North Sea runs out of Gas

[bloodline]

That's it, Britain has to buy in it's gas from overseas now.

[Karlos]

There you go. Another possible use for the chav population. Bury them in old mine shafts and use the gas generated by their decomposition. There is a virtually inexhaustable supply and they're so full of sh*t to begin with that I can see it working :lol:

[Speelgoedmannetje]

And because of that, they want to turn the Waddensea into an industrial area. :-x:-x:-x:-x:-x:-x:-x:-x:-x:-x:-x

[FluffyMcDeath]

bloodline wrote:
That's it, Britain has to buy in it's gas from overseas now.

It's not just the North Sea. The oil age should be rapidly coming to and end some year near now. Saudi production dropped 0.4 million barrels per day from June to July and it looks like their biggest field is dying. China's demand keeps going up, so look for fuel prices to rise continually over time. Some industry watchers are seriously anticipating a 150USD barrel by this time next year.

[KennyR]

Hmm, haven't we been buying most of our gas from the Dutch for about 10 years now anyway?

[T_Bone]

In other news, China has just uncovered reserves believed to contain 435 million tonnes.

[FluffyMcDeath]

T_Bone wrote:
In other news, China has just uncovered reserves believed to contain 435 million tonnes.

One barrel of oil is about 0.136 tonnes so 435 Mtonnes is approx.

435M/0.136 or 3,198 M barrels of oil.
World consumption is about 76 M barrels per day (and rising).

So. this new find has enough oil to supply the world demand for ...

3,198/76 = ...

The answer is 42.

Hoooray. Enough oil to last the world 42 days!! We're SAVED!!

[T_Bone]

:lol:

[Turambar]

42 :-o

[odin]

:roflmao:

[FluffyMcDeath]

Here's more.
We've peaked. Depletion is accelerating, i.e. we are using oil faster than we can find it and output is going down in multiple countries.

depletion (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/082304_million_depletion.shtml)

[whabang]

All we need is to tap methane from the ocean floors, and we'd be fit for fight for another decade, or two. On the other hand, puncturing those reserves could be rather fatal! :-o

[T_Bone]

Ah what the hell, whatever happens, I'm ready for it. bring it on! :-)

[whabang]

@Fluffy
Hmm...
Maybe we can extract fuel from towels? :-D

[KennyR]

Looks like its time to buy a good pair of sneakers and a hand fan.

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:
Looks like its time to buy a good pair of sneakers and a hand fan.

Not me, I'll build a stagecoach. It'll be my future SUV.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Well, I still haven't got a drivers licence :-)

[x56h34]

Hoooray. Enough oil to last the world 42 days!! We're SAVED!!

http://www.fast-rewind.com/madmax23.jpg

Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.

[Morley]

bloodline wrote:
That's it, Britain has to buy in it's gas from overseas now.

Thank you Britain! I'll be working in the Norwergian North-Sea oil industry in three years :-D

And at the current production-rate, our oil and gas reserves will last at least 40 years, more when production becomes more efficient.

HA-HA Sweden!

[T_Bone]

x56h34 wrote:
Hoooray. Enough oil to last the world 42 days!! We're SAVED!!

http://www.fast-rewind.com/madmax23.jpg

Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.




:lol:

I was news.google.comming for north sea oil articles, and came acrossed something about angry scottish fuel consumers concerned about the price hike, and all I could think of was the greenskeeper on the Simsons throwing a tantrum :-P

[Robert17]

What happens when it runs out then? :-?

Robert

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Look at the former Soviet Union

[odin]

Morley wrote:
Thank you Britain! I'll be working in the Norwergian North-Sea oil industry in three years :-D

And at the current production-rate, our oil and gas reserves will last at least 40 years, more when production becomes more efficient.
HA-HA Sweden!

And ehm....what is Norway gonna live off when the oil and gas is gone? Treechopping and fish? :-p.

[Morley]

odin wrote:

Morley wrote:
Thank you Britain! I'll be working in the Norwergian North-Sea oil industry in three years :-D

And at the current production-rate, our oil and gas reserves will last at least 40 years, more when production becomes more efficient.
HA-HA Sweden!

And ehm....what is Norway gonna live off when the oil and gas is gone? Treechopping and fish? :-p.

Hmm...good question, cause we are not good at anything but pumping oil. Nearly 1/2 of our BNP is from oil export... :-o

Anyway, think I'll be retired by then, so... ;-)

[Glaucus]

Some industry watchers are seriously anticipating a 150USD barrel by this time next year.Personally, I doubt it will get that bad that fast, but even if you're only half right, it's still bad news for everyone. Ick!

- Mike

[whabang]

Hey Morley!
Should every other oil-source deplete, then you'd have to increase the production rate, and you'd be dry within months!

We just need to adapt our fighter-jet engines so that they can run on ethanol, and we'll just invade (again :evilgrin:), and take all of that oil so that we can... uhm... nevermind... :-P

/me is half Dane anyway http://www.amiga.org/images/subject/icon19.gif

[odin]

whabang wrote:
/me is half Dane anyway http://www.amiga.org/images/subject/icon19.gif
Errrr.....like that is any improvement over the Swedish half :-P.

[Morley]

Half Dane and half Swede? You're almost Norwegian :-)

[asian1]

>Run out of gas.

Hello
This is just a SCAM to increase the price of gas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/26/nenerg26.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/08/26/ixhome.html

Using "Well Injection" technique and other methods, it is possible to extract oil from "dry well".

There are new oil fields in Strait of Timor, Papua etc.
There is a huge Oil reserve beneath Antartics.

Other sources of energy: Wind, Hydrogen, Solar Cells in the space, Fusion Energy (France/Japan) etc.

In Sumatra and Malaysia, there are million acres of Palm Oil / Cooking Oil plantation. It's possible to replace Diesel Fuel / solar with Cooking oil with no / minor modification to ordinary diesel cars.

I guess it's the real MONEY grow on TREE.

[KennyR]

Asian1 wrote:
Using "Well Injection" technique and other methods, it is possible to extract oil from "dry well".

There are new oil fields in Strait of Timor, Papua etc.
There is a huge Oil reserve beneath Antartics.

All of that isn't going to supply the trillions of barrels of oil we'll need for the next 200 years. We have to face it - the biggest oilfields are gone and whatever else we can do might produce oil, it just isn't going to be very cheap.

In Sumatra and Malaysia, there are million acres of Palm Oil / Cooking Oil plantation. It's possible to replace Diesel Fuel / solar with Cooking oil with no / minor modification to ordinary diesel cars.

Ever tried burning cooking oil? I promise, it burns a hell of a lot worse than diesel. Instead of getting 30 miles to the gallon of diesel, you might get something like 12 with vegetable oil.

[T_Bone]

Biodiesel from algae can work, and it's the only solution that might actually be cheaper than the oil we're using now.

It also requres very little in infrastructure changes.

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

Sure it requires large masses of currently unused land be converted for it's use, but not as much as you'd think, and it's completely doable, and works out cheaper than our current system. I haven't seen anything else that can claim that.

[KennyR]

What land is actually "unused", really? It's all a habitat for something or other.

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:
What land is actually "unused", really?

Desert would be used for the algae beds. Sure the cactus gets displaced. F*^k the cactus. :-D

It's all a habitat for something or other.

And now it would be a habitat for algae. :lol:

[bloodline]

F*^k the cactus. :-D

That would, most likely, hurt...

[KennyR]

Ok, so you put aside a million acres of apparently useless North American desert for algae growth. Now you have desert land that's absorbing and reflecting far more light, resulting in much lower daytime temperatures, sucking more moisture across the Sierra Nevada. That's going to dry out lands west of the mountains all along the western seaboard, and moisten lands east, resulting in dramatic weather changes all across North America.

And what do you water your algae with? The main rivers of the US are already in crisis; the Nevada and Colerado rivers are already shrunk in half by what the cities alone need (and probably shrunk even more now that the lands east are cooler!). A million acres of algae is going to need billions of tons of water to do what it does. And it would supply about 5% of the automotive needs of the US alone!

I think what I'm saying here is: nothing comes for free. The average American uses twice the resources of the average European, and about 20 times the resources of someone from the third world. We can't keep living to this level on Earth's resources. It's a mathematical impossibility no matter what wonder gadgets are invented. A change in lifestyle is needed, and if we don't inforce it, nature will - in a whole lot more painful way.

[T_Bone]

KennyR wrote:
Ok, so you put aside a million acres of apparently useless North American desert for algae growth. Now you have desert land that's absorbing and reflecting far more light,

How do you absorb AND reflect more light? light is currently either being absorbed or reflected, are you saying the suns output is going to increase over that area so that more is absorbed AND reflected? :-?

resulting in much lower daytime temperatures, sucking more moisture across the Sierra Nevada. That's going to dry out lands west of the mountains all along the western seaboard, and moisten lands east, resulting in dramatic weather changes all across North America.

15k square miles could do that? Why haven't the 400X this amount of land we've already irrigated made an affect like this, why do you think an area 400+ times smaller would be more significant than the 400X this mass of irrigated land have made?

And what do you water your algae with? The main rivers of the US are already in crisis; the Nevada and Colerado rivers are already shrunk in half by what the cities alone need (and probably shrunk even more now that the lands east are cooler!). A million acres of algae is going to need billions of tons of water to do what it does.

Have our oceans receeded? I thougt they were rising? You make it sound as if algae only grows in potable drinking water. That might be a problem if that were the case :lol:

The beauty of this system is polluted water can be used as well, in fact they've found it works better. (Which is good news, we have something to use rivers originating in Canada for, seeing as they've polluted them to the point that by the time the rivers enter the US they can't be used for anything else)

And it would supply about 5% of the automotive needs of the US alone!

How do you figure 5%? They've shown the math for 100% of our automotive needs and beyond.

"Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly nine percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required). That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals. "

I think what I'm saying here is: nothing comes for free. The average American uses twice the resources of the average European, and about 20 times the resources of someone from the third world. We can't keep living to this level on Earth's resources. It's a mathematical impossibility no matter what wonder gadgets are invented. A change in lifestyle is needed, and if we don't inforce it, nature will - in a whole lot more painful way.

Sure, TANSTAAFL applies obviously, but where do you see someone proposing something for nothing?

(Did I mention they predict this will actually be cheaper than our curent oil?)

[bloodline]

@T-Bone

While their sums ad up and I really like the idea, they seem to ahve left out the cost of processing the algae in to a usable fuel.

Still it does look like a good idea, what ever the cost.

[T_Bone]

bloodline wrote:
@T-Bone

While their sums ad up and I really like the idea, they seem to ahve left out the cost of processing the algae in to a usable fuel.

There's a good reason for that, we refine it the same way we currently refine our oil, even using the same equipment. They've already tested it and it requires virtually no modification. The oily algae sludge enters the refinery the same way crude previously had.

(Did I mention it's cheaper than our current oil supply :lol: Talk about a selling point! Screw waiting for the oil to run out, let's switch NOW!)

[whabang]

Have our oceans receeded? I thougt they were rising?
I can't be bothered to participate in this anymore, but:
The sea levels are really sinking. It's just that the melting if the ice caps keep filling the oceans up.

This is a really slow, but natural, process. It's because the volcanic activity has decreased, or something.

A period of high volcanic activity could probably put things back to normal.

[whabang]

odin wrote:

whabang wrote:
/me is half Dane anyway http://www.amiga.org/images/subject/icon19.gif
Errrr.....like that is any improvement over the Swedish half :-P.
:whack:

You obviously haven't worked with technical support in Scandinavia!

[whabang]

Morley wrote:
Half Dane and half Swede? You're almost Norwegian :-)
:lol:

[KennyR]

T_Bone wrote:
Have our oceans receeded? I thougt they were rising? You make it sound as if algae only grows in potable drinking water. That might be a problem if that were the case

It won't grow on salt water, that's for sure. You'll need fresh water for algae farms. Salt water algae is called seaweed and you wouldn't be able to farm it in large quantities, since you'd have problems with salt buildup and a salty product.

How do you figure 5%? They've shown the math for 100% of our automotive needs and beyond.

Advertising hype. I worked out my figure using the solar energy that hits a million acres of wall-to-wall algae farms, and can be harvested by the plants, per day, and compared it to the fuel energy used by vehicles in the US, per day. The latter figure is appreciably smaller. (Although I couldn't find any reliable figures, so it's somewhat of an educated guess. If the disparity in figures wasn't so high I wouldn't call it accurate).

[FluffyMcDeath]

KennyR wrote:
T_Bone wrote:
How do you figure 5%? They've shown the math for 100% of our automotive needs and beyond.

Advertising hype. I worked out my figure using the solar energy that hits a million acres of wall-to-wall algae farms, and can be harvested by the plants, per day, and compared it to the fuel energy used by vehicles in the US, per day. The latter figure is appreciably smaller.

I was just doing a little calc based on the his figures and looking at the energy in a gallon on gas and I figure about 123,000 square kilometers. That's trying to figure for available daylight and efficiency of phtotsynthesis which is a bit less than 5% for photon energy to glucose (including respiration). For the algae to convert this to oil there's probably more loss and the oil is only upto 50% of the mass, so ... maybe it's closer to 1% so multiply 123,000 by 5, that's 615,000 square km.

To make the plan work, you really need to move to lower consumption. If you drive to work at 7mpg or you drive to work at 52 mpg, you're still driving to work. Do you really NEED to do it at 7 mpg?

And how much of the energy captured in the algae is used during refining? and what is the usable fraction?

I'm not saying I hate the idea? Biomass is probably one of the easier, cheaper ways of capturing solar energy, but I'm not buying the rosey picture.

Then again, if we were able to seperate the algae into an edible fraction and a fuel fraction, then you could have fuel as a byproduct of argiculture but you already can if you consider what a small fraction of the mass the edible portion of most food crops is. There's a lot of burnable cellulose left over.