Is Oil Depletion a real thing, and will it collapse nations?

[The South Falls]

The problem is that the divestment from fossil fuels isn't happening fast enough. I wish all of it would actually disappear overnight. I just know that cleaner or better alternatives would be developed out of necessity and it can eventually be affordable, if not quite soon.

Yea, there are so many states that rely on oil, and they have a say in what the world does. So, they never leave oil.

[Old Garcy]

The first oil wells drilled relied on oil gushing from its source and flowing down a tunnel into a tank. Nowadays, oils are being extracted from sands, extracted from sea rigs, and from other more challenging sources. The word "Oil" covers a wide variety of prevalent chemicals, that, as a result, are found in many different places. Right now, we are not just extracting oil, we are extracting the oil that can be most cheaply recovered from the ground. As these sources dry up, we will tap into more expensive sources of oil. Since the price of oil will rise gradually, if all political considerations are smoothed out, this will give alternative energy sources plenty of time to push oil out of the energy market.

You raise a vitally important consideration. In your view, how does the outlook for that smoothing look? (I understand that given the scales, time, and complexity of that issue, it may well be difficult to pin down to more than conjecture that contains many more "if's".

My wording was not the best there. I meant smoothed out in graphical terms. That is, although a political event may cause a sudden spike or fall in oil prices, over time, there will be a gradual rise in prices, however saw-toothed it is.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

The problem is that the divestment from fossil fuels isn't happening fast enough. I wish all of it would actually disappear overnight. I just know that cleaner or better alternatives would be developed out of necessity and it can eventually be affordable, if not quite soon.

Yea, there are so many states that rely on oil, and they have a say in what the world does. So, they never leave oil.

If the developed world phases out oil, countries which rely on oil exports such as Saudi Arabia (which is already diversifying its economy under Vision 2030) and Qatar will not make massive profits from oil exports anymore, and will be forced to pursue other industries.

[Sovaal]

Yea, there are so many states that rely on oil, and they have a say in what the world does. So, they never leave oil.

If the developed world phases out oil, countries which rely on oil exports such as Saudi Arabia (which is already diversifying its economy under Vision 2030) and Qatar will not make massive profits from oil exports anymore, and will be forced to pursue other industries.

Or become extremely poor and possibly collapse into tribal and ethnic warfare.

[Great Minarchistan]

Earth-based hydrocarbons probably got a century before exhaust (traditional reserves pricing at ~30-40 years and I'm fairly confident that the new reserves of shale oil/oil shale can give us more 50-60 years). Outside of the Earth... you have Titan's methane lakes that seemingly contain enough hydrocarbons to feed us for the next centuries/millennia. I've done a study on it last year and I tried to estimate the volume of methane in there. Can't recall precise numbers but it was a massive amount of BOE.

[Great Minarchistan]

Back with the numbers on Titan (P.S.: there are a fuckton of lakes, I'll cite the top three largest only)
Methane in atmosphere: 40.000.000.000.000.000kg (calc done using the concentration on the atmosphere and its estimated weight)
Methane density: 0.656kg/m³ --> 61.000.000.000.000.000 m³

Methane on seas (fixed depth since info ain't available for all of them, and that's the average depth from those measured): 45.101.000.000.000 m³
Kraken Mare: 400.000km² * 70m depth = 28.000.000.000.000 m³
Ligeia Mare: 126.000km² * 70m depth = 8.820.000.000.000 m³
Punga Mare: 75.000km² * 70m depth = 5.250.000.000.000 m³
Jingpo Lacus: 9.700km² * 70m depth = 679.000.000.000 m³
Ontario Lacus: 15.000km² * 70m depth = 1.050.000.000.000 m³
Hammar Lacus: 18.600km² * 70m depth = 1.302.000.000.000 m³

1 m³ of methane = 0.0065 barrel of oil


Basically, there are 290 billion barrels of oil easily accessible in Titan through lakes and a mere 396.5 trillion barrels of oil that can be extracted from Titan's atmosphere. Assuming that you'll want to keep the lakes untouched due to possible life being fostered there and you want instead to suck "only" 10% of the methane content in the atmosphere and considering that oil consumption in the whole world will be running on a consistent 100 mbpd, Titan could feed the Earth for 1100 years. Nothing bad

[The Parkus Empire]

Back with the numbers on Titan (P.S.: there are a fuckton of lakes, I'll cite the top three largest only)
Methane in atmosphere: 40.000.000.000.000.000kg (calc done using the concentration on the atmosphere and its estimated weight)
Methane density: 0.656kg/m³ --> 61.000.000.000.000.000 m³

Methane on seas (fixed depth since info ain't available for all of them, and that's the average depth from those measured): 45.101.000.000.000 m³
Kraken Mare: 400.000km² * 70m depth = 28.000.000.000.000 m³
Ligeia Mare: 126.000km² * 70m depth = 8.820.000.000.000 m³
Punga Mare: 75.000km² * 70m depth = 5.250.000.000.000 m³
Jingpo Lacus: 9.700km² * 70m depth = 679.000.000.000 m³
Ontario Lacus: 15.000km² * 70m depth = 1.050.000.000.000 m³
Hammar Lacus: 18.600km² * 70m depth = 1.302.000.000.000 m³

1 m³ of methane = 0.0065 barrel of oil


Basically, there are 290 billion barrels of oil easily accessible in Titan through lakes and a mere 396.5 trillion barrels of oil that can be extracted from Titan's atmosphere. Assuming that you'll want to keep the lakes untouched due to possible life being fostered there and you want instead to suck "only" 10% of the methane content in the atmosphere and considering that oil consumption in the whole world will be running on a consistent 100 mbpd, Titan could feed the Earth for 1100 years. Nothing bad

We'd have to get it here cost effectively

[Great Minarchistan]

Back with the numbers on Titan (P.S.: there are a fuckton of lakes, I'll cite the top three largest only)
Methane in atmosphere: 40.000.000.000.000.000kg (calc done using the concentration on the atmosphere and its estimated weight)
Methane density: 0.656kg/m³ --> 61.000.000.000.000.000 m³

Methane on seas (fixed depth since info ain't available for all of them, and that's the average depth from those measured): 45.101.000.000.000 m³
Kraken Mare: 400.000km² * 70m depth = 28.000.000.000.000 m³
Ligeia Mare: 126.000km² * 70m depth = 8.820.000.000.000 m³
Punga Mare: 75.000km² * 70m depth = 5.250.000.000.000 m³
Jingpo Lacus: 9.700km² * 70m depth = 679.000.000.000 m³
Ontario Lacus: 15.000km² * 70m depth = 1.050.000.000.000 m³
Hammar Lacus: 18.600km² * 70m depth = 1.302.000.000.000 m³

1 m³ of methane = 0.0065 barrel of oil


Basically, there are 290 billion barrels of oil easily accessible in Titan through lakes and a mere 396.5 trillion barrels of oil that can be extracted from Titan's atmosphere. Assuming that you'll want to keep the lakes untouched due to possible life being fostered there and you want instead to suck "only" 10% of the methane content in the atmosphere and considering that oil consumption in the whole world will be running on a consistent 100 mbpd, Titan could feed the Earth for 1100 years. Nothing bad

We'd have to get it here cost effectively

To be fair, with the current development of technology and study on the reuse of rocket parts we managed to cutdown the payload cost from ~$50000/kg in the space shuttle era to $1700/kg with Falcon Heavy. SpaceX is seemingly developing a rocket that will slash such cost to less than $100/kg so I think that it'll be feasible in the future.

[Valrifell]

Back with the numbers on Titan (P.S.: there are a fuckton of lakes, I'll cite the top three largest only)
Methane in atmosphere: 40.000.000.000.000.000kg (calc done using the concentration on the atmosphere and its estimated weight)
Methane density: 0.656kg/m³ --> 61.000.000.000.000.000 m³

Methane on seas (fixed depth since info ain't available for all of them, and that's the average depth from those measured): 45.101.000.000.000 m³
Kraken Mare: 400.000km² * 70m depth = 28.000.000.000.000 m³
Ligeia Mare: 126.000km² * 70m depth = 8.820.000.000.000 m³
Punga Mare: 75.000km² * 70m depth = 5.250.000.000.000 m³
Jingpo Lacus: 9.700km² * 70m depth = 679.000.000.000 m³
Ontario Lacus: 15.000km² * 70m depth = 1.050.000.000.000 m³
Hammar Lacus: 18.600km² * 70m depth = 1.302.000.000.000 m³

1 m³ of methane = 0.0065 barrel of oil


Basically, there are 290 billion barrels of oil easily accessible in Titan through lakes and a mere 396.5 trillion barrels of oil that can be extracted from Titan's atmosphere. Assuming that you'll want to keep the lakes untouched due to possible life being fostered there and you want instead to suck "only" 10% of the methane content in the atmosphere and considering that oil consumption in the whole world will be running on a consistent 100 mbpd, Titan could feed the Earth for 1100 years. Nothing bad

We'd have to get it here cost effectively

There's also the ethical concern because we're not quite sure if Titan is a sterile world or not.

[Yagon]

We'd have to get it here cost effectively

There's also the ethical concern because we're not quite sure if Titan is a sterile world or not.

In my country, we apparently have no ethical problem with taking resources from the lands of other forms of life, as long as they're poor and can't stop us.

[Great Minarchistan]

We'd have to get it here cost effectively

There's also the ethical concern because we're not quite sure if Titan is a sterile world or not.

If you preserve the lakes and suck up solely 0.15% of the atmosphere you've got one millennium of oil supply. Wouldn't be too detrimental, I believe.

Not that humans have a good history of caring about biological ethics anyway

[Harkback Union]

Oil depletion is not really an issue. There's like 100 year's supply of fossil fuels left, and that's just from known sources, and that's without counting Methane clathrate. We'll never run out of fossil fuels, the planet will be polluted to death long before that.

[Christmas Pudding]

We'd have to get it here cost effectively

To be fair, with the current development of technology and study on the reuse of rocket parts we managed to cutdown the payload cost from ~$50000/kg in the space shuttle era to $1700/kg with Falcon Heavy. SpaceX is seemingly developing a rocket that will slash such cost to less than $100/kg so I think that it'll be feasible in the future.

It may be easier just to set up massive solar farms in space at that point. It's feasible to use microwaves to transmit the power back.

[Great Minarchistan]

To be fair, with the current development of technology and study on the reuse of rocket parts we managed to cutdown the payload cost from ~$50000/kg in the space shuttle era to $1700/kg with Falcon Heavy. SpaceX is seemingly developing a rocket that will slash such cost to less than $100/kg so I think that it'll be feasible in the future.

It may be easier just to set up massive solar farms in space at that point. It's feasible to use microwaves to transmit the power back.

It'd only take care of the energy setup tho, a bulky part of oil consumption is too used for the fabrication of its derivatives

[Christmas Pudding]

It may be easier just to set up massive solar farms in space at that point. It's feasible to use microwaves to transmit the power back.

It'd only take care of the energy setup tho, a bulky part of oil consumption is too used for the fabrication of its derivatives

True. Biofuels could possibly be used as feedstock for petrochemical production. I know it's possible to make polyethylene from ethanol, which can be made from sugar or wheat. Braskem makes this type of polyethylene in Brazil. Dow and Mitsu Chemical said they were going to open a plant to produce it in Brazil as well (I don't know if they actually followed through, though).

There's probably some petrochemicals that we can't make out of plant-based feedstocks, though. So we may need to go to Titan at some point.

[Harkback Union]

Sending solar panels up to space to beam back energy to earth is a ridiculous idea, as is shipping fuel to earth. Sadly, both of these are peddled by bad sci-fi authors as a viable solution. The energy required to do any of those things however is orders of magnitude greater then what we'll get out of it (unless we're talking about fission/fusion).

For the cost of every m3 of solar panel sent to space, even with insanely efficient rockets, we could afford 10x as much on earth. This is not just because of launch costs, but because if you want to put something into space, you have to build it with hi-tech materials, expertly crafted so that it can survive in vacuum with 0 maintenance for the next decade or so. It can't be made in some cheap chinese sweatshop...

[Christmas Pudding]

Sending solar panels up to space to beam back energy to earth is a ridiculous idea, as is shipping fuel to earth. Sadly, both of these are peddled by bad sci-fi authors as a viable solution. The energy required to do any of those things however is orders of magnitude greater then what we'll get out of it (unless we're talking about fission/fusion).

For the cost of every m3 of solar panel sent to space, even with insanely efficient rockets, we could afford 10x as much on earth. This is not just because of launch costs, but because if you want to put something into space, you have to build it with hi-tech materials, expertly crafted so that it can survive in vacuum with 0 maintenance for the next decade or so. It can't be made in some cheap chinese sweatshop...

Do you even futurist???

Point taken though. Any improvement in capacity factor would be outweighed by the additional cost of launching the panels. For the same cost, you could just build huge utility-scale solar facilities in the world's deserts and bring the power back onto the grid with HVDC lines.

[Sovaal]

There's also the ethical concern because we're not quite sure if Titan is a sterile world or not.

In my country, we apparently have no ethical problem with taking resources from the lands of other forms of life, as long as they're poor and can't stop us.

Inb4 it turns out Titan is secretly extraterrestrials Wakanda.

[Great Minarchistan]

In my country, we apparently have no ethical problem with taking resources from the lands of other forms of life, as long as they're poor and can't stop us.

Inb4 it turns out Titan is secretly extraterrestrials Wakanda.

tbf I would love to surf on the meter-high waves that happen on some (very limited) spots of Punga Mare, Titan as a whole seems like a pretty interesting place.

[Sovaal]

Inb4 it turns out Titan is secretly extraterrestrials Wakanda.

tbf I would love to surf on the meter-high waves that happen on some (very limited) spots of Punga Mare, Titan as a whole seems like a pretty interesting place.

I don’t know. Liquid methane just doesn’t seem my type of deal.

[Luziyca]

I think that oil depletion is a serious problem. However, we won't run out of energy if we pursue more renewable forms of gaining it, such as solar, wind, and even nuclear energy.

It is a serious problem, but to be honest, considering that petroleum is used for a lot of things, even if we find a replacement for the energy bit, we still have issues like...

*ahem*

...plastics, modern medicine, textiles, detergents, paraffin wax, lubricants, surfactants, polymers, resins, petroleum-based solvents...

And it goes on. Even if we find a replacement for one of these, we still have the others to deal with. And frankly, unless someone can invent a replacement that deals with these that is cost-effective and sustainable, I will be amazed if by 2100, we still have modern civilization as we know it.

[Sovaal]

I think that oil depletion is a serious problem. However, we won't run out of energy if we pursue more renewable forms of gaining it, such as solar, wind, and even nuclear energy.

It is a serious problem, but to be honest, considering that petroleum is used for a lot of things, even if we find a replacement for the energy bit, we still have issues like...

*ahem*

...plastics, modern medicine, textiles, detergents, paraffin wax, lubricants, surfactants, polymers, resins, petroleum-based solvents...

And it goes on. Even if we find a replacement for one of these, we still have the others to deal with. And frankly, unless someone can invent a replacement that deals with these that is cost-effective and sustainable, I will be amazed if by 2100, we still have modern civilization as we know it.

Are YOU prepared for the neo-1800’s?

[Luziyca]

It is a serious problem, but to be honest, considering that petroleum is used for a lot of things, even if we find a replacement for the energy bit, we still have issues like...

*ahem*

...plastics, modern medicine, textiles, detergents, paraffin wax, lubricants, surfactants, polymers, resins, petroleum-based solvents...

And it goes on. Even if we find a replacement for one of these, we still have the others to deal with. And frankly, unless someone can invent a replacement that deals with these that is cost-effective and sustainable, I will be amazed if by 2100, we still have modern civilization as we know it.

Are YOU prepared for the neo-1800’s?

I pray I'm gone long before then.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Oil depletion is a real thing. Whether it will collapse nations or not, not sure. We do depend on oil for a lot of things like industry. I don't recall how long we have until we use all our oil reserves and deposits, but we should just keep investing in finding alternatives to it for the systems to keep going when we run out. I suspect it will be some time yet, but oil is a finite resource.

[Sovaal]

Are YOU prepared for the neo-1800’s?

I pray I'm gone long before then.

Pfft, with modern medicine, likely not.