What will happen when we run out of oil?

Uhh not in your lifetume, but I'm 24 so probably in mine...

 

Commentator Jude Wanniski wrote an interesting article putting to rest this phobia about "running out of oil".

He studied geophysics, which is another word for petroleum geology. To make his point he asked the staff at Polyconomics to give this a go. "Think about the total amount of petroleum produced in the history of the world. Suppose we carve out a hole in the surface of the earth 50 miles by 50 miles. If we took all the petroleum produced to date would the hole contain all of it?" The relevance of this question is almost all human beings think of themselves being bigger than they are in relation to the planet. "So the hole is 50 miles by 50 miles. The staff at Polyconimics produced estimates ranging from 1000 miles deep to 100 miles deep. None of which were correct. There had been 812 billion barrels produced in the past 140-odd years since oil was discovered in Titusville, Pa. according to Bill O'Keefe of the API. There are 42 gallons per barrel and each gallon measures .13368 cubic feet. When you do the sums it turns out the hole would only be 63.3 feet deep. Well how big is that? Have you ever been to Lake Tahoe on the Nevada-California border? Tahoe is 193 square miles at its surface and 1640 feet at its deepest point. If you emptied Lake Tahoe and filled it with the same amount of petroleum illustrated, you would not be able to fill it. I'm sure somebody could work the numbers down to the gallon and foot, but do you get what I mean? If you have a world map, look at the size of Lake Tahoe in contrast. I don't know how many can get over the beleif that MAN is big and NATURE is small. This goes to show that we are not really giants striding the planet."

 

If and when it is economically viable to do..........yeah sure.

 

I'm obviously aware of the modern-day constraints on railway travel, I'm just looking ahead at possible solutions. I don't see a good reason why they still basically operate using the same methods as 100 years ago. Tried-and-true, you may say; I see old and busted.

Nuclear, even with all of the scary issues that it carries, is an obvious choice for power because in theory you could carry the current across several states because it would be a closed loop.

Make the whole thing computer controlled and minimize the switching and assembly of trains. Make the cars smaller/lighter and use more of them. Automate a process that allows distribution of cars based on demand per state and make it possible for west-bound Train X to leave a certain number of cars for north-bound Train Y with the delay of hook & unhook being about 3 minutes for each with no human interaction at all.

Take the whole thing underground and under our existing railways. This avoids the "not in my backyard" types and cheapens the deal because no one has to buy the land and then renovate it.

And lastly, if it's not carrying passengers or is above ground you can speed it the F up. A train moving 24 hours a day at 150mph is going to beat a truck across country regardless of how many 3 minute stops it makes along the way.

-Chris

 

Chris,
Most of what you state I have read else where and agree with. I believe that the railroads are a great untapped resource that begs for moderization.

One of the biggest limiting factors is terrain, trains limited to a maximum grade etc...that could be eliminated by going underground, unfortunately at prohibitive cost.

What I do see is a trend towards eliminating them altogether. Too bad.
I am a big fan of them.

 

I think I am the resident chemical engineer on Fchat (but would be willing to pass the title on to someone else if they want it).

My senior project in school was coal liquifaction, basically making gasoline out of coal. Haven't looked at the 250 page report in a while, but Jim is right. In the mid 90's, the break even point was around $4/gallon of gas, so we are pretty close.

For those of you who don't think it can be done, go dig up your WWII history books and pay close attention to how the German army filled their fuel tanks.

While H2 fuel is a cleaner source in the long run, the infrastructure is more or less there for petrochemicals, so the cost to run off of coal will be cheaper in the near term.

 

don't worry bush and his oil cronies won't let ya down. there's more oil in this old planet than we can imagine or use. when we use our domestic supply up we'll go over and steal someone else's and if they don't give it up we'll just kill them. no biggie. what are they gonna do about it. the world is our *****. sure the'll kick a little but so what we got the guns and the expendable population. no problem. trump up some wmd story or genocide or some such tripe to placate the johnny six packs, wave the flag and talk about cheap gas and away we go.

 

Good grief.........................................

Nobody is getting ANYTHING FOR NOTHING.

EVERYTHING HAS IT'S PRICE.

 

Wow rick c. -- you've been hanging out with Michael Moore too much.

Two points I'd like to make:

1. If anyone was "stealing" the Iraqi oil (which means taking it without paying them), I'd agree that that would be wrong -- please list any facts you have for actual stealing (I'm sure your silence will be deafening). As far as I'm aware, the Iraqi gov't is paid the going rate for "their" oil. What you should be complaining about is that the leadership of these dictatorships/monarchies are not using the revenue they do get for their oil to help all of their own people more fairly.

2. This whole idea of "our oil" vs "their oil" is ridiculous. I consider Pangea as my homeland so why do you think that it's "their" oil rather the "world's" oil?

 

.................and now is the time to move this to the Politics and Religion section.

BTW Rick C.
1. Please say you voted in the last election.

2. If you don't like this country or the way it is run I would be happy to show you the door. I'll even buy you the ticket.

I'm sure the living conditions in the numerous dictatorships around the middle east are far far better than here in the USA.

 

i didn't know we had a politics and religon forum and i agree this thread belongs there. when you speak of oil you speak of politics. when you by gas you support terrorists. were i to walk up to you point a gun at you and say i'll give you a million dollars for your shoes is that stealing? as for the money not being used for the people have you been to Qatar or Brunie (sic) not too many folks there missing meals. btw have the pangeans finished that brazilian- african bridge yet? yes i voted as i have done in every election since i became eligible. i vote in both local and national and am active in local politics. if there is a qualified canidate who supports views i'm agreeable to. i don't run from problems, i try to fix them. but if your buying airline tickets hook me up for italy. florence is lovely in the spring. side trip to the factory and a visit to some friends outside marrenello... sweet. and once more i must appauld Qatar. the place is a paradise. i think there are more ferraris per capita than anywhere. clean happy folks.

 

i would love for them to use the oil here in the US, i have 32 wells sitting caped in texas becouse nobody is interested in buying the oil. last sale of the oil was in the late 80's.

when we are able to get pumping again i'll then be able to afford those ferrari's

 

.......and so do you.

No it is not and you can't use that as an analogy to the situation in the middle east. Nobody is forcing anybody to sell their oil at gun point. They are all doing it of their own free will and getting as much as they can for it. How do you think Qatar and Brunei got so rich? NOT AT GUN POINT!

Those two examples are the exception, not the rule. You are evading the reality of the suffering of the GENERAL POPULATION. I'm not talking about multi-billionaires in Qatar or Brunei

Say what? WTF?

How about applaud for Iran or Turkey? Maybe Syria while you're at it. Not a paradise in those places. How come? How about Iraq in 1989? It wasn't a paradise then. How come? We weren't there then. No guns either.
I think you are very much out of touch with reality.

Go here for help;
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=64

I'm through here.

 

Amen. The stone age didn’t end because we ran out stone.

Any thing that can be made from oil can be made from coal.

And for those that may not know this interesting fact, the US has enough coal to supply the entire worlds energy needs for 200-300 years. It is in our best interest for the world to develop a taste for wasting energy….not develop a distaste for filling the air with CO2.

There is a very good reason no one is doing anything about the amount of money leaving the country to pay for energy. At this point we should only need to hang on about 20 years for the tide to turn and it will turn in a big way. We have the coal, we have the mean to convert it to oil products, we have the factories that make the plastics. We are in a tremendous position.

The sooner we can pump the middle east dry, the better...so the region can return to backward and irrelevant. Constant wars unfortunately are also in our best interest….all the oil money goes to weapons which we just so happen to sell.

Life goes on.

 

I just dont seem to get some of the idiocy of some people. Buying gas supports terrorists? But YOU are on a Ferrari chat list, probably the single most gas guzzling car on the planet, not to mention some of the worst polluting. Smart guy! The treehuggers of the world should NOT be allowed to own, drive, or speak about a Ferrari. You should be driving one of those NON polluting electric cars. You know, the ones with all those BATTERIES that will somehow never pollute. We have one battery per car now, but lets multiply it about 30 to 50 times and cylcle through them faster. Yeah baby, that non polluting electric car thats recharged off the power grid. The power grid thats ran off of COAL. You can then put a "powered by coal" bumper sticker on your "non-polluting" car!

As far as what happens when oil becomes too expensive, we will go to alternate fuels. We will never run out of oil for a couple reasons. Its most likely converted hydrocarbons from the oceans of methane that once covered our planet the same as it covers other planets and moons in our solar system, therefore it is NOT dino oil. Second, even if it is dino oil, we are on the verge of new technologies that will reduce our demand on oil.

As far as my 308 goes, I think that a couple hydrogen tanks and a propane gas type carburator should make its little cammed up butt run rather nicely

 

I recently heard a radio program with George Nori on Coast to Coast AM. About 2 weeks ago, there was guy (whom I forget his name) that claimed to have a Corvette that ran off of methane gas. Now, I know most of Nori's guests are quacks, but this guy seems like he is being honest about the car. He claimed that they purposly used a Corvette because of the V-8 and everyone's claim about a substancial loss of power. He said it was about a 10% loss of powerr, but it would still smoke the tires in the first 3 gears. Yes, it would be a loss of power, but I would sacrifice 10% of my car's power to still be able to drive it should the oil issue come up. They said the good things about the methane system is you can still run gasoline with a change of a switch and its too much of a conversion cost to do it, I think he said like $5k as of now, but if they were doing it in bulk, then it would be much cheaper. Not sure if this guy's story is legite, but it would be nice.

 

I'm right behind you..............................

 

It does appear that Shell is running out of oil.

 

While it's unlikely we will run out of gas in the near future, if we did, at least those with F Cars will have the best looking sculptures to plant out in front of their homes!

 

Giving off water vapors, eh?

So in a couple decades will I hear the enviros whining about "global humidifying?"

All joking aside, there seems to be plenty of oil out there to last us a long time, especially once they figure out how to economically retreive the oil from those Alberta oil sands or whatever they are. Mass-produced cars will probably all switch over to hybrids, and then eventually to hydrogen, but I think its safe to say that Ferrari will stick with gasoline as long as its the best fuel out there.

 

Using Methanol as fuel will give you around 20% more power, but your a/f ratio will be around 5 and not 12.5.