justrace, have a look at the earth on goodle earth and you will see that plants are more significant than the human population. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you will only begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to 100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built on in the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk and farming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billion people in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel will be cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

That's quite a claim. Do you have any evidence to support that? 

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodle earth and you will see that plants are more significant than the human population. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you will only begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to 100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built on in the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk and farming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billion people in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel will be cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodleearth and you will see that plants are more significant than the humanpopulation. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you willonly begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built onin the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk andfarming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billionpeople in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel willbe cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

 

are you sure the human structure has nothing to do with how much oil we consume? which would use more fuel to travel from london to new york, a man or an elephant?

work done = force times distance 

work done = energy used

rate of energy used = power

we get most of our energy from burning fossil fuels and the earth from which we get our resources is so mcuh bigger than we are that we cannot exhaust the resources.

if you believe we can then support your argument with some facts rather than try to find faults in mine. 

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodleearth and you will see that plants are more significant than the humanpopulation. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you willonly begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built onin the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk andfarming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billionpeople in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel willbe cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

 

are you sure the human structure has nothing to do with how much oil we consume? which would use more fuel to travel from london to new york, a man or an elephant?

work done = force times distance 

work done = energy used

rate of energy used = power

we get most of our energy from burning fossil fuels and the earth from which we get our resources is so mcuh bigger than we are that we cannot exhaust the resources.

if you believe we can then support your argument with some facts rather than try to find faults in mine. 

I have nothing to prove, that would not have been proven already. All I am saying is that oil is a limited resource, and that nobody knows how long it will last.

None of your claims is proven though. Energy efficiency or inefficiency or how much oil is used does not give any indication as to how much oil there is still left under the surface. Just because we are little and earth is big does not say anything about how much oil there is left in the soil.

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodle earth and you will see that plants are more significant than the human population. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you will only begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to 100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built on in the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk and farming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billion people in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel will be cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

 

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

ysmalari:

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

Thanks for an extremely interesting post, ysmalari.  I'ts good to hear from someone who actually works in the industry and knows what they are talking about.

I'm glad to hear that your CEO is talking about windfarms; they seem to be one of the suitable solutions, along with using wave power.  Some people object to windfarms as being "visual pollution", but perceived visual pollution has to be better than actual air pollution.  Personally I find them rather beautiful.

pedekay:

ysmalari:

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

Thanks for an extremely interesting post, ysmalari.  I'ts good to hear from someone who actually works in the industry and knows what they are talking about.

I'm glad to hear that your CEO is talking about windfarms; they seem to be one of the suitable solutions, along with using wave power.  Some people object to windfarms as being "visual pollution", but perceived visual pollution has to be better than actual air pollution.  Personally I find them rather beautiful.

 

Your welcome pedekay - thought I'd bring some perspective to this thread before the length rivalled the infamous sticky rubber one!!

I don't know what people's problems with windfarms are either, would they rather live next to a coal-fired power station or a nuclear power plant? I guess it's just the normal problem of anything that's different people object to, but we need to get over that as the UK is ideally placed to harness wind and, as you mentioned, wave power... God knows solar isn't going to cut it for us, at least not this week 

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodleearth and you will see that plants are more significant than the humanpopulation. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you willonly begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built onin the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk andfarming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billionpeople in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel willbe cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

 

are you sure the human structure has nothing to do with how much oil we consume? which would use more fuel to travel from london to new york, a man or an elephant?

work done = force times distance 

work done = energy used

rate of energy used = power

we get most of our energy from burning fossil fuels and the earth from which we get our resources is so mcuh bigger than we are that we cannot exhaust the resources.

if you believe we can then support your argument with some facts rather than try to find faults in mine. 

I have nothing to prove, that would not have been proven already. All I am saying is that oil is a limited resource, and that nobody knows how long it will last.

None of your claims is proven though. Energy efficiency or inefficiency or how much oil is used does not give any indication as to how much oil there is still left under the surface. Just because we are little and earth is big does not say anything about how much oil there is left in the soil.

fair point justrace,  who puts the limit on oil as a resource? the earth we live on a a closed system in equilibrium or in balance with itself, the elements are fixed and everything is recycled. nothing is introduced and nothing escapes. all the elements which make you will be recycled through the air back to plants and so on. in the 70's they said oil would run out in 20 to 35 years in the 80's and 90's it was still 35 years and now they are not sure what to say because they want the price of oil to be on the up.

if water is a limited resource, then so are other resources like water oxygen and carbon dioxide. oh yeah, carbon dioxide for example makes up 0.031% of the atmosphere and yet no one is claiming that carbon dioxide would run out and plants wont be able to produce food anymore and the world would come to an end. everything is recycled, the world is in balance so just relax and live live to the full justrace.

ysmalari:

pedekay:

ysmalari:

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

Thanks for an extremely interesting post, ysmalari.  I'ts good to hear from someone who actually works in the industry and knows what they are talking about.

I'm glad to hear that your CEO is talking about windfarms; they seem to be one of the suitable solutions, along with using wave power.  Some people object to windfarms as being "visual pollution", but perceived visual pollution has to be better than actual air pollution.  Personally I find them rather beautiful.

 

Your welcome pedekay - thought I'd bring some perspective to this thread before the length rivalled the infamous sticky rubber one!!

I don't know what people's problems with windfarms are either, would they rather live next to a coal-fired power station or a nuclear power plant? I guess it's just the normal problem of anything that's different people object to, but we need to get over that as the UK is ideally placed to harness wind and, as you mentioned, wave power... God knows solar isn't going to cut it for us, at least not this week 

how big does a wind farm need to be in order to produce as much electricity as a nuclear or coal power station? solar is the best option. even nature chooses it. plants are photosynthesizing to keep all animals including humans alive, solar energy brings about wind and wave. all the money spent on the space program could easily build a 100m wide band of solar cells along the equator to supply each person on earth with more than enough electricity because the solar energy is most intense along the equator.

ysmalari:

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

 

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

Very interesting post. I also agree with most of what you say.

I just add, no one seems to care very much about the consequences of extracting all the oil and gas from the earth.  Are the oil and gas there for man kind to extract and burn??? Could these earth quakes and worse like the 2004 asian tsunami, be due to the disturbance to the earth's inside?

I have also been to the country in the south of Caspian Sea (not for oil thought)!!!  

 

ysmalari:

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodle earth and you will see that plants are more significant than the human population. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you will only begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to 100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built on in the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk and farming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billion people in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel will be cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

 

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

thanks for posting ysmalari, my first question is are all people employed in the oil industry given an instrument to measure how long it will take for the world's oil to run out? if that is the case then what happened to this instrument which measured in the 1970's that it will take 20 to 35 years for oil to run out? in the 80's it still measured 35 years in the 90 still measured 35 years and now your personal instrument is measuring 100 year? does this instrument run on coal? how often do you calibrate that instrument of yours?

CO2 is not the main contributer to global warming, the main contributer is solar flares which is a natural phenomenon. i have said time and time again that we are insignificant on this planet to exhaust any of it's resources. that instrument of yours only measures 100 years because we will not be here to witness it.

i did say that it takes millions of years for oil to form and the earth is about 5 billion years old so how much oil do you think was formed over that period of time? humans only started consuming oil a little over 150 years ago and you think we will run out of it in 100 years? 

here are some links which will give you more information about the world's oil and your instrument. the people who produce oil are secretive of how much oil they have found. do you think they will be stupid to tell the world that the oil is running oil and becoming more expensive to extract to create panic while raising the price at the same time? those people who you have the same instrument you use have no clue how the world's economics work.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5945678/

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3338051

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24wald.html

 

http://economics.about.com/b/2007/08/16/how-much-oil-is-left-we-will-never-run-out-of-oil.htm

am eager to read your next post. 

mo1965:

ysmalari:

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

 

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

Very interesting post. I also agree with most of what you say.

I just add, no one seems to care very much about the consequences of extracting all the oil and gas from the earth.  Are the oil and gas there for man kind to extract and burn??? Could these earth quakes and worse like the 2004 asian tsunami, be due to the disturbance to the earth's inside?

I have also been to the country in the south of Caspian Sea (not for oil thought)!!!  

 

if we only we consumed significant amounts of oil to create big enough voids underground to cause earthquakes.

coops3:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

That's quite a claim. Do you have any evidence to support that? 

have a look at the earth on google earth look at the size of the earth, diameter surface area and mass. population of the world is only 6.8 billion. multiply by average mass of 80kg and compare with the mass of the earth. look at the size of the isle of man and compare that to the size of the earth. enough evidence? 

aveli666:

ysmalari:

justrace:

aveli666:

justrace:

aveli666:

yes zakspeedf1, you are right about that but as i have already said above except my knowledge (i don't think i know much better than you do), it is a huge part of our lives. the 5% used is more than enough to satisfy our needs but if we need more, that 5% can be easily increased. however it is the ignorance of the public which leads to the few in the know to exploit the rest by scaring them with suggestions of the world's resources running out.

my main point is that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the worlds resources, on the other hand there is nothing wrong with being efficient. the world is constantly evolving and no one really knows what resources there are on earth and how much.

If nobody really knows how many resources there are, how can you know that we are insignificant to exhaust any of the world's resources?

because i know the population of the world, the size of the whole population put together and the size of the earth. the earth is too large for humans to exhaust any of it's resources. if you think otherwise name a single resources which has been exhausted?  

If nobody knows how many resources there are, that includes you. The population and the size of the earth has nothing to do with how much oil there is. As well, the exhaustion of other resources has nothing to do whether or not oil will be exhausted or not. Your argumentation is fundamentally flawed.

How much oil there is only has to do with how many prehistoric forests have transformed under the earth surface into oil. Neither the earth has existed infinitively, neither have there been an infinitive amount of prehistoric forests. The only conclusion you can make is that oil is not infinitively available. It is a limited resource. You can question how much there may be and how much it may last, but it is a limited resource.

You also write:

aveli666:

justrace, have a look at the earth on goodle earth and you will see that plants are more significant than the human population. no human structure is visible at 11001 km altitude you will only begin to notice human structures at about until you zoom in to 100km altitude and they are tiny. if every piece of land was built on in the uk, the whole world's population could live in the uk and farming would be done elsewhere. there are only about 6.8 billion people in the world after all. if we all lived in the uk, travel will be cut by a huge amount and we would safe more fuel for f1.

With all respect, aveli, but that has to be the most ridiculous attempt of proving your point. Again, size of human structure has nothing to do with how much oil there is as a resource. And regarding your last two sentences, you are joking, right?

Right, I'll wade into this one since I actually work in the oil industry for a large engineering/construction firm...

I can absolutely assure you aveli that oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption, the arguments that it's millions of years old so how can we possibly use it all is naive at best - if it takes millions of years to create then the planet most definitely hasn't had the time to produce more in just the short space of time that humans have existed! Humans are the most efficient consumers on the planet and in the relatively short time we have been using oil we have bled dry the majority of the large wells around the world - Texas is practically empty.

It is true that more is being found (a huge well in the Caspian Sea for example for which I worked on the design/construction of the rigs) but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil and when we do find one we can bleed it dry faster than ever before - the lifespan on the Caspian oil well is between 10 to 15 years only and it's already been pumping for 2! As technology improves we will undoubtedly find more remote sources of oil, but it will reach a stage that the cost to reach and pump it will be so prohibitive that it is not worth while for business. If you also factor in the MASSIVE consumption by China and India, which will only increase as they develop further, then 100 years may be seen as being a bit over-optimistic.

A good example of how nervous industry is getting about the future prospects for oil and gas is that my company CEO visited our offices yesterday and stressed that we must get into large scale construction and the renewable energy business (windfarms for example) alongside oil and gas as it is a market with a very limited lifespan.

Those of us on this board will probably have enough oil for our lifetimes, but those who are the two or three generations below us will almost certainly have no oil or gas left by the time they reach middle to retirement age, this is not just my opinion but that of the people in charge of the fossil fuel businesses.

 

On the subject of biofuel, it will at least give us a viable alternative to fossil fuels but it is not the 'green solution' that everybody touts, as it still must be burnt (giving off Co2 plus other gases/particulates) and has been shown to be removing valuable food production space from areas of the third world that desperately need food not oil. At least our cars will still run but it most definitely won't save the planet or those worst effected by the future of global warming...

thanks for posting ysmalari, my first question is are all people employed in the oil industry given an instrument to measure how long it will take for the world's oil to run out? if that is the case then what happened to this instrument which measured in the 1970's that it will take 20 to 35 years for oil to run out? in the 80's it still measured 35 years in the 90 still measured 35 years and now your personal instrument is measuring 100 year? does this instrument run on coal? how often do you calibrate that instrument of yours?

CO2 is not the main contributer to global warming, the main contributer is solar flares which is a natural phenomenon. i have said time and time again that we are insignificant on this planet to exhaust any of it's resources. that instrument of yours only measures 100 years because we will not be here to witness it.

i did say that it takes millions of years for oil to form and the earth is about 5 billion years old so how much oil do you think was formed over that period of time? humans only started consuming oil a little over 150 years ago and you think we will run out of it in 100 years? 

here are some links which will give you more information about the world's oil and your instrument. the people who produce oil are secretive of how much oil they have found. do you think they will be stupid to tell the world that the oil is running oil and becoming more expensive to extract to create panic while raising the price at the same time? those people who you have the same instrument you use have no clue how the world's economics work.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5945678/

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3338051

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24wald.html

 

http://economics.about.com/b/2007/08/16/how-much-oil-is-left-we-will-never-run-out-of-oil.htm

am eager to read your next post. 

I'll ignore the somewhat condescending nature of your post.

You are indeed correct that more oil is being found each year, something which I covered in my post, but you are conveniently ignoring a couple of points I made:

"oil and gas WILL run out within the next 100 years in the terms of usable human consumption"

"It is true that more is being found but it is becoming more and more difficult to extract that oil"

As the easy oil and gas wells are eliminated and drained we are left with locations which are extremely difficult to get to and use. You also seem to be of the opinion that we should just drill anywhere on the planet to get this stuff - even though the industry pays my mortgage I'll freely admit that I am not happy about the prospect of areas such as Alaska being severely effected by drilling and extraction of resources. The barren deserts of the Middle East are one thing, but do you not think that the few unique areas on the planet practically untouched by man should not be protected? After that we also get into costs, the companies I work for and with are all about profit unsurprisingly, if a location is so difficult to use that the profit margins are slim due to design and construction costs, these companies will not take the risk.

 As for the global warming argument I don't think that you nor I are qualified to make a stab at the real cause of global warming, but it is pretty much a certainty that human Co2 production is not helping, surely a reduction in emissions can only help future prospects. Before I get the next list of links to support the solar flare idea, there are many contradictory theories out there, the conclusion is that currently we just do not know.

I hope that the views expressed to me by my industry are wrong and that we have oil for as many years as we need it, but more likely is that we must get used to much higher fuel and energy costs as extraction becomes more difficult and expensive, and we must face the prospect that unless we find easily renewable resources the world will experience a truly global energy crisis.

Feel free to use google to disprove anything I've said but please remember that everything you read is subjective, there are no certainties in this business so all we have are educated guesses which will of course be based on current information and subject to change on both sides of the argument.

I hope that I have maybe added some useful opinions to the discussion but they are just that, opinions based on some inside industry knowledge.