Search The Oil Drum with Google
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Streets: Utilitarian Corridors or Livable Public Space
- Summer Streets a Success!
- Plan for Hydro-Fracture Drilling for Unconventional Natural Gas in Upstate New York
TOD:Europe
- Oilwatch Monthly - November 2008
- The 2008 IEA WEO - Production Decline Rates
- The EU Strategic Energy Review: maybe not so depressing after all
TOD:Canada
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
“A third of humanity doesn't want to ride bikes anymore; that has profound geopolitical implications.”
—Anne Korin, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (May 1, 2005)
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
Robert, I named this the Law of Receding Horizons a few days ago.
What's true for CTL and tarsands is true for just about any form of "alternative" energy I can see. And it's only getting worse. The costs for the MacKenzie Valley pipeline, supposed to feed natural gas into Alberta, are now estimated at $16 billion, 4 times higher than a 2002/3 estimate. A CO2 sequestration pipeline in Canada went from $1.5 to $5 billion in 2 years.
I asked if anyone could come up with numbers to support "my" Law. Your $100 bbl for CTL is the first. Any idea for tarsands? I know, it could gallop way further than today. "At current prices" may not prove much. As you say, the cycle goes on.
Ethanol, corn version, is a prime example. Its production raises corn prices, which in turn raises ethanol production prices. And rising oil prices hurt ethanol production too. At what corn price would the whole thing collapse?
As I said before, supply and demand don't hold here, corn prices can't rise indefinitely, the market is not infinitely flexible. People need to eat.
Are there alternatives which _don't_ obey this law? Wind seems to have reached a _real_ breakeven point, and solar thermal seems to be pretty close also. If (a big if) battery technology continues to improve along 3 dimensions (cost, energy density, power density) at its recent rate, I am expecting that we will be able to _start_ the conversion to renewable-energy powered private transportation in about 5 years (and I don't expect that horizon to recede...)
CW
Global peak: 2007 - 2010
Global decline rate, Post peak: 2%
Economic response: Severe global recession, ~5 years, then slow recovery