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Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

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

Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 06 Mar 2015, 14:22:10

Pops wrote:I agree. When we decided to bug out not long after 9/11, I was in my 40's and our kids were in their 20's and not on their feet, grandkids were tiny and still coming, our extended family had absolutely no resilience we could fall back on - and we were only slightly more resilient than typical. And, I don't know, there was this vibe in the US that I found really unnerving. Kinda the Toby Kieth, "now you woke the Big Dog" bit that seemed bound to come back on us because we weren't "all that."

And it did, at home and globally. But one reason I am less doom-oriented than in the past is I kinda think the recession toughened us up a bit. That it gave us a slap in '09 that we needed really bad. The backhand of that slap is gonna come later this year or maybe in '16 when the oil price rebounds and LTO doesn't. The reason I've been so adamant that the various tremors we're feeling are just "dots" and not the real deal is that when the real deal comes down I'm pretty sure we won't need to be guessing, LOL


But you are right. Our kids are now more settled, we're heading into our 60's pretty fast and have enough of a nest egg to own a home outright if not a whole lots else. Additionally, I am hooked up to industrial life support via insulin so there's not much practical use entertaining Slate-Wiper fantasies, LOL
.


Aye there is the rub! Something like ten percent of Americans are on one form or another of 'mood stabilizing' prescription medications. Another five percent are on life sustaining maintenance medications like Insulin that are required for life to continue more than a few months. A good fifty percent of people over the age of 50 are on more than one prescription medication for anything from gout to angina to blood pressure. If industrial civilization falls those medicines will no longer be available 30-120 days later as stockpiled supplies run out.

So there you go, ten percent go off kilter in some fashion mentally, five percent are doomed to death in the short term and the Baby Boom population bulge suffer or die from a huge variety of ailments treated with common and cheap modern generic concoctions. All of that happens even if by some miracle of hard work and improvisation the water/sewer/food/shelter systems all keep functioning while society grows increasingly chaotic.

Needless to say I am not looking forward to any version of the 'collapse' scenario.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby DesuMaiden » Fri 06 Mar 2015, 15:37:35

I really doubt any technology will solve peak oil in the end. Most likely, we will end up destroying ourselves if we discover a natural resource even more powerful than oil. Oil is an amazingly powerful resource, and after over 100 years of using it, we are now closer to our own destruction than ever. It is unlikely mankind can ever harness a resource more powerful than oil in responsible and sane manner. We are really just unpredictable, violent, savage and evil creatures with too much power in our hands to be wielded responsibly.

But what's more likely to happen is peak oil (along with other problems like population growth, depletion of other natural resources, and climate change) will end industrial civilization. And we will probably go back to the Stone Age after this. :P :P :P

Post-oil stone age? It is more likely than you think because without oil we will not even be able to recycle the left overs of industrial civilization (such a computers, various metals, asphalt and etc). We will quite literally be back to the Stone Age without oil.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 06 Mar 2015, 15:47:18

DesuMaiden wrote:But what's more likely to happen is peak oil (along with other problems like population growth, depletion of other natural resources, and climate change) will end industrial civilization. And we will probably go back to the Stone Age after this. :P :P :P

Post-oil stone age? It is more likely than you think because without oil we will not even be able to recycle the left overs of industrial civilization (such a computers, various metals, asphalt and etc). We will quite literally be back to the Stone Age without oil.


Extremely unlikely. Iron age at the very worst case scenario, their are millions of 1 ton more or less mobile masses of iron scattered all over the place. We call them cars, trucks and SUV's. With not very significant skills and simple hand tools you can detach parts, heat them up in a wood or charcoal fire, and beat them into useful shapes like arrowheads, spear points, knives, anvils, hammers, hoes, shovels and so on and so forth ad infinitude. With a few books or some experimentation you can build low pressure steam engines out of sheet metal to keep mining and burning that coal we love to burn so much of.

It would not be a HIGH energy culture like our own, it would be a low technology culture with lots of problems our culture never thinks about. Going back to flint and obsidian with all that metal laying around already mined and refined just is not going to happen.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Pops » Fri 06 Mar 2015, 15:51:05

Tanada wrote:Aye there is the rub!

Yeah, I figure I'm on my second life,
too bad I can't remember which pill I took ...

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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby DesuMaiden » Fri 06 Mar 2015, 17:22:14

Tanada wrote:
DesuMaiden wrote:But what's more likely to happen is peak oil (along with other problems like population growth, depletion of other natural resources, and climate change) will end industrial civilization. And we will probably go back to the Stone Age after this. :P :P :P

Post-oil stone age? It is more likely than you think because without oil we will not even be able to recycle the left overs of industrial civilization (such a computers, various metals, asphalt and etc). We will quite literally be back to the Stone Age without oil.


Extremely unlikely. Iron age at the very worst case scenario, their are millions of 1 ton more or less mobile masses of iron scattered all over the place. We call them cars, trucks and SUV's. With not very significant skills and simple hand tools you can detach parts, heat them up in a wood or charcoal fire, and beat them into useful shapes like arrowheads, spear points, knives, anvils, hammers, hoes, shovels and so on and so forth ad infinitude. With a few books or some experimentation you can build low pressure steam engines out of sheet metal to keep mining and burning that coal we love to burn so much of.

It would not be a HIGH energy culture like our own, it would be a low technology culture with lots of problems our culture never thinks about. Going back to flint and obsidian with all that metal laying around already mined and refined just is not going to happen.

Iron age at the very best case scenario more likely lol. I don't think it is going to be better than that. Pretty much a medieval level of civilization if we have enough energy left to recycle all of the metals left by industrial civilization. But if we don't have enough energy to recycle the left over metals of industrial civilization, then it is back to the stone age again. :P :P :P

But the stone age wasn't that bad. The Native Americans were able to achieve pretty impressive civilizations without iron. They used maybe bronze and gold (at best), and achieved a civilization as impressive as the Aztec and Inca Empires. You don't need iron and most metal ores for a half decent civilization, although it would be pretty difficult to live without metal ores.

Either way, a post oil civilization is going to be the iron age at best, not at worst. As for solar, wind and other alternative energies, without oil, you can't even implement those technologies because the implementation of alternative energies requires an oil infrastructure in the first place. The mining of certain metals and the creation of solar panels, wind turbines and other alternative energy production technologies requires oil in the first place. So without oil, say bye bye to wind, solar and other alternative energies. Not enough energy to implement them in the first place.

tl;dr

A post oil civilization is iron age at best. At worst, it is another stone age.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 10:18:07

I think the oil and gas can end, and we still feed ourselves, at least in the USA and Canada. Our diets will change to primarily locally sourced foods.

I think the oil and gas can end, and we can still heat tiny homes. Americans during the Great Depression dug holes in the ground, lined them with cardboard, and roofed over them with plywood or planks or an old piece of tin, then more earth. A piece of blanket for a door, a fire in a 5 gallon can for heat and cooking. It was a shelter, even a home. My own grandparents were Okies, living in an old 1940-something black Ford sedan, after their farm in Seminole, OK dried up and blew away.

I think the oil and gas can end, and we can still have a power grid, powered by coal, nuclear energy, and slowly increasing amounts of renewable energy. Cars we might not have, but bicycles and public transport, we can.

I think we can live. We won't be as rich as we are now. We can still have Internet access with no more than a $100 tablet, instead of PCs which cost several hundred today and used to cost thousands.

We can have TV off an antenna, and cellphones.

We are talking about the end of cheap personal transport and cheap plastics, not TEOTWAWKI. A much poorer future. But it is more inaccurate than it is correct to attach a label such as "Iron Age", because the Iron Age peoples did not have space travel, microelectronics, the Internet, HDTVs, or Bourbon.

Don't forget that we Seniors are the largest group of voters now, either. We get to twist the arms of everybody else to keep some approximation of "Big Pharma" producing our meds. I have two blood pressure medications that I don't want to do without - I'd likely pop a vein in my head. Been there, done that, wasn't any fun.

There are lots of places on Earth that will be much worse off than we will be.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Pops » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 10:46:41

DesuMaiden wrote:... without oil ...


See this is the thing, FFs are going to be around for a long time. Estimates just for recoverable oil and oilish stuff are 3-4Tbbls, we've used around 1.5 so far.

But here it the key, that was the easy, flowing, pressurized, prepackaged part. The rest will be much harder to get so the flow rate will be much lower and the price much higher - Peak Oil - get it?

The only way the price can be significantly higher is if the use oil is put to provides significantly more benefit than it does currently. I'll parrot this little fact again: the average American drives 36 miles Per DAY!

Standing up a windmill seems like a good use to put to a few gallons of diesel, don't you think?
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 17:31:22

No Pops, not really.

Standing up a windmill, or solar or whatever is a denial mechanisim. Op it is trying to say "Everything will be OK, we can keep on the way we are, technology will fix everything."

The only real "fix" is to decrease outer carbon output to near zero while decreasing our population dramatically.

Having taken those two (likely impossible) steps then alternatives allow us to retain a higher standard of living for those remaining.

I doubt you will agree, but that is my considered opinion.

I do find your arguments about how oil will peak informative and well thought out and I appreciate you insight in that matter. It's on some the larger issues we part company.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Pops » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 18:39:27

Newfie wrote:Standing up a windmill, or solar or whatever is a denial mechanisim.

Hiding a false dilemma behind a silly bromide doesn't disprove or negate my point in the least.

I'm thinking the only consideration you give your opinion is how to to defend it. :razz: It is actually pretty hard to examine one's own opinion. Probably pretty hard to determine whether it is just knee-jerk, or if it is defensible - I'm trying to do that lately.

Anyway, your Nirvana fallacy notwithstanding, the only way to lower carbon emissions is by replacing existing high carbon generation and FF use with something better - how else will it happen?
And, the only way to lower population is through surviving the FF population explosion to reach a stable and hopefully declining phase.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 19:26:09

No Pops, I have no Nirvanian fallacy (did you mean fantasy?)

How else will it happen? It won't, at least not willingly by us.

That is where your fantasies come to play.

But really, do we need to take this tone? We disagree, accept it, politely please.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Pops » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 20:03:57

Nirvana fallacy is false dichotomy, the perfect over the good.

You said it was impossible to achieve the perfect solution of reducing population rapidly and steeply - therefore we're doomed. I can't think of a greater false choice - die off or die off. LOL
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby dolanbaker » Sat 07 Mar 2015, 21:20:05

KaiserJeep wrote:I think the oil and gas can end, and we still feed ourselves, at least in the USA and Canada. Our diets will change to primarily locally sourced foods.

I think the oil and gas can end, and we can still heat tiny homes. Americans during the Great Depression dug holes in the ground, lined them with cardboard, and roofed over them with plywood or planks or an old piece of tin, then more earth. A piece of blanket for a door, a fire in a 5 gallon can for heat and cooking. It was a shelter, even a home. My own grandparents were Okies, living in an old 1940-something black Ford sedan, after their farm in Seminole, OK dried up and blew away.

I think the oil and gas can end, and we can still have a power grid, powered by coal, nuclear energy, and slowly increasing amounts of renewable energy. Cars we might not have, but bicycles and public transport, we can.

I think we can live. We won't be as rich as we are now. We can still have Internet access with no more than a $100 tablet, instead of PCs which cost several hundred today and used to cost thousands.

We can have TV off an antenna, and cellphones.

We are talking about the end of cheap personal transport and cheap plastics, not TEOTWAWKI. A much poorer future. But it is more inaccurate than it is correct to attach a label such as "Iron Age", because the Iron Age peoples did not have space travel, microelectronics, the Internet, HDTVs, or Bourbon.

Don't forget that we Seniors are the largest group of voters now, either. We get to twist the arms of everybody else to keep some approximation of "Big Pharma" producing our meds. I have two blood pressure medications that I don't want to do without - I'd likely pop a vein in my head. Been there, done that, wasn't any fun.

There are lots of places on Earth that will be much worse off than we will be.

Yes, I can concur with most of that, after all oil is just one of the many fuels that are used to power our world, Yes it will definitely (bold statement) mean that in the future we will be forced to adapt to using less fuel to achieve what we do today. With the ever increasing efficiencies that have been extracted from most processes, the decline will be slow and uncomfortable for many people and painful for those already near the bottom.


As for "big pharma" their ethics stink to the highest order, for example as I was informed by someone who worked in the industry that their pricing model is based on how much it would cost if their treatment wasn't available.
For example if there was a patient who has an illness that if untreated would cost the state 100,000 a year in support for the patient, they would charge 90,000 for the drugs that would "cure" the condition" regardless of the real cost of the drug!
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 08 Mar 2015, 10:41:33

Pops wrote:Nirvana fallacy is false dichotomy, the perfect over the good.

You said it was impossible to achieve the perfect solution of reducing population rapidly and steeply - therefore we're doomed. I can't think of a greater false choice - die off or die off. LOL


Your are gonna have to show me where I said that. I think you are reading an awful lot into my words. Frankly you sound bitter and cranky.

What I did say was "likely impossible".

I have no illusion that there is a "perfect solution." What a silly idea.

"We" has a lot of presumptions, unless defined more closely it is meaningless.

None-the-.less perhaps I missheard you. So let me try again.

Simply put and approximately I hear you say that you thought we could ameolerate the loss of ff through alternatives. Then there will be some slow progression to a better world. I hear this as a slow crash utopian dream, maybe not what you meant but what I heard.

I am more of the opinion that we are beyond the point where those measures can be effective, even if they were humanly possible. This I expect at some point to have a more harsh crash with a large reduction in population.

The reality I was arguing for was to realize that alternative energy is not going to save Western culture. I was arguing that to live in harmony with Nature we need to live very lightly on Earth. Alternatives will play a role in that, if we ever get there.

But, feel free to disagree.

What I hear you say, and correct me if I am wrong,
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Pops » Sun 08 Mar 2015, 10:50:36

Newfie wrote:But really, do we need to take this tone?

Just giving you a razz Newf, :)

Reading through some of the earlier post in this thread, lots of attention was paid to population and "demographic transition' - the idea that only through FF industrialization would birth rates fall - hence without FF they wouldn't.

The idea of DT was thunk up at the end of the 1920's, which was a pretty unique time in world history. The US was rapidly industrializing, urbanizing, mechanizing and discovering. The originator was not thinking of a post-peak world, but trying to explain the world as it was at that time, no surprise he attributed falling birth rates to the current conditions. Of course most everyone else who has thought about it since is not thinking about a post-peak world either, they are thinking about continued industrialization. So simply taking the idea as universal gospel and especially for a De-Industrializing world is probably a mistake.

But then so would be simply running the narrative in reverse, I'm pretty sure we aren't going to retrace our way back down the knowledge timeline to the dark ages and certainly not the stone age. We won't conveniently forget the things we have discovered along the way - you know, germ theory, hybrid genetics, sanitation, that stuff. So examining DT in the light of PO the first thing I see is mortality and birth rate do not fall in "developed economies" they fall in stage two, and three, "development."

[Stage one and four are when the birth/death rate is in balance, before and after transition.]
In stage two, that of a developing country, the death rates drop rapidly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation, which increase life spans and reduce disease. The improvements specific to food supply typically include selective breeding and crop rotation and farming techniques.[6] Other improvements generally include access to technology, basic healthcare, and education. For example, numerous improvements in public health reduce mortality, especially childhood mortality.[6] Prior to the mid-20th century, these improvements in public health were primarily in the areas of food handling, water supply, sewage, and personal hygiene.[6]

In stage three, birth rates fall due to access to contraception, increases in wages, urbanization, a reduction in subsistence agriculture, an increase in the status and education of women, a reduction in the value of children's work, an increase in parental investment in the education of children and other social changes.


So if I step back and imagine the early condition of post peak society, the first thing I see is lower surpluses of all types, so of course fewer jobs and much lower wages. But I don't see:
• Falling availability of contraception (unless someone like Huck is POTUS, LOL)
• A significant increase in subsistence agriculture (we've gone over the "problem" transitioning from a highly efficient industrial ag to a much less efficient subsistence model many, many times)
• An increase in the value of child labor (kids are an asset as in a subsistence farming culture, in a crowded apartment in the city , they are a liability. Ditto child labor in industrializing factories, there won't be enough work for adults post-peak as it is, child labor is only required when there is not enough adult labor (aside from simple exploitation of course))

One idea that seems especially strange to me is that increased "standard of living" would cause birth rates to fall. In the animal world, plenty means plenty of babies. In the US, it looks like recessions cause the birth rate to fall and prosperity cause the rates to rise:

Image

*Remember that the Roaring Twenties was a great time to be rich and a pretty good time to be middle class, but that half the population was still rural and the twenties was one long post-war recession for farmers - "It is no great exaggeration to say that for rural America, the Great Depression began not in 1929 but in 1920, and it continued for an entire generation."
http://www.shmoop.com/1920s/economy.html


Image

That last example is not necessarily proof, either, it could be that kids are just postponing until they pay off the mortgage to Phoenix University but it does follow previous examples, more babies in good time and less in recession.

But a big part of the problem in making any kind of prediction is so many things are going on and change has happened so fast the last couple hundred years that cause and effect are hard to establish - even more so than the guy who came up with the DT theory back in the '20s. It's not just technology itself but the resultant "independence" from old social structures, the fact that a FFed society as a whole is incredibly mobile and that causes many of the old mores to be forgotten, that we just have a whole lot of freedom that was never dreamt of before and also that so many of us reading here are so removed from any contact with the real world, i.e., production and use of actual things.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 08 Mar 2015, 17:00:20

Pops,

OK and thanks for the razz! :-D

I'll have to take my time to read and consider your post.

In the meantime let me throw this out for consideration, it came up elsewhere on PO.

BEHAVIOURAL SINK

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/42/wiles.php
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby DesuMaiden » Mon 09 Mar 2015, 12:43:21

What technology will solve peak oil? Please tell me because all of supposed savior technologies for replacing oil are epic failures for various reasons. The following book explains why all of the substitutes for oil are epic failures.

http://www.unicamp.br/fea/ortega/eco/tr ... DieOff.pdf

I think God just hates mankind, and wants his industrial civilization to end at the end of the oil age. There is no other explanation. That's assuming there is a god (or gods) which is entirely possible, but who knows or who cares because praying to whatever god is going to do us no good in solving peak oil.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 09 Mar 2015, 13:17:50

D - IMHO there is no Dog (or what you non-dyslexics call God). There’s just Mother Earth. And she doesn’t take sides. Mankind is just one more species just like the other millions of species she let pass into extinction. She just created the earth. How we use it (or misuse it) is up to us. She could care less.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 09 Mar 2015, 16:10:52

All the “new technology” in the world isn’t going to be of much help if the rigs are sitting in their yards collecting dust. Which is exactly where the lower oil prices are sending rigs at a record pace. Notice the statement at the end: vertical drilling hasn’t be this low in 24 years. BTW there are no such thing as “vertical rigs” or “horizontal rigs”. They actually mean how the wells were permitted. The same rigs drill vertical, directional and horizontal wells. But consider what that says about conventional reservoir development since those are almost always drilled vertically. As I’ve said many times: the main reasons companies are going after the unconventional reservoirs isn't because of "new technology" but because there’s very little conventional potential left. And the unconventionals obviously only boom at the higher oil price.

Reuters - The number of U.S. drilling rigs in use fell sharply in the week to Friday, almost doubling the cuts of the past two weeks and hitting the lowest since April 2011. The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 64 to 922, oil. The reduction this week almost doubled declines of 33 and 37 in the prior two weeks. The rig count has fallen at the quickest rate on record over the past four months, dropping more than 40 percent from a record high of 1,609 in October. Texas, the state with the most rigs, again lost the most this week, shedding 32 to 537, the lowest since 2010. The shale play with the biggest losses was Permian in West Texas and New Mexico, the nation's biggest and fastest growing shale oil play. The Permian lost 24 oil rigs to 328.

Horizontal rigs fell by 51 to 895, the lowest since 2010. Vertical and directional rigs, meanwhile, fell to the lowest since 1991 and 1993, respectively, according to data going back to 1991
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby shallow sand » Mon 09 Mar 2015, 16:56:54

ROCKMAN: Very interesting post. Only 177 rigs drilling vertical holes. Wonder if any of those are merely SWD wells to dispose of all of that shale oil/gas produced water?

It is really something that they haul the water from most of these shale wells by truck. That has to really hurt the economics. That is something that can kill well economics, at least where I am familiar. Some wells had been reactivated in the last few years that had no SWD or INJ wells, appears those have now been shut in again.

What these numbers show clearly confirms what you have been posting, that there are just not many locations left onshore US, other than those requiring drilling down 8,000'-10,000' and then sideways 5,000'-10,000'.

Amazing that the price of oil has persisted between 44-53 WTI since end of December, with it mostly hovering right around 49-50 WTI, given the complete lack of locations in the US that are economic at that level. Don't forget, US is producing over 9 million barrels of C+C per day, or over 10% of the world's supply. Although most of it can be operated at these levels, new wells, either conventional or unconventional, will not payout at these levels for the most part.

Yet, it does appear that price may hover in this area for quite some time, especially given the USD strength.

I wonder what the decline rate is for US oil production? If total rigs fall all the way to 200, as occurred in 2009, could be a big decline in US oil production between now and end of 2016.

Also, drilling but not completing wells has apparently become a big thing. ROCKMAN, you have been around since 1975 I think. Have you ever seen that phenomenon? What if price does not recover for 1-2 more years? Think they will continue to let those wells sit? Has to be a tremendous cash drain, spending $2-3 million on a hole and just having it sit, producing $0.00 income?

My personal view is this is setting up to be worse than 2008-2009. Although price was lower then, recovery started in March, aided by a massive OPEC cut. Appears no cut will be coming until June, and likely not then either. Also, debt levels are higher than in 2008-2009.

This appears to be similar to 1986, which is what I was afraid of. I would say 1998, but we had already been beaten down quite a bit by that time, and it was just the final kick in the crotch before the march up began in 1999.

ROCKMAN, I was not around in 1986, at least not in oil. Started in 1997 with oil production. Does it appear that we are heading the way of 1986 style carnage. Read on net rumors of EXXONMOBIL laying off people. Would think that would be a definite sign of trouble, if true.
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Re: Why Technology Will Solve Peak Oil in the End Pt. 2

Unread postby Pops » Mon 09 Mar 2015, 17:19:04

@ShaSand:
Just saw this from Tom Whipple
“Fracklog:” Oil drillers expecting prices to rebound after the biggest drop in six years have come up with an alternative to storing their crude in tanks: They’re keeping it in the ground, creating a so-called “fracklog.” From North Dakota to Texas, there are more than 3,000 wells that have been drilled but not fracked, based on estimates from Wood Mackenzie Ltd. and RBC Capital Markets LLC. Waiting gives producers a better chance of receiving a higher price. It could also delay a recovery by attracting more supply every time prices rise. (3/7)
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)
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