XOVERX wrote:Best I can tell, we have two separate, and very serious, problems.
First, tight oil. By 2020, by all accounts, the boost we've gotten from fracking will be on the decline side.
Second, capital expenditures. The Kopits information. Failure by the majors to invest now in long-term projects is going to be a huge problem by 2020, when those long-term projects should be coming into production.
I wonder if your second point might mitigate your first point, at least a bit.
Say we see "low" oil prices for the next few years (unlikely, but stay with me). New tight oil projects stay on hold in the mean time. Price eventually spikes again and these projects come back online, dragging out the peak even further. Shrill voices again declare the death of peak oil.
Not saying that's how it's going to go down, but just one way it might go down. But will the declining tight oil production (due to price) continue to keep pace with declining conventional production (due to geology)?
Such a difficult dynamic to understand. Where's a Rockman when you need one? LOL
But the 2020s could also provide a huge and daunting challenge. Change could be Greer-like gradual. Or maybe change will be a 2 by 4 after all.
Agreed the 2020s will be interesting in the Chinese curse sense of the word. But maybe a combination of demand destruction on the margins, new tight oil, Arctic drilling, etc. will drag it all out even further and in 2024 we'll be talking about how interesting the 2030s will be.
Regardless, it seems highly improbable that the average household will be faring better in 2024 than they currently are in 2014. Just as the average household (in the US at least) was doing better in 2004 than they are now. Not "collapse," not TEOTWAWKI, just a slow grind down.
By the way, read
Greer's latest post. He's been a doomer all along, despite his protestations. His "slow decline" is not what I think of as slow decline. I think of the Great Recession slipping into the Greater Depression for the rest of my life (2040s if I'm lucky). But Greer's talking about 1+ billion dying from Ebola in the next few years, "neofascists" taking over Europe and the US in the 2020s, another World War in the 2030s, the nuking of Washington, DC, by the US military and the break up of the US in the 2040s, etc.
Pretty doomy stuff. Thankfully it's followed by several decades of a Pax Chinensis LOL
A garden will make your rations go further.