Thread: OIL PRICES- ARE WE REALLY RUNNING OUT OF SUPPLIES?

According to Guardian "Peak Oil" - the point at which half of global oil production has been consumed, and beyond which extraction goes into irreversible decline, and prices rise accordingly - is almost upon us. Many industry experts predict that Peak Oil will happen by 2020. Do you really believe that we are running out of the supplies or political tensions are driving oil prices increase (Oil prices moved a step closer to the $100 a barrel mark yesterday) that could seriously effects all segments of our daily life?

I'll let you in on a secret. Oil prices are not because of limited supply. Oil prices are because of FEARS of a lesser supply. Most fluctuations in the global market are the result of fear.

Yes. That is how stupid it is. And nine times out of ten, those fears are unsubstantiated. Glad to know our global market is stable.

Yes, and you also have to consider that by putting the fear out there, some people can make a lot of money, incuding the people at the Guardian.

There are many alternative sources of liquid fuels, including natural gas, coal, oil shale, oil sands and biomass. We may have already passed peak oil in terms of conventional reservoir capacity, but there is lots more if we are willing to pay for it (and of course we are). Rather than worrying about the supply, we should be concerned about how we are going to burn it without dumping the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

I'm just glad we purchased a Toyota Prius

Originally Posted by Bunbury

There are many alternative sources of liquid fuels, including natural gas, coal, oil shale, oil sands and biomass. We may have already passed peak oil in terms of conventional reservoir capacity, but there is lots more if we are willing to pay for it (and of course we are). Rather than worrying about the supply, we should be concerned about how we are going to burn it without dumping the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Yeah, and whenever you meet someone at the gas station (which I visit ...let's say once every three months as I live in reasonably large city with a decent public transport so my car sits in the garage mosst of the time) they scream blody murder as they have to pay something like 1,40/liter. Same with the housowners. But if you ask those people if they ever considered buying a car with a better gas milage or invest in a new insulation that saves them almost 70% of their annual heating...then it goes:"Waaaayyy tooo expensive.......I don't wanna drive some Eco-Rustbucket.......blablabla adnauseamandinfinitum" So stop beeing Crybabies you stupid lazy Fucks!

Of course we run out of fossil fuels and have to look for alternatives. Take a look at Sweden, they wanna be independent of imported energy by 2020. Nice take. Of course it's way easier to switch to regenerative energy when you live in a sparsley populated country with a lot of potential for generating water power and have lot's of room to spare for e.g. windpower or tidal power plants etc, but it's still a gutsy move. I mean, I don't see the fossil-fuel operated power plant vanish within the next 50 years or so but the really important point is to get started.
And I also do not think that one single regenerative energy source will take care of all our woes, rather there has to be a flexible mix of technologies. Why not build offshore windparks off the coast of Ireland together with tidal power plants. I hear ye....."too ugly, too expensive, how to get the electricity generated to where it is needed....." but hey, this could boost the Irish economy even farther. And we already trading electricity between the Scandinavian countries and central Europe. You alsp have to devolp new business models. The rich countries could build solar-electric or solar-thermal power plants where it really pays off (Marocco, Tunesia etc.) and get cheap energy for a certain time. After the investment has paid off for the venture capitalists, the electricity is traded on the normal market. Another possibility would be geothermal powerplants. I mean, 90% of the earth is hotter than 1000°C and of the remaining 10%, 90% are warmer than 100°C.
There also has to be a smarter way to distribute the energy, the grid itself somehow has to become the ebergy storage medium. Also the hardware to store elctricty has to be improved, I'm thinking of SuperCaps as replacement for batteries etc. This is not something that will happen next week or next year, but we have to start now, or else.......

It's funny how people don't really want solutions, I think they often just like stuff to complain about more then anything. The money issue comes up every time someone says alternative energy. A good example is solar power. Living in Phoenix where it's 85% bright blue sky's with massive amounts of sun you would expect to see a whole lot of solar electric and solar hot water. The odd part is the majority of the solar hot water you see is non functional and was put up by a previous owner years ago and you see virtually no solar electric at all. I actually need to get the solar panels on my house repaired or replaced, they came with the house for hot water and could be saving me a fair amount of cash.

If people have choices they will most often take the most painful one so they have something to whine about and look for sympathy from others who are doing the same.

I also believe that people really do not want solutions. Wind or Solar power should be sources of alternative energys and yet we are still not considering them seriously. . Many industry experts predict that Peak Oil will happen by 2020. Hence, should the UK consider a new generation of reactors as alternative energy sources?