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Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 26 May 2017, 10:53:07

coffeeguyzz wrote:He displayed near total ignorance about anything, yet vociferously defended his "running out real soon" position.
Curious how anyone could take him seriously.


Evidence of zealotry is a discounting factor with these folks, right outta the gate. But people keep using them as references because they say something they already believe, not because they are right, or even have any credibility.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 26 May 2017, 10:58:32

donstewart wrote:@all you guys criticizing Patzek
It can be proven that a baseball player cannot physically catch a baseball unless their brain engages in very rapid and unconscious error detection and correction. So when you dredge up statements from the past, and then try to damn the person for having changed their mind or refined their position, you are only revealing your own ignorance about how humans survive in the world.


Horsecrap.

Tad didn't make a split second decision when he decided to spout peaker nonsense, he is well traveled, something you appear to like, and he has a degree and a job and everything! So did Colin Campbell. And his peak oil didn't happen in 1990 either.

Stop pretending that when people are stupid, and prove it in writing and their conclusions, that it doesn't provide evidence that they might just be smart versions of Harold Camping, and for the same fundamental reasons. Zealotry.


donstewart wrote:If you were to go back far enough in my history you might undoubtedly find that I once bought into some sort of volume theory of Peak Oil. But, like the baseball player, I have observed and corrected.


Cool. So where is your proof that Tad has corrected his past near religious belief that peak oil has/was happening, and now he has learned from having been proven wrong. Got that reference handy, that we might reconsider his change of heart?

donstewart wrote:If you guys want to write historical accounts of how people slowly figured out the centrality of slowing societal metabolism, then do so. But don't criticize people for error detection and correction.

Don Stewart


Prove that Tad has detected his error and corrected it then. I haven't seen a single word of his indicating that, and I knew more about him than you did right from the get to.

You used his quote because you like what he says, and agree with it, not because it has a shred of credibility or even makes sense.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 11:30:11

@Adam B
I have no obligation to prove anything to you. And I have zero interest in trying.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 11:57:59

@asg70

Couple of tidbits to shore up the concepts laid out in Barrett’s Emotions book.

First, Michael Moore looks at Finland’s highly successful schools. Note the Default Network in action. Nose-to-the-grindstone is counter productive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVCTqgrFIPs

Second, Barrett demonstrates that what we think we are doing is clearly impossible. We THINK we see something and react to it. But we actually react to what we expected to see. Sometimes we will error correct for the next moments in time, and sometimes we ignore reality.

Page 60:
'If your brain were merely reactive, it would be too inefficient to keep you alive. You are always being bombarded by sensory input. One human retina transmits as much visual data as a fully loaded computer network connection in every waking moment; now multiply that by every sensory pathway you have. A reactive brain would bog down like your Internet connection does when too many of your neighbors are streaming movies from Netflix. A reactive brain would also be too expensive, metabolically speaking, because it would require more interconnections that it could maintain.

Evolution literally wired your brain for efficient prediction.’

So we are perceiving the world through models which compress raw data into feelings, including emotions. Which is one reason that eye-witness testimony is frequently wrong. Or that memories in general are not very accurate in terms of detailed facts. Our brain and mind are not at all like digital computers, which is one of Nora Bateson’s points.

Which leads us back to the question of what we do with complex systems. Are they hopelessly out of our control? Or can we build models which are good enough to give us some influence? And can we summon the sapience to influence them in positive ways rather than disastrous ways?

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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:10:48

Don - OK, let's try one more time. You can cherry pick gasoline yields if you like to support your position. I can do likewise and make your position look like do-do. LOL. But neither approach changes the FACT:

"Light, sweet crudes have a higher proportion of the light molecules used to make premium fuels like gasoline, naphtha, and – to some extent – diesel. Heavy crudes have a higher proportion of molecules that can only be used to make diesel fuel or residual fuels oils that are sold at a discount to ships or power producers."

That's from this "primer" on the refinery industrty:

http://canaryusa.com/crude-oil-refinery-primer/

But as explained many times: the US refinery industry does not process heavy conventional oil, light condensate oil or even 39° API WTI. It refines blended oils whose gravity has been rather constant at 32° API for many decades. Neither the heavy oil nor WTI can be refined to deliver the gasoline yields the refineries INSIST on producing. Both such "conventional oils" (as you classify them) MUST BE BLENDED with the "lite-tite oils (again as you classify them).

So let's look at the makeup of US oils. Again from the EIA:

"API gravity: In 2016, the majority (51%) of the 8.4 million bopd of crude oil produced in the Lower 48 states was light oil, or less dense oil with an API gravity of 40.1 or above. Light oil also made up more than half of the oil produced in 2015."

"State-level data show the difference in crude oil API gravity in different parts of the country. For example, oil produced in Texas has a relatively broad distribution of API gravities, with most production ranging from 30–50 degrees API. Oil produced in North Dakota tends to be light (less dense). About 90% of North Dakota’s oil production has an API gravity of 40.1–50.0 degrees. California’s oil is mostly heavy (more dense), and more than 90% has an API gravity of less than 30 degrees."

Got that: neither the light Texas/ND oils nor the abundant heavy "conventional oils" from CA provide the product yields the refineries INSIST UPON. Which is why before the boom in light oil production from the shales our refineries were FORCED TO IMPORT LIGHT OIL to blend with our "conventional oil".

From the EIA: Prior to the "lite oil" boom from the shales about 9% of the oil imported by our refineries was 40°+ API. Now, again thanks to the shales, the import of those NECESSARY lite oils HAS DECLINED 70%:

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafH ... 000452&f=A

IOW the refineries are processing the same blended oils today as they have been for decades. The only difference is that the most lite oil component is being produced domestically instead of being imported.

So the bottom line: US gasoline yields have not changed because the US is producing more of the lite oil needed to blend with the heavier "conventional oils" since the composition of the blended oil the refineries HAVE PROCESSED FOR DECADES HAS NOT CHANGED. And how do we know the gasoline yield hasn't changed as a result of the increase in US "lite-tite oil" (again, as you classify it)? Because our friends at the EIA keep track US refinery gasoline yields. US REFINERY GASOLINE YIELDS THAT HAVE HELD UNIFORMLY AROUND 45% FOR AT LEAST THE LAST 25 YEARS.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafH ... FRYUS3&f=M

Don, these are the FACTS as presented from an independent source, the EIA. Either you understand now or you don't. If folks want to continue to try to educate you that's their choice. For me, I resign. LOL.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:15:11

BTW trying to support a position by using an analogy is a very poor way of trying to achieve a goal IMHO. Much like trying to pound a nail in with a wrench instead of a hammer.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 26 May 2017, 13:55:40

donstewart wrote:So we are perceiving the world through models which compress raw data into feelings, including emotions. Which is one reason that eye-witness testimony is frequently wrong. Or that memories in general are not very accurate in terms of detailed facts. Our brain and mind are not at all like digital computers, which is one of Nora Bateson’s points.


I'd say this is worthy of its own topic, and I've seen these floating around in the archives.

I think doomerism in general rests on the back of a selective interpretation of the above, maybe something that traces back at least as far as the movie They Live, the first questioning of trick-down economics (aka neoliberalism, which is a huge misnomer).

Image

Basically it says that the ambient culture (or cult) of growth has brainwashed people into thinking that the good times will keep on rolling forever in violation of ecology and physics. This was "branded" as blue-pill vs. red-pill wisdom of peak-oil doomerism 10+ years ago.

However, you also have to concede that there is a huge ego-boost that comes from feeling like you're holding onto "secret knowledge". This is the draw behind conspiracy theories. So the blindspot is that doomers recognize how people can be brainwashed by Madison Avenue but they simultaneously IGNORE how being knee-jerk iconoclasts is in itself an opiate. It's also an opiate that is particularly attractive to members of society who have, for whatever reason, never fit in with the rest of society. That's how you wind up with your Unabombers and your Derrick Jensens and your sad-sack Mike Rupperts.

The only way you can really tease out the truth is to be even-handed on the bias issue like this. If you suggest the bias can only exist on one side of the spectrum then what you're doing is some form of propagandizing.

It's important to let go of a sense of attachment to a particular future outcome, whether it's driven out of fear or fantasy or the fact that you've stuck your neck out posting 1,000s of Nostradamus screeds on a forum like this.

The more someone comes across as if their ego/reputation is on the line and they have to spin the sh*t out of contradictory data-points the more it becomes clear that the guy is not applying scientific method and is just trying to protect his greater sense of identity or value-system.

That is what I see here, and when I call them out on it, they show a shocking lack of ability to self-reflect. So they just dig their heels in and reach for the ever convenient ad-hom. Lather, rinse, repeat.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 14:02:02

@Rockman
Analogies are useful, and maybe essential, for thinking. So if the current situation is not satisfactory to you, and you are trying to think about how you might change things, then analogies may be very useful. Does the use of an analogy comprise 'proof'? Of course not. Lots of analogies fail the test in the laboratory. But it may also be true that if you don't use analogies to suggest new paths, you will never get anywhere. I'm from Missouri, and our mules were famously resistant to analogies.

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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 14:13:04

@asg70
I have on several occasions pointed to the work of Adrian Bejan at Duke, The Constructal Law, which states that anything which flows will evolve in the direction of easier flow. This is in the opposite direction of the Second Law, as that Second Law might be naively applied.

Now let's take seriously the work of the neuroscientists which is summarized in Barrett's book. Assume for the sake of argument that having pleasant emotions is a reasonable goal in life. Is it NECESSARY to have a boatload of fossil fuels to have pleasant emotions? We have no evidence that it is necessary. Marshall Sahlins called the hunter- gatherers 'the original leisure society', and I believe the evidence is still on his side.

But we can also say with some assurance that a boatload of fossil fuels are NECESSARY to keep the current financialized consumer society afloat.

Can society come to grips with the notion that the debts are never going to be repaid and that people are going to have to try to find pleasant emotions in much less energy and material intensive ways? The experience in Greece does not breed optimism. The steely eyed bankers in Frankfurt don't really care about the emotions of Greek people...they want their money. Where they are actually getting it is from the taxpayers in the EU, since the Greeks simply don't have it.

IF there really are solutions, they will have to come out of the bubbling cauldron of the Default Network. Which is one of the things that is interesting about the schools in Finland.

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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Fri 26 May 2017, 14:25:31

Don - "But it may also be true that if you don't use analogies to suggest new paths, you will never get anywhere.". In the past 40 years in the oil patch I've found that DOCUMENTED FACTS (such as those in my long post above which you have yet to respond to) are a much more powerful approach then analogies to lead to new useful paths. LOL.

BTW I'm still waiting for anyone to point out that I used an analogy to disparage the use of analogies. HELLO!!! HELLO!!! WAKE UP OUT THERE!!! LOL.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 26 May 2017, 15:33:26

donstewart wrote:We have no evidence that it is necessary. Marshall Sahlins called the hunter- gatherers 'the original leisure society', and I believe the evidence is still on his side.


I see the specter of anti-civ noble savagery rearing its hairy head. That may be a new concept to you, but it isn't to me, nor to this forum should you read back in the archives. You're traveling down a very well-worn pathway, let me assure you.

Image

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 15:46:49

@asg70
Daniel Quinn asks some very fundamental, Default Network, kind of questions.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 15:55:04

@Rockman
I used to analyze certain sets of data for a living. Refinery inputs and outputs was not one of them.

My experience taught me that amateurs should tread lightly when analyzing data. Therefore, I have tried to stay out of the food fight about what the EIA data says or doesn't say. The data I quoted was from a company selling catalysts to the refining industry. Their point was that LTO oil was not like middle-weight crudes (which are also not like bitumen or Orinoco Heavy).

The very light crudes don't produce much Vacuum Gas Oil (VGO)...at least according to the way I was reading the catalyst company charts. The VGO is not initially either gasoline or diesel, but can be processed into gasoline and/or diesel. The middle weight oils produce a lot more VGO than LTO oils.

The LTO oils will produce more naphtha, but naphtha doesn't have the market value per gallon that gasoline or diesel have.

And remember what I said about not wanting to get involved in the food fight. Take the above for whatever it may be worth.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 26 May 2017, 18:31:57

donstewart wrote:@asg70
Daniel Quinn asks some very fundamental, Default Network, kind of questions.


Unfortunately, he has no answers. So you're left with...speculative nostalgia.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Fri 26 May 2017, 20:58:41

@asg70
I was participating in something several years ago, and Quinn was supposed to appear. He didn't show. He called to say he wasn't feeling well. (I think he is quite old now.) Then about 6 months ago he did an interview with Chris Martenson. Martenson would ask some convoluted question and Quinn would say 'I haven't given that any thought.' Then there would be an awkward pause while Martenson tried to decide what to do next.

I wouldn't want to be on the interviewer side of a discussion with Quinn. But at the time, it struck me as refreshing that if someone has no answer for a question, they just say so.

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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 26 May 2017, 22:15:41

donstewart wrote:@Adam B
I have no obligation to prove anything to you. And I have zero interest in trying.
Don Stewart


Perfectly reasonable answer....for someone who CAN'T prove their point. And it isn't "no interest in trying", it is "because I can't". Classic characteristic of dogmatic belief systems, not for a second can you flip the switch and examine the belief from the other side of the fence.

If you could..and did..well...you might end up exactly like others who HAVE accomplished this.

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... oomer.html
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby AdamB » Fri 26 May 2017, 22:17:41

ROCKMAN wrote:BTW trying to support a position by using an analogy is a very poor way of trying to achieve a goal IMHO. Much like trying to pound a nail in with a wrench instead of a hammer.


In the case of the whom you are referring to, more like trying to pound in a nail with a spaghetti noodle.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."

Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby asg70 » Fri 26 May 2017, 23:22:19



11 years later and quite prescient, except for his shout-out to biofuels.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby donstewart » Sat 27 May 2017, 08:13:23

@Adam B
see the above response to Rockman. I found some charts. They seem to suggest something. So far, nobody has explained to me why my understanding of the charts is wrong, nor how the charts are somehow 'fake'.

If you want me to dig into the EIA and other data, you have got the wrong guy. As I told Rockman, I used to analyze certain types of data which mostly had nothing to do with refineries. I know how slippery statistics can be. It would take me a long time to develop expertise in refinery statistics. I don't intend to devote the time and energy to it.

I will content myself with pointing at stuff which 'seems to indicate' something.

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Re: Reuters: "World refiners are CLOGGED with oil"

Unread postby Cog » Sat 27 May 2017, 08:27:54

Don't let it bother you Don. Most doomers don't take the time to understand the particular doom they are pushing. They are content with the mantra "We are all doomed because of this graph" sort of thinking and let it go from there.
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