The Digg Crew wants to hear your thoughts!
Please take our short survey about Digg and potential feature ideas.
"Peak Oil" - Why Smart Folks Disagree - Part II
theoildrum.com — Great tutorial on the difference between gross and net production of finite resources. During the last 150 years, the market treated oil as a 'near infinite resource'. Modern society has been built around high energy density infrastructure. Declines in net energy, if not replaced, will have serious economic implications.
sfoucher- 55 diggs
- digg it
- totoneila, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Okay Websurfers--Read it and weep! Please spread the REALITY far and wide by promoting Peakoil Outreach to family and friends. We need to drastically reform our lifesytles if we wish to minimize postPeak violence levels by optimizing our decline.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?- Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Please read this, Canada has TONS and TONS of oil, you know Canada, the really polite guys who have cheap medicine? I think they live up north near Montana? We have oil for at least the next 100 years for you guys.
http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/89.asp - rethin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0No, Canada has lots and lots of tar.
Note, this tar can be turned into synthetic crude, but that takes tons of water and lots of natural gas. Neither of which are in great supply in N Canada. - Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@rethin - mean this with the utmost respect but do you know ANYTHING about Canada? and Alberta in particular?
Alberta is called "Western Canada’s land of lakes" the north is COVERED in small lakes EVERYWHERE we have some of the best fresh water fishing in the world.
As for natural gas, one you don't need it to get oil out of the bitumen (not tar), second as for supplies in Alberta, does the term ***** mean any thing to you? We export 2,517 billion cubic feet per year to the USA.
http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/1656.asp
Quick for your reference, what Alberta has (ordered highest to lowest):
TREES
OIL
WHEAT
SNOW
FRESH WATER
NATURAL GAS
MORE TREES (we really have a lot of trees)
MOUNTAINS
GOPHERS
Did I mention the trees?
People way down on the list...anyone need a job, seriously we ran out of people. - Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@rethin - Here is a link to some of the great lake we have in Alberta, remember these are just the major fishing lake but you get the point.
http://www.anglersatlas.com/freemaps/alberta/ - feel free to come up and visit.
Seriously though, I haven't laughed this hard in a while, Alberta has little water and gas.... damn that's funny. Next thing you're going to tell me is it's tropical.
LOL - rethin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0railer:
Water
"Comprehensive watershed planning is needed to prevent a water crisis in Alberta, which a new study shows is facing significant reductions in water supply due to climate change and tar sands development."
http://www.planetizen.com/node/19310
Gas
"Thus the expansion of Canadian tar sands capacity is limited by natural gas supply, and indirectly by the price of natural gas, which will drive the economics of expansion and continued use of the sands resource."
http://www.energybulletin.net/22358.html
Wow, that took a whole 30 seconds to google. - Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@rethin - Ok the natural gas they are talking about is for energy to heat the oil sands, use nuclear energy, problems solved. The plans are already in for the nuclear plants the they will be build in the next 20 year with plenty of time to get the deep stuff.
The water crisis thing, ya that's *****, just like peak energy. It's one study that shows in the distant future their "might" be a crisis, in the future maybe. You know what, Alberta has had droughts in the past it will in the future. Proper water management has been and will be a part of any oil operations in Alberta.
- Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Please read this, Canada has TONS and TONS of oil, you know Canada, the really polite guys who have cheap medicine? I think they live up north near Montana? We have oil for at least the next 100 years for you guys.
- bowls, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Read the article!
Notes I took: it cost 1 oil barrell in 30 in 1970 to extract the stuff and now it costs 1 in 10-15. I find that shocking. As for alternatives 42 barrells of ethanol make just 0.62 of oil and I think. Uh oh. Pay attention folks. The writing is on the wall unless we find the oil eldorado. - kermodie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0railer - obviously you didnt read the oildrum article - how much energy will it take to extract those oilsands? a vast % of them will never be energetically extractable..
- Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@kermodie - Obviously you don't directly on top of the damn things do you, well guess what I do. Although I am not personally involved in the oil industry, I know many scientists who are, and although yes some it is energy taxing, (only the really deep stuff, much is right on the surface) , nuclear or hydro power could easily pull out the deep stuff 20 years from now when it's needed.
If you want me to do a complete discussion on the subject I can. Here's a hint you use steam.
- Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@kermodie - Obviously you don't directly on top of the damn things do you, well guess what I do. Although I am not personally involved in the oil industry, I know many scientists who are, and although yes some it is energy taxing, (only the really deep stuff, much is right on the surface) , nuclear or hydro power could easily pull out the deep stuff 20 years from now when it's needed.
- ashaddock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Another well-written piece that is hugely valuable for anyone trying to understand "peak oil" and its implications. The guys at Oil Drum produce some of the best material available. This one just rips huge holes in the numbers and conclusions of the "optimists".
- fugacious, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0railer Tar Sands are not oil. Even the most optimistic projections of extraction and conversion to oil does not come anywhere near close to offsetting real oil fields production declines.
Think of tar sands like a bank account you inherit with 20 billion dollars in it from your uncle bill gates. The only condition of the account is that you can only draw out $100 per day. Which is totally amazing but it's not going to put you in a waterfront mansion, retirement and driving your Ferrari.
HTH - ReservoirGuy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yes, net energy issue will not be an "issue" like global warming wasn't one until recently. Once again, the information is available but no one sees a way to make money on it so they just ignore. The rest simply do not understand it.
- Railer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@fugacious - Tars sands is oil,
"The Athabasca Oil Sands are a large deposit of oil-rich bitumen located in northern Alberta, Canada. These oil sands consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. " - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_Tar_Sands
"Output of marketable oil sands production increased to 966,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2005. With anticipated growth, this level of production could reach 3 million barrels per day by 2020 and possibly even 5 million barrels per day by 2030.", not granted that's only half of Saudi's production but it's no trickle.
The funny thing is that much of this stuff is right on the surface, it clogs the sand and keeps plants and animals from thriving there, if humans had done thing it would be the largest oil spill and disaster in history. They strip the surface take out all the oil and put the dirt back all clean, this start to grow back within months.
Browsing Digg on your phone just got easier with our enhancements to the 
© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is