THE 'How much oil is remaining?' Thread (merged)

[thor]

Meanwhile oil bounces around $90 showing no signs of dropping to $10 a barrel like we were used to. When oil drops to $10 a barrel then I'm a true believer.

[yesplease]

I have always like your admired Graeme, but I will only believe you on this point if you can show in the future verified statistics the world brought more oil to market than it did in the summer of '06.

Ease up on the messenger and go investigate the message yourself meng.

Lest we not forget the thorny issue of EROEI.

Knowing there is lots of something around is one thing. Being able to reach it is quite another.

Shoot, we'll just use nuclear power in order to extract all that crap from the tar sands/oil shale. Even if it isn't energy positive, because lord knows we have plenty of fissile material to waste. Honestly, I'm surprised we're not growing pine trees in Iraq for E85, but I suppose there is a limit to the magnitude of waste we can create.

[KevO]

I thought that figure was revised down anyway. Why's it being held up high like some sacred scripture from God stating "Peak Oil is bullshit, carry on, nothing to see"?

Christmas

[Heineken]

Lest we not forget the thorny issue of EROEI.

Knowing there is lots of something around is one thing. Being able to reach it [economically] is quite another.

Right. There are so many critical factors like this one that enter in. Such as demand growth in producing countries.

The friction between oil demand and supply is starting approximately now. It can only increase with time; first the gears heat up, then they clash, and finally they are blasted right out of the gearbox.

[killJOY]

The peak oil movement has lost.

The argument in that article is articulate, complex and believable. And people want to believe it.

Now, I don't believe it -- it's full of the "reserves fallacy" and "running out" fallacy -- but it makes clear that business as usual is going to continue and there's nothing we can do about it.

As far as what this means -- I haven't the slightest idea anymore.

I've studied peak oil since December of 2003, and every hope I've had for broad enlightenment and, most importantly, mitigation, has been dashed to hell.

I can't even bring the topic up outside a few people anymore.

[Valdemar]

That's exactly my experience too. I've only been seriously following it since March of this year, given before then I didn't think it was going to hit as hard and as soon. This site and TOD helped educate me, as did Leggett's book.

I've tried to bring the subject up whenever talking on a related topic with someone, but you get the usual "I'm not listening! LA LA LA!" or "You're wrong, the governments would never let that happen" response. Sometimes the "So what do we do? We can't stop it, so why worry?" reply crops up too, but that appears with climate change more often because people seem to be accepting of a fate they could change if only they weren't denying it before.

It's every man for himself now, far as I can see. The public may soon know through an increasingly hard pressed media trying to plaster over the cracks, but it will be too late.

[mel1962]

It is too bad, that many have overwhelming faith in "Adam Smith's Invisible Hand" over the science of Geology. IEA numbers still show a peak in 3QT of '06 on their latest Oil report.

http://omrpublic.iea.org/

IEA numbers appear to be slightly higher than EIA, but both show peaking of liquids in 3QT of '06 and light crude has already peaked.

I believe the biggest dispute among peak oilers is how it will play out and I hope the "Invisible Hand" can soften the landing, but only time will tell. It's here and its being covered under the "Global Warming" agenda everyone is promoting!

[jeezlouise]

Better show JD and KillTheHumans/praisedoom/RGR this one. It sends their whole "peak oil happened two and a half years ago and it didn't matter and never will" shtick into disarray.

Actually their argument may still be intact coz this new peak is "all liquids", including double-counted ethanol and tar sands and olive oil and melted down kitchen sinks, right? Question: Why turn to these unconventional sources when there's "plenty of oil left in the global tank"? The whole thing smacks of desperation to me.

Oh well, party on. Think I'll go make some liquids now.

[pstarr]

There may be 3 trillion barrels of crude locked up in unyielding earth. so?

[3rensho]

Demand has responded to higher prices, but not enough. The International Energy Agency’s worry is not that oil has reached a peak – it expects a 50% rise by 2030 – but that demand will rise faster than supply.

They invalidate the entire piece in two sentences.

[Zardoz]

One would expect to see spikes and dips while on the "undulating plateau". If the 86.5 figure is correct, it could well be an anomalous high spike.

That doesn't alter the fact that we're on the plateau. Let's see what the IEA's fourth quarter 2007 figure is when they publish it in late January.

[TonyPrep]

including double-counted ethanol

It's not really double counted, since the oil inputs go into the demand side of the equation. It might be meaningless, but not double counted.

[dohboi]

"Actually their argument may still be intact coz this new peak is "all liquids", including double-counted ethanol and tar sands and olive oil and melted down kitchen sinks, right?"

jeez got this basically right. They have changed what is counted, so the numbers are not what they seem. This is an old trick--If you want a reduction in poverty, just change the definition of poverty, and poof, poverty is magically reduced.

If you want to show and increase in oil production, quitely change it to "liquids" without going back and changing the earlier part of the data, and poof, you magically have an increase.

The whole system is now operating on such smoke-and-mirror games.

I'm surprised that so many sophisticated posters here are so easily taken in by such a cheap trick. This shift in definitions has already been discussed on a number of other threads.

I would guess we are going to be seeing more and more funny numbers as this thing really gets going.

[gampy]

I've always considered the PO numbers game to be pointless, which is one reason why I haven't shown much interest in engaging in it.

The exact timing is irrelevant. The consequences won't be. Once they really start to roll, we'll know it.

It takes a lot to kill a Terminator, but it can and will be killed.

I think the consequences of PO are just "peeking" over the horizon now. If we haven't technically even reached the peak and are already seeing such destabilization, just think what things'll be like when the downslope is entered well and fully.

Yeah, the numbers game is really kind of pointless. I can't believe that ANYONE's numbers are correct. There just is not enough information about how much oil is left to say this or that about it.

All the "reports" I see posted on this website are hearsay, or conjecture. Someone told someone about the amount of oil left and they told someone else and it winds up printed somewhere and then gets quoted as truth by someone looking to prove a theory.

Reminds me of a religious debate. Until all the facts are known...no one is right. And I don't think all the facts will ever be known, so it's just a matter of faith at this point. Myself...I can see the beginnings of the end of the Oil Age. But that's just anecdotal, and shaky evidence, and a gut feeling. The future is pretty murky to me.

Some folks really believe we are on a downslope of production...some don't. The rest of us are just shrugging our shoulders and getting on with life as we see fit, and trying to adjust to new information as it comes along.

I am sure that there are a few people in the world who have a much better idea of what the situation is (perhaps oil executives...the CIA...the King of Saudi Arabia...who knows?) But they don't seem to be talking.

[Concerned1]

I've been thinking about this Peak OIl thing. The 'experts', including the oil industry, say we've used about 1 trillion barrels of oil since the dawn of human history. But if you look at their graphs of usage you can see even despite the industrial age and the advent of the car, the world only really started to use oil in quantity since about 1960. And most of that went to the U.S..


Well now, their saying we probably have as much as another 1 trillion barrels of the stuff left in the ground. Sounds impressive. But, aside from the fact that that would mean that we've already hit the peak (and who really knows), we have to look at the graph again and see that for most of the industrial age, we've actually used very little oil. The lion's share has been consumed since about the 60's. That means that we've used most of that 1 trillion barrels of oil in just the last 50 years. And conditions are far different now than they were then.


We had less than a half of the current worlds population in 1960. Population than was estimated to be about 2,981,659 people on earth. Now we have about 6,700,000. So human population has grown by more than twice what it was in the 50's and that rate is increasing exponentially - growing faster and faster because the base keeps expanding. Also few countries at that time could afford to even have a working automobile system. Unlike then, many countries today are quickly modernizing, big countries with hugh populations like India and China. China has about 5 times the U.S. population and India nearly the that many. And they want (and rightly deserve) the same access to oil that we've enjoyed for these last few decades.


So the rate at which the world will use that remaining oil must also grow exponentially. And the more we use, the lower the underground oil table goes, the harder it is to get out of the ground. Probably the last amounts will be near impossible to extract because of varying geological factors. It's not under pressure anymore, and it'll be recessed in underground caves, niches and whathaveyou. So then, barring some extraordinary new find (and like I said, who knows, anything's possible), how far will that next 1 trillion barrels of oil get us?

Not very far, I think.

[MD]

... And the more we use, the lower the underground oil table goes, the harder it is to get out of the ground. .

You are starting to get it, but you need to work on your understanding of oil geology. It's not like a water table. Think of it like this instead:

Imagine the surface of the earth like the skin on a teenagers face. It seeps oil all over the place, except in a few places it gets trapped under a plugged pore, and it builds pressure until its about to pop.

The oil industry has popped all of the big zits on the worlds face, now it must go and dig out the blackheads and do face peels.

Apologies for the gross analogy. It's just too good to ignore, though.

[yull]

The last half of our oil will have much less net oil energy than the first half as it will be of poorer quality will require more resources to access, so we've used well over 50% of our net oil energy (while around 50% in volume). Net oil energy is all that's important.

We've probably actually used about 60% of the total oil deposited, so theres's 40% of our oil left, in volume. Taking into account the above, there's probably only 25-30% of our net oil energy left. Taking into account net oil energy per capita, as the population has grown substantially then that is even lower. Suddenly that 50% of oil left at peak is effectively more like 15-20%, with 80-85% gone forever. Declining quality and declining EROEI should accelerate with time.

Basically, the amount of net oil energy for each person on Earth is going to fall off a cliff, we're talking double figures decline rates. Net oil exports also add a whole grim new layer.

It's a lot grimmer when you dig down deep.

[Cashmere]

So dermatologists are the oilmen of the face?

[Wren]

concened1 wrote:
Population than was estimated to be about 2,981,659 people on earth. Now we have about 6,700,000.

I believe we're in the billions now, not millions, but I think we all know what you meant.

And I think what's left in the ground is not as big an issue as "Energy Returned On Energy Invested" (I think that's right) or EROEI. Are you yet familiar with that? That made a lot of stuff more clear for me.
And the energy contained in oil is so great. There's really nothing to replace it and when you look at what all we do with oil, in what ways we're dependant on it... It's a swirling converging mess.

Thanks for your question. Good luck to you!

[TheDude]

I will make three key points: (1) During George Bush’s first term, the world used about 10% of all crude oil that has ever been consumed; (2) Based on our mathematical modeling, at our current rate of consumption, during the second Bush term the world will use about 10% of all remaining conventional crude oil reserves and (3) Net oil exports are falling much faster than overall world crude oil production is declining.

George W. Bush, Meet M. King Hubbert

Hubbert calculated that if the US Lower 48 reserves were increased by 1/3 it would delay peak all of 5 years. Our occasional poster WebHubbleTelescope ran a calculation on a model with an infinite URR - and found that it peaked anyway!