Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Ron Patterson at peakoilbarrel.com thinks that we have hit Peak Oil.

I am of the firm conviction that the world is at the peak of world oil production right now, or was at that point three or four months ago. I think history will show that the 12 months of September 2014 through August 2015 will be the one year peak. Whether the calendar year peak is 2014 or 2015 is the only thing still in question, or that is my opinion anyway.

We've heard that a time or two before.

vtsnowedin wrote:We've heard that a time or two before.

Yes, and just like the last time I still think it is right Sooner or later we can not ALL be wrong.

Its weird in a way, I want to be right and yet I fear for the consequences to my world/country/state/village/neighbors and my family when the dark day does arrive after a decade of anticipation. For a long time I was a Moderate believing we would do what needed to be done on the highest levels of Government to get most of us through the transitions successfully. If the UN/EU/USA governments have been preparing for this they have done a most excellent job of keeping those preparations secret.

Tanada wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:We've heard that a time or two before.

Yes, and just like the last time I still think it is right Sooner or later we can not ALL be wrong.

Its weird in a way, I want to be right and yet I fear for the consequences to my world/country/state/village/neighbors and my family when the dark day does arrive after a decade of anticipation. For a long time I was a Moderate believing we would do what needed to be done on the highest levels of Government to get most of us through the transitions successfully. If the UN/EU/USA governments have been preparing for this they have done a most excellent job of keeping those preparations secret.

Yes I see no sign of any competence in government or even awareness. We will each be left to our own devices and what is left of government will most likely be our main antagonist.

It is interesting to consider what peak oil might look like. Years ago someone suggested unstable prices swinging up and down and that made sense to me. In more recent years a general economic down turn has seemed likely. Someone recently suggested a glut might be a natural consequence of being at the peak.

Yesterday I thought of a cartoon; but no one would appreciate it except folks interested in peak oil. Since I am not an artist I will just describe it. Two people standing in a dry sea floor looking back at the land half a mile away. A tsunami is rising up behind them. One says " I always knew we would have fuel shortages with peak oil happening now" The other says, " I really expected a glut of oil".

Anyway, I think a global economic downturn is under way. That is the sign of peak oil I see so far. Time will tell.

I think history will show that the 12 months of September 2014...

Makes sense, the month I sold the farm...

LOL

The EIA forecast is of slowing LTO growth this year, since LTO has been the main area of production growth these last few years, peaking LTO could well make for peak oil. I'd guess the low price is likely to make such a call a little tougher but that never stopped anyone in the past.

This is from CrudeOilPeak.info as we all know, the growth is LTO and TarSand ...



Still Russia has put up big numbers lately and so has Iraq, peace could break out between Iran and the world and whatever is going on in Libya could change.

On the other hand I've said for a a long time that the further the plateau extends - enabled by high but not prohibitive oil prices - the more cheap conventional oil gets consumed and the fewer real conservation measures take place. So the longer the plateau the faster the drop when eventually we reach the end - essentially "stealing" oil from the downslope to extend the plateau and creating a Shark Fin dropoff:

Pops wrote:

Looking at that graph, I don't know why people say conventional crude peaked in 2005 or 2008. That light grey area has two peaks higher and later than those two years.

I don't know. The peak isn't really the point though is it? I'd guess we could bump along the plateau for quite a while, bouncing from little peak to little peak, adjusting consumption a little at a time as per capita energy falls with population growth.

Decline is the problem, per capita energy falling faster than we can adjust.

I guess we'll soon see. If LTO turns out to be the new swing producer it will fall PDQ, prices will of course then rise and in theory the rigs will be stood back up and bring supply back into balance.

Or not.

Dashter,

That graph is just part of the story. In these shaky economic times, does anyone see North Sea coming back, Brazilian Deepwater, or marginal shale?

Plus, conventional is still in decline.

Dashter wrote: "Looking at that graph, I don't know why people say conventional crude peaked in 2005 or 2008. That light grey area has two peaks higher and later than those two years."

And right after the peaks in 2008 and 2011, there were significant dips. If someone moved a couple of 200K barrels one way or the other, there might be a third "peak" in 2012 or the peaks in 2008 and 2011 might disappear. The point is that the curve is no longer going up but is going sideways even after monumental amounts of capital thrown at CAPEX. The phenomena of "Peak Oil" is real and we are in the midst of it. The important issue is "What are we going to do about it?"

While I have advocated PV, solar, batteries and electric cars, I am now reading where DOE at Oak Ridge is touting Thorium Reactors. To me, this says we are not going into that good night [to fossil fuels] without a fight. While some drag their heels thinking scrapping the bottom of the oil barrel in the Bakken will produce a permanent salvation if tried elsewhere, the realist knows that this can not continue.

I don't know that much about Thorium Reactors other than they operate using corrosive salts and they are supposedly cleaner. The BS will likely hit a crescendo in the next few years over this technology and if we listen closely, we might be able to separate the 5% truth from the 95% lies, deceptions, innuendos, pollyana fairy tales, and turf guarder spiels, etc. But if it is "better" than some aspects of PV, solar, batteries and EVs, then it maybe worth supporting it. I'm listening.

Are there other technologies that are possible that are not on people's radar?

This forum software has a bug in how it displays images larger than the table cell, rather than forcing them into a size, it simply cuts off the end. You can right click on the image to view the full image in most browsers. In cases like this, where the trend is very clear if you include the full graph, it's very relevant. That graphic ends on 2014 in the full image.

This bug can be fixed but it won't fix itself, but in a site dedicated to data charts etc, this bug really needs to be corrected since most graphs I've seen lately have the critical final few years that show the point or trend clearly are sliced off visually, though the actual image data is there, it's just hidden.

Fixing this is easy, I'll talk to the forum guys.

Hey Pstarr,

We do have a problem with liquid fuels coming up short but we do have solutions that are electric in nature. I did a calculation a few post before showing that the amount of money we spent on the Iraq war could be used to generate enough electricity to make us "Energy Independent". That would or would have added about 5 million barrels of oil per day not used by us.

I think it can be done but we will see. The Leaf and Telsa have proven themselves. The battery development labs are talking about packs with 3 times the energy. I am not ready to dismiss electrics out of hand.

All we need now is an all electric 707 jet liner.

vtsnowedin wrote:All we need now is an all electric 707 jet liner.

Air travel is grossly over rated. Each day the US air fuel use is 1.5 Million bbl of Kerosene, which is enough to power every piece of American farm machinery for 6 months. The above numbers are from the EIA, when you consider the details air transport has to be about the most wasteful and useless way we have of squandering our remaining petroleum resources. A bus or a train will get you across the continent in under a week, and if you have drivers working in shifts you can drive a car or semi-truck coast to coast in under 45 hours. Nobody actually needs to go from NYC to Seattle in four hours, but because they can a lot of people do.

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_82 ... _nus_a.htm says farm fuel use in the USA for 2013 was a little over 3 MMbbl for the whole year.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHa ... JUPUS2&f=M shows that the USA consumes about 1.5 MMbbl/d of jet fuel aka Kerosene aka Diesel #1

All we need now is an all electric 707 jet liner.

Maybe if we can get people to start flapping their arms!!

Seriously, I think it will be a process of airliner shrinkage as av fuel supply decreases until we can come up with something such as an electric airplane, airplanes fueled from a CTL process, or something along those lines. Companies and individuals are experimenting with electric prop driven airplanes. CTL, with all the coal that is available, is not out of the realm of possibilities even if it raises a carbon footprint will other carbon footprints shrink. I think it will be a process; not something that will disappear overnight.

Hello Desu,

>>You can't create electricity out of thin air!<<

I couldn't agree with you more. The only furnace that will out last our fossil fuels is the sun. This means that if we can capture and transform its energy, we should be okay. In the meantime, we are exploring Thorium Reactors, PV, solar heat, batteries for storage, EVs to get us and our food around.

We have made a lot of progress with batteries and EVs to the point that we may be able to go 800 miles on a charge in several years. I can recharge an EV each month of the year from what my PV array produces. One or two months come close to not meeting my wants (as opposed to needs).

We still have a lot of fossil fuels left. It is a matter of refocusing our scientific intelligence and engineering. I think we can come out okay but the ride maybe bumpy (or wet if our arms give out on one of those transatlantic arm flapping flights!!)

If we don't, we could contract a lot and suffer. If we do, what Peak Oil"? I think it will likely be something in between but we will see.

Hello PeterEV,

I'm glad you are so optimistic on alternative energies, but so far, the alternative energies only provide a trivial amount of energy for humanity. We need to exponentially increase renewable energies at a very fast rate if we are to meet our energy demands in the near future. We would also need to decrease energy consumption per capita. We would also, unfortunately, need to decrease the number of capitas on this planet. That means gradually reduce our population by the most humane means we can muster. This will not be easy to meet, but we will have to do it unless we want to become extinct soon.

And that's not just for oil. All of the other fossil fuels and nuclear energy are depleting, nonrenewable resources that are in serious decline.

Even IF we do find a substitute for oil, pursuing infinite growth on a finite planet is still madness because there are plenty of other nonrenewable resources that are being rapidly depleted (like Rare Earth Metals). And even renewable resources can't replenish fast enough to compensate for our use like fresh water, ocean fishery and wood.

We are at a peak everything crisis right now. Unless we immediately stop growth in population and consumption, we are screwed.

The key problem is balance. Mankind has been out of balance with this planet for a long time. Infinite growth in consumption and population is impossible on a finite planet, but we have been pursing both. It is now time to stop growth before we kill ourselves.

dashster wrote:
Looking at that graph, I don't know why people say conventional crude peaked in 2005 or 2008. That light grey area has two peaks higher and later than those two years.

I think the peak refers to an average shown in the second chart of this article:

http://crudeoilpeak.info/world-crude-pr ... 005-levels