# The Oil Crisis **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 29, 2004, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774 "2004-02-29T18:26:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/41 "2004-03-29T13:54:59Z")
If you know anything about the energy industry you will know why I am living and working in my current location (see top right). Frankly you can wheel out as many respected geologists as you like, this one(unrespected admittedly and now more in management/finance than examining well logs) remains unconvinced. There are vast areas of almost unexplored acreage globally - in Russia, West and East Africa, Libya. Still more areas with underdeveloped extractive technology (Iraq, Iran, Libya and Russia) plus more with undeveloped options for LNG or gas-to-liquids developments. Hell, the world is full of potential gas projects that are currently uneconomic due to the oversupply in the LNG market. Small increases in the percentage of oil in place that we manage to extract will extend field life dramatically. To paraphrase a 1970’s British Prime Minister, “Crisis? What crisis?” It will come - but hydrogen energy and renewable souces will be able to take up the slack by then - indeed nuclear energy will have to take some of the load again. But personally - I would put any oil crisis back beyound the US official 2037 guesstimate. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/42 "2004-03-29T17:44:57Z")
You oil men out there-does the US Navy still have startegic petroleum reserves in the continental USA? I imagine if drilling were allowed in these places, US production could be substanially increased-is there a lot of oil here? And, the “Strategic Reserve” (initiated under President Carter (“maaise forever”)-this is crude oil pumpedinto salt dome caverns in Louisiana-how much oilis there? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/43 "2004-03-29T19:37:54Z")
I’m sorry, I’m car free and would love to see prices skyrocket, but this whole thing just is not goign to happen anytime soon. Sure, you can find some quotes of people who think it will, (although some of them are poor context and refer to production rather than resources) but its just not likely. [World Energy Council](http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/default/tech_papers/17th_congress/3_4_06.asp) > [@](#): > > Proven world reserves of oil, gas, and coal are estimated to be 45, 63, and 230 years of current consumption respectively. Probable resources of oil, gas, and coal are forecast to be 114, 200, and 1,884 years of present usage rates respectively. These estimates, however imprecise they may be, have been increasing over time despite record consumption in the interim. World oil reserves today are over fifteen times greater than when the record keeping began in 1948; world gas reserves are almost four times greater than thirty years ago; world coal reserves have risen 75% in the last twenty years. Thus today’s reserve and resource estimates should be considered a minimum, not maximum. Emphasis mine. It seems that the “Peak Oil” arguement has actually been around since the 90’s (if not sooner) but recent high gas prices and some anti-USA sentiment have brought it to greater attention. [http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/oil/oil.asp](http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/oil/oil.asp) > [@](#): > > The “pessimists” advocate the position that the world is finite and so are its recoverable oil resources. To make their argument, they rely on descriptive statistics and base their conclusions on the statistical study of past discoveries, considering all oil and gas fields to be static objects (with no evolution in the size of initially recoverable reserves). The pessimists believe that all of the oil-bearing regions worth exploring have already been explored and that the big fields have already been discovered, ergo future discoveries will be small. They claim that the official figures for proven reserves have been overestimated for some regions and that world oil production is currently at its optimum - or can be expected to reach its optimum in the medium term - and will decrease steadily thereafter. However, the article points out that 29 giant fields were discovered in the 1990’s alone. The increase in drillable deep water depth will greatly increase the number of oil fields. Sorry folks, until I start seeing people in the petroluem industry or OPEC giving serious concerns, this is strictly amatuer night in statistics land. No Apocalypse for you! ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/44 "2004-03-29T23:44:03Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > You oil men out there-does the US Navy still have startegic petroleum reserves in the continental USA? I imagine if drilling were allowed in these places, US production could be substanially increased-is there a lot of oil here? > And, the “Strategic Reserve” (initiated under President Carter (“maaise forever”)-this is crude oil pumpedinto salt dome caverns in Louisiana-how much oilis there? [Strategic Petroleum Reserve](http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/reserves/spr/) Inventory for March 29, 2004: 650.9 million bbls ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/45 "2004-03-30T04:55:06Z")
The US consumes about 20 million a day. From [the DoE](http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html#oil) > [@](#): > > The United States is estimated to be consuming an average of about 19.9 MMBD of oil in 2003, up from 19.8 MMBD in 2002. Of this, 8.9 MMBD (or 45% of the total) was motor gasoline, 4.8 MMBD (24%) “other oils,” 3.9 MMBD (20%) distillate fuel oil, 1.6 MMBD (8%) jet fuel, and 0.75 million bbl/d (4%) residual fuel oil. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/46 "2004-03-30T22:03:30Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > The US consumes about 20 million a day. From [the DoE](http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html#oil) Another thing that hasn’t been mentioned in this thread is the contribution increased energy efficiency has brought to the world oil supply. While we currently use about 19.5 million barrels of oil a day, this is only 700,000 barrels/day greater than what we [used back in 1978](http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0501.html), even though our population has increased by 70,000,000 people and the GDP has [grown by $4.5 trillion](http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/ECN/variables/220.htm) (1999 dollars). :JohnT breaks out Excel, crunches some basic ratios: In 1978 we were able to generate $675 of adjusted GDP per barrel of oil used as opposed to today’s $1,265 of GDP per barrel. We have also been able to reduce the amount of oil used per person by 6.5 barrels (from 30.9 to 24.375). If you’re really a stat freak, for a week-by-week breakdown of how America used its oil since 1991, go [here](http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/ftparea/wogirs/xls/psw11.xls) (WARNING! MS Excel site!!) and click on item 7 - Weekly Products Supplied. This sheet is continually updated, with the last one on March 19th. (I like oil talks, they’re one of the few where facts and figures are readily available which makes them far more preferable to the “my opinion is better than yours” topics of debating.) ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/47 "2004-03-31T08:09:46Z")
There is a lot of work going on in turning common waste back into usable oil. There are a number of plants running as experiments now that seem to be working well. Below is one story. When oil begins to get too expensive and begins to seriously affect world economies, you’ll see a major effort undertaken to really ramp up alternate fuels. And of course, serious work continues to be done on fusion. I believe we will figure out how to control fusion and build a power plant around it in the next 10 years or so (although admittedly, this has been repeatedly predicted for many years \). But when we do, we won’t have any more energy worries. Economically, the advent of controlled fusion will put everyone involved in fossil fuels out of business, which might lead to a very serious dislocation, since so much of our economy revolves around fossil fuels. So I wouldn’t worry much about running out of oil. > [@](#): > > [http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/](http://www.discover.com/issues/may-03/features/featoil/) > > **Anything Into Oil** > Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year > By Brad Lemley > Photography by Tony Law > DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 05 | May 2003 ---
**Author:** ![adamant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@adamant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adamant)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2004, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/48 "2004-03-31T11:23:36Z")
> [@iamme99](#): > > There is a lot of work going on in turning common waste back into usable oil. There are a number of plants running as experiments now that seem to be working well. Below is one story. When oil begins to get too expensive and begins to seriously affect world economies, you’ll see a major effort undertaken to really ramp up alternate fuels. And of course, serious work continues to be done on fusion. I believe we will figure out how to control fusion and build a power plant around it in the next 10 years or so (although admittedly, this has been repeatedly predicted for many years \). But when we do, we won’t have any more energy worries. Economically, the advent of controlled fusion will put everyone involved in fossil fuels out of business, which might lead to a very serious dislocation, since so much of our economy revolves around fossil fuels. So I wouldn’t worry much about running out of oil. The turkey guts process can help us improve the efficiency of our energy systems by converting a waste stream into useable energy, but it is not a source because it takes energy to generate the waste stream. It helps, but will not be enough to generate new oil to replace depletion. Fusion power, if perfected, and ramped up in time, (big iffs there) could be the biggest thing ever in terms of energy. Of course it has been “20 years away” for a looong time now and unless the break through is very very soon, it will have to come after the big dislocations brought about by peaking oil. This kind of thing will not help us any in the short run either - especially for short term gas prices in the US : [http://www.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/03/31/asia.stox.reut/index.html](http://www.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/03/31/asia.stox.reut/index.html) But higher gas prices in the short term might help us in the long term if more money and attention is focused on oil alternatives because of this tight gasoline supply problem. Regards adamant ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2004, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/49 "2004-04-01T04:08:08Z")
> [@adamant](#): > > The turkey guts process can help us improve the efficiency of our energy systems by converting a waste stream into useable energy, but it is not a source because it takes energy to generate the waste stream. It helps, but will not be enough to generate new oil to replace depletion. From the article I quoted: > [@](#): > > Thermal depolymerization, Appel says, has proved to be 85 percent energy efficient for complex feedstocks, such as turkey offal: “That means for every 100 Btus in the feedstock, we use only 15 Btus to run the process.” He contends the efficiency is even better for relatively dry raw materials, such as plastics. > > and > > And it will be profitable, promises Appel. “We’ve done so much testing in Philadelphia, we already know the costs,” he says. “This is our first-out plant, and we estimate we’ll make oil at $15 a barrel. In three to five years, we’ll drop that to $10, the same as a medium-size oil exploration and production company. And it will get cheaper from there.” 85% efficiency seems to be pretty darn good! And if enough of these plants go operational and they are able to turn much of the huge amount of waste that we generate into oil, we might put a dent in the amount of oil we import. Furthermore, at $10/bbl, if enough oil were generated worldwide, this price would force the price of world oil lower, which would be of great economic benefit to many countries. ---
**Author:** ![adamant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@adamant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adamant)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2004, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/50 "2004-04-01T11:16:15Z")
> [@iamme99](#): > > From the article I quoted: > 85% efficiency seems to be pretty darn good! And if enough of these plants go operational and they are able to turn much of the huge amount of waste that we generate into oil, we might put a dent in the amount of oil we import. Furthermore, at $10/bbl, if enough oil were generated worldwide, this price would force the price of world oil lower, which would be of great economic benefit to many countries. Agreed, it seems to be a great process in terms of taking waste streams (and think of all the plastic sitting in landfills that could be dug up if needed), but while it can help us reduce our oil usage a little - it will not be a “source” of energy in that you have to make the waste stream somehow. IE- it will help a little bit all the way until it is using 100% of the waste stream - then it will not be able to grow more. Wether that will effect the global price I don’t know - probably more the local pricing because volume would still be only a tiny fraction of the amount of oil used daily. I am all for it if it really works the way they say, and if it does it should be a big money maker which will help it take off in a big way. It will never replace just opening a tap and pumping oil out of the ground, but it might help us use a little less of that oil before it runs out. Now, if this process could be modified to use somehthing like kudzu as an input (or used baby diapers) then you almost have something!🙂 ---
**Author:** ![iamme99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/57b2e6/32.png) [@iamme99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamme99)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2004, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/51 "2004-04-01T11:30:53Z")
> [@adamant](#): > > Now, if this process could be modified to use somehthing like kudzu as an input (or used baby diapers) then you almost have something!🙂 Apparently, it can handle any waste. The article mentions sewage and human waste. If we consume, there will always be waste. It would be wonderful to eliminate many landfills! ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2004, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774/52 "2004-04-01T16:58:04Z")
> [@](#): > > While gas hydrates can be a hazard, they may also become a valuable resource. If an effective method of retrieving hydrates is developed, the resources available from this clean fossil fuel are enormous. Estimated potential reserves from gas hydrates are in the order of 100 times those of conventional natural gas reserves. Gas hydrates occur where water depths are deep enough, i.e., temperatures are cold enough and pressures great enough, to cause the complex molecules to go into a solid state From: [http://www.westerngeco.com/content/resources/casestudies/gom\_hazard.asp?printView=true&](http://www.westerngeco.com/content/resources/casestudies/gom_hazard.asp?printView=true&) Also for a bit of perspective: [http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001963.html](http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001963.html) Now before you quote the “six times more expensive to produce” stats at me this is a current estimate and, just like deep and ultra-deep water exploration, costs can fall dramatically once engineering focus is placed on the issue. Even taking the lowest estimate of 500 gigaT OE of frozen methane that is still a factor of 10 times the total natural gas produced to date. Everywhere you look there are exciting possibilities to extend hydrocarbons as the primary energy source. I don’t see anybody in my industry needing to seek an alternative career… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-oil-crisis/231774.md?page=2)