OPEC says there's plenty of oil.

act2617 · 03-03-2006, 01:07 PM

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS....ap/index.html

Simmo · 03-03-2006, 01:42 PM

there may be plenty of oil but its probably in places that are too cost ineffeicient to mine it. i.e. in very deep places in the ocean or under mountains or something.

gozza · 03-03-2006, 01:58 PM

yeah but when theres nothing else

4.9 EF Futura · 03-03-2006, 04:48 PM

OPEC didnt really say that at all. They said production capacity looks like it will increase despite the fact global refining capacity cant process that much...

bobski · 03-03-2006, 05:46 PM

Search google for "peak oil". There's a wake up badly needed at the moment, the gov'ts are outwardly ignoring it, but you can see by the whole iraq war thing they are trying to secure a short term future.

Short story, unless we find alternative energy, mass transit will dramatically overtake the motor vehicle overnight (bad news for Australia where public transport sucks balls). Oh, not to mention that oil is used in one way or another for the manufacture of... well.... pretty much anything consumable...

Its all pretty scary stuff if true... And it makes sense... All you needed was a hurricane to knock out some of the US's oil drilling capacity and the price of oil skyrocketted.

vztrt · 03-03-2006, 06:36 PM

There was doco on SBS that they were looking for oil in Africa. Pretty surr there would be oil there, only question is of what quality?

XD 351 Ute · 03-03-2006, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobski

Its all pretty scary stuff if true... And it makes sense... All you needed was a hurricane to knock out some of the US's oil drilling capacity and the price of oil skyrocketted.

Sorry, this was just out and out greed by the oil companies, and the result of the 'Globalisation' scam that we had to have.

Pure and simple.

I'm quite sure that if the Longford refinery in Melbourne (for example, but that's where it is izznit??) went blam again, the price of juice in America probably wouldn't even budge.

Ed

LeMans · 04-03-2006, 03:51 AM

I think the fact that a right-winged US president has made comments about the urgent need to find alternative fuels says volumes about the real situation. Especially since it is so soon after the Iraq invasion had succeeded in securing the supposedly large oil fields.

There are some very credible voices saying that peak oil (that’s the point at which oil stops gushing out and begins to trickle instead) is very near, if not upon us now. As for discovering new oil, these same people are saying that no new major oil reserves have been discovered for decades, and that is not through lack of trying. The less pessimistic incidentally have not denied this to be the case. Their argument is that less fuel will prompt higher fuel prices making aggressive searching more commercially viable. Maybe. Maybe not.

Chucky · 03-03-2006, 09:42 PM

Don't worry about the rest of the world.. The untapped oil reserves of the west coast of Australia is phenominal. There is such a thing as supply & demand. The more demand there is.. the higher the price stays...

apolloxbgt · 03-03-2006, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chucky

Don't worry about the rest of the world.. The untapped oil reserves of the west coast of Australia is phenominal. There is such a thing as supply & demand. The more demand there is.. the higher the price stays...

The only problem is that we don't own it.

MO · 03-03-2006, 10:29 PM

Oil will not run out...the big companies have reserves for a long time yet.

**ebxr8240** · 03-03-2006, 10:42 PM

Umm?? When I was in Detroit Ford Museum they said U.S had 8 years of reserved fuel in "storage"...I guess the rest of the world has to pay for war in Iraq???

Falcon Freak · 04-03-2006, 04:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebxr8240

Umm?? When I was in Detroit Ford Museum they said U.S had 8 years of reserved fuel in "storage"...I guess the rest of the world has to pay for war in Iraq???

Yes the oil prices have been artifically high for these last six months. The oil companies all made record profits last year. But there is little justification for a barrel of crude oil to be hovering at approximately $US60.

FF

4.9 EF Futura · 06-03-2006, 01:31 PM

Justification is irrelevant. Its a market based price. You dont want to pay $60+ a barrel then feel free to exit the market... oh wait, not that simple is it? Not that simple for the other 5 billion oil hungry mouths of the world either.

Blame oil companies, the USA, john howard - whatever. It's our own fault and we'll be the result of our own demise.

Did someone say inflexible demand? Oh wait... that was me.

How can you accuse an oil company of being greedy when it is you and I who determine the price as a result of our insatiable demand for oil? Of course oil companies and opec do very well out of sustained pricing, but they cant do anything about it despite what the conspiracists may believe.

Its basic economics, with a dash of finite reources boiled in a pot of politics. Oil markets are fairly simple

EDIT: Peak oil link - its a beauty. http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

XplosiveR6 · 06-03-2006, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4.9 EF Futura

Justification is irrelevant. Its a market based price. You dont want to pay $60+ a barrel then feel free to exit the market... oh wait, not that simple is it? Not that simple for the other 5 billion oil hungry mouths of the world either.

Blame oil companies, the USA, john howard - whatever. It's our own fault and we'll be the result of our own demise.

Did someone say inflexible demand? Oh wait... that was me.

How can you accuse an oil company of being greedy when it is you and I who determine the price as a result of our insatiable demand for oil? Of course oil companies and opec do very well out of sustained pricing, but they cant do anything about it despite what the conspiracists may believe.

Its basic economics, with a dash of finite reources boiled in a pot of politics. Oil markets are fairly simple

EDIT: Peak oil link - its a beauty. http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

i have to disagree with you, it is certainly not our fault we all buy petrol to go to work, to make money for our familys to survive, it is that simple, no petrol - no money - no life. we cant all be self efficiant.
it is not about being petrol hungry it is about survival, and the way to survive in this society requires petrol. petrol price increasing is the exact same this as increasing the price of water, we need both to survive.

johnydep · 06-03-2006, 01:43 PM

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
I remember the debate about oil running out when I was in high school during the 80's, also remeber researching the 70's oil scare.

If they keep saying it, they'll eventually tell us "told you so". But for now, I refuse to panic or be scared by them.

4.9 EF Futura · 06-03-2006, 02:04 PM

Dave, i agree with you entirely and thik we might both be saying similar things... our dependence on oil is probably a wider societal issue... its going to be prohibitively expensive one day tho... then what do we and our families do? No easy answers but surely worth our consideration...

It's inherent to the world we have created. Forget petrol - think about everything else that has oil in it or has oil in its production. Heck, even drilling for oil consumes reasonable quantities of oil! lol

The link i posted even shows how the financial markets are dpendant not only on oil.. but having an ongoing supply of relatively low priced oil ($60/bbl is pretty cheap when you consider how amazing the stuff is!). Now that is scary stuff.

XplosiveR6 · 06-03-2006, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4.9 EF Futura

Dave, i agree with you entirely and thik we might both be saying similar things... our dependence on oil is probably a wider societal issue... its going to be prohibitively expensive one day tho... then what do we and our families do? No easy answers but surely worth our consideration...

It's inherent to the world we have created. Forget petrol - think about everything else that has oil in it or has oil in its production. Heck, even drilling for oil consumes reasonable quantities of oil! lol

The link i posted even shows how the financial markets are dpendant not only on oil.. but having an ongoing supply of relatively low priced oil ($60/bbl is pretty cheap when you consider how amazing the stuff is!). Now that is scary stuff.

yea at the moment the only think we could do if we lost oil, is to set up little villages and survive from joining small communities to trade goods, just like we did before the industrial revolution

LeMans · 08-03-2006, 12:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EF_Dave

yea at the moment the only think we could do if we lost oil, is to set up little villages and survive from joining small communities to trade goods, just like we did before the industrial revolution

Hey, slow down everyone. No need to panic. "No Oil" doesn't mean "No Fuel and back to the dark ages". There are alternatives to oil, the most viable being the hydrogen fuel cell. (Hydrogen can be extracted from water ie the ocean). The major vehicle manufacturers (especially GM) are saying that the hydrogen fuel cell will be the most likely replacement to the petrol/diesel engine. Heck, even F1 are suggesting that they might allow cars to run on these things.

The issue is not what society will do when the oil runs out, but when the heck our governments will legislate to get this new technology off the proto stage and onto our roads. The estimate now is that it will take 10 to 15 years (including refitting enough fuel stations) before we can say that we are liberated from oil, so we need to get our backsides into gear now. All the tecnoligies are basicly here now, including alternatives to oil in plastics.

The only application that we don't have an alternative technology for is jet engines.

Have a look at this site...
http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/...fcv/index.html

4.9 EF Futura · 08-03-2006, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeMans

Hey, slow down everyone. No need to panic. "No Oil" doesn't mean "No Fuel and back to the dark ages". There are alternatives to oil, the most viable being the hydrogen fuel cell. (Hydrogen can be extracted from water ie the ocean). The major vehicle manufacturers (especially GM) are saying that the hydrogen fuel cell will be the most likely replacement to the petrol/diesel engine. Heck, even F1 are suggesting that they might allow cars to run on these things.

The issue is not what society will do when the oil runs out, but when the heck our governments will legislate to get this new technology off the proto stage and onto our roads. The estimate now is that it will take 10 to 15 years (including refitting enough fuel stations) before we can say that we are liberated from oil, so we need to get our backsides into gear now. All the tecnoligies are basicly here now, including alternatives to oil in plastics.

The only application that we don't have an alternative technology for is jet engines.

Have a look at this site...
http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/...fcv/index.html

The isalnd of reality is perhaps smaller than one may have thought...

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/a...y.cfm?a_id=940

Hydrogen itself is not energy - it is an energy carrier. You need to put energy into it in order to extract energy out of it.

Here's how it stacks up against petrol (example used in the article is a Honda Accord):

Not to mention that to crack the stuff out of water consumes more energy than it produces - an energy sink of about 30%. Ironically this energy often comes from fossil fuels - either directly, via solar/wind (do you know hom many barrels of oil it takes to procude a solar panel?) or nuclear power (again, massive amounts of oil/fossil fuel consumed when building nuclear power plants, extracting uranium - which btw is a finite resource).

The "average" hydrigen fuel cell still costs something in the order of $1million to produce and as demonstrated by Dailmer Chrysler's "F-cell" (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energy.../message/52194) they have a lifespan of about 200 hours.

Oh - and with the Hydrogen cells... platiunum is yet another scarce resource on our planet.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/fre...questions.html

Quote:

Commercial hydrogen offers one clear example of how it takes more energy to produce the fuel than can be obtained from burning it. The current feedstock from which hydrogen is produced is natural gas. The natural gas is then treated with steam. Steam is water that is boiled using more natural gas, oil, or coal, either in the form of direct fuel or to generate electricity which is used to boil the water. Common sense dictates that this cannot be a solution because it still relies on fossil fuels.

Converting water to hydrogen is done through electrolysis. Scientist David Pimentel has established that it takes 1.3 billion kWh (Kilowatt hours) of electricity to produce the equivalent of 1 billion kWh of hydrogen. (BioScience, Vol. 44, No. 8, September 1994.)

Then consider the infrastructure to "convert" to Hydrogen...

http://www.energybulletin.net/2437.html

To convert 50% of the world's car fleet to run on hyrdogen has been estimated at $350,000,000,000,000. The power required to produce enough hyrdogen to power the USA's car fleet alone would require an extra 1,000 nuclear power plants to be built.

The stuff is almost impossible to store - again this is explored in:

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/a...y.cfm?a_id=940

The metals required, the systems needed to keep the stuff trapped... its incredible.

Whilst it may appear i'm "anti Hydrogen", this is not the case. I would love dearly for it to become a reality. But I, for one, am not counting on some "scientific breakthrough" to save our bacon. To expect the government and the scientific community to come to our rescue is absurd.

Ethanol and biodiesel? Just as bad as hyrdogen - they consume much more energy than they produce. Solar? wind? Nuclear? Same deal.

LeMans · 09-03-2006, 12:32 AM

Some very valid arguments and well supported with facts. However, this is not a competition between oil and hydrogen. It’s a given that oil will run out one day. So it’s a discussion about how we might replace oil on that day and how we can be sure that our best options are ready when we need them, and not ten years after we need them.

Commercial interests are not geared to look out for the future and prosperity of the global economy. That is the role of government, and without legislation and policy the investment needed to solve the current problems (and they are CURRENT problems) will not be forthcoming.

Just to counter some of the above arguments.

Question: Stored hydrogen is much heavier than stored petrol.
Answer: Cars are currently made of steel. Composites can be used to offset the weight.

Q: A hydrogen fuel cell costs in excess of $1Million to build
A: Hydrogen fuel cells are all prototypes. By comparison, each F1 petrol engine costs (estimated) twice that, also prototypes.

Q: Converting water to hydrogen is 70% efficient.
A: Converting petrol to kinetic energy is 25% efficient. Not an issue.

Q: The cost of converting all cars is prohibitive
A: Oil will not run out overnight. In the transistional period, high production numbers will mean low production costs and a booste to the economies of the world.

Q: Its not realistic to believe that the technical problems can be solved.
A: Car makers (eg GM, Mercedes), world leaders (eg USA, Germany, Japan) and even oil companies (eg Shell) believe in this technology.

Yes there are shortcomings in the technologies now, but we will have no choice so it is just more reason to get moving now.

This site from the International Energy Agency gives a good balanced view…
http://www.iea.org/textbase/papers/2003/opmoving.pdf

vztrt · 06-03-2006, 08:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4.9 EF Futura

It's inherent to the world we have created. Forget petrol - think about everything else that has oil in it or has oil in its production. Heck, even drilling for oil consumes reasonable quantities of oil! lol

Well 50% of oil bought is used in plastics.

The Stylist · 06-03-2006, 05:39 PM

With the unstable conflict in and around the middle east oil supply centers, there will always be uncertainty about the amount of oil avaliable to the west - that goes for pricing too.

As far as I'm concerned the sooner viable & stable fuel alternatives come to market then the better.

MO · 06-03-2006, 09:12 PM

Look out...shades of Mad Max!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BroncosXR8 · 07-03-2006, 10:08 PM

Now im not entirely sure, but I heard that in north Iraq they just found another massive Oil field.
Only prob is the fuzzy wuzzies keep blowing the lines up!

ltd · 08-03-2006, 09:48 AM

Lemans, you are an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea.

Hydrogen is the most likely choice however the only problem is that it itself consumes an insane amount of electrical energy to produce hydrogen and ergo is not widely in use today. Additionally, our inability to build viable, affordable and portable hydrogen generator has ensured that hydrogen will still be cost prohibitive.

vztrt · 08-03-2006, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ltd

Lemans, you are an island of reality in an ocean of diarrhea.

Hydrogen is the most likely choice however the only problem is that it itself consumes an insane amount of electrical energy to produce hydrogen and ergo is not widely in use today. Additionally, our inability to build viable, affordable and portable hydrogen generator has ensured that hydrogen will still be cost prohibitive.

Actually E85 (85% ethanol) will probably become more the norm soon. In the Midwest (USA) E85 pumps becoming common place. I know ford have a petrol/E85/Hydrogen prototype built and running.

MO · 08-03-2006, 09:18 PM

LPG is looking good.

4.9 EF Futura · 09-03-2006, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John McMaster

LPG is looking good.

No oil = no LPG dude.

Quote:

Q: Converting water to hydrogen is 70% efficient.
A: Converting petrol to kinetic energy is 25% efficient. Not an issue.

Whoah, these are very different things. The real beauty of oil is that it is a source of energy. It's there - the energy is waiting for you - all you gotta do is pump it out of the ground and refine it. Hydrogen is not a source - it is a carrier. You need to put energy into it in order to get any energy out of it. You consume 30% of the input energy in "charging" this carrier... so for every unit of hydrogen energy, you're already 1.3 units of input energy worse off. And you still have to convert the hydrogen energy into kinetic energy.

See how easy it can be to gloss over a major problem?

Quote:

Q: The cost of converting all cars is prohibitive
A: Oil will not run out overnight. In the transistional period, high production numbers will mean low production costs and a booste to the economies of the world.

OK well im certainly not able to verify the accuracy of the material which i have referenced, but the estimate for global conversion for cars/trucks in the above link was $350,000,000,000,000.

The 2001 gross domestic product of the USA was $11,750,000,000,000.

So if every single cent of US production was diverted to this task (i.e. if every american company did nothing but produce cars -i.e. not even produce food to feed the people making the cars), we would still have a $338,250,000,000,000 shortfall.

So get Russia, Japan, China, Australia and the UK to join in...

Still a $313,441,300,000,000 shortfall... and that's diverting every part of the above countries' GPD to converting the global fleet of cars to run on hydrogen.

To say it's prohibitively expensive is somewhat of an understatement.... even using rough figures...

LeMans · 10-03-2006, 02:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4.9 EF Futura

No oil = no LPG dude.

Whoah, these are very different things. The real beauty of oil is that it is a source of energy. It's there - the energy is waiting for you - all you gotta do is pump it out of the ground and refine it. Hydrogen is not a source - it is a carrier. You need to put energy into it in order to get any energy out of it. You consume 30% of the input energy in "charging" this carrier... so for every unit of hydrogen energy, you're already 1.3 units of input energy worse off. And you still have to convert the hydrogen energy into kinetic energy.

See how easy it can be to gloss over a major problem?

OK well im certainly not able to verify the accuracy of the material which i have referenced, but the estimate for global conversion for cars/trucks in the above link was $350,000,000,000,000.

The 2001 gross domestic product of the USA was $11,750,000,000,000.

So if every single cent of US production was diverted to this task (i.e. if every american company did nothing but produce cars -i.e. not even produce food to feed the people making the cars), we would still have a $338,250,000,000,000 shortfall.

So get Russia, Japan, China, Australia and the UK to join in...

Still a $313,441,300,000,000 shortfall... and that's diverting every part of the above countries' GPD to converting the global fleet of cars to run on hydrogen.

To say it's prohibitively expensive is somewhat of an understatement.... even using rough figures...

I don’t think that I’m necessarily arguing against this, but I’m not sure that I quite understand the purpose of this argument either. To prove that petrol is better than hydrogen? Or that the human race should return to the caves rather than use an alternative because it’s all too difficult?

It did however prompt me to do the research on the efficiencies and yes hydrogen is about 50% less efficient than petrol ground-to-consumption by today’s technology. But when there is no oil, 200% of nothing is still nothing.

I think the fundamental difference between the two views though is how lateral one is prepared to think. Who says, for example, that all cars must be immediately replaced at $20,000 to $100,000 each? I’m sure that very safe simple composite cars could be built right now at under $5000 if they were built at a minimal profit and not upgraded to a new model every year. Or we could simply repace the engines in existing small cars at, say $2000 a shot. And it wouldn’t be such a big backward step if we initially had to have only one car per household, as we did in the 1970s.

I'm sorry, but I just don't share the pessimism and the view that there is no more improvement left in technology.

PS. What is the average life of an average car (not including classics)? Is it 20/30 years (when did you last see a 1975 Datsun 180B)? If so then we are currently replacing every car in Australia roughly every 20/30 years and adding some on top of that too.