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pigleg
Tar Sands
Joined: Feb 17, 2006
Posts: 71
Location: Toronto, Canada
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 Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:25 am Post subject: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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I've heard the same theory would apply to depletion of any non-renewable resource. Does anyone know of any analysis on that?
Found a couple of mentions:
one
two
I don't think any of the metals are as essential as oil, so 'peak silver' isn't really as scary, but still interesting and maybe peaks have already occurred?
Traditional economists are waiting for the next recession and expecting the commodities to fall, but the ones at peak presumably would surprise and go higher despite the slowdown?
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SoothSayer
Light Sweet Crude
Joined: Mar 02, 2006
Posts: 1198
Location: England
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:32 am Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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Peak Helium ....
Helium is used in body scanners etc ... and is becoming more scarce. |
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DoctorDoom
Heavy Crude
Joined: Jun 20, 2004
Posts: 250
Location: California
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:24 am Post subject: Energy is the bottom line |
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| Peaks in most other resources could be ameliorated with enough energy. For instance, you can get helium out of the air - if you have enough energy to extract it. A lot of materials, especially metals, can be recycled (again, with expenditure of energy). Even things like water could be obtained if you have the energy to produce it. |
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pigleg
Tar Sands
Joined: Feb 17, 2006
Posts: 71
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 1:10 pm Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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It would be great to have more examples of the peak theory in action, it might add even more weight to PO.
Also, we could see what happened, did the price go to the moon? Did technology save the day? Will demand fall off?
Hey yes, looks like it was 1997 for world helium:
Found -
Helium Supply/Demand
Helium use
Looks like certain helium applications have fallen off drastically. The price hasn't shot up so much, but there're still stockpiles?
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UIUCstudent01
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Posts: 894
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| Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:30 pm Post subject: Re: Energy is the bottom line |
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| DoctorDoom wrote: | | Peaks in most other resources could be ameliorated with enough energy. For instance, you can get helium out of the air - if you have enough energy to extract it. A lot of materials, especially metals, can be recycled (again, with expenditure of energy). Even things like water could be obtained if you have the energy to produce it. |
Same thing with oil...
Put a nuclear plant next to a bunch of tar sands, add water, and you get a bunch of oil!
Or, get a bunch of waste ranging from food scraps to grass clippings to leaves, and then heat and pressurize them into oil!
Energy is powerful. Conventional oil is one of the easiest sources of energy to extract and use.
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pigleg
Tar Sands
Joined: Feb 17, 2006
Posts: 71
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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Hey, here's a new one: Peak oil and peak gold
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WebHubbleTelescope
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Jul 08, 2004
Posts: 911
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| Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:37 pm Post subject: Re: Energy is the bottom line |
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| DoctorDoom wrote: | | Peaks in most other resources could be ameliorated with enough energy. For instance, you can get helium out of the air - if you have enough energy to extract it. A lot of materials, especially metals, can be recycled (again, with expenditure of energy). Even things like water could be obtained if you have the energy to produce it. |
You can't get it out of air, unless you go to the top of the troposphere.
Like you said, since most metals get recycled, the effect is one of greater price volatility in the inelastic regime. Read this:
http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2006/04/volatility.html |
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UIUCstudent01
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Mar 10, 2005
Posts: 894
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EnergySpin
Fission
Joined: Jun 25, 2005
Posts: 2381
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| Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 2:12 pm Post subject: Re: Energy is the bottom line |
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| WebHubbleTelescope wrote: |
You can't get it out of air, unless you go to the top of the troposphere.
l |
You might want to recheck your history of Science notes.
Carl Von der Linde invented air liquefaction back in the 90s (the 1890s) and his discovery was instrumental in Ramsay's work on the noble gases Neon, Crypton and Xenon.
Simultaneously Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (discoverer of superconductivity) invented his version of the air liquefactor in 1892 (he used the Thompson Joule effect)... and used his cryogenic lab to isolate liquid Helium to purity from air (10th of July of 1908), a discovery that won him the Nobel prize (1913).
The NG is a much more concentrated source of He (7% for the US) that's why we use it. However the industrial processes for obtaining He from air are well understood (Source) and the only reason we are not doing it is cost.
By the way (and this is not directed against WHT) I'm tired of all the doomer crap that we are running out of everything from oil and NG (which we do) to Helium and uranium/metals (which we are not) and from manure/soil to "human ingenuity", ideas which seem to be popular every 30 years or so.
Let's see what Oak Ridge wrote about Helium and Uranium more than 30 years ago at PNAS:
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=389691&pageindex=1#page
(by the way that optimistic view was rather pessimistic in terms of the phosphoric rocks since we (west) are usign the same amount of (P) that we did 30 years ago
(Source)
By the way there seems to be a PeakAnything doomer faction that predicts resource wars between the US and Morocco over the phoshoric rocks , so enjoy the war scenario:
| Quote: |
The scary part is that there is only 40-60 years left for Phosphorus in the United States. ...
It looks like the only feasible way to prevent this inevitable problem without going to war with Morocco is organic farming ...
Invading Morocco will perhaps be the most viable option for our country in order to buy some time so that we can discover another way around this issue of scarcity
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source
Life After The Phosphorus Crash anyone?
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"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
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WebHubbleTelescope
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Jul 08, 2004
Posts: 911
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| Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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I don't know how we can in general run out of elemental materials as you describe. I do understand how we can run out of animal species through the gradual process known as extinction.
The element helium is a very special case. Since it is inert, it doesn't combine with anything else. And since it is lighter than everything but hydrogen it does escape into space as we use it up. No such thing as recycling helium as we can do with just about every other material.
You have to go through lots of air to pick out those helium molecules hanging around through diffusion as they make their journey up through the atmosphere.
I think it is rather important to consider this because of helium's important role in research and medicine. |
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EnergySpin
Fission
Joined: Jun 25, 2005
Posts: 2381
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| Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 9:02 am Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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| WebHubbleTelescope wrote: |
I think it is rather important to consider this because of helium's important role in research and medicine. |
I could not agree more .. (there were 7 MRI machines in the hospital I did my training at; lots of He to keep the superconducting material in the machines happy).
Therefore the plan put forward back in 72 (to conserve He) is as important today as it was back then. Prices will go up by at at least 50-100 times if we exhaust the resource and have to rely on atmospheric sources.
OTH it is important to consider the fact that for the most part (noble gases are an exception), no material leaves this planet. Therefore complete (over a very very long horizon) or partial recyclability (timescales compatible with our industrial processes) is possible.
If you have time read the paper from 1972 .... kind of explains why certain people (including me) are somewhat obscessed with industrial processes for the extraction and exploitation of metals from water. If (as Saito's research suggests) uranium (along wiht other metals) can be harvested at an EROEI of close to 80-90 (assuming closed fuel cycles), then the problem of "sustainability" is solved for the next few billenia 
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"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts. |
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WebHubbleTelescope
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Jul 08, 2004
Posts: 911
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:13 am Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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My experience has been with helium canisters and liquid nitrogen cylinders. Helium can leak through just about anything and I would always be careful to tighten those valves hard.
On the other hand, liquid nitrogen has to keep releasing through a pressure relief valve to keep the thing from exploding. Many a time we had LN2 cylinders stored for just a few days that go completely empty. I got pretty good at estimating full cylinders by rocking each one back and forth to pick the full one.
I mention liquid nitrogen because liquid natural gas probably has a lot of the same properties and I kind of believe we will waste tremendous amounts of the stuff via leakage. I thought that actually prevents us from transporting it too far a distance. |
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skeptic
Heavy Crude
Joined: Dec 20, 2005
Posts: 174
Location: Costa Geriatrica
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 3:42 am Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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| WebHubbleTelescope wrote: |
I mention liquid nitrogen because liquid natural gas probably has a lot of the same properties and I kind of believe we will waste tremendous amounts of the stuff via leakage. I thought that actually prevents us from transporting it too far a distance. |
Nah.. Obviously it makes sense to source from as close to home as possible, but LNG can be transported any distance. That does involve losses as a portion is deliberately allowed to boil off in order to power the refridgeration plant and the ships gas turbine engines. Japan is the biggest LNG importer and part of that comes from Qatar - quite some way!
http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/english/energy/lng/trends.html
The worst 'leaker' on the planet was the crap pipeline system in the former Soviet Union. Thats improved a lot though over the last 15 years. |
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WebHubbleTelescope
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Jul 08, 2004
Posts: 911
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 6:18 am Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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| skeptic wrote: | | WebHubbleTelescope wrote: |
I mention liquid nitrogen because liquid natural gas probably has a lot of the same properties and I kind of believe we will waste tremendous amounts of the stuff via leakage. I thought that actually prevents us from transporting it too far a distance. |
Nah.. Obviously it makes sense to source from as close to home as possible, but LNG can be transported any distance. That does involve losses as a portion is deliberately allowed to boil off in order to power the refridgeration plant and the ships gas turbine engines. Japan is the biggest LNG importer and part of that comes from Qatar - quite some way! |
Sheez. That is just what I said. What is a refrigeration plant? A compressor motor. What does it do? Keep it compressed. Why? So it doesn't boil off. |
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emailking
Intermediate Crude
Joined: Mar 11, 2006
Posts: 753
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| Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 6:53 am Post subject: Re: What about Hubberts peak in NOT oil? |
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| It's not being wasted is the point. It's being used to power the ship and keep the liquified gas cold. That energy has to come from somehwere. |
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