Bigger Chart

Connect the dots on the graph. Campbell may have been only 10 years off in predicting the demise of North Sea oil. Not bad, considering the fossil fuel has been there for millions of years. I would say that is 1 part in a million accuracy.

Gravitas? How can a statement as ill-informed as the following Spike quote contribute gravitas? Why do we keep up the charade of debating somebody who resorts to playing word games?



In a strict sense, fossil fuels are renewable resources. The fly in the ointment is that the renewal rate is exceedingly low. What we are using up is the refuse from renewable lifeforms. When the rate of use exceeds the rate of production, you get depletion. Besides (playing the word games here), we have run out of plenty of renewable resources. Try the extinction of thousands of animal and plant species. At one point in our past history, somebody could have made the claim that "We've never 'run out' of renewable resources or faced a dramatic disruption". Then, e.g, the passenger pigeon population went extinct and people had to face a dramatic disruption in their eating habits.

So too we can point to coral as another "nearly" non-renewable resource. For example, if coral reaches the tipping point and the coral reefs start going belly-up in Australia's barrier reef and elsewhere, it will be much like the oil situation. Coral grows so slowly, much like the slow replenishment rate of fossil fuels, that you can consider coral to be almost impossible to replenish at a fast enough rate to sustain.

"Scientists looked at 263 reefs in the Caribbean and discovered they had lost 80% of their coral in the past 30 years." - 2003

The first true non-renewable resource I predict we will run out of is helium. We will start running out when the natural gas reserves goes on the decline.

Stomp out that stupid talking point of "We've never 'run out' of a non-renewable resource or faced a dramatic disruption" before it takes root. That's typical rhetoric of the right-wing meme machine.

Do any peak oiler know about coal to liquid technology? It was invented in 1920s and has been operated commerically for decades. 40% fuel supply in South Africa are produced from this technology and the South Africans can do it cheap, competitive at $20/b crude oil. Check out www.sasol.com and its annual report back to 1998, they still achived decent return on asset when oil price was around $15/b. South Africa is the leading player in this field thanks to the decades long embargo due to its racial segeration.

I don't believe we're anywhere near peak oil. But even if it turn out to be real, can the world do better than South Africa if there is a embargo imposed by geology?

And check out
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050825/pl_ ... MlJVRPUCUl

Motana is planning to build CTL plants and can make the final product below $1/gallon


Two big CTL plants are building in China and a dozen of others are in feasibility studies.


Don't tell me we are approaching peak coal.

You Folks ought to forget about peak oil, believe the invisible hand and focus your energy on sth. more important.

A rookie economist

The technology has been discussed in other threads. I agree that is one of the most likely bridge technologies until we get something better. Still, it isn't as cheap as you believe, and has serious environmental problems.

And you will notice that if there's something that a lot of peak oilers have serious doubts about, is invisible hands. We like stuff we can see, you know.

If Mr. Lynch is as ill-informed as you say he is then his statements will come off that way for everyone to see. You should be encouraging him to add his opinion because it'll make your opinion seem blatantly correct. But as is the case with almost everything, there are sides two every story. I again applaud Mike for responding to this thread. I have some big disagreements with his statements, but at the same time he's made me look at some things in a different light. That's a good thing. Unless of course this site is all about preaching to the choir???

what is the peak value coal to liquids conversion production?

what factors to you think effect this issue...

for instance the transportation to liquefaction facilities is a concentration process that is a function of diminishing returns on production area... a bit like oil tar production

is the substitution of energy in coal a one to one ratio?

search this forum for more talk on these issues

Boris
london

I don't consider myself preaching to the choir, I would rather ridicule would-be authority figures.
I long ago gave up encouraging these talking-point action figures to assume my point of view; they have their own agenda as set forth by Grover Norquist and company.

use the search function at the top of the page and update yourself. this issue has been discussed ad infinitum.


we know this stuff. the Germans also relied on coal conversions in WW1 and WW2 and THEY LOST. As did the South African nazis



wow another cornucopean! what a surprise. we are so glad to have your original opinion here at Peakoil.com!


can we do better than a dead white racist society? sure we can!


another scam for American suckers!



thanks for the advice rookie

you may be right but it could be construed as a tactical mistake to show your hand in a debate where you seem intent on discrediting Mr lynch.

taken at face value Mr lynchs argument suffers from the same flaw he aims at Campbell.. ie he doesn't know how much oil in place there is either

both depend on a estimation of this value

Mr lynch assumes the existence of oil he has no proof of.. it may well turn out there is lot more oil in place but it doesn't strike me as a strong position to assume 'business as usual" policy to me

Boris
london

spike/mike,
There seems to be a consensus (outside of the devout peakers) that non-OPEC production will peak in the next decade - ExxonMobile, IEA, PFC Energy, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (these guys are very thorough IMO), WoodMackenzie, Douglas Westwood and probably some others that have slipped my mind right now. You have pointed out in some of your papers that the consensus on non-OPEC has usually been too pesimistic in the past - do you think it will be wrong again this time too?

Lynch can at least point at increasing production. Campbell can point at... ? hmm, his past incorrect predictions?

Not that I find the production is increasing argument particulary convincing. As mentioned in my other post this is like saying the squirrel has made it across the busy highway many times before. In fact the squirrel is running across the highway more and more each day and he will continue to do so, for well, we're not sure but it's gotta be a long time!! ... ah, no, not necessarily.

Boris is right, neither can definitively back up their claims. Therefore prudent thinking says we should find out what the "worst" scenario is for each. Under Campbell, the "worst" is we'll transition away from oil "prematurely", if there is such a thing considering global warming.
Under Lynch, the "worst" is we'll not see the truck coming head on and end up as road kill.

WebHubbleTelescope,

If you look through the thread you'll find that Mike's point is that we're more liable to run out of renewable resources than non-renewable resources! Mike said that we have never run of non-renewable resources and what is your response? You point out a lot of renewable resources that we have run out of or are in danger of running out of. Which sort of proves his point, he thinks we'll run out of fish in the oceans, water to drink, wood from forests, that kind of thing, before we run out of oil.

Hi Mike,

Further to the above point, do you seriously believe that we are not in danger of Peak Oil for decades--that there are more pressing environmental issues to pursue? Among these popular (among us doomers) environmental doomsday scenarios, which do you think is the most pressing issue?

-Peak Oil
-runaway global warming (you don't think PO will solve that problem for us obviously
-water crisis
-food crisis (I guess some combination of overfishing+paving over farmland+overpopulation)
-er well can somebody else add some here

Also, when you said that the rest of the world is nowhere near as drilled up as the US, have you taken into consideration whether there is as much oil to be found elsewhere in the world as in the US?

When you said that Saudi Arabia has not been thoroughly explored and only very little has been done, what is your proof? Why should I believe you rather than Simmons and others, who say that SA has been pored over and they are turning to old unproductive wells because there's nothing else out there?

We did basically run out of wood in England a couple of hundred years ago before moving to coal, then suddenly the Industrial Revolution. UK is not going to enjoy a pleasant return to wood.

It used to by that the King had scouts out looking for the biggest trees in the country to ear-mark for the Navy.

Oh, don't forget, where has all the "cod" gone?

You didn't read what I wrote. As I said, in the strictest sense, fossil fuels are a renewable resource. It is just that the renewal rate is so small.

So we will run out of oil before we will run out of water.