World Oil Production Passed its Peak?

[badkuk]

alternative fuel technology has been there for years; for one reason or another, nobody really pushed for it.

but, as posters have previously mentioned: necessity is the mother of invention. malay mo, baka magkaroon tayo ng utut powered car :D

[uls]

its easier to change individual lifestyle...

u can drive a hybrid car, or u can ride a bicycle or walk...

but whats hard to change is the way the world does business.

the world's economic activity is totally dependent on fossil fuel powered transport. and there are no alternatives.

there is no alternative to diesel powered ships that carry 40 ft. container vans across the ocean... there is no alternative to jet fuel powered cargo aircraft... there is no alternative to diesel powered delivery vans and trucks.

World economic activity will grind to a halt without oil.

[niky]

Air travel will go kaput, for sure... modern jet liners cost too much to run already, making the airline business very unstable.

Shipping? Ever hear of sails? There are large scale wind generators for ships, but retrofitting would take a long time. Shipping could go on, but in a more limited capacity, with smaller vessels.

[uls]

ya ive heard of sails. someone should have told them to use sails:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Containerization

[BeetOls]

...if you will use the question "are we really running out of oil" and google it up...you'll see all the different views,get different answers...i guess it's just a matter of which side you want to believe...

some of 'em say we can never tell...people have claimed the same as early as 1855 and on some other eras but still, here we are, still savoring much of that black gold. Others would also say that there really is a lot of oil reserves all around the globe and can easily be detected through satellite basing from the amount of heat being released (?) and that that there is sufficient oil to last us for the next 500 years. and yeah, there's that oil shales/sands in the u.s. and the future of it is simply gleaming.

i've also read the article attached on this thread and hell it would really make anyone thinks that this is the end...i say it is a little exaggerated...but hey, it got me thinking too!

so which side do i wanna believe in...the positive side of course...if ever oil is really running out, i think there is still enough time to develop more efficient ways of extracting, discovering other sources and alternatives.

[EL Chicane]

I think this is the last 100 years for fossil fuel technology. I'm sure we will be hydrogen-based by the turn of the century.

[badkuk]

whether it's running out or not, why not start making alternative fuels a viable option? it's really not fun to hand your b*lls over to opec countries because of oil. and we there would be no need to start wars over it too. Ngayon pa lang nga na me artificial shortage, nagkakagulo na; what more if we really run out of oil?

sabi nga sa shell commercial: Better to anticipate change, than be forced to accept it

[BeetOls]

the article attached mentioned that biodiesels and all other so called "alternative" fuels are not really alternative but "derivatives" of fossil fuel since they still need the latter to run machineries that produce the previous.

[RafRaf]

its easier to change individual lifestyle...

u can drive a hybrid car, or u can ride a bicycle or walk...

but whats hard to change is the way the world does business.

the world's economic activity is totally dependent on fossil fuel powered transport. and there are no alternatives.

there is no alternative to diesel powered ships that carry 40 ft. container vans across the ocean... there is no alternative to jet fuel powered cargo aircraft... there is no alternative to diesel powered delivery vans and trucks.

World economic activity will grind to a halt without oil.

diesel powered ships - BIODIESEL
jet fuel (ester) - COCO METHYL ESTER... BIODIESEL
diesel powered delivery vans and trucks - BIODIESEL

[empy]

i think that whatever scenario comes true, it's a good idea to start changing now. it took the internal combustion engine about 50-70 years to become mainstream, so we'll take a long time to ramp up.

hopefully whatever emerges as the dominant technology allows countries to be self-sufficient, or at least eliminates the world's dependence on such unstable and easily-compromised areas of the world like the middle east and eastern europe.

diesel powered ships - BIODIESEL
jet fuel (ester) - COCO METHYL ESTER... BIODIESEL
diesel powered delivery vans and trucks - BIODIESEL

question - what is biodiesel made out of? isn't it vegetable and plant oil? if so, wouldn't we need to plant the entire surface of the earth with biodiesel generating crops to fill world fuel demands?

[mazdamazda]

I think this is the last 100 years for fossil fuel technology. I'm sure we will be hydrogen-based by the turn of the century.

hydrogen is still not feasible since the energy needed to breakdown water into hydrogen (electrolysis) is still higher than the energy that we'll get from using hydrogen as fuel.

BUT, if a new techological breakthrough is discovered wherein we can split water to hydrogen in a fraction of the energy electrolysis takes up, then we'll be back in business.

[mazdamazda]

diesel powered ships - BIODIESEL
jet fuel (ester) - COCO METHYL ESTER... BIODIESEL
diesel powered delivery vans and trucks - BIODIESEL

actually, biofuels are an inefficient form of energy compared to oil.

it takes 1 energy unit to produce 2 energy units of biofuel. while it takes 1 energy unit to produce 30 energy units of oil.

though at least, biofuels is a more viable alternative that others... though this might force countries to go back to their agricultural roots again.

[BlueBimmer]

perhaps a nuclear powered engine will be invented in the future :D

[pajerokid]

hehe. flux capacitor lang kelangan nyo

[uls]

plant-derived fuel cannot be produced on the same volume as fossil fuel.

commercial quantity is in the millions of barrels a day for world consumption.

plant-derived fuel production doesnt even come close.

[empy]

sabi ko na nga ba eh

[niky]

True, Brazilian biofuels are seasonal, at best. And prices fluctuate with the growing season.

And unlike many countries, Brazil actually has the agricultural capacity to produce its own biofuels.

Nuclear engines are not an answer either. Fissionable materials are a limited natural resource, and fusion is still a distant dream.

Solar is part of the future. But it's still too expensive. Hydroelectrics, Hydrothermic and Geothermic resources need to be developed to redress the balance.

And again, the hydrogen economy is a false one, because you still use other resources to produce hydrogen in usable form.

[EL Chicane]

And again, the hydrogen economy is a false one, because you still use other resources to produce hydrogen in usable form.

That "other resources" needed to produce hydrogen, can be nuclear power, in which America has. The key here is for America to eliminate dependence on oil. How can that be false?

[Karding]

sabi nga sa shell commercial: Better to anticipate change, than be forced to accept it

nice one.

The real reason no new refineries have been built for almost 30 years is simple: any oil company that wants to stay profitable isn't going to invest in new refineries when they know there is going to be less and less oil to refine.

ahh, for so long I was wondering why.

uls, thanks for the http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ link

US DOE will finally decide on 2015 if Fuel Cell is viable. As a matter of fact, it's not that California/US is just sitting on their behind and laughing about the oil issue or just enjoying the war to spend $300billion. Although some people or tsikoteers believe that US/Americans are war freak or the real terrorists.

Automobile manufacturers need to produce and certify the fuel cell car in which some of them are in the process of producing fuel cell cars. Afterall, whats the use of refueling stations if manufacturers does not offer the fuel cell car in the first place.

The Los Angeles International Airport will be the site of the first compressed-hydrogen fueling station open for public use. The $1.5 million facility built by Praxair will be a prototype of a commercial automobile fueling station and is slated to open this year. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is putting together a plan to build a "Hydrogen Highway," an effort that is supported by the California South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a private-public venture dedicated to demonstrating fuel cell technology in the state. Founded in 1999, the partnership has both passenger cars and transit buses in its fuel cell demonstration fleet, including vehicles from DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen.

A very good read.
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/specia...9/article.html

[Bogeyman]

That "other resources" needed to produce hydrogen, can be nuclear power, in which America has. The key here is for America to eliminate dependence on oil. How can that be false?

As niky said, the materials needed for nuclear fission i.e. uranium and plutonium are already scarce enough as it is, more so than oil. Nuclear fusion will not be viable for at least the foreseeable future. Lugi lang ang US economy kasi mas malaki ang magagastos nila for nuclear energy, not to mention it being downright dangerous. It's not exactly a sustainable energy alternative.