Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

[peakishmael]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

I'm probably a bit optimistic for this group sometimes but I think since the financial crisis has started, my quality of life has gotten better. I've rediscovered my love of gardening. I've learned to love hand me downs, especially for my two toddlers, even though I could afford new clothes. I've gotten quite good at getting things for free or really cheap at the store. I have a whole new network of friends that I barter with. I have traded my homemade grape jelly for fresh fruit, homemade salsa and organic eggs. Most importantly, it's brought my husband and I even closer together. We have backup plans for the backup plans in case he ever lost his job. I know I'm married to a man who would do anything he had to to provide for his family even if that meant digging ditches and he knows he's married to a woman that loves him for him, not his paycheck.

Excellent response. It's another (better) way of saying what I was going to say. I would tell your son, Cow, to just assume that economic growth will end, and that our levels of consumption will be lower in the future. Fortunately, every study that's ever been done (and there have been many) shows that after basic needs have been met, which currently requires around $10,000/year/person (worldwide average), human happiness does NOT increase for higher levels of income/consumption. In other words, the rich in America are no more happy (in many cases less so) than people in a tribal subsistence economy (where most needs are provided "free", without income, by communal activity). What DOES make people happy, even in crappy economies (Haiti?), are stable and caring human relationships.

So what to do? Forget about getting rich, it won't make you happy. Build a life where you can do something meaningful, around people who you care about and that care about you. Immediate family being most important. Think about what skills will increase in demand in an economy that is not defined by McMansion construction and (as Kunstler likes to say) the selling of salad shooters. Personally I am planning to move to a small town, where some relatives already are, and grow most of my own food. But there's going to be lots of other things to do in the more local economies of the future.

[rjwjr]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

For me change brings opportunity with a big "O". For many it's hard to see opportunities, because during times of rapid change in our lives we as humans naturally tend to focus more on the immediate, certain and often tangible "loss" instead of the future, uncertain and as-yet-intangible "gain" that may come.



I would suggest that your tell your son that:

• the best investments he will ever make will be in himself;
• the second best investments he will ever make will be in his relationships with his family, friends, partners;
• he should think and act like a citizen of the world, not of the USA...the opportunity set worldwide is massively larger than anything available in one city, State or country;
• a deep curiosity about everything going on around oneself can be invaluable;
• one should try to avoid getting too caught up in personal long term plans and goals...some of that is necessary, but a great deal of what happens in our lives, more than we generally care to admit, is due to "luck", "fate", "serendipity" [call it what you will]. Too much adherence to rigid goals, targets, plans shuts the door to imagining, seeing and acting on opportunities that "don't fit". I wish I had learned this lesson earlier in life.
• We're all different. For some the process and experience of doing anything in life is the primary satisfier, for others it's getting the ball across the goal line...it helps to know which.

Hope there's something useful in the above...

GRG, I hope you have lots of children and/or I hope you teach.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

There are HUNDREDS of years of oil in Alberta's tar sands. There are NO environmental or climate limits or water or any limits to their development.

If you want a future, you have to get as far away from Greenpeace type of thinking as you can get.

China is a willing buyer for oil. America is lost in space. China will have an economic future for its people, and America will have a false eco-religion for its people.

There are natural limits to exponential growth, but we are no-where near those limits. Especially in America, we are no-where near the limits to growth.

Just looking at Jeddah, Saudi-Arabia: 6.5 inches of rainfall in November, and the water just ran-off in a catastrophic flood. There were no dams, no storm sewers, no perculation ponds, no catchment basins, nothing.

It seldoms rains in Saudi-Arabia, so why bother to build dams? (They must have consulted with Greenpeace.)

And we see the exact same stupid-thinking in California: No dams built in California in decades. In other words: Why bother to build dams when it seldom rains? In other words: Why bother to dam the Eel River? Why bother to place a dam on the Carmel River? Why dam the Yuba River? The water issue is "settled": the climate is getting "warmer and dryer".

The same defeatest thinking with energy: no new power plants other than windmills and solar in California in decades. The same thing in BC: nothing that amounts to anything in energy-generation, for decades.

And the same defeatest thinking (lack of thinking, non-thinking, non-planning, contempt for development, contempt for planning, contempt for humanity) now appearing in Alberta with Greenpeace protesting the oil sands projects, trying to create water issues that never existed before.

But China is the willing-buyer for up-graded oil. China creates no problems for energy producers in Alberta because China wants a future (a higher standard-of-living) for its people..... Let America have its new eco-religion and its new poverty, but China will have its new oil and its new wealth.

[rjwjr]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Excellent response. It's another (better) way of saying what I was going to say. I would tell your son, Cow, to just assume that economic growth will end, and that our levels of consumption will be lower in the future. Fortunately, every study that's ever been done (and there have been many) shows that after basic needs have been met, which currently requires around $10,000/year/person (worldwide average), human happiness does NOT increase for higher levels of income/consumption. In other words, the rich in America are no more happy (in many cases less so) than people in a tribal subsistence economy (where most needs are provided "free", without income, by communal activity). What DOES make people happy, even in crappy economies (Haiti?), are stable and caring human relationships.

So what to do? Forget about getting rich, it won't make you happy. Build a life where you can do something meaningful, around people who you care about and that care about you. Immediate family being most important. Think about what skills will increase in demand in an economy that is not defined by McMansion construction and (as Kunstler likes to say) the selling of salad shooters. Personally I am planning to move to a small town, where some relatives already are, and grow most of my own food. But there's going to be lots of other things to do in the more local economies of the future.

Quite true. I have been fortunate to have traveled thru all levels of the economic spectrum, from living in a trailer with my parents and two siblings when I was a teen in the mid-70's to an extremely comfortable existence today, and life's "simple pleasures" are definitely the most rewarding, memorable, and longest lasting. Besides, more income doesn't guarantee a better life (whatever your definition). This Calvin Coolidge quote has been a guiding principle for me the entire way and remains posted where I can see it every day...

"There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means."

Truer words were never spoken IMO.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Live within your means: Drive across the Central Valley of California, the Kern Desert, the Mojave, the Armagosa Desert, the Colorado Desert, the Imperial Valley, the Coachella Valley, the Mexicali Valley in summer in your new Toyota Echo, without air-conditioning. Enjoy your 42 miles per U.S. gallon and your new-found spirituality.:rolleyes:

[wayiwalk]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

I continue to look at this in part through the eyes of my son, a young man. When I was a bright young man in America, many decades ago, the prospects and opportunities seemed boundless. Now the future looks rather more dim. Your oildrum reports are a good read, Rajiv. They are a bit depressing however.

I wonder what advice I might give my son. He's in his early twenties and a bit lost at this point. Nothing seems worth focusing on long enough to get some traction. I'm afraid that my frequent reports to him on how messed up things are don't help. What challenges and excites me discourages him.

Exact details don't matter. I suspect others are in this situation themselves or know those who are.

This peak cheap oil, or as I posted in some other thread a couple days ago, peak net oil (peak in the amount of energy recovered, net of the energy spent to get it) seems to be dragging the human economy through a midlife crisis (or is it a terminal illness :eek:?)

PC – I recall as a child asking my dad during the energy crunch of the early 70’s – “will there be any gas left for when I’m old enough to drive?”
Yes, stupid question, but hey, as they say, there are no stupid questions.
I was obviously reacting to the panic surrounding gas rationing, long lines at the gas station, and the overall hoopla surrounding the paradigm shift in our country as a result of the oil embargo.
Turns out I got my chance to do more than my fair share of driving.
It’s very easy to get in a worried about the future, as I once did (and do now, with my kids who are between 2 and 14 y.o.).
But really, most of these problems are already solved on a technical basis (just need improved batteries that can be cheaply replaced/recycled); fixes that are lacking are on the political side (nuke plants, hydro) are surmountable, along with a shift in the culture of waste we live in (and that is going to change very fast in the next few years).
It is certainly not as challenging as waking up and learning that a moon-sized meteor is headed our way.
I’m a cautious optimist!
PS - Young men are also suffering from a severe shift in the cultural landscape, and that is a real challenge for them, something the 40+ and up crowd never had to deal with. As my wife observed the other day about a particular aspect of the school curriculum – “they’ve really feminized the way that ideas are taught in school – they can’t possibly expect boys to turn out work like that!

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

PS - Young men are also suffering from a severe shift in the cultural landscape, and that is a real challenge for them, something the 40+ and up crowd never had to deal with. As my wife observed the other day about a particular aspect of the school curriculum – “they’ve really feminized the way that ideas are taught in school – they can’t possibly expect boys to turn out work like that!

Yes, that's part of the problem, definitely.

When I was heading off to college many decades ago, racial minorities and women were sought after, and white males such as myself were in ample supply.

When my son headed off to college recently (before dropping out) white males had become the new sought after "minority". The majority of students now are women.

If I were to have anymore children (rather unlikely given my age (substantial) and my marital status (none)) I'd home school them. Schools these days have become politically correct indoctrination centers.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

It’s very easy to get in a worried about the future, as I once did (and do now, with my kids who are between 2 and 14 y.o.).
But really, ...

Hard times get better ... until they don't.

The Western economy from the end of World War II to a couple of years ago experienced the greatest magnitude of growth that any economy has ever seen in human history. Not coincidentally, oil peaked during that time span.

Lessons learned during that period may not, and sooner or later will not, always carry forward into the future.

[mooncliff]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

So here are some things we can do about it. I think although there are going to be bumps in the road for quite a while, we will eventually get a boom the likes of which we can barely imagine.

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14087

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

... we will eventually get a boom the likes of which we can barely imagine.

Only if some energy source replaces oil, something with enormous capacity that produces lots of energy for little effort.

So far, jtabeb is the only one I see claiming this can be done, and I'm way too poor to pay the price of admission, so cannot vet his plan.

Without such an energy source, we will not repeat the last century. We might achieve some even finer more sustainable civilization using less energy, "the likes of which we can barely imagine", as you say. But that's not what I'd call a "boom".

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Quite true. I have been fortunate to have traveled thru all levels of the economic spectrum, from living in a trailer with my parents and two siblings when I was a teen in the mid-70's to an extremely comfortable existence today, and life's "simple pleasures" are definitely the most rewarding, memorable, and longest lasting. Besides, more income doesn't guarantee a better life (whatever your definition). This Calvin Coolidge quote has been a guiding principle for me the entire way and remains posted where I can see it every day...

"There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means."

Truer words were never spoken IMO.

I agree with that quote.

My live has traveled much the same path as yours, though 20 years sooner. I'm back to that trailer now (well, a new trailer.) It ain't much, but it's paid for. Life is good.

Thank-you and the others who replied above.

To some extent my question was misleading. The question my son faces is not how to live on low wages, but how to get sufficiently engaged to have any wages at all. My son's father (er eh, that's me) assumed that everyone, given the opportunity, would be as focused and ambitious as he was in making something of his life. Said father has now learned this is not so. Oh well.

[Rajiv]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

There are other potential technologies around. However we will have to utilize these to steer a path towards planetary sustainability. We should not squander the opportunities by pursuing "exponential growth"

Another possibility - from 2002 - An unexpected discovery could yield a full spectrum solar cell

Researchers in the Materials Sciences Division (MSD) of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, working with crystal-growing teams at Cornell University and Japan's Ritsumeikan University, have learned that the band gap of the semiconductor indium nitride is not 2 electron volts (2 eV) as previously thought, but instead is a much lower 0.7 eV.

	A newly established low band gap for indium nitride means that the indium gallium nitride system of alloys (In1-xGaxN) covers the full solar spectrum.

The serendipitous discovery means that a single system of alloys incorporating indium, gallium, and nitrogen can convert virtually the full spectrum of sunlight -- from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet -- to electrical current.

"It's as if nature designed this material on purpose to match the solar spectrum," says MSD's Wladek Walukiewicz, who led the collaborators in making the discovery.

What began as a basic research question points to a potential practical application of great value. For if solar cells can be made with this alloy, they promise to be rugged, relatively inexpensive -- and the most efficient ever created.

In search of better efficiency

Many factors limit the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. Silicon is cheap, for example, but in converting light to electricity it wastes most of the energy as heat. The most efficient semiconductors in solar cells are alloys made from elements from group III of the periodic table, like aluminum, gallium, and indium, with elements from group V, like nitrogen and arsenic.

One of the most fundamental limitations on solar cell efficiency is the band gap of the semiconductor from which the cell is made. In a photovoltaic cell, negatively doped (n-type) material, with extra electrons in its otherwise empty conduction band, makes a junction with positively doped (p-type) material, with extra holes in the band otherwise filled with valence electrons. Incoming photons of the right energy -- that is, the right color of light -- knock electrons loose and leave holes; both migrate in the junction's electric field to form a current.

Photons with less energy than the band gap slip right through. For example, red light photons are not absorbed by high-band-gap semiconductors. While photons with energy higher than the band gap are absorbed -- for example, blue light photons in a low-band gap semiconductor -- their excess energy is wasted as heat.

The maximum efficiency a solar cell made from a single material can achieve in converting light to electrical power is about 30 percent; the best efficiency actually achieved is about 25 percent. To do better, researchers and manufacturers stack different band gap materials in multijunction cells.

Dozens of different layers could be stacked to catch photons at all energies, reaching efficiencies better than 70 percent, but too many problems intervene. When crystal lattices differ too much, for example, strain damages the crystals. The most efficient multijunction solar cell yet made -- 30 percent, out of a possible 50 percent efficiency -- has just two layers.

A tantalizing lead

The first clue to an easier and better route came when Walukiewicz and his colleagues were studying the opposite problem -- not how semiconductors absorb light to create electrical power, but how they use electricity to emit light.

"We were studying the properties of indium nitride as a component of LEDs," says Walukiewicz. In light-emitting diodes and lasers, photons are emitted when holes recombine with electrons. Red-light LEDs have been familiar for decades, but it was only in the 1990s that a new generation of wide-band gap LEDs emerged, capable of radiating light at the blue end of the spectrum.

Light emitting diodes made of indium gallium nitride held clues to the potential new solar cell material.

The new LEDs were made from indium gallium nitride. With a band gap of 3.4 eV, gallium nitride emits invisible ultraviolet light, but when some of the gallium is exchanged for indium, colors like violet, blue, and green are produced. The Berkeley Lab researchers surmised that the same alloy might emit even longer wavelengths if the proportion of indium was increased.

"But even though indium nitride's band gap was reported to be 2 eV, nobody could get light out of it at 2 eV," Walukiewicz says. "All our efforts failed."

Previously the band gap had been measured on samples created by sputtering, a technique in which atoms of the components are knocked off a solid target by a beam of hot plasma. If such a sample were to be contaminated with impurities like oxygen, the band gap would be displaced.

To get the best possible samples of indium nitride, the Berkeley Lab researchers worked with a group at Cornell University headed by William Schaff, renowned for their expertise at molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), and also with a group at Ritsumeikan University headed by Yasushi Nanishi. In MBE the components are deposited as pure gases in high vacuum at moderate temperatures under clean conditions.

When the Berkeley Lab researchers studied these exquisitely pure crystals, there was still no light emission at 2 eV. "But when we looked at a lower band gap, all of a sudden there was lots of light," Walukiewicz says.

The collaborators soon established that the alloy's band-gap width increases smoothly and continuously as the proportions shift from indium toward gallium, until -- having covered every part of the solar spectrum -- it reaches the well-established value of 3.4 eV for simple gallium nitride.

Promising signs

At first glance, indium gallium nitride is not an obvious choice for solar cells. Its crystals are riddled with defects, hundreds of millions or even tens of billions per square centimeter. Ordinarily, defects ruin the optical properties of a semiconductor, trapping charge carriers and dissipating their energy as heat.

In studying LEDs, however, the Berkeley Lab researchers found that the way indium joins with gallium in the alloy leaves indium-rich concentrations that, remarkably, emit light efficiently. Such defect-tolerance in LEDs holds out hope for similar performance in solar cells.

To exploit the alloy's near-perfect correspondence to the spectrum of sunlight will require a multijunction cell with layers of different composition. Walukiewicz explains that "lattice matching is normally a killer" in multijunction cells, "but not here. These materials can accommodate very large lattice mismatches without any significant effect on their optoelectronic properties."

Two layers of indium gallium nitride, one tuned to a band gap of 1.7 eV and the other to 1.1 eV, could attain the theoretical 50 percent maximum efficiency for a two-layer multijunction cell. (Currently, no materials with these band gaps can be grown together.) Or a great many layers with only small differences in their band gaps could be stacked to approach the maximum theoretical efficiency of better than 70 percent.

It remains to be seen if a p-type version of indium gallium nitride suitable for solar cells can be made. Here too success with LEDs made of the same alloy gives hope. A number of other parameters also remain to be settled, like how far charge carriers can travel in the material before being reabsorbed.

Indium gallium nitride's advantages are many. It has tremendous heat capacity and, like other group III nitrides, is extremely resist to radiation. These properties are ideal for the solar arrays that power communications satellites and other spacecraft. But what about cost?

"If it works, the cost should be on the same order of magnitude as traffic lights," Walukiewicz says. "Maybe less." Solar cells so efficient and so relatively cheap could revolutionize the use of solar power not just in space but on Earth.

The Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.

2009-10 update

RoseStreet Labs Demonstrates Tandem Nitride/Silicon Solar Cell

RoseStreet Labs Energy Inc. (RSLE) said that it has demonstrated the first known gallium-nitride/silicon tandem solar cell. Utilizing the same nitride material technology as solid state lighting and blue lasers, RSLE fabricated and tested a working photovoltaic cell that couples a silicon solar cell with a nitride thin-film.

This is a major milestone in RSLE's product roadmap to achieve substantially higher solar efficiencies than standard silicon or other thin film solar cells, the company said. This hybrid device could achieve practical efficiencies of 25-30%, and RSLE is planning on production of this technology starting the Q4 of 2010.
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Also RoseStreet Labs Scientists Discover Carbon-Free
Hydrogen Fuel Source Utilizing Thin Film Solar Cell

RoseStreet Labs Energy (RSLE) scientists announced a leap forward in generating hydrogen gas directly from sunlight by a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). This hydrogen fuel is generated spontaneously in a single device without external power and without petroleum products such as natural gas. Hydrogen gas is a key resource for next generation hydrogen fueled cars, and also a key component in the renewable process of harvesting biofuels and biodiesel for replacement of oil based gasolines and jet fuels.

RSLE’s discovery is coupled with RSLE's Full Spectrum photovoltaic development which is expected to start field trials in late 2010 with +25% efficiencies. Full Spectrum technology is primarily based on Nitride Thin Film semiconductors which have excellent robustness to extreme environments including solar radiation, heat and corrosive environments. RSLE's photoelectrochemical cell development is targeting the high performance terrestrial market for renewable energy.

Bob Forcier, CEO, of RSLE, stated, “We are excited about this new development in capturing the full spectrum of the sun for not only instantaneous power generation, but also for energy storage via liquefied hydrogen or to assist the emerging biofuel and biodiesel efforts. Although this is a significant milestone in our scientific research in Nitride Thin Film photovoltaics, it also represents the opportunity to commercialize this technology to the next level with RoseStreet’s partners.”
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[mooncliff]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

More exactly, exponential improvement in technology so that LEDs use 1/10th the electricity to make the same amount of light, telecom and the Internet use 1/1,000th the energy that they do now, LED grow lights improve so much that you can grow your own seedlings indoors or even have a light garden in the basement for salad (actually, this is practical now, and will become even cheaper... the lights produce only the part of the spectrum, basically blue and red, that plants use for photosynthesis, so it is extremely efficient), telepresence becomes common so you can business meetings and have dinner and drinks with friends and family who are far away, zero net energy houses, zero net energy cars... in short, all the things we want for a decent standard of living at a much lower cost in both energy and money... if we still have a lot of fossil fuels, so much the better.

OK, this is going to make eyes roll, but the reason some people love Star Trek so much is not because of the phaser beams and starships; it is because
"In the 23rd century, on Earth, there is no poverty and there is no war."
I bet we will get something close within 20 years.
Reconfirmation of bacterial microfossils in multiple meteorites from Mars this year. Hundreds of confirmed Earthlike planets around stars within several hundred light-years by the Kepler Space Telescope within the next three years. Confirmation that methane leaking out of Mars is from subsurface bacteria. Sample return mission of live bacteria from Mars by 2020 (and I bet there are bacteria alive now under the surface of the Moon too). Confirmation of other planets with nitrogen-oxygen atmospheres or actual spectroscopic detection of chlorophyll by 2030. And finally, by 2030, we will either have First Contact, or else we will have scanned half the Milky Way and will have found nothing.

If we can do things like this, I am sure there will be similar rapid improvements in our daily lives.

[Rajiv]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Let me clarify -- In the Physical, real world economy, exponential growth is always a no go! However, the main imperative for trying "desperately" to achieve exponetial growth comes from the commands of the financial community -- and the imperative that comes from using compound interest, and not returning that compounded interest back to society.

For more information, read Michael Hudson, Ellen Brown, and Margrit Kennedy -- also a good resource is "Appropriate Economics" and its online library. Also Tom Grecko's site "Reinventing Money"

[Kadriana]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

"I don't understand where you get the idea that "the work" ever stopped. "
Yes, the efficiency improvements were made and have continued, but Reagan ripping the solar panels off the White House roof might have left one with that impression.
I think the US Department of Energy forecast is that, for example, Japan will cut its oil use by 20% by 2020, while the US use will stay about the same. Of course these countries are not comparable because of differing demographics, urban planning, etc. However, the graph below shows that a lot more could have been done, I think. Basically, if we now find ourselves 60% dependent on imported energy, we should have done whatever it took to cut our energy consumption by 60%, but of course there are many other factors at play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:En...versus_GDP.png

I really think Americans could cut their energy usage by 60% with little change in our lifestyle. We are an extremely wasteful society. I remember when I lived in California, my father came to visit me. We drove the 20 min. it took to go 1.5 miles to the shopping area. It was an open mall area and all the shops had their doors wide open with their air conditioners on full blast. We then proceded to buy a bunch of stuff we didn't need.

I wonder, would my quality of life be severely decreased if I planned out my shopping a little better and only went once or twice a month versus several times a week? Would it be lower if I turned down my heater a couple degrees and threw on a cardigan instead of wearing short sleeves in the winter? Would my kids be suffering if they only got toys on their birthdays and Christmas like I did as a child instead of at least once a month. Do stores really need to be opened 24/7? I know in my house, we've cut back some but quite honestly, we could cut back by 60% by driving less, buying less and wasting less.