[dashster]

Looking at that graph, I don't know why people say conventional crude peaked in 2005 or 2008. That light grey area has two peaks higher and later than those two years.

I think the peak refers to an average shown in the second chart of this article:

http://crudeoilpeak.info/world-crude-pr ... 005-levels

They have this chart further down, which shows the average for every year, with 2012 at the top, but unfortunately, it looks like it includes tar sands.

[DesuMaiden]

If 2014-2015 was the year peak oil was hit, then the collapse will happen in 2020 when oil supplies start to decline.

[vtsnowedin]

If 2014-2015 was the year peak oil was hit, then the collapse will happen in 2020 when oil supplies start to decline.

You think it will take five years after a real decline to start the collapse?
I don't think so. One day after a super tanker pulls up to a KSA terminal and is told that they will have to wait because all the storage tanks are empty and the pipeline from Anwar is being used domestically the panic will set in in ways that make the movies seem like fairy tails.

[ennui2]

You think it will take five years after a real decline to start the collapse?
I don't think so. One day after a super tanker pulls up to a KSA terminal and is told that they will have to wait because all the storage tanks are empty and the pipeline from Anwar is being used domestically the panic will set in in ways that make the movies seem like fairy tails.

Meanwhile, back in reality.

[vtsnowedin]

You think it will take five years after a real decline to start the collapse?
I don't think so. One day after a super tanker pulls up to a KSA terminal and is told that they will have to wait because all the storage tanks are empty and the pipeline from Anwar is being used domestically the panic will set in in ways that make the movies seem like fairy tails.

Meanwhile, back in reality.

What makes you think that is reality? Supply is less then one million barrels a day above consumption of eighty million barrels a day. It won't take much to balance that out and two million barrels a day would create a shortage as big as today's "glut".

[Graeme]

What Will 2015 Do For Peak Oil?

The Cornucopians are exuberant, they believe that collapsing of oil prices dealt the death knell for peak oil. An oil glut, they say, is what we have, not peak oil. But an oil glut is exactly what we would expect at the very peak. After all, that is what peak oil is, that is the point in time when the world produces more oil than ever in history… and the most it ever will produce.

I am of the firm conviction that the world is at the peak of world oil production right now, or was at that point three or four months ago. I think history will show that the 12 months of September 2014 through August 2015 will be the one year peak. Whether the calendar year peak is 2014 or 2015 is the only thing still in question, or that is my opinion anyway.

The EIA, in their Short Term Energy Outlook says US Crude oil will peak, at least temporarily, in May 2015.

oilprice

[Revi]

I think 2015 will be the peak in all oil, just like 2005 was the peak in sweet crude. We managed to hold it off for 10 years by getting tar sands, deepwater and tracking, but those are all more expensive and we just can't afford them any more. We are headed towards Ugo Bardi's Seneca Cliff, and it's not going to be pretty. Most mountaineers die on the return trip, and the trip down from Hubbert's peak isn't going to be easy.

[Subjectivist]

I think 2015 will be the peak in all oil, just like 2005 was the peak in sweet crude. We managed to hold it off for 10 years by getting tar sands, deepwater and tracking, but those are all more expensive and we just can't afford them any more. We are headed towards Ugo Bardi's Seneca Cliff, and it's not going to be pretty. Most mountaineers die on the return trip, and the trip down from Hubbert's peak isn't going to be easy.

I saw an interview with Matt Simmons years ago where one line really stuck out at me. " when you are at the peak sometimes the other side is a nice gentle slope and sometimes going down is pretty stiff." A lot of people hiking through mountains discover this truth the hard way, and is part of the reason more injuries happen on the down journey than on the up. You use up a lot of your focus on the climb and are mentally worn out by the time the decent gets well under way.

[vtsnowedin]

I suppose I should know who Tverberg is. I doubt that all the sources will begin to decline at the same time. I would expect coal to increase as it is substituted for declining oil then maybe drop off some years later as it reaches it's own peak. I would also expect renewables to continue to grow as there value increases with other shortages and finally I expect desperation will start a resurgence in Nuclear power when coal actually declines and that source will grow until the limit of uranium is reached.

[ROCKMAN]

Sub – So that chart predicts energy production will decline by about 80% in just 15 years. Since I avoid predicting long term trends like the plague I’ll accept that. So thank goodness I’ll probably be dead by then because if it does happen I do see a real potential for a Mad Max world to develop. The good news it will go a long way towards solving the population problem: a few billion will die. Maybe even a lot more the struggle for the remaining energy goes nuclear between the big kids on the block.

I wonder when someone makes such a prediction they contemplate what that world would look like?

[Pops]

Sorry G, same story.

--



You all keep posting Gail's chart over and over as if it is some kind of holy grail of peak oil. It's actually a forecast of a "secular cycle" decline in demand due to a credit crisis. It really has nothing to do with peak anything.

It is my expectation that the supply of all fuels will decrease in use, more or less together, because of credit related financial problems that will affect the economy as a whole.

It could happen but I'm kind of thinking that if the economy flops that hard, the prices will fall to the floor and we all know what happens when that happens. Cycles are just that, circular; what goes around comes around, so if demand falls because of poor demand, low prices will just as readily raise demand - if supply can be raised that is.

[Tanada]

Sorry G, same story.

--



You all keep posting Gail's chart over and over as if it is some kind of holy grail of peak oil. It's actually a forecast of a "secular cycle" decline in demand due to a credit crisis. It really has nothing to do with peak anything.

It is my expectation that the supply of all fuels will decrease in use, more or less together, because of credit related financial problems that will affect the economy as a whole.

It could happen but I'm kind of thinking that if the economy flops that hard, the prices will fall to the floor and we all know what happens when that happens. Cycles are just that, circular; what goes around comes around, so if demand falls because of poor demand, low prices will just as readily raise demand - if supply can be raised that is.

I enjoy reading Gail's projections just as much as I enjoy reading yours Pops, or ROCKMAN's or any other random member on here. That doesn't mean she is correct any more often than the rest of us though. Most of the folks around here have taken a stab or three at predicting when, how steep and how deep the effects of Peaking Out will be.

[GoghGoner]

I disagree with Gail's projection of energy but I could be wrong. I think central banks will prop up the money supply, I don't see long-term global deflation as a possibility.

I think Ron's projection of oil makes sense but doesn't account for what we don't know. None of us guessed US production would increase except for OF. Haha!

[Pops]

I enjoy reading Gail's projections just as much as I enjoy reading yours Pops, or ROCKMAN's or any other random member on here. That doesn't mean she is correct any more often than the rest of us though. Most of the folks around here have taken a stab or three at predicting when, how steep and how deep the effects of Peaking Out will be.

My point is Gail's chart was intended to show energy demand falling due to cyclical economics, whereas POB is talking about good old fashioned geologic PO. The difference is big, in a credit freeze energy gets cheaper, in a energy crunch it gets much more expensive.

Important difference no?

[Pops]

The trains discussion was pretty good so I moved it over here:
topic70850.html

[Pops]

Ron @ POB has a new post on his prediction that peak is right now,



He also has a nice debate with commenter MikeB (who some would recognize here by a different handle from the "olden days") Italics are the commentor

Peak oil is not a theory–but not for the reasons the author thinks. He is declaiming the popular definition, that is, “hunch or guess.”

No, that is simply not the popular definition of a “theory”. The popular definition, not the scientific one, is that a theory is an unproven hypothesis. That is not what a theory is.

Peak oil, on the the other hand, is a prediction, and one based on terrible data, in my opinion, because it depends on too many unknowns.

Yes there are a lot of unknowns in the oil world. My prediction does consider those unknowns but it is based primarily on the knowns, not the unknowns. The data, while far from perfect, is not terrible. We know, approximately, how much oil is produced every, day, month and year. Not exactly but close enough. But more important we know how much it cost to produce that oil. And we know how the price of producing a barrel of oil has risen over time. Those are hard known facts.

Does anyone really know how much recoverable oil is in the ground, and at what price?

No and it simply doesn’t matter. What we do know is that all new discoveries get smaller, deeper, and far more expensive every year.

Does anyone really know what future technological advancements will bring?

We know they won’t bring miracles. And we know they will not likely arrive this year, in time to head off peak oil.

Does anyone know what future consumer behavior will look like? I certainly don’t. No one does.

Bullshit! That is the one thing we do know. Consumers will behave in the future exactly like they have behaved in the past. We have centuries of history to tell us how consumers behave. They will continue to believe everything will be fine until it isn’t fine anymore. Then they will panic, creating runs on banks and stores. Human nature doesn’t change.

Those who claim to have better “knowledge” to make such predictions are fooling themselves and a whole lot of others.

I am not claiming any special knowledge, just the facts that are right there before our eyes. Economical and geological facts are there. Pretending that they are not there is a fool’s game.

If the water is rising behind the dam, exceeding the limits of what the dam was engineered to hold back then people will start predicting when the dam will break. One person may say the dam will break when the water is two feed above the safe level. And he was wrong. Another said the dam will break when it is five feet above the safe engineered level. And even though cracks start to appear in the dam he was wrong. Another predicts a higher level and so on. And even more cracks appear. The point is we know the dam will break if the water keeps rising. Therefore every wrong prediction only increases the odds that the next one will be right. Only a damn fool would believe otherwise.

So tell me about Simmons and Hirsch and whomever. Go ahead, I really don’t mind. Because I know that even if I am wrong that only increases the odds that the next peak oil prognosticator will be right.

[Pops]

If Mike is who I think he is he was a staunch Peaker. He says Simmons et. al. freaking out in '08 were and embarrassment and more detrimental to increasing awareness than not, I kind agree. We see the effects of it today with the meme about The Glut proving PO wrong once and for all, LOL

I think a lot of folks believed the predictions that the world would go straight from 1 or 2% yearly growth to 6-8-10% p/a depletion and the price would skyrocket - sustained by who knows what at some ridiculous level.

In other words: Overnight Armageddon

[Revi]

I really don't know what will happen, but I am becoming a believer in Ugo Bardi's Seneca Cliff. The problem is that we are getting so little net energy out of oil nowadays that we will continue down the cliff until oil is practically useless to the average person. It isn't just how much you get, it's the net energy content of what you get. We need a thousand more Spindletops, not a thousand Bakkens.

[Revi]