…is full of oil?
I’ve never bought the peak oil theory, at least not as having any near-term relevance. If production slows down, it’s only because we’ve quit looking, or haven’t been allowed to by idiot politicians.
20 thoughts on “Davy Jones Locker”
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I worked at an oil major a couple of years ago and people there really believed the Gulf of Mexico would be depleted within a decade. Note that when an oil field is depleted, it still contains about two thirds of the original amount of oil, it just isn’t economical to get the rest out. They did not believe all oil would run out within a decade, there is plenty of oil in oil shale and tar sands.
So called easy oil is running out however. Which is why I found myself working on a transient multiphase flow simulator. There apparently aren’t that many wells left that produce just oil and no gas. Techniques for enhanced oil recovery (and perhaps other factors as well) also mean there are non-neglible amounts of water. Depending on temperature and pressure, water content and gas composition you can get very annoying hydrate plugs.
They also said there’s enough coal to last us two to three hundred years. They were slightly worried about the CO2, but all of that could be sequestered for a total price of around $200/barrel.
It seems highly unlikely we’ll run out of fossil fuels before we have fusion power.
“It seems highly unlikely we’ll run out of fossil fuels before we have fusion power.”
Of course not. Fusion’s only 20 years away!
A 165 million barrel find? Isn’t that ~16 days worth at current Saudi production levels? Google tells me Saudi output is ~10 million barrels per day (+ / -)
A mere drop in the bucket.
It’s true. Oil companies spend more on exploration, and research into extracting oil from shales, than they ever have in history. The stuff that’s laying right where we can get to it is gone baby gone. I’ve read a few write ups that make a pretty convincing case we’ll never see sub-$2/gallon gas again.
“I’ve read a few write ups that make a pretty convincing case we’ll never see sub-$2/gallon gas again.”
Yeah, I read similar studies… in 1978.
“Of course not. Fusion’s only 20 years away!”
Yeah, I heard similar things… in 1978.
Mark was being sarcastic about fusion.
And hey, I’d love to be proved wrong.
Bart – yeah. Hence the joke 🙂 Fusion is always 20 years away! Or whatever the phrasing is.
Fusion is the energy technology of the future, and always will be.
Unless we’re talking harnessing the power of the big fusion reaction in the sky. That one seems to be catching on quite nicely, in various forms.
Costs will have to drop precipitously before solar becomes a legitimate alternative.
Solar is great when the sun is shining. Fission is better for base load. PV panels are also extremely toxic to mfg (but, hey, it’s done in Asia, so who cares? /sarc), but the good news is that that tech is still advancing. By the time the Unobtanium runs out, we’ll be sitting pretty.
How about space-based solutions? Granted, the cost for those would be astronomical, but just the fact that they’re feasible at all, with today’s technology, is pretty mind-boggling, no?
I’d naturally enjoy a “space based” solution to any and every human problem since that would keep me working, but human ingenuity and the marketplace will sort it out. There is solar tech out there that isn’t even in the market yet, so who can say?
“recent drilling indicates hydrocarbons at a level that could lead to “significant additional development potential,” the McMoRan release said.
I’ve seen estimates that the area might contain billions of barrels. Found in water twenty feett deep.
Fusion is 20 years away, and always will be. Provided, that is, that we keep going down the multibillion-dollar blind alley that is tokamak fusion. Personally, I also have another objection to tokamak; it becomes increasingly obvious that it will never work in any units smaller than a ten-story building, and thus promotes even more centralisation than currently – and it will produce as much radiation as, or more than, fission power. I am not in favour of either more centralisation of power or more nuclear waste.
We would be much better off ditching tokamak and putting the money into other clean energy technologies – including the two other, severely underfunded, approaches to fusion. “We” in this context meaning the American people and the people of the rest of the world as well – definitely not the people already in positions of power.
Polywell or focus fusion just might lead to small enough units that every householder can afford the space and the money for one. Wouldn’t you just love to be able to tell the power company where to stick their bills? And should this come to pass, within not very many years we would be able to tell the King of Mordor (a.k.a. Saudi) where to stick his oil as well and that no, he can’t have his money back – and that bunch of bloodthirsty, perverted savages could find out whether oil is edible.
Mark – yeah. I just thought it complimented the other comment. Ethan, I think, is young. In 20 years, he’ll be admonishing some exuberant fellow, “yeah, I heard all that, too – in 2010”.
I have to say that I’m underwhelmed by the discovery. Still that’s oil found in a place that has been picked at for a while (I’ll really be impressed if they start finding big oil reserves on land in the lower 48, that place has been picked clean). The real possibilities are in the continental shelves, mostly in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Indian Oceans.
I am looking for the origin of Davy Jones’ locker. I know there is a nautical connotation, reference made to pirates and swashbucklers and the like, but have been unable to get a good clear origin of the term.Please share more in it.Thanks.
@Martijn is it really true that only 1/3 of the oil is substracted from a well? That means that there prob is an enormous amount of oil left for future use.