Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:29 pm Post subject: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
Actually humanity faces much bigger problems than climate control. The massive problem facing the world in the not so distant future will be that of peak oil as we are rapidly running out of ALL fossil fuels as well as uranium, food and water.
And in the long run, global warming may be good for us. You see, we wont have much fuel to heat our homes, so at least we wont freeze to death as much in a warmer climate.
Have you ever thought about how much your homes are dependent on natural gas for cooking, heating and hot water? Well, we will run out of natural gas in the next few decades, just after have we depleted our crude supplies.
I'm sorry for the polar bears and the penguins, but this is how mankind operates by living outside of natures intended means. All our actions have consequences, and many of our actions produce consequences that end up destroying peace. They destroy our peace as well as the inner peace of others.
Why don't we do anything about global warming...because we can't.
To do anything substantive would cause a financial and population backlash of unimaginable proportions.
And what we could do, even with drastic measures, would not cure global warming but only slow things down.
In addition, there is no one global entity to control all the green house gas emitters. China and India (CHINDIA) plan on adding more dirty coal burning electric plants to feed their burgeoning economies.
Yes, we have Kyoto, but...the largest polluters of green house gasses have exempted themselves from it.
"As of June 2007, a total of 172 countries and other governmental entities have ratified the agreement (representing over 61.6% of emissions from Annex I countries). Notable exceptions include the United States and Australia. Other countries, like CHINDIA, which have ratified the protocol, are not required to reduce carbon emissions under the present agreement."
We can't start wars over green house gas like we do oil...even then we would have to go to war right here at home before we point fingers at other countries.
As far as foreign wars, many of these newly rich nations seem to be in a war of sorts to see who can build the biggest and the tallest. Well, the bigger the building is the more energy it takes to power it and the more green house gas is given off to pay for the ego behind the monstrosity.
Thoreau once said when people invited him to dinner they 'put their pride' in how fancy and expensive a meal they could make. Whereas he put his pride in how simple and inexpensive a meal he could make.
Where do we put our pride?
We surely don't put it in living within our means and in balance with nature.
In the US, 93.2% of our electric comes from non renewable, greenhouse gas producing methods.
If we are looking to hydroelectric and renewable sources, 4.46% of our electric comes from hydroelectric and 2.34% comes from renewable energy production.
Out of this 2.34% of renewable sources, an undisclosed portion still contributes to global warming despite its prestige of being a 'renewable energy source' as it involves the burning of wood, black liquor, wood waste, municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, tires, agriculture byproducts and biomass.
Only a fraction of the 2.34% of renewable electric energy that is produced comes from geothermal, solar thermal, photovoltaic energy, and wind.
Lets say we decided to turn off the coal fired plants for 25% of a 24 hour day to save some fossil fuel.
Saving 25% seems to be a modest proposal.
So they shut the coal fired plants down for 6 hours during peak daytime operation.
And lets say we don't care that all the frozen food in the markets will thaw out and the refrigerated foods will spoil.
And lets say the workforce will sacrifice their jobs for the 6 hours every day while the electric is shut off.
And we put up with the gridlock and accidents from not having traffic lights and the doctors and hospitals all shut down.
And people just hold their noses over the backed up sewage that cannot be processed when the electric is off.
The real problem with trying to implement even a modest 25% fossil fuel saving plan is this - it just can't be done.
Coal fired plants are not of the nature to be turned off and turned on with the flip of a switch.
If a coal fired plant was turned off and completely cooled down it would take many days to bring it back online. If a coal powered plant was shut down even for 6 hours, it would take between 12 hours to bring it back to operational capacity.
In addition, when the plant is started back up, all the fossil fuel that is consumed in the startup does not make electric, it just goes to bring things back up to speed. And during startup, the plant operates at lower temperature and produces more pollution at those lower temperatures. And if that is not enough, startups of that magnitude send out power surges that destroy transformers and cause grid problems.
Well, if saving 25% from the coal plants does not seem feasible, what about going to the American public?
Can we cut back on GNP by 25%?
Cut back on utility use at home by 25%
Cut back on driving by 25%?
Cut back on consumption whether it be food or hard goods by 25%?
Cut back on interstate trucking by 25%?
And cut back in all related areas that use energy by 25%?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
The 'public' gets their underpants in a bind when the GNP declines at all...even when it is still in the positive numbers.
They start a panic in the stock market when the GNP is +1%, so how can it survive a -25% GNP drop?.
And as for cutting back on our demands...well it goes against the American dream.
And even if America decided to cut back 25%, that is only a drop in the bucket, as the rest of the world is ever increasing their demands on the environment and would soon make up for such a small decrease in greenhouse gas and fossil fuel depletion.
Are you starting to see the folly of thinking mankind can stop global warming, when mankind is built on such a ludicrous foundation?
There is no 'simple or easy answer' to this issue nor is there even a 'not so simple and hard answer' to our dilemma.
The world is in a death spiral. It is just how we have built our world over the years.
It would be one thing if we all reverted back to rural living, burning trees for fuel and housing and living within our comfortable means allotted to us by nature, as our ancestors did back in the day. But seven billion people can't burn the trees!
The World Coal Institute estimates world energy reserves as follows:
"At current production levels coal will be available for at least the next 155 years compared to 41 years for oil and 65 years for gas." (See footnote #1)
Even though this was written a few years ago and it is based on 'current production and consumption' it gives the same haunting message to the generations to come.
We may not see the end of our free flowing energy as we know it - but some of our descendants will in the not so distant future. This is the legacy they will inherit from us.
Mankind is just a little 'too smart' for his environment and learned to live beyond natures intended means. But mankind does not seem 'smart enough' to fix the mess that it has created.
Yes, mankind has done great things over their reign on earth, but we must always remember nature does not bow to us..in the end we all bow to nature.
Our population has grown to levels where it has passed the point of no return for supporting a sustainable human population as we know it today.
And leading the pack of over consumers is the USA.
Consumption is ingrained in us and we know no other way.
And even if we wished to amend our ways, how could all our retirement funds take the hit? America is built on borrowed money, spending and consumerism.
And what does all that consumerism lead to?
It leads to the mess we are in now and the bigger mess the world will be in once CHINDIA picks up momentum to copycat the envious lifestyle that they have held in high esteem as the 'American Dream'
The worlds population is out of control.
The problem is not with the earth not having enough land for all its people - the problem is with earth providing ad infinitum for all the needs the people crave.
Our planet is overpopulated in terms of what the planet can sustainably support. The more people born, the more heat is produced from their life and all their cravings, As such, the warmer and more polluted the earth gets and the more energy they all use and the earths resources are depleted.
While I cannot deny the wisdom of promoting life as many religions profess and personal freedom the USA is built on, sometime we must accept the lesser of two evils if promoting life turns into being more destructive to life than 'not promoting' it.
It then becomes a decision whether to choose between the 'greater good for the whole' or the 'greater personal right for the individual'... and the whole be damned. (Whole meaning entire human population of our planet.)
For instance, on a farm if the plants are planted packed like sardines (or 'packed like sushi' as they say in Japan) the plants do not flourish.
In nature, trees that are overcrowded weed themselves out by nature's decree. But if man forced the trees to not weed out and forces crowding the trees may die from disease due to a forced and unsustainable growth plan.
So it goes with how our planet is evolving...a sad but exactly true statement.
Fueling the problem of consumption is the games the Federal and World banks play with interest rates. They manage the economies in ways to fuel consumption and mask the real trend. Witness the recent cries for Federal bankers to lower interest rates...so the stock market can go up...fueled by spending of the consumer.
It is drug habit that Greenspan got us hooked on and we just can't get away from.
Our economy is not based on sustainable health - it is based low interest credit to encourage compulsive spending, debt and living a life of constant consumption with a 'disposable mentality' when it comes to durable goods.
Lets look at CHINDIA, two up and coming giants. Are they built on the compulsive spending habits of their people to foster a healthy economy? No, they are built on producing products and services and selling them to the USA and the world. Sure, their home consumption is a factor, but it is not the main factor as it is with the USA. The US GDP is based 70% on consumer spending.
The USA is built on consumer consumption to artificially fuel our economy to make our retirement funds only go up. All this worldwide consumption contributes to more and more global warming and the depletion of our natural resources. Then the governments juggle the numbers to make the inflation figures seem artificially low, so everyone's retirement portfolio will make them happy so they will continue to buy and consume more...and on it goes....IT IS ALL WE KNOW
You see, no other animal destroys its environment except mankind. We are the only ones that do not accept and live within our comfortable means. We not only debt with our finances we debt with our environment. What we are borrowing in terms of petroleum, coal and natural gas takes millions of years for nature to make. Yet we are using it all up in just a couple hundred years...we can never pay it back.
The scary thing is CHINDIA is just starting to bloom with their demands for fossil fuels We haven't seen anything yet with the meteoric rise of gas, energy and over consumption.
In China the per capita car ownership rate is 40 car owners per 1000 persons. In India it is much lower, running 8 cars per 1000 people. As these two giants evolve more of their population will want cars...in India, they are making a $2500 car as well.
But what can one say about the problem unless people just cut back reproducing?
Everyone has a desire to have some sex stimulation and through that stimulation comes more and more people. And everyone has a desire to keep warm when it is cold or to keep cool in the heat or move about the earth and wear clothes. And it is from all those desires that global warming fueled through the expenditure of fossil fuels takes place.
But the sad reality is even if people cut back having babies, we are only delaying the inevitable and that alone will not fix the problem. It can be compared to men stuck underwater in a crippled submarine. The more they move around, the quicker they run out of air and die. The less they move, the longer they can live...but the end result is the same.
Now maybe some genius will come up with a replacement for petroleum, natural gas and coal to meet all out needs. But it is unrealistic to think we can grow enough corn to fuel all the trucks, airlines, cargo ships, cars and other needs we humans have in addition run all the power plants and factories, heat and cool our homes.
From this list we can see that we are still massively depend on crude for our non sustainable lifestyle even if the world stopped burning fossil fuels this instant. There is no replacement for crude...crude is in the details of our life.
A partial list of products made from Petroleum. One 42-gallon barrel of oil creates 19.4 gallons of gasoline. The rest (over half) is used for petrochemical needs to make things like:
What is in store for us in the not so distant future?
Without energy our country is open for takeover ... no jets...no tanks...no transport on the ground or in the air. Luckily we will still have nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers as long as the uranium holds out. But the jets on the flattop all use jet fuel. All the supplies for those subs and carriers petroleum dependent. So long before the crude dries up the government must 'secure a supply' of crude for it own needs.
Other countries such as Russia that have a good supply of crude may not be so kind to keep on selling it to us and we need a 'local and continual' source somewhat within our borders. You see, jet fuel as well as gasoline deteriorates and cannot be stored indefinitely. So we must always be producing some of it to replace the stale stuff to supply the military. But, that's why we elect politicians to deal with these troubles
As our world changes and our drug supply dries up, things will only get worse. And the bigger the city - the bigger the hellhole it will become. And this time RIGHT NOW is the defining moment as to whether most of our population will die off or not in the crisis that awaits us in the not so distant future.
When it comes to the future, I see people living in miniature houses (the lucky ones that survive that is, after all most of the population died off long ago from starvation, freezing to death or from the riots) with roofs shingled completely with solar material.
They drive up to their house on an electric scooter that is recharged from their solar roof. If they are higher up the totem pole they may have a solar golf cart. But in either case, luck must still be on their side for without the sun shinning to charge it, their transportation sits idle. (Not much lead left to build big batteries...China gobbled it all up, so we have to make due with very small storage cells.)
They work for the government and in exchange the government feeds and clothes them from their warehouses. You see, we have become a sort of 'Communist Democracy' for without that bold leap and a desire 'to put our country first' Russia or China would have stepped in to acquire some new real estate.
The warehouses are fed from government owned coal fired steam locomotives. Diesel dried up long ago, so it was either wood or coal to fuel the trains. It did not take our government long to realize this. the electric plants only had to shut down sporadically for 8 months so until they could build the first of a large fleet of steam locomotives.
This was a 'slight' government oversight. They never figured that the coal fired power plants were fed with 'diesel powered' locomotives. They kept concentrated on the prediction that we had a hundred of years of coal left, but were oblivious as to how that coal is delivered to the power plant. But all these changes have some bright spots in them. As the coal producers were able to hire many more workers to manually mine coal, as the diesel powered mining equipment sit idle from lack of diesel fuel.
Now some of the states or bigger cities had the foresight to build one or two electric rail trolleys for public transport. Your only problem is getting to the main road to catch the trolley and then it is a straight ride to the government warehouse.
What happened to Private industry & Money?
Money is nothing more than stored energy. But since the crude dried up, the 'real energy' behind the money has vanished...and so did private industry. What about the coal mines...all government owned. If you want to eat you work..it is that simple.
So, what is money good for nowadays...to wipe your ass?
Not really, the government supplied toilet paper works better than that.
Martha Stewart syndrome died out long ago, now people are happy to eat rice and beans and get a clean glass of water to drink.
After all, the government can't afford to fool around decorating everyone's house, they can hardly produce enough food to keep a fraction of the population alive. Yes, tractors, reapers and farming is very crude intensive...but no one bothered to think about that as they continued to squander the worlds petroleum resources.
On a positive note, since most of the population died off from 'natural causes', the government does not have to worry about passing 'population control' any longer. They tried to get that universally opposed program passed for many years, but the public just would not go for it...too UN-American...goes against our religious upbringings...too controversial and all of the rest. We can still hear the cries now...Communist!...Atheist!...Baby Killer....Hitler....Impeach the President!!!!
Such objections are only subjective and prejudicial states of mind. As such, all problems related to 'controversial subjects' such as this are problems created in the mind...the mind of ego based, prejudicial man. If you find yourself being distracted with such thoughts as 'too controversial' just ask yourself if the proposed controversy is true, false or I don't know?
This introspective method may help you become truth based and not ego based. You will have made a 'choice divorced of need'...you wont 'need your ego' to support the truth...the truth will be able to stand on its own.
But nature helped us humans out with that hard decision - for nature does not discriminate nor find the truth too controversial or provocative or opinionated to be true. And in the end, nature settled the dispute of population control with even handed justice of 75% of our population dying off, ever reminding us all that nature does not bow to man...it is always man that bows to nature.
But, people hold no grudges against nature and are more in harmony with nature and enjoy a simpler life nowadays. People pick pine needles from trees to make their tea, since there is no jet fuel to import any Darjeeling tea or coffee. Once in a while people are able to kill a bird, a rat or cat to supplement their diet - so we still can find a place of gratitude in our life for such gifts.
Of course one problem still haunts the world?
The last remaining buckets of crude will soon be gone and they have still not found out how to make the tires for the solar powered golf carts and scooters without that critical ingredient of crude oil?
Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1743 Location: kiwibush
Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:53 pm Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
I'm a marxist. We knew this crap was coming down the line yonks ago....why do you think we stand for discipline, order, community and an economy based on needs....and China is not communist. Mao was a flake and loser...western obesessed sycophant from the word go.
The rats need a firm stick...let them loose and this is what you get. _________________ Bugger me, I hear oil's runnin out mate!
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:04 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
vfr wrote:
People pick pine needles from trees to make their tea, since there is no jet fuel to import any Darjeeling tea or coffee. Once in a while people are able to kill a bird, a rat or cat to supplement their diet - so we still can find a place of gratitude in our life for such gifts.
Mmmm, pine needle tea and fried starling with a side of rat!
Unfortunately, I think the globular warmings is just another demonstration of mass social control. I caught myself buying Al Gore's power point presentation hook line and sinker. I have since come to believe global warming means carbon taxes, carbon credits, pushing inefficient "green" technologies on third world countries for profit among other things.
Here's a 5 minute teaser for you but the whole flick is worth watching, especially the last 45 minutes or so...
Global Warming or Global Governance?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMn-MOmH2uQ
Unless you take it upon yourself to "live as one with nature", providing you can actually find somewhere to do that, it will be a very long time before the matrix crumbles into non existence. In the meantime nothing brings you back to reality better than getting out there and doing some serious wilderness camping. The gratitude you will find cannot be put into words.
It's funny you bring up population control since this seems to be very much entwined with global warming and the push for "renewable" fuels. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happens to food prices when you turn all your corn into a fill up for your car.
The CIA has known about peak oil for many many years, you can bet your government knows the score and to think they don't have a plan to deal with it is being naive.
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:49 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
Quote:
You see, we wont have much fuel to heat our homes, so at least we wont freeze to death as much in a warmer climate.
Or, you know, do what mankind has always done when it became uncomfortable to live somewhere: move to someplace nicer. Not enough lumber in Europe to live comfortably? Move to America. Too cold up north? Move south. Navada is the fastest growing state in the union, afterall.
Quote:
Mankind is just a little 'too smart' for his environment and learned to live beyond natures intended means.
Wow, personified nature evidently intended us to live a certain way. Odd, and here I thought nature was an intangible concept.
Look, you obviously enjoy your beliefs but as best I can see there is no evidence that mankind as a whole is doing a bad job at managing the planet. The industrialized world, which is the goal of all nations, protects vast forest land and is far less polluted today than any other time we have data for. Acid rain is all but eliminated, smog is no longer a year round companion, and by any measure our water ways are cleaner than they have been (New York's East River is cleaner today than it was in the 18th century when the tanning industry took off).
Quote:
We may not see the end of our free flowing energy as we know it - but some of our descendants will in the not so distant future. This is the legacy they will inherit from us.
just as we inherited a world depleted by our ancestors. But you don't see us complaining because by every measure our capabilities exceed theirs. No matter how hard we want to, there will always be oil fields too deep for us to claim, but perfectly reachable for them.
there was a twilight zone episode about this; some guy sold his soul to the devil in the mid-1950s to travel back in time to the 1920s where he bought oil-rich land from some lady cheap, only to discover that the technology to reach it would not be available until the late-1940s.
Last edited by LoneSnark on Tue Jan 01, 2008 3:09 am; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:55 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
If I call VFR a dumbass,does that make me a bad person? _________________ "Switzerland is small and neutral.We need to be more like Germany,ambitious and misunderstood!" Futurama
"As for the dieoff of 5E+09 people - not a problem, so long as I'm not one of them." Jack
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 3:19 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
BastardSquad wrote:
If I call VFR a dumbass,does that make me a bad person?
No not at all. It just means you have your opinion based on the world as you know it and your belief system.
It does not make you right / wrong / better or worse.
But if you really think that of vfr then I think you are an idiot. Not that it matters, in the long run we'll all be dead. _________________ "Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
-Italian Proverb
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 2965 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 4:30 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
Not going to hash all of this out, here's just one.
LoneSnark wrote:
The industrialized world, which is the goal of all nations, protects vast forest land and is far less polluted today than any other time we have data for.
By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 04/07/2007
Quote:
Pollution kills three quarters of a million people in China every year, according to previously unreleased World Bank statistics.
The figures, almost twice previous estimates, were calculated using a new statistical model. But they have been suppressed until now because the government feared they would cause social unrest, according to reports.
World Bank figures said China had 16 of the 20 most polluted cities on earth.
You are free to not consider China part of the industrialized world, of course. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
I'm just gonna find a cash machine.
Joined: Nov 24, 2007 Posts: 112 Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:40 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
TheDude wrote:
You are free to not consider China part of the industrialized world, of course.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Sure, our first-world countries might be cleaner (at least on first examination - the farming industry has only gotten worse for example), but because we are making more stuff globally than we ever used to, and a lot of the stuff is now using chemicals and toxic materials that didn't event exist back then, the problem has gotten far far worse in some areas.
Where once a town in China was simple subsistence agriculture, they now have a dump full of 1st-world e-waste that they can scavenge through. But at least New York is now cleaner than it was 50 years ago...
Joined: Aug 24, 2005 Posts: 298 Location: Costa Geriatrica, Spain
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:45 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
Dry wrote:
Big picture we are really just in the time between ice ages "global warming" will not change this.
It has already been proposed, in an article published in Scientific American, (sorry don't have the link) that human intervention over the last 8000 years has already delayed the start of the next glacial period.
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:10 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
our first world countries are cleaner because we outsources all our factories to china and india....
global warming isn't a good thing any way you cut it. the whole stint about natural gas etc is only due to our poor resource fueled desicions. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think humans should be living that far north. Sure there have been people there for a very long time, but a very small amount who had cut out a very specific niche. The natural gas used to heat our homes is nothing anyway... 3 million homes worth of heating natural gas is used up in the Alberta tar sands every day.
Joined: Aug 23, 2007 Posts: 52 Location: SE Michigan
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:50 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
Opies wrote:
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think humans should be living that far north. Sure there have been people there for a very long time, but a very small amount who had cut out a very specific niche.
Then where should people be living in the US? The desert regions won't do. The SE is running out of water due to drought and must consume vast amounts of energy in the summer for air conditioning to keep from getting heat stroke. The Great Plains have water problems too. Southern California is a death trap due to water scarcity. The Gulf Coast is a swamp or another Katrina waiting to happen. Everyone wants to take on so much risk to live where it is unbearably hot for half the year so they won't have to wear a parka when it is cold.
I'll take my chances with a good sleeping bag and three reasonable seasons with access to plentiful fresh water and arable land. I don't see why people can't heat one sleeping room with nuclear based electricity in the Great Lakes or the Ohio River Valley Regions, for example? Besides, someone has to hang out and grow food in these areas and enjoy the whites caps of the fresh water seas in July when others around the country are hiding from 110 degree heat indexes for months on end.
Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 6:54 am Post subject: Re: In the long run, global warming may be good for us
Quote:
Or, you know, do what mankind has always done when it became uncomfortable to live somewhere: move to someplace nicer. Not enough lumber in Europe to live comfortably? Move to America. Too cold up north? Move south. Navada is the fastest growing state in the union, afterall.
So why don't you just invite all those poor folks in Africa and the Middle East to move to the United States? I hear Nevada's pretty nice, despite the fact that aquifier levels have fallen 300 feet since the beginning of last century and the earth is actually cracking as the land sinks. And where are people to go when there is no place else to go?
Quote:
The industrialized world, which is the goal of all nations, protects vast forest land and is far less polluted today than any other time we have data for. Acid rain is all but eliminated, smog is no longer a year round companion, and by any measure our water ways are cleaner than they have been (New York's East River is cleaner today than it was in the 18th century when the tanning industry took off).
The United States doesn't make anything anymore. Manufacturing has moved elsewhere. TheDude already addressed pollution in China. I would only like to add that in Hong Kong, companies are actually selling pollution insurance. Also, pollution in China doesn't just stay there. It fouls the world's oceans and enters the food chain. Carbon and particulates exit the power plants and affect the climate globally.
Quote:
just as we inherited a world depleted by our ancestors. But you don't see us complaining because by every measure our capabilities exceed theirs. No matter how hard we want to, there will always be oil fields too deep for us to claim, but perfectly reachable for them.
The rate of depletion of natural resources during our time on the planet has been far greater than at any time in the history of mankind. For some resources, such as many species of fish, breeding stocks may have been depleted so far as to prohibit their recovery.
Quote:
No matter how hard we want to, there will always be oil fields too deep for us to claim, but perfectly reachable for them.
1) No, there won't always be oil fields. Oil is a finite resource.
2) There are limits to how deep we can go. Oil is formed through catagenisis of kerogen, fossilized algae and zooplankton. Catagenisis only happens at a certain temperature range that occurs at certain depths of the earth's crust depending on the composition of the rock above it. If the temperature is too high, e.g. if the source rock is too deep, the kerogen is converted into natural gas. If the kerogen is at the right depth, the oil and associated gas then migrate through porous rock into a reservoir with a nonpermeable cap rock. If those geologic conditions are not meant, then there's no oil reservoir. Drill too deep and you've got bupkis.
You can't just go to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and drill a hole and expect oil to come out.
3) You run into a wall called Energy Returned on Energy Invested. Moving anything from point A to point B requires energy. Moving oil from point A (30,000 feet beneath the earth's surface) to point B (the earth's surface) requires a lot of energy. If the energy that you spend to get the oil to the surface is equal to the amount of energy contained in the oil - let alone refine and transport it - the ERoEI is 1:1, there is no net energy and drilling becomes a futile enterprise. The ratio does not have to reach 1:1 for there to be significant problems. If you're extracting oil at say 3:1, what does that say about the amount of energy that you're putting into that field? How much money are you spending on that energy? How much would the oil that you are extracting have to cost to justify the expenditure in the field itself? What does that say about the price of oil on futures markets when such and enterprise becomes economically viable?
Quote:
there was a twilight zone episode about this; some guy sold his soul to the devil in the mid-1950s to travel back in time to the 1920s where he bought oil-rich land from some lady cheap, only to discover that the technology to reach it would not be available until the late-1940s.
What does "The Twilight Zone" have to do with reality?
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