Life After Oil - Think You Can Survive?

[jshell]

The world is moving away from fossil 'fuel' production, it thinks! Most people I talk to think that oil is almost solely used to produce petrol, diesel, lubrcating oils and jet fuel. However, they're not thinking it through - suprise, surprise! The list below, taken from a website, and very Americanised, coz I can't be arsd to type my own list shows what becomes in short supply if we stop producing oil. (Yes, I know you're clever and can take issue with some of it!)

Anyway, almost everything in your life comes from oil, except glass, stone, wood & most metals. That means that huge numbers of components of your smart phones, tablets, tv's, pharmaceuticals, clothes, etc, etc, etc actually are sourced from the feedstock of crude oil and its refining process.

2 discussion points really:

1. Can you live without all or most of these? Really?

2. If we all go EV, what do we do with the left over petrol and diesel? (To refine crude, we will have almost 40% of it sat as useless petrol and diesel unless it can be converted to other products.) You can't burn it, you can't dump it, what do you do?

Solvents Diesel fuel Motor Oil Bearing Grease
Ink Floor Wax Ballpoint Pens Football Cleats
Upholstery Sweaters Boats Insecticides
Bicycle Tires Sports Car Bodies Nail Polish Fishing lures
Dresses Tires Golf Bags Perfumes
Cassettes Dishwasher parts Tool Boxes Shoe Polish
Motorcycle Helmet Caulking Petroleum Jelly Transparent Tape
CD Player Tap Washers Antiseptics Clothesline
Curtains Food Preservatives Basketballs Soap
Vitamin Capsules Antihistamines Purses Shoes
Dashboards Cortisone Deodorant Footballs
Putty Dyes Tights Refrigerant
Percolators Life Jackets Rubbing Alcohol Linings
Skis TV Cabinets Polyester Rugs Electrician’s Tape
Tool Racks Car Battery Cases Epoxy Paint
Mops Slacks Insect Repellent Oil Filters
Umbrellas Yarn Fertilizers Hair Coloring
Roofing Toilet Seats Fishing Rods Lipstick
Denture Adhesive Linoleum Ice Cube Trays Synthetic Rubber
Speakers Plastic Wood Electric Blankets Glycerin
Tennis Rackets Rubber Cement Fishing Boots Dice
Nylon Rope Candles Trash Bags House Paint
Water Pipes Hand Lotion Roller Skates Surf Boards
Shampoo Wheels Paint Rollers Shower Curtains
Guitar Strings Luggage Aspirin Safety Glasses
Antifreeze Football Helmets Awnings Eyeglasses (I thought they were made from glass)
Clothes Toothbrushes Ice Chests Footballs
Combs CD’s & DVD’s Paint Brushes Detergents
Vaporizers Balloons Sun Glasses Tents
Heart Valves Crayons Parachutes Telephones
Enamel Pillows Dishes Cameras
Anesthetics Artificial Turf Artificial limbs Bandages
Dentures Model Cars Folding Doors Hair Curlers
Cold cream Movie film Soft Contact lenses Drinking Cups
Fan Belts Car Enamel Shaving Cream Ammonia
Refrigerators Golf Balls Toothpaste Gasoline

[bloomen]

I must have missed the newsflash about oil running out.

[ZedLeg]

We're going to have to at some point, the only other option is to use increasingly damaging methods in increasingly ecologically fragile areas to maintain our addiction to oil.

There are alternatives to petrochemical based materials in most instances.

[Zirconia]

Where was this copied from, some firm that has a vested interest?

I expect we will have to find other materials for some stuff, not sure you can knock all of it on the head. I think we will have to make changes though but that would be collective or legislated.

[skinnyman]

I very much doubt the human race will go extinct when oil eventually runs out, so I'm going to opt with adapt.

[Rare]

If in our push toward electric cars.

Do we think it would have a significant effect on the countries who rely on oil as their main / sole source of income ?

[vonuber]

Jshell creating a pro-oil post?

[paulrockliffe]

It's a legitimate question, but I suspect the answer is that cracking crude to get stuff that isn't burned is fine and the 'waste' fuels can be pumped back down the well.

It would be ironic if the waste was just burned at the refinery though.

[bloomen]

Rare said:

If in our push toward electric cars.

Do we think it would have a significant effect on the countries who rely on oil as their main / sole source of income ?

They're already waking up to that. Saudi is attempting to open up a little. Norway seem to have been aware of it from minute one and planned accordingly.

For some places it'll either be too little too late or they'll go back to the stone age as all the oil money was nicked a la Equatorial Guinea.

[jshell]

bloomen said:

I must have missed the newsflash about oil running out.

Nothing to do with running out, but all of the activist movements are pushing us to go 'fossil fuel' free, but way to miss the point...

[jshell]

vonuber said:

Jshell creating a pro-oil post?

jshell who's very, very close to retiring actually considering lifestyle erosion without oil...

[BoRED S2upid]

bloomen said:

I must have missed the newsflash about oil running out.

I missed the newsflash about the world moving away from it. Large oil producing countries will never move away from it why would they?

[jshell]

My issue is not with my own industry, rather it's the lifestyle we'd ALL have to adapt to. There are no alternative feedstocks for much of what we get from oil. So plastic, where do we get plastic from for one example? Or is it iphone and ipad cases carved from wood?

[jshell]

BoRED S2upid said:

I missed the newsflash about the world moving away from it. Large oil producing countries will never move away from it why would they?

There is insane pressure to do so from many, many organisations, for example: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/8-reasons-why-we-ne...

[Nickgnome]

Rare said:

If in our push toward electric cars.

Do we think it would have a significant effect on the countries who rely on oil as their main / sole source of income ?

Have a wander around Dubai, Abu Dhabi etc. Do you ever wonder why they are investing trillions in moving there economies away from oil.

Unfortunately you will have nations like Venezuela that squander that opportunity for reasons I don’t really understand.

There will be a post fossil fuel/ oil world. Most can not comprehend it yet and it won’t be in our lifetime anyway.

Providing we don’t bugger up the planet in the meantime, 200 years hence historians will be writing about why we were so afraid of the future and tried to hang onto the past in one way or the other.

[rxe]

jshell said:

There is insane pressure to do so from many, many organisations, for example: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/8-reasons-why-we-ne...

There’s a lot of noise, but every member of greenpeace is utterly reliant on oil to keep them alive. If Shell, BP et al said “stuff it, we’re not drilling or refining any more”, it would cause the biggest die off of humans, ever.

Clearly there are some greenies who think this is a good thing, but they won’t be thinking it when they realise what the consequences are - which will (loosely) be that 50+ year old hippies will be barbecued and eaten by everyone who is strong and under the age of 30.

[Dr Jekyll]

Nickgnome said:

Unfortunately you will have nations like Venezuela that squander that opportunity for reasons I don’t really understand.

The reason was socialism.

Why they thought socialism was a good idea, nobody understands.

[Camoradi]

I think it is the burning of oil and derivatives as a fuel which is being targetted, rather than for lubricants etc...

Whether it is viable to continue to drill for oil in the quantities required solely for other applications, I am not sure...

[Dr Jekyll]

Camoradi said:

I think it is the burning of oil and derivatives as a fuel which is being targetted, rather than for lubricants etc...

Whether it is viable to continue to drill for oil in the quantities required solely for other applications, I am not sure...

If targeting the use of oil for lubricants etc is a way of bringing down industrial civilisation, then the greens will do it.

[sanguinary]

jshell said:

1. Can you live without all or most of these? Really?

Nope. I blend various types of oil (thankfully only a small portion of our business is automotive), But no, I can't live without oil.