[HN Gopher] Ask HN: When will the industrial society deplete the...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: When will the industrial society deplete the energy
resources on earth?
When will the major energy resources on earth (coal, gas, oil,
nuclear) be depleted? Give your best estimate please.
Author : roschdal
Score : 21 points
Date : 2022-01-09 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
| pjc50 wrote:
| I wish theoildrum was still running, since they devoted a lot of
| intellectual effort into exploring questions like this in great
| detail. For oil you need the Hubbert Curve:
| http://theoildrum.com/node/7072
|
| Remember that depletion is asymptotic, so a possible answer is
| "never"; extraction just gets smaller and smaller. Individual
| wells work like this anyway, what comes out is an oil/water
| mixture at gradually reducing pressure. At some point it's
| uneconomic to pump and filter it, so it's capped off when not
| empty.
| randombits0 wrote:
| Never. Coal, gas, and oil are all renewable resources. Folks just
| don't care for how long it takes.
|
| (ducks)
| mikewarot wrote:
| My understanding is that no, they aren't.. as there are now
| fungi that can break down lignin, and so coal isn't ever going
| to be formed in those quantities ever again, no matter how long
| you wait.
| throwawayay02 wrote:
| Life finds a way
| midasuni wrote:
| A Billion years is a long time , who knows what will have
| evolved by then
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Good point! The carboniferous era must have been a hell of a
| time, wish I could have seen it.
| retrolaptopfan wrote:
| aaron695 wrote:
| pizza wrote:
| https://octopus.energy/blog/when-will-fossil-fuels-run-out/
|
| > _If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, it is
| generally estimated that all our fossil fuels will be depleted by
| 2060. New reserves will probably be found before this point,
| extending the deadline somewhat, but its worth remembering that
| if we are to limit global warming to the 'relatively' safe level
| of 2C by 2050, 80% of coal, 50% of gas and 30% of oil reserves
| are "unburnable"._
|
| Then, may I present to you, Lawrence Livermore's Energy
| Consumption Resource Flow diagram:
| https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/energy/us/...
|
| summary (1 quad = 10^15 btu) ~32 quads of all
| energy input comes from natural gas ~9 quads of all
| energy input comes from coal ~32 quads of all energy
| input comes from petroleum industrial sector is
| estimated at about 49% energy efficient, compared to residential
| + commercial sector's 65%, and transportation's measly 21%
| 62 quads (aka roughly 2/3rds!!!) of all energy output just
| dissipates into the environment, as 'rejected energy'
|
| Yes folks, you read that last one right. Electrification +
| cleaner energy sources can't come soon enough.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I can't guess on the ones you stated but if for completeness sake
| we include geothermal then probably about 3 or 4 billion years,
| long after the planet would have to be evacuated for different
| reasons. Ubiquitous deployment of geothermal is challenging at
| this time due to the current tech limitations and associated
| costs.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Wednesday.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-09 23:02 UTC)