Busting the Hubbert Myths Part I

Veritas · Tar Sands Joined: Oct 01, 2006 Posts: 51

Greetings,

I was curious if the idea of oil production following a bell shaped curve has been disproved, as a colleague recently told me that it had been repeatedly shown that it is inaccurate.

Neither of us disputes that oil production will peak, and that it will happen sometime soon if it has not happened already. Where we disagree is whether the peak coincides with half of all oil being produced, and whether the right half of the curve will be a steep bell-shape or an undulating plateau.

While there are certainly repercussions in either case, if it is a bell-shape the implications are far more severe than if its a long slow decline.

This is important to know when people claim peak oil theory is false - for no thinking person can claim that oil production will never peak, but very intelligent people could argue that the peak will follow by very slow decline rather than a sharp decline. Is there any conclusive evidence one way or the other?

And if this is already covered in threads here I apologize, a link to said discussion would be great!

Thanks!

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 2971 Location: UK

The bell curve is employed as a mathematical model of the exploitation of a finite resource. It is just calculus. The real world does not perfectly follow a few lines of maths. Its greater complexity does not invalidate the principle however, namely that there will be a right hand side of the curve with a negative gradient.

I would object to any suggestion that the question of linear decline vs. exponential decline is a deal-breaker. The key word is decline, so immediately the difference is one of variety. And I am not sure that a linear decline is better than exponential. Exponential decline removes a fixed fraction in a fixed interval, which is bad at first, but at lower levels of production removes ever smaller quantities of production. Linear decline removes a fixed quantity in a fixed interval, which as time goes on, becomes proportionally more brutal. If your mitigation strategies involve long lead times, as ours surely would, you would prefer exponential decline.
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"The American people are watching the numbers climb higher and higher at the pump and they're waiting to see what the Congress will do." - George W Bush

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 2971 Location: UK

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 2971 Location: UK

Here is an ideal illustrative model of how production lags discovery.

In reality it looks less tidy.

But the principle is the same - you have seen the dress rehearsal up to the final act, so you can roughly guess at what point you are halfway through the play on the one night that matters.
_________________
"The American people are watching the numbers climb higher and higher at the pump and they're waiting to see what the Congress will do." - George W Bush

BigTex