me: >> ... Peak oil as you define it, if attained, does not >> automatically mean steadily rising prices and true costs of extraction >> and refining of oil (where true costs include the environmental >> impact).
Gar: > More or less it does. String of pearls theory as Commoner explained it > in 70's. Scatter a string of pearls on the ground, and at first they > are easy to pick up. It is getting the last ones that is a bitch. So > after supply peaks and begins dropping, most likely each barrel is a > little harder to extract than the rest. The factors you site below > can be countervailing factors up to a point. this is standard diminishing marginal returns, i.e., a given and fixed supply curve. The countervailing factors can and do shift the supply curve -- or the demand curve. Steadily rising prices of oil cause capitalists to find new supplies, substitutes for oil, ways to utilize existing oil reserves more completely, and ways to be more efficient in converting oil into petrochemicals (with fewer unused, unsaleable, and thus (from their point of view) wasted byproducts). It also creates the incentive to minimize the use of petrochemicals (reduce demand). This is a normal result of how "market forces" work. (This tale does leave out the way in which capitalist investment tends to over-shoot, causing oil shortages, and then collapse.) On the other hand, if we see rising true costs of extraction -- which include external costs, like the hard-to-reverse destruction of nature -- the market forces don't do a good job at all. That's why these true costs are more important. > I guess at the extreme > you get the case of passenger pigeon Michael likes to cite - The price > of passenger pigeons was the same as the price of chicken right until > the last one died. Passenger pigeons are not analogous to oil. In the case of oil, there are usually owners. Because of this, they have an incentive to protect their own supply, to make future profits. These birds, on the other hand, are free, unfettered by property rights. So there's no vested interest in maintaining their existence. There's no Lorax to speak for the birds. So, unless the government intervenes to impose rationality on the decentralized decisions of the hunters, they all get killed and turned into thneeds. >> ... we have to get out of using oil and coal and the like, >> to save the earth from global warming and other natural disasters. If >> peak oil happens, that will help the transition away from fossil fuel. >> That's why I hope peak oil is really going to happen. > Not so sure. One obvious solution if oil really peaks in the sense of > price rising is to make oil from coal. More greenhouse gas intensive, > other horrible side effects, more expensive than oil currently, but > if oil prices rose high enough would probably be competitive. that's why I said "get out of oil and coal and the like." I didn't say that peak oil would cause us to get away from fossil fuel. It will only _help_ us make the transition. > Similarly most biofuels are worse for the environment than dead > dinosaur oil. My view leans the opposite way as yours. I think there > is a good chance the peak oil people are right, but I hope they are > wrong. I think both environmental and general leftist cause will do > better if we don't hit peak oil. ... why? >> BTW, U.S. National Public Radio recently reported on new techniques >> for getting natural gas out of the ground, so that natural gas could >> be extracted at significantly lower costs. Some environmentalists >> (who? I don't know) were cited as saying that increased use of natural >> gas is a good way to transition from oil and coal to renewable sources >> (which are currently expensive). Anyway, that's what they said. Is it >> reasonably true? or a bunch of lies, ignoring large environmental >> costs or use of ultra-scarce water resources? >> >> Inquiring minds want to know. > Briefly - at least some new techniques involve extract gas from > rocks, which means lower net energy, and less greenhouse gas savings > more water etc. Other new techniques mean just accessing natural gas > that was previously not accessible not with clear paths thanks to > global warming that has already taken place. Even at best, if we could > substitute conventional natural gas for 100% of oil and coal, it would > lower emissions by less than 40% and then start increasing again. > Barry Commoner proposes a mixture of natural gas, increased efficiency > and renewables back in the 70's with a gradual phaseout of natural gas > that might well have finished by 2000. A really good idea then; we > probably don't have time now. And, as you guessed natural gas is > water intensive, though not as water intensive as coal or oil. What > we really need is a fast transition to a combination of efficiency, > conservation and renewables plus moving agriculture and forestry to > regenerative models. If we move fast enough on that, conventional gas > reserves are plentiful enough to power the transition. If we move > slowly enough to need unconventional natural gas in large quantities, > the fit has hit the shan. right. (did you ever read LORD OF LIGHT by Roger Zelazny? In that book, the fit _literally_ hit the shan.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
