The End of The End: How the Peak Oil Movement Failed

[Xenophobe]

Now compare to a $17,000 Toyota Corolla getting 34 mpg hwy. 30 combined. Gas would have to be over $6.62 a gallon average over the life of the car before the Volt has a chance to break even with it.
If you want to get started on your PV panel installation I,ll give you the Email address where you can order those 180 watt panels.

You make a good case for buying a inexpensive, ICE powered car instead of a Volt. But the path of least resistance (in this case economic resistance) is rarely the best one, in the long run.

If you choose not to solve your dependence on crude based fuels, that is your choice. But peak oil is no longer a solutionless issue, you have just demonstrated that it is now just simple economics. I choose to pay the extra, and participate in a peak oil solution.

[TheDude]

Deutsch Bank pointed out in a study last month that global petroleum demand growth for 2010 was the strongest in 30 years. They conclude that spare capacity will very likely be eroded in a few years. Their forecast for the decade is a plateau tempered by demand, with a very gradual decline starting mid-decade.

[Revi]

I think it's important to get off the fossil fuel teat. I commend your action Xeno. The cheapest choice is not the best in this instance. We spent some money and learned a lot about electric transportation. The best part is that we have had a great time doing it.

I saw that report by Deutsche Bank. I also saw the one by Gregor.us and he thinks we're going to fall off the plateau in 2014 pretty steeply. Like 5% per year from then on in. That's really not too far away. It may be time to do something.

[bratticus]

Has anyone told Janaia that the movement's failed?

[vtsnowedin]

You and I are subsidising every fool that buys a Volt

You are aware of how we subsidize gasoline in this country. Do you support that? I bet if you add up all the money that has ever been spent to subsidize gas that we could just buy every household a Volt.

[="vtsnowedin"]Other then that my daughter spent a year in one of the worlds hottest scorpion and camel spider infested sand boxes insuring the flow of oil to world markets I'm not sure what you mean. A good topic for another day perhaps.

It just seems in this thread that you are just going down the line and illustrating all the downsides of alternatives, only to reach the unstated conclusion that BAU must hold. Well, it's not going to and you know it. So we have to decide which set of drawbacks we're willing to deal with since no panacea exists.

On the contrary I am not in favor of BAU and doubt it can be carried on much longer in any case. I am not in favor of a few elites buying a few gimmick electric cars and declaring the problem solved. I am in favor of building enough new nuclear, solar to steam, wind and tidal power plants to actually meet the countries needs including a rapidly rising number of electric cars and more importantly electric trains to take up the slack as oil becomes too precious to move fat people to and from their exercise classes and spa treatments.
In short I am against eyewash and am for positive real action.

[Xenophobe]

Deutsch Bank pointed out in a study last month that global petroleum demand growth for 2010 was the strongest in 30 years. They conclude that spare capacity will very likely be eroded in a few years. Their forecast for the decade is a plateau tempered by demand, with a very gradual decline starting mid-decade.

Interesting. They also mention that US inventories are finally falling out of record highs, and they seem to predicate alot of their spare capacity argument on continued high demand growth. Interesting that at the end of the age of oil these guys are cranking up BAU for all its worth.

[Xenophobe]

Has anyone told Janaia that the movement's failed?

She can't run on down to the corner convenience store, order up a tanker truck of high octane gasoline to combust as she desires, and figure it out for herself?

[Keith_McClary]

It pretty much tears Hubbert's methodology to pieces

The central idea of Peak Oil is that production will peak and go into decline at about half URR.

That doesn't depend on "Hubbert's methodology".

The answer to thuja's question is "NO".

[Xenophobe]

It pretty much tears Hubbert's methodology to pieces

The central idea of Peak Oil is that production will peak and go into decline at about half URR.

That doesn't depend on "Hubbert's methodology".

True...but thats because Hubbert's methodology doesn't work. Read the book. There are examples.

[Keith_McClary]

It pretty much tears Hubbert's methodology to pieces

The central idea of Peak Oil is that production will peak and go into decline at about half URR.

That doesn't depend on "Hubbert's methodology".

True...but thats because Hubbert's methodology doesn't work. Read the book. There are examples.

Oh, please. Everyone get out a pencil and paper and draw plausible curves. Of course you can draw extreme curves with multiple peaks and you can make the curve unsymmetrical by assuming very slow or fast depletion. But anything that looks real-world will be pretty much the Peak Oil picture.

You don't need "Hubbert's methodology" to conclude that.

Nit-picking about "Hubbert's methodology" is just a straw-man ploy. Is that all he has?

[Xenophobe]

That doesn't depend on "Hubbert's methodology".

True...but thats because Hubbert's methodology doesn't work. Read the book. There are examples.

Oh, please. Everyone get out a pencil and paper and draw plausible curves. Of course you can draw extreme curves with multiple peaks and you can make the curve unsymmetrical by assuming very slow or fast depletion. But anything that looks real-world will be pretty much the Peak Oil picture.

ad hom deleted

You don't need "Hubbert's methodology" to conclude that.
Nit-picking about "Hubbert's methodology" is just a straw-man ploy. Is that all he has?

When it doesn't work, it isn't called "nit picking".

[dsula]

statistical analysis done by Cavallo in 2004

Can you please be so kind and summarize Cavallo's findings?

I'm wondering what a curve looks like according to Caballo that starts at 0, goes up, goes down to 0 and gets sufficiently low-pass filtered (averaged)? Is it not of bell-type shape? Is it a curve that climbs forever?

[Keith_McClary]

You don't need "Hubbert's methodology" to conclude that.
Nit-picking about "Hubbert's methodology" is just a straw-man ploy. Is that all he has?

When it doesn't work, it isn't called "nit picking".

You have a problem with logic. You seem to think that if you find a flaw in a proof you have disproved the theorem.

[mos6507]

I am against eyewash and am for positive real action.

Thank you for the clarification. Too often in peak oil threads there is an emphasis only on negativity and no endorsement of any action whatsoever. However doomy one may be, you kinda have to support something even if it will fail in the end.

[pstarr]

Folks at the Oil Drum applied Defreyes's "linearization" (a simplified version of Hubbert's complicated calculus) to production histories of dozens of declining oil fields and regions to judge the accuracy of the method in predicting peak. This was the same technique that allowed Defreyes to (somewhat humorously yet successfully) predict the Nov/Dec. 2005 world production peak (C+C). More than 50% of the Oil Drum oil-field linearizations was dead on. In another word, looking at pre-peak production data is a useful tool in determining both total reserve quantities and the point in time when period production will begin to decline. I.E. Hubbert works pretty darn well

Now if one were 50% sure of a serious outcome (such as a human/auto collision) a consequence of a certain action (walking out in traffic) one would most certainly alter one behavior appropriately, i.e. wait for the light to change?

Problem is that most folks (like Xeno, Carlhole, etc.) need 100% assurance to effect behavior. Bigger problem---solution is not more traffic lights. Rather we need solar-powered lights, re-visioned for bicycles in compact human-scale cities. We have to electrify and solarize the transport system, re-arrange our food/nutrient connections and replace suburban/industrial sprawl with an compact agrarian community-based society. That would take time. Years. Which we don't have. Sad.

[Carlhole]

From Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions & Myths, p.31

From the USGS Assessment to 2009
Of course, since 1996, the amounts of reserves, production, and discoveries have changed. First, the USGS did not include in its assessment unconventional oil resources, yet in 2003, Canada’s oil sands were recognized by Oil and Gas Journal (the industry standard) as bona fide reserves of 175 billion barrels. To keep the accounting straight, therefore, one must add 175 billion barrels to the USGS Assessment total, increasing the endowment to 3.2 trillion barrels (3.5 trillion barrels if NGLs are included). Second, reserves have been estimated to be 50 percent higher than in the global Assessment made for 1996. This difference in reserve estimates results from the USGS not including in their reserve estimates any oil from locations that they did not study in detail and omitting unconventional oil resources, as mentioned above.

Thus, some of the oil that the USGS allocated to the “ reserve growth ” and “ discovery ” categories has been identified and deemed profitable such that it became 2009 “reserves". Third, cumulative production through 2008 was just over one trillion barrels. That is, about one-third rather than one-quarter of the estimated global oil endowment now has been consumed.

Lumping together reserve growth and new discoveries, the snapshot of world oil resources at the beginning of 2009 is shown in Figure 2.7 . About one-third of the estimated oil endowment has been consumed, much less than one-half remains as reserves, and only one-quarter remains to be “ found ” through reserve growth or new discoveries.



If we assume that the oil endowment is a firm number around 3.2 trillion barrels, what does this mean in terms of global depletion? As an extremely rough and simplistic approach, one could estimate when the remaining oil would be consumed based on an assumed rate of consumption. Because about one-third of the oil endowment already has been consumed, about 2.2 trillion barrels remain. According to the EIA, world oil production was approximately 27 billion barrels in 2008. At that rate of production, which is not a readily justifiable measure of future production, the remaining 2.2 trillion barrels would be depleted in just over 80 years (2.2 trillion barrels divided by 27 billion barrels per year). Including NGLs in the calculation extends that time-frame by another 12 years, giving a total of 92 years.

Under the assumed oil endowment and production values above, it took about 100 years to deplete the first third of the global oil endowment, and it might take less than 100 years to use the remaining two-thirds. If the average future worldwide production rate were double that of 2008, then depletion of a 2.2 trillion barrel remaining endowment would occur in about 40 to 45 years.

The Chinese and Indians can build a whole shitload of 3rd and 4th generation nuclear facilities in 40 years - without all of the political headaches and high expense of doing so in the US.

I expect that doomers on the board will say that the USGS is full of shit. But the broad public has no reason to think so. Yeah, I guess the "peak oil community" has failed to convince the the public that ASPO is more credible than the USGS.

[ian807]

We have to electrify and solarize the transport system, re-arrange our food/nutrient connections and replace suburban/industrial sprawl with an compact agrarian community-based society. That would take time. Years. Which we don't have. Sad.

Yeah, that's the point deniers seem to miss. Electrical power and petroleum power aren't fungible. Our battery technology is too primitive. A gallon of gasoline has a huge amount of energy compared to the same amount of battery mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density).

Liquid petroleum fuels just aren't easily replaceable. We will replace them, of course, but it will be an expensive, difficult, lengthy change. I wouldn't bet on everybody surviving it once it gets started. The main problem at first will be money, but assuming this is trivial is a mistake. An economy sufficiently suppressed by high oil prices can result in supply chain disruptions that are semi-permanent, even with considerable oil left in the ground.

[pstarr]

From Oil Panic and the Global Crisis: Predictions & Myths, p.31

From the USGS Assessment to 2009
Of course, since 1996, the amounts of reserves, production, and discoveries have changed. First, the USGS did not include in its assessment unconventional oil resources, yet in 2003, Canada’s. . . . . . . . blah blah blah . . . . . . 2.2 trillion barrel remaining endowment would occur in about 40 to 45 years.

Sum it up. why don't you. You need to respond to our valid points, instead simple text dumping.

The Chinese and Indians can build a whole shitload of 3rd and 4th generation nuclear facilities in 40 years - without all of the political headaches and high expense of doing so in the US.

I expect that doomers on the board will say that the USGS is full of shit. But the broad public has no reason to think so. Yeah, I guess the "peak oil community" has failed to convince the the public that ASPO is more credible than the USGS.

Why the constant derogatory "doomer" appelations? Am I a "doomer," because I disagree with you? Did you read my post above? Read Ian's? Is he a "doomer" because he disagrees with you? Your constant condescending tone is boring, and your preaching is not read much at all.

And oh yeah. USGS WPA 2000 is not "full of shit." It is simply wrong.

[Xenophobe]

I expect that doomers on the board will say that the USGS is full of shit. But the broad public has no reason to think so.

Peer reviewed science exists for a reason. The USGS has been doing it since before everyone on this website was born. They still do. Objections exist not because of the quality of their work, but when position advocates don't like their answers.

Yeah, I guess the "peak oil community" has failed to convince the the public that ASPO is more credible than the USGS.

Their are two possibilities as to the "quality" of the ASPO. One is that they simply make things up because they can't sell their angle otherwise. If they used real information, they couldn't claim all the ridiculous conclusions that they do. The other is that they are just incompetent when it comes to understanding both what the USGS has written in their text, or their probabilistic answers, are afraid to admit it, and this leads them to say things which are patently untrue.

In neither case does it establish ANY credibility for their particular advocacy position.

[Xenophobe]

And oh yeah. USGS WPA 2000 is not "full of shit." It is simply wrong.

In a way, true. Their numbers were too conservative.