ennui2 wrote:I disagree. I think oil can go up a lot higher than it is now before cratering the economy. I think Gail's piece is simply meant to pump up some sense of anxiety about the future now that The Oil Drum is no more and nobody is looking at the issue anymore. These alarm-bells just seem "forced". The same is true of a lot of Richard Heinberg's rhetoric from late 2008 onward as well. There is this constant fishing around for some looming crisis or another, and it just takes on a doomsday cult feel to it when it turns out to be one bad prediction after another.
Remember what Matt Simmons said about how cheap oil was for what it did even it were to be sold at several times what it was at the time (which is more expensive than now). I just think the EROEI argument was overplayed by some. Unconventional has more of a ROI than they anticipated, and while it's true that the industry overproduced, all that proves is that there's that much recoverable hydrocarbons that we've got more available than we need, so the market corrects, and BAU moseys on along.
ennui2 wrote:I disagree. I think oil can go up a lot higher than it is now before cratering the economy. I think Gail's piece is simply meant to pump up some sense of anxiety about the future now that The Oil Drum is no more and nobody is looking at the issue anymore. These alarm-bells just seem "forced". The same is true of a lot of Richard Heinberg's rhetoric from late 2008 onward as well. There is this constant fishing around for some looming crisis or another, and it just takes on a doomsday cult feel to it when it turns out to be one bad prediction after another.
Remember what Matt Simmons said about how cheap oil was for what it did even it were to be sold at several times what it was at the time (which is more expensive than now). I just think the EROEI argument was overplayed by some. Unconventional has more of a ROI than they anticipated, and while it's true that the industry overproduced, all that proves is that there's that much recoverable hydrocarbons that we've got more available than we need, so the market corrects, and BAU moseys on along.
Revi wrote:We aren't going to pay more for oil because what it does isn't worth it any more.
Revi wrote:Well, okay. I began to understand what Gail is saying by thinking of it as we are spending so much more getting the oil
Pops wrote:Ron @ POB has said for a while that he thinks peak is right now, I think he said in the 12 months from last to next October. Ron is talking about peak oil, which is the same as saying maximum flow rate, in other words, inability to increase or even maintain production volume, suffice to say the point never again to be exceeded, as such it would be the highest level of extraction ever attained and never to be repeated, the apogee before the long road to happy motoring nadir, the pinnacle of the oil age, the zenith of ...
Ron's is the typical PO prediction: depletion + nowhere to drill = decline. That isn't dramatic enough to make for a good "Movie Treatment" though. Even if there were absolutely no new wells drilled and no reworking of old wells, none, decline would "only" be in the 3-4% range, (maybe a little more the first couple of years as the shales rapidly croaked). But even that isn't going to happen since supply constraint will return the price to the edge of affordability and enable some newer fields to be developed, infill wells drilled, old ones reworked, tar mined, wet gas tapped, yada yada.
EROI by most accounts is in the 12-18 to 1 to one range, not 2:1. Does anyone remember this chart?
There is very little difference in net energy between 100:1 and 10:1 efficiency. Maybe 8-9% less energy out? Considering we have built the current economy on ICE engines that, at the theoretical maximum efficiency, waste 65% of the stuff we put in the tank (much, much more in a 3/4 ton coffee cup hauler or '72 Eldo), I'm thinking we have a ways to fall yet.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
revi wrote:Whatever happens, it's not going to be much fun from here on in...
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
ROCKMAN wrote:Folks often speculate how the world will look when that magical PO date is reached.
Tanada wrote:There is no fate but what we make. The future is not written.
It is not the peaking of resources we need to fear, it is how people and governments will react to peaking that will be the scary thing.
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