|
U-Know! Forum » 50 years...? |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
|
|
Topic View: Flat | Threaded |
PMM 3155 posts |
Aug 20, 2019, 21:56
|
||
|
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49395658 Saw this and it dovetailed nicely with what I'm reading at the moment. Excerpt: "Previous projections of the potential amount of shale gas under the UK may have been significantly overestimated, according to a new study. Instead of 50 years of gas at the current rate of consumption, this new research suggests there are just 5-7 years' supply. But the UK's fracking industry, which represents companies like Cuadrilla, dismissed the report. " Leaving aside the fact that companies like Cuadrilla rely hugely on investment capital, and have a vested interest in painting the rosiest possible picture to bring in such investment, and that the figure of 51 years, cited in 2013 somehow means that 51-6=50. Let's assume that in fact the higher figure is correct. 50 years, at current rates of consumption. That assumes that demand will stay at current levels. ie, we will have zero economic growth for the next 50 years, and that shale gas will not have to play an increasing role as supplies of conventional fossil fuels decline. Historically, UK's growth rate has been around 0.6% for the last half century or so. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth Mapping that onto the 50 year figure year by year, I found that this shrinks the 50 years to 39.5 The UK gets almost all of its gas from the North Sea. Production peaked in 2000 and was falling at around 3% per year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_gas#United_Kingdom Add the need to ramp up production to replace the decline in Natural Gas from the North Sea, and the 50 year figure declines to 22.5 years. Then what? In a way, I'm in favour of fracking now. If we do it now, we can afford safeguards. Public opposition means the fracking companies have to be on something like their best behaviour. When the energy supply really starts to tank, nobody will be inclined to care about what happens to the polar bears.
|
|||
spencer 3070 posts |
Aug 21, 2019, 08:18
|
||
There's a large oil/gas field in the North Channel between Scotland and Ireland, discovered thirty years ago, which has been kept quiet. The real reason why Westminster doesn't want Scottish independence imo...the rainy day rabbit out if the hat.
|
|||
anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Edited Aug 21, 2019, 10:59
Aug 21, 2019, 10:51
|
||
|
PMM wrote: I found that this shrinks the 50 years to 39.5 How did you work that out? (Genuinely interested, not questioning it - trying to work out what the formula for that is myself) Edit: Simple compound calculation from a 'yearly unit' of 1 reaches 50 of those after 7 'years'. Maybe where the figure in the story comes from?
|
|||
|
PMM 3155 posts |
Edited Aug 21, 2019, 12:13
Aug 21, 2019, 12:10
|
||
|
I might be completely wrong, but if you divide 50 by 1.006, you get the reduction after 1 year, including the growth rate of 0.6. Repeat the calculation until the number of times you did this yearly calculation matches the number of years left. Do the same thing, but using a divisor of 1.036 (3% reduction that needs to be made up for using shale oil plus 0.6% growth rate) Each time you repeat the calculation the years left reduces, as it would do if, as the caveat "at current rates" states. So if I divided by 1, 50 times, the number of times I did the calculation would be 50, and the years supply would be 50 also. Mapping growth year by year, the number of years left matched the number of times I did the calculation between 39 and 40 times. Mapping growth plus shortfall caused this to happen after I did the calculation between 22 and 23 years.
|
|||
|
anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Aug 21, 2019, 13:04
|
||
|
I went the other way. A years unit grows by 0.6 per year, which is compounded (assuming parity between consumption and growth) Year 1: 1 Year 2: 1 X 1.6 Year 3: (1 X 1.6) X 1.6 Year 4: ((1 X 1.6) X 1.6) X 1.6... Which comes in at 1 1.6 2.56 4.09 6.55 10.45 16.77 (This is a total of 43 units) 26.84
|
|||
|
PMM 3155 posts |
Edited Aug 21, 2019, 15:25
Aug 21, 2019, 14:56
|
||
|
Went out to spoons for lunch, and was thinking about this while waiting for the food to come, and yes, the way I did it doesn't really work. But your figures are for 60% growth, rather than 0.6% growth, no? I think you probably have the right way of doing it, but neglected to factor in that it's a percentage. Maths huh? Where is Albert Bartlett when you need him?
|
|||
|
anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Aug 22, 2019, 12:41
|
||
|
PMM wrote: But your figures are for 60% growth, rather than 0.6% growth, no? Ahem. Just testing
|
|||
moss 2897 posts |
Aug 24, 2019, 08:47
|
||
|
"In a way, I'm in favour of fracking now. If we do it now, we can afford safeguards. Public opposition means the fracking companies have to be on something like their best behaviour. When the energy supply really starts to tank, nobody will be inclined to care about what happens to the polar bears." Not looking for argument but I would guess the people of Yorkshire who are threatened with many fracking sites would not be so glad to see these companies rolling in ... https://frack-off.org.uk/region/yorkshire/#planning-table-wrathoughtmpper And as a brief thought, if we only have 12 years left, neither the polar bear or the human race have much to look forward to.
|
|||
|
PMM 3155 posts |
Aug 24, 2019, 22:42
|
||
|
Peak oil is not the point where we use up all the oil. It's actually ptretty much the exact opposite. It's the point where production is at it's all time absolute peak. From there of course, the only way is down. Most of the informed opinion I've read is that this decline is unlikely to be precipitous. The supply curve is broadly symmetrical. Hence if conventional supplies peaked in 2005, you'd expect production in 2030 to be roughly what it was in 1980. We seemed to get by ok on that, although there were fewer people wanting a share of it back then. Peak Oil has fallen somewhat off the radar lately. The glut of US unconventional supplies has allowed us to put our heads back in the sand. Hydrofracturing though is the equivalent of rooting through your ashtray once your supply of golden virginia has gone, to find the longest stubs. Oil companies will get all the oil that is economically recoverable out and into the fuel tanks of the world, and we will bless them for it for about the same reason that someone with a serious opioid habit will bless the guy that calls round with a stolen telly for them to fence. It's easy to blame the oil companies or the politicians or whatever, but how many of us would really vote for someone that promised to do what's actually required? So blame everybody, but that's just the way things are. We're hard wired to respond to immediate crisis, not to warnings of dire consequences somewhere in the future.
|
| U-Know! Forum Index |
