The bigger picture
Being just a programmer, just a hack with a math/science background, I work for an engineering company, full of more engineers with real knowledge of what can be done with sticks and stones, and how to reasonably model them with computers.
The real world is a messy place, and it is amazing what we have done with science and technology to make the matter of the world into something completely new.
Still, I have to wonder if engineers, sitting close to their toys, have any chance of judging the big picture?
I accept E.F. Schumacher's position, that we may have solved many technical problems, how to manipulate matter, but the game isn't "solved" until we master energy sources that don't get used up much faster than they're created.
We're living in a in piggy bank of hydrocarbons and whether they get depleted or their pollution changes our climate first I can't tell, but both are worthy to worry about.
In terms of sources at least most engineers are optimists. They see a world weighing 5.9742x10^24 kgs and figure there's enough bread and cake in their for all.
They are excited by the discovery of up to 15Bbbl of oil or natural gas in the deep water, far under the sea floor of the gulf. Surely if we can find ONE big new find there, so deep, we can hope for hundreds more around the world, all just waiting for billion dollar oil rigs to drill them.
Clearly there is an issue of diminishing returns of oil. Oil started at energy out:in ratios of 100:1 or more, and perhaps are still so high in some middle eastern wells, but this ratio does go down year by year, as the easy stuff gets extracted first. Energy ratios are dependent upon technology, and necessity will push us a long way.
And the engineers are excited because they'll have profitable jobs for a long time, at least if the economy can keep humming, and they're helping to POWER that hummmm....
But when do you change course? When does oil get to be too expensive? The economists say when oil gets too expensive, alternatives will take over, and I believe it, in the necessity sense, but what about the conversion costs? If we KNOW oil must be drained (and we know burning it is changing our climate in an uncontrolled experiment), why not start early?
When oil reaches $200/bbl, I'm sure we'll be lookin harder for alternatives. When will alternatives be competitive? It can be a moving target - like producing ethanol from fossil fuel for fertilizers, tractors, irrigation, distilling, etc.
It is curious to see gasoline prices drop from a high $3.19 a few months ago to $2.17 low this week. I can "blame" this on the "fear premium" drying up with the boring hurricane season, and the changing season away from transportation fuels. $63/bbl oil is still high, and I accept it could yet go lower for a time, but I hope not. Not because I work for a company that can earn money from oil, but because higher prices are the only signal that we need to change direction.
I'm glad I'm not an engineer or petroleum geologist, giggling away at the next big deep water find.
OIL may not be the end of us, but we'll be something very different when we can no longer find enough of it to keep growing our economy.
The real world is a messy place, and it is amazing what we have done with science and technology to make the matter of the world into something completely new.
Still, I have to wonder if engineers, sitting close to their toys, have any chance of judging the big picture?
I accept E.F. Schumacher's position, that we may have solved many technical problems, how to manipulate matter, but the game isn't "solved" until we master energy sources that don't get used up much faster than they're created.
We're living in a in piggy bank of hydrocarbons and whether they get depleted or their pollution changes our climate first I can't tell, but both are worthy to worry about.
In terms of sources at least most engineers are optimists. They see a world weighing 5.9742x10^24 kgs and figure there's enough bread and cake in their for all.
They are excited by the discovery of up to 15Bbbl of oil or natural gas in the deep water, far under the sea floor of the gulf. Surely if we can find ONE big new find there, so deep, we can hope for hundreds more around the world, all just waiting for billion dollar oil rigs to drill them.
Clearly there is an issue of diminishing returns of oil. Oil started at energy out:in ratios of 100:1 or more, and perhaps are still so high in some middle eastern wells, but this ratio does go down year by year, as the easy stuff gets extracted first. Energy ratios are dependent upon technology, and necessity will push us a long way.
And the engineers are excited because they'll have profitable jobs for a long time, at least if the economy can keep humming, and they're helping to POWER that hummmm....
But when do you change course? When does oil get to be too expensive? The economists say when oil gets too expensive, alternatives will take over, and I believe it, in the necessity sense, but what about the conversion costs? If we KNOW oil must be drained (and we know burning it is changing our climate in an uncontrolled experiment), why not start early?
When oil reaches $200/bbl, I'm sure we'll be lookin harder for alternatives. When will alternatives be competitive? It can be a moving target - like producing ethanol from fossil fuel for fertilizers, tractors, irrigation, distilling, etc.
It is curious to see gasoline prices drop from a high $3.19 a few months ago to $2.17 low this week. I can "blame" this on the "fear premium" drying up with the boring hurricane season, and the changing season away from transportation fuels. $63/bbl oil is still high, and I accept it could yet go lower for a time, but I hope not. Not because I work for a company that can earn money from oil, but because higher prices are the only signal that we need to change direction.
I'm glad I'm not an engineer or petroleum geologist, giggling away at the next big deep water find.
OIL may not be the end of us, but we'll be something very different when we can no longer find enough of it to keep growing our economy.
posted by Ares Olympus at 2:24 PM
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