# The end of the oil era: The fall of civilization, or just a bump in the road? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 24, 2003, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075 "2003-06-24T17:11:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/21 "2003-06-25T08:14:26Z")
> [@](#): > > I dont think wind powered cars … will fill much of the market. Not directly, no. But an electric or fuel cell powered vehicle ultimately powered by wind is a viable option. Not sure of the potential application to aircraft. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/22 "2003-06-25T08:21:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spejic \* > Well, there are a couple reasons. First, it takes lots of energy to grow, fertilize, transport and then convert the crops to other energy. In fact, it takes more energy to do these things than you will get out of the crop (at least that is true with corn-to-ethanol currently). I’m not sure what you mean by this. You aren’t suggesting that ethanol is negative-efficient, and they are actually burning more fuel to produce it than the amount of fuel yielded, are you? I mean, that would be ludicrous. An admittedly quick look at some websites on the subject made it sound like it’s feasible on a large scale, but would cost several times more than petroleum, and that research is being done to make the process more efficient. Is that not true? > [@](#): > > Right now, the US uses far more energy in the form of oil than falls on the whole US from the sun You wouldn’t have a cite for that, would you? Not that I’m saying you’re wrong, but I’ve never heard that before. I’m just curious where that info comes from. > [@](#): > > Really, we already know what society that lives from renewable plant resources looks like. That is how Europeans lived before the Industrial Revolution, or how many rural people in the Third World currently live. The population has to be lower, we have to expect lower and uneven living standards, and we have to be careful not to cut down plants beyond their replacement level. You may very well be right, but I don’t think looking at lifestyles of the past necessarily proves anything about the future. Just because we "know what a society that does _x_ looked like doesn’t mean that _all_ societies that do _x_ will be identical. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/23 "2003-06-25T10:30:49Z")
> [@](#): > > You aren’t suggesting that ethanol is negative-efficient, and they are actually burning more fuel to produce it than the amount of fuel yielded, are you? I mean, that would be ludicrous. Ludicrous or not, that is the situation for ethanol production as a whole. While some individual ethanol production processes have become very slightly energy yeilding in very recent years, the world as a whole and the US as a whole puts more energy into ethanol production than the process creates. Even more ridiculous, there is more fossil fuel used in ethanol poduction than the process is capable of replacing. A reasonable summary here: > **[ps12.pdf](https://www.fcpp.org/pdf/ps12.pdf)** > > 1324.30 KB The point that you are perhaps missing is that in the US ethanol production is seen as means of promoting the sustainability of the maize industry. It manages to do this without utilising government subsidies, which are seen as negative for many reasons. You can decide for yourself how much of ethanol production is actually driven by environmental concerns. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/24 "2003-06-25T10:40:47Z")
> [@](#): > > Right now, the US uses far more energy in the form of oil than falls on the whole US from the sun I can only assume that you posted that at night, and that by ‘right now’ you really meant ‘right now’.😃 “Every day, more energy falls on the U.S. than we use in an entire year. The total amount of solar energy per year falling on the conterminous 48 states is 1.37 \* 1016 kW-h/year - or 46,700 Quads/year - of solar energy falling on the lower 48 states. Compare this to 94.2 Quad/year, the rate of energy consumption in the U.S.in 1997 ( Ref: Renewable Energy Annual 1998, DOE/IEA-0603(98), pg 1.)” [http://rredc.nrel.gov/tidbits.html](http://rredc.nrel.gov/tidbits.html) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/25 "2003-06-25T12:15:19Z")
[revision]Incidentally, it might be worth looking into ultra-high speed tube railways to partially replace air travel, by the way-[/revision] not tailways, I have no idea what tailways are 🙂 of course aircraft fueled by fossil fuel are remarkably efficient, but I was trying to put forward an alternative which uses electical power from solar or nuclear sources. * * * SF worldbuilding at [http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html](http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html) ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/26 "2003-06-25T13:23:06Z")
Of course, it may be simpler to simply make liquid fuel that aircraft can use from widely availabe hydrocarbons like coal, especially if solar/nuclear power gets cheaper, than building high speed railways all over the place. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/27 "2003-06-25T15:51:05Z")
From _The City in Mind_ by James Howard Kunstler (New York: The Free Press, 2001), – the chapter on Atlanta, pp. 60, 73-75: > [@](#): > > A current popular belief in America is that “alternative fuels” could replace gasoline in the vehicles we use and that the system could merrily roll along without petroleum as if nothing had happened. This a dangerous delusion. The truth is that no known “alternative technology,” including hydrogen, fuel cell, electricity, nuclear, or alcohol from biomass, can take the place of gasoline in the way we have organized our lives, especially where cars and trucks are concerned. None of the touted alternative fuels is as versatile as gasoline, or can be produced for anything close to the cheap price of gas we’ve been accustomed to, or can be stored or transported as easily. The electric car is not going to save Atlanta. > > * * * > > I started this chapter by asking the question, does Edge City have a future? My answer is a plain NO. In Atlanta they are constructing a giant misbegotten organism that will almost certainly not be able to function far into the future. Suburbia, more than being a set of things, might be described more accurately as a set of behaviors. They were behaviors made possible only under the extremely abnormal conditions of late-twentieth-century life in the U.S.A.: unprecedented political and economic stability, extraordinary immunity to the consequences of bad decisions (really, the ability to mortgage the present against the future), and cheap oil, cheap oil, cheap oil. All these things are apt to change in the years directly ahead. > > In the public debates about suburbia, the idea is almost always put forward that suburbia exists because Americans like it and want it. That may have been so. But if so, it may have been a poor choice. What’s more, that people like a way of living, or are accustomed to certain behavior, does not mean that circumstances will necessarily allow them to continue that way of living. Junkies like their heroin, too, but after a while their veins collapse, their immune systems switch off, and their organs begin to shut down. I’m convinced that circumstances in the twenty-first century will compel us to live very differently. > > The next economy will be the Repo economy when, for example, amazing numbers of “Ditech 25 percent dream loans” will be labeled NONPERFORMING and seedy-looking men armed with repossession notices show up in the circular driveways of the defaulted-upon chipboard-and-vinyl McMansions in places like Cherokee County, Georgia, to change the locks on the putative collateral. I see this unwinding of credit and presumed wealth evolving into a tremendous political fight over the table scraps of the cheap-oil economy and the dubious material artifacts it produced, pitting neighbor against neighbor, group against group, and region against region. > > I believe the world is entering a long era of chronic instability in oil markets that no amount of wishing or pretending will hold back. By the time this book is publised – a year from now – I shall be surprised if we are not experiencing the initial effects. The two oil-producing regions that allowed America to postpone this reckoning for twenty-five years, the Alaskan North Slope fields, and the North Sea fields (belonging to Britain and Norway), are scheduled to pass their production peaks this year, and after that, most of the oil in the world will be controlled by people who don’t like us, or contained in regions to chaotic to engage in the complex business of oil extraction. The Middle East regions containing the greatest reserves will be the last to peak, but long before they do, the oil markets will destabilize. In the current American mood of narcotized inattention, the point can’t be emphasized enough that it is not necessary for oil reserves to run out before world oil markets are severely destabilized. And when that occurs, industrial economies will be painfully compromised. > > We Americans cherish a set of delusions to minimize or deflect the seriousness of this. As already touched on, we believe that we can run a drive-in civilization on some fuel other than petroleum. The actual prospects for this are dim, but we base our belief (a wish, really) on the spectacular cavalcade of technological achievements that occurred in the previous century, one astonishing novelty after another: airplanes, movies, radio, TV, antibiotics, Teflon, computers, automobiles themselves. (The lingering “victory disease” from our great triumph in World War Two still stokes our delusions of invincibility.) Alternative energy sources such as natural gas, biomass, coal, nuclear power, solar power, fuel cells, and so forth, will fall far short of compensating for disrupted oil markets. It will be a hard lesson. The world’s fleet of eleven thousand jet airplanes will not run on coal or plutonium. Massive disruptions to transportation and business will occur. The “global economy” as touted in recent years – meaning the long-range transport of enormous quantities of cheap goods virtually everywhere – will join mercantile imperialism in the history books. Food production, which depends heavily on oil-based fertilizers, will be affected by oil market disturbances. The Caesar salad that travels twenty-five hundred miles from California to somebody’s table in Atlanta will become an object of nostalgia. Farming will have to become much more labor-intensive, will have to be practiced on a far smaller scale, and done much closer to market. Half a million other products, from medicine, asphalt, paint and detergent to plastic trash bags, are also derived from oil. As the oil markets destabilize, shortages and fluctuating prices in oil will hinder industry from even addressing the problem of converting societies to other forms of energy. > > The fact is that we are an oil-based economy. A peculiar destiny allowed Americans to rely on seemingly limitless cheap oil for the half century following World War Two. We invested hugely in the infrastructure of an everyday life dedicated to cheap oil. Edge City is the climactic efflorescence of that, and Atlanta is the epitome of Edge City. It is also a prime example of what historian Joseph Tainter called _the overinvestment in complexity with diminishing returns,_ an unfortunate human tendency to repeatedly overshoot the limits of growth. The last thing America needed in the late twentieth century was Edge City, and it may be the last big present we can give ourselves. > > * * * > > In my view, Atlanta has become such a mess that really nothing can be done to redeem it as a human habitat. Like the other great, roaring, car-dependent megalopoli of the American Sunbelt, Atlanta’s only plausible destiny at the threshold of the new millennium is to become significantly depopulated. ---
**Author:** ![Alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/57b2e6/32.png) [@Alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alien)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/28 "2003-06-25T16:05:53Z")
**A reminder:** The question in the OP is not how many energy resources are there, or exactly how much oil is left. The question is: _Will oil peak and oil prices rise, and if so, what will the consequences be to the worlds economy?_ Note: Peaking = when demand becomes higher than available supply As I’ve already said, we will never run out if oil, there will probably be substantial amounts left for many decades. But shortage of oil will likely cause prices to rise. And that’s the key point. Since oil is crucial to the worlds economy, what will happen if oil prices increase? Break, answering some of **Blake** ’s posts: 1. The total of av available recoverable _crude oil_ is the same in Blake’s cite as in mine. If you add the numbers in the first table of Blake’s cite, the total is around 1,050 billion barrels (year 2000), which is consistent with my cite, 2,000 - 850 = 1,150 (year 1999) 2. New oil fields are of course still discovered, but they are small (you need 10 Giant fields to make up for the failure to discover a single SuperGiant field) “Indeed, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, global discovery of new oil fields peaked in 1962 and has been declining since.” 3. A new oil field where the oil is in multiple pockets is not the same as a field where all the oil is contained in one pocket. In the former you have to drill into each pocket, something that may not be economically viable. 4. And most importantly: You cannot use alternative oil resources in todays cars, aeroplanes and industry. In fact, some alternative resources, like oil shales, isn’t even _crude oil_, it’s _coal oil_. There is currently a post in GQ where dopers say you shouldn’t put 3 year old gasoline in new cars. For sure, you cannot put coal oil in your car. Continuing, Granted, new technology will make us able to exploit other energy resources than crude oil, and this might be oil shales or tar sand. But this _transition_ from crude oil til other kinds of fossil fuels, or non-fossil fuels, will likely take many decades. In the mean time crude oil _could_ peak. It has peaked in the US in the 1970’s and in the North Sea in the 1990’s. In these areas demand is already higher than supply. This means the Caspian area and the ME will have to increase their production to make up for the shortage in the western world, and in fast-growing China. However, some indicate that the ME is already close to its production limits, and that they will not be able to increase production in time to make up for the increased demand elsewhere in the world. This leaves the world in an limbo, a transition between todays crude oil products, and future energy solutions, where there is a possibility of a severe energy shortage. If there is a major increase in oil prices, this would mean an increase in production cost to the industry, which again should lead to more expensive products. People will buy less, forcing employers to let employees go. We might experience higher inflation rates, maybe similar or worse than those we witnessed in the late 1970’s, when oil prices rose significantly. It’s very interesting that most of the transportation sector is dependant of crude oil. As **Leaper** and **dal\_timgar** pointed out, some interesting questions comes to mind: - Will people buy less cars? How many are employed in the car sector? - Will people drive less? How many are employed at gas stations? - Will people avoid surburban ares? What will that do to prices of real estate in the cities? - Will tourist areas experience a decline in visitors? How many are employed in the tourism sector, in say Hawaii? Any takers? ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/29 "2003-06-25T16:14:34Z")
IMO, a reduction in oil reserves will have zero affect in our mobility and comfort. We would switch to nukes before we made one step backwards in those areas. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/30 "2003-06-25T16:46:42Z")
Posted by **zwaldd:** > [@](#): > > IMO, a reduction in oil reserves will have zero affect in our mobility and comfort. We would switch to nukes before we made one step backwards in those areas. Perhaps we **would** “switch to nukes,” **zwaldd** – if we **could.** But we can’t. We can build more nuclear power plants – the Bush administration is pushing for that – but we cannot run our automobiles and airplanes on nuclear power. And we cannot run our national economy without automobiles and airplanes. It is highly doubtful whether any alternative fuel, such as hydrogen or methanol, can be developed to the point where it serves as an effective substitute for gasoline. And even if we could invent a car that runs on hydrogen, retrofitting all existing vehicles for hydrogen fuel would be another matter. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/31 "2003-06-25T16:55:39Z")
I am not an economist, but the OP is based on a false premise. There is no fixed amont of demand, rather there is a demand curve based on price. Likewise, there is a supply curve based on price. Where these intersect (give or take Enron and OPEC) is the price of oil. There is no “cliff” at which demand suddenly outstrips supply. Rather, as oil becomes more scarce (or more expensive to exploit) or the demand curve rises (because of population increase or industrialization of 3rd world contries) the price will rise gradually to a new equilibrium. This will cause people to use more energy efficient cars, appliances, etc. At some point, alternative forms of energy such as wind, nuclear, biomass, solar, tidal, etc. will become more cost effective than petroleum and people will no longer use it for energy. Instead it will be used for plastics, pharmaceuticals, lubrication, etc. More expensive energy sources will cause temporary dislocations in the economy, just as the industrial revolution or modern farming did. ---
**Author:** ![zwaldd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a9adbd/32.png) [@zwaldd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zwaldd)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/32 "2003-06-25T17:26:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*It is highly doubtful whether any alternative fuel, such as hydrogen or methanol, can be developed to the point where it serves as an effective substitute for gasoline. And even if we could invent a car that runs on hydrogen, retrofitting all existing vehicles for hydrogen fuel would be another matter. \*\* Crap, I guess we’ll just have to learn to cut back then. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/33 "2003-06-25T17:31:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > We can build more nuclear power plants – the Bush administration is pushing for that – but we cannot run our automobiles and airplanes on nuclear power. \*\* Planes are a tricky question, but this is certainly false concerning automobiles. The current state of electric cars is adequate (not perfect, certainly, but adequate) for the vast majority of drivers, and these can be run off nuclear electricity. Large trucks are probably another matter, but another solution will likely arise there. Basically, I agree with **Sam Stone** ’s post. As oil production begins to enter its inevitable decline (and note that it will do so slowly), the price of oil will creep up. This _will_ result in an economic hit, but an economic hit is “a bump in the road”, not “the fall of civilization”. As the price of oil creeps up, a myriad of alternative energy technologies will gain economic viability, and these can be encouraged to reach that point sooner by wise energy policies. No single technology is going to replace oil. Various forms of solar power are fast becoming viable. Wind power already is, and when energy prices rise, complaints about the appearance of windmills will become more muted. Nuclear fission is a tad dirty and dangerous, but not unmanageably so. We have vast quantities of coal, and we may be able to figure out how to exploit it with acceptably low pollution levels. Various forms of wave/tidal energy are available, though so far that’s been a wash. (Get it? A wash. Okay, just shoot me then.) The thing is, oil won’t run out all at once. There will be decades of declining production where vast quantities of the stuff will still be available. So it will be perfectly viable to replace the easier things first - wind/solar/nuclear electricity, say - and leave the trickier things like jet fuel for later. While the transition away from oil _could_ be quite painful if governmental energy policies encourage continued oil use at the cost of developing reasonable alternatives to the point that alternatives won’t be sufficiently mature soon enough, it’s entirely possible that the end of oil will be nothing worse than a protracted period of recession. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/34 "2003-06-25T21:02:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > Ludicrous or not, that is the situation for ethanol production as a whole. While some individual ethanol production processes have become very slightly energy yeilding in very recent years, the world as a whole and the US as a whole puts more energy into ethanol production than the process creates. Even more ridiculous, there is more fossil fuel used in ethanol poduction than the process is capable of replacing. > > A reasonable summary here: > > [http://www.fcpp.org/pdf/ps12.pdf](http://www.fcpp.org/pdf/ps12.pdf) That’s interesting. I wasn’t aware how inefficient the process was. However, the cite you gave actually contradicts the “negative efficiency” position. The Pimentel study that is cited is only one such study, and the paper suggests that it is outdated, and the matter requires “further work”. But at any rate, I can see the point that it looks pretty doubtful that ethanol is ever going to be a panacea. > [@](#): > > As can be seen from the table, the net energy value ranges from a low of –33,562Btu/gal to a high of +29,826 Btu/gal. These discrepancies can be explained by the variables used in the studies and the economies of scale for the various ethanol facilities. The last study in the table was conducted by the United States Departments of Agriculture and Energy and is considered the most credible.10 If production facilities have large enough scale, it appears that there is a net gain of energy in ethanol production. Pimentel’s work is evidently somewhat out of date, because of technological improvements in ethanol production and > the construction of large-scale plants. Pimentel’s analysis may also be far too broad as well. The corn will be produced regardless, so it may not appropriate to include the actual > production of corn in his analysis. Even if it is accepted that minor energy gains are possible, the question remains whether it > is economically useful to support the industry. Further work is required to prove this definitively. > [@](#): > > The point that you are perhaps missing is that in the US ethanol production is seen as means of promoting the sustainability of the maize industry. It manages to do this without utilising government subsidies, which are seen as negative for many reasons. You can decide for yourself how much of ethanol production is actually driven by environmental concerns. Yes, I know that farmers are behind the ethanol industry for political reasons, but I don’t know that that’s necessarily a reason to dismiss the possibility of using renewable-resource fuels out of hand. After all, NO energy source is going to be cheap and efficient right out of the starting gate. The R&D has to be done, and if we wait until petroleuml becomes scarce and _then_ start doing R&D, we’re going to have a big problem. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/35 "2003-06-25T21:38:07Z")
What about [methane hydrates](http://www.fe.doe.gov/oil_gas/methanehydrates/)? ---
**Author:** ![X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbe5ce/32.png) [@X\_Slayer\_ALE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/X_Slayer_ALE)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/36 "2003-06-25T22:03:53Z")
Or How about [Thermo Depolymerization Process](http://www.boosman.com/blog/archives/000725.html) ? I wonder if we can make small scale versions of this that will take care of city sewage? By-product will be clean water and heating oil. ---
**Author:** ![Doc\_Nickel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@Doc\_Nickel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doc_Nickel)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/37 "2003-06-25T22:17:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by blowero \* > \*\*Yes, I know that farmers are behind the ethanol industry for political reasons, but I don’t know that that’s necessarily a reason to dismiss the possibility of using renewable-resource fuels out of hand. After all, NO energy source is going to be cheap and efficient right out of the starting gate. The R&D has to be done, and if we wait until petroleuml becomes scarce and _then_ start doing R&D, we’re going to have a big problem. \*\* You also have to realize methanol is an alcohol- yes, it burns but doesn’t have anywhere near the energy content (btu/lb) as gasoline or diesel. Drag racers like it since methanol carries some of it’s own oxidizer- thus, the more you can stuff into the cylinder, regardless of how much additional air can also be forced in, the more power you make. On the other hand, methanol’s energy density is, what, half that of gasoline? I know that converting a gasoline engine to run alky means boring out most of the carburetor passages to at least two to two and a half times the original area. So to get equivalent horsepower you have to burn roughly twice as much, which means a tankful lasts half as long. There are also other problems with methanol- it’s hygroscopic, so it pulls moisture out of the air. The moisture contaminates the fuel, leads to tank corrosion, and freezes in the wintertime. Alcohols tend to attack rubber seals and hoses, unless specifically suited for use with the fuel. No, none of these problems are insurmountable- in fact there’s lots of cars out there today that can be converted over to burn straight methanol with relative ease. (Similarly, most can also be fairly easily converted to CNG or propane.) But the fact remains- why (at least now, while we still have oil) bother with a harder-to-handle fuel, that costs more, gives you less mileage per tank, and also costs more oil than it saves, in order to make it in the first place? Most alternative fuels haven’t been “dismissed” as such, they’ve simply proven themselves to be poorer performers over petroleum fuels. For example, we can, today, make an excellent electric car. Fast, powerful, quiet, and inexpensive enough to compete with midrange sedans. The problem is the battery- nobody wants a car that can only get 60 miles per “tankful” and takes six hours to recharge. They’re also poor choices for cold-weather use: besides the cold sapping battery strength, an electric heater would draw an additional major fraction of power away. A $30,000 car that goes twenty miles? Electrics haven’t been “dismissed”- far from it. They’re basically waiting for battery or fuel-cell technology to catch up. But it’s going to be VERY hard to beat gasoline’s energy density. Same with methanol, propane, natural gas, and so on- actually _using_ them is no problem. Each has it’s quirks, but most or all can be worked around. The problem is production, distribution, and most importantly right now, cost per mile. And believe it or not, R&D _is_ going on, as we speak. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2003, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/38 "2003-06-25T23:19:52Z")
**Alien** > [@](#): > > And most importantly: You cannot use alternative oil resources in todays cars, aeroplanes and industry. In fact, some alternative resources, like oil shales, isn’t even crude oil, it’s coal oil. There is currently a post in GQ where dopers say you shouldn’t put 3 year old gasoline in new cars. For sure, you cannot put coal oil in your car. No, you certainly cannot use alternative oil resources in todays cars. You can’t light, sweet crude oil in today’s cars either. You shouldn’t put any crude oil your vehicle. It isn’t fuel. That’s why we have these things called refineries and cracking towers. No oil straight out of the ground can be put in your car Sorry **Alien** but this really does deserve a :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > In the mean time crude oil could peak. It almost certainly will. Because natural gas is more hydrogen rich, easier to process and easier to transport it has become the fuel of choice fr the 21st century. Natural gas production is increasing faster than oil. As a result oil production obviously doesn’t need to increase as fast. This won’t be down to supply. It will be due to the fact that we have found an alternative energy source. Interestingly not long ago natural gas was open to exactly the same criticisms **Alien** has directed at tar sands and oil shale. > [@](#): > > This leaves the world in an limbo, a transition between todays crude oil products, and future energy solutions, where there is a possibility of a severe energy shortage. But there is no evidence this will happen. It could happen, but the WEO, the WEC and the USGS all say that reserves are increasing faster than cumulative production and that undiscovered resources are increasing. > [@](#): > > If there is a major increase in oil prices…. Again, there is no reason to believe this will happen. As \*\* DanBlather\*\* so clearly states this “is based on a false premise. There is no fixed amount of demand, rather there is a demand curve based on price”. Current oil prices are artificially adjusted. They are not supply based. The WEO doesn’t see this changing for at least 30 years. **Alien** I look forward to seeing you address some of the more specific points I raised. Particularly the validity of the WRI projection being based on oil economically recoverable in 199 and then using those figures to extrapolate world supplies for the next 20 years. I also look forward to seeing why several of the assertions you made seem to be in direct contradiction to the world’s authorities and published results. \*\* blowero\*\* > [@](#): > > the cite you gave actually contradicts the “negative efficiency” position. Not really. It basically says :”If production facilities have large enough scale, it appears that there is a net gain of energy in ethanol production”. I haven’t read the whole thing in detail, but it was the most reputable study I could find in 2 minutes with Google. AFAIK most US an world facilities aren’t large scale. I did read a good report a couple of years ago, and the conclusion was as I said above: the world as a whole and the US as a whole are wasting energy producing ethanol. > [@](#): > > After all, NO energy source is going to be cheap and efficient right out of the starting gate. The R&D has to be done, and if we wait until petroleuml becomes scarce and then start doing R&D, we’re going to have a big problem. I agree wholeheartedly. That’s one of the main reasons why reasoning based on the low energy yields of oil shale and tar sands is invalid. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/39 "2003-06-26T08:25:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blake \* > Not really. It basically says :”If production facilities have large enough scale, it appears that there is a net gain of energy in ethanol production”. To be precise, they also noted an increase in efficiency of the process; the conclusion wasn’t based _solely_ on scale. > [@](#): > > I haven’t read the whole thing in detail, but it was the most reputable study I could find in 2 minutes with Google. AFAIK most US an world facilities aren’t large scale. Actually, the table cites 10 studies, only 4 of which came up with negative value. And 2 of the 4 were Pimentel’s, which the author admits are “out of date”. > [@](#): > > Pimentel’s work is evidently somewhat out of date, because of technological improvements in ethanol production and the construction of large-scale plants. IOW, this isn’t just a hypothetical point. Note that it says _construction_ of large-scale plants. It sounds to me like what they are saying is not that it _would_ be efficient if large-scale plants were built, but rather that large-scale plants _have_ been built. > [@](#): > > I did read a good report a couple of years ago, and the conclusion was as I said above: the world as a whole and the US as a whole are wasting energy producing ethanol. But it would seem that that’s no longer the case. Besides which, the whole argument seems like circular reasoning to me. The question is whether ethanol or other renewable fuels could be helpful in meeting large-scale energy needs in the future. The argument seems to be: It won’t work on a large scale because it only works on a large scale. WTF? I would think it would be pretty obvious that it would have to be done on a scale that’s going to make it worthwhile. I probably couldn’t run a very efficient oil refinery in my backyard, either. It looks like one might make the case that it’s not efficient _enough_, but I’m still not seeing as how it’s _negative_ efficient, and especially not _inherently_ negative-efficient. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2003, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075/40 "2003-06-26T11:39:40Z")
> [@](#): > > To be precise, they also noted an increase in efficiency of the process; the conclusion wasn’t based solely on scale. Yes, I noted that in my first post on the subject. > [@](#): > > The argument seems to be: It won’t work on a large scale because it only works on a large scale. That’s not an argument that I’ve ever seen made Beyond that I will try to track down the report I originally read, or something similar. It was very in depth and accounted for as many costs as possible including fertiliser, transport to and from distillery etc. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-the-oil-era-the-fall-of-civilization-or-just-a-bump-in-the-road/184075.md?page=3)