The dangers of Oil

Here are the numbers:

Total biomass on earth: 550 Gtons: https://bigthink.com/13-8/earth-biomass-distribution/#:~:text=Combined, all life on Earth,alone is about 161 gigatons.

With 3 MWh per ton of biomass, this gives 1.6 x 10^12 MWh.

Total world energy consumption is 1.7 x 10^11 MWh

This means that we use a total energy of 1/10 of the TOTAL biomass available on earth (and that includes algae etc), in one year.

It is easy to see that we'd deforest the world in no time, if this would be our ONLY energy source, as it has been before the advent of coal, oil etc.

Now, I hope my numbers are correct, I did this back of the envelope calculation in 5 min this morning.

It kind of hits home the outsized energy consumption that humanity has gotten addicted to. And the US is one of the worst offenders, with 16% of the world's energy usage, but only 6% of the land surface area, we are punching way above our weight with respect to sustainability.

 

Oil is used for a lot of things, not just burned for fuel.

The anti-oil crusade by environmentalists is getting cuckoo. In Canada, the only reliable oil producer with significant reserves, has yapping pols talking about banning oil exploration in Canada.

We need to move away from burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible, but we may as well use our oil reserves and those of our allies instead of unreliable producers like Russia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia.

 

FFS you need to get over yourself.

Let me know when you wanna debate the point, and not just be ridiculous.

 

False. I never "complained", much less "complained because you opposed them", you are again still making assumptions. I simply pointed out that you were wrong in a statement of yours.

 

"The dangers of oil"..... Got me safely up the road and back again today a good hundred miles.... Just got home safely thanks to my gasoline-powered van.

 

I bet you think this P100 respirator is useless against forest fire smoke...

 

Dxxx!

I had not even considered that until now. We all know the leftism does not work, but in fact it has accomplished very little to speak of.

 

But will it filter out the dangerous fumes of oil-based gasoline?

 

It's is without a hood. But with the hood you would look like a klansman, not a forest fighter, and you would be fighting off BLM, not covid.

 

Maybe smoke jumpers from the bureau of Land Management

 

How much biofuel can the U.S. produce yearly - Search (bing.com)

what is a petajoule of gas - Search (bing.com)

How many gigatons of fossil fuel does the U.S. use per year - Search (bing.com)

 

Your impression is incorrect--they didn't all start at the same time.

They started because the forests are dry. There's your likely tie to climate change.

What "evidence" are you talking about?

Hohhhh-Kayyyyy....

 

It's great for fumes and vapors, but, what help do you think it will give you against particulates?

 

I think your math is good but there may be some problems with conversions. Let’s try and figure this out.

You used GtC (gigatonnes carbon) as a measure of biomass in existence. That works. You used the energy density of air dried wood for energy content of biomass. That works as forests are the majority of biomass. But air dried wood is only 50% carbon so 550 GtC biomass would be 1,100 Gt wood biomass. So 1,100 Gt biomass times 3 Mwh/t would give us 3.3 x 10^12 Mwh of energy available.

I came up with total world energy consumption of 1.61 x 10^11, probably just a difference source. If we are talking about replacing fossil fuels with biomass we would subtract nuclear and current biofuels from that total giving us 1.35 x 10^11 Mwh fossil fuel sourced annual world energy usage. I used the statistic that 84% of energy usage globally was fossil fuels in 2019. That may have changed since 2019 I don’t know.

So by my figures that would give us about 24 years of fuel if biomass was static. But globally about 100 GtC biomass is “produced” annually. That is the true strength and value of biomass. Still, I agree not sustainable unless we intentionally leveraged biomass production in some way.

The point we over-consume energy remains valid. However, without fossil fuels we would still be tribal and small scale agriculture based societies with a world population minuscule compared to today.

To get back to the OP about oil being dangerous, probably the most dangerous aspect is fossil fuel has allowed our species to eliminate almost all natural selective pressures that made us who we are over time. People are procreating that wouldn’t have survived infancy or childhood (or adulthood very long if they got lucky as kids) a couple hundred years ago let alone thousands of years ago. Speaking from a biological perspective that means we are pretty much doomed. Dodo birds did great as long as selective pressures were minimal. Then things changed….as they will for us at some point!

Oil made us dominant, and will precipitate our demise. Dangerous indeed.

Please critique my math especially. It’s not my strong suit! And thanks for the interesting question.

 

Oh, @Quantum Nerd, before fossil fuels humans were on a path to deforest the planet. Places like the Netherlands went from almost completely forested to almost zero during the Iron Age. They are still suffering because of that deforestation as is the entire planet. So fossil fuels caused problems but ameliorated others.

 

Yes, the estimate is that around 100 Gtons of biomass is produced annually. Our numbers are actually surprisingly close.

Of course, you would have to subtract the energy loss of converting biomass to fuel (about 80% max efficiency), and for the energy used to harvest and transport the biomass, also to dry it, and there are probably more inefficiencies that I didn't think of. So, overall, while biomass can be an important energy source, it cannot power the world by itself. It would have to be used in conjunction with other renewable energy sources. Then, there is of course the discussion of the ethical concerns of using potential food resources for energy production, while people go without food.

Interestingly, I read somewhere that NY state was basically deforested before farming moved to the west. That's why pretty much all forest in NY state is relatively young growth.

Thanks for this fruitful discussion, I know that I can always count on you for thinking things through .

 

Great! We'll continue using it for all the other things.

I have no idea what "anti-oil crusade" you're talking about.

 

What point? I've been trying for you to state your point and when I though you had (about consuming our oil), apparently not only was it not your point, but it turns out it's "ridiculous". So I guess it's a waste of time...

 

I can't dispute your numbers one way or the other. However, we own 46 acres of mostly forest. We have a standing offer that anyone can come in and cut down any standing or downed dead wood. We can heat our home at least ten times over using only trees that have died of old age.

I doubt that we are using anywhere near 1/10th the total biomass on earth in one year.

 

So, you're arguing that we should do everything we can to deny oil-terrorist nations from selling oil to fund their crimes. Good I agree. Let's initiate a program , that maximizes our production of oil, to deny the terrorists as much profit as possible. Or we can use the Biden method and beg for more oil.

 

Oil producers have 10 years worth of unused leases already. They won't use them because they would risk ending up with billions of barrels on hand that less and less countries will buy as they move to renewables. So it won't bring down prices because of the high cost of producing and storing it.

Another bad idea from the party of NO ideas.

 

The waste of time is you pretending you didn't say:

Dig harder! You're almost out!

 

That is great for you, however, the median person in the US is not so lucky, they own no land and the median plot size for those who Do own land is 0.33 acres. So, while YOU may be privileged to produce all the energy you need on your oversized plot of land (why don't you?), which you most likely inherited, most people are not so lucky. So, please do not extrapolate from your privileged position to the energy production of the whole world, when you don't even want to crunch the numbers.

 

So you didn't have a point. That means I'm out already.

 

Yes energy losses should be accounted for. I’m not even sure if energy losses from extraction of fossil fuels is accounted for in our sources of total global energy use.

Consider if we spent as much money developing (growing, processing) biofuels as we do fossil fuels. All inputs like military spending to keep the petrol dollar relevant etc. If we focused our monetary and time resources on biofuels it would be a night and day difference than just looking at what’s available now basically doing nothing to increase biomass on the planet.

As someone involved in agriculture I don’t believe there is any ethical contradiction in using grains (or land/water resources) for biofuel production. I’m not a fan of government subsidies, let the market sort it out. But the potential for food production is limitless at this point. Globally, we are just scratching the surface of potential for production of food. There is no reason outside of politics/ignorance for anyone to go hungry now or in the foreseeable future. We have a global economy quite sufficient to ensure everyone has food. And nature spent eons developing food production “methods” we currently leave completely untapped. Untapped because fossil fuels made other methods too easy! But “easy” is less sustainable and with more severe non atmospheric carbon related negative environmental consequences (topsoil destruction, disrupted NOx cycles, etc.)

Domestically, ethanol was responsible for keeping agricultural here family based. Without support for commodity prices from biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) we would have seen a much greater and faster consolidation of agriculture into large corporations and vertically integrated food production/processing entities. We overproduce commodities, there is no way we can eat it all.

Before I bore everyone to death I’ll just close with this. Fossil fuels ARE biomass. The more fossil fuels we liberate from confinement and make available to the carbon cycle, the greater potential we have to produce biofuels that have quicker turn around times—measured in seasons, not eons. We must remember, if we WANT a lush, green, vibrant planet full of life and diversity with less deserts and wastelands, all that carbon in fossil fuels is the pathway to that world. What we see today is a denuded, cold, sparse planet compared to what it could become.

Yes, thanks again to you and @ButterBalls for bringing this up. It’s a fascinating subject.