Peak Oil

[G4Z]

you still havent answered me.. have you read it mate? sounds very very plausible, the y2k thing was total crap, i knew this because i had written a test program and ran it on the oldest pc i could find and it was fine, i know what your getting at but if you actually look for some official figures you will see that there is a lot of truth in the peak oil theory. also just because we run out of oil does not mean we can simply switch to coal, gonna run your car on coal are you? and what about your F22 stealth strike plane... also what about the fertilizers and pestacides that are all oil based? as far as i can tell we had better suck it up and accept GM because if these things become unavailable we will end up witha food shortage.

[G4Z]

http://www.peakoil.net/Newsletter/NL...sletter37.html

some interesting facts and figures here and it is very up to date. take a look and then see if your still thinking nothing is gonna happen.

[TeePee]

I glanced at it, but took it with a pinch of salt as I do everything on the internet. Looked like scaremongering to me.

Who's official figures? If you follow business news, you'll know how unreliable even Shell Oil's official figures are.

My car won't run on coal, but it will run on used cooking oil. I don't have an F22, but believe me, military budgets are so large, they won't lack for a few pints of gas. Not all fertilizers and pesticides are oil based. Ammonium Nitrate isn't, and nor are natural alternative. Use of Soap-based pesticides would be beneficial to the environment (which would offset all that burning cooking oil). Accept GM? You mean Genetically Modified foods? Don't they cause mutations and make people grow an extra eye in their foreheads? Or is that just scaremongering? We actually have a huge food surplus in this country, which is why we have to subsidise our farms so heavily.

[G4Z]

so you think that all our cars are gonna run on an even more limited resource like used cooking oil...? cars could be ran on rapeseed oil but the figures I have read suggest we would need arable farmland approx the size of the whole of england to supply enough rape seed oil to run the cars that we run now. also you dont seem to be taking on board the fact that our demands are increasing and our population is rising, even if coal was a viable alternative it would horrendous for the environment and we would be back in the same position in X amount of years.

also i read that whole site and it contained a lot of links and references as well as quotes from respected scientists so although i agree it seems a little extreme (but then the authour is american and they are even more dependant on oil than we are) some of the points are valid.

[G4Z]

Not all fertilizers and pesticides are oil based. Ammonium Nitrate isn't, and nor are natural alternative.

also, im sorry but ammonia is made from natural gas.

[TeePee]

No, I don't think our cars will run on that resource. I don't expect to be using my current car in ten years time, let alone when this begins to be a problem, because when it does, alternatives will be found. Current technology does suggest that fuel cells will be promising (remembering that the fuel it takes to build them doesn't have to come out of a tap), but who knows? Electric hybrid cars are still rare, but becoming more popular. Coal is not an alternative for us, if we were without oil from 2015 then we wopuld increase nuclear energy capacity (Chernobyl, Noooooo!!!), but it is for the developing world who already use is for many of their energy needs.

But the Y2K bug seemed valid enough for many people to worry (although maybe not of a forum filled with technojunkies). The New Zealand government ran a huge campeign to try to get their entire population to store several months food and a weeks water just in case. And a lot of people id build fallout shelters. Just because they have you convinced, doesn't mean I won't be driving to work tonight.

[Elmo]

also, im sorry but ammonia is made from natural gas.

really? and here's me thinking it's made up from hydrogen (break down of water anyone?) and nitrogen (makes up 80% of the air we breath). Damn my chemistry lecturers and my text books telling me otherwise!

As for soap based fertilisers.... someone tell me how soap is made? ahh yes, fatty acids... and what're fatty acids made of? hydrocarbons.... and where do hydrocarbons come from? yep, u guessed it... OIL!

[G4Z]

elmo, you are of course entirely correct in that respect, but in large scale industry they use natural gas to produce it afaik.

good point on the soap tho, didnt even consider that i may be paying £10 for a bar of soap in another 10 years... erk!

[G4Z]

"NITROGEN (FIXED)?AMMONIA
(Data in thousand metric tons of nitrogen, unless otherwise noted)
Domestic Production and Use: Ammonia was produced by 17 companies at 34 plants in the United States during
2003. Fifty-three percent of total U.S. ammonia production capacity was centered in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and
Texas because of their large reserves of natural gas, the dominant domestic feedstock. In 2003, U.S. producers
operated at about 59% of their rated capacity. The United States remained the world?s second largest ammonia
producer and consumer following China. Urea, ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphates, nitric acid, and
ammonium sulfate were the major derivatives of ammonia in the United States, in descending order of importance.
Approximately 90% of apparent domestic ammonia consumption was for fertilizer use, including anhydrous ammonia
for direct application, urea, ammonium nitrates, ammonium phosphates, and other nitrogen compounds. Ammonia
also was used to produce plastics, synthetic fibers and resins, explosives, and numerous other chemical compounds."

U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2004

[Elmo]

"NITROGEN (FIXED)?AMMONIA
(Data in thousand metric tons of nitrogen, unless otherwise noted)
Domestic Production and Use: Ammonia was produced by 17 companies at 34 plants in the United States during
2003. Fifty-three percent of total U.S. ammonia production capacity was centered in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and
Texas because of their large reserves of natural gas, the dominant domestic feedstock. In 2003, U.S. producers
operated at about 59% of their rated capacity. The United States remained the world?s second largest ammonia
producer and consumer following China. Urea, ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphates, nitric acid, and
ammonium sulfate were the major derivatives of ammonia in the United States, in descending order of importance.
Approximately 90% of apparent domestic ammonia consumption was for fertilizer use, including anhydrous ammonia
for direct application, urea, ammonium nitrates, ammonium phosphates, and other nitrogen compounds. Ammonia
also was used to produce plastics, synthetic fibers and resins, explosives, and numerous other chemical compounds."

U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2004

so they could get people to urinate, change it back into urea and use that in fertilizers instead?

Whatever happened to using things like sugars as fuels? They do it in brazil!

[Rave]

I can't really believe we're all doomed, but it's surely a big problem. I'm pretty sure that we could ramp up biodiesel production pretty quickly; an enormous amount of food goes to waste at the moment, and that agricultural capacity could probably be converted to rape seed or something similar. The bigger battle is going to be convincing Americans that driving a car with an engine smaller than 4 litres doesn't make them unpatriotic.

Rich :¬)

[TeePee]

Surely you must all know that the best fat for making soap comes from the liposuction clinic? Animal fats!

The thing about natural gas, I mean, it's defining feature is that it tends to be... how shall I put it... gassy? And oil is, well, oily... Can you see how relevent this is to the ammonia thing? Or will you just post a link to a poorly written website explaining how the oil robots from Mars are taking all the natural gas away to eat with their oil.

[G4Z]

err... what are you going on about....?

they use natural gas for industrial production of ammonia, they use ammonia to make all the fertilizers we use today, natural gas is gonna start to run out (and start costing a LOT more) before oil does. get it?

[daniel_owen_uk]

I haven't read all of the link (honest from the start) because I am supposed to be working, but surely everyone see's that reason we are so dependent on oil is the fact that it makes people with lots of money lots more money, the moment it gets to the stage where those people are not making lots of money (or cant make lots of money) then governments world wide will start to realise alternative fuel supplies.

Not that I am saying thats the whole answer tis just an observation!

[TeePee]

Wait a sec, the natural gas is going to run out before 2010?!?! Since when?

[G4Z]

do some reading....

also you should understand that gas and oil will not simply run out, it will just start to become a whole lot more expensive to extract it and the amount of production will decrease. this is set to happen very soon according to all of the stuff i've read.