[AdamB]

They don't even offset field decline right now. Depletion of mature existing fields alone is 6.5 mbpd.

You do understand, that when aggregate production goes UP, like it has for the world and US, then of COURSE new production is offsetting legacy field declines. By DEFINITION it has to happen, for the aggregate to increase?

[AdamB]

Well, since we haven't reached PO yet, don't you think it's a bit early to critique what I thought would happen after PO?

How about we just take Jeff Brown's word for it then? Him being a professional in the specialties that seem to have understood this better than...others.

[AdamB]

The US obviously wasn't in the terminal decline you claimed it was. Would you care to revise your statement, in lieu of not remembering what you said very well?

In that thread I did say the US was in terminal decline.

Obviously. After having claimed previously that you had never claimed a peak occurring before.

At the time everyone thought it was, 35 years after the peak. Hardly a criticism you can lay on anybody. You are trolling.

Can't lay it on Mr Reserve. Can't lay it on Rockman. Can lay it on those who said what you said. Just because YOU drank the Koolaid doesn't mean you get to pretend everyone was as gullible. Lynch knew better. Yergin knew better. The EIA knew better.

So no, you don't get to pretend that everyone fell for the scary tales that you want to recycle and pretend are going to happen yet again, when oil does get around to peaking. Unless it already has, as Jeff Brown asserts.

But we are talking about world oil peaking, not just the US. In the 80's, new Alaskan oil interrupted the US terminal decline for a few years. Same short-term blip will happen with shale oil, I would imagine. Even before low prices arrived, the EIA was predicting shale oil would peak in 2020. It's more than likely, it has peaked now.

I have never called world peakoil or ever predicted a date.

Backpedaling some more is perfectly fine.

How many years of professional experience as an ecologist? You did say this is what your occupation was, right? To get that kind of degree, you HAD to have taken some math, right? Logic? Stats? SOMETHING quantitative?

Peak oil will only be seen in the rearview mirror.

And after Thanksgiving Day, 2005 (which includes most of the posts I'm quoting from this thread), it was in the rearview mirror. People far more qualified than even Mr Brown said so. At that time, you certainly weren't soft selling your ideas on those poor canaries, and you certainly weren't calling foul like those who didn't buy what you were selling.

[AdamB]

The world runs on oil.

Feel free to refute Amy's comments on how that plays out. Based on what you've said in the past, it seems unlikely you can, but she's got some real analysis chops in this regard.

http://eec.ucdavis.edu/highlight/why-th ... peak-soon/

[AdamB]

No one has any real idea where price, production or decline will actually go from here.

There is a difference, as I have mentioned before, between unknown and uncertain. While you have certainly proven that you doubt the sun will come up tomorrow because...the frequency of supernova occurrence in yellow dwarfs being so unknown and all....but just because you can't figure out how to estimate uncertainty, some do it every day. Like the USGS folks you decided weren't good sources, they know such things very well, as EnergySpin pointed out way back when.

[AdamB]

However, the prediction that US oil production would peak and then go ever downward after 1970 hasn't held up. Why? A flaw in the theory is that in its original form it underestimated the amount of oil that could be produced from "unconventional" oil resources, as shown by the current oil glut.

Sorry. Hubbert didn't consider unconventional sources in his prediction as I remember.

He considered all past US production. Including the shale oil and gas production dating back into the 1800's.

His analysis did not consider the advances in technology that would make extraction of oil possible from less-accessible reservoirs.

Good thing that horizontal drilling and hydraulic completions predated his 1956 paper by at least a decade. You know, the kind that powered the "shale revolution"? And less accessible? What does that mean? Like, stuff in the mantle?

Nor did he consider that a rise in the price of oil would make oil extraction from so-called "unconventional" reservoirs profitable enough to undertake.

But between Rockman and Mr reserve they did. Why didn't you?

Deepwater drilling (like in the Gulf of Mexico), the Canadian oil sands, and even extraction of oil from shales via hydraulic fracturing in North Dakota are all examples of unconventional oil production.

What is "unconventional" mean? You have listed, in order, drilling in deeper water rather than shallower (happening since the 40's?), mining (happening more than a decade before this thread began, and mining itself ain't unconventional), and more than half century old techniques like horizontal drilling and hydraulic stimulations....are...unconventional? I get it that all this might be weird to an ecologist without math skills, but rock has probably done most of this stuff hisself at one time or another.

[AdamB]

(Incidentally it's also about hypothetical reserve growth promoted by Adam. Reservergrowthdroolz used to pump that wacky notion back in the early oughts.

He appeared to be discussing economics more than he did other stuff. But his knowledge about upcoming unconventionals was spot on. Did you see them coming as well?

I was an early adapter of unconventionals: made a fortune in ethanol, thermodepolymized turkey guts and counted among my friends the pioneers in coal gas.

Normally folks use purple font when being sarcastic, not knowing your normal posting habits, I have to guess that this was meant to be sarcastic? I was only going back through the history and claims made, and it turns out, some did better than others. Anyone who knew the power of unconventionals, before that power was revealed? Not precognitive, but cetainly a leg up on those who are in the game out of a sense of general misanthropy.

But the point, how have those reserves been growing? I understand the Great North Slope, Alaska's Black Beauty is about to go belly up. Is that true?

How would I know? My focus tends to be on how much better estimates of peak effects or timing might have been if anyone had stopped for even a SECOND to incorporate basic economic ideas. POD qualifies, Mr Growth brought in similar concepts, and both had better scenarios mapped out because of it.

As far as your other question, I recommend the BP world outlook to answer questions like that, see how their numbers change. But the point that appears to be most salient in terms of the US growing oil production faster than at any time in its existence is the onslaught of production from these new oil fields. New fields that were right under our noses as well. Begs the question, how many more giant oil fields are under our noses, just waiting to create flood of oil #2?

[ennui2]

Adam you are a horrible distraction and misdirection. Like a card shark but less convincing. Still haven't shown us reserve growth (your apparent previous non de plume). Site a growing field? Certainly not Yibal, Cantarell, Ghawar, or Manifa. Show us the abiotic or stfu already.

The truth usually lies between two extremes. Adam is probably overly optimistic on oil supply, but then doomers are overly pessimistic. Split the difference and you wind up with peak oil doom forestalled by at least a few years.

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - Same point I've made before: folks can call any production "unconventional". But in the oil patch where I've resided for the last 4 decades there is no such this as unconventional or conventional production. Those are qualifiers were use to describe the nature of the RESERVOIR and not the production itself. A fractured shale is an unconventional reservoir. A very title sandstone reservoir is a conventional reservoir. A high porosity reservoir sitting under 5,000' of water in the GOM is a conventional reservoir.

The terminology issue becomes important because it confuses the discussion especially when it he s sidetracked by arguments over definition.

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - The Rockman LOVES models...uses a variety of the all the time. All models require a number of estimated assumptions. The great value: vary individual assumptions and one learns the sensitivities: some inaccurate assumptions don't significant change the model...some do.

But as far as predictive capabilities much less useful since no model can be more accurate then the assumptions made to construct it. And even if you get all the assumptions correct the model could be designed improperly.

Building models is like masterbation: there's nothing wrong with either...as long as you don't start believing they are the real thing. LOL.

[ennui2]

Building models is like masterbation: there's nothing wrong with either...as long as you don't start believing they are the real thing. LOL.

Don't let Monte read that. He may want to describe a sexual act like he did to me.

[Tanada]

Older portion of this thread can be found,
topic20373.html

[Subjectivist]

On bad days I think it will be steep, on good days I expect it to be shallow. Either way I am sure and certain it will change our civilization forever.

[ROCKMAN]

Sub - Or not. See my post about the potential passing of PO danger.

[Subjectivist]

Sub - Or not. See my post about the potential passing of PO danger.

How does the ultimate decline of petroleum production not change out civilization forever? You have a substitute in mind?

You beat me to it, no matter what comes to pass during the decline our civilization will be changed.

[AdamB]

The important point is you haven't proven that the numbers have any relevance.

8 to 9 mbpd is of no relevance? I see no rebuttal of the merits, only a hand wave dismissal.

There was no requirement of the 8 or 9 mbpd you claim. It was an illusion, a model result, someone's expression of what the future MIGHT be. Turns out...efficiency and technology and EVs and people just deciding to use less...just as basic economic theory would indicate..is what happened instead.

And we got the glut because it happened so well. Kapish?

Anyone could have done the same silly thing in 1977. And did. His name was Jimmy Carter. If growth cotinues just as it has in the past....we'll run out!! (that was what malthusian oil fears were called back then, as opposed to peak oil). Guess what? The future wasn't like the present, and better yet, we didn't run out, even if we HAD used Jimmy's fictious growth numbers.

Now you are doing the same thing he did. Stop already, take a deep breath, do the math, and laugh off how silly repeating HIS mistake looks NOW.