[ralfy]

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/202 ... went-away/

Technological optimists think that unconventional oil will push the peak of total oil production into the distant future. I’m more skeptical. Assuming Hallock’s model is right, I doubt that unconventional oil sources will offset the coming collapse of conventional crude production. In fact, I’d go a step further and say that we’re able to harvest low-quality shale oil precisely because we’re producing so much conventional crude. Take away the conventional crude, and I’d guess that harvesting low-quality shale oil will become unfeasible.

Whatever happens, it’s clear that the future will be unlike the past. Every living human has known nothing but energy boom. But when you harvest an exhaustible resource, the bust always comes. It’s just a matter of when.

[AdamB]

Long time no see Ralfy. Has peak oil years ago (any of the 7 claimed this century for that matter) bothered you much in whatever third world country you live in? Still have that Biblically long peak oil reference website, and have you checked it against the reality that happened instead? How do those claimed peak oil consequences match up against this latest idea?

[Pops]

Hey Ralphy,
Of course peak oil never went away, depletion, after all, never sleeps.
The catch is that politics doesn't either.
The USSR and its oil production broke down back when — then came back big time.
Iraq oil was under poor management so the US magnanimously instituted a hostile takeover.
Those 2 regions of good old crude will contribute more to oil production long term than the light-tight-ponzi scheme —although we can all be thankful for the cheap plastic everything, tamper-proof packaging and especially half pound clamshell lettuce containers fracking brought us.

http://crudeoilpeak.info/latest-graphs



https://www.oilystuffblog.com/chart-stuff

http://crudeoilpeak.info/latest-graphs

Your guy said it, LTO is enabled by conventional oil, not to mention all the imaginary money looking for an ignition source and politicians of every stripe afraid to tell the truth. Look at the POTUS, ostensibly the Great Climate Change Warrior begging Saudi to lower oil prices. I'd hoped we were going to make a transition but unfortunately I'm coming around to the thought that our play-acting toward replacing fossil with renewable electricity is just the same, a fossil powered boondoggle.

We have the whole wrong idea about what is required. We won't simply flip the fuel selector switch to Nirvana, we'll put the whole thing up on jacks and make it a chicken coop—and it won't even be paid off! That'll show 'em!

LOL
.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Hey Ralphy,
Of course peak oil never went away, depletion, after all, never sleeps.

...

Your guy said it, LTO is enabled by conventional oil, not to mention all the imaginary money looking for an ignition source and politicians of every stripe afraid to tell the truth. Look at the POTUS, ostensibly the Great Climate Change Warrior begging Saudi to lower oil prices. I'd hoped we were going to make a transition but unfortunately I'm coming around to the thought that our play-acting toward replacing fossil with renewable electricity is just the same, a fossil powered boondoggle.

I agree re disappointment over Biden begging the Saudis for lower oil prices.

That's the kind of thing I'd expect from the GOP, quite frankly.

Regardless of the details of the coming green energy transition, it's NOT going to happen real fast, regardless of how much super-greens flap their arms and claim that crude oil is "going away in a few years", etc.

Getting plug-in sales up to 6 million in 2021 (estimate from InsideEVs.com, who are pretty credible re such reporting and forecasting, IMO) is progress. But that's STILL only about 7 percent of the forecast 83+ million light vehicle sales globally for 2021 (source, statista.com, as of early August, 2021).

https://www.statista.com/statistics/267 ... car-sales/

It is estimated that light vehicle sales could increase by about nine percent in 2021. Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the industry is expected to sell more than 83 million units in 2021, down from about 90.3 million light vehicles in 2019.

Even if we get to 80% BEV's re sales by 2040 or so, that's a LOT of gas/diesel burning cars on the roads until 2050 or so. And globally, I still think petrochemical and asphalt demand increases for quite a few decades (or more), as the global population increases AND the third world population strives to reach middle class status (and spending), with hundreds of millions of them doing that successfully.

Maybe some cheap and economic substitutes are found over time, but there's no assurance of that, especially for petrochemicals. (Making concrete produces a lot of GHG's, BTW, if someone is thinking to just go to concrete from asphalt).

[AdamB]

Hey Ralphy,
Of course peak oil never went away, depletion, after all, never sleeps.

Come on Pops, you know better than to conflate those two terms. No one has turned depletion into a religion, as just one example.

[Tanada]

Not to put too fine a point on it but every aspect of our current western way of life is predicated on cheap energy. I know this is a very old argument but as the last staff Moderate standing I feel obliged to point out that motivated humans can drop all the bureaucratic BS and build industrial facilities very quickly when they feel motivated to do so.

The USA currently has an abundance of Natural Gas that we are selling as LNG across to both Europe to the east and Asia to the west. However it has been known for well over a century now that using Natural Gas as a feedstock you can synthetically produce high octane gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel. No we probably can not replace all our oil consumption overnight, however as is often pointed out oil does not decline in a cliff as so many fast crash predictions claim, it declines in a steep curve. You do not have to replace all the oil consumption overnight, just the decline portion. As prices escalate conservation will kick back in just as it did in 2005-2008. Now add in the more recent EV vehicles being added all the time to the vehicle population.

So yes Peak Oil is still real and Yes it will be a major PITA as we adapt to a new way of life. However humans are pretty good at adapting to changed circumstances and I expect our civilization will remain function for at least a decade into the decline, by which time I will probably be dead from some ailment or another. How many of the rest of you will still be around is not for me to even speculate on, but I expect the younger generation to have a very different oil experience than any of us had in the last 100 years as car culture took over America.

[AdamB]

Not to put too fine a point on it but every aspect of our current western way of life is predicated on cheap energy.

"Cheap" is relative. Once upon a time, at this website, people were going bananas at $40/bbl. By any empirical measure, we have already faced down "expensive" oil through 2011-2015 or so, and our western way of life didn't falter, in fact it grew throughout the entire time period.

So...what is NOT cheap to you, because within the context of history, it can't be less than about $150/bbl in the short term, or $100/bbl in the long term.

And to delve even deeper into this most basic question, "not cheap" (whatever that might be), has a corresponding effect on demand. This was a key factor in disappointing those who have previously pretended that price, demand or supply are somehow independent of each other. Only one can be independent, and in the instant you pick which one, you just as immediately make a statement of size and shape of the other two. Perhaps the most glaring flaw in the entire peak oil angle.

So yes Peak Oil is still real and Yes it will be a major PITA as we adapt to a new way of life.

It was real just as Hubbert explained it those 3 fixed points of any nonrenewable resource, from the day the first barrel was produced. And it was just as real the prior times it has occurred. Until there was another. I thought the global peak in 1979 was a PIA certainly. We adapted for nearly 15 years before that one was dispatched by...you guess it...the next one.

The idea as discussed since its origination with Hubbert is flawed. It just took awhile to figure out how.

However humans are pretty good at adapting to changed circumstances and I expect our civilization will remain function for at least a decade into the decline, by which time I will probably be dead from some ailment or another. How many of the rest of you will still be around is not for me to even speculate on, but I expect the younger generation to have a very different oil experience than any of us had in the last 100 years as car culture took over America.

I completely agree. The good news being that this statement doesn't require a peak oil to cause it.

[theluckycountry]

I know my country, Australia, peaked in production in 2001, and that's when debt really started to replace earnings and savings for major purchases. The house price increase ATM effect in most cases. But that didn't stop living standards declining for the rest who chose not to go into debt. There is a direct link between peaking and the decline of modern nations, the US throughout the 70's went into it quite obviously. No more free college, military scaling back, inflation eroding wages. It's hard to see the damage when you're living through it, the frog in the pot phenomena, but the US is a shell, a dry husk compared to what it was before the peak of it's convention oil production.

Norway is still doing ok, booming in fact! No infrastructure collapse there, they are building superhighways under the ocean lol. But in the US and Australia, Decay decay decay. Since out modern nations were literally built on cheap oil, this ceaseless erosion of infrastructure is the true measure of peak as far as I'm concerned. Tight oil, Shale oil, It's all smoke and mirrors and even the great and mighty Gas boom has not helped as far as I can see. It's major benefit is in it's export, to try and balance the books for all the imported oil. EV's are a BS distraction too, just like wind turbines and solar panels, just another way to waste oil, but certainly more stylish. They are Hopium to keep the masses from panicking about what happens when the oil runs out. When the oil runs out, so do electric cars, so do solar panels.

[AdamB]

EV's are a BS distraction too, just like wind turbines and solar panels, just another way to waste oil, but certainly more stylish. They are Hopium to keep the masses from panicking about what happens when the oil runs out.

Wow...I was really worried there with the recital of peak oil dogma of yesteryear...maybe one of the golden oldies turned out to be true, but then you reveal that you don't even know that peak oil isn't about running out!!!

Neophyte.

[theluckycountry]

Sorry adamB, but I like rational discussion, and you're just too much of a nutcase to bother listening to. Enjoy your basement life

[Pops]

the US is a shell, a dry husk compared to what it was before the peak of it's convention oil production.

Just so.

The first few hundred years of Europeans in the Americas was powered by African slaves and succeeding waves of immigrants while the last hundred and fifty by hydrocarbon slaves. The 1850-60s inflection point (civil war and Titusville) is only symbolic, coal was in use before and Jim Crow later but the general uproar in society the last 10-15 years since global conventional peak seems comparable to the run up to that transition.

The prior transition benefitted all but a very few slave owners and businesses. Fossil power was better than muscle power in every way: cheaper, more powerful, more versatile, not to mention relatively humane. The only downside was abandoning sunk costs in slave oriented livelihoods and lifestyles. The transition to fossils was made willingly (aside from outlawing slavery) based on fossil's comparative benefits.

We have the same situation multiplied by 7 billion in the sunk costs of fossil fueled suburbia, manufacturing, agriculture, and population today. The problem is the transition we face is not to something better, but to power less concentrated, less fungible, less dependable. It isn't going to be a choice of something better, it isn't go9ing to be a choice at all.

Switching to a better power caused a civil war in this country last time. I'm not sanguine about how it is going so far this time.

George Kaplan linked this paper over on POB that delves into how much of a PITA this transition will be, it is worth a glance

To achieve sustainability and salvage civilization, society must embark on a planned, cooperative descent from an extreme state of overshoot in just a decade or two.

...You do not have to replace all the oil consumption overnight, just the decline portion. As prices escalate conservation will kick back in just as it did in 2005-2008.

The problem with your example is oil production didn't decline in the '04-'14 period, it merely failed to grow enough to meet demand. Over that period until now we've had net negative economic growth, almost doubling our debt before the pandemic. And I think it is obvious we're in worse shape as a country. We're about as far from embarking on a "planned, cooperative descent" as I can imagine.




As Lucky said, just look over the edge of your pot to see the shape we're in.
Like Madge (and Aaron) used to say:
"You're soaking in it"

.

[AdamB]

Sorry adamB, but I like rational discussion, and you're just too much of a nutcase to bother listening to. Enjoy your basement life

And you enjoy your fast and expensive motorcycles while pretending that woah is you, facing only a life imagined in the peak oil dogma of yesteryear....but still...not...here. Watch what they do, not what they say,, and you sure ain't acting Amish!

[mousepad]

The first few hundred years of Europeans in the Americas was powered by African slaves

Not at all. It was powered by people working, independent of origin or skin color. At about 80W per pop.
And much so also by horses, oxen etc. at maybe 500 to 800W per animal.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Sorry adamB, but I like rational discussion, and you're just too much of a nutcase to bother listening to. Enjoy your basement life

And you enjoy your fast and expensive motorcycles while pretending that woah is you, facing only a life imagined in the peak oil dogma of yesteryear....but still...not...here. Watch what they do, not what they say,, and you sure ain't acting Amish!

Um, "woe", not "woah".

Sorry, but people frequently using the wrong word (including in supposedly high class "professional" publications), irritates me.

Kind of like how so many high school graduates these days can't make change, and don't even know that subtraction is the operation to make change.

(Given how much of my property tax, which keeps rising rapidly, goes for K-12 public education, that pisses me off). And yes, I'm becoming an old man who likes to rant at things. I suspect it happens to most of us at some point.

At least in my favor, I'm honest enough to freely admit it, FWIW.

[AdamB]

Sorry adamB, but I like rational discussion, and you're just too much of a nutcase to bother listening to. Enjoy your basement life

And you enjoy your fast and expensive motorcycles while pretending that woah is you, facing only a life imagined in the peak oil dogma of yesteryear....but still...not...here. Watch what they do, not what they say,, and you sure ain't acting Amish!

Um, "woe", not "woah".

I was thinking, more like whoa on a horse, rather than the official "woe".

Sorry, but people frequently using the wrong word (including in supposedly high class "professional" publications), irritates me.

And I am known for using colloquialisms all over the place, OTHER than published works. Grew up in the country, and "dead as a doornail", "crick" rather than creek, and various other bastardizations of the English language are my stock in trade during general conversations. Plus, in terms of writing, I've always felt I can go slumming on the internet, as I have no other allowed outlet for written works on random topics.

(Given how much of my property tax, which keeps rising rapidly, goes for K-12 public education, that pisses me off). And yes, I'm becoming an old man who likes to rant at things. I suspect it happens to most of us at some point.

At least in my favor, I'm honest enough to freely admit it, FWIW.

I freely admit my foibles as well. I work with far younger people nowadays as the demographics of my work place have changed, and I believe I have reached the official professional level of office anachronism.

[theluckycountry]

An old relic in other words. Someone out of touch with the realities of the 21st century and desperately trying to drag everyone back into the last one.

[AdamB]

An old relic in other words.

Well, that has a slight derogatory connotation to it, but sure, I've probably achieved old relic status.

Someone out of touch with the realities of the 21st century and desperately trying to drag everyone back into the last one.

The kids don't allow that to happen. As best they can anyway, as I still don't like doing things on my phone rather than in a browser on a computer. And yes, all of my industry career was in the last century.

But that was just my first. I became far less relic, and quite modern during numbers 2 and 3.

[Outcast_Searcher]

An old relic in other words. Someone out of touch with the realities of the 21st century and desperately trying to drag everyone back into the last one.

When you can be somewhat credible, on average, be sure and get back to us.

Big hint: Conspiracy theories are NOT credible.

How many operating systems do you use on your laptops? I use 5. It will be six, once I get Windows 11.


But of course, you know everything if you call people names.

[ROCKMAN]

Lucky - I'm missing your point. The vast majority of tech used today by everyone, including you, was developed in the last century. Some being improved to some degree in the last 20 years for sure. But the basis has been around for much longer. But there are some old farts left around like me that don't pay much attention to new ideas like bitcoins, mini drones, you, etc. Our loss I suppose. But at 70 yo with a terminal condition I won't have too long to worry about it. LOL

[Plantagenet]

[
I agree re disappointment over Biden begging the Saudis for lower oil prices.

That's the kind of thing I'd expect from the GOP, quite frankly.

Nope.

I know its hard to tell the Rs from the Ds but Biden is definitely a D. And a progressive D at that.

Given all of Biden's rhetoric about climate change you'd think he'd welcome higher oil prices as a way to get people to reduce their dependence on oil.

But no. Thats not what old senile Joe is going to do.

Joe is going to do whatever he can to keep Business as Usual going....just like Trump and Obama and Bush and Clinton before him.

Biden's only been in office for 9 months and already he is is down on his knees pleading for more oil from the Saudis.....

SHeesh. That didn't take long.

I find it appalling


Biden's "new hope" turned out to be that the Saudis would pump more oil for him to keep business as usual going on just a bit longer please.....

Cheers!