Peak oil thread

Quote from Pekelo:

So uranium ore suddenly started to replenish itself??

Your argument (beside being offtopic in a peak oil thread) is based on better waste product usage and doesn't address my point of uranium ores being a limited resource...
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Any resource is finite. You have to crunch the numbers if you want to find out how likely it is that it will be exhausted. With Gen IV nuclear there is no chance of exhausting uranium for hundreds of years and probably a lot more. And the significance is not limited to "burning" waste. Natural mined uranium is just as good.

Known world recoverable uranium reserves: 5,469,000 tonnes
Required uranium for Gen IV 1GWe power plant for one year: 1 tonne
Current world generation capacity ~ 4000 GWe

Back of envelope calculation: 1,367 years at current production levels. If push comes to shove uranium can be recovered from sea water.

If you don't like the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle, then how about the thorium-uranium cycle. There is several times as much readily recoverable thorium as uranium in the world. The Indians are pursuing this because of their lack of uranium.

There will be peak oil (and coal) sooner or later, discussion of energy futures is highly relevant.
 
It's cheaper to buy vegetable oil than it is diesal for the retail customer , I know it's due to tax , but we're not going to run out anytime soon , and in fact they've found a whole load more oil in dorset .
 
They think it could be big, the point is oil is being discovered all the time , I have to agree with the guy who says reserves could be greater than today , some will be expensive to get out , but also intime that oil will get cheaper to get out, apparantly there is oil off the falklands , lots of it , theres an awfull lot of ocean out there .
 
Interesting article from Chris Martenson (yes, I know he makes his money from traffic to his web site and sales of his book, DVDs, and therefore has an interest in creating alarm) about peak oil:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-its-official-economy-set-starve

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I'm still waiting for further confirmation in the financial markets before I start making trades based on peak oil.

Basically I'll be looking for many months of underperformance by airlines versus S&P 500.

Given the strong performance of $XAL in recent months, I probably won't consider "big" short positions in airlines until the second half of 2011 at the very earliest.
 
Let's throw in a little education for the holidays, so let's take a look at coal. (the substitute for oil)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_coal#United_States

Most people don't realize, but coal production in energy has already peaked in the US. It is kind of signifficant, since the USA tends to be the 2nd largest producer of coal.

There are 2 peaks when talking about coal:

1. Total mass produced. This is still growing.
2. Total energy produced. This is mass multiplied by energy value. This peaked back in 1998.

Categorizing coal by energy value, there are 4 types. Obviously first the highest value was mined/produced, so that is what we are running out first.

http://www.ket.org/Trips/Coal/AGSMM/agsmmtypes.html

"Energetic Peak

Coal production in the United States, currently the world's second largest producer, has undergone multiple peaks and declines, but total coal energy output peak was reached in 1998 at 598 million tons of oil equivalents (Mtoe); by 2005 this had fallen to 576 Mtoe, or about 4% lower."

I hope I didn't mess up anyone's Holiday's spirit with facts....

:cool:

For extra fun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#Coal_as_a_traded_commodity
 
Two data points that suggest that peak oil may be a reality:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/06/head-of-saudi-electric-company-says-oil.html

snippet:

"The electricity company of Saudi Arabia warns that oil in this country could be depleted by 2030 if left unchecked domestic consumption. "

and the OPEC meeting outcome from earlier in the week, where OPEC members could not agree on a production increase. There is the possibility that there isn't really much spare capacity out there - or maybe not as much as oil-consumers would like there to be.
 
Peak oil will only be able to prove in hindsight, but I'm posting here to bookmark oil's relative strength today.

ES sells off after debt ceiling news and then a bad ISM

down 0.50% to 1282
but brent oil relatively strong at 118.80 +1.75%

airlines
FAA -1.58%
$XAL -1.35%

yes there is some investment demand for oil but I would have thought it would have sold off more (with ES) after the bad ISM. Obviously I am wrong.
 
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