PowerSwitch

Just one of the comments posted in reply to this blog:

Also the earth is continually making new oil.

I ask you...is there any hope? Lots of other really crass 'opinions' given too - some that are basically unbelievable for any one that has two brain cells to rub together.

Perhaps the best bet is indeed de-pop if this is the state of the populace? ( I say sort of half-heartedly).

Best

Maudibe

maudibe wrote:Just one of the comments posted in reply to this blog:

Also the earth is continually making new oil.

I ask you...is there any hope? Lots of other really crass 'opinions' given too - some that are basically unbelievable for any one that has two brain cells to rub together.

Perhaps the best bet is indeed de-pop if this is the state of the populace? ( I say sort of half-heartedly).

Best

Maudibe

I guess technically the quote is true, just missing the bit about a million of years before it can be harvested....

maudibe wrote:I ask you...is there any hope? Lots of other really crass 'opinions' given too - some that are basically unbelievable for any one that has two brain cells to rub together.

Perhaps the best bet is indeed de-pop if this is the state of the populace? ( I say sort of half-heartedly).

I get the impression that the deniers of climate change, having failed to convince the scientists and politicians, spend all their time writing mail to newspapers and online sites to make their protests. Same goes for the anti-peak oil and pro-abiotic groupies.

If anything about climate change appears in the local paper here in Torquay, you are guaranteed a letter detailing all the "evidence" against it. It gets rather tiresome.

Ah yes, the ever filling cup

guess technically the quote is true, just missing the bit about a million of years before it can be harvested....

...the difference will be tho that the formative matter will be land fill sites and our remains...

The earth is not continially making new oil. The process ended a few million years ago when bacteria evolved to live on the contents of the source rock. Oil was made in a brief preiod when there were an excess of crustatia and nothing to feed on it.

Spelling: crustasia.

There are other errors.

Unfortunatly, abiotic oil theory still floats around in some circles, and sadly those circles are the top tier civil service.

Really? You know that? I thought abiotic oil was too bonkers an idea even for the top tier of the civil service.

biffvernon wrote:Really? You know that? I thought abiotic oil was too bonkers an idea even for the top tier of the civil service.

It is VERY obvious. They put it in writing and shout it from the rooftops. The very UN is the main vehicle in the form of IPCC. There is no other way than abiotic oil they will ever get all the oil and gas they need for their projections.

Remember that the IPCC assume at least another hundred years of growth in oil and gas consumption. Is there any other way than abiotic to reach such lofty projections?

MacG wrote:

biffvernon wrote:Really? You know that? I thought abiotic oil was too bonkers an idea even for the top tier of the civil service.

It is VERY obvious. They put it in writing and shout it from the rooftops. The very UN is the main vehicle in the form of IPCC. There is no other way than abiotic oil they will ever get all the oil and gas they need for their projections.

Remember that the IPCC assume at least another hundred years of growth in oil and gas consumption. Is there any other way than abiotic to reach such lofty projections?

I can see your point but what about coal? There's more of it about and perhaps the IPCCC think people, collectively, will be daft enough to start liquifying it for fuel?

I think peak oil will not be a smooth curve like peak US oil was.

When US oil peaked there was spare capacity to be exploited in the North Sea and elsewhere. Thus US oil production declined in an open market, where it was cheaper for the US to import oil from overseas than extract relatively 'uneconomic' oil from under their their own land. When the world peaks, we will not have that option, so we will be forced to extract ever more expensive oil or migrate to other energy sources or become much more energy efficient or collapse. I suspect collapse will be the option chosen by the 'market' . All of these options will lead to a 'sharks fin' shaped peak.

Peak coal I think will be different again. It is almost certain that peak coal will be peak fossil energy, and possibly peak total energy for industrial civilisation. Smooth transition under business as usual is essentially impossible. Energy will be so scarce that every source, however expensive and polluting, will be exploited to the limits of what remains of the global economy will sustain. Peak production will be delayed as long as possible and then it will decline because the world cannot afford to dig the coal out, not because there is no more coal to dig.

The fossil era will end due to lack of demand, not lack of fossil fuel, but it will still (probably) be olduvai gorge .

RenewableCandy wrote:

MacG wrote:

biffvernon wrote:Really? You know that? I thought abiotic oil was too bonkers an idea even for the top tier of the civil service.

It is VERY obvious. They put it in writing and shout it from the rooftops. The very UN is the main vehicle in the form of IPCC. There is no other way than abiotic oil they will ever get all the oil and gas they need for their projections.

Remember that the IPCC assume at least another hundred years of growth in oil and gas consumption. Is there any other way than abiotic to reach such lofty projections?

I can see your point but what about coal? There's more of it about and perhaps the IPCCC think people, collectively, will be daft enough to start liquifying it for fuel?

Well, that argument would be more than enough to shut down this site, go home and make other plans. Availability of liquid fuels for industry and transportation will not be a problem for at least another hundred years.

MacG wrote:Remember that the IPCC assume at least another hundred years of growth in oil and gas consumption. Is there any other way than abiotic to reach such lofty projections?

They don't assume that at all. They have a broad family of scenarios, some of which show oil and gas consumption increasing to 2100 and some don’t. They don't suggest any scenario is more likely than another.

Their range of emission scenarios cover anything between 989 (794-1306) to 2128 (2079-2478) GtC cumulative carbon dioxide from fossil fuels between 1990 and 2100.

If we just continued with today's emissions from fossil fuels of around 9 GtC per year for 90 years added to say 120GtC from 1990 to today, we'd be in their range.

So NO growth in fossil fuel emissions at all gets us to the bottom range of the IPCC scenarios. I'm playing devils advocate a bit, I'd be surprised if we saw 1 trillion tones of carbon emitted by 2100 but it is it also incorrect to say the IPCC assume "another hundred years of growth in oil and gas consumption".

clv101 wrote: <snip>

So NO growth in fossil fuel emissions at all gets us to the bottom range of the IPCC scenarios.

<snip>

Even that scenario is a valid reason to shut down this site and move the discussion to other more important issues than oil and gas depletion.