THE International Energy Agency (IEA) Thread pt 3 (merged)

[Lore]

Dorlomin, magnificant!

It became apparent years ago that Oilfinder has no intention of entering into honest debate. He is a fascinating phenomena. Rarely looses his cool. Always smiling. Somewhat humorous. Takes on all comers. You almost think he was planted here to drive page views. Could he be the ever-elusive admin?

OF2 surves a useful purpose here. How interesting would the discussions be if we all agreed? His robotic optimism makes a useful punching bag for everyone else to express their opinion.

[OilFinder2]

Corn ethanol, hydrofracking rock and extracting tar sands are not new technologies.

I never said anything about ethanol. I'm not really a fan of biofuels.

As for digging tar sands and hydrofracking rock, 20 or 30 years ago the technology existed, but back then it was primitive and was not widely used. Sort of like ... in 1994 the internet was not a new technology (it had been around since the 70's), but until the early-mid 90's its use was limited. It was not until the world wide web and browsers came along in the mid-90's that its widespread use became practical. So, while it was not technically "new," to the vast majority of the world's population it was basically "new."

Same could be said of Colonel Drake's well. Drilling holes into the ground was hardly a new technology in the mid-1800's, but using it to extract a liquid energy source certainly was. So, for the purposes of energy extraction the technology was "new." This is no different from what's going on now.

You see your strawman collapses with the lights puffs of air. But it is indicative of what is going on ... The irregularities of in factual states compromise that of the knowing evidence thou initiates the process of realignment of logic, interpreting the interests of human evolution through that which incepts the ideal concept enticed by common knowledge.

[pstarr]

No. wrong. modern horizontal drilling dates back to the 1970's and fracturing rock is even older. Used to access tight shale reserves is a consequence of declining conventional oil and NG reserves. As for tar sand; there is nothing new about trucking rocks to a grinder and hydrogenating it. Even older.

You are not even running in place Oily. You are stuck face down on a conveyor built going backward.

[sparky]

.
Actually the first modern commercial use of crude oil was for lighting , for about 50 years !
the kerosene lamp brought a revolution in household and public places habits
previous illumination technique were expensive , messy and quite dangerous
this use was pushed and perfected by the forvceful and not always ethical genius of Rockefeller and his Standard oil
from New York to warlords ravaged China , he was giving away cheap lamps but you had to buy his kero

Using it for energy was not very successful at first , coal fired steam was ( and still is ) much more powerful
the military Navies of the world worked on the problem , encountering great difficulties
until the British First Sea lord Fisher could confidently convert the Royal Navy to oil from around 1905

the motor car , trucks and airplane developped at the same times

[dorlomin]

Thank you for confirming you are unable to take the step up to debating in a more adult fashion.

When its not shrill handwaving about 'doomers' you are out of your depth. As you once again prove here:

Sort of like ... in 1994 the internet was not a new technology (it had been around since the 70's), but until the early-mid 90's its use was limited. It was not until the world wide web and browsers came along in the mid-90's that its widespread use became practical.

The most astonishing handwaving.

Some as of yet unidentified sudden technological boom happened to allow fracking and tar sand development. But the insinuation (as once more there is no honesty about the position) is that in some way the price is not a big factor.

Step up to the plate and be frank. The price change of the 2000s is a huge factor. While technological developments were merely incremental. We have seen in the gas industry that when the price support for the new methods of extraction drops, the 'technology' becomes unaffordable.

Taking us all on a wander around your intelllectual wilderness and wibbling about the internet is not telling us why you think the price is unimportant.

Drilling holes into the ground was hardly a new technology in the mid-1800's, but using it to extract a liquid energy source certainly was.

Yet people were extracting energy from the tarsands in the 70s. And using hydrofracking to extract energy in the 1980s. So another failed analogy.

[dorlomin]

.
the military Navies of the world worked on the problem , encountering great difficulties
until the British First Sea lord Fisher could confidently convert the Royal Navy to oil from around 1905

'Mad Jackie' built Dreadnought in 1904-5 which was the first capital ship using turbine rather than reciporicating technology. It was not until the Queen Elizabeth class that the RN went for a mix oil in a battleship about 1912. Although the followon Revenge class included a mix of coal and oil.

Battlecruisers had used some oil spraying onto coal to boost steam production before that.

It had been used for locomotion in ICUs for a couple of decades before it was used for battleships.
[/geek]

[OilFinder2]

Some as of yet unidentified sudden technological boom happened to allow fracking and tar sand development. But the insinuation (as once more there is no honesty about the position) is that in some way the price is not a big factor.

Your entire mention of price has been a red herring, diverting attention from new production records (the actual topic of this thread!), thus you've been worthy of mockery (not even counting your pompous and vacuous verbiage). I've never denied these new technologies are more expensive than the old ones. In fact, just about a month ago here I said:

The only thing that will stop this [tight oil] phenomenon is if the price of oil crashes below about $60, and stays there for an extended period of time.

I also said something similar back in October:

Yes there can, because the great majority of that bong scraping is profitable at $60 and even $50 a barrel.

Notice in neither of those cases did I say they were profitable at $10 or $20.

But, big friggin deal. Drilling oil out from rocks hundreds or thousands of feet beneath the ground is a hellauva lot more expensive than scraping oil out from pools seeped onto the surface. So I repeat, same thing as has been going on for 150 years. But guess what? You get access to a bigger resource when you do that. There's a lot more oil trapped in porous sandstone formations thousands of feet beneath the ground than there is in seeps located on the earth's surface, and there's a lot more oil trapped in source rocks and other tight rock formations than there are trapped in porous sandstone formations.

Step up to the plate and be frank. The price change of the 2000s is a huge factor. While technological developments were merely incremental. We have seen in the gas industry that when the price support for the new methods of extraction drops, the 'technology' becomes unaffordable.

Funny you should mention shale gas. Why did the price crash? Because they got too good at producing shale gas, they glutted the market, and thus crashed the price. Same thing could happen to oil. When it happens, they'll cut down drilling, reducing supplies, and the price will go back up. Has already started happening to natural gas. Classic boom-bust cycle, and hardly unique to the energy industry.

Drilling holes into the ground was hardly a new technology in the mid-1800's, but using it to extract a liquid energy source certainly was.

Yet people were extracting energy from the tarsands in the 70s. And using hydrofracking to extract energy in the 1980s. So another failed analogy.

God you are an idiot. I already said ...

As for digging tar sands and hydrofracking rock, 20 or 30 years ago the technology existed, but back then it was primitive and was not widely used.

Got proof tar sands and fracking produced large quantities of oil and gas in the 70's and 80's? No you don't, because it didn't. As I said, it's like the internet in the 90's, which was "new" even though it was really 20 years old.

Give it up, you're digging yourself into ever-deeper holes. Maybe if you dig deep enough you'll hit one of those sandstone reservoirs.

[dorlomin]

Your entire mention of price has been a red herring, diverting attention from new production records (the actual topic of this thread!), thus you've been worthy of mockery

Funny isnt it you "mock" for mentioning price....

Then admit that below a certain price much of this oil cannot be produced.

Yes there can, because the great majority of that bong scraping is profitable at $60 and even $50 a barrel.

Funny you should mention shale gas. Why did the price crash? Because they got too good at producing shale gas, they glutted the market,

wait for it,

the penny is about to drop......

and thus crashed the price.

So its not new technologies but new price.

Its not extractable at old cheap energy prices.

I am right.

You admit as much.



Mock away my child. It is about all you have left to offer.

[Pops]

Your entire mention of price has been a red herring, diverting attention from new production records

How can price be a red herring when high price is the enabler of the record volume of "Flammable Liquid Stuff"?

The entire point of "peak oil" is that the cheap/easy goes first and what's left simply can't come as fast and ain't cheap.

[Cloud9]

Pops there can be no peak for an optimist. It goes against their hard wiring.

[rockdoc123]

I'm not sure what the source of all the vitriol aimed at OF2 is. If you actually bothered to read what he has written it isn't a lot different than what a number of folks here are ranting about.
First lets be clear the actual definition of Peak Oil relates to the point at which the maximum production rate has been reached. Occasionally it is mentioned that this generally is equated to the point at which half of all oil which can be produced has been produced but that particular statement is true only if all fields were not subject to other pressures (economic, regulatory etc) that govern rates of economic recovery, which has never been the case. OF2 is pointing to the rate of oil production, and strictly speaking given that the rate has increased, by definition we cannot as yet reached peak as long as all of the produced volumes are interchangeable in the market place. Pstarr makes a reasonable point that because the products are used for various items and have various efficiency with respect to those products it is somewhat misleading to be lumping them all together, point being that producing 100% light oil would give you more of X than producing 50% light oil and 50% other liquids. However until it can be determined the exact fraction of how various hydrocarbons are used in the market place this statement also can be misleading as the liquids can now offset use of oil for various products.
In any event in the simplest approach price is not an issue. I say this because whatever the price is it is the actual rate of production that determines whether Peak has been reached. In practice, as I've said on numerous occasions, price becomes a controlling factor on Peak height and shape but it is not the only controlling factor.
Back not that long ago when oil collapsed down to less than $20/bbl oil companies were in huge trouble and we saw massive layoffs, consolidation etc. But also what happened was companies became more cost conscious and hence looked for inefficiencies in their business that could be eliminated so that these companies could become more profitable. Strictly speaking the low price should have dropped production to all time lows and they should have stayed there but a combination of improved cost control, technological efficiency and ever increasing demand saw oil production continue to rise. The rapidly increasing demand and the fact the Saudis had done nothing to improve upon their spare capacity prior to 2005 (megaprojects) saw prices rise to $140/bbl for a short period of time as demand outpaced supply. Such a high price would theoretically have resulted in more and more high cost oil coming on stream but the price/demand relationship intervened and prices collapsed back down the $60 range for a short period of time.
Strictly speaking it is geology that dictates how much oil could theoretically be produced without constraints. Price, demand and technological advancement determine the actual peak level and whether or not it is a sharp single peak, several peaks or a flat plateau. Mixing up the idea of EROEI in this discussion is quite misleading as it does not in anyway govern the decisions that are made with regards to whether wells are drilled nor production increased or decreased. If there is demand for a certain product and the price insures that providing that product to the market will generate positive economics it will happen. EROEI has no influence on Peak, but economics do.
Also one point OF2 made which is precisely correct is that yes the technology for fraccing has been around since the sixties (I remember doing light fracs into vertical wells to improve gas recovery from tight sandstones back in the seventies) but it was never at the level of technology or understanding of managing deployment inefficiencies that it could have been used to the extent it is now. The technology necessary to first plan the fracs and then execute them is much more complex now with multi-laterals, numerous stages of fracs etc. As well it was only through application of a "manufacturing process" view to conducting fracs that costs could be brought down to the level necessary to make the business profitable. It was a combination of higher prices combined with innovative approach that lead to the business being successful. As price drops companies will become more and more cost conscious and will develop better ways of doing things. There is, of course a limit and once price drops to a certain level drilling stops, production declines and eventually demand pushes the price back up.
The system has to have limits as imposed ultimately by geology and in a shorter time frame by the maximum commodity price that the world can live with.

[pstarr]

Don't agree with that, at all. Nope. Not right.

Wrong.

[dorlomin]

I'm not sure what the source of all the vitriol aimed at OF2 is. If you actually bothered to read what he has written it isn't a lot different than what a number of folks here are ranting about.

Your entire mention of price has been a red herring, diverting attention from new production records (the actual topic of this thread!), thus you've been worthy of mockery

Well depends which part of his statements you read.

He thinks price has played no part in the record when I say it.

Then claims it does when he says it.

[rockdoc123]

Don't agree with that, at all. Nope. Not right.

Wrong.

is there some reason you even bothered to post such a comment? Without qualification it is pretty meaningless.
If you have some arguments put them forward otherwise you seem pretty silly

[sparky]

.
Rockdoc123 , Excellent summary
numbers are numbers , the demand is constrained by price in an assymetrical manner
more influence on the up than down
price control the exploration rate also in a non linear fashion , but more on the down than up

Extraction of a developed field is pretty much price insensitive
the operator tend to pump everything it can
either the price is high and they want to cash in or the price is down but their running costs are always small enough to still generate a ( slimer ) profit .

up to the first oil shock back in the early 70ies , demand was overwhelmingly dominant
I believe we have reached a point when demand /supply are bouncing off each other
creating a see saw patern due to the time lag , price move fast , demand more slowly
exploration and development slower still .
in control theory it's a three degrees system also called chaotic ,
and yes it is unstable within it's price boundaries
never worth zero never worth more than ~twenty man /day wages

The point of this site is much more to have an explorative discution as to reinforce one belief
if we can cover all subjet here , the members will be better prepare to have good arguments
to offer to others at large

P.S. Dolormin , you are right about 1912 but Fisher was a great man like Rickover
what is it about Navy men ?

[dorlomin]

P.S. Dolormin , you are right about 1912 but Fisher was a great man like Rickover
what is it about Navy men ?

Very similar. Both drove technological change and were driven men.

Fisher was an oddball but an Admiral with the soul of a drill seargent. He was given the job to turn what had become a victorian yauchting club into an efficient modern navy.

Oil was a big part of that (needed less men and produced more speed).

[sparky]

.
this is getting Soooo off topic but I can't resist
switching from Coal to Oil had some influence on Imperial policy
coaling stations spread all over the world shores became less important militarily
while the need to secure the Mesopotamian oil fields became vital
the result was the creation of the Anglo Persian oil company latter named British Petroleum

[dorlomin]

.
this is getting Soooo off topic but I can't resist
switching from Coal to Oil had some influence on Imperial policy
coaling stations spread all over the world shores became less important militarily
while the need to secure the Mesopotamian oil fields became vital
the result was the creation of the Anglo Persian oil company latter named British Petroleum

I will tie it back in.
Britain went from a usefull, proven solid energy source in the Welsh vallies and south Yorkshire hills to an energy source that was in a turbulent part of the world, far from home and difficult to secure.

It did this because the energy density, handling qualities and the storability of the new energy source was so superior to the solid source that it was worth redesigning the British Empire to use it.

That is the crude oil. That is what it is worth, empires reshaping themselves over it. Now we are in an era of eratz crude. Where we are willing to pay large amount of money to turn solids like tar sand and coal into a combustable liquid.

What peak oil is not an energy crisis, it is a liquid energy crisis.

And what the all liquids figure is is turning food in liquid energy, aplying enough heat to turn tar into liquid energy and going to the old standby of turning coal into liquid energy.

[Pops]

In any event in the simplest approach price is not an issue. I say this because whatever the price is it is the actual rate of production that determines whether Peak has been reached.

Personally, the rate of production means nothing to me separate from the price.

You say the true measure is flow rate then go on to argue all the reasons price controls flow? Remove the "price" (profit motive) from oil extraction and flow goes to zero instantly.
Price and volume are inextricable – the two sides of the equation. The demand side of Supply and Demand is made up of desire plus "ability to pay". To leave price out of the equation is like asking someone how they feel about the cost of living – aside from the price.





Doomers vs Cornies, being a game, requires simplistic arguments put forth be cornies to poke doomers i.e.: Nya, nya, it ain't peak yet! And of course the arguments are always changing as the old arguments are disproved. 7 years ago it was simply that po is wrong – 'there are plenty of huge conventional sources yet to find' - 'the end was predicted since the beginning' - 'Blah'. Then after none/too little was found, the price went up several hundred percent and the economy tanked, it was: 'look, demand has peaked'.

Now that we haven't found sufficient new conventional oil and demand hasn't peaked after all, the price has reached at all time record highs. This enables previously marginal and perhaps (even at these record high long-term prices) unprofitable production, still the new cry is "Look record production"

So, is it peak yet? I don't believe anyone said it was.
Does it hurt yet? I think only the few playing the denial game would deny that.

Not that any of this (or anything else) will sway anyone's opinion, just like GW, opinions of PO are cultural not factual.

.

[seahorse3]

I'm not sure but wonder at what point that these new things we are turning into gasoline are so different from "oil" that its akin to comparing oil to coal. Although they publish info on all liquids, there is so much disagreement on what is oil that it seems we are really not talking about oil at all anymore. How is oil shale or the tar sands more similar to "conventional crude" than coal, which can also be turned into oil? It seems that's the biggest issue on these new records to me.

In the end, I've never put a lot of time into trying to understand the definitions of oil or "all liquids", bc I'm a consumer, layman, and just try to understand the macro picture. So, the "optimists" here are correct that we are producing more, whatever "more" is, but it doesn't appear to me we are producing enough to keep it the economy "growing" under the old growth models - leaving all the politicians and classic economist on the MSM scratching their heads for economic solutions to an energy problem restrained by geology. We are producing enough to standstill, plateau, but we need a more liquid fuels at a cheaper price to grow. I could be completely wrong, but that's how it appears to me at this time.