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

[Isilanka]

We were told "next to the water, where we can flood the reactor if we need to" would be a safe location.

In practice, people didn't flood the reactor, even when they needed to.

There's no way around this. People. Screw. Up.

But screwing up a wind turbine kills only the guy maintaining it. Screwing up a dam kills the people downstream. (Build it downstream from THEM, then.) Screwing up a solar plant... if it's thermal? Maybe breaks the molten salt container or something, but I'm guessing that's something someone can notice in time to jump out of the way. If not, it's still not as bad as a nuclear meltdown.

Meltdowns dont normally kill people, though, not anymore. They just happen to irreparably irradiate the land for a few hundred years or so, but that is not a problem if built in the right place.

You seriously underestimate the damage done by a nuclear accident. Radiations travel. remember the exclusion zone of Tchernobyl ? Well that's bullshit. Nuclear pollution can be found all round the plant, far away from the exclusion zone. Thousands of people have had thyroid cancer in Europe after Tchernobyl. Fukushima is still polluting the waters of the Pacific.
Meltdowns absolutely kill people, just not directly.
And placing nuclear reactors is still a problem, especially in high-density countries. You want them as far away as possible from the cities, fine. But where, then ? Uninhabited areas in western countries are usually next or inside natural parks and such, and no one will ever put a nuclear plant near a natural park. Out at sea ? Have fun if your waters are contaminated because radiation will absolutely spread.

The main problem with nuclear fission is that's it dangerous but more importantly expensive and not flexible. Nuclear fission represents less than 10% of the world's energy production. There's only one country that primarily uses nuclear fission as its main energy source and it's France, and this country is wandering what the hell it's gonna do when its plants become obsolete. We don't know how to safely and completely dismantle a plant, we simply don't. Nuclear plants are huge, expensive things. The new EPR reactor in France has already cost more than 10 billion dollars (that's the price of a full aircraft carrier and its accompanying fleet for god's sake !) and is 7 years behind schedule, despite being built by a company that builds nuclear plants since 40 years. Then there's the problem of uranium supply.

Nuclear plants are extremely complicated technical objects that cost an enormous amount of money, are less and less easily accepted in the public opinion and, if you're not a developed country, makes you rely entirely on foreign technology and companies. I don't see how nuclear fission could become more than the niche energy source it is today.

[Christmas Pudding]

Yes, it is a real thing. There is not an infinite amount of oil.

However, as others have said, the problem in a lot of cases is not the amount of oil available, but the economic viability of extracting the oil. You also have to take into account non-financial costs, like the environmental impact of extracting oil.

When the price of fossil fuels increases, you're going to see two trends:
1) An increase in alternative energy use. You're seeing this already, actually, even though oil prices are quite low. The power businesses of companies like GE and Siemens have been in some financial trouble because they can't sell any gas power turbines. Most of the electric utilities are instead opting for renewables when they want to add new capacity.

2) An increase in unconventional oil/gas production. A lot of North American fracking and tar sands production is viable only when the price of oil is at a certain level (commonly referred to as the break-even price). You're also going to see increased exploration and drilling in areas like the Arctic as the world's icecaps continue to shrink, and as the cost of operating in those regions is justified by the high price of oil.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

So, I was reading this: https://medium.com/@End_of_More/the-oil ... 6d3c723655

It presents the premise that we (humans on Earth) have between 10 - 30 years of oil left, and it will be increasingly expensive to recover per barrel.

This site says its more like 53 years: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/how-much ... h-cm897561

Naturally estimating is involved, new discovery/recovery technologies result in upwards adjustment of the estimate. Population and related economic growth increases usage over time.

I look at the technological advances we've made over the last fifty years (since around the time of my birth), and I like to read phys.org to feel better about things. Could we have methods within 50 years (or so) that are better for converting/storing/deploying energy? Could we re-engineer our houses and industrial processes to require less energy? I think so, but I don't know how much or how fast.

The additional issue seems to be the fighting over who will control what's left. It is further compounded by the environmental problems associated with such massive use of fossil fuels.

For the younger of you here on this board, some of this may become a critical issue during your life. Will we run out of oil before we develop and deploy other methods to power our civilization?

I believe we are adaptable as a species, and it may be hard with a lot of death and war, but I think we will survive and develop other technologies. Some of us will survive it, but maybe in smaller numbers. I think some nations in their current form will not survive, some will be diminished, others may somehow thrive. I don't know which. The world may look very different afterwards, but maybe the future is always like that.

Will we run out of cost-effectively recoverable reserves of oil before we can shift to other means of powering our civilization? How will the process of that shift effect governments and nations?

Throughout human history, when we have been faced with shortages of resources we have discovered more plentiful new resources and more efficient methods of utilising existing resources. For example, at the start of the Industrial Revolution 18th-century Britain was running out of wood supplies due to deforestation. You would think, given data at the time, that we would have been forced back into the Dark Ages by lack of wood. However, we discovered new resources such as coal, mass-produced steel and concrete, and now our civilisation is mainly fuelled by oil and natural gas. We already have the resources to phase out fossil fuels in favour of nuclear and renewable energy. The real threat is environmental damage from global warming.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Meltdowns dont normally kill people, though, not anymore. They just happen to irreparably irradiate the land for a few hundred years or so, but that is not a problem if built in the right place.

You seriously underestimate the damage done by a nuclear accident. Radiations travel. remember the exclusion zone of Tchernobyl ? Well that's bullshit. Nuclear pollution can be found all round the plant, far away from the exclusion zone. Thousands of people have had thyroid cancer in Europe after Tchernobyl. Fukushima is still polluting the waters of the Pacific.
Meltdowns absolutely kill people, just not directly.
And placing nuclear reactors is still a problem, especially in high-density countries. You want them as far away as possible from the cities, fine. But where, then ? Uninhabited areas in western countries are usually next or inside natural parks and such, and no one will ever put a nuclear plant near a natural park. Out at sea ? Have fun if your waters are contaminated because radiation will absolutely spread.

The main problem with nuclear fission is that's it dangerous but more importantly expensive and not flexible. Nuclear fission represents less than 10% of the world's energy production. There's only one country that primarily uses nuclear fission as its main energy source and it's France, and this country is wandering what the hell it's gonna do when its plants become obsolete. We don't know how to safely and completely dismantle a plant, we simply don't. Nuclear plants are huge, expensive things. The new EPR reactor in France has already cost more than 10 billion dollars (that's the price of a full aircraft carrier and its accompanying fleet for god's sake !) and is 7 years behind schedule, despite being built by a company that builds nuclear plants since 40 years. Then there's the problem of uranium supply.

Nuclear plants are extremely complicated technical objects that cost an enormous amount of money, are less and less easily accepted in the public opinion and, if you're not a developed country, makes you rely entirely on foreign technology and companies. I don't see how nuclear fission could become more than the niche energy source it is today.

Nuclear energy actually is one of the safest methods of electricity generation that exists. Here's the number of deaths caused by methods of power generation per petawatt-hour:

Coal - 100,000 fatalities (170,000 in China, 10,000 in the United States)
Oil - 36,000 fatalities
Natural gas - 4,000 fatalities
Hydroelectric - 1,000 fatalities (5 in the United States)
Solar (rooftop) - 400 fatalities
Wind - 150 fatalities (under 1000 in the UK)
Nuclear - 90 fatalities (0.1 in the United States)

Well, nuclear isn’t out of the question. We simply need safer locations that make the facilities less vulnerable, and with stricter security measures.

We were told "next to the water, where we can flood the reactor if we need to" would be a safe location.

In practice, people didn't flood the reactor, even when they needed to.

There's no way around this. People. Screw. Up.

But screwing up a wind turbine kills only the guy maintaining it. Screwing up a dam kills the people downstream. (Build it downstream from THEM, then.) Screwing up a solar plant... if it's thermal? Maybe breaks the molten salt container or something, but I'm guessing that's something someone can notice in time to jump out of the way. If not, it's still not as bad as a nuclear meltdown.

Nuclear reactors have complex safety systems to prevent meltdowns, such as explosive charges in the control rod holders to completely drop the control rods into the reactor and shut off the reaction. It's not like a movie where one single wrong button can cause Chernobyl 2.0. Also, let's look at the causes for the Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns (the only nuclear disasters to rank as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale):

Chernobyl - Inherent reactor design flaws, incorrect arrangement of the core (contrary to the safety test)
Fukushima - A fucking tsunami hit the emergency generators

[Uxupox]

waters wars are the future.

[Free American Empire-]

Eventually, it will become more expensive to extract out the remaining oil reserves, and the price of them wouldn't be enough to earn back the money, which would be spent for extracting them. With our current known reserves, we could last for 50-75 years, but eventually, we will just need to replace fossil fuels with renewable energies- nuclear energy, or fusion would probably be the best bet.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/nation/dub ... the-future

In fact, UAE seems to be already preparing for that moment, because they know, that their oil will run out eventually, and that their economy is mostly based on oil, so they are seeking alternatives.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

You seriously underestimate the damage done by a nuclear accident. Radiations travel. remember the exclusion zone of Tchernobyl ? Well that's bullshit. Nuclear pollution can be found all round the plant, far away from the exclusion zone. Thousands of people have had thyroid cancer in Europe after Tchernobyl. Fukushima is still polluting the waters of the Pacific.
Meltdowns absolutely kill people, just not directly.
And placing nuclear reactors is still a problem, especially in high-density countries. You want them as far away as possible from the cities, fine. But where, then ? Uninhabited areas in western countries are usually next or inside natural parks and such, and no one will ever put a nuclear plant near a natural park. Out at sea ? Have fun if your waters are contaminated because radiation will absolutely spread.

The main problem with nuclear fission is that's it dangerous but more importantly expensive and not flexible. Nuclear fission represents less than 10% of the world's energy production. There's only one country that primarily uses nuclear fission as its main energy source and it's France, and this country is wandering what the hell it's gonna do when its plants become obsolete. We don't know how to safely and completely dismantle a plant, we simply don't. Nuclear plants are huge, expensive things. The new EPR reactor in France has already cost more than 10 billion dollars (that's the price of a full aircraft carrier and its accompanying fleet for god's sake !) and is 7 years behind schedule, despite being built by a company that builds nuclear plants since 40 years. Then there's the problem of uranium supply.

Nuclear plants are extremely complicated technical objects that cost an enormous amount of money, are less and less easily accepted in the public opinion and, if you're not a developed country, makes you rely entirely on foreign technology and companies. I don't see how nuclear fission could become more than the niche energy source it is today.

Nuclear energy actually is one of the safest methods of electricity generation that exists. Here's the number of deaths caused by methods of power generation per petawatt-hour:

Coal - 100,000 fatalities (170,000 in China, 10,000 in the United States)
Oil - 36,000 fatalities
Natural gas - 4,000 fatalities
Hydroelectric - 1,000 fatalities (5 in the United States)
Solar (rooftop) - 400 fatalities
Wind - 150 fatalities (under 1000 in the UK)
Nuclear - 90 fatalities (0.1 in the United States)

We were told "next to the water, where we can flood the reactor if we need to" would be a safe location.

In practice, people didn't flood the reactor, even when they needed to.

There's no way around this. People. Screw. Up.

But screwing up a wind turbine kills only the guy maintaining it. Screwing up a dam kills the people downstream. (Build it downstream from THEM, then.) Screwing up a solar plant... if it's thermal? Maybe breaks the molten salt container or something, but I'm guessing that's something someone can notice in time to jump out of the way. If not, it's still not as bad as a nuclear meltdown.

Nuclear reactors have complex safety systems to prevent meltdowns, such as explosive charges in the control rod holders to completely drop the control rods into the reactor and shut off the reaction. It's not like a movie where one single wrong button can cause Chernobyl 2.0. Also, let's look at the causes for the Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns (the only nuclear disasters to rank as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale):

Chernobyl - Inherent reactor design flaws, incorrect arrangement of the core (contrary to the safety test)
Fukushima - A fucking tsunami hit the emergency generators

Natural disasters happen. If a natural disaster can cause a supposedly "safe" reactor to melt down, it's not safe.

Also, "rooftop" solar isn't the only source of solar power. I'd like to see it broken down by photovoltaic vs. thermal. A source on the wind one would be nice too.

[Zyris]

When I was a kid in the 1990s, by 2000, california was supposed to be an island, andwe were 25 years away from total global warming, and oil was to be gone by now.

I think they just continually say 25 years from now for this or for that because it's a nice number. NowI hear them still saying in 25 years X is supposed to happen. I'm not buying it.

Not that I care anyway, I have faith we humans and future humans will simply adapt to the circumstances that the future provides them. No need, therefore to worry myself about it.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Nuclear energy actually is one of the safest methods of electricity generation that exists. Here's the number of deaths caused by methods of power generation per petawatt-hour:

Coal - 100,000 fatalities (170,000 in China, 10,000 in the United States)
Oil - 36,000 fatalities
Natural gas - 4,000 fatalities
Hydroelectric - 1,000 fatalities (5 in the United States)
Solar (rooftop) - 400 fatalities
Wind - 150 fatalities (under 1000 in the UK)
Nuclear - 90 fatalities (0.1 in the United States)

Nuclear reactors have complex safety systems to prevent meltdowns, such as explosive charges in the control rod holders to completely drop the control rods into the reactor and shut off the reaction. It's not like a movie where one single wrong button can cause Chernobyl 2.0. Also, let's look at the causes for the Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns (the only nuclear disasters to rank as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale):

Chernobyl - Inherent reactor design flaws, incorrect arrangement of the core (contrary to the safety test)
Fukushima - A fucking tsunami hit the emergency generators

Natural disasters happen. If a natural disaster can cause a supposedly "safe" reactor to melt down, it's not safe.

Also, "rooftop" solar isn't the only source of solar power. I'd like to see it broken down by photovoltaic vs. thermal. A source on the wind one would be nice too.

Not all areas of the world are affected by tsunamis. If my house was in Japan right in the line of the 2011 tsunami, it would not be a safe building by your definition.

And about that source... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-eagle-deaths-wind-turbines-kill-humans/, courtesy of Wikipedia - Energy accidents

[Korasta]

I personally think that if we don't pull our thumbs out of our collective arses within the next few years, then we'll see something akin to the Resource Wars from Fallout when the oil runs out.

[The South Falls]

Anyone for a world electricity grid like I am? Station a shitload of solar panels in sunny Enugu, or Federal Administrative District, Abuja, and pipe the massive amount of created electricity across the world. Sounds crazy, but it would solve the majority of our energy issues.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Anyone for a world electricity grid like I am? Station a shitload of solar panels in sunny Enugu, or Federal Administrative District, Abuja, and pipe the massive amount of created electricity across the world. Sounds crazy, but it would solve the majority of our energy issues.

Blanketing the Sahara in solar panels to generate power is a serious proposal for Europe's energy supplies. (Edit): The only problem would be the task of laying cables to bring power to anywhere outside Afro-Asia

[Valrifell]

Anyone for a world electricity grid like I am? Station a shitload of solar panels in sunny Enugu, or Federal Administrative District, Abuja, and pipe the massive amount of created electricity across the world. Sounds crazy, but it would solve the majority of our energy issues.

That would require global cooperation which is bad because *mumble mumble* globalism is bad and *mumble mumble* national sovereignty.

[Free American Empire-]

Anyone for a world electricity grid like I am? Station a shitload of solar panels in sunny Enugu, or Federal Administrative District, Abuja, and pipe the massive amount of created electricity across the world. Sounds crazy, but it would solve the majority of our energy issues.

That would require global cooperation which is bad because *mumble mumble* globalism is bad and *mumble mumble* national sovereignty.

Yeah. I am a nationalist myself, and I support this idea. World electricity grid could be beneficial for countries, especially for small ones. After all, if your own country benefits from this idea, why not to support it? However, control over the grid shouldn't be concentrated in one, or few person (or country) hands, but split more evenly.

[The South Falls]

Anyone for a world electricity grid like I am? Station a shitload of solar panels in sunny Enugu, or Federal Administrative District, Abuja, and pipe the massive amount of created electricity across the world. Sounds crazy, but it would solve the majority of our energy issues.

Blanketing the Sahara in solar panels to generate power is a serious proposal for Europe's energy supplies. (Edit): The only problem would be the task of laying cables to bring power to anywhere outside Afro-Asia

Maybe the Sahara, maybe Nigeria. Anyway, we'd just have to get people to consent to lay underwater cables through their land and sea.

Anyone for a world electricity grid like I am? Station a shitload of solar panels in sunny Enugu, or Federal Administrative District, Abuja, and pipe the massive amount of created electricity across the world. Sounds crazy, but it would solve the majority of our energy issues.

That would require global cooperation which is bad because *mumble mumble* globalism is bad and *mumble mumble* national sovereignty.

Congrats, you've worked into Trump's head. Nice job. *mumble mumble* no UN.

That would require global cooperation which is bad because *mumble mumble* globalism is bad and *mumble mumble* national sovereignty.

Yeah. I am a nationalist myself, and I support this idea. World electricity grid could be beneficial for countries, especially for small ones. After all, if your own country benefits from this idea, why not to support it? However, control over the grid shouldn't be concentrated in one, or few person (or country) hands, but split more evenly.

That's what I was thinking. A UN Electricity Grid Headquarters, with leaders from all the nations of the world, so it's administered evenly. All nations have the same voice. Andorra should have the same voice as America.

[Kramanica]

We will never run out of oil in the ground.

It'll be far too expensive to extract from the ground before to make it worth it before we drain it all. We have several decades by the strictest estimates so it'll take a special kind of lacking foresight to have depletion be a real problem.

^ He's right, you know.

[Petrolheadia]

Nuclear energy actually is one of the safest methods of electricity generation that exists. Here's the number of deaths caused by methods of power generation per petawatt-hour:

Coal - 100,000 fatalities (170,000 in China, 10,000 in the United States)
Oil - 36,000 fatalities
Natural gas - 4,000 fatalities
Hydroelectric - 1,000 fatalities (5 in the United States)
Solar (rooftop) - 400 fatalities
Wind - 150 fatalities (under 1000 in the UK)
Nuclear - 90 fatalities (0.1 in the United States)

Nuclear reactors have complex safety systems to prevent meltdowns, such as explosive charges in the control rod holders to completely drop the control rods into the reactor and shut off the reaction. It's not like a movie where one single wrong button can cause Chernobyl 2.0. Also, let's look at the causes for the Chernobyl and Fukushima meltdowns (the only nuclear disasters to rank as a 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale):

Chernobyl - Inherent reactor design flaws, incorrect arrangement of the core (contrary to the safety test)
Fukushima - A fucking tsunami hit the emergency generators

Natural disasters happen. If a natural disaster can cause a supposedly "safe" reactor to melt down, it's not safe.

Which is irrelevant, considering that all the other methods are safer.

[Petrolheadia]

Oil is not as much of a problem as people think. This is because of price fluctuations. As oil becomes scares, it's price will rise. In the short-run, this means lower consumption of oil, and will encourage the development of more energy-efficient technologies and outright alternatives to oil.

Also, it becomes more profitable to seek out new sources of oil, or to find ways to get more out of existing oil reserves. A prime example of this is the rise of fracking after high oil prices during the last decade.

The only thing that can mess this up are price ceilings and subsidies, which result in artificially low prices and high consumption in the face of low supplies.

Yeah, let's pollute entire regions with fracking and ravage the poles to extract the last drops of oil ! Progress ! DRILL BABY DRILL !

I don't think anybody would be inconvenienced by drilling in the biggest fucking ice desert in the world.

[Isilanka]

We will never run out of oil in the ground.

It'll be far too expensive to extract from the ground before to make it worth it before we drain it all. We have several decades by the strictest estimates so it'll take a special kind of lacking foresight to have depletion be a real problem.

^ He's right, you know.

Y'know, it would have taken a special kind of lacking foresight to let climate change and species extinction become a rampant problem given that all the indicators that something was wrong were already available in the late 1970s...
Ooops.

Honestly I wouldn't be too optimistic about our capacity to anticipate problems and actually do something about them before it's too late, especially that we're currently in a situation where it's pretty clear we're running into a wall and yet the first superpower in the world has a political guideline that mostly boils down to "problems ? what problems ?".
I mean we'll probably adapt, yes. The question is, do we want to anticipate and make sure it's as smooth as possible or will we, as usual, adapt at the last moment and in the worst economic and geopolitical context possible ?

Also re:nuclear reactors : the day we'll be able to safely and surely dismantle reactors, to completely stop a reactor within a few minutes and to eliminate nuclear waste, I'll consider it as a safe and practical energy source.
I'm not entirely anti-nuclear fission and I can see it being used as another energy source for developed countries.
But nuclear fission becoming anything close to a mainstream energy source is a wild dream.

Yeah, let's pollute entire regions with fracking and ravage the poles to extract the last drops of oil ! Progress ! DRILL BABY DRILL !

I don't think anybody would be inconvenienced by drilling in the biggest fucking ice desert in the world.

You mean aside from the fact that you would destroy entire ecosystems, add yet another risk of massive oceanic pollution ?
After all, what's biodiversity and nature protection when we can have a few more decades of oil. Silly me.
I mean why do we even care about natural parks and protected areas. No one lives here anyway.

[The of Japan]

oil will last for around a century before it is just too expensive to be viable. We should look for replacements for oil products such as synthetic rubber, plastic, fuel, etc. as well as electric producers that do not damage the environment as badly as coal and oil.

[Christmas Pudding]

The funny thing about the Arctic is that everyone is scrambling to assert their territorial claims and resource rights up there. Well, everyone except the US. American politicians are still arguing whether or not global warming is even occurring. The Arctic wasn't mentioned at all in the National Defense Strategy.

When you compare what we have to Russia's Arctic policy, we're really a joke. They've got more than 40 icebreakers, we've got 2. They're also building multiple military installations to back up their territorial claims. We haven't ratified UNCLOS, so we can't even make an officlal claim. Besides Thule Air Base, we have no serious military presence north of the Arctic circle. I suppose you could count Eielson AFB, Fort Wainright, and Fort Greely as well, even though they're not technically in the Arctic.

We should be working closely with Canada, Denmark, Iceland and Norway to come up with a joint strategy. We should work to resolve the Northwest passage dispute as well That's probably not going to happen, though.

[UniversalCommons]

Oil will run out. It will be replaced by other sources of energy. Biofuels like biodiesel will replace some of it, algae oil wil also be viable soon enough. The total amount of renewables can replace oil. Also, there is natural gas, nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, ocean thermal, and wave energy. There is more than enough energy to replace oil. It is not something to worry about it. The more worry that is created the longer that the fossil fuel industry holds on.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Oil will run out. It will be replaced by other sources of energy. Biofuels like biodiesel will replace some of it, algae oil wil also be viable soon enough. The total amount of renewables can replace oil. Also, there is natural gas, nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, solar, geothermal, ocean thermal, and wave energy. There is more than enough energy to replace oil. It is not something to worry about it. The more worry that is created the longer that the fossil fuel industry holds on.

The main reason we should phase out fossil fuels ASAP is because the more fossil fuels we burn, the worse the effects of global warming will be.

[The South Falls]

There's also, as Val said, the fact that oil will be so expensive it'll cost less to get a barrel than provide enough solar panels for the entire world. We should just start on that world energy grid.

[Saiwania]

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.