Coming Pandemonium: Peak Oil & its Consequences

[Chi Meson]

Believe me, I think through it carefully before I agree with Russ.But...
I agree with Russ on the "20 years of uranium" myth.

The "20 year supply of uranium" comes from: IF we replace fossil-based electricity with fission-based electricity, and IF we continue to use energy at current rates, then our national uranium RESERVES (the stuff already mined, refined and set aside for future use) would last 20 years. There's still more in the ground.

I have heard as much as 600 years of fission is probable. "Infinite" sounds a bit high though.

A very significant use of petroleum products, I have recently learned, is crop fertilizer. As I said before, we are heading for interesting times this century.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

A very significant use of petroleum products, I have recently learned, is crop fertilizer.

How very significant? This link puts it in a category along with petroleum jelly and says the entire category represents 0.3% of products and uses.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/petroleum_profile_1999/profile99v8.pdf"
Note the rectangle labelled 'Miscellaneous Products' (near the bottom) in figure 1.1 on page 2.

 

[ice109]

fusion, that's all i have to say

 

[baywax]

Within 2-10 years all these things will have happened to this planet.

1: Crash of the american dollar.
2: Worldwide recession.
3: Famine and disease catastrophes in 3 world countries.
4: Rescource wars in the middle east to secure oil rights.
5: Israel going into Iran backed by the U.S (under the exuse of the nuclear programme)
6: Suburbian ghost towns will crop up all over the United States as people move back into cities or out to towns and villages.
7: Indentured servants will be brought back in the us due to the large amounts of people not being able to pay their mortgages when recession hits. (new law passed recently allowing this)
8: The end of the green revolution.
9: Massive increase in CO2 pollution due to increase in coal plants.
10: Un-employment sky rocketing in the U.S where 15% of all jobs directly and indirectly cater to the automobile industry.

All this WILL happen and for 1 reason. Peak oil.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
Has all you need to know about peak oil and if you read the paper you will be shocked, depressed and enlightened all at once.
It is a must read if you have not heard about Peak oil before.

http://www.energybulletin.net/news.php?cat=30
Daily updates about news covering the oil crisis.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/07/09/oilshortage070709.html#skip300x250
July 9th report that admits that the signs will be clear very soon.

Who peed in your cornflakes?

 

[G01]

I've heard that figure before and it is simply a lie spread by radical environmentalists (I can't remember where it came from - perhaps Greenpeace). They choose simply wrong assumptions for every part of their calculation. Real nuclear engineers predict we could go for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years using current technologies and reasonable projected growth in energy needs.

OK. This is much more similar to the numbers that were running through my head. Corra, you should probably try to find some new sources, especially if they are trying to use lies from radical environmentalists.

 

[russ_watters]

Believe me, I think through it carefully before I agree with Russ.But...
I agree with Russ on the "20 years of uranium" myth.

The "20 year supply of uranium" comes from: IF we replace fossil-based electricity with fission-based electricity, and IF we continue to use energy at current rates, then our national uranium RESERVES (the stuff already mined, refined and set aside for future use) would last 20 years. There's still more in the ground.

I have heard as much as 600 years of fission is probable. "Infinite" sounds a bit high though.

A very significant use of petroleum products, I have recently learned, is crop fertilizer. As I said before, we are heading for interesting times this century.

I think the 20 years thing does allow for mining more from known reserves, but it also requires a once-through fuel cycle, which is sheer stupidity. That's like filling up your gas tank, driving 5 miles, emptying the rest of your still-good fuel into into a waste container and filling up the tank again.

"Infinite" is obviously an exaggeration, but the amount of uranium in seawater is truly staggering. I don't know how easy it would be to recover, though. Also, once you make the timeframe greater than 50 years or so, unknowns such as the advancement of technology start to have a big impact. We may well have mastered fusion by then, making this all moot.

 

[Chi Meson]

How very significant?

Not that it is a significant percentage of total use of petroleum products, but significant in the way it is used. Petroleum-based fertilizer has provided our agri-business with very cheap fertilizer which will be not-so-very-cheap in the near future. The rising prices of oil byproducts will have a greater effect than we at first imagine.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Not that it is a significant percentage of total use of petroleum products, but significant in the way it is used. Petroleum-based fertilizer has provided our agri-business with very cheap fertilizer which will be not-so-very-cheap in the near future. The rising prices of oil byproducts will have a greater effect than we at first imagine.

The main fertilizer raw materials are energy and hydrocarbon feedstock, phosphate rock, sulphur and potassium salts. It is unlikely that there will be a global shortage of any of the raw materials for the manufacture of mineral fertilizers in the foreseeable future, apart from temporary tight supplies due, for example, to an unexpected surge of demand resulting from a loss of production (for example from the flooding of a potash mine).

http://www.fertilizer.org/ifa/statistics/indicators/ind_reserves.asp"
It seems that fertilizer is not a significant percentage of total use of petroleum products and petroleum products are not a significant percentage of total raw materials in fertilizer.