Oil Storm...

[strredwolf]

FX Network's docudrama "Oil Storm" posed a question to the viewers, saying "What would happen if the flow of oil to the USA was temporarily severed?"  To spoil folks, their answer was "A year of hell, a nessisary shift in energy strategy, and a damaged economy."

The better question would be "What would happen if the flow of oil from everywhere to everywhere was peramently severed?"

I would think total anarchy would be highly probable at this current stage of the game.  Alternate fuel cars (aka natural gas, hydrogen, and their hybrid eletric forms) would need to be quickly refined and produced.  Lighter materials would provide for added efficency.  I doubt the world could wait that long.

But this exersize has some relivance on Canmeph 2.  The world is older, as is the species.  Many wars have come, and a healthy amount of paranoia has set in as well as the need for a certian level of redundancy in everything.  With energy, this was paramount.  So, in addition to oil, other fuels were being developed on the fastest pace possible.  Solar energy was refined to near-100% levels.  Battery technology improved massively, squeezing every electron possible out yet keeping it viable for a new charge.  Hydrogen, coal, oil (crude and natural-grown), nuclear, you name it.

There wasn't much of crisis, as the mindset was now on "be as efficent as possible, with leeway for comfort, so everyone can stay afloat."  There aren't many personal automobiles, as mostly it's mass transit and your own two feet.  Of course, you'll need one for groceries and such.

And then, the invention of the Artificial Singularity Cell, the ultimate matter-to-energy converter.  The ASC's principle is simple:  exploit a black hole's tendency to "leak" various types of matter and energy as it degrades over time.  How it does isn't for discussion here (but I will describe it later).  Needless to say all that useless junk you want gone peramently can be used to power your car.  Of course, the ASC's are (what I'll nicely term) "volitile" by nature.  If not handled correctly, it could suck you in and recycle you as electrons.  Thus, they're used more often than not in major energy plants.

There is one other side-effect of the ASC's, though.  While they spew out electrons, they may also spew out various atomic matter, including the odd gasoline molecule.  Given how many ASC's are in place around the world (and the tight security!) you may say that the older energy plants are still active, and Canmephia is now a major player in the intergalatic energy market.

And that's not counting Canmeph 3, Babylon Alpha, or any other station using ASC's.

---
In doing some prelim research, I came across a report by the Department of Energy.  According to them, using current technology, the world will run out of crude oil in roughly 30 years.  We have that amount of time to find new energy sources, refine more efficent technology, and impliment it in the consumer markets.  30 years...

Comments

[strredwolf.livejournal.com]

Okay, we're now up to 2255, although from some research (previously done by my father) gives some points:

1. Dad argues that there's at least 250 more years of coal, and says the number is between 300 and 500.

2. Coal can become deisel, kerosene, and gasoline through a process, so the crude oil can be supplimented.... and crude's 30 years gets extended.

3. If "Oil Storm" really happened, all we would really need to do is redirect all supplies from Alaska to the US (they're being sent to China and Japan), and the price of gas at the pump may only just double. (I don't see it getting below $2/gallon)

[kesarra.livejournal.com]

Quite a bit of calculation has already been done by many scientists. Their conculsions are usually close to each other. I know one of them. I've done the calculation for the lifetime of oil. It's 250 for coal. And there's only 3 years of usable fuel if we switched completely to nuclear plants.

And under current regulations and practices for extracting coal we would fill up every river valley on the east side of the continent. Anything not filled would be unusable from the slag. You can see the valley fill from space, if that gets you a good idea of what coal mining is all about. And right next to it is an open pit that used to be a mountain. Trust me on this one, you do not want to play with coal or oil. Just get off that teat right now. We don't have enough oil in Alaska. There's less than 1 year of oil left in all of Alaska if you ran the country entirely on that supply. North American oil peaked 30 years ago.

[griffinwolf.livejournal.com]

The problem with Domestic reserves are that they are really, really low grade crude. LOTS of sulfur in the crude oil on this side of the world. Usually, what oil we do pump up, we ship off anyway.

[kazriko.livejournal.com]

I thought that the Saudi Arabia oil was high sulfur compared to our oil. Why then do we get most of our oil from Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela then? They're right in the same general vicinity of us and should have similar oil grades to us.

[kazriko.livejournal.com]

You're forgetting all the side effects of supply and demand here. We're already seeing this from the cost of a barrel of oil going up to $50. Saudi and other oil producing countries have generally low costs and spend less than $5 per barrel of oil producing it. The US on the other hand has a variety of oil sources that cost between $18 and $40 (top end = Wild arse guess) to exploit. With the price of oil at $20 for all these years, most of our oil resources were not being used. We've already seen an explosion of oil production in this country because of the higher price. By the law of supply, higher prices mean more people are willing to try for the higher hanging fruit and will produce more oil. With the gas prices at $50ish, they've restarted interesting projects like Oil Shale recovery and other expensive processes.

Similarly, the law of Demand says that the demand for oil will drop as the price goes up. I've already seen this happening. SUVs sales are declining and I've seen many people trying to sell their gas guzzlers. People will drive less or choose to drive a more efficient car when they realize how much they are spending on fuel. (Or they'll bitch and complain while continuing to drive their junker suv's and spend a huge portion of their income on said worthless beasts.)

In the case of a big oil shock like you're describing, supply would be decreased by about 50%. This would cause somewhat of a price jump which would give you both an increase in domestic production and a decrease in domestic consumption. We also have the Strategic Oil Reserve. It would simultaneously hurt and help the economy. Right now we're throwing billions out of the country on oil. Those billions would now be used to fund our own oil companies, our own drilling rigs, own drilling technicians, etc. It would be a huge boost for the economy of certain areas of the country. If some of our friendlier neighbours continued to sell us oil at raised rates then that would also help keep the price to a reasonable level. The 6 top countries we import oil from include 5 countries that are not in the middle east. Canada is our top supplier, followed by Mexico.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/petroleum_supply_monthly/current/pdf/table37.pdf

Coal is really bad for us though. We really need to move to Nuclear power with an alternate rechargeable portable fuel source. Because of the energy density of liquid fuels, it will probably be some sort of high energy potential liquid. There was one form of chemical that released Hydrogen that could be burned and could have hydrogen reintroduced into it I heard of that sounds promising. Some form of TDP could work as well even without the supposed efficiency of the new TDP plants that are being toyed with. Remember, you're just trying to turn the output from your stationary nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal plants into something that mobile vehicles can use. With the greatly increased cost of traditional fuel it may take it high enough that alternative fuels are competitive just like the current increases have made Oil Shale competitive again. Right now they're only used by fanatic environmentalists and are too expensive in comparison to traditional fuels for anyone else.

[kesarra.livejournal.com]

Ford's first cars ran on ethanol. Any diesel engine, with gaskets replaced, can run on ethanol. Simple, neh?

[kazriko.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is one liquid fuel source that can be used. I'm afraid almost every fuel source you find out there isn't quite enough to handle all of the energy needs alone though.

I suspect that what Redwolf is suggesting simply cannot happen. We're not going to have any instant "all fossil fuels gone" moment. It's going to be a gradual thing of one country after another slowly running out of easy low-lying fruits on the energy tree. The cost of producing the same amount of gasoline will slowly increase shifting the balance point of the gasoline supply and demand chart. As this happens, one after another, alternate fuels like Ethanol will have a lower price balance point than gasoline.

It won't be cost or ease of conversion alone that will determine the next major fuel source, but a combination of many such factors. I'm sure the auto industry will have a say in it, as will the various energy companies. They'll be able to influence the choice of fuels by making one car cheaper, or one fuel more efficient, or just by plain old marketing (lying) to the public to instill some sort of idea of superiority of one type over another. It'll be like BluRay vs. HD-DVD or Betamax vs VHS, only on a larger scale.

TDP, coincidentally, also would permit use with very mildly modified engines. Like I said before, it doesn't matter if it has the magical "more output than input energy" that they claim with the new plants. Breaking even or perhaps 70-80% efficiency in transferring electrical energy to gasoline would still accomplish the goal of having a portable energy source from longer lasting sources. There's also Biodiesel and any number of other alternate fuel sources already being used in small quantities.