Let's Discuss Peak Oil For A Change

[John_A]

You have a finite resource, you tap it, it declines.

Actually, first it goes up. Then it declines. Or maybe it goes up, and stabilizes? For years. And then declines. And the increases again. And then increases alot! And then declines. And declines some more. And then goes up some more!
It isn't quite so simple as Hubbert demonstrated I think.

The more or less you draw it down affects how quickly so. Seems pretty basic to me.

Me too. Well, except for all the ups, and downs, and trying to calculate in advance which ones matter, which ones don't, how long a trough can go on, is it a peak or a plateau. The combinations might be endless!

[Keith_McClary]

Actually, first it goes up. Then it declines. Or maybe it goes up, and stabilizes? For years. And then declines. And the increases again. And then increases alot! And then declines. And declines some more. And then goes up some more!

Get out your crayon and draw a curve of future production like that. You will find that the area under the curve represents much more oil than experts think is recoverable. But, what do they know.

[babystrangeloop]

Global oil production increased by 1.8 million b/d in 2010 or 2.2%
BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2011 / Oil Section

In 2010, world oil production grew by 1.8 Mb/d and surpassed the level reached in 2008. Growth was the largest since 2004 and was divided evenly between OPEC and non-OPEC. ...

Anybody who glances at the 2008 - 2010 data will see what an utter misrepresentation those statements are.

full excel workbook from 1965-2010 (almost 2 MB)

Total world oil production in thousand barrels per day and million tonnes

Code: Select all

Year Barrels Tonnes
2008  82015  3933.7
2009  80278  3831.0
2010  82095  3913.7


Tonnes fell from 2008 to 2010 by 20 while barrels increased by 80? Must be lite crude. Hooray for supreme growth!

[dissident]

That IEA graph is hilarious. Magic undiscovered will increase perfectly in the next 25 years to produce a flat crude oil production. The graph actually admits that the peak happened around 2005 and we are declining in crude oil production already. All the talk about plateau is a confusion about natural gas liquids and unconventional. Moving the goal posts serves only to obfuscate.

But politicians actually can't tell the difference. Here in Canada, the Harper regime thinks that Canada is the new Saudi Arabia because of the tar sands. Funny how the forecast of 5 million barrels per day of synthetic crude production by 2020 has fallen to 3 million. The global oil Titanic is sinking and Canada's drop in the bucket is not going to make it super rich when it can't even supply itself. That's right, eastern Canada *imports* 1.3 million barrels per day and Alberta's synthetic crude (from the bitumen sands) goes to the USA. As global oil production falls together with domestic production in the USA, Canada will be a one province export joke. The Canadian government can't even tax the tar sands properly since Alberta's provincial politicians threaten to secede. The stink over national energy program when Trudeau was prime minster was incredible. Since the federal government panders to Quebec "sovereignty" all the other provinces get a windfall of power.

[Pops]

If anyone is interested in an article without the ad hom, Gail has an outline of one pending publication in the journal Energy here, it's basically the same info as her 2 previous posts on peak energy and peak debt here and here. I think they were also posted on TOD and picket up on quite a few blogs.

As for peak oil in general the facts are obvious,
Cheap conventional oil production has peaked and is in decline. Simply observe the price for evidence.

Expensive oil is the only available substitute. Simply observe the price for evidence.

In the "developed" economies built on cheap conventional oil, rationing by price is obvious in falling demand for the last several years. Rationing is rationing whether it's by licensee plate number or available budget.

Falling demand is corresponding with severe economic problems in developed countries. The prolonged recession/depression along with commodity inflation - "sgaflation" can be at least in part credited to the higher price of energy over the last decade and it's effect on consumption and the inability of economies to rebound.

One item most notable in food price is the effect of oil price on ethanol production and commodity prices across the board from milk to beef to Cheerios. The basics of food and energy are eating into other spending and increased exporting of dollars to oil producing countries is reducing available dollars even more. Not hard to understand why the economy is stagnant.


I guess one can choose to ignore all that for the sake of argument and poking doomers in the eye, not sure about any other reason.

[dinopello]

Deffeyes had a recent post about the new EIA data. He had called peak in 2005 but sees that the EIA is suggesting a slight increase over that level in 2010. But he adds

So it's a new toy from the Energy Information Agency. We still don't know where the actual numbers come from. Does the EIA politely ask each country and then posts whatever reply is received? This story is by no means complete. Stay tuned.

[dsula]

Actually, first it goes up. Then it declines. Or maybe it goes up, and stabilizes? For years. And then declines. And the increases again. And then increases alot! And then declines. And declines some more. And then goes up some more!

The filter, Johny, the filter. You keep forgetting about the low pass filter. You got to low pass filter noisy data, only then it becomes meaningful. You forgot to do that when you where Short and you forget it again now. You never learn?

[Keith_McClary]

The Canadian government can't even tax the tar sands properly since Alberta's provincial politicians threaten to secede. The stink over national energy program when Trudeau was prime minster was incredible. Since the federal government panders to Quebec "sovereignty" all the other provinces get a windfall of power.

Yeah, let's give Harper control over oil, gas and hydro energy. He'll manage it properly like he does nuclear.

[John_A]

[Get out your crayon and draw a curve of future production like that. You will find that the area under the curve represents much more oil than experts think is recoverable. But, what do they know.

The area under the curve represents the amount of production, not much more. And the experts claim all sorts of things, including the total amount of recoverable oil in the United States being about 20 billion barrels. Which represents much less than what was recoverable. Holy Cow! You didn't get ANY of that right!

[John_A]

Deffeyes had a recent post about the new EIA data. He had called peak in 2005 but sees that the EIA is suggesting a slight increase over that level in 2010. But he adds

So it's a new toy from the Energy Information Agency. We still don't know where the actual numbers come from. Does the EIA politely ask each country and then posts whatever reply is received? This story is by no means complete. Stay tuned.

Of course he called peak in 2005. The one he called in 2000 didn't work out, and after consulting the "Kick The Can and Made People Believe It" playbook, 2005 was next up. Good for him if it works out!

[peeker01]

Some good news in these troubled times.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Ou ... Seems.html

[Pops]

Yea, that's awesome.

Any idea where the station is selling unleaded made with the $10 oil?

All the ones around here seem to use the $120 kind...

[peeker01]

Pop's, you'd complain if they hung you with a new rope.

[Keith_McClary]

The area under the curve represents the amount of production, not much more. And the experts claim all sorts of things, including the total amount of recoverable oil in the United States being about 20 billion barrels. Which represents much less than what was recoverable. Holy Cow! You didn't get ANY of that right!

Do you think the amount of oil that will ever be produced is:
1)some finite value (which we do not yet know).
2) infinite.

Mathematically, there are only these two possibilities, but you don't seem to accept this. If so, please explain.

[Keith_McClary]

The area under the curve represents the amount of production, not much more. And the experts claim all sorts of things, including the total amount of recoverable oil in the United States being about 20 billion barrels. Which represents much less than what was recoverable. Holy Cow! You didn't get ANY of that right!

Do you think the amount of oil that will ever be produced is:
1)some finite value (which we do not yet know).
2) infinite.

Mathematically, there are only these two possibilities, but you don't seem to accept this. If so, please explain.

BUMP
I guess that ends the discussion. Cornies seem to have missed the edition of Sesame Street where they did "finite" and "infinite".

[babystrangeloop]

The Iraq is about having war to the east of Iran.
The Afgan war is is about having war to the west of Iran.
There is no declared war in Pakistan the same way QE2 wasn't declared as bailout.

'US never told govt don't build Iran pipeline'
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri / Hindustan Times / Apr 17, 2011

The United States government has never told the Indian government directly that it does not want the Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline to be built. "They have said it isn't a good thing in public," said high level sources. "But never to us directly - possibly because they know the answer they would get."

Post-peak existence is about fighting of the last scraps of the 20th Century.

[Cloud9]

Sweet. I had my first succesful run of my waste oil foundary a couple of days ago.

The next project will be a wood gas generator to run my shop’s electrical system. The Mother Earth News blue prints are the most detailed. It involves cannibalizing four hot water heaters. The FEMA blue prints are more general and can be scaled down to lower horse power applications. I think the first run will be based on the FEMA plans.

[kildred590]

peripato wrote:
You have a finite resource, you tap it, it declines.

Actually, first it goes up. Then it declines. Or maybe it goes up, and stabilizes? For years. And then declines. And the increases again. And then increases alot! And then declines. And declines some more. And then goes up some more!
It isn't quite so simple as Hubbert demonstrated I think.

Maybe for nickel or lead.
But for conventional oil the output hits a peak and then declines about halfway.
Hubbert proved this with the peaks in SW USA and the North Sea.

Conventional oil peaked in 2005.
The only reason there hasn't been any big price increase is that non-conventional has had time to make up the gap, because of the GFC.