the next 100+ years mankind is not smart enough to think up a new way to power the world? I have to laugh at the peak oilers that think that as soon as we hit the oil peak, the world as we know it will magically "die" overnight. Do they not realize that the US has enough known coal to power homes/businesses etc for 200+ years? Then we have nuke power, wind, solar, geothermal, ethanol, methanol, wood, tidal etc. I would imagine that 100 years of energy research will yield energy sources we haven't even dreamed of yet.

$150/bbl oil didn't derail the world economy and throw the planet into a depression (it took the housing bubble/poor lending to do that) where everyone grabbed their shotguns and started hording.

 

[The Gardener]

I don't anymore, I think Matt has become dogmatic about his energy predictions.

x2

I've spent time on a peak oil forum. Those kind if boards are full of the most narrow minded, rigid and inflexible individuals who all claim to be certain about knowing how the future will pan out.

some good reading-
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... oomer.html
http://www.naboo.us/peakoil/debunk/savinar.html

You should tell them to shut the hell up.

Neither of those "debunking" websites do a very good job of debunking Savinar, IMHO. The first one in particular is the most egregious, in fact after reading its attempt to debunk Savinar's point that it takes MORE oil in order to create alternative means of energy production (solar, wind, etc...), I get the impression that the attempted debunker hasn't even really read and/or understood Savinar's point.

Do they not realize that the US has enough known coal to power homes/businesses etc for 200+ years? Then we have nuke power, wind, solar, geothermal, ethanol, methanol, wood, tidal etc.

Let me take that point by point:
Coal - When looking at energy, you can't just point to an oil field in the ground, or a coal pit, and say "that's energy". You need to look at energy in terms of net yield AFTER it has been extracted from the ground, converted into an easily portable and usable form, and then transported to the point where the energy is needed. Coal mining requires hydrocarbons... it requires lubricants, it requires plastics, and it requires gasoline to power mining equipment and transport the coal to the point where it will be used as a source of heating. Oil requires relatively little extraction effort in comparison, in most of the mature oil fields, you literally just have a metal straw in the ground pumping out the good stuff. Not so with mining, it requires an army of humans, and each human engaged in the effort needs to be sustained with, you guessed it, oil. This isn't to say that coal is not a useful source of energy. It is. But the "200+ years of powering homes and businesses" quote is not true at all. But the biggest drawback is that coal does not have the same chemical components that oil has. We rely on oil for fertilizers in order to maintain a crop yield sufficient to feed our population. We rely on oil for plastics. We rely on oil for industrial lubricants, and we rely on hydrocarbons as a component of the steel making process. Coal might provide heat, but it doesn't help replace any of the other oft overlooked requirements we have for oil.

Nuclear power is not a long term solution either. Uranium is in finite supply on this planet, and if you do some googling, you'll see that uranium demand is already growing in excess of supply, and prices have been in constant increase. Just as oil is a finite resource, so is uranium. It's a stopgap, but its not renewable and thus is not a real solution to the problem.

Methanol is a myth. It takes almost as much energy to produce methanol than it provides, and the yield is low. Planting methanol crops on every square inch of arable farmland in the United States would meet only about one third of our gasoline demand.

Solar, Wind, Tidal... none of these yield anywhere near the amount of energy required to be a viable solution. I highly recommend you read Savinar's piece before criticising it. He presents a very cogent explanation as to why these are misguided.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I don't even know for sure what Obama means by "a new energy economy".

Can anyone elaborate on what form this "new energy economy" will take, and has the changeover been costed?

In the following excerpt of the interview (speech?) he's implying, or at least I'm inferring, that this shift in energy policy will power economic growth in the short term, i.e. during the next 5 years. Strikes me as an extremely optimistic timeframe for planning and executing an industrial programme which is of sufficient scale to drive forward the giant U.S. economy.

"Whatever else we think is going to happen over the next certainly 5 years, one thing we know, the days of easy credit are going to be over because there is just too much deleveraging taking place, too much debt both at the government level, corporate level and consumer level. And what that means is that just from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy."

 

[Slartibartfast]

$150/bbl oil didn't derail the world economy and throw the planet into a depression (it took the housing bubble/poor lending to do that) where everyone grabbed their shotguns and started hording.

The credit crunch came along and stole oil's thunder. It and its commodity pals spent years working up to levels that would destroy demand and then the banking system beats them to the punch.

 

[The Gardener]

One other aspect that the "peak oil debunkers" have failed to "debunk" is the economics of the situation.

Some may say now that "hey look, oil is falling to $60/bbl, looks like there's no problem here!" This neglects to take into account the fact that oil was $25/bbl when Bush 2 came into office, and was priced as low as $10/bbl under Clinton.

Remember that the US Dollar is an oil-backed currency. In 1972, when Nixon took the USD off of the gold standard, he entered an agreement with the friendly oil-producing Gulf states (Saudi, Kuwait, Emirates, etc.) stating that the US would defend their resources in exchange for the promise that they would ONLY sell oil in US Dollars. In effect, what Nixon did was turn the USD from a gold-backed currency into an oil-backed currency. If you have a dollar, you can't exchange it for gold anymore, but you CAN exchange it for oil.

This was an ingenious arrangement... by pricing oil in dollars, it allowed the US to export inflation to the rest of the world whenever it wanted to debase its currency a bit. HOWEVAH! If the day comes when this arrangement is ceased, and the Arabs decide to price oil in some other currency, or perhaps most potentially damning, in a gold-backed Gulf Dinar, then the US will experience first hand what the "true" price of oil is. This scenario would make last summer's price hike look like a walk in the park.

 

[Hammy070]

I don't disagree with "peak oil". I disagree with Matt's assumptions. Peak oil is nothing new, the way Matt communicates it, is as if he's revealing a secret, an unknown lurking problem that will bite us in the *** if we don't act now, a very momentary thinker, the world is much more complex, and 'moments' rarely change much, peak oil isn't a moment. Oil prices have fallen rapidly because of demand destruction. As far as I can tell, the peak oil graph regularly presented simply won't happen as Matt and fellow peak oil theorists wish. Our demand is in response to price, we drive long distances and buy extra junk BECAUSE it's cheap. We don't once they're not. There will always be a price for our needs, and the price will always be in range of per capita GDP.

I think it's the same mind as evangelical rapturists, who believe in imminent, momentary change.

I say this as someone who USED TO BE a peak oil fundamentalist! :roll:
I researched it tons, propogated it to many with zeal for a couple of years, and eventually developed my thinking to put it all into perspective. It's easy to be engrossed in a view point, luckily for me, I usually challenge everything I think once in a while to 'reasess' things in a different mode of thinking, then going with the one that makes most sense. If one can't be honest with themselves, they can't be honest with anyone else.

Matt: "Guess what, our world is f***ed!"
Me: "What? why? :freaked: "
Matt: "Peak oil! Our civilization is ending!"
Me: ".............Peak.. :dunno: .?"
Matt: "we use oil for everything, infact, think of anything you have right now and I will tell you how without oil you won't have it!"
Me: "well.."
Matt: "You see, oil is not going to last forever...."
Me: "OMG what? :freaked2: here I thought oil was a limitless supply of black gold, endowed by the god of carbon, the forebearer of our civilization, legend has it he was conceived in the earth via a volcanic ejaculation"
Matt: "Ignorance is rife :roll: , oil is actually organic matter and we've only got a limited FINITE supply!"
Me: "Oh man, well hopefully we have got a fair bit left to come up with something else!"
Matt: "Actually we're running out soon and the world will start collapsing once peak is reached"
Me: "Holy **** when???? :shock: "
Matt: "Errrrrr......couple of years..... :youbet: "
Me: "HOLY F%^%ING CRAP I NEED A GUN :firing: "

That conversation didn't actually happen, but it is almost a form of salesmanship. A powerful form, it personalizes the product for you, no matter what your reply is, there is a pre-prepared counter point, and if it makes sense at the time, is easy to buy.

Yes I'm a lifeaftertheoilcrash apostate. I also found that most of it's proponents actually wanted their predictions to come about, they want organic gardens everywhere and cowshit for energy. They actually want it, and will be very disappointed if we solved the energy challenges. That is a truth I acknowledged after a while, and the point is, I don't want farm sh*t, and I don't want a garden. I want fusion energy, interplanetary holidays, and eat genetically superior food.

Hunter gatherers got plenty exercise, ate everything organic, but they still died in their 30's on average. The only way is forwards for me. If that means making some mistakes, so be it, mistakes allowed Edison to come up with the bulb after failing around 1600 bulb filaments, mistakes by our ancestors taught us which mushrooms and berries not to eat, which animals were poisonous, which composition of mud made better bricks, and virtually civilization itself. I'm well aware of mistakes, and most importantly, their value.

 

[Slartibartfast]

One other aspect that the "peak oil debunkers" have failed to "debunk" is the economics of the situation.

Some may say now that "hey look, oil is falling to $60/bbl, looks like there's no problem here!" This neglects to take into account the fact that oil was $25/bbl when Bush 2 came into office, and was priced as low as $10/bbl under Clinton.

I'd be surprised to see a sustained drop much below the $60 level; the markets appear to be pricing in economic armageddon and anything short of this will see prices swiftly rebounding to... $80+, at a guess. The last thing the West needs is oil stuck at $50 - $60 for the next few years, if it does we can kiss goodbye to vast swathes of non-OPEC/Russia exploration.

 

[mulder]

I don't disagree with "peak oil". I disagree with Matt's assumptions. Peak oil is nothing new, the way Matt communicates it, is as if he's revealing a secret, an unknown lurking problem that will bite us in the *** if we don't act now, a very momentary thinker, the world is much more complex, and 'moments' rarely change much, peak oil isn't a moment. Oil prices have fallen rapidly because of demand destruction. As far as I can tell, the peak oil graph regularly presented simply won't happen as Matt and fellow peak oil theorists wish. Our demand is in response to price, we drive long distances and buy extra junk BECAUSE it's cheap. We don't once they're not. There will always be a price for our needs, and the price will always be in range of per capita GDP.

I think it's the same mind as evangelical rapturists, who believe in imminent, momentary change.

I say this as someone who USED TO BE a peak oil fundamentalist! :roll:
I researched it tons, propogated it to many with zeal for a couple of years, and eventually developed my thinking to put it all into perspective. It's easy to be engrossed in a view point, luckily for me, I usually challenge everything I think once in a while to 'reasess' things in a different mode of thinking, then going with the one that makes most sense. If one can't be honest with themselves, they can't be honest with anyone else.

Matt: "Guess what, our world is f***ed!"
Me: "What? why? :freaked: "
Matt: "Peak oil! Our civilization is ending!"
Me: ".............Peak.. :dunno: .?"
Matt: "we use oil for everything, infact, think of anything you have right now and I will tell you how without oil you won't have it!"
Me: "well.."
Matt: "You see, oil is not going to last forever...."
Me: "OMG what? :freaked2: here I thought oil was a limitless supply of black gold, endowed by the god of carbon, the forebearer of our civilization, legend has it he was conceived in the earth via a volcanic ejaculation"
Matt: "Ignorance is rife :roll: , oil is actually organic matter and we've only got a limited FINITE supply!"
Me: "Oh man, well hopefully we have got a fair bit left to come up with something else!"
Matt: "Actually we're running out soon and the world will start collapsing once peak is reached"
Me: "Holy **** when???? :shock: "
Matt: "Errrrrr......couple of years..... :youbet: "
Me: "HOLY F%^%ING CRAP I NEED A GUN :firing: "

That conversation didn't actually happen, but it is almost a form of salesmanship. A powerful form, it personalizes the product for you, no matter what your reply is, there is a pre-prepared counter point, and if it makes sense at the time, is easy to buy.

Yes I'm a lifeaftertheoilcrash apostate. I also found that most of it's proponents actually wanted their predictions to come about, they want organic gardens everywhere and cowshit for energy. They actually want it, and will be very disappointed if we solved the energy challenges. That is a truth I acknowledged after a while, and the point is, I don't want farm sh*t, and I don't want a garden. I want fusion energy, interplanetary holidays, and eat genetically superior food.

Hunter gatherers got plenty exercise, ate everything organic, but they still died in their 30's on average. The only way is forwards for me. If that means making some mistakes, so be it, mistakes allowed Edison to come up with the bulb after failing around 1600 bulb filaments, mistakes by our ancestors taught us which mushrooms and berries not to eat, which animals were poisonous, which composition of mud made better bricks, and virtually civilization itself. I'm well aware of mistakes, and most importantly, their value.

You're not very big on balance are you? lol

 

[The Gardener]

I don't disagree with "peak oil". I disagree with Matt's assumptions. Peak oil is nothing new, the way Matt communicates it, is as if he's revealing a secret, an unknown lurking problem that will bite us in the *** if we don't act now, a very momentary thinker, the world is much more complex, and 'moments' rarely change much, peak oil isn't a moment. Oil prices have fallen rapidly because of demand destruction.

I agree. While I think the Peak Oil syndrome is inevitable and unavoidable (barring some TRUE miracle of science), I think Savinar is a bit "worst case scenario" in his analysis of the human reaction to it. It will be painful, but I don't necessarily agree with it being some "surprise" thing that will overtake us overnight and everybody will go crazy and go "Mad Max".

 

[Hammy070]

You're not very big on balance are you? lol

What do you mean?

I missed a Ritalin dose, and I'm a little constipated, and typing in the dark at work in the office doing over time but not getting paid because I didn't fill a form in coz I couldn't be bothered doing it coz I'd rather pay money to avoid forms which means I'm here for nothing except for being unmotivated to close the place up which I will do now in fact, coz I need a piss and a cig and that forces me outside so I might aswell just go home and chill eating dinner watching new episode of Prison Break bye! :whistle:

 

[Harie]

Let me take that point by point:
Coal - When looking at energy, you can't just point to an oil field in the ground, or a coal pit, and say "that's energy". You need to look at energy in terms of net yield AFTER it has been extracted from the ground, converted into an easily portable and usable form, and then transported to the point where the energy is needed. Coal mining requires hydrocarbons... it requires lubricants, it requires plastics, and it requires gasoline to power mining equipment and transport the coal to the point where it will be used as a source of heating. Oil requires relatively little extraction effort in comparison, in most of the mature oil fields, you literally just have a metal straw in the ground pumping out the good stuff. Not so with mining, it requires an army of humans, and each human engaged in the effort needs to be sustained with, you guessed it, oil. This isn't to say that coal is not a useful source of energy. It is. But the "200+ years of powering homes and businesses" quote is not true at all. But the biggest drawback is that coal does not have the same chemical components that oil has. We rely on oil for fertilizers in order to maintain a crop yield sufficient to feed our population. We rely on oil for plastics. We rely on oil for industrial lubricants, and we rely on hydrocarbons as a component of the steel making process. Coal might provide heat, but it doesn't help replace any of the other oft overlooked requirements we have for oil.

Nuclear power is not a long term solution either. Uranium is in finite supply on this planet, and if you do some googling, you'll see that uranium demand is already growing in excess of supply, and prices have been in constant increase. Just as oil is a finite resource, so is uranium. It's a stopgap, but its not renewable and thus is not a real solution to the problem.

Methanol is a myth. It takes almost as much energy to produce methanol than it provides, and the yield is low. Planting methanol crops on every square inch of arable farmland in the United States would meet only about one third of our gasoline demand.

Solar, Wind, Tidal... none of these yield anywhere near the amount of energy required to be a viable solution. I highly recommend you read Savinar's piece before criticising it. He presents a very cogent explanation as to why these are misguided.

So we should all run around screaming, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling" and do nothing about trying to protect our future? Where is human ingenuity in these doom and gloom predictions? I'll tell you where...Nowhere.

Nuclear power - you can extract Uranium from sea water & granate...Near infinite energy right there.
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... art-1.html
http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... art-2.html

Your argument on coal can be whooped up on with 2 words coal gassification. Yes, it's in it's infancy and yes, more research is needed to make it work well, but it can work.

Ethanol - Algae can be used to produce oil at a rate of 8,000 gallons of biodiesel and 5,000 gallons of ethanol per acre. 645,769 acres to eliminate oil consumption in the US = approx 1,000 sq miles of land.

Of course alternative energy isn't the solution CURRENTLY, but CURRENTLY we have just started researching them. The ethanol industry's only really been going somewhat strong for the last 5 years. So yeah, corn isn't the answer...But algae is. Algae requires pollution to grow. You could pump the pollution from a coal plant directly to an ethanol algae "plant" and sell carbon credits.

So while everyone else runs around and starts hording guns and living like a hermit, I'll continue to have faith that mankind can overcome all obsticles in their path.

 

[BlahBlah12]

I wonder what a disaster it would be when we find out just how low oil reserves in Saudia Arabia have gone.
Can you imagine the sheer panic realizing the top oil producing country peaked in oil reserves 10 years ago and has been misleading the world since that time?

The next supplier/chief exporter of a non-oil energy source will be the next global superpower. US rode the waves of oil into that position as did the british with charcoal. Oil is nearing its end...the US can once again be the leader in the next great fuel or it can fall just as Britain did after world war 1, but hey when your presidential nominee is spewing "drill baby drill" its hard to envision a positive outcome if they become elected.

 

[Harie]

Oil is nearing its end...the US can once again be the leader in the next great fuel or it can fall just as Britain did after world war 1

The US is the worlds energy superpower when it comes to natural gas & coal. In Utah, you can fill your vehicle for the equivelant of $0.89/gallon on compressed natural gas. And again, the US has hundreds of years worth of natural gas in known reserves.

With oil prices up in the 100+ barrel range (which we will see again), Canadian tar sands and oil shale (which is in UT, CO & WY) are again a reality. Just the Colorado River Formation has between 500 Billion and 1.1 Trillion recoverable barrels of oil. The midpoint of 800 billion barrels is enough to power the US for 100+ years at current consumption.

Then there's Canadian tar sands, which represents 1.7 Trillion barrels of oil also. With oil prices hovering between $50 and $60/bbl, they make an after tax profit of just about $20/bbl.

Wait. So you mean I don't need to read up on guerilla tactics and place landmines around my house for peak oil doom and gloom?