[ennui2]

That's basically the role of science-fiction, to explore the impact of technology on humanity. Despite the lack of flying cars and warp-drive, we are in the futuristic realm of science-fiction in which lots of things that were once simply theoretical fodder for predictions of either utopia or dystopia are now being tested out in reality. As they say, we live in interesting times.

[ralfy]

That's basically the role of science-fiction, to explore the impact of technology on humanity. Despite the lack of flying cars and warp-drive, we are in the futuristic realm of science-fiction in which lots of things that were once simply theoretical fodder for predictions of either utopia or dystopia are now being tested out in reality. As they say, we live in interesting times.

Given the fact that we cannot lower oil production costs significantly while we face the effects of environmental damage and increasing debt, I'd say the more accurate term is "imaginative realm."

[onlooker]

Yes, I think it is now important to explore the viability or lack thereof of implementing technology to solve or counteract the effects of human overshoot. Many ideas in many fields have surfaced with differing degrees of feasibility or credibility. However in terms of scale what is quite clear from empirical analysis is that given the huge world-wide population and given the environmental damage and depletion that has already occurred and is continuing to occur, the ability to salvage world-wide civilization, to prevent sizable die-off and even most menacing to deal with the approaching destabilization of the climate system is now severely compromised. So the rationale conclusion is that not withstanding any techo-fix, the forecasts of doom and gloom are realistic and probable.

[Revi]

I think we are on the verge of Ugo Bardi's Seneca Cliff. Here is a post from Shortonoil which shows the mess we are in.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm

Now I just wrapped my mind around this, and I have known about peak oil for years. How do you think I could communicate this to others, much less create some kind of a groundswell of support for doing something about it?

[ennui2]

Here is his actual prediction.

"by the early 2020's an increased use of petroleum will no longer add to GDP."

When you say "on the verge", he's still predicting an inflection point that is half a decade off. And mind you, this is a site that solicits you to buy a report for $38 with a background color on it that sears your eyeballs like an AOL flashback from 1995.

So I would not place all your bets on these charts.

[Revi]

Gail Tverberg is saying the same thing in her posts on our finite world. The problem is that the EROEI just doesn't make it from 2020 on. There will still be legacy fields pumping because the money was spent long ago to bring them into production, but it won't make sense to produce oil anywhere else. There is no money in it. Now a lot of things people do don't make money, but this isn't a hobby farm or a rock band. Very few people are going to continue to produce large amounts of oil with no money coming in at all. Maybe it will become a fad, like owning a winery, but I doubt it.

[Pops]

The problem is that the EROEI just doesn't make it from 2020 on

Evidence?

[Pops]

The reason people aren't making money is the price crashed.

The price crashed because of overproduction, consumption is still rising.

All your wishing for a cliff doesn't make it so Revi. Here is you 10 years ago:

I can see the edge of the cliff.

Here is you a day ago:

I think we are on the verge of Ugo Bardi's Seneca Cliff.

Come on, I'm all for being prepared but the problem with crying wolf is he eats you in the end because people became deaf to your refrain.

[Revi]

Here is my quote from 2005, it was about Limits to Growth:
"I definitely agree with the thesis of the book which is: Slow down! Stop, before we all go over the cliff! We may be going over anyway! Why can't we get the message? It's hard to stop the runaway bus we're on as long as we have the energy to keep it going. Who, besides me and a few eco-freaks, is going to shrink their lifestyle voluntarily? They ran these models in the 70's and almost everything they said is coming true. We were able to find more oil and increase phantom carrying capacity for a while, but we're up against it now. Is it time to slow down? I can see the edge of the cliff. It's around the year 2008!"

What happened in 2008? We had a massive recession, which was papered over with shale oil and lots of funny money.

I agree that we didn't go over the cliff in 2008, but we may as well have. We gave huge amounts of money to banks and investment firms to shore it up. We fracked a bunch of light tight oil out to keep the party going, but we are like Wile-e-coyote right now, running on the edge of the cliff, before we realize that we are off the edge.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[Revi]

Here's the peak in all oil:

http://peakoilbarrel.com

It may come back up, but it looks like all over the world we have hit a peak and are dropping.

[Revi]

Again, the graph that is the scariest if you understand it:

http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm

The problem is that oil can't be recovered economically with this kind of price. The amount of economic activity you could generate with a barrel of oil was only $87 in 2014. Now why would you go to all the trouble to frack out oil at over $100 a barrel when the most it could make you is $87, and right now you would get around $35 if you are lucky?

The point at which it doesn't even make sense to drill at all even in the best plays is fast approaching. After that point you might see some people doing it like we have hobby farms. It really doesn't make sense, but there is some kind of intrinsic pleasure in seeing the pump jack working.

[Pops]

The problem is that oil can't be recovered economically with this kind of price.

Maybe we can't produce 100-120mmb/d at this price but we can produce somewhat less quite easily.

All the cash costs put together to produce most oil (around 80mb/d) is less than $10/bbl before royalties and under $40 even with royalties. Looks like 40mmb/d doesn't even cost $5 a barrel! And that was last year before the market took a dive and knocked the hat of the frackers making them wheedle and beg for work to pay the mortgage on the 4x4 and snakeskins!



So
A) production won't fall off a cliff due to cost anytime soon because 90% of oil is still turning a tidy profit

B) 90% of that oil is the old fashioned, pressurized reservoir type where much of the cost happens up front (unlike manufactured oil like tar and LTO)

B) don't get your shorts in a knot over short's blather about eroei and whatever. If oil were prohibitively energy intensive don't you think the cash cost would be much higher - since energy costs money!? Doesn't anyone get that?
criminy!
lol

C) there is a whole buttload of cheap-ish oil yet, just not a whole buttload of cheap additional capacity. Look at the most expensive oil on that chart, the $30-$40 cost oil, it is the merest last 2-5mmb/d of capacity.
We can shed that easily and not really miss it I'm thinking, well, we are right now so we shall soon see. But the upshot is no matter what someone wants to sell you, peak oil means supply stops rising, not that it disappears.

But hey, there is always the next strain of ebola to look forward to.

[Revi]

I agree that there is a "buttload of oil" in the 30-40 dollar range, Pops. We need a lot of oil to function, and we really haven't experienced a fall in the amount that the world is producing, so this is going to be a new experience for us. Even experiencing a drop at all kills the whole "growth" meme. Here is the latest article by Gail Tverberg in which she really lays out the problem:

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/11/03/oo ... bt-bubble/

It took me a while to understand this whole dropping prices, less oil thing, but once I did it was almost as scary as when I learned about peak oil to begin with. Some of the lines are hard to interpret, but I think she means that we are headed back into recession, but this time instead of bailing out the banks with future debt we will be starting bail-ins and of course, pension cuts. This will be the real cliff I was talking about.

[Revi]

Here's an article from a non-peak oil site that talks about what's going on in the economy right now. I think it's pretty much right on.

http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/t ... -of-money/

Unless something happens soon we are falling into the hole already. This isn't going to be a very cheery Christmas at all...

[ralfy]

The problem is that oil can't be recovered economically with this kind of price.

Maybe we can't produce 100-120mmb/d at this price but we can produce somewhat less quite easily.

All the cash costs put together to produce most oil (around 80mb/d) is less than $10/bbl before royalties and under $40 even with royalties. Looks like 40mmb/d doesn't even cost $5 a barrel! And that was last year before the market took a dive and knocked the hat of the frackers making them wheedle and beg for work to pay the mortgage on the 4x4 and snakeskins!



So
A) production won't fall off a cliff due to cost anytime soon because 90% of oil is still turning a tidy profit

B) 90% of that oil is the old fashioned, pressurized reservoir type where much of the cost happens up front (unlike manufactured oil like tar and LTO)

B) don't get your shorts in a knot over short's blather about eroei and whatever. If oil were prohibitively energy intensive don't you think the cash cost would be much higher - since energy costs money!? Doesn't anyone get that?
criminy!
lol

C) there is a whole buttload of cheap-ish oil yet, just not a whole buttload of cheap additional capacity. Look at the most expensive oil on that chart, the $30-$40 cost oil, it is the merest last 2-5mmb/d of capacity.
We can shed that easily and not really miss it I'm thinking, well, we are right now so we shall soon see. But the upshot is no matter what someone wants to sell you, peak oil means supply stops rising, not that it disappears.

But hey, there is always the next strain of ebola to look forward to.

Likely the point overlooked isn't cost and price in dollars but energy costs and what is left available.

[Pops]

Thanks for the link Revi.
It is so ironic, here in the Information Age, that is is so hard to find information. There is no news really, just factoids cherry picked to back up whatever opinion happens to be the favored stock-in-trade of whatever particular "reporter." I'd bet your guy has never made an optimistic post in his life. The comment on the "Galt's Gulch" page sums up that and similar sites: "No, offense, but aren’t those sources a bit like asking a barber if you need a haircut?"

I have always liked Gail, too. She does a good job of focusing on oil while looking for the bigger picture.
But again, how many speaking gigs would she book if the title of that post were "Ooops, low oil prices are related to overproduction!"? The sheer length of that presentation seems fairly good evidence of how tortured the path to her conclusion that more difficult extraction leads to cheaper prices.

I'll say it for the umpeenth time, price is not falling on poor demand. Demand has increased.
Price fell on overproduction.
I know this because a) production increased and b) oil in storage increased.

-----
So yeah, collapse may well be nigh.
Equities are overvalued, US dollar carry trade is collapsing, oil E&P is grinding to a halt, governments worldwide are socializing the bad bets of the owners, and commodities of all kinds were overbuilt to feed China — which is doing the final toilet-bowl-tour.

But, peakers can't point to 2011-'14's flat production, high price and falling consumption as a sign of peak, then turn around point to increasing production, low prices and higher consumption as also a sign of peak.


It makes us look like some kind of some kind of enviro-apocalyptic death cult.

[Revi]

I'll say it for the umpeenth time, price is not falling on poor demand. Demand has increased.
Price fell on overproduction.
I know this because a) production increased and b) oil in storage increased.

-----
So yeah, collapse may well be nigh.
Equities are overvalued, US dollar carry trade is collapsing, oil E&P is grinding to a halt, governments worldwide are socializing the bad bets of the owners, and commodities of all kinds were overbuilt to feed China — which is doing the final toilet-bowl-tour.

But, peakers can't point to 2011-'14's flat production, high price and falling consumption as a sign of peak, then turn around point to increasing production, low prices and higher consumption as also a sign of peak.


It makes us look like some kind of some kind of enviro-apocalyptic death cult.

I agree, that it seems like we are crying wolf too many times, but this time it's real! (At least I think so...) I have a bad feeling about the fact that a commodity like oil just keeps going down in price here in the US. I think the rest of the world's economy must be tanking so badly that they aren't buying as much oil any more. Here in the US we are doing our best to use the stuff, but the oil market is oversupplied right now. There is all that oil we fracked out on top of all the oil that places like KSA are producing. I would submit that they are making whatever money they can now because they expect the price to go even lower. We have never seen the economics on the back side of a global peak, and they are interesting already. It seems like the T. S. Eliot quote, "the world will end not with a bang, but with a whimper".

[ennui2]

The global economy is collapsing now

Wrong. Even Dr. Doom isn't predicting doom.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/17/nouriel- ... -soon.html

The world prospered for decades on $20 oil. If we ever see that again we are in a death spiral.

That's the new party line for peakers, huh? Cheap oil = doom? Seriously? You're gonna run with that? So expensive oil = doom AND cheap oil = doom? The logic behind this is flat-earth-society-grade laughable.