The World Has 42 +/- years left then the well runs dry

The World Has 42 +/- years left then the well runs dry

Global demand for crude oil (including biofuels) in 2019 amounted to 100.1 million barrels per day
Daily global crude oil demand 2006-2020 | Statista
Oil Reserves By Country 2020

100.1 X 365 = 36,536,000,000 barrels consumed in one year
Total known world oil reserves = 1,532,800,000,000,000 barrels
1,523,800,000,000/36,536,000,000 = +/- 42 years then the well runs dry

All the members of the United Nations know this and are making great strives in switching to renewables for their electric power.

The facts are out there for all to see only you must look to see it.
Most countries know this and are making great strides in switching to renewables.

Renewable energy in China
China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China[/URL]

Renewable energy in Canada
As of 2019, renewable energy technologies provide about 17.3% of Canada’s total primary energy supply and about 67% of its electricity production.

The majority of renewable energy produced in Canada comes from hydroelectricity. It supplied 58% of total electricity production in 2016 making Canada the second largest producer of hydroelectric power globally. Wind power is a fast-growing sector of the energy market, accounting for 5% of electricity production in 2016. Globally, Canada was the eighth largest producer of wind power in 2016. Canada has also built many[quantify] photovoltaic power stations, mainly in Ontario, with one in Sarnia, being the largest in the world at the time of its construction. A 15-megawatt tidal plant sits at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, and uses the daily tides of the Bay of Fundy to generate electricity.

Politicians have expressed interest in increasing the percentage of Canada's electricity generated by renewable methods. Ontario has created a subsidy to assist wind and solar power producers.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Canada[/URL]

Renewable energy in Germany
Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind, solar and biomass. Germany had the world's largest photovoltaic installed capacity until 2014, and as of 2020 it has 49 GW. It is also the world's third country by installed wind power capacity, at 59 GW in 2018, and second for offshore wind, with over 4 GW. Germany has been called "the world's first major renewable energy economy".

According to official figures, around 370,000 people were employed in the renewable energy sector in 2010, particularly in small and medium-sized companies. This is over twice the number of jobs in 2004 (160,500). About two-thirds of these jobs are attributed to the Renewable Energy Sources Act.

No such act in the USA

Germany's federal government is working to increase renewable energy commercialization, with a particular focus on offshore wind farms. A major challenge is the development of sufficient network capacities for transmitting the power generated in the North Sea to the large industrial consumers in southern parts of the country. Renewable energy in Germany - Wikipedia

Renewable energy in United Kingdom
Renewable energy in the United Kingdom can be divided into production for electricity, heat, and transport.
Interest has increased in recent years due to UK and EU targets for reductions in carbon emissions, and commercial incentives for renewable electricity such as the Renewable Obligation Certificate scheme (ROCs) and Feed in tariffs (FITs), as well as for renewable heat such as the Renewable Heat Incentive. The 2009 EU Renewable Directive established a target of 15% reduction in total energy consumption in the UK by 2020.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_Kingdom[/URL]

Renewable energy in France
Renewables ‘to become France’s main energy source by 2027’
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/12/09/renewables-to-become-frances-main-energy-source-by-2027/[/URL]

Renewable energy in United States
The development of renewable energy and energy efficiency marked "a new era of energy exploration" in the United States, according to former President Barack Obama. In a joint address to the Congress on February 24, 2009, President Obama called for doubling renewable energy within the following three years. [URL unfurl="true"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United_States[/URL]

Trump does not care nor believes this and will do nothing while in office. Trump has not mentioned or spoke the term “renewables” in the past 2+ years


Do you believe Trump cares what happens to us knowing he can afford it while knowing his Chauffeur cannot--?

For God’s sake, do not vote for TRUMP

Source: Wikipedia
US electrical generation from wind for calendar year 2019: 300.1 terawatt hours. Total installed wind power nameplate generating capacity from wind in the United States as of January 2020: 105,583 Megawatts (about 7.29% of total electrical production).

As of the end of 2017, the United States had over 50 gigawatts (GW) of installed photovoltaic capacity. In 2018, utility scale solar power generated 66.6 terawatt-hours (TWh), 1.66% of total U.S. electricity.

I think the issue is that we consume so much more power as a country and on a per-capita basis...

chuckpeterson wrote:The World Has 42 +/- years left then the well runs dry

No. The CURRENTLY KNOWN supplies would be exausted in 42 +/- years. Not "all oil on Earth would end".

Early days, but our state has a pilot plant that combines photovoltaic solar cells with a catalytic converter that takes atmospheric CO2 and makes various hydrocarbons.
Not financially viable yet, but who knows?
Otherwise we do have an ethanol industry using sugar cane, that the US Navy among others is buying.
Our government is investing in a system that uses solar electricity to produce H2 by hydrolysis, then it can be used directly or converted to ammonia for transportation.
Much as I love driving high performance piston engined vehicles, we do need to move on. If nothing else it will starve terrorism networks of funds.

Dilandu wrote:

chuckpeterson wrote:The World Has 42 +/- years left then the well runs dry

No. The CURRENTLY KNOWN supplies would be exausted in 42 +/- years. Not "all oil on Earth would end".

Bingo.

If proven reserves is all we had, we would have run out of oil 15-20 years ago (based on the proven reserves in the 70s/80s). What happened instead? Well, we discovered new methods of extraction. We're also discovering, every year, new oil fields. Many of the fields discovered are currently beyond out technological capability - or located in areas that by law cannot be extracted (ANWAR). All of that is subject to change.

The market is actually very well situated to deal with this. As the easy to extract oil runs out (which may be in your 42 years), prices will rise to reflect the greater expense of deep water drilling, drilling in remote locations, and drilling in sensitive areas that require additional environmental protection. That rise in price will cause other investments to become more attractive, especially alternative sources of energy. Thus, the market will be re-directing investment to other forms of energy as the price increases, which will begin to happen when the easier to access oil runs dry.

chuckpeterson wrote:Trump does not care nor believes this and will do nothing while in office. Trump has not mentioned or spoke the term “renewables” in the past 2+ years

0bama sort of poisoned the well there by handing billions of dollars in 'renewable energy subsidies' to his rich cronies. The money disappeared in failures and bankruptcies, and no energy was produced. Solyndra was the only one that got any publicity, but there were dozens of others.

Erls wrote:As the easy to extract oil runs out (which may be in your 42 years), prices will rise to reflect the greater expense of deep water drilling, drilling in remote locations, and drilling in sensitive areas that require additional environmental protection.

The cost of oil is not just money, it is energy. Extracting and processing all those marginal sources of oil will take more energy, meaning less net energy yield per barrel. The oil won't all be gone in 42 years, but by that time it may take nearly a barrel of oil's worth of energy to get a barrel of oil. That makes it no longer a practical energy source.

I would consider the current price of oil unrealistically low, as it does not reflect all the costs involved. Unfortunately, raising oil prices would be political suicide.
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Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

chuckpeterson wrote:The World Has 42 +/- years left then the well runs dry

For God’s sake, do not vote for TRUMP

For God's sake, use your brain. The world has had less than 30 years of reserves for 60 years now.

SHOCKER: World still has 30 years of reserves... Why called reserves? Because only the cheapest oils/gases are called reserves. Via shale revolution the amount of reserves around the planet are effectively 5X at least than what they are quoted at. If we wanted to, we could switch transportation to natural gas entirely and have enough for 200 years if everyone lived by USA standards from Middle East Reserves alone. Russia has even more than the Middle East. And this is not even considering thick Hydrates which absolutely DWARF by 1000X at least known NG reserves. We already can get the Hydrates, but not economical at moment as there is no need.

Now try some simple logic... Get this: Nat Gas is Free in Texas and electricity prices went.... flat. Should have gone down. Did profits remain flat? No. Did they go up? No. Went down for the electricity companies. Why? They have 20GW of wind installed. Quite a bit by outside energy companies being "virtuous" in the NE USA...

If you want 35c/kWH like Germany, then by all means install solar where the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow.

By all means claim "renewable" credits except when the wind does not blow and then POOF, you are nowhere to be found, yet expect the lights to still turn on, all the while pretend to not pay for these massive expenses of having sunk $$$ for when wind does not blow/sun shine. Instead you and your ilk, pretend those expenses are Natural Gas's expenses, when in reality they are Wind/Solar variability expenses. And no, wind, solar are not renewable as you cannot recycle fiberglass/CF turbine blades or solar panels. Now if they changed materials which CAN be recycled, then you can call them renewable. Until then, stop the lies.

Reality is that electricity cost in the USA should have been dropping nationwide due to fact of Shale oil, Nat Gas overabundance drove price of gas to near zero and in many cases have to PAY $$$ for others to take it.

If you REALLY want to go renewable: then you had better be in favor or daming up every single valley in the world with gigantic dams for pumped hydro storage and also kicking everyone else OUT of said valleys. No, batteries do not work unless you wish to play make believe there is enough cobalt, nickel in the world. Why? Eastern Grid of the USA requires the Entire volume of Lake Erie, dumped to tidewater every 1.5 days. Last I checked, during winter High after big storm, wind often does not blow for 2 weeks and the sun barely shines and it is bitterly cold. SO, need enough storage for the equivalent volume and pressure head equivalent of 8 Lake Erie's(assuming one still gets some solar~10% as it fairly sunny). Good Luck on that daming building project.

IF you wish to apply same pumped hydro scenario to European grid: This would be the equivalent of daming up the ENTIRE Baltic Sea to a height of 75m or so. Not exactly doable as the head height would be too varied and burying Netherlands/Germany/Poland/Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania/Finland/Sweden under 75 meters of water makes no friends. I do hope that Switzerland/Austria's population are planning on decamping post haste for the 100% drowning of their countries into gigantic dam projects. Same goes for large portions of France/Italy/Spain/Poland/Romania, etc etc.

Lets talk scale of problem: IF you wish to cover this energy deficite when wind/sun does not shine for 2 weeks after winter high, with TESLA batteries, you would need TESLA(biggest battery manufacturer in the world by a LARGE margin) to build batteries just for Germany for the next 1000 years... This assumes, household heating is still done via Natural Gas. Now if you add Kerosene creation, plastics etc, this easily turns into 2000 years for Germany alone.

PS: China is about to DOUBLE its hydro power output(most in the world by a long ways) if not quadruple it. Everyone donwstream of Tibet? Are about to be screwed if they expect even a fraction of the water flow they are accustomed to for the next several decades while all the dams fill up. Water dropping from 5000m has an absolutely astounding amount of power. India is likewise finally wising up to the stunning potential of the Himalaya. Problem is that the mountains are growing so fast that obtaining a seal at the bottom of dams seems highly problematical at best.

Moderation in all things.
Sensible planners don't talk all or nothing scenarios. Renewables do have a valid place in the energy mix.
For generating grid electricity our country is talking about a mix of technologies. Solar panels (both domestic and large scale), wind turbines (hey we own the continent), HELE coal plants for now but to be phased out over generations; for the times when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine, pumped hydro, and quick response gas. Nuclear isn't an option for political reasons, even though we do have the largest uranium deposits in the world.
Batteries like Tesla and LG have an important role as voltage, amperage and cycle dampeners. Not long term storage, but to catch surges up, or down.
We have a number of heavy users like smelters and foundries, who are building solar farms next door as the power is much cheaper. Sure they will draw on the national grid at times, but it still saves money.
My personal domestic solar rooftop panels have ensured that I have had free power for more than 12 years, Think on that, one whole branch of utility bills gone, no longer needing to be budgeted for.
As to solar being renewable. Do you imagine that a coal, gas or nuclear plant just vanishes at the end of it's productive life?
Solar panels do have a recyclable value after 30+ years of use anyway.

Daryl wrote:Moderation in all things.

Big Yes to moderation:
Reality Check: Not running out of oil/NG anytime in the next several centuries. Anyone saying otherwise is blatantly lying. Lying for other reasons.

So, is there a reason to get off hydrocarbons/Nuclear? Certainly not for economical reasons for the vast majority of the world as they are still waiting on consistent electricity and highly variable extremely expensive sources are NOT their friend. Is life better without hydrocarbons? No. Without Hydrocarbon based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, Food output around the world drops by a factor of 2-->4. That = mass starvation. IF costs of the above products skyrocket due to skyrocketing energy prices, starvation ensues as well.

So, overriding reality is: civilization is based on the cost of energy. Decrease the cost of energy and everyone lives cleaner better longer lives. Lower energy cost allows one to dump far higher %%% into R&D to further lower cost energy and better lives. Currently, dumping $$$ into higher cost energy making everyones lives harder to live. And said high cost energy only "works" by an aborted term of "works", in these areas: https://zeihan.com/disunited-nations-maps/ The map is labeled Global wind and Solar. Not the other demographics etc. By works: I mean pays for itself at high prices, without ever paying for any variability costs when wind/sun do not blow/shine. Of course this does not come even close to the cost of energy if one has to make all the products made from oil/ng from electricity. Cost of those products will go up by a factor of 5X-->10X or so as increasing energy density in chemical based products is extremely inefficient. And no, unless we are going to "green the entire Sahara/Australia/Central Asia into Methanol/Ethanol based plant matter no one has a hope of reaching a cheaper organic based solution. Only countries which have a hope of actually going "renewable" are Australia, USA, maybe Argentina, S. Africa and Europe due to N. Sea. Wind turbines on 1km spacing(current spacing requirements for wind fill in to next wind turbine) and assume each is 10MW on 50% capacity Factor, that is a gobsmacking number required. Germany alone would need ~100GW / 50% CF = 20,000 10MW machines(prototypes being built) would need an area equal to that of Belgium of the BEST wind sites on earth. How big is the north Sea again? Maybe Poland/Russia/Estonia/Romania,Belgium, Sweden, Norway, France etc would want some of that sweet sweet wind spots giving 50% CF on nice shallow seas? How many such spots are there? Very Few.

Now add fact that you do not want all of your eggs friend in a single basket and you wish to vary your energy source and well, Europe is screwed during a winter high when the wind does not blow for 2 weeks straight. This gets back to the obvious, even IF everyone built 200% or Hell, lets be generous(400%)capacity of wind turbines, HOW, WHAT, WHERE do you store this energy? Only true viable option is say, H2, or CH4 in gigantic Salt dome underground storage facilities. Of course then you have to burn it or fuel cells which is both/either highly inefficient or horrifically expensive. I know the USA has gigantic salt domes with enough storage for ~20% of our annual CH4 use, but do they occur in the rest of the world? I don't think so as I am pretty sure, the USA stores CH4 for Canada even though they have a giant country. I know said Salt domes only exist in very few regions of the USA, so... Not exactly a universal storage medium for everyone. I would assume that most regions of the world do have them somewhere.

PS: Coal/Nuclear etc plants recyclable: Yes. 100% Yes. Steel, concrete 100% recyclable.

PPS: Smelters foundaries which have to vary output = higher cost output, MUCH higher output. Sitting doing nothing does not return investment.

PPPS: HVDC lines will help some, but no, running your entire grids power 2000 km from another country which can turn off said power to you anytime THEY want to, is not conducive to peace.

PPPPS: Everyone on earth has Thorium. The Thorium supply is so vast that if everyone on earth used energy like the developed world we would still be swimming in Thorium/Uranium millions of years from now. We have breeder reactors: Use them. True, need Uranium 235 to start the reaction and only a few countries have it, but once started everyone can run off domestic Thorium/Uranium... True, needs a little chemistry work to figure out how to bleed off some of the poisons for continuous operation in a liquid salt environment. Why liquid salt? Allows 1500C temps driving far superior efficiency than lousy water based systems

AND yes, I have solar thermal on my rooftop as the sun does not shine in the winter for 3 straight months--> when it is coldest. AND NO, very few people live in the desert and even fewer actually want to live in the desert so they can get sun in the winter.

Every country is different. Here the cheapest electricity comes from solar, at about 3 cents a unit. Wind is 4 cents, while coal is 8 cents.
As I said, hard headed business people are building solar farms next to foundries and smelters. When the sun don't shine they still get some power from the panels and the rest from the grid. However when the sun shines they export surplus power to the grid.
Our big shopping malls are covering their roofs with panels, to be completely energy self sufficient, plus make money.
Digging up coal to get hydrocarbons to make plastics doesn't upset the carbon cycle as it is still locked up.
Overpopulation is the biggest problem. One way to partially counteract that is to have more efficient equipment. LED lighting instead of incandescent, fuel efficient vehicles, insulated houses, and such.