Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

The Real Peak oil

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

The Real Peak oil

Unread postby MD » Mon 12 Nov 2012, 05:59:04

From our front page:

"Five years ago we got the energy crisis wrong."

"But while our understanding of the energy crisis five years ago may have been flawed (or more correctly, less than prescient), our appreciation that there was a crisis was not. We just misunderstood its details.

The real energy crisis is neither a geologic crisis nor a strategic crisis. The real energy crisis is a slow growth crisis. Although the oil industry has figured out a way technologically to recover large quantities of unconventional oil, the cost of doing so will be staggering. Conventional oil, which may cost $4-6 per barrel to lift out of a Saudi Arabian well, may cost more than $100 per barrel to lift out deep water deposits off the coast of Brazil. And the lift costs will only go up, as each barrel of oil becomes progressively more difficult and expensive to recover.

The result is a hyper-inflation of energy costs, as the fixed, structural cost of petroleum spirals ever higher. As more and more resources must be invested in petroleum production, fewer and fewer resources will be available for other productive parts of the economy."

Really? Five years ago YOU got it wrong, along with the rest of the world that seemed to find it impossible to get past the "we're running out" strawman. Today you've written a very nice definition of peak oi. Welcome to the club!
Stop filling dumpsters, as much as you possibly can, and everything will get better.

Just think it through.
It's not hard to do.
User avatar
MD
COB
COB
 
Posts: 4953
Joined: Mon 02 May 2005, 03:00:00
Location: On the ball

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby evilgenius » Mon 12 Nov 2012, 13:24:07

MD wrote:
The result is a hyper-inflation of energy costs, as the fixed, structural cost of petroleum spirals ever higher. As more and more resources must be invested in petroleum production, fewer and fewer resources will be available for other productive parts of the economy."


It's this part that is hampering the thinking of so many and leading them to hyper-inflation land. Is that really what is happening, though? In a deflationary world there is less money to go around. Little by little demand winks out in those places that fail to reach a level of competency financially, where currencies do hyper-inflate out of a total loss of confidence in their efficacy going forward. The remaining players deflate and their currencies strengthen. This winking out actually serves to keep the price down, except that under deflation a stable price is an increasing price. Once this paradigm bites too hard into well enough organized regions of the world the frustration with it becomes untenable. That's where the inflection point appears. That's where it could go from slow growth crisis to a crisis of war.
User avatar
evilgenius
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3729
Joined: Tue 06 Dec 2005, 04:00:00
Location: Stopped at the Border.

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 12 Nov 2012, 14:22:53

wrote:
The real energy crisis is neither a geologic crisis nor a strategic crisis. The real energy crisis is a slow growth crisis.


Yes, and that is exactly what has long been predicted to result from Peak oil. The growth in global oil production has slowed and hit a plateau and that has resulted in an overall slowing of global economic growth.

Next we will see a gradual decline in global oil production. That will produce overall contraction and global economic depression, but still with some local areas of economic growth in NG and oil-producing regions and regions with highly desirable and specialized economic activity (reserve yur Iphonegalaxy12 smartphone now!!!!).
Never underestimate the ability of Joe Biden to f#@% things up---Barack Obama
-----------------------------------------------------------
Keep running between the raindrops.
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby Tanada » Tue 19 Nov 2013, 12:00:46

How much longer can the world as an average continue to grow? Growth is stagnant in the USA and in Europe at least as far as I can tell. Growth in China and India is slowing down. When do we hit that magic tipping point where not enough growth is taking place on a planetary whole? What is the Global GDP? Or should that be Gross Planetary Product?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Tue 19 Nov 2013, 21:52:06

It's all just complaining about prices, further currency inflation, and general economic malaise right up until the various fuels become too expensive to use for cultivating and transporting food in the Third World.

Then when the famine is widespread, people will start to get worried. Then we will change politicians once, twice, perhaps three times. By then, famine will be entering the First World countries. Large cities will be becoming untenable.

Then we will understand why one of the quickest adopters of renewable energy sources over the last decade has been the US Military.

I'm thinking, this starts to get bad in 2-3 decades. But until then, just misery for people on fixed incomes, higher and higher taxes, further erosion of the Middle Class, more hysteria over GHG's, AGW, and TEOTWAKI.

But of course TEOTWAKI will never replace football as the most important topic on the nightly news.
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001

Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.

Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0
KaiserJeep
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 6094
Joined: Tue 06 Aug 2013, 17:16:32
Location: Wisconsin's Dreamland

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 20 Nov 2013, 07:16:54

KaiserJeep wrote:It's all just complaining about prices, further currency inflation, and general economic malaise right up until the various fuels become too expensive to use for cultivating and transporting food in the Third World.

Then when the famine is widespread, people will start to get worried. Then we will change politicians once, twice, perhaps three times. By then, famine will be entering the First World countries. Large cities will be becoming untenable.

Then we will understand why one of the quickest adopters of renewable energy sources over the last decade has been the US Military.

I'm thinking, this starts to get bad in 2-3 decades. But until then, just misery for people on fixed incomes, higher and higher taxes, further erosion of the Middle Class, more hysteria over GHG's, AGW, and TEOTWAKI.

But of course TEOTWAKI will never replace football as the most important topic on the nightly news.


Personally I see First World Famine as being something the politicians and other powers that be will move mountains to avoid because history teaches just how bad famine is for those in charge. Agriculture in a country like the USA will be right behind the Military in the fuel priority list, including the trucking and train traffic needed to move product through the distribution network.

Here is how I see it, when there is no longer enough fuel to go around the Government or TPTB if you prefer will institute fuel rationing. First in line will be the Military, Law Enforcement, Fire Protection, Ambulance services. Next will be Agriculture and food distribution. Several other priorities will come next with Joe6pack being able to buy whatever is left once all the 'vital needs' are met. The economy will be in ruins, but everyone will be able to eat at least for a few years unless climate change really destroys agriculture as some of the absolute doomers believe.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby Pops » Wed 20 Nov 2013, 09:02:25

GDP has always been a problem to me. Even without getting too sentimental vis a vie environment, poverty, etc, one still needs to look at the direction of growth. Just a couple of examples:

What about churning of the markets, High Frequency Trading, etc?
(This paper (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=1641387) shows HFT involved in approximately 74% of all trades for the stocks in the author’s sample.
This paper (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=1686004) shows that inventory half-life of HFT firms in the e-mini S&P500s is less than two minutes.) H/T http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/av ... 1-seconds/

Or putting houses on stilts in New Jersey / rebuilding NOLA / corn - ethanol ?

There are a million examples I suppose but it boils down to; If it's profitable, we count it and if we see growth we say it's good.

Don't get me wrong, I think profit is a good thing as far as it goes, markets ferret out the efficiencies; but only the monetary efficiencies. They can't tell you whether the things bought are worthwhile in a larger sense. IOW, you can be very efficient in your purchasing and still go broke.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
User avatar
Pops
Elite
Elite
 
Posts: 19746
Joined: Sat 03 Apr 2004, 04:00:00
Location: QuikSac for a 6-Pac

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Wed 20 Nov 2013, 09:23:34

You have the priority list wrong. Ag and Ag transport will be the top of the list then the Military will be the top customer. An army without rations is useless.
Then we will stop talking about Gross domestic product and refine it to total Useful product. Face it millions of dollars made on a hi tech movie is not the same as producing millions of dollars of grain or steel. We can skip the movies but not the cheerios.
User avatar
vtsnowedin
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 14897
Joined: Fri 11 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Wed 20 Nov 2013, 14:41:54

...none of which will be of as much interest to the average guy as who is playing the next football game and what the point spread is.

I'm not sure when TEOTWAWKI is, but I am sure that a fair number of people are only going to notice it after it happens, and be shocked when it does.
KaiserJeep 2.0, Neural Subnode 0010 0000 0001 0110 - 1001 0011 0011, Tertiary Adjunct to Unimatrix 0000 0000 0001

Resistance is Futile, YOU will be Assimilated.

Warning: Messages timestamped before April 1, 2016, 06:00 PST were posted by the unmodified human KaiserJeep 1.0
KaiserJeep
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 6094
Joined: Tue 06 Aug 2013, 17:16:32
Location: Wisconsin's Dreamland

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 20 Nov 2013, 15:46:32

KaiserJeep wrote:...none of which will be of as much interest to the average guy as who is playing the next football game and what the point spread is.

I'm not sure when TEOTWAWKI is, but I am sure that a fair number of people are only going to notice it after it happens, and be shocked when it does.


Shockingly enough I am in complete agreement with this post.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
User avatar
Tanada
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 17050
Joined: Thu 28 Apr 2005, 03:00:00
Location: South West shore Lake Erie, OH, USA

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby ralfy » Wed 20 Nov 2013, 22:19:15

One has to see peak oil in light of two other predicaments: a global financial crisis and global warming combined with environmental damage. Include "black swans" like social unrest due to high food and oil prices, false flags and the use of military and police forces to control civilian populations, the spread of disease due to combinations of warming, human movement to urban areas, wilderness clearing, a breakdown in sanitation systems, availability of food, etc., nuclear and similar disasters, and "slow growth" will probably be an optimistic view.
User avatar
ralfy
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 5571
Joined: Sat 28 Mar 2009, 11:36:38
Location: The Wasteland

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Thu 21 Nov 2013, 09:02:29

ralfy - A rather dynamic system you're describing there. If we just had a short acronym for it we could save so much space on our posts. If only. LOL.

Yesterday I posted one of my standard "the date of PO in meaningless" rants. I thought of another way to frame the message this morning. Let's assume an almighty and powerful being (we'll call him Dog) came forth and proclaimed we had just reached global PO yesterday. How would that knowledge change the dynamics you just described? But what if Dog says that GPO won't happen until 2020...what changes now? Or if Dog says GPO won't happen until 2050...what changes now?

Essential that "proof" of the GPO date changes absolutely nothing happening now. The dynamic is running its course based on the interactions you mentioned and others. In essence we are at "PO" now from a practical standpoint whether the date has already passed or is in the future IMHO.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby John_A » Fri 22 Nov 2013, 17:39:09

step back wrote:
MD wrote:Five years ago YOU got it wrong, along with the rest of the world that seemed to find it impossible to get past the "we're running out [of oil]" strawman. Today you've written a very nice definition of peak oi. Welcome to the club!


More like, we're sliding down that slippery slope of ever more expensive liquid fuels.


The IEA has already put the price of the next 6 trillion barrels or so at less than $150/bbl, in 2008 dollars. So we're good to go for awhile, at the high price level seen in 2008 perhaps, which is not "ever more expensive" but "slightly more expensive than today, and in the range of what we've already seen".
45ACP: For when you want to send the very best.
John_A
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1193
Joined: Sat 25 Jun 2011, 21:16:36

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby John_A » Fri 22 Nov 2013, 17:44:00

ralfy wrote:One has to see peak oil in light of two other predicaments: a global financial crisis and global warming combined with environmental damage.


Hubbert certainly didn't mention those when he was busy building the concept, and as the geoscientist with the most credibility on the topic, I'll stick to his writings and worries about it rather than those manufactured by some with agendas.

Heinberg and his rearguard action, desperately trying to hold alive the hope of powering down even as the world doesn't, and his ultimate dream of government force being used to get everyone to comply with his vision of agricultural slavery for all. Sorry, but after going through the last peak oil hysteria generated economic problems, and how much it bothered the prepared consumer, the next one is much preferable to Richard's vision of the world, let alone the likes of Ms Peak Oil In 2008 Gail or TAE claims that never materialize. Better luck next time Nicole.
45ACP: For when you want to send the very best.
John_A
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1193
Joined: Sat 25 Jun 2011, 21:16:36

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby John_A » Fri 22 Nov 2013, 17:47:50

ROCKMAN wrote:
Yesterday I posted one of my standard "the date of PO in meaningless" rants. I thought of another way to frame the message this morning.


Wish you had been around to set everyone straight in 2005 Rock, it was about all the amateurs could do, peak oil yesterday! Today! Tomorrow! And here we are, and finally, FINALLY you can set the record straight about how ridiculous they all were.

They needed the POD, and what they got was the gibbering chimps of misinformation. Ever thought about writing a book on the topic?
45ACP: For when you want to send the very best.
John_A
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1193
Joined: Sat 25 Jun 2011, 21:16:36

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby Strummer » Fri 22 Nov 2013, 17:57:15

John_A wrote:The IEA has already put the price of the next 6 trillion barrels or so at less than $150/bbl, in 2008 dollars.


Fantastic! Is that the same IEA that made these forecasts in recent years?

Image
Strummer
Tar Sands
Tar Sands
 
Posts: 691
Joined: Thu 04 Jul 2013, 04:42:14

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby John_A » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 11:16:25

Strummer wrote:
John_A wrote:The IEA has already put the price of the next 6 trillion barrels or so at less than $150/bbl, in 2008 dollars.


Fantastic! Is that the same IEA that made these forecasts in recent years?

Image


Like Colin Campbell calling for global peak oil in 1989 is any different? It is WHY Rockman says that it is ridiculous to predict a date, because nobody gets it right. He also says that those who start with a price path are doing it the right way...and the IEA generates a price path. Where is the one Colin Campbell used to predict peak in 1989? Where is the one TOD used to call peak in 2008? Where is the one used by ASPO as they pitched their fear meme to the EIA....?

I'm with Rock on this one, to even have a CHANCE of getting it right, you start with the price. And no peak oiler has ever published on that I am aware of, and then matched it with their production profile. At best they claim price will hit such and such a number....like this guy. :lol:

Proving that banksters know even less than journalists when it comes to oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simmons%E2 ... ierney_bet
45ACP: For when you want to send the very best.
John_A
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1193
Joined: Sat 25 Jun 2011, 21:16:36

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby JV153 » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 14:53:37

John_A wrote:
step back wrote:
MD wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I think profit is a good thing as far as it goes, markets ferret out the efficiencies; but only the monetary efficiencies. They can't tell you whether the things bought are worthwhile in a larger sense. IOW, you can be very efficient in your purchasing and still go broke.


Yes, very good comment. Thing is I haven't heard anybody talk, in person, about oil. During my life, talk about (any) employment has been scarce - almost makes you wonder what most people really do. My whole introduction to peak oil has been a virtual internet experience. I do know that heavy mining of Canadian tar sands and extensive off-shore sea drilling means that conventional oil must be in a bit of a jam or else nobody would have gone after oil in these places.
JV153
 

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby John_A » Sat 23 Nov 2013, 17:49:37

JV153 wrote: I do know that heavy mining of Canadian tar sands and extensive off-shore sea drilling means that conventional oil must be in a bit of a jam or else nobody would have gone after oil in these places.


Conventional oil got into a jam in 1901, when the rotary table was required to get to the places that all the hard oil was. And throughout the years, various other technologies had to be invented to find harder, and harder, to get to oil. All along the way, this was humanity utilizing new technology to dig deeper into the resource pyramid. The tar sands are probably 6th generation "harder" oil, nothing new really, and I imagine "hydrate GTL" oil will be the next up in the batters box. And as before, with each new opening of "harder" oil, there is more of it to be had.

Quite a terrible catch-22 on the global warming side I suppose, but if the planet's temperatures would just change (as of late they haven't much) then maybe the argument of using less liquid fuels would make more sense. Certainly we should all do it, but as long as people proclaim how much they love their gas guzzling pickup truck and how they couldn't beat to live without it, the odds of that are slim.

The real peak oil will certainly arrive. Unfortunately, it has already been called so many times it makes a mockery out of the "experts" who have only managed to turn the discussion of resource scarcity into a cocktail party joke about survivalists.
45ACP: For when you want to send the very best.
John_A
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1193
Joined: Sat 25 Jun 2011, 21:16:36

Re: The Real Peak oil

Unread postby MD » Sun 24 Nov 2013, 07:31:40

Another "It's Really Peak Demand" article flew by today. It's a laughable attempt to rationalize The Real Peak Oil into acceptable paradigms.

Or in other words it's "You were right, but I am going to say it my way, just to save face."

Supply and demand are just flip sides of the same economic coin. Of course demand will go down when faced with constrained and ever more expensive resource.

It's an easy concept. I don't understand the collective confusion over the matter.

:?:
Stop filling dumpsters, as much as you possibly can, and everything will get better.

Just think it through.
It's not hard to do.
User avatar
MD
COB
COB
 
Posts: 4953
Joined: Mon 02 May 2005, 03:00:00
Location: On the ball

Next

Return to Peak Oil Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 68 guests