[ennui2]

I agree, that it seems like we are crying wolf too many times, but this time it's real!

I hate to intervene here because I really see you as a personal friend but I feel when you say things like this you are setting yourself up to look easily whipped up into a state of panic.

I have a bad feeling about the fact that a commodity like oil just keeps going down in price here in the US.

I think if you were to go back in time to when oil was nipping at $150/bbl and informed yourself that you were going to have a bad feeling about the world because oil is going below $40 you would feel that your future self had gone insane.

It's only because the peak oil party has ended and everyone has gone home that those who are still nursing their drinks and talking about it have erected such implausible rationalizations to make it seem like what's happening is still consistent with peak oil doom. The rationalizations have now had to completely invert themselves. Any passer-by who read this sort of thing would be rolling on the floor laughing to think that peakers are now putting forth the idea that the lower oil prices go the more it's a validation of peak-oil doom. Only within the echo-chamber can these rationalizations self-reinforce to the point where anyone can really buy into them.

[Pops]

It's only because the peak oil party has ended and everyone has gone home that those who are still nursing their drinks and talking about it have erected such implausible rationalizations to make it seem like what's happening is still consistent with peak oil doom. The rationalizations have now had to completely invert themselves. Any passer-by who read this sort of thing would be rolling on the floor laughing to think that peakers are now putting forth the idea that the lower oil prices go the more it's a validation of peak-oil doom. Only within the echo-chamber can these rationalizations self-reinforce to the point where anyone can really buy into them.

Pretty funny, and pretty true.

The popular "theory" was discrete peak then terminal decline because: environment.geology. I think that in order to feel like true-blue believers, Peakers shoehorn every market swing, political hiccough and facebook cat-meme into that narrow definition. Just as dozens of weather threads here now force any and every weather event/non-event into proof of AGW.

As you say, PO as a "meme" has passed it's prime, leaving us bitter-enders here to carry on. Other zombies are more fun, AGW, ISIS, economic collapse, etc.

Which is unfortunate, because the great oil market head fake will likely jump up and knock that ennui right off their face.

[Subjectivist]

By the way ennui, when I said that $20 oil is a death spiral? Yeah. With the exception of a few primary-driven legacy fields (in Iran, Iraq, Texas, Oklahoma, Kern Co etc.) the average cost of production for the rest and new fields is now above $40. So if oil ever reaches $20, it must have passed on its way down through $30 and $25. Right? Which would have been long enough for consumer demand to drive new production back up? And prices back up. But it didn't because of that brand-new phenomena demand destruction which is unique to Peak-Oil.

Demand destruction is when oil-markets are destroyed by infrastructure destruction, social or economic collapse . . . when prolonged oil high prices eat into the ability of a society to function or continue in lieu of a suitable energy replacement (which apparently doesn't exist)

To a limited degree this happened all over the world as $40, $100, then $147 oil caused folks to adapt their life-styles. Many (like those in Egypt) chose to buy bread rather than drive to work. Others from Saharan Africa and the ME have decided to give up not only their cars, but their homes and communities to migrate somewhere else. Lo! The oil won't be any cheap there.

Not saying your basic premise is faulty, but early infrastructure decay can actually cause an increase in fuel consumption. Take that bridge collapse a decade ago in Minnesota, to travel to the same destination people had to be rerouted to the next closest working bridge over the Mississippi, which made the trips longer and required more fuel. On the flip side if multiple bridges fail then if is not worth the effort to reroute, you will just go somewhere else or stay in place.

[kublikhan]

Here's the peak in all oil:

http://peakoilbarrel.com

It may come back up, but it looks like all over the world we have hit a peak and are dropping.

Are you talking about the first graph at that link? That's for Texas oil production not world oil production. Global oil production is still rising. The world chart is here:

World Oil Yearly Production Charts

And the EIA's data is here:

EIA estimates that petroleum and other liquids production in countries outside of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) grew by 2.5 million b/d in 2014. EIA expects non-OPEC production to grow by 1.1 million b/d in 2015.

EIA estimates that OPEC crude oil production averaged 30.1 million b/d in 2014, relatively unchanged from the previous year. EIA forecasts OPEC crude oil production to increase by 0.9 million b/d in 2015.

Short-Term Energy Outlook

[ennui2]

Unlike you guys I built my doomstead

And again, yet again, you fall back to a gorilla chest-beating position of bragging about your preps rather than discussing the issues. Do you know how childish and obnoxious it is to wag your dick like this and piss on other people's life-choices? And all it really does is make you seem insecure because only insecure people feel the need to brag like that. How many times have I said that it's different strokes for different folks? Instead you have to measure everyone against YOUR yardstick (presumably hewn out of your precious redwoods).

Or your Ozarks trailer park Pops.

So ragging on me isn't good enough? Now you're going to just start slagging the site's moderator with petty insults?

If there's a criticism to be made of Pops, it's that he won't bite the bullet and ban your ass.

[Revi]

I agree it sounds like Chicken Little when I say that the end is nigh. I agree. I am not as concerned as I once was, maybe because I'm older. Here is a drop for October in Opec oil, and we know that the US is down, and that leaves the rest of the world, which is dropping a little as well.
http://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-crude-pro ... n-october/

[Revi]

I talked to a student yesterday and suggested that she do a study of the Climate Change movement. It is a little newer than Peak Oil and a lot bigger. I wonder if they will come to the same conclusion as we have. The groups like 350 have actually accomplished something lately, so they will be feeling a lot better about what they are doing. As far as I know almost nobody ever even knew about peak oil, and the only one who mentioned it was Hirsch, so it was almost unknown outside of our circle. Everybody has an opinion about climate change. Not so much for peak oil.

[Revi]

I am going to try to bump this thread alive again. We are all waiting on the world to change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBIxScJ5rlY

[Revi]

Peak oil seems to be happening, despite this book. We are depicted as crazy dormers, but in a couple of years we'll seem like prophets! I hope...

[ennui2]

And then they'll hit up google earth and say: "Hey look, there's some oasis of fruit trees inside a bunch of redwoods! Let's go charge the place!"

[ennui2]

I don't plan on getting that desperate...

[Newfie]

I just read this thread through. First time I've looked at it.

I don't think peal oil awareness is a political statement. Nor do I think it's a Doomer bias. I think what you have here are some people who kinda "get" the Limits To Growth argument and we are following and discussing the various plotted trend lines. The title is Peak Oil but it could as easily be Limits To Growth, or Resource Deplection, or Earthwise Systems Analysis.

A fair number of my acquantinences get the whole mess Earth and Humanity is in, but I tend to hang with a particular crowd. Generalist engineers and a few others. It is equally true that many who yu would think should get it don't.

If one were to generalize about us I would say, on average, we have a larger, more detached world view. We tend to be generalist. Folks vpcan be very smart but only experienced in a limited arena. They operate by trusting that others are equally competent in their fields. Perhaps another trai we share is some distrust in our fellow humans to do the right thing, so we check in on them and....oooopaies, they are mucking up big time. Perhaps that's where the Libetarian descriptor comes from.

I find similar traits and sensitivities in the crusing community, those who are actually living aboard and traveling. Perhaps they are similar personality types, for the cruisers need to be fairly smart and energetic generalist. They also have a greater than normal connection to Nature.

[Newfie]

As to the price of oil I have a bit of a weird take. I believe that $150 and $20 oil are equally disruptive to the global financial/trade system. Neither on is good for the system. The system wants a nice stable price, slowly inflating, that it can trust and plan on. Deviations, plus or minus, are disruptive.

It's all about balance and small, incremental changes. Big changes play havoc. I think we will see efforts, not sure what, perhaps a ME war, that will try to stabilize the price around "normal."

What I don't get (among many things) is why the US seems so hell bent on disrupting the status quo with regards to to oil. Generally I don't ascribe motives and cohesive actions to some uber TPTB, and I suspect that is the case here. It's not that TPTB are directing this fiasco, it has happened through circumstance and now whatever TPTB can't seem (yet again) to get their stuff together to restore normality. I almost wish there were some TPTB, then we would have some chance of control as opposed to the meat robot approach we seem to be taking.

[Revi]

I think they are trying to control this thing, but it's getting out of control. I have a couple of friends in the antique business and they put everything on sale for 25% off, then 50%, then they went out of business. I think we are in a similar situation right now. Things are cheap now, because they are being sold off prior to disappearing.