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THE Oil Drum Thread pt. 2

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

Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby ralfy » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 00:39:34

John_A wrote:
None of those things have to do with TOD shutting off the lights and closing up shop. Their failure was not in making some convoluted and incoherent economic argument, it was in not understanding that oil production isn't predicted by fitting random declines to time series data. And then claiming an inflection point which didn't exist.


Precisely! As explained to you, TOD is closing for reasons they gave in one entry:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10095

The problem is that you didn't accept that, referring instead to points about peak oil that are incorrect. I've been addressing those points.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby John_A » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 10:24:34

SamInNebraska wrote:
John_A wrote:Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and if that doesn't characterize nearly every article reference, and every idea you have, I don't know what does.


My take on why they failed is that they refused to learn. Not just along the lines of the basic history you mentioned, but where there is a cadre of professionals hanging out who are more than willing to show and talk about their work on these resource topics, why in the hell WOULDN'T someone who honestly wants to learn on a topic ASK them?


Sounds like we are operating in close orbit. I tend to be irritated when bad ideas are endlessly recycled and those proposing them can't be bothered with figuring out that they have already been proven to be bad ideas.

You seem focused on why they don't take the time to learn in the present from those who have the experience and have been doing this since before the invention of the internet.

Perhaps it is reasonable to maintain that TOD suffers from BOTH these maladies?

SamInNebraska wrote:Their recent attempt at communicating with the EIA notwithstanding (and really, that was ASPO which contains a few TOD folks) what are they afraid of?


You seem to discount their interactions with the professionals of this type, but I'm not so sure. The instant an insular group, such as TOD, comes into contact with those who do these things for a living, exactly the sort of learning you seem to think is lacking takes place. But there are multiple ways to react to that learning, the way you seem to expect, actual LEARNING, the exchange of ideas, people going "ah-hah!", stuff like that, and the other kind. More often characterized as walking away from the experience and saying "those people don't know what the hell they are talking about..".

My experience is that how this works has quite a bit to do with the people doing the alleged "learning", attitude really matters. Because ASPO hasn't ventured more than press release pablum on their experience with the EIA, and I haven't seen Jeff B. expounding at length on how last December's experience with the professionals went, it is difficult to determine on which side ASPO (and the attending TOD types) had fallen.

SamInNebraska wrote:I find it all very confusing, really, who decides that once they have some sliver of information to possibly support their position.,...they then stop learning? Who does that? Religious fundies? Idealogues?


No one is saying that TOD stopped learning, more that their lack of scientifically based resource scarcity experience hurt them badly in the long run, and they didn't even know their was a field of study to even go...study. So they just endlessly recycle as many variations of fitting time series data as possible, and didn't even get around to reading what is probably a critical paper on the topic from one of those experts you mentioned previously.

This stuff was being written a decade ago, it is even pre-TOD, but if you don't take the time to do a proper literature search and some honest learning prior to deciding you know it all....well....you close up shop when it catches you out.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/ofr-03-137/OF03-137.pdf
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby John_A » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 10:26:22

ralfy wrote:FInally, you are making similar errors in this one, speculating on why TOD closed, when its staff members already explained so in one entry. And yet you won't even accept that, repeating the same mistakes over and over, e.g., more reserves -> more production, "basic" economics, etc.


This thread is about the REAL reason TOD is closing Ralfy, not the press release pablum you seem to have fallen for so readily.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby John_A » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 10:38:36

ralfy wrote: As explained to you, TOD is closing for reasons they gave in one entry:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10095

The problem is that you didn't accept that, referring instead to points about peak oil that are incorrect. I've been addressing those points.


Read the title to this thread Ralfy. From the Forbes article:

The main reason why Peak Oil theorists always turn out to be wrong is that they by and large appear to be unable to grasp the huge role advancing technology plays in allowing the industry to discover new oil resources previously unknown, to access known resources that were previously thought to be unexploitable, and to extract an ever-increasing percentage of oil long known to be in place via secondary and tertiary recovery techniques. They appear to believe – either through lack of imagination or due to political convenience – that current assessments of available resources in known formations will always remain static and never increase, never understanding or acknowledging that those assessments will rise along with advances in technology.


Go compare that to what Euan wrote here:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10093

and you discover real quickly that Forbes is saying the same thing Euan is. You really shouldn't be this gullible Ralfy, Heading Out looks to be talking out of one side of TODs mouth, and then Euan comes along and kicks his head in and says Forbes was right.

Read the title to the thread Ralfy, this isn't about press release pablum or attempts by TOD staff to cover their retreat. Just in case your reading comprehensions stays at its normal level, I'll make sure to place the emphasis properly for you.

What really killed The Oil Drum.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby davep » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 12:50:08

This thread is about the REAL reason TOD is closing Ralfy, not the press release pablum you seem to have fallen for so readily.


It appears to be about the reason you have personally ascribed to TOD closing, without actually having a clue as to the veracity of your assertion.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby SamInNebraska » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 13:23:54

davep wrote:
This thread is about the REAL reason TOD is closing Ralfy, not the press release pablum you seem to have fallen for so readily.


It appears to be about the reason you have personally ascribed to TOD closing, without actually having a clue as to the veracity of your assertion.


John isn't the one needing a clue, because the issues John has mentioned has already happened. At the URTeC conference last week during the opening session, Vello Kuuskraa, lead author of this report:

http://www.eia.gov/conference/2013/pdf/ ... uskraa.pdf

was presenting empirical results in shale wells based on new and better technologies utilized through time and singled out two specific people as those who obviously didn't get it. One of them was a TOD editor. The other a known TOD contributor. While the room didn't giggle, it was obvious who the whipping boy was in this professional environment. When the petroleum engineers, geologists, petroleum geologists and geophysicsits are the ones deriding your knowledge of a resource topic, who exactly do you think might be left in the professional world to save the publics perception of your professional opinion.....day care providers and organic farmers?
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby davep » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 15:59:52

SamInNebraska wrote:
davep wrote:
This thread is about the REAL reason TOD is closing Ralfy, not the press release pablum you seem to have fallen for so readily.


It appears to be about the reason you have personally ascribed to TOD closing, without actually having a clue as to the veracity of your assertion.


John isn't the one needing a clue, because the issues John has mentioned has already happened. At the URTeC conference last week during the opening session, Vello Kuuskraa, lead author of this report:

http://www.eia.gov/conference/2013/pdf/ ... uskraa.pdf

was presenting empirical results in shale wells based on new and better technologies utilized through time and singled out two specific people as those who obviously didn't get it. One of them was a TOD editor. The other a known TOD contributor. While the room didn't giggle, it was obvious who the whipping boy was in this professional environment. When the petroleum engineers, geologists, petroleum geologists and geophysicsits are the ones deriding your knowledge of a resource topic, who exactly do you think might be left in the professional world to save the publics perception of your professional opinion.....day care providers and organic farmers?


Are you suggesting this is the reason they closed? Due to something that happened after they announced they were closing? Denigrating TOD contributors is one thing, but then taking the logical leap to assuming this is the reason they shut down seems slightly odd to say the least. Would you care to explain your reasoning?
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 16:12:27

dave - it still seems so strange to me that folks keep saying TOD said this or that. TOD never "said" anything...individuals on TOD made statements. I spent years of TOD...posted 100's of thousands of words. Had thousands of chats and debates there. Not once have I seen a statement, opinion, prediction or attitude there that I haven't seen here. As I said earlier I wouldn't know what site I was on if someone were to just read me the posts. As a matter of fact this whole discussions to why TOD has shut down is just about as silly as any one of the dozen of silly discussions I participated in at TOD. It's at moments like this I begin to think I must get a life. And then, like the moth, I'm drawn back to the flame. LOL.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby Beery1 » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 17:05:59

ROCKMAN wrote:As a matter of fact this whole discussions to why TOD has shut down is just about as silly as any one of the dozen of silly discussions I participated in at TOD...


I reckon the question of why TOD shut down is important in terms of the lessons it might teach other website owners. But in the grand scheme of things, this is the internet - silly discussions is really all it does.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby SamInNebraska » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 17:35:42

pstarr wrote:
SamInNebraska wrote:One of them was a TOD editor. The other a known TOD contributor. While the room didn't giggle, it was obvious who the whipping boy was in this professional environment.

Am i mistaken? Have you just aggregated and denigrated TOD contributors?


Yes, you are mistaken.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby SamInNebraska » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 18:09:36

davep wrote:Are you suggesting this is the reason they closed? Due to something that happened after they announced they were closing?


I am suggesting that credibility matters. And that the quality of that credibility, and the consequences of it, are directly correlated.

davep wrote:Denigrating TOD contributors is one thing, but then taking the logical leap to assuming this is the reason they shut down seems slightly odd to say the least. Would you care to explain your reasoning?


My reasoning is that credibility has consequences. Those consequences were directly demonstrated at a professional meeting sponsored by SPE, AAPG, and SEG last Monday morning at approximately 10AM MST at the inaugural meeting of URTeC. I have already named the person who referenced those individuals.

The supposition is that editorial members of TOD may have already noticed exactly this type of...professional mention. Certainly if it is front and center at a plenary session of a major professional national conference specializing in the geosciences, the probability of this being the first time it has happened is low enough to be nearly zero.

The deductive reasoning then proceeds as follows, it has probably happened before prior to it being this public. The people who would have noticed this first would be the editors and contributors to TOD. And it would have happened long before it made it into the public eye, in front of thousands of professionals at a national conference.

How many times does it require for a professional in any field to be openly dismissed or criticzed in front of their peers before they decide to cut their losses? That one I don't know the answer to. If I were answering it for only myself, I would say that once is too much.

But if that decision is made, to cut one's losses, that certainly might entail an amenable attitude, cooperation with others noticing the same, or even open advocacy towards stopping the thing perceived to be the cause. The hope being that, with time, the professional consequences of the association will fade, and hopefully be forgotten.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby John_A » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 18:37:29

ROCKMAN wrote:dave - it still seems so strange to me that folks keep saying TOD said this or that. TOD never "said" anything...individuals on TOD made statements.


You are correct. And then there was this one thing that they appeared to agree on. Their words Rockman, not mine.

TOD on March 17, 2009 wrote:As everyone knows, there is never a post on The Oil Drum that the entire staff agrees on. Nonetheless, Tony bases his findings on solid research, and a staff survey shows that most agree with a 2008 peak.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5177


Rockman wrote:As a matter of fact this whole discussions to why TOD has shut down is just about as silly as any one of the dozen of silly discussions I participated in at TOD. It's at moments like this I begin to think I must get a life. And then, like the moth, I'm drawn back to the flame. LOL.


Tell me Rockman, if I, and others, hired you as a professional to drill a horizontal well into a particular formation at a specific X,Y coordinate oriented N/S, handed you the rig and control of it, and you landed the well 2000' high oriented E/W, and did the same for everyone else who paid for your knowledge on drilling wells, would you close your business down and open another elsewhere in the hopes that you might escape the consequences of your actions, or would you try and ride out the consequences under the same company name?
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby John_A » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 18:42:14

SamInNebraska wrote:
davep wrote:Are you suggesting this is the reason they closed? Due to something that happened after they announced they were closing?


I am suggesting that credibility matters. And that the quality of that credibility, and the consequences of it, are directly correlated.


Pretty mealy mouthed answer Sam.

"Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand." - Mark Twain

Credibility matters, sure. Mark Twain had this one covered, because while they might not laugh in public, exactly what do you think they are saying in private over lunch Sam?
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby Pops » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 18:43:26

It seems to me the thing that killed TOD was the people who owned it got tired of it. Same with Savinar, he wanted to do aromatherapy or something, I can't remember what. That is the problem with a site that hinges on just a few people.

I was not an avid follower over there so I was actually surprised to see the post about all the failed predictions. I take most predictions with a grain of salt, mine included, because there are so many moving parts even the past is not really all that knowable. The tit for tat of who guessed what is essentially endless since there are so few good fortune tellers anymore. There is definitely enough failure on all sides to make that argument boring quickly.

In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a prediction that looked like this:

Image


I will say always thought Laharrere has always seemed fairly moderate in his views and his 05 forecast looks about right on to me. His best comment ever was that using any number with more than 2 digits to describe the oil resource was attributing way more accuracy to your theory than was justified. I think that is a warning we should all heed.

Having said that, things are progressing about as I predicted, LOL! Aside from Iraq and US tight oil the world of C+C is as flat as my prom date. As for "liquid Fuels" ethanol double counts the oil/gas used to produce it, same with tar; and NGPL includes all sorts of stuff that never makes it to any fuel pump - except in the form of credit cards that is, and I sure can't burn "processing gains" in my weed whacker.

I frankly can't understand why anyone would throw in the towel at this point, the party is just getting started; no matter what the Koch boys and their minions would have us believe.

Anyway, I started in to say that the nice thing about PO.com is the staff are volunteer and come and go as they please. Even better the owner doesn't participate in the sturm und drang of the forums much. He stays busy digging up stories for the front page, stoking the boiler on the server and raking in all the ad money (yea, right). Kind of open source, actually, since the content itself is mostly volunteered by the members as well.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby Pops » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 20:55:26

Thanks Pete, I did that from updated EIA data after seeing one Matt @ CrudeOilPeak.info did last year sometime. I was gonna make a "chart" thread but haven't gotten a round tuit yet.
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Re: What really killed The Oil Drum?

Unread postby dashster » Wed 21 Aug 2013, 22:24:30

forbes writer wrote:The main reason why Peak Oil theorists always turn out to be wrong is that they by and large appear to be unable to grasp the huge role advancing technology plays in allowing the industry to discover new oil resources previously unknown, to access known resources that were previously thought to be unexploitable, and to extract an ever-increasing percentage of oil long known to be in place via secondary and tertiary recovery techniques. They appear to believe – either through lack of imagination or due to political convenience – that current assessments of available resources in known formations will always remain static and never increase, never understanding or acknowledging that those assessments will rise along with advances in technology.


I am baffled when I read things like this. Peak Oil is a theory? If so, what is their theory - the Infinite Oil Theory? Are they not aware of all the countries oil production has peaked in, including the United States? What exactly makes them think that production will never peak, or that it will peak so far into the future as not to worry? Or.... is it all just propaganda? Do they know the truth and are trying to con people so the party can continue for as long as possible before the crash?
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