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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (71258)	8/10/2016 7:05:23 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86350

For purely thermodynamic reasons net energy delivered to the globalised industrial world (GIW) per barrel by the oil industry (OI) is rapidly trending to zero. That isn't true, but even it if was it wouldn't mean that oil was useless. First there is the obvious utility of petrochemicals, but beyond that it would still be useful for energy. If not as an energy source as a store of energy that's much denser then any battery. The "unavoidable waste heat" part just means you use a bit more energy in order to obtain, refine and distribute oil and oil products. That energy doesn't even have to come from oil (although it could). Your so big on "alternatives". Solar or wind or geothermal could be used for much of the extraction and some of the refining energy. But the more important point is that its not rapidly trending to zero. It is still the case, and will be in 10 years (despite the claim to the contrary that you quote), that burning oil produces a lot more energy then the energy costs of drilling, pumping, distributing and refining it.

To: Eric who wrote (71258)	8/10/2016 11:03:35 PM
From: teevee	2 Recommendations Recommended By Brumar89 TimF Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86350

Eric, Oil is such a wonderful product, that if it didn't occur naturally, we would have invented it. Other than nuclear, oil has the highest energy density, ease of transport, petrochemicals for plastics, synthetic fabrics and on and on.....indeed, once natural oil does eventually become too expensive to find, produce and refine, synfuel plants will manufacture diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, naptha's etc directly from natural gas. We are in the 2nd century of the hydrocarbon era and useage will only increase in the forseeable future. That is the reality of the world.