Killer new business thread!

[Robin]

Originally Posted by Rolo

There will not be one big solution to the oil problem, instead there will be many different areas, which will ease the oil problem, before any major damage happens. Everything from better technology to better consumption, and other + new energy sources.

Yes, many different solutions. Oil has traditionally given a 60:1 ratio return on energy. Ie for every unit of energy invested you get 60 out. This is why you can have 250 horsepower cars. You would need 1,000 people to pull your car with that much force. That's how much power is packed into oil.

On the other hand The coal sands yield 1.5 - 2 times because of the huge amount of power required to boil the water to release the tar from the sand. The oil is there but it will be at a HUGE price. Likewise, wind and solar only return about 2-3 times their energy cost. BUT they are renewable so, over time, renewable resources compare very well with oil. But you have to look at a 20-30 year time frame (the life of a wind turbine or solar array).

To build the coal tar extraction facilities, to place solar panels on every rooftop and wind farms near every city. This is a thing that will take 20 years. And that's from the day the project is started. That's how much energy you need to replace oil.

Originally Posted by Rolo

I think the oil price is already getting close to, when other energy sources starts to make a good investment objects - ofcourse their EROI will not be anything like oil, however that is not important, because the price of oil will make them attractive. Add tax breaks to the mix, and this might kick start engery production, which again will help to stabilize the oil price.

Oh you bet. Finally people feel investing in solar and stuff is becoming affordable. But we won't see oil prices stabilized because of the sheer huge numbers of alternate resources that have to be built. Building them will take time, loads of money and, wait for it, huge amounts of ever more expensive oil for energy and manufacturing.

Even if we built 200 nuclear power stations to replace our natural gas ones, it would still take 10 years to plan them and 10 years to build them at current projections.

So, any way we slice the pie, we still see a shortfall of at least 20 years between oil becoming short supplied and other sources replacing it. Those will be 20 lean years during which you might be able to invest in energy stocks to make enough money in the early years to see you through the later ones fairly comfortable: warm house, air conditioning and so on. Most people won't be able to afford these luxuries for quite a while...

Originally Posted by Rolo

How did you get the price of $500/barrel... why not $1000/barrel or $100/barrel?

Try continuing the curve yourself...