Dismantling a Million Tons of North Sea Oil Rigs

"Writing in the journal Nature in June, Professor Euan Nisbet and Dr Mary Fowler of London University argued that the quantities of heavy metals in Brent Spar are minuscule compared with those found naturally in parts of our deep oceans. In so-called "black smokers", whole communities of highly specialised bacteria eke out their lives where the earth's crust vents huge amounts of superheated water and metals into the ocean depths. One estimate puts this discharge of metals worldwide at 700,000 to five million tonnes a year.

Dump the Brent Spar near such a vent, argues Professor Nisbet, and its impact could not even be measured. Its contents might even give the bacteria a free meal."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/to-dump-or-not-to-...

Also, the amount of oil was much less than Greenpeace had stated, estimated at somewhere around 100 tons, rather than 5500 tons. And oil is something that bacteria do eat.

All the articles I could find essentially state that Shell's plan was scientifically valid and posed less environmental risk than disposal on land, but didn't "feel" right.

Another more detailed look: http://negotiationlab.co.uk/user_uploads/KSG%20Brent%20Spar....

> A secondhand vessel is currently worth about $190 per tonne to a shipbreaking yard in Turkey, a price established by the local market in reclaimed steel. Sail on to China and a different market, and the same metal is worth $210 per tonne. At breakers’ yards in Alang in India, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Gadani in Pakistan, they will pay around $280 per tonne. Meanwhile, at the EU-approved shipbreaking sites, which are bound to conform to continental waste laws, and where vessels are dismantled in closed-off quays or dry docks, rates are less competitive: European yards offer zero dollars per tonne, and, in fact, tend to ask a fee to take a shipowners’ junk.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/02/where-oil-r...

Put another way, you can, for a crude estimate, divide national GDP by petroleum consumption to arrive at the net economic gain per barrel of oil consumed.

In the U.S., that's about $1,000. For India and China, it was about $400 - $500 as of a couple-three years ago. For much of Europe, about $1,500, peaking with Switzerland at about $3,000/bbl.

Put another way, figure what you spend to get a barrel of oil, and subtract that from what you gain by it. Or divide to get a multiplier. At $10/bbl cost and $1000/bbl value, the US gains $100 for each dollar spent on petroleum. At $100/bbl cost, that falls to $10 per dollar.

For countries with lower value per barrel, those gains are even smaller.

A couple of other perspectives:

* In India and China, there are low-value activities enabled by energy usage which would be driven out by higher energy costs.

* There is the question of total net energy. It's one thing to say "but we've got $10/bbl oil". But if there are only, say, 10 billion barrels/year of $10/bbl oil, vs. the 35 billion barrels consumed annually, well, that's 25 billion barrels/year you've either forgone or need to substitute by other means. And our substitutes for petroleum, most especially in transport, are exceedingly limited.

* There's substitutability, generally. Passenger vehicle traffic may be electrifiable. Transit and cargo freight as well. Marine freight not so much, and commercial air travel almost certainly not at all. Options for alternative liquid fuels are at best highly problematic. Some exacerbate current problems, most create new ones.

But answering your point: what's changed isn't the amount of fuel, or the benefit gained per use. Rather, market price has climbed (and fallen, and climbed, but that's another story, unless you owe or hold loans based on market price assumptions...) to the point that previously noneconomic reserves are now economically viable.

The limit of energetically viable deposits is, however, a hard cap, and barring some massive developments in technology, are unlikely. There's that little emissions problem as well.

Hydrofracking is a technology which was first developed in the 1940s and 1950s. It wasn't used until the past decade simply because it wasn't necessary or viable. And while there've been some select specific technological improvements in application, the fundamental concept is as it was first conceived.

But the numbers are so large that's really only going to be possible with fusion, so we're talking generations from now.

But I do not believe the price of oil is suddenly going to shoot up to some astronomical value overnight and cause mass die-offs, which is something you hear every time the price of oil goes up a bit.