The Oil Drum | The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?

118 comments on The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?

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slinky on April 23, 2008 - 11:25am

world’s We’ “empty” “tighter.” ???

I think somebody cracked this site or your computer.

Just what is your point? We can breath a sigh of relief and go back to bau? Let's just keep burnin' it away. Let's keep sending Co2 up into the only air we have to breath. Let's further retard any rational discussion concerning how society at large might transition to a localized, sustainable, and meaningful form of existing on the only planet we were given to exist upon.

This article reaks of subtrafuge. To hi heaven. So what if it peaks or doesn't? It will peak, and before it's physically possible TO peak, because there's this little bugger of an economic glitch in the system that will slam the door shut on any peak consideration as to this current clutch at the straw of Bakken. It peaked before they started extraction. How long have THEY known about that formation. THEY didn't bother developing the process to extract said ff because at the time of discovery and realization, it wasn't economically feasible, THEN. And it is now? No, it's even less so now, by far.

Leave it be. Spend your energy learning how to compost, how to live from sun up to sun down, with no electric lighting. How to walk 5 to 10 miles to gather what it is you need to stay alive. Teach your children how to hunt, trap and fish, how to plant seeds, how to stay warm in a relentlessly cold winter season, if you choose to remain in winter like lattitudes. Teach your children how to aleaviate cold/flu symptoms with items that don't come off a grocery store shelf in a cardboard box.

Extreme view? Not for these times. This peak/depletion of ff energy is exponentially growing, and it's not the elephant in the room, it's THE ROOM. The elephant is the pitiable effort to forestall the inevitable, wasted energy, but that's the hallmark of the naked ape. We cerainly are unique on this planet. No other life form wastes energy like a human. We are the only life form which, given the choice, will SH*T where it sleeps and eats.

Rant over.

Jeff

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Geckolizard on April 23, 2008 - 1:04pm

Your last name wouldn't happen to be Kunstler, would it?

Seriously, getting angry at the problem is a great first step, but actions do speak louder than words.

My actions:

1) Bought a Prius last week (or rather, ordered it since there's a 3-4 month waiting period for these) and dumping gas-guzzling 9 year old car once that comes in

2) Trying to convince my wife to rent (Not buy... Not with the current mortgage mess) a house in the middle of town

3) Looking at options to relocate my family to said house (see #2) within walking distance of work

4) Bikeriding. Lots of it. (Great way to lose weight). It's free, convenient, and a great way to make small trips. (And how many folks here on this page use their bike? Yeah, didn;t think a whole lot of you would say yes.)

5) Eliminating debt where possible

And yes, the world can be f*cked with PO, but I have decided not to be a victim.

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VeloVol on April 23, 2008 - 1:37pm

Bikeriding. . . . It's free

Incorrect. My bank account begs to differ.

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Kevster on April 23, 2008 - 2:27pm

Bike riding is free; bike owning may not be!

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Will Stewart on April 23, 2008 - 2:32pm

Relative to roughly $5000 - $9000 per year to own and operate a car in the US, bikeriding is as close to zero as it gets, unless one walks or hitch-hikes. If you want to buy a $2000+ bike, don't complain about the expenses.

Riding a bike is a an excellent way to save costs for the majority of commuters; it means lifestyle changes, but being 'addicted to oil' means breaking the habit will not be easy.

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Geckolizard on April 23, 2008 - 2:32pm

Ok, correction VV: It's Fossil Fuel free...

Er, wait...

There's the alumninum for the frame of my bike, made from ore mined with machines running on FF, and then assembled in a factory with machines running on electricity from FF... Tires? Might be made from oil themselves...

There's food that I eat, brought to me from a farm using machines using FF to plant, harvest, process, and transport said food... Oh, and not to meniton fertilizer for said food, made from... You guessed it... Fossil Fuels... But, I'd probably be eating most of this regardless if I use my bike, so MARGINALLY it's probably pretty cheap (i.e. the extra food I would need to eat to power my bike is probably less than the extra fuel I would need to drive my car). And I can plant the food myself in a garden and reduce the FF impact.

Alright, once my bike is paid for (which was, like, 6 years ago), it's free to run (almost). There's maintentence... But I would be paying for that with a car anyway (And a LOT more with a car, mind you...)

OK VV! Not free, but less expensive than the alternative.

But I do get the benefit of better health and quality of life due to the excercise (Until I get a gasp of exhaust from a Hummer that just spent >$100 to fill up.)

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dtbks on April 23, 2008 - 5:15pm

In another post somewhere I did an order of magnitude calculation that showed that a human and an (good, modern) internal combustion engine are roughly equivalent in thermodynamic efficiency. The difference with a car is that you are dragging around 2000lb of sheet metal wherever you go. The food eaten to ride a couple of miles is PRACTICALLY ZERO in terms of the net energy input, as compared to driving a car around.

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Nick on April 23, 2008 - 5:34pm

"a human and an (good, modern) internal combustion engine are roughly equivalent in thermodynamic efficiency."

Which suggests that an electric motor is likely to be substantially better than human power, right? Of course, you have to include the health benefits of aerobic exercise...

I'd be curious to see a re-posting of your calculations.

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dtbks on April 28, 2008 - 9:23am

It took me a week to find that calculation on TOD, but I FOUND IT!!! You can view it here

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moabite on April 23, 2008 - 4:23pm

I can't resist jumping in here. I have been riding my bikes at various levels since I was 5 years old (I am now 48). I've raced, toured, commuted, wrenched.

There are millions of perfectly good bikes hanging in people's garages. You can pick up a great bike from the 70's or 80's for $100. I'm not talking Huffy quality here. Bike snobs see downtube shifters on a road bike, or thumb shifters on a mountain bike and refuse to even look at it. I recently bought a full Campagnolo road racing bike from the 70's in great condition for $90. I put about $100 into tires and minor repairs, and it will now last me decades. I've seen great old mountain bikes go for $50. Honestly, for commuting, an 80's/mid-90's Bridgestone or Raleigh or Schwinn or Trek mountain bike will give you years of service for almost no cost. Find a rigid fork, good steel framed brand name and just ride. craigslist is great for finding cheap bikes. I realize that in some locales used bikes are tougher to find, but they are everywhere if you look. I am lucky to live in Colorado, where craigslist has overtaken the classifieds and paper bulletin boards of the past. There are hundreds of bikes posted on craigslist in Denver every day. Examples just from today and yesterday:

http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/653482449.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/653262295.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/652655833.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/652643816.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/651792771.html
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/651720068.html

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VeloVol on April 24, 2008 - 1:03am

To clarify: cycling as a basic form of transportation can be cheap. But if you get the bug become a cycling enthusiast, hold on to your wallet. Plus you can end up driving quite a bit to do rides here and there. But this is a whole different topic.

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Carolus Obscurus on April 26, 2008 - 2:41pm

How true.

My 'Specialized' S-Works cost me so much I had to sell my top-of-the-range Opel Zafira and replace it by a cheapo Citroen C1.

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dtbks on April 23, 2008 - 5:09pm

Dude, I'm with you. The problem of exponential growth does not only apply to finite oil reserves, but to everything we do. I was going to suggest that maybe the problem is that your perspective is inappropriate to the oil drum, but then I re-read the subtext: "Discussions about energy AND OUR FUTURE." So maybe everyone here should be paying attention to you comments instead of thinking that exponential graphs and logistic curves are only applicable to oil production.

An amusing side note: I keep both full size and dwarf hamsters. The full size hamsters are very meticulous about picking their crap out of their nest/sleeping pile and putting it in a neat stack in the corner. On the other hand, dwarf hamsters are terrible and pretty much crap, pee, and sleep in the same spot. Arg! I think I'm going to give the little buggers a bath...

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eric blair on April 24, 2008 - 11:03am

How to walk 5 to 10 miles to gather what it is you need to stay alive.

I challenged Airdale when he produced such a wackjob position, and I am going to challenge you on the same grounds.

On a planet with 6 billion, there is not enough 'space' for man to be a hunter gatherer.

(one square mile is 640 acres - so they guy is either suggesting the taking of others property, trespassing, or owning a whole lot of acres - amounts of land far beyond the ability of most people to pay for. A simple search engine query gives kilometers (10 to 700 square miles) of land per person for hunter gatherers)

Extreme view? Not for these times.

No, your view is out of touch. Badly out of touch. And peddling snake oil.

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