What do we do when the oil runs low

[BWV]

and if we are just talking about oil, don't forget just about any petrochemical or a close substitute can be made from natural gas

 

[OmCheeto]

... useless travel?)

Now there's a number I've been looking for, for quite some time.

Not so much for business peeps, but more for me and the average joe.

According to my very bad maths, only about 1/3 of gasoline consumption is used to get back and forth to work. The other 2/3, is used, afaict, for fun.

 

[Dragrath]

and if we are just talking about oil, don't forget just about any petrochemical or a close substitute can be made from natural gas

Though notably any such reaction is going to take energy so it would function more or less as a type of energy storage

 

[BWV]

Though notably any such reaction is going to take energy so it would function more or less as a type of energy storage

Not necessarily, US petrochem companies now dominate Ethylene production as they have a competitive advantage using cheaper NGLs as a feedstock vs petroleum. For energy storage, the liquification cost of LNG is $1.5-2 /million BTU making it competitive as a replacement for coal

 

[Dragrath]

Not necessarily, US petrochem companies now dominate Ethylene production as they have a competitive advantage using cheaper NGLs as a feedstock vs petroleum. The liquification cost of LNG is $1.5-2 /million BTU

Ah I had been thinking in the context of the hypothetical far future i.e. converting CO2 back into hydrocarbons, Natural gas is already storing chemical energy originally produced via photosynthesis. The reactions to produce various hydrocarbons and sugars require the absorption of energy which plants accomplish using sunlight.

There is no way to make that from CO2, whether by the aerobic process using water as the election donor or some other molecule/catalyst without spending energy. Microbes can get that energy from many sources such as reducing metals or other chemical states present in the environment(chemosynthesis), or by using a source such as sunlight(photosynthesis) etc. as the main processes Earth life uses to initually capture energy. Basically one idea is to using carbon neutral energy sources you could recreate hydrocarbons faster than plants can sequester it naturally.

 

[MisterX]

The premise of the question is potentially flawed. First we must ask, will oil (or other fossil fuels) run low? The answer seems to be no. There are more fossil fuels than we can exploit without serious, potentially fatal environmental damage.[1] We will have other problems before it happens, to the extent that running out of oil isn't really a concern right now.
The first critical resource that seems due to run out is phosphate rock. It seems this will be depleted hundreds of years before fossil fuels would be (ignoring the problems that using that much fossil fuels would incur).
There's also enough uranium to last at least hundreds of years.

[1] Tokarska, K., Gillett, N., Weaver, A. et al. The climate response to five trillion tonnes of carbon. Nature Clim Change 6, 851–855 (2016) doi:10.1038/nclimate3036

 

[russ_watters]

The premise of the question is potentially flawed. First we must ask, will oil (or other fossil fuels) run low? The answer seems to be no. There are more fossil fuels than we can exploit without serious, potentially fatal environmental damage.[1] We will have other problems before it happens, to the extent that running out of oil isn't really a concern right now.

That appears to include all fossil fuels, and there is a lot more coal than oil. I know estimates of oil's demise have been overblown for decades, but I have a hard time believing we have more than a hundred years of it left.

I also find apocalyptic predictions difficult to accept; the only other thing that could drastically reduce our fossil fuel use is a large-scale die-off of the human race (1: choice, 2: depletion, 3: apocalypse). And I just don't see even the most dire predictions as capable of causing it.

[edit] Even "apocalypse" won't necessarily curtail oil use if it takes too long/lags the use.

 

[russ_watters]

That appears to include all fossil fuels, and there is a lot more coal than oil. I know estimates of oil's demise have been overblown for decades, but I have a hard time believing we have more than a hundred years of it left.

I should have looked into it before posting that. Here's a source that mixes fossil fuel sources together and suggests that oil availability is much greater than I realized when you include coal-to-oil and oil sands:

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/eme801/node/486
Under this type of model what we would see is cost plateaus that may or may not be high enough to drive choices away from fossil fuels.

 

[davenn]

……………. Certainly a high energy dense fuel is needed is certain areas of the economy, and at a practical price.

Speaking of which, E10 fuel hit AU$1.72 / litre (AU$7 / gallon) this week. that ~ US$5 - 6 / gallon