[AdamB]

There are ways of solving this problem,

Are you telling me you KNOW how to solve this problem and KNOW how to predict the future?

There are no facts in the future. There is but a cloud of possibilities. The trick is in figuring out how to first calculate, and then express that cloud in a statistically valid way. In no case is it considered to be "predicting" the future.

What part of your ignorance of that fact puzzles you?

I'm in awe of your expertise.

Why thank you.

I always thought true experts have much better things to do than quarrel on some anonymous forum.
That puzzles me.

We do. We are also allowed our hobbies.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to you as well!

[aadbrd]

I see this thread is 16 going on 17 years old. It's a marvel this forum has been up for this long without a database-reset.

I would think if I were to leave and come back in another few years that the circular talking points going on now would still be repeating themselves with no end in sight.

As long as petroleum products remain roughly in the surprisingly wide cost/price range that facilitates business as usual then you'll get more of the same. The probability of oil depletion suddenly kicking in such as to cause the sort of doomsday scenarios that popularized the peak oil movement during its heyday in the mid 2000s is highly unlikely. That won't stop a few die-hards from continuing to say otherwise.

[ralfy]

I see this thread is 16 going on 17 years old. It's a marvel this forum has been up for this long without a database-reset.

I would think if I were to leave and come back in another few years that the circular talking points going on now would still be repeating themselves with no end in sight.

As long as petroleum products remain roughly in the surprisingly wide cost/price range that facilitates business as usual then you'll get more of the same. The probability of oil depletion suddenly kicking in such as to cause the sort of doomsday scenarios that popularized the peak oil movement during its heyday in the mid 2000s is highly unlikely. That won't stop a few die-hards from continuing to say otherwise.

The catch is that it hasn't been business as usual. During the same mid-2000s, it was believed in one documentary that oil demand would reach 115 Mbd due to robust growth by 2015. Instead, it has barely reaching 100 Mbd due to more than a decade of weak growth.

In short, the world was saved from the effects of oil depletion by economic crashes due to lower energy returns plus increasing debt.

[AdamB]

The catch is that it hasn't been business as usual.

Depends on your perspective. For a 3rd world resident, not much has changed. For First Worlders, things might seem to have changed based on socio-economic standing. Globalization and all.

During the same mid-2000s, it was believed in one documentary that oil demand would reach 115 Mbd due to robust growth by 2015.

Sure. By the same folks who claimed peak oil had happened in2006...at 2010. "Believe in one documentary", give me a break, did your father figure astrologist star in said documentary?

In short, the world was saved from the effects of oil depletion by economic crashes due to lower energy returns plus increasing debt.

All those economic crashes saved the world? Can you please point out which years they occurred in?

[Pops]

I see this thread is 16 going on 17 years old. It's a marvel this forum has been up for this long without a database-reset.

I would think if I were to leave and come back in another few years that the circular talking points going on now would still be repeating themselves with no end in sight.

As long as petroleum products remain roughly in the surprisingly wide cost/price range that facilitates business as usual then you'll get more of the same. The probability of oil depletion suddenly kicking in such as to cause the sort of doomsday scenarios that popularized the peak oil movement during its heyday in the mid 2000s is highly unlikely. That won't stop a few die-hards from continuing to say otherwise.

First, oil depletion doesn't "suddenly kick in" it is ongoing, 24/7, that's kinda the whole point. Oil is finite yet our desire for it is infinite.

If you're just here to troll doomers let me know so I can put you on ignore and save us both the hassle, but if not, here is my take on where we've been the last bit.

Doomsday is simply when the supply of cheap energy can't match up to the desire. It is a variable armageddon, if the shortfall between how much people want and how much can be supplied —or substituted— is small, the price rises a bit and eliminates the desire for the least useful uses, that is, those uses with the least utility. Many people can afford to pull up their socks and spend a little less elsewhere to afford the same useless uses—their demand is "inelastic" to some point. Others though are forced to conserve right away, make some fewer trips, etc and their demand falls, so the market: supply/demand, balances at the higher price. The example is 1998-2015 when supply could not rise fast enough to meet rising demand, especially from China. At first people just paid the higher price, but storage and surplus capacity gradually fell and the price of oil rose above $150/bbl at one point.

The period from 2005-2015 had some of the highest average prices ever—even during the worst recession since the depression. As Ralfy points out demand would certainly have been much higher if more people had a job. Not a comforting thought.




Here is a great picture from Matt at CrudeOilPeak.info. The countries are arranged from those increasing production the most at the top, down to those declining the most at the bottom. The squiggly black line is US price.



Looking at the old chart on the wall, what happened in 2005 is obvious, supply flatlined and the price shot up. Even now after 15 years — 10 with the highest average real prices since the civil war, world production is flat except for the US territory formerly known as Iraq and US driller's ponzi scheme of LTO—and falling if you discount the Great Tar Mines of the north.

That's the other side of the equation, high price allows greater effort to be spent on extracting the fossils and the cash from investors. At least as long as consumers receive enough utility at the high price. But the key lesson from the last 17 years is that those record high prices for a record long period have not increased the cheap/easy oil like they had every time in the past 150 years. You know what I mean, the kind like in the movies where you go to shoot a 'possum and get a gusher instead so move to Beverly Hills? The kind that supply 90% of the oil we burn. That last for decades, not just a few years or months.

I don't have a clue how many more Iraqs there are or how many more infill frack wells will be drilled. I also don't know how fast we will be able to substitute some other source or reduce our dependence. Those questions of course are the reason people, a few anyway, continue to go 'round and 'round here.

Generally, it feels to me like the prophets of PO Doom were about right, albeit somewhat overzealous. But between the recession, the mass-money-printing, the one-time "something" of high-price-enabled fracking (that all cornies said "they'd" think of), and the miracle of "refinery gain" we've not seen the full effect of the peak.

But it is clear the easily accessed pressurized puddles of petroleum that built this world have at least plateaued if not peaked in production. That's old news. How it shakes out from here is the interesting part.

[aadbrd]

demand would certainly have been much higher if more people had a job. Not a comforting thought.

Prior to COVID unemployment was at all time lows.

we've not seen the full effect of the peak.

What would characterize the "full effect" to you?

[AdamB]

we've not seen the full effect of the peak.

What would characterize the "full effect" to you?

Back in the day, the scenarios involved guns and ammo, long pork, neutron weapons being used on folks fleeing the suburbs, all sorts of cool stuff. Once the peak oils, real, imagined and claimed during this century came and went, "full effect" turned into some real lightweight, pansy stuff. Higher unemployment. A recession (gasp!). Everyone not being able to afford an Audi. A natural consequence of having been left with egg on their faces last time, most likely.

[Pops]

Prior to COVID unemployment was at all time lows.

not in 2010-15 as I mentioned

The period from 2005-2015 had some of the highest average prices ever...

What would characterize the "full effect" to you?

The effect of scarcity is high price.
The full effect is people's reaction to high price.

The nuts and bolts such as the date of the onset of decline, the rate of decline, the mitigation/substitution already taken, etc, etc, all matter a great deal. If supply can never return to 2018 levels for example, it will be a worse outcome than if it peaks in 2030 or 2040 after more mitigation has happened. Doesn't matter that the reason for mitigation is GW, only that we "decarbonize".

Not all uses of oil are the same, some are important, some not so much. Obviously, lower utility uses will be eliminated as supply falls and prices increase. Hardly an earth shattering guess. But every use is a contributor to someone's bottom line, no matter how seemingly useless the activity. If that or an equal activity can't be carried out using some substitute, the economy takes a hit. Employment, asset values, gov functions etc will all be affected if economic activity declines.

The ideology of governments; the attitude of "influencers"; the message from various media, but especially the attitude and actions of your neighbors will more directly decide the effects on you. Some surprising —to me anyway— large part of the US population would rather kill their elderly neighbor or family member than wear a mask to protect them. So to be honest, I've no idea what the full effect might be.

[Outcast_Searcher]

In short, the world was saved from the effects of oil depletion by economic crashes due to lower energy returns plus increasing debt.

All those economic crashes saved the world? Can you please point out which years they occurred in?

It's amazing to me how year after year, decade after decade, the blindingly obvious evidence of such economic growth charts doesn't get the fast crashers, permadoomers, etc. to stop claiming things like that there are lots of "economic crashes" of ANY significance.

Even events like the great recession and Covid-19 end up being the occasional blip in the big picture, over time (unless something MEANINGFUL actually changes that re objective data, not meaningless claims and endless bad predictions).

It's like the entire doom-o-sphere is constructed of people as impervious to real world data as a huge proportion of Trump voters.

But I know, the objective real world data is a false conspiracy, say the doomers, promulgated by government, the MSM, and most of all "them".

And the reality is whatever BS the doomers want to make up.

You'd THINK the age of the internet, smart phones, GPS, GOOGLE SEARCH, etc. would mean that spreading ghost stories around the campfire as a primary means of VALID information exchange should be about as useful today as buggy whips on major US interstates or the German Autobahn.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Some surprising —to me anyway— large part of the US population would rather kill their elderly neighbor or family member than wear a mask to protect them. So to be honest, I've no idea what the full effect might be.

Which is interesting, given that as someone over 60, rapidly approaching being eligible for Social Security and Medicare, when I suggest to my friends my age or older that Social Security SHOULD be MEANS TESTED (which means I'd get little or none) as a way to help put it on better financial footing overall -- the frequent attitude is that, more or less, they'd rather kill me than see that happen. Even those who need it to get by no more than I do. (I do need Medicare, given how the US medical system is now structured).

As time goes on one thing is for sure -- the attitudes of people have often evolved so far from what I was taught to view as normal and civilized as a child re values, that I couldn't even have imagined the first world ending up that way as, say, a teen.

Perhaps over time, truth really does become stranger than fiction. (And I'm not talking about paranoid conspiracy theory "truth"; I'm just talking about simple objective reality re the kinds of policies first world folks vote for and how they think, vs. the objective reality of data and trends and scientific knowledge growth).

[aadbrd]

large part of the US population would rather kill their elderly neighbor or family member than wear a mask to protect them

Yes, the way we handled (or didn't handle) COVID doesn't seem to bode well for a more overt oil-crisis, but it's not like we were handling it well back in 2008 either (i.e. drill, baby, drill). On the other hand we've now seen how at least the white-collar sector has the ability to soldier on via remote work and commerce can continue via ordering online. Many of the same industries taking the hit now would get hit just the same via peak oil (travel, hospitality, live events) all of them very much discretionary spending. Lockdown life is also a more frugal life.

[AdamB]

What would characterize the "full effect" to you?

The effect of scarcity is high price.

The effect of demand increasing faster than supply is also a higher price.

Peak oil claimants in 2 different centuries now have often run to the first like a child to their parent, while ignoring the fact that price is determined by rates of change of 2 factors, not just one.

The full effect is people's reaction to high price.

A consumer's reaction to high price is conservation and substitution. A producers is to produce the thing now economic at those higher prices.

The time period being discussed in oil price (2011-2015) was a demonstration of a given elasticity of supply, both in terms of time and price. Supply isn't just sitting around being bored, waiting for a higher price and someone to open a valve. Developing resources, finding new ones, reserve growth in existing fields, all require investment, an expected rate of return, corporate decisions to take the risk, markets willing to loan and also take the risk.

Supply then becomes a lagging indicator of these decisions. And what happens when this investment pays off? Perhaps more supply than demand and presto....the cure for high oil prices is high oil prices. Just as it has always been, and will continue to be.

[aadbrd]

I think with the dissolution of ASPO, et. al. that there has been a lack of independent accounting of estimated total recoverable reserves. I don't particularly care whether those reserves are conventional or not (unlike Hubbert's curve which was based on conventional alone). Since it's been proven that unconventional is more economically viable than once believed, it has to be fully factored in. All I am seeing in analysis of late are heavily biased blogs that are doubling or tripling down on disregarding renewables and drawing tenuous connections to ponzi style conspiracy theories.

The point I'm trying to make is that while yes, fracking did kick the can down the road, and that peakers should acknowledge this, it would be unwise to assume that this state of affairs can last indefinitely. Of course, there's a big difference between the center holding for a few years vs. a few decades. That is where the uncertainty lies at present.

On the flipside are mitigations which Pops alluded to. The world of 2020 is vastly different from 2008, and changing rapidly. Looking simply at how much oil is being extracted and used doesn't really tell the whole story. Flat or dropping oil consumption shouldn't be seen as causing downturns in the economy if the economy is gradually adapting to be able to produce the same GDP on less oil consumption. This is why whenever you google the peak oil term you will find almost all articles on the topic really talking about peak oil DEMAND rather than peak oil SUPPLY.

[AdamB]

It's like the entire doom-o-sphere is constructed of people as impervious to real world data as a huge proportion of Trump voters.

Doomers gotta doom. As it has been, so shall it continue to be.

I respect the ones who accept it as a belief that drives their life decisions in a meaningful way. The hippies who started The Farm? Pops altered his life substantially over his concern for peak oil. Savinar just wanted to make some coin off the suckers in the crowd. And then revealed his opinion on his followers, one of whom we still have here, demonstrating why Matt was able to fleece them in the first place. There are the environmentally conscious folks, for whom the idea of peak oil slotted right into the overall LTG game. Not all of them went off into looney tunes land, but some certainly embraced a bad idea without understanding any of it.

I probably fall more into the "the world is a lessor place because we choose to burn tremendous amounts of stuff and pollute our biosphere" angle, call it the remnants of my objections to the Trans-Alaskan pipeline way back when. Now I'm just a "already downsized my lifestyle, installed solar panels and drive an EV" environmentalist, whatever that is.

But I know, the objective real world data is a false conspiracy, say the doomers, promulgated by government, the MSM, and most of all "them".

And the reality is whatever BS the doomers want to make up.

You'd THINK the age of the internet, smart phones, GPS, GOOGLE SEARCH, etc. would mean that spreading ghost stories around the campfire as a primary means of VALID information exchange should be about as useful today as buggy whips on major US interstates or the German Autobahn.

When I began 15 years ago to figure out why peak oilers (and by extension doomers in general) couldn't see what was easy enough to see for anyone looking, I thought it was because they were just uninformed. Similar to your statement, what, they couldn't google, couldn't count, weren't willing to ask any hard questions and make their favorite sources demonstrate how we go from a to b to doom? I focused on one group in particular, the scientists involved, the Lahherere and Campbells and Deffeyes types. They could never be considered stupid or silly, they had access to the same information and expertise that all us scientists did, so...how did they arrive at bell shaped curves and low estimates of resources and presto, DOOM IS HERE for crying out loud?

The answer is the same as it is with Trump followers. Their conclusions aren't based on facts or science or logic, they are based on belief, they are based on how they FEEL. What they BELIEVE. They believe Trump, as he reels out how unfair the world is to normal folks like them. It doesn't matter that he is semi-literate or couldn't find the truth with 2 hands, a flashlight and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He says what they want to hear, what they already have inside them as a tightly held belief, that the world isn't fair, it is the fault of <fill in your favorite them, China, immigrants, people of color or handicap>, and I (Trump) give you the right to believe the same as I do, to say it out loud and not be afraid of ridicule, because we are legion!

Colin and Co. did the same for doomers. Educated scientists, saying it is okay to tell people peak oil was going to happen soon, and the terrible consequences that will follow. It was faith based, but when led by scientists, well, it must be true! Intelligence didn't factor into it for those leading the charge. They used their smarts not to test their hypothesis across the multiple scientific specialties involved in this case, but to validate a pre-conceived notion, and discredit from a position of authority exactly those things that ended up proving them the fool. Harold Camping types, except with PhD's in geology.

Do you know how you can spot these types? After their first cut is discredited, they all give one signal that identifies them, right then and there. THEY DON'T LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES. They just reset the date...and begin all over again. In that instant they demonstrate that it has nothing to do with the facts or science or intelligence, but just good old fashioned belief. The Church of Peak. Not many left in the congregation nowadays, but no worry, it'll come back in the future. I think it will be subsumed into the greater climate change groups, because ultimately the pollution of the biosphere beats out whether or not we begin choosing to use less oil now, or a decade from now.

[Pops]

I think with the dissolution of ASPO, et. al. that there has been a lack of independent accounting of estimated total recoverable reserves. I don't particularly care whether those reserves are conventional or not (unlike Hubbert's curve which was based on conventional alone). Since it's been proven that unconventional is more economically viable than once believed, it has to be fully factored in. All I am seeing in analysis of late are heavily biased blogs that are doubling or tripling down on disregarding renewables and drawing tenuous connections to ponzi style conspiracy theories.

The least helpful thing that ASPO or any of the Peak Swamis did, in my amateur opinion, was forcast the resource. The only thing worth noting in the 10 or however many ASPO reports was how much they had increased the ultimate to agree with reality and how far they had raised the mountain to get peak to fit.

All the assessments are either marketing or politics or ideology, or all three. That goes for countries, oil cos or bloggers. I liked the idea of shifting backdated discoveries forward to find the peak but still it's just guesswork subject to spin and ignores price and technology to boot.

Here's the "artists conception" I did long ago:

From Here

Still, I can't help but stare at Laherrere's ouija boards trying to absorb the lines into my brain.

I don't discount LTO, no doubt it is the closest thing to an on/off switch for oil since KSA "surplus capacity." Because, as Magiueri said, "each well is a province all to itself", LTO has the ability to rapidly increase production—matched only by it's devastating decline rate. The Red Queen is certainly the wild card that a) permitted the Great Recession to recede, b)bought renewables time to mature, c) will surely be the death of the "peak demand" happy talk when she stumbles and soils her knickers.

The point I'm trying to make is that while yes, fracking did kick the can down the road, and that peakers should acknowledge this, it would be unwise to assume that this state of affairs can last indefinitely. Of course, there's a big difference between the center holding for a few years vs. a few decades. That is where the uncertainty lies at present.

Can't agree more. Political problems are holding up production in various places, don't know how much but considerable—but that is as it has always been. I'm not sure there is reason to hope it will change. As such, we are leaning entirely on LTO, NGPL, and tar mines to compensate for declines. Of those, LTO is the huge risk because it will be as hard to forecast the end as any other class but when it goes it will really go fast.

Here's a chart I scribbled on trying to divine the increasing decline rate (again its old)



I'm sure I've posted this before, I did it way back but you'll get the idea. LTO decline is effectively global oil production decline for the first few years.



That was 7 or 8 years ago (just coincidence that I picked this year or about for LTO peak?) but my bad, I only gave LTO 4mbd but it was making almost 9 last year. Meanwhile we've been ignoring the ongoing decline of the rest of the US. When LTO goes pop it will have an even longer way to fall than I thought unless the tail is not just long but thick. Again, however fast LTO declines, that will be the global decline until it flattens— all the way to below where we were— the 1-2-3mbd lower US production that happened while we were all looking for "peak demand"

.

[AdamB]

The least helpful thing that ASPO or any of the Peak Swamis did, in my amateur opinion, was forcast the resource. The only thing worth noting in the 10 or however many ASPO reports was how much they had increased the ultimate to agree with reality and how far they had raised the mountain to get peak to fit.

By the structure of their method, increasing the ultimate is all they CAN do. The curve fitting routine depends on it, and to undo that, you would need another method.

[AdamB]

Peak Oil Part 1

Seems to be just a audio file, with some history of peak.

[AdamB]

China is approaching its own peak oil.

Country’s energy companies are starting to look ahead to demand topping out around mid-decade

[Ayoob]

I think this whole lockdown telecommute thing is 100% peak oil and the end of the easy multiplication of labor and the enormous population growth since oil was struck. The name of the game now is reduce consumption, by subterfuge, and destroy the system used to pipe hydrocarbons to the masses. The 1% of humanity that will survive the coming purge will be wealthy and will rest easily, floating on a pool of oil.

[AdamB]

I think this whole lockdown telecommute thing is 100% peak oil and the end of the easy multiplication of labor and the enormous population growth since oil was struck.

Nah. There is plenty of oil hanging around, it is just a matter of whether or not folks want to pay the price for it. The anomalous drop in demand because of Covid is just an anomalous drop because of Covid, peak oil isn't even on the same planet as that.

The name of the game now is reduce consumption, by subterfuge, and destroy the system used to pipe hydrocarbons to the masses.

Sounds conspiratorial. You figure the Illuminati are involved, or perhaps the alien lizard overlords?

You got a problem with just good ol' rapacious greed and profit continuing to be the mechanism by which the species has dodged the claimed running outs and peak oils for nearly half a century now?