What Happened to Peak Demand?

[Pops]

Wasn't Yergin and all the Cornys here hooting about how we have somehow passed peak demand and we're becoming so efficient we'll not even care about fossil fuels before long?

That the highest energy prices in a generation had nothing to do with the recession and the recession had nothing to do with the fact people simply couldn't afford to spend as much on energy?

Or was that just obfuscation - for whatever unimaginable reason?

American energy use went back up in 2010 compared to 2009, when consumption was at a 12-year low. The United States used more fossil fuels in 2010 than in 2009, while renewable electricity remained approximately constant, with an increase in wind power offset by a modest decline in hydroelectricity. There also was a significant increase in biomass consumption, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

https://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/ ... 11-02.html

[dorlomin]

Wasn't Yergin and all the Cornys here hooting about how we have somehow passed peak demand and we're becoming so efficient we'll not even care about fossil fuels before long?

Its an idiot idea. We do not consume fossil fuels based on need but status. Large motor vehicles are like a peacocks tail feathers, they are an ostentatious display of excess consumption because we are just an animal keen to display our status and wealth.

The only thing that will curb that other than legislation would be a change is social morals where it becomes unacceptable to misuse energy to display wealth.

People also use fossil fuel consumption as a means of displaying a political and ideological outlook. Not caring about global warming and peak energy are an identity that can be advertised by the size of your car etc.

It relies on an exceedingly naive assumption about human psychology.

Wilfully naive even.

[meemoe_uk]

>Wasn't Yergin and all the Cornys here hooting about how we have somehow passed peak demand and we're becoming so efficient we'll not even care about fossil fuels before long?

Can't speak for that twit Yergin, but I don't remember hooting about peak demand. Have you found any quote by me hooting peak demand?
Considering we have plenty of nuclear fuel for thousands of years, we don't need fossil fuel, but TPTB like fossil fuels because they are so consumable, like razor blades, you gotta keep buying more.

>That the highest energy prices in a generation had nothing to do with the recession and the recession had nothing to do with the fact people simply couldn't afford to spend as much on energy?
The high energy prices of 2008 and the recession weren't dependent on each other, but TPTB may have manipulated it so that one hit just as the other did, thereby pinching the common man a bit harder, forcing a few more defaults.
The recession was the reason why people can't spend as much money, including on energy. Still don't see any quotes from me, rockdoc, or OF2 insisting the recession had nothing to do with lower energy expenditure.
One was the cause of the other.

I read an interesting article at peakoildebunked about how Japan is a post peak demand country, and how its getting on fine.

Anyway, wasn't it you Pops that was saying recently the high oil prices are causing demand destruction?
Let me introduce you to an IEA graph that may well deserve be a new regular graph on this forum.

It's the IEA graph of world oil demand. Oil is often ordered in advance. Enough that the IEA can give a reliable chart for around 18 months into the future.
Don't see any demand destruction here.

[Plantagenet]

Let me introduce you to an IEA graph that may well deserve be a new regular graph on this forum.

It's the IEA graph of world oil demand. Oil is often ordered in advance. Enough that the IEA can give a reliable chart for around 18 months into the future.
Don't see any demand destruction here.

World oil demand is still increasing because China's GDP is still growing at 6% per year, so the Chinese are getting richer and are increasing their oil use.

The demand destruction is occurring in the USA and EU, where the economies are stagnant and people are getting poorer, resulting in declining oil demand.

[meemoe_uk]

That's the upside down way peakers look at the economy.
The real reason ....

Cheap labor abroad -> 1st world industry moves abroad for cheap labor -> they take their energy demand with them -> new country's oil demand goes up, and old country's oil demand goes down

Pretty simple eh? How could anyone misinterpret oil demand dynamics?
Peakers manage to.
i.e. peaker logic
1) high oil prices cause economies to retract.
2) China's economy is growing. ( in the midst of high oil prices )
How you manage to contradict yourself in such a short post is testament to your peakerness. You seem to have forgotten your last sentence as you start the next.

I don't know about the US but in the EU we are doing OK, on average our economy is growing, albeit slowly.

and BTW oil prices aren't high, $150 pb is very cheap.

At $150bp, oil is 0.09 cents per mml.
Bottled water is about 5 times more expensive than oil.

[AirlinePilot]

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9386#more

This article spells things out nicely. I respect Mr Rapier's point and find it very plausible. The gist of this whole problem is that developing nations still use FAR less per capita then OECD. We will trim around the edges, while developing populations continue to easily be able to afford MORE oil. For them the price is very manageable since they still use nowhere near what the OECD countries do.

Its intuitive really and makes complete sense with what the markets are telling all of us.

[AirlinePilot]

I don't know about the US but in the EU we are doing OK, on average our economy is growing, albeit slowly.

By all measures the EU is in recession, the ONLY thing which is keeping the numbers flat presently is .5% GDP growth in Germany. The EU is on the edge of collapse and the only thing stopping it presently is the shenanigans being pulled by the EU leadership. There isnt enough money in ALL the banks or the ECB to bail out the problem institutions in Spain, Greece, nor Italy. I'd suggest your smoking some pretty good dope to make the above statement. I wonder who the first country will be to bail out of the EU zone?

From the outside looking in, it appears to a lot of folks the EU is on the very precipice.

I would agree that oil at your mentioned prices is cheap, but unfortunately at those levels economies fail along with all the other institutions which RELY on growth. Non of this ends well and it will have the effect of putting the brakes on global demand. By how much? That will remain to be seen.

[meemoe_uk]

> There isnt enough money in ALL the banks or the ECB to bail out the problem institutions in Spain, Greece, nor Italy. I'd suggest your smoking some pretty good dope to make the above statement.

You still haven't grasped the basics of international money have you?
Money is used by TPTB to control economies. Often its used to wreck them.
Money is fiat, the bankers decide how much money is printed, granted and loaned, how it is inflated, deflated and taxed. Such money manipulation has been going on and documented for over 2000 years.
The boom and bust of economies for thousands of years has been due to money manipulation. Its the same today.
The new euro money system was a bid to simplify and centralize all the money changing tricks of TPTB so they could be organized and controled from 1 european centre.
The fact they are wrecking economies across europe only means things are going well.

>From the outside looking in, it appears to a lot of folks the EU is on the very precipice.

Precipice of what?
I'd say we're slap in the middle of BAU. Once money changers gain control of an economy, economic crisis has always been the norm.

I would agree that oil at your mentioned prices is cheap, but unfortunately at those levels economies fail along with all the other institutions which RELY on growth.

Economies fail today because their money system are sabotaged by bankers. To say oil prices are wrecking todays economy, in the midst of cheap, and all time highest abundance of oil is absurd and wishful doomer thinking. All oil related activities are affordable, just so long as bankers haven't destroyed your money supply.

[Plantagenet]

Economies fail today because their money system are sabotaged by bankers.

And politicians who put their countries deeply in debt have nothing to do with it?

To say oil prices are wrecking todays economy, in the midst of cheap, and all time highest abundance of oil is absurd and wishful doomer thinking.

Back here in the real world, oil prices have quadrupled in the last 10 years, and 2012 was the most expensive year ever. Europe is in recession and not growing as your claim. But don't let the facts influence your thinking---your fantasies are so entertaining!

[seahorse3]

The fact they are wrecking economies across europe only means things are going well.

There's got to be an oxymoron in that statement somewhere, even if its just in the logic

[pstarr]

The fact they are wrecking economies across europe only means things are going well.

There's got to be an oxymoron in that statement somewhere, even if its just in the logic

better left ignored. Don't scratch it, and It will go away on its own.

[meemoe_uk]

>And politicians who put their countries deeply in debt have nothing to do with it
Wrong seahorse.
Polticians are frontmen for bankers, they are seen to push new policies upon nations, policies that bankers have written for the benifit of bankers and usually to detriment of everyone else. The bankers themselves stay out of public view.

>Back here in the real world...
All the supermakerts are cramed full of cheap and plentiful food, the roads are roaring and jammed up with commerical and private fossil fuel vechicles, people are taking mulitple holidays a year, totally superfluous luxury and recreational industries are booming, the entirely useless sports industry is booming, pound shops are crammed full of ultra cheap products imported from enslaved factory nations such as china. An hour's unskilled labour buys you enough food for a week, or 60 miles worth of heavily taxed gasoline. Libraries are free, post is cheap, the water is clean. We're enjoying several million new modern homes off the back off the house building boom of a few years ago.

The only thing that costs dearly is the bankers old trick of getting you to work for the bank for 25 years to 'pay' for your house and cars, even though the work for them was completed and paid for years ago.

Life is better now for europeans than at any time in history. Except if the international bankers have decided to destroy your nation, but the average family in such a place is still a long way off starving.
It's got nothing to do with your fantasy of peak oil induced economic collapse.


When the supermarkets are empty, cars with empty fuel tank litter the roadsides, all the football stadiums have had to close, and politicians stop saying " ecominc collapse certain unless we push through our polices " and instead start gazingly into the camera with a soothing look and say as sweetly as they can - " don't worry, everythings going to be alright in a couple of days, you'll get something to eat soon, I promise "
THEN I'll begin to believe that somethings seriouosly wrong.

But so far they haven't even run out of bannana flavoured ice cream at our local coop yet, so things can't be that bad.

[dsula]

Life is better now for europeans than at any time in history.

That is a lie. You're probably right, that most europeans never before were able to buy so much useless plastic crap. Just to bad, that lots of plastic crap doesn't make for a good life.

[Plantagenet]

>And politicians who put their countries deeply in debt have nothing to do with it
Wrong seahorse.

I'm not "seahorse" you ninny.

Life is better now for europeans than at any time in history....It's got nothing to do with your fantasy of peak oil induced economic collapse.

The fanasy of economic collapse is yours. What Europe is dealing with now is Recession. If you think its great to be young and unemployed in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Italy, etc. you are mistaken.

Yes, high energy prices contributed to the global slowdown we are seeing now and also to the recession in the EU. Collapse is a risk for the future, when global oil production is decreasing each year.

[seenmostofit]

But so far they haven't even run out of bannana flavoured ice cream at our local coop yet, so things can't be that bad.

You bring up an interesting point. Because of the lack of symptoms of peak oil, those who want something to destroy the world (ANYTHING to destroy the world really) are forced to assemble complex arguments using charts and graphs showing some time series data or another showing how things might go this way or that way, and by extension will cause side effect A or B.

Your criteria are too easy to fulfill. Banana flavored ice cream might still be happening at the local coop even if the rest of the world is a shattered hulk of its former self.

Here is a more reasonable measure. There is a McDonalds in Whitehorse, Yukon. Not quite in the Arctic, but close enough to see it from there, it resides at the end of a huge, expensive and complex distribution system maintained and run by the exact things which are supposed to end/stop/collapse according to the pessimists. How will we know Doom has begun? When McDonalds can no longer supply that particular store with the same hash browns that all the rest of the McDonalds in North America can serve you. If McDonalds can supply that store with hash browns, I have news for the pessimists, the world isn't falling apart, no matter how many unemployed college students are camping near Wall Street, or how many unemployed and underemployed real estate agents and predatory lenders there are. When JIT delivery still works on something as small and unimportant as that hash brown, it is difficult to argue that the modern world is breaking down, and oil supply, OR demand, has anything (or perhaps nothing) to do with it.

[dsula]

When JIT delivery still works on something as small and unimportant as that hash brown, it is difficult to argue that the modern world is breaking down

That is true Short, but then again, how long do you expect the hasbrown still to be delivered just-in-time?
5, 10, 50, 100, 500 years?
I think it's obvious to most, that the world is nothing like the doomers envisioned in 2008. But will it stay what it is, and for how long?

[meemoe_uk]

>The EU is on the edge of collapse

It's got nothing to do with your fantasy of peak oil induced economic collapse.

The fanasy of economic collapse is <meemoe_uk's>

Just another illustration of the typical peaker brain power.
You've forgotten the sentance you've written as soon as your finish writing it. As for moving your finger on the mouse wheel to scroll the topic up to see whose mention of 'collapse of the EU' I was addressing... bet that seem's like a history proffessors life's work to you.

[meemoe_uk]

>But will it stay what it is, and for how long?

For anyone following my take of the world economy, I said things were going to continue as they were until about 2017.
However, kublikan managed to influence my thinking, and now I wonder if things might change as early as 2015.
The next major shift that is possible is a big drop in oil prices. Once everything has been paid for in the middle east oil development, they won't need as much cash, so they'll cut back on funding, which includes dropping the market price of oil.
I altered this prediction to sooner because I was assuming everything that happened in Iraq was going to have to happen in all these other countries the anglo-americans are destabilizing and invading.Iraq developemnt is still going on 10 years after it started.
But I'm much less sure that we've got 10 years of oil developement to come in places like syria now. The anglo americans could have no intention of going in and developing syrian oil, they could be just smashing them up to stop the syrian powers that be from benefiting from the high oil prices.

[dsula]

dropping the market price of oil.

You think they will charge less for their oil, even though the market is willing to pay more?

[Plantagenet]

... bet that seem's like a history proffessors life's work to you.

I'll bet you don't even know how to spell the word "professor."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahah!