10 Basic Facts of Peak Oil

[kublikhan]

Pops, sorry to hijack your thread. Feel free to split this discussion into a separate thread.

Point is, while the HD may have an extremely low FF input, it, like all other electrical production, has a FF input.

Windfarms and PV stations are so FF dependent so as to be laughable "nonFF" sources of electricity.

I hear tell that some wind farms actually burn electricity keeping the turbines spinning in low wind situations because the shafts will deform if they come to rest.

POer cornucopian fantasy includes cherry picking one of the few installations with a relatively small FF input.

Go figure out how much oil you need to burn to dig, purify, burn, and store U. Then let me know what % of nuclear is indirect oil. Same for PV.

What is laughable is the assertion that humanity cannot harness/generate energy without the use of fossil fuels. That fact that we don't today points more towards the incredible bounty of energy fossil fuels provide rather than some kind of technological impossibility. Windmills and water wheels have been used for thousands of years. Are you trying to say that once fossil fuels are completely gone, humanity will no longer be able to harness/generate energy? Our primitive ancestors licked that problem thousands of years ago. And humanity has learned a thing or 2 since then.

[Keith_McClary]

I hate to confuse you further on this issue, but total supply can be misleading because it includes things like ethanol.

Which is not petroleum.

[Keith_McClary]

A fact I found most striking is that a significant increase the URR only moves the peak of the production curve a few years into the future.

I can't remember a good exposition of this.

[meemoe_uk]

Hi All, after looking at your links and posts in relation to US crude oil production, I've decided your right, so I'll have to retract this statement.

>Ok. But we're still waiting for the US to significantly deplete it's oil reserves. The US is today pulling just below 1970\1 record amounts of crude.

I assumed the EIA was crude, but it was all liquids. Must have been skimming over the detail and made this mistake.

Now, can you find fault with my critic of the other 9 entries in the top 10 PO list?

1. "Peak Oil" is the point of maximum production followed by long term decline.
Ok
2. Oil is a finite resource on a human time scale.
ok
2. Discovery of new oil fields peaked 40 years ago and very large fields earlier still (?)
No, discovery is too ambiguous to be sure of the numbers. 1st, Most middle east supergiants discovered before 1970, the ones that make up the peak of discovery in doomer charts, would have run dry long ago if it wasn't for later much more oil being 'discovered' in those same reserviors. 2nd taking just a modest outlook of oilfinders recent discovery list suggests that oil discovery is setting new records right now, in this new golden age of oil discovery that we're living in, that all doomers ignore because it's inconvienient to their ideals.
And don't forget, if you chuck in tar-sands and shale, it sends the reserves waaaay off the top of the chart.

3. Easily extracted (inexpensive) oil will be depleted faster than difficult and expensive oil.
Ok
4. As oil exporting nations deplete reserves and consume more oil internally, their exports fall.
Ok. But we're still waiting for the US to significantly deplete it's oil reserves. The US is today pulling just below 1970\1 record amounts of crude.
5. Increasing oil prices can increase reserves by making once unprofitable oil profitable
Ok.
6. Increasing oil prices decrease demand by reducing the amount consumers can purchase
Ok
7. Increasing oil prices reduce discretionary income available for other uses depressing the economy.
No necessarily. It just means you stop working for some frivilous consumer\media\luxury company, and get a job with an energy company. So it's just the useless economy that takes a hit, no bad thing!

8. Scaling up substitutes will take considerable time, after the need is recognized.
Not significantly. Not on the time-scale of loss of energy due to PO. 5 years max if tommorrow the leaders got on TV and told everyone they were at war against PO, and we have to drop everything to go out and set up alternatve energy supplies. Alternate energy is currently massively suppressed by the oil cartel.

9. Oil production data is proprietary making long range planning by governments difficult.
No

10.The amount of energy used to produce oil steadily increases reducing energy available for useful economic work.
Yes, but the ERORI is so very high for oil, that ERORI concerns don't become significant till at least next century. Or alternatively when the real costs of obtaining a barrel of oil are around $10000 in todays money. Your own PeakOil leader Matt Simmons always used to propound this, and he was right.
For all intents and purposes, ERORI isn't a concern today. It's the MROMI ( money returned on money invested ). Money is spose to represent potential energy, but it's been heavily defiled from this ideal. To think that the direct link between money and energy still holds true, means you don't understand monetary history or current affairs. Of course, peakers love to insist this link is perfectly intact wrt ascribing the huge world debt due to supposed perilously low oil ERORI.

[Pops]

Again, we are talking about peak oil, not no oil - see rule number one. if you want to talk about life after no oil start a new thread.

Hi All, after looking at your links and posts i..[/i]

Thanks

2. Discovery of new oil fields peaked 40 years ago and very large fields earlier still (?)
No, discovery is too ambiguous to be sure of the numbers.

I talked about these earlier

7. Increasing oil prices reduce discretionary income available for other uses depressing the economy.
No necessarily. It just means you stop working for some frivilous consumer\media\luxury company, and get a job with an energy company. So it's just the useless economy that takes a hit, no bad thing!

That useless economy is someone's job

8. Scaling up substitutes will take considerable time, after the need is recognized.
Not significantly. Not on the time-scale of loss of energy due to PO. 5 years max if tommorrow the leaders got on TV and told everyone they were at war against PO, and we have to drop everything to go out and set up alternatve energy supplies.

The statement is speculative but not as speculative as your point.

Alternate energy is currently massively suppressed by the oil cartel.

I'd be interested to hear where you read that.

9. Oil production data is proprietary making long range planning by governments difficult.
No

Look, if you want to be taken seriously you need to be serious, "no" is not an argument.

10.The amount of energy used to produce oil steadily increases reducing energy available for useful economic work.
For all intents and purposes, ERORI isn't a concern today. It's the MROMI ( money returned on money invested ).

I agree eroei is not a concern while production is increasing and energy is cheap but it could be important when energy is priced closer to it's actual value. ?

[Quinny]

WTF is ERORI?

[pstarr]

WTF is ERORI?

dribble from a lazy mind?

[AgentR11]

I think there's an odd factor in play, but I don't know how to characterize it.

Most producer / exporters; are energy exporters and food importers; and a lot of how we think of their "wealthiness" is really dependent upon how cheap that grain import is. Just this year, a few heads are getting lopped off because of the balance in vs out, it caused some unpleasant people to go hungry, and they turned around and did some unpleasant things.

The higher the price of oil, the more sense it makes for grain exporters to turn grain into liquid fuel, the more ethanol is made, the higher the delivered price of the remaining exported grain becomes, and the less wealthy the oil exporter becomes. But its a slow and laggy response, you don't just up and say, "ooh, lets turn all this corn into a few million barrels of ethanol..."

If the price of oil can spike and sucker punch an economy; imagine what the bidding on grain could do if there were only enough available to feed 80% of the population, especially if the buffer of grain storage approaches zero...

[Armageddon]

Since I was a kid I have read that world oil production has peaked and is going to decline. Back then, world production was about 20 MB per day. Since 2004, world oil production has been flat at about 80 MB per day. Will I see PEAK OIL in my lifetime, or is this just a theory?

Conventional oil has already peaked

[Serial_Worrier]

Cornucopia is right around the corner. Really!

[radon]

[

10 11 Basic Facts of Peak Oil
1. "Peak Oil" is the point of maximum oil production followed by terminal decline.
2. Oil is a finite resource on a human time scale.
32. Discovery of new oil fields peaked 40 years ago and very large fields earlier still.
43. Easily extracted (inexpensive) oil will be depleted faster than difficult and expensive oil.
54. As oil production declines and oil exporting nations become wealthier, they consume more oil and reduce their oil exports.
65. Increasing oil prices can increase economically extractable oil reserves by making once unprofitable oil profitable.
76. Increasing oil prices decrease demand by reducing the amount consumers can purchase.
87. Increasing oil prices reduce discretionary income available for other uses depressing the world economy.
98. Scaling up substitutes for oil (i.e., electric cars), will take considerable time, after the need is recognized.
109. Significant amounts of national oil company data are unavailable, obscuring the true situation.
1110. Increasing energy expended in finding and developing, and often in extracting and refining oil reduces the net energy produced.

My 2p in bolds and strikethroughs in the quote.

This list has an advantage of being simple and easy to understand even for a newcomer. While many subsequent comments make sense, the road to perfection never ends, and making the wording too complex would probably benefit mostly people with advanced knowledge of "deep geopolitical/technological" implications of peak oil rather than a curious casual reader. (I actually thought that the final list was to finish up as a sticky for reference at some visible place on the forum).

The list includes 11 points, by the way - point 2 was duplicated.

[Pops]

The list includes 11 points, by the way - point 2 was duplicated.

Thanks for the edits Radon... And thanks for being able to count

[rockdoc123]

Not sure why National was struck out on the oil company data comment. As I said before likely >90% of all international oil companies (IOC) are publically traded and hence all of their reserve information is available through press releases on year end results or filings under the SEC, SEDAR, etc. There are serious penalties for fabricating such data and in most cases a portion of the reserves has been subject to third party audits. The lack of transparency is with respect to national oil companies such as Aramco, PDVSA and others where foreign companies are not allowed access.

[Keith_McClary]

1. "Peak Oil" is the point of maximum oil production followed by terminal decline.
2. Oil is a finite resource on a human time scale.

1) Oil is a finite resource on a human time scale. Therefore, production must reach a maximum, called "Peak Oil", followed by terminal decline.

There's only one peak oil fact here. The second sentence is a mathematical deduction and a definition.

9. Significant amounts of national oil company data are unavailable

Can we get more precise than "Significant amounts" eg., "about x%" or "a third".

[AdTheNad]

There are serious penalties for fabricating such data and in most cases a portion of the reserves has been subject to third party audits.

Enron was audited, and there were serious penalties for the fraud they committed too. It is clear that penalties and auditing is not enough to prevent fraud on a massive scale where strong enough incentives are involved.

[rockdoc123]

Enron was audited, and there were serious penalties for the fraud they committed too. It is clear that penalties and auditing is not enough to prevent fraud on a massive scale where strong enough incentives are involved.

It was the Enron scandal that brought about Sarbanes Oxley Act which precipitated the current restrictions and requirements on reserve reporting by all oil companies. The third party audits or expert opinions are also actionable at the discretion of the various regulatory bodies. I've been through numerous such audits both pre and post Sarbanes Oxley and from what I can see there is little room to maneuver these days.

[static66]

Hey POPS!
I have been away on vacation for the last 4 years working in Vermont on regional food production models and logistics plans to prepare for the inevitable PO/CC scenarios. What i have come back too is where we are with global BBL per Day numbers that are seemingly going up to levels that we initially thought were impossible just 5 years ago? We stand at just about 90MBD now in 2011 and the EIA says we will surpass the 100MBD mark in 12-14 months. I remember when we were all chirping about 74.62MBD as the Peak in 2008. What gives? Is there alot more oil and refining capacity available to us that we do not know about? Let me know.

Thanks

[Pops]

Hey static, I think this thread explains it nicely:
why-is-chevron-producing-oil-costing-70-t61785.html

[Pops]

Anyway,

I plead caffeine depletion as my excuse for striking "national" without discussion, sorry.

Looking at this list from EnergyBurrito, which countries are the most/least transparent re: increased capacity and are they nationals or corporate?

[rockdoc123]

From your list the countries where foreign IOC's operate and hence report reserves are (in no particular order) Nigeria, Norway, UAE, Angola, Azerbaijan, Canada, Libya, Oman and the UK. Of the others Russia and Venezuela have had the most recent reporting by foreign companies but the records are not good. The vast majority of their reserve discoveries were already reported prior to effective nationalization so the numbers may not be too bad. Saudi and Mexico do report quite often in the press and presentations at various conferences with regards to their reserves but there are no independant eyes on those numbers.
Everyone points to Saudi, Iraq and Iran as being problematic mainly because their reserve complement is so high.
My guess is the Iraq reserve numbers captured by IHS Energy aren't bad given that all the discoveries were made back well prior to Gulf War I. The Saudis don't tend to make outrageous claims and they back up what they predict with investment. As an example when they said they would increase spare capacity with the megaprojects they did so through billions of investment. Iran on the other hand seems to like to report huge discoveries in areas that seem somewhat unreasonable if you know something about the geology.