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Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 17:50:22

pstarr wrote:If you stop wasting bandwidth and CO2 on pointless high-definition images that are a lazy excuse for lazy thinking. Do we have a deal"?


See, I already proved you wrong that you wouldn't just leave me on ignore and "let it go".
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:08:38

pstarr wrote:How will deep ocean-bottom methane mud (it only exists in a pressurized state at great depth) be dredged up to the surface without a) the methane ice depressurizing and bubbling away and b) throwing away precious petroleum energy in a net-energy losing enterprise? Still waiting. No pictures. No snark.


That's like asking someone in 1945 what will come after the vacuum tube before the invention of the transistor. It's easy to say "nothing will"...until someone comes up with an idea.

And why do I feel so vehement about this? Because the doomer party-line was that tar and shale was not going to happen, because it wasn't economical. Now, I understand that these things are underwater currently, but they weren't when they started, and when oil prices rebound, they will again be economical, therefore more drilling will happen. So my opinion is that the calculations that doomers present to prove that unconventional can't be EROEI positive are NOT to be trusted, because doomers have a vested interest in seeing that nothing forestalls doom. I think we'll wind up pretty much at the same resting-place you do, but I just see a few more twists and turns along the road. That's all.

Again, I will qualify this by saying that I will not say beyond a shadow of a doubt that any of these last ditch hydrocarbon recovery approaches will happen. But I don't think industry has felt desperate enough to try enough to be able to say, at present, that it can't work. And there are is a LOT of methane hydrates out there, so if it were actually proven to work, it could be a game-changer.

First google search:

http://geology.com/articles/methane-hydrates/

"The world's largest natural gas resource"

I'm not saying this in order to "root" for this activity, though. It's pretty sad and pathetic that it's come to this. I am just extrapolating what industry will likely do as we continue to move in a brown-tech direction, which we are. What is unlikely is they will throw up their hands and give up. If both of us would leave more breathing room in this thread I'm sure a few people would chime in to agree with my viewpoint.

So please do not assume that everyone shares your sense of certainty in your pessimism.
"If the oil price crosses above the Etp maximum oil price curve within the next month, I will leave the forum." --SumYunGai (9/21/2016)
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby MonteQuest » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:12:20

pstarr wrote:You have to excuse me Monte, but I have been called an energy doomer by the likes of ennui and his betters many times. But I will not stop challenging Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency for the sake of your thread control. :x


It's ok. Not a problem. Just injecting some humor. 8)
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby MonteQuest » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:18:08

ennui2 wrote:Because the doomer party-line was that tar and shale was not going to happen, because it wasn't economical.


It wasn't. We went further into debt to do it.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:18:51

MonteQuest wrote:
ennui2 wrote:Because the doomer party-line was that tar and shale was not going to happen, because it wasn't economical.


It wasn't. We went further into debt to do it.


Because oil prices tanked. When oil prices are high enough, it's profitable.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:20:58

BTW, in order to steer some of these tangents off of this thread, here's a new thread on mining methane hydrates as I didn't see one floating around.

I'll keep my eye out for future development and we'll see how it goes. I would not expect a lot of movement on this until oil prices rebound, though.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby Shaved Monkey » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:22:27

But when oil prices are high enough it kills demand and economic growth.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby MonteQuest » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:22:37

ennui2 wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
ennui2 wrote:Because the doomer party-line was that tar and shale was not going to happen, because it wasn't economical.


It wasn't. We went further into debt to do it.


Because oil prices tanked. When oil prices are high enough, it's profitable.


That's what they kept telling the investors that lost their shirts. Red Queen Syndrome rules.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby shortonoil » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 18:48:30

"Few understand science and how the wondrous comforts we enjoy came from hard work and clear thinking."

The plague of a 2000 year old doctrine is still with us. "Reason must be subservient to faith." We have the wondrous Saint Augustine to thank for that! As the present system fails, and the masses revert, the quintessential hope of past millennium will return. Faith will rule. After that; the Witch Trials begin!
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby ennui2 » Sun 24 Jan 2016, 20:43:23

Shaved Monkey wrote:But when oil prices are high enough it kills demand and economic growth.


This is turning into a Who's on First sketch. I've already said that the level in which oil kills the economy is high enough to support fracking. I know I'm not going to convince anyone. We'll see this play out eventually and find out where the breaking point is. Until then nobody really knows for sure.

I mean, 10 years ago people were flipping their lids over $60 oil. These breaking-point figures are all manufactured wish-casting.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby Simon_R » Mon 25 Jan 2016, 09:26:47

I would say that the US is not energy illiterate, we all are. This is a necessary result of specialization in our complex society. To say third world people know more about there energy is only because they have very simple generators (a diesel Genny - and how many know in detail they whys and wherefores of that).

As for the clathrates issue. Would it be fair to say

There is an energy resource which is currently ridiculously expensive to get (as we know about it, we must have got some of it, so it can be got)

the only question is when the benefits outweigh the costs, will the extraction technology be scalable.

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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby shortonoil » Mon 25 Jan 2016, 10:31:53

"I believe in the marriage of fission reactors with offshore oil exploration. Then you can throw that EROEI garbage out the window."

While we are at it why don't we throw out Newtonian Mechanics, and Maxwell's Laws of electro-magnitism? We don't need no "stink'en science" we've got a whole lot of illiterate opinion! Let's just ditch the last three centuries of scientific advancement, and go back to pounding the rocks together. We'll let the account executives, and telephone sanitizers run the world.
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Re: Energy Illiteracy & Low Cost Oil Complacency

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 25 Jan 2016, 11:02:28

Simon_R wrote:I would say that the US is not energy illiterate, we all are. This is a necessary result of specialization in our complex society. To say third world people know more about there energy is only because they have very simple generators (a diesel Genny - and how many know in detail they whys and wherefores of that).

As for the clathrates issue. Would it be fair to say

There is an energy resource which is currently ridiculously expensive to get (as we know about it, we must have got some of it, so it can be got)

the only question is when the benefits outweigh the costs, will the extraction technology be scalable.

Simon


Clathrates are a catch 22 situation. They are not free flowing like oil and gas, they are a solid like coal. Several different methods have been tested to melt them into water with methane in it, but in all the cases I know of (heating, depressurizing, using a solvent) they cost more energy to collect than they give off when burned. Maybe someone will develop a new technique and make them energy positive, but so far it has not happened.
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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