BP's "giant oil discovery"

[ueberooo]

Originally Posted By: fsskier
Exciting yes....... but perhaps a little less exciting when you realize that the US uses almost 20 million barrels a day of oil.

So, 450 million barrels of recoverable oil becomes a 24 day supply. The world uses 80+ million barrels a day, this makes the find a 6 day supply for the world.

The huge fields we used to find - Saudi Arabia for example - have delivered 10 million barrels a day, even after 50 years of pumping. Sadly, those fields are now in secondary recovery per oil guru Matt Simmons, energy analyst at Worldbank. Saudi Arabia is now injecting huge quantities of water into their fields in an attempt to force out the remaining oil, this is only done as the field begins to peter out.

The other thread was locked because someone chose to attach political labels to people like Mr. Simmons. The label was neither true, nor relevant.


Excellent point skier, I really agree with you. This is a very interesting question. So much of our future hinges on that, and considerations of these questions should be given when we reflect on how we personally and as a society chose the way we live. Way too important and intersting to be censored from discussion in any case.

 

[Samilcar]

Originally Posted By: fsskier
Exciting yes....... but perhaps a little less exciting when you realize that the US uses almost 20 million barrels a day of oil.


Keep in mind that U.S. oil usage peaked in 2005 and has been slowly declining since that time, with predictions of a continued decline in actual usage until at least 2020. Granted, emerging world economies (China, India) are more than making up for this decline in usage with their skyrocketing demand, but the fact that a mature economy like the U.S. can couple a slow growth rate with an actual decline in oil consumption gives a little window on the future. I believe that future oil discoveries will be able to more than meet future world oil demand.

 

[stumpypete]

I agree with Torino. This idea of biotic "dino" oil at 35,000 ft below the surface in such vast quantities defies common sense. Professor Thomas Gold years ago hit on the idea of abiotic oil being produced by heat and pressure from the earth. NASA's confirmation that the methane on Jupiter's moon Titan is abiotic lends further creedence to this theroy. We have been told for years we are running out of "dino" oil yet each year there are more discoveries like this. Could there really be that much organic matter to decompose into "kerogen" and then into vast underground oceans of petroleum at these great depths? Or is biotic " dino" oil the next universally accepted myth to fall right after "man made global warming"? Who's got the secret e-mails?

 

[fsskier]

Methane in the atmosphere is not a predictor of "abiotic" oil production, nor is the theory of abiotic oil widely accepted.

History is clear, our peak discoveries were in the 50's and 60's, since 1984 our world consumption has exceeded our discoveries. We are now using oil at 3 times the discovery rate, and the gap has been growing.

We have been successful at finding big buckets of oil, and advanced technology has now allowed us to find the remaining cupfuls of oil, then even better technology will allow us to find thimblefuls of oil..... but the trend has been clear.

http://www.planetforlife.com/oilcrisis/oilsituation.html

They also index official federal, international and corporate information if you wish different opinions, sadly they are all similar.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Indeed worldwide reserves are in decline. Discoveries such as those posted for BP are more for financial news (good news for BP), the trend of overall oil production decline will continue.

Fortunately we are reducing our use domestically and finding alternatives such as Natural Gas that may be our safety net as Oil production declines below our use. Eventually we will have to make the leap to a different technology than carbon energy if we want to maintain the energy consumption=quality of life parqadigm.

 

[Gary Allan]

Cheap oil allows us our complex and diverse society. Cheap oil and plenty of it. If we don't crack the energy nut, then plan on some seriously radical changes to all ways of life. You can't find enough uranium to run enough nukes ..nor build them in enough time to allow things to continue as they are.

"The Market" will not provide.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

No it will not. The Market and natural laws dictate we need to severely cut back in either consumption or population. If we don't then nature will cut our population to balance the equation.

 

[hardcore302]

So are we running out of oil or not?

 

[labman]

Originally Posted By: Gary Allan
Cheap oil allows us our complex and diverse society. Cheap oil and plenty of it. If we don't crack the energy nut, then plan on some seriously radical changes to all ways of life. You can't find enough uranium to run enough nukes ..nor build them in enough time to allow things to continue as they are.

"The Market" will not provide.


The plentiful, cheap oil era is ending. We need to quite kidding ourselves.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Originally Posted By: hardcore302
So are we running out of oil or not?


Demand worldwide is increasing. Existing reserves are in decline. New discoveries are not replacing the production of the old major reserves but are simply minimizing overall reserve loss.
On the other hand we have natural gas reserves domesticaly that can be exploited more effectively on the production and end user side(power plants, transportation and synthetic conversion to our liquid fuels system). It can fill the gap and buy us time until we use our collective intelect to eiter develop an energy source that can sustain us at our current and increasing energy consumption or to change our lifestyles and energy consumption and reduce our own polulatin to a sustainable level at a much lower energy output.

So yes we are running out of oil. Not quickly or entirely in our lifetimes but soon enough that it will become apparent in our lives that something has to be done about the starving masses that don't have control of the energy. Hopefully humanity is smart enough to adjust to the reality without to manny wars or exploitation of the weaker groups.
Short term were ok.

 

[Gary Allan]

Good post.

In short, it's time to figure on life as we know it changing radically. Not only in terms of energy but everything else too. From the pizza parlor to the foundry ..from the dry cleaner to the kitchen. Our whole concept of consumption is going to be turned around in all things.

If the energy nut does not get cracked, then this world is going to experience shock and awe that I don't think it will cope with well. We can't "go back" with so many genies out of the bottle.

I've seen nothing to convince me that we will ultimately crack the energy nut. My overall assessment of all things that exist tells me that there is no "magic" and that any advantage of apparent merit is just one whose liabilities have not yet come to bear. As it is with oil (consuming long term carbon in a short term) ..it will be with anything. We'll be forced to exist like any other animal; in harmony with the environment ..or suffering the consequences.

 

[Bryanccfshr]

Yup

 

[Tempest]

People have been saying this since at least the 60's. Armageddon right around the corner.

Still waiting.

The market provided us oil. It will provide the replacement....unless you consider corn ethanol the replacement...

 

[willix]

There is more untapped oil than there is air to burn it.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
The market provided us oil. It will provide the replacement....unless you consider corn ethanol the replacement...


Given that at 3-4% annual growth, every 20-25 years consumes as much as all history before it, when will the market get the message to turn around, and how will it wheel around the juggernaut ?

 

[labman]

The market will continue to furnish all the oil we can afford. The trick is to keep the government from distorting prices to create more sudden, more disruptive price changes

 

[SteveSRT8]

pricing is the key to alternatives and their development.

Low oil prices mean nothing is done.

But this is another problem that will be left for future generations to solve.

I firmly believe technology will triumph. But there needs to be a financial incentive to make it happen.

 

[Shannow]

Seriously, Oil, and the price at the pump should carry all of the costs attributed to it. Maintaining the oil shipping lanes open, the occasional war or two.

If we were genuinely paying the true cost of oil at the pump, the alternatives would need less, probably zero subsidisation to play on an equal footing.

While oil (and fossil fuels in general) get a free kick, it's only fir to help out alternatives.

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Tempest
The market provided us oil. It will provide the replacement....unless you consider corn ethanol the replacement...


Given that at 3-4% annual growth, every 20-25 years consumes as much as all history before it, when will the market get the message to turn around, and how will it wheel around the juggernaut ?

You continue to intentionally ignore the affect of $4 gas that we saw recently...

 

[Shannow]

Do I ?

where ?


You keep intentionally ignoring that perpetual growth doubles resource consumption in fairly short periods of time.