I have been thinking a lot about energy, technology, peak oil, etc. over the past few months. I’ve also been doing a little research for a book I have wanted to write for about 30 years. This has led me to make two statements that I think are key to the discussion of energy, peak oil, and diminishing resources in general.
First Statement: Our resources are only limited by our ability to find and employ the cost effective technology needed to discover and recover those resources we need. We tend to look at our resources as being limited when, actually, it is likely that only our knowledge and technology are limiting us.
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Early Technology
Take for example, Gold. First there was gold found in certain streams. As man found and recovered all of the gold in the known gold-bearing streams, he had to look for new, yet undiscovered streams. The limit to the supply of gold was the amount that could be taken from the known gold-bearing streams. Eventually, gold was also found by digging near the gold-bearing streams. This increased the known supply of the resource. But we could only dig so deep so eventually the supply would again be limited to our ability to dig in the known places. Soon, man discovered that there was gold to be dug in places not near the gold-bearing streams. Again the total resource was found to be larger than originally thought. Then man learned to dig and tunnel deeper and mines went to our technological limit of about a mile underground. This again increased the total of the known reserves of gold. Today, the TuaTona mine in South Africa is the world’s deepest gold mining operation at just under 2.5miles deep. It takes nearly an hour for the miners to descend to the working face. The cost to extract an ounce of gold from 2.5 miles down is about $800. But, the value of that ounce of gold is now $1,600 so it makes sense to go that deep. What effect does that have on the known reserves of gold?
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Current Technology
TransOcean’s Deepwater Horizon, in 2009, drilled a well over 6 miles deep in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2010, they had problems with that well resulting in loss of life and a huge oil spill. But they proved that we could get oil and gas from deeper than ever before. Again our estimated total of known reserves increased. The only question was not, “Do we have enough oil reserves for man’s energy needs?” It became, “Do we have the technology to recover that energy in a cost effective manner?”
The Kola Superdeep borehole in Russia is just over 7.5 miles (about 40,000 feet) deep. It is currently the deepest penetration of earth that has been made by man. During the drilling, as they approached the 40,000 foot level, heats of over 350 degrees Fahrenheit were encountered. That predicted that to get to over 50,000 feet of depth (the project goal), they would have been seeing temperatures in excess of 500 degrees which would have made drill bits too soft to cut. Do you have any doubt that we will discover and learn to use new materials for drill bits that can survive 500 degrees F. or much more? Do you doubt that our known reserves of crude oil and natural gas will dramatically increase as we bring new technologies to bear on the problem?
This discussion has not even looked at the advances in non-destructive exploration technology. And, it is unlikely that even with our current technology that we have searched the entire earth for these resources.
Now for some perspective. The Earth’s Circumference is approximately 25,000 miles. That means it is about 7950 miles straight through the earth from one side to the other or just under 4,000 miles from any point on the surface to the center of Earth. So we are currently exploring less than 7.5 miles of 4,000 miles, or less than 2 tenths of one percent of the depth of earth. What is to be found in the other 99.8% of that trip to the center?
If we were to drill to the maximum capability of current drilling technology, say 40,000 feet, would we reach a limitless supply of earth at a temperature of at least 350 Deg.F.? Could we use this heat to generate power with steam to convert that to electricity? Would that be sufficient to replace our petroleum energy needs?
Second Statement: As long as demand persists and there is no competing resource at lower cost, the price of any resource will remain high enough to support the cost to discover and recover and deliver the resource.
Do you agree with my two statements? If so or if not, please express your feelings in a comment to this post.
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January 4, 2013 at 3:47 pm
Jim Wixson
Tom,
this is a very fruitful line of enquiry, and one which will certainly be pursued in future generations. The subject of resources and our use of them has barelybeen thought-about, let alone scratched.
In some world i will not see in this life, resources will be managed rationally and on a coordinated basis, with regard to obtaining, using and disposing of them. Thus, the entire life of the resource will be considered, from its initial capture until its very end return to its ultimate resting place. For instance, the components of any product or structure will be planned for appropriateness, suitability to the task, safety, economy et cetera, and what will become of it, once its initial application is finished (will it be recycled and reused, or returned to the earth or what?), and PAID FOR – so that someone will have am economic interest in its next phase, right up until its retirement (and not dump-and-run, as at present).
i can envision a system of giant moles which bore beneath the earth, searching for specific raw materials, recovering them and bringing them to the surface, and (in some cases) returning the waste products to unused tunnels. i can also imagine a giant heat-exchanger, miles deep under the earth, capturing ergs at several hundred degrees, evaporating a fluid which turns a turbine and generates electricity which flows to the surface, and rejecting the waste heat at a temperature of less than a hundred degrees in the soil under agricultural land somewhere, and growing crops around the year, in a closed cycle and with (nearly) no waste material of any sort, let alone hazardous or polluting. i add the thought that such deep holes are the perfect place to dispose of radioactive materials; indeed the magma of the earth today contains all but a vanishingly small amount of the radioactive elements of our present planet.
The resulting electricity could be distributed at terminals throughout the earth, at a cost determined to encourage its right usage. Some electricity would be “bottled” in the form of batteries or chemicals, say hydrolized water, in the form of liquid oxygen and hydrogen, known to be non-polluting.
Other electricity might be transferred in rails used for transportation, such as trams, railroad trains and individual trucks, cars, jitneys et cetera, for various forms of conveyance. And if we ever figure out how Tesla planned it, we might even be able to wirelessly transfer useful watts to moving objects such as airplanes or boats.
All of this must presuppose governments unrecognizably different from those we have today – an almost-apocalyptic world of peace, harmony and, above all. rationality. Thus, we are unlikely the ones to be doing it.
(For a tiny example of why we could not conceivably do it now, consider mail i recently got from a friend in Afghanistan: he is a contractor with the US military, and notes that he will “probably find another job. Don’t really want to make this deployment thing my third career. It has been very interesting to see how the face of war has changed. I would say there are no warriors left, just folks that spend their time ensuring that they cannot be blamed for something. Looks like all the menial tasks are being done by contractors, including the motor pool, food, etc. Would not mind having the portapotty contract. While they need cleaning and emptying once a day, there is one for about every 20 people and I am told they are charging $30,000/green goddess/year. I venture to guess they are paying the Albanians, Kenyans, and Indians about thirty grand a year. A team of three guys takes care of all of them. All very interesting. Doubt seriously that we are saving money by not paying soldiers to cook, etc.”
This trivial example is only emblematic of the our present leadership,, scarcely able to see their noses, and certainly not beyond. (And then look at the horror of the UN! Hardly bears thinking about.)
So, we won’t be the ones to implement your interesting ideas.
(But someone (or something) will.)
Onward and upward! – jim
January 4, 2013 at 5:44 pm
ttoes
Thanks, Jim.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I don’t think any of your ideas are beyond our reach in the very near future, except, of course, the one about a totally different type of government. I sometimes think we need to start over from scratch. If our founding fathers could see us now, what would they think? I actually don’t think they would be too surprised, otherwise, why would they have spent so much effort crafting a government that would be inefficient and hard to control.
As for the technologies and ideas that will lead us out of the wilderness of resource shortages, I still think Rebecca Costa has it right in her book, “The Watchman’s Rattle.”
Tom
January 4, 2013 at 6:25 pm
Jim Wixson
I have not read Rebecca, but will see what she had to say about resources.
Finding technology has never been the problem; using technology has always been the problem. As advanced as we are (and that is, somewhat), we are no better at making decisions for large groups than we were in, say, the era of Judges. What is required is a sifting and selecting of ideas, and the trying of them by those who are willing, without their draconian imposition on the rest of us.
If we were allowed the free choice of competing ideas, the darwinian (or smithian) notion of merit/success would quickly weed out the tyranny of muddling through, and it would no longer require arms to force us to be complaisant subjects. This is what is beyond our present grasp, and the churchillian paradigm will continue to rule: do everything wrong as long as you can. Power ever sees only the present moment. – jim
January 4, 2013 at 8:26 pm
informationforager
I think I disagree. The reasons are that the whole energy revolution is dependant upon three things: Time, Cost, and Rate. In short we don’t have enough TIME to suddenly switch. We should have been doing this about 20 years ago. We are currently using about 6 barrels of oil for every one discovered. To switch or explode our energy development pretty much has to be very,ery shortly.
The COST of energy is going to be exponential. To switch and/or drill every rig is only going to go higher and higher. It’s going to require more and more holes in the earth just to run in place.
The RATE of oil needed to run the economy needs to be absolutely constant. We currently have daily surpluses of oil at about 2.5 million a day with a 55 day window. The world is currently using about 85 million barrels a day and 31.9 billion barrels a year. Nothing comes close to our oil usage and it’s oil that runs transportation which in turn runs the economy. When the media says that an oil field with 15 billion barrels has been found 8 miles off the coast of Brazil and 4 miles deep I just shake my head because that is only a half a years worth of oil.
In short, technology and/or economic theory does not trump oil geology.
January 7, 2013 at 1:38 pm
ttoes
@ informationmonger
I appreciate your comment and think I understand your point of view. My point of view differs from yours because you see things in view of today’s knowledge base and I am suggesting that as that knowledge base grows it will change the assumptions which you depend upon for your conclusions.
For example, you say that we don’t “have enough time to switch.” I assume you mean a switch to alternative transportation fuels from the current predominance of petroleum based transportation fuels. If you do mean the switch to alternatives, your belief that we have run out of time and that we “should have been doing this about 20 years ago” is dependent upon what we know NOW. That includes today’s knowledge of petroleum resources, efficiency of use of petroleum based fuels in transportation uses, costs of alternative sources of energy for other uses which may free up more petroleum for transportation uses, etc., etc. A simple change from gasoline engines to modern diesel engines for all personal transportation is within our current technological knowledge and likely decrease your 85 million barrel demand number downward by a significant percentage. This is a change using current technology. Now, if you assume that we will make significant advances in battery technology or find ways to build much lighter more efficient automobiles, the demand will fall further.
The point of my post, as it applies to your comment, “In short, technology and/or economic theory does not trump oil geology” is that your predictions are based on today’s facts and those facts are both very limiting and subject to change as our knowledge increases. Oil Geology, for all its high-minded theory is still based on facts generated from, at most, the top 2 tenths of one percent of the crust of earth’s mass.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment,
Tom
January 16, 2013 at 4:25 pm
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