"We are running out of oil" - Airbus

The world won't run out of oil around 2050, not a chance. Some of the wells which haven't even been drilled yet, and the new advanced recovery methods in the industry are going to extend that by a fair stretch.

I see Vulcan's back with the same old stuff we have addressed before. And yes, after this topic is forgotten he'll be back again, ignoring everything we have said.

Just plain reality that a finite natural resource is running out (by ~2050, at present rates of consumption)

Of course it's running out, the Airbus guy is correct. This is not new. But no, not 2050, it was actually estimated to be 2060 and that estimate was made some years ago.

That estimate was based on the fact that there was always a large percentage of our oil reserves that we couldn't extract for technical and economic reasons. This is known in the industry as the "recovery factor".

And the "recovery factor", is now much greater than it was. It's now economically and technologically viable to extract much more oil than we could before.

In fact, there are literally trillions of barrels of oil still to be extracted.

Nothing to do with reducing CO2 to save planet earth from deadly "carbon".

Yes, you've made that wild claim before. But of course it totally ignores the fact that there are several good reasons to cut back our fossil fuel consumption, and they are not mutually exclusive. They can and do occur together.

I know you are obsessed with conspiracy theory, but there isn't one here. It has never been a secret that our oil supplies are finite, in fact there has been much said about it by the authorities, documentaries made, statements given. Where were you?

No one has kept this a secret, in fact finite oil reserves, energy security, climate change among others has been cited repeatedly as excellent reasons to limit our fossil fuel consumption.

Why the world isn't running out of oil Far from running out, oil and natural gas reserves were, if not inexhaustible, then unfathomably vast. Nobody knew that then, but they do now. Moreover, as well as bountiful oilfields in North America, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other producers in the Middle East, there are massive, barely tapped reserves in South America, Africa and the Arctic: not billions of barrels’ worth, but trillions. So the planet is not about to run out of oil. On the contrary, according to a Harvard University report published last year, we are heading for a glut. The 75-page study, by oil executive Leonardo Maugeri, was based on a field-by-field analysis of most of the major oil exploration and development projects in the world, and it predicted a 20 per cent increase in global oil production by 2020.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/oil/9867659/Why-the-world-isnt-running-out-of-oil.html

Nobody knew that then, but they do now. Well, Airbus seem fairly sure?? Why do you think everyone is going nuts over alternative energy, and the deadline of 2050 if it is not true?

Airbus didn't say we would run out of oil by 2050 did they? They said we are running out, which we know, which we have always known. Airbus were talking about the "future" not your chosen date.



No body is going nuts about 2050. The research has been done, based on a field-by-field analysis of most of the major oil exploration and development projects in the world. They concluded we have trillions of barrels, no 2050 deadline, in fact they predicted a 20 per cent increase in global oil production by 2020.

They wouldn't be bothering with bio-fuel for example, displacing food crops and raising prices if there was no need.

There is a need, climate change, energy security, and in the very long term, our finite oil reserves. But no, not 2050.

And when we do eventually run out of oil, hopefully we will have perfected alternative means of generating energy by then, fusion perhaps. If not... then methane hydrate exists in immense quantities, beneath the ocean, by some estimates it's twice as abundant as all other fossil fuels combined.

Afghanistan is a great resource of lithium used in batteries. Hmm......

What are you trying to say there? That the only reason we are engaging in a war in Afghanistan is because they have lithium?

That's a new one on me.

On this topic, there are now electric racing motorcycles zooming around the Isle of Man TT course at speeds similar to the petrol engines superbikes. If all we need is a motive force to turn a fan blade I wonder how long it will be before someone uses a hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell to produce electricity to turn one?

There certainly are electric bikes around. Electric dragster bikes too.

Cars with fuel cells have already been built. Honda started experimenting with fuel cell cars back in 1999, and Toyota had pone on the road in 2002. The problem with fuel cells though, is that platinum is required as a catalyst. It has been calculated that if all the cars in the world were powered by fuel cells, then we would run out of platinum in 60 years. So yes, fuel cells have potential, but there is some development to be done. Fuel cells are also limited in cold conditions, and their lifespans are short.

In the UK, the London Hydrogen Partnership is coordinating activities to explore some of the barriers associated with hydrogen vehicle adoption. The Partnership is researching conditions required for a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in London, as well as investigating costs and timescales for implementation of fuel cell vehicles in the capital.

Battery technology is the key in my opinion, and there are amazing technologies in the laboratory. One such battery can recharge a "thousand" times faster than conventional batteries, can be ten times smaller, or last ten times longer per charge.

It won't be long before such technologies are in our cars, and when that day comes, most cars will be electric.

Lots of developments with photovoltaic cells too, both in terms of increasing efficiency, and just as importantly, cost to manufacture. Even if a cell is less efficient than todays cells, it's still viable if it's very cheap to produce. There are super cheap, flexible, cells on a roll in development that you can literally attach to any surface.