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Why we shouldn't worry about end times

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

Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby Arthur75 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 06:44:39

Getting our carbon needs entirely from forests will be a lot cleaner and safer than mining it from the ground.


We already tried that, with much less people around, and it was far from enough, (not even speaking of today's levels)
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby Cloud9 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 06:55:10

As I recall, it was a capitol offense to cut down one of the King's trees. Billions will freeze and starve to death before that ecotopia is achieved.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby meemoe_uk » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 09:13:01

You 2 doomers kids forgot to read my post before replying, and your posts make no sense either.
Just when did we last have the chance to try make a economy which uses trees growing in 2000ppm CO2 conditions?

Considering that TPTB keep most of the world's people in poverty, I agree billions will starve before atmos CO2 levels get high. It'll take hundreds of years of fossil fuel burning, like 500 years at least. But people dieing will not stop fossil fuels being extracted and burnt, will it?
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby Arthur75 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 13:01:57

meemoe_uk wrote:You 2 doomers kids forgot to read my post before replying,


I stopped doing that around your third or fourth one, son :)
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 13:16:56

I haven't seen your history of peak oil predictions. If this has been your only one then OK. But maybe you've done the typical peaker thing of predicting it to happen next year every year for the last 20 years.

No I had the prediction based on real data which took into account planned developments. WoodMackenzie has access to this kind of information much moreso than pretty much any other analytic company. The mega-projects all came on stream, most of the heavy oil proposed also came on stream. There appear to be delays in some North Sea fields as well as some in West Africa and full production from Brazil is still a moving target. Your suggestion that recession or production delays are used as an excuse for delay in peak is rather naïve. Of course peak is controlled by economics. Companies will not produce at a loss and will tend to shut-in production and delay spending that might be necessary to increase production in recessionary times. Production delays are also important. Peak is all about production not reserves, all the reserves discovered in the world would be meaningless if they were neither economic (due to a collapsed market)or for some other reason could not be brought on stream for an indeterminate amount of time.
The part of reality you don't mention is the market price of oil. A lot of these field that fail the transition from prospects to commercial fail because the market price is so low. At £4000 a barrel, there'd be a lot more commercial viable fields, enough for another hundred years of increasing oil production I think.

Naïve again. It is difficult to see at $100/bbl what discovered field in the world is not economic. I would ask you to give me an example as I am not aware of any. It is only when you start to drop below $80/bbl that the heavy oil projects (SAGD) begin to suffer and that is probably about the price level where you would see less and less shale oil drilling. If you are running oil company economics once you have already capitalized your exploration costs then it is all point forward economics which end up having a smaller level of technical risk. Many of the delays are actually due to government issues (this has been a long term problem in Gabon), social and other political issues (Nigeria has suffered from this) or technical issues related to unskilled manpower (I can think of a couple of good examples of offshore shallow water developments that have been stalled for years simply because of technical screw-ups). When I mentioned the Rockhopper drilling in the southern Atlantic as having not found economic resources it has to do with size. There the reserves are so small that regardless of commodity price it is hard to see how they would be developed and this is exacerbated because higher commodity price also results in higher E&P costs.
I have spent a lot of the last decade looking around the world for what are remaining large exploration targets. Outside of the shale liquids story (the US is likely the biggest followed by Argentina and maybe China or Algeria) there really isn’t anything in areas where people aren’t already exploring. If they are exploring there then it means it is economic at the current price. The idea that there are vast amounts of hydrocarbons left to be discovered that require a higher price for exploration to happen is incorrect. Again, point to such areas if you can.
This paragraph just suggests to me you are a peaker. You are too focused on the peak. The 10 years delay of today doesn't matter at all long term. Bear in mind the market price can go into the $thousands per barrel. It only matters if you are anticipating a peak round about now and looking for little scraps that off-set the peak a year or two.

That is a silly accusation. What is a “peaker”? If you are arguing that oil is not a non-renewable resource then I’m afraid I have to write you off under the “blithering idiot” category. If you do believe it is non-renewable then by definition there has to be a peak of some variety at some time irrespective of price. The question becomes not whether there will be a peak but rather when, at what level and what shape the curve will take. Your assumption is that there is a ton of oil waiting to be developed that requires a price in excess of $140/bbl. Exactly where are those discoveries please?

When we burn fossil fuel it isn't 'lost' as peakers want to believe, its actually 'liberated' to be used and recycled for thousands of years by the biosphere. If it get stuck underground again we can dig it up again.

I think you are a bit confused on time scales here. In order for CO2 in the atmosphere to have something to do with hydrocarbons it would require first that it causes plant growth (a few years time) then it results in plant death and burial and that additional burial under the right temperature conditions happens (several millions of years under ideal conditions where there is no erosion, uplift nor sedimentary by-passing). And the rate of conversion is much, much slower than extraction.
For the cause, if we run short of fossil fuel, we should continue to mine carbon rocks such as calcium carbonate.

Precisely what do you propose using limestone for? It makes good cement but it certainly can’t be used as an offset for either liquid petroleum or natural gas in terms of energy production.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby meemoe_uk » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 14:57:28

I had the prediction based on real data which took into account planned developments.

Well its always been the case that if you only take into account planned developments, you always get peak oil to around about now. Oil companies only 'stock' about 20-30 future years worth of oil fields, and when you apply that to hubbert's exponential bell curve you always peak around about now, with the 20-30 years worth production at current rates actually making up the hundreds years long down slope of the bell curve.
This way of predicting future world oil production has always failed.
This time it's different huh?
hmm... I've heard that before. But not from the RockDoc himself. Could the most informed member of PO.com be falling for one of the oldest tricks in the PO book?

Your suggestion that recession ... are used as an excuse for delay in peak is rather naïve.

You'll have to quote me there, because thats not what I wanted to express. I don't see recessions as a way of stalling 'the <geological> peak'. I'm not focused on the peak, because I think it as such a long way off, and of little consequence anyway.
Recessions and prices crashes and hikes are employed to control the oil industry, to make sure the big players remain in charge.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on the 1970s price hikes, the 1980 peak in production, and the mid 1980s oil price crash. These events I like to think of as 'the previous cycle', a cycle I think is repeating now, where we are still in the 1970s stage of high prices and industrial development. I predict artificial peak in production and a crash in prices and a big recession next, around 2015-2017. Then steady recovery. Then by around 2027 the 2015 peak will be surpassed, as by then we'll be in the 1990s part of the cycle.

It is difficult to see at $100/bbl what discovered field in the world is not economic. I would ask you to give me an example as I am not aware of any.

No company has really bothered to look for >$100 a barrel oil, so there aren't any found examples. Any company that did look for such oil would be flushing money down the bog. But just cos you and your fellow explorers haven't looked for it doesn't mean it isn't there.
But I can give an example of a large but expensive to produce coal field. That one found under the Norwegian sea. It's estimated to be 3.5 times the size of the rest of the worlds known reserves. Digging out that coal from under the sea would be far too expensive to be competitive with all the opencast mining going on today. However its still got >2 EROEI so one day it might be economical to get it. Same for some oil fields I expect.
The next oil cycle will kick off around 2040, by which time we'll be looking at $120-$200 ( in today's dollar value ) a barrel oil I think.

What is a “peaker”?

Well a softer definition from the doomer, is someone whose point of reference in oil economics tends to be the geological peak.

Your assumption is that there is a ton of oil waiting to be developed that requires a price in excess of $140/bbl. Exactly where are those discoveries please?

For the most part, you haven't discovered them yet. Wait for the next oil cycle in 2040.

In order for CO2 in the atmosphere to have something to do with hydrocarbons

I don't mind that for this issue I lump hydrocarbons and carbohydrates together. They are both chemical groups that require carbon to store energy. Once we've extracted and burnt the hydrocarbon, there's more carbon in the biosphere for plants to make carbohydrates. Hydrocarbon is roughly fossilized carbohydrate.

Precisely what do you propose using limestone for?

For the cause. Get 1000 to 3000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere to optimize world plant growth.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 17:28:25

Oil companies only 'stock' about 20-30 future years worth of oil fields,

That’s utter nonsense. Have you ever worked for an oil company? I’ve worked for a number and I never remember being told to stop finding and commissioning new oil production. Your activities can be constrained occasionally by cashflow but it has always been the mantra of oil companies to get bigger, faster. The idea that somehow they would conspire as a group to manage production flies in the face of history. The Saudis learned this to their great chagrin when they tried to create an oil shortage.
This time it's different huh?
hmm... I've heard that before. But not from the RockDoc himself. Could the most informed member of PO.com be falling for one of the oldest tricks in the PO book?

You cannot treat oil exploration and production as a simple statistic. It is a limited resource. You put all your faith in the notion that ….hey we had a double peak in the North Sea and then suggest this will happen numerous times everywhere else. I’m sorry to inform you it won’t. The reason the North Sea saw its second peak was due to government incentive. Regardless of that incentive there has not been enough discoveries to supplant decline. Before the second peak the exploration had concentrated on the Jurassic and subsequent to that it moved to explore the Triassic and further north. But by all accounts they have run out of objectives. There are no undrilled play types remaining in the North Sea. There will be the occasional discovery but it will not replace existing declines. There is only so much resource that a basin can contain. The idea that because the US has a huge shale oil potential it should translate in similar fashion around the world doesn’t hold water. In one of my last roles before retirement I managed a group that reviewed worldwide shale hydrocarbon potential. That review demonstrated there are actually only a few places where the right ingredients are there to make it work. The resource is limited and it doesn’t matter what the price is unless you want to say “abiotic oil” and be immediately pegged as the intellectual equivalent of the Dougal character from Father Ted.
Recessions and prices crashes and hikes are employed to control the oil industry, to make sure the big players remain in charge.

You must be joking? Are you suggesting that there is some cabal or secret society of power brokers who create artificial recessions and price crashes? Do they have secret handshakes and gestures like the masons? If so then you have truly admitted to being in the lunatic fringe. Dougal would find himself to be an intellectual giant in your presence.
No company has really bothered to look for >$100 a barrel oil, so there aren't any found examples. Any company that did look for such oil would be flushing money down the bog. But just cos you and your fellow explorers haven't looked for it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Please name for me a place we have not looked? We were exploring for hydrocarbons in the Arctic islands back when there was no chance of them being economic for years to come. The same can be said about the ultradeep water, the initial exploration took place more than a decade before it ever became economic to develop. I worked on the Athabasca oil sands thirty years ago when it required government incentives to get the science done. That work was fully 15 – 20 years before the oil sands really made any sense (oil above $70/bbl). If you have some fantastic idea about where there is more oil to be found I have the name of several investment bankers who would love to here the specifics. A comment made to me very recently by one such banker is that currently there are too many companies chasing a limited resource base.
The next oil cycle will kick off around 2040,

For the most part, you haven't discovered them yet. Wait for the next oil cycle in 2040.

Again you assume this oil will magically appear. Where is it coming from? As I have said as a group the oil industry has been looking hard for this for the last several decades. We had help with some technology that we knew we always needed (3D seismic and long reach drilling) but I have not seen an article written in the last number of years identifying a key missing technology that would unlock known oil.
The problem is not technology anymore or the notion that there are areas or play types we haven’t investigated, it is the fact that we have tested most of the planet in areas that could possibly contain hydrocarbons, whether they be economic or not. We have an excellent idea of what remains to be found. The mantra just drill deeper is naïve as pretty much every basin in the world has had a few wells penetrate to crystalline basement by now. The only place I can think of where oil and gas exploration has not been conducted is Antarctica and that will not happen by any stretch of imagination to supply oil in thirty years time.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby Pops » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 17:42:50

:lol:

Pace yerself doc, he's got a million of em.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby seahorse3 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 17:46:52

I still waiting to hear how limestone is going to power cars. It's going to be my ticket to retirement. I have a 20 acre limestone hilltop that's not good for anything, except powering the future.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Tue 28 Aug 2012, 17:54:05

a 20 acre limestone hilltop that's not good for anything

cement, building stone, yes.....energy source,no.
Unless of course you take a big round ball of limestone and use it as a marble proxy in a giant Rube Goldberg energy generating machine. Holy smokes, got to run to the patent office! :lol:
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby meemoe_uk » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 06:10:53

rockdoc123 wrote:
Oil companies only 'stock' about 20-30 future years worth of oil fields,

That’s utter nonsense. Have you ever worked for an oil company? I’ve worked for a number and I never remember being told to stop finding and commissioning new oil production. Your activities can be constrained occasionally by cashflow

Oil development 'Constrained occasionally by cashflow'?
You make it sound like there's never been an oil company gone out of business, like the worst thats ever happened is some company had to skimp on 1st class postage stamps for a week, but apart from that they've had an effectively endless supply of cash.
So why don't they multiple the number of RockDoc's working for oil companies by a thousand fold ?
Your logic that produce is not limited because an employee isn't told to limit produce doesn't make sense. News paper delivery boys are never told to limit the number of papers they deliver.

... but it has always been the mantra of oil companies to get bigger, faster. The idea that somehow they would conspire as a group to manage production flies in the face of history. The Saudis learned this to their great chagrin when they tried to create an oil shortage.

TPTB did successfully create an oil shortage in 1973 btw.
Management of production isn't done by the smaller oil companies, but by those who control the money supply. Until about 2002, money supply in the oil industry was pretty tight. Then suddenly there was free cash for any company that was capable of helping oil development.

This time it's different huh?
hmm... I've heard that before. But not from the RockDoc himself. Could the most informed member of PO.com be falling for one of the oldest tricks in the PO book?

You cannot treat oil exploration and production as a simple statistic. It is a limited resource. You put all your faith in the notion that ….hey we had a double peak in the North Sea and then suggest this will happen numerous times everywhere else. I’m sorry to inform you it won’t. The reason the North Sea saw its second peak was due to government incentive.

You keep going off on these seemingly unprovoked random tangents. I never mentioned the North sea, or it's double peak. Why did you fish that out the water? Is this a response to my asking for your take on the 1980 oil production peak?

'Government incentive'. OK so you're somewhat aware that TPTB have influenced oil development with cash incentives. But for some reason you seem to sideline its importance. Was the free cash for any company wanting to help develop oil in Iraq a minor importance? It seemed the at the conferences at the time everyone was pretty excited about the free cash.

...The resource is limited and it doesn’t matter what the price is unless you want to say “abiotic oil”

OK, so another rephrasal that you've looked everywhere for oil and there's only about 30 years worth left at current rates of production , right?

Recessions and prices crashes and hikes are employed to control the oil industry, to make sure the big players remain in charge.

You must be joking? Are you suggesting that there is some cabal or secret society of power brokers who create artificial recessions and price crashes? Do they have secret handshakes and gestures like the masons? If so then you have truly admitted to being in the lunatic fringe. Dougal would find himself to be an intellectual giant in your presence.

:o :-D :) :lol: :P
You are funny. Conspiracy happens in the playground in every school every day. It happens amongst friends and familys. It happens at work. Businesses compete by conspiring against each other. In every national newspaper everyday there are stories of conspiracy amongst politicians, businesses and nations, but they call them frauds or scandals. History is a collage of conspiracy with power brokers such as monarchs, barons, merchants, nations, and lords all conspiring for power.
That many people like to think that somehow the authorities and institutions that concern them have somehow donned halos so that they may never act against others without being completely fair... well it's just a mindless defensive reflex, one which they feel compelled to uphold no matter what.
You sound very naive wrt money control.
Yes, TPTB create and control economic booms and busts by manipulating money. I've posted this on PO.com several times before.
Hey, now that your retired, why not get started in some other subjects besides rocks? I can give you some links to get you started on money.

No company has really bothered to look for >$100 a barrel oil, so there aren't any found examples. Any company that did look for such oil would be flushing money down the bog. But just cos you and your fellow explorers haven't looked for it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Please name for me a place we have not looked?

Just look everywhere again. Harder.

The only place I can think of where oil and gas exploration has not been conducted is Antarctica and that will not happen by any stretch of imagination to supply oil in thirty years time.

Any chance of offshore Antarctica? I assume it's the continental glaciers that prevent oil wells, but maybe rigs tough enough to survive the sea ice could be built?

Interesting RockDoc. I'd say as far as the peakers on this site are concerned, these last few posts are nice for them. The most informed member of the site, and a sceptic of the whole peak oil is now! thing might disagree on a few things, but we are both predicting a peak in the next few years. For you its the geological peak. For me its just another artificial peak brought about by TPTB. Either way, the oil production figures should have started to fall by 2018.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby dsula » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 08:18:26

Oh my God, Memo, now you completely lost it. Quick take your pill.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby Pops » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 14:35:12

Yeah, it's the short on sense style of circular dissembling, Gish Gallop, ad nauseam, red herring, improv trolling at it's best.

Throw out a bunch of chum,
logic/facts/quality not required, just quantity
move on to the next bucket
after a page or two start over
move to the next thread
repeat

Mee's on a grand conspiracy kick it looks like, not too long ago it was oil is cheap at $50k per barrel.
Now with a premptive conspiracy to explain falling production in 2018. LOL

Reminds me, I can almost see the thread where SoS tripped over his now famous multiple-peaks theory, it was obvious he thought he'd found the bottomless chum well!

I miss J.D., at least he had some sense.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 15:41:25

Your logic that produce is not limited because an employee isn't told to limit produce doesn't make sense. News paper delivery boys are never told to limit the number of papers they deliver.

Revisionist interpretation. What you said was that oil companies purposefully had a limited supply of oil. This is not the case. What they have is not limited by what they have looked for which is the point. You are playing a shell game with your arguments here. Your view seems to be they only looked for what was economic at the time, which I know is not the case, we have looked for everything.
TPTB did successfully create an oil shortage in 1973 btw.

The powers that be? You are trying to make this sound like a conspiracy. It was the ill-advised attempt by Saudi Arabia to get higher prices for a commodity in which they controlled the market. It only took two years for them to lose market share and essentially doom themselves to no longer having control over the market. It wasn’t some great cabal of “powers”, simply Saudi Arabia operating largely on the recommendations of Yamani.
'Government incentive'. OK so you're somewhat aware that TPTB have influenced oil development with cash incentives. But for some reason you seem to sideline its importance. Was the free cash for any company wanting to help develop oil in Iraq a minor importance? It seemed the at the conferences at the time everyone was pretty excited about the free cash.

Again a shell game argument. What you have been arguing is that there is an unlimited supply of oil and all we need to have happen is higher prices. What I pointed out from the UK experience is that those higher realized prices (through incentives) resulted in improved production which lasted for only a short number of years while it allowed explorers to access areas they had not done previously. What I also pointed out is that now they have effectively accessed all of the play types, no level of price change is going result in another larger bump in production. The important point is it is ultimately determined by what is in the ground.
Let me give you an example. The production of a given oil field can be thought of as a fractal view of worldwide oil production. There is a certain amount of oil in the ground (in place resources) of which there is a certain amount that is ultimately recoverable. In the early phases of production the timing and peak can be influenced somewhat by economics and technology (can either increase the pace of development or incentivize to produce at higher rates at the expense of lower ultimate primary recovery or higher water production). However, once you are further into the production history of the pool and it has begun to experience natural decline economic or technology improvements will have little effect other than to level out the peak production. Scaling up we can look at global production in a similar manner. While we were still exploring for oil with vast resources left in the ground the effect of economics and technology had a significant impact on peak trajectory and timing. Now, however, we are running out of new possibilities with any significant size and as we reach peak determined by the projects sitting in the hopper now for immediate commissioning changes to economics or technology will only prolong that peak since they cannot replace quickly enough what is being produced. The bottom line is it is all controlled by what is ultimately recoverable from the earth. The only way you can argue there will be continuous new and higher peaks is if you believe the earths oil resources are unlimited which requires unscientific arguments to support it.
As to Iraq I haven’t a clue what you are talking about regarding “free cash”. The deals from the Iraqis were horrendous and could only be marginally economic for the largest of companies. This is born out in the fact the fourth bid round got very few bids at all. And it isn’t as if the Iraqi oil is something we didn’t know about. There are no discoveries happening in southern Iraq, it is refurbishment of existing fields and the production is just now coming back to where it was previously. The discoveries in Kurdistan are new but OF2’s numbers are hugely exaggerated as they are all in place numbers and the reservoir is a fractured carbonate. What this means is a billion barrel discovery will likely translate into a 100 MMB recoverable reserve or less.
Yes, TPTB create and control economic booms and busts by manipulating money. I've posted this on PO.com several times before.

This is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. I know how the oil industry works having been involved in it over thirty years and at an executive level for much of that time. Decisions are made based on how to access more resource, bring on more production and make that production profitable. The companies are not owned by TPTB but rather by shareholders and I know of few oil companies which have one shareholder who can determine how they do business. The sort of manipulation you claim is going on is prevented through various laws and securities regulations. There are no oil companies getting together in darkened smoke filled rooms planning how they can take over the world. There are no oil companies colluding with each other to manipulate prices (which is pretty much impossible in the current environment no matter how much production you have). What is happening is oil companies see each other as competitors who from time to time they will partner with but never trust (again I have direct experience as to how this works).

Hey, now that your retired, why not get started in some other subjects besides rocks? I can give you some links to get you started on money.

You make it sound like I don’t know anything about “money”. I can assure you the reason I am retired is that I have done very, very well. I have been asked to join a couple of Boards of small oil companies so I suspect the view is having been an executive at oil companies in the past qualifies me to know something about the business other than “rocks”.
Just look everywhere again. Harder.

This is an incredibly naive response. Exactly where would that be? You seem to think there is a lot to be found/produced and what I am telling you is that is not the view of pretty much every oil company in the world nor IHS Energy nor Wood Mackenzie. The thought that you just have to look harder is an insult to the thousands of scientists and engineers who have dedicated the last decade of their careers to this task and have come to the same conclusion I have pointed out. We are running out of opportunities, not just good opportunities but opportunities in general.
Interesting RockDoc. I'd say as far as the peakers on this site are concerned, these last few posts are nice for them.

I do not take sides in an argument like it is some kind of mute court debate. I make a point of describing the facts that I am aware of. This holds for peak oil related discussions as well as climate science discussions. When theories don’t fit with the observed facts I try to emphasize that is the case. I did this when people here were fawning over predictions of imminent Saudi Arabia collapse based on “theory” proposed in Twilight in the Desert, I did this on a number of occasions when individuals claimed we had reached peak years ago based on actual data I had access to and I’ve done this on a number of occasions when individuals confuse the use of terminology related to reserves and resources and inadvertently arrive at conclusions about production/peak that are ill-founded. More importantly I have done this on a number of occasions when people have argued for infinite resources based on arguments such as “abiotic oil”. The simple fact that flies in the face of your theory is that oil and natural gas are non-renewable resources on the time scale that matters (i.e. any time scale other than geologic) and hence I am pointing that out.
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby Arthur75 » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 15:50:10

meemoeuk is a little limey punk, must say I'm truly impressed by these intertwined threads with airheads ...
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby meemoe_uk » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 18:36:45

Revisionist interpretation. What you said was that oil companies purposefully had a limited supply of oil. This is not the case... ...You are trying to make this sound like a conspiracy. It was the ill-advised attempt by Saudi Arabia to get higher prices for a commodity in which they controlled the market.

Seems you're pretty set on these points, and as I'm not going to gain from debating you on this, I'll decline from further debate on this one point. I've read and understood what you've said, but I don't accept what you've said as the full picture. If you have zero tolerance for 'conspiracy' theory in your interpretations we are never going to see eye to eye.

As to Iraq I haven’t a clue what you are talking about regarding “free cash”. The deals from the Iraqis were horrendous and could only be marginally economic for the largest of companies.

Harhar, I can't resist dazzling you with a 'conspiracy' perspective on this. The free cash was 'government incentives' from the US government for companies helping to develop oil in Iraq.
Anyone from my group would tell you the 'Iraqis' offering the bum deals to oil companies where in fact puppets wholly owned by anglo-american powers that be. The prices for drilling\exploitation permits offered by the 'Iraqis' to the oil companies were probably decided for them by anglo-american advisorys.
A lot of the money given to the Iraqis in these contracts would be given straight back to the anglo-american banks to pay off loans and war reparations etc, although some highly compliant Iraqis would be allowed to have some of the wealth. This way the money is created on Wall street, passes through the hands of the workers, but most of it ends up back where it started.
Great story huh? What do you think of that? :-D


The discoveries in Kurdistan are new but OF2’s numbers are hugely exaggerated as they are all in place numbers and the reservoir is a fractured carbonate. What this means is a billion barrel discovery will likely translate into a 100 MMB recoverable reserve or less.

It would be nice if OF2 would visit this thread. He's been very active here lately but on a different thread. I got the impression he's a long term oil cornucopian ( like me! ) who doesn't expect a geological peak anytime soon. But I get the impression you are senior to him in the oil industry. Maybe he'll bow to your higher understanding and declare his previous stance is wrong and go along with your stance and prediction of peak oil around 2013-2015.

There are no oil companies getting together in darkened smoke filled rooms planning how they can take over the world.

One 'conspiracy' that is popular even with common zero-tolerance types like yourself, and that agrees with me is was that the 2003 invasion of Iraq wasn't about disarming Saddam of his supposed WMD, but to retake control of Iraqi oil wells. Saddam had 'defected' from the anglo-americans when he began refusing to go along with their plans, and instead began making deals with other nations such as China for Iraq's oil.
I'd be interested how you go about explaining that as 'not a conspiracy'. Which story manages to fit into your 'zero conspiracy' view of the world?

You make it sound like I don’t know anything about “money”. I can assure you the reason I am retired is that I have done very, very well.

I'm sure you have. But anyone who doesn't accept 'conspiracy' is involved in modern money doesn't have a good understanding of money.

Just look everywhere again. Harder.

This is an incredibly naive response. Exactly where would that be?.... The thought that you just have to look harder is an insult to the thousands of scientists and engineers who have dedicated the last decade of their careers to this task

Crikey you keep pushing me on this like I've actually detected the next big oil field myself. That's not how I've come to my conclusion that there's more significant oil field to be found, and you should know that.
I've already mentioned the 2006 discovery of the norwegian sea coal field as a co-example of how new fossil fuel reserves can be found even in this day. But you've ignored that.
So I'll try do the same with an oil field.
I'd say OF2's post Siberia's cornucopia rock is a good example of how large oil fields can still be discovered today. So maybe all the workers you mentioned hadn't looked hard enough until June 2012.
Secondly, I do have friends in the oil prospecting business, and I'll be seeing them this weekend. Last time I saw them they gave me the impression that finding new oil fields is still a pretty 'lucky' game and that you don't have to go to remote unexplored places to find new fields. This goes against what you say about the world being pretty thoroughly screened for oil fields. I'll ask them more about this this weekend.

More importantly I have done this on a number of occasions when people have argued for infinite resources based on arguments such as “abiotic oil”. The simple fact that flies in the face of your theory is that oil and natural gas are non-renewable resources on the time scale that matters

When you say stuff like this, ( like you keep mentioning abiotic oil ), it only makes me think you aren't capable of properly assessing what I'm saying. I don't subscribe to abiotic oil theory and haven't mentioned it in my posts to you. My theory doesn't depend on oil and gas deposits being renewable either.
I would have hoped you would see I simply think available oil is much more abundant than you do. Perhaps in your frustration you want to class me as a nutter so you allude that I'm an abiotic oil theorist.


I respect what you say RockDoc, but it's taken me years to come to the opinions I have now. I can't just drop them on 1 man's opposing opinion. Like I say, I'm reading and considering everything you've written. I have to go away an consult others, weigh up what they say as well.
And then maybe I'll accept you were right and I was wrong!
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby sparky » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 21:54:05

.
Meemo , a point you made
"These events I like to think of as 'the previous cycle', a cycle I think is repeating now"

you are probably right but wiht one proviso
the bottom in 89 was aroud 10$ a barrel

this cycle , the bottom will be what 70$ , 80 $ , 90$ ???

it follow the same patern , the juicy deposits either in quantity or ease of access
are tapped out first , then the technics being sorted out ,
harder , costlier fields are being sought , prices rise
until the new price level open new possible ressources

tight oil is now touted as the great hope , but the best prospects are used now
there are other prospects , fossile carbon is quite common
the North Sea coal is probably better being gaseified in situ
Siberia has a huge oil field ( it's tar actualy ) it is buried deep and is pretty thin
people have know about it for decades
with the price around 200$ /B it might well be economical

the point is sustained quantities and cost

none of those prospectare gushers either ,
peak production of the tar sands will probably never reach 10 millions Barrels a day
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sparky
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Re: Why we shouldn't worry about end times

Unread postby ralfy » Wed 29 Aug 2012, 22:44:37

"Matt Ridley: Optimism without limits"

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/cultu ... imits.html

"Matt Ridley - Wired for Lukewarm Catastrophe"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/matt-ri ... rophe.html

Ultimately, not worrying assumes that we can find the equivalent of one Saudi Arabia or better not just to maintain global economic growth but to deal with any problems caused by increased resource consumption.
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