It's easier to face what they know instead of confronting what they don't.

All third world countries have this cooking pot like a staple. I am from Turkey and it is a must at every home. I never questioned why but now I know. Because you need less energy to cook. And as you know Turkey has the most expensive energy gas, cooking gas, diesel whatever it is, in the world.

I'm not a doomer, either, and find them generally amusing. The sad truth to the matter is that the longer the world waits to deal with this problem the more likely the "doom" scenarios are to happen.

It can carry about 300 pounds in the back, 2 people and around 50 pounds of groceries in the front.

That's pretty good for a little car that costs a penny a mile to drive.

www.sunnev.com

Nor am I a "Doomer". I hope that things will not deteriorate to what they think will happen. Unfortunately, it is human nature,
and I fear the worst is yet to come. Look at what is going on over seas in Europe.
At leat by being here we can keep abreast of what is happening and be a little bit prepared should the poo hit the rotating air circulation device.

Robert Hill
Midwest City, Oklahoma

It wasnt that long ago that many people were pointing at late 2005 as the peak, and indeed it was for a few years. Now however new production records are being recorded in early 2008...

Megaprojects Shows a peak between 2010 and 2018, based on various decline rates. This is a very reputable information source, I think everyone will agree.

But some may say that well even 2018 is too soon to fully mitigate peak oil, based on increasing consumption rates, the gulf is just too wide. Which is valid if you consider increasing consumption inevitable.

However also recently there has been an astounding, verified, drop in US vehicle mile travelled. Also US oil imports are showing signs of levelling off in line with a temporary plateau in production. There is serious rail congestion and serious proposals being floated about revamping US rail infrastructure. There is a lot of heavy sulfurous oil available for sale with no refineries available to use it, but they're coming. While a 100 mbpd seems a little high according to megaprojects, its not that far off. So the IEA dropping its previous predictions so much is newsworthy, its not clear they're still whistling in the dark.(They may be more or less correct in other words)

As for much vaunted Asian Demand, a lot of that is based on the ridiculous fuel subsidies in place. There's again ideas floating around about reducing them - that'll reduce demand for sure. The lessons of the early 80's should remain stark in everyone's mind. I assure you the oil producers remember. A drop in demand due to conservation and substitution of electricity for liquid fuels where ever possible could very feasibly drop oil demand in a progressive yearly fashion where dropping production would present less of an economic shock. Hopefully to the point where the shocks are small enough that the resilience of the system can compensate.

Caveat: If the yearly decline of existing fields is really 8%/year(2010 peak) then my gut says thats too much and catastrophic demand destruction will result. However my gut also says thats unlikely because the cost of production in SA is much less than a mature province like the USA. I think, intuitively perhaps incorrectly, that until production costs in SA rise to an equivalent level, they still got some go in them.

So thats your anonymous web surfer synoposis, no rights reserved.

Production records include condensates that can't be made into gasoline or diesel fuel or heating oil.... The production of crude oil topped off in 2005 and has diminished slightly since, hence the description of it as a "supply plateau."

I wish the official reporting agencies would keep the liquids and condensates data separate -- they are an important distinction.

The IEA also said they could be forced to release strategic reserves soon.

In more simple English - there are not enough commericial supplies so government reserves will be tapped.

The IEA said it's considering a release of its strategic stockpiles because near-maximum OPEC output has failed to check rallying prices.

Bloomberg

I suppose they will elaborate more on this later.

By the way, as to whether you should agree with a doomer or a cornucopian, or haven't made up your mind yet. Don't use "hope" to determine where your action plan should be. Hope doesn't generate factual data. It may actually skew it.

Instead, do your research coldly and dispassionately. Then after about a year or so of reading various sides of this issue, decide where you want to stand on it and take your personal action steps accordingly.

Hope is always a part of life, but may be used differently depending on your own post-peak oil strategy. You may hope to keep driving many miles to work each day, and living in an suburban area where you have to drive everywhere. You may hope to keep buying things that are made 12,000 miles away and grown 1,500 miles away. You just want to be able to turn a light switch on your wall without thinking if you really need the light on, or whether you really need to make a drive to the store.

Or you may have a different kind of hope, that by living a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle will allow you to make ends meet well into the future. You hope to move into a city neighborhood with great walkable neighborhoods, good public transit, and lots of urban gardens that grow food. Or maybe you hope to move to a small agricultural town near the Great Lakes. You also hope to be able to protect your family's livelihood, health and safety. You may also hope to be a good example for others to follow.

Lots of choices to follow based on your research, comfort level and preferences. But one choice you should never consider is whether to hope or not.

There is no shortage of sour crude, just sour crude refining capacity. This is actually a distillates lead energy rally, but speculators are keeping oil bid up until there is little margin on gasoline. Its the price of product that must be bid up to cut demand, not the price of oil. A bunch of refineries are coming online in the next few months and years. At some point, sour crude excess capacity will go into production and then maybe we see some restructuring.

Still... Production drop is production drop...

The question is - will refineries adapt faster than the quality is changing - or will the quality change faster than refineries can adapt?

And if they can adapt, doesn't that represent an additional cost anyway and lower EROEI?

My WAG is that the adaption process will be slower than quality will change. Individual refineries don't have an incentive to undertake a massive overhaul or investment when it is easier just to pay more for oil to refine it into a product that's already in strong demand.

Not so sure about that.


source

Well put Peepers, very well put. Do you just write that on your own? Come up with that out of your a**? That's some fine writing that I've hardly seen around here or in my line of work. That kind of writing is worthy of being a presidential speech writer. Nice touch.

Haven't you got a more up to date graph, OF2? You keep posting this old data up to January 2008, but we've now had various official estimates for May and revised estimates (down) for earlier months.

Are you trying to give a false impression by continually posting this old graph?