[AdamB]

True story, so I get SC patches on all my walking jackets and carry candy to hand out.

Get out. Is that really true?

Seriously. At the end of my suburban block there is a elementary school. When daylight savings time comes around, it gets dark by 5PM, so I go for my "as daily as possible" walk about 5-10 minutes after school lets out, and being in suburbia half the kids can walk to and from school, the young ones with their parents. I'm out walking, and some of them see me from across the street and freeze, and then point. The parents laugh, and then drag the staring kids away. I also bump into them on my side of the street going in the opposite direction, and they do the same thing...freeze....point, ask mommy or daddy, who tend to chuckle, and I of course are required to smile with a twinkle in my eye and give them the occasional wink and greeting.

I've been bum rushed twice, walking on the sidewalk and I hear this clicker clatter of little feet and they run right up beside me and look up, with this stunned, OMG look on their faces. And they freeze. It used to be weird but nowadays all I need to do is smile, and say hello, and on occasion make a christmas crack, for the kid or parent, depending on which of them begins talking first.

I've seriously considered wearing one of those red santa hats, the long white beard is all natural, and I've got the rolly polly shape as well. Happens mostly in the fall, after it starts getting chilly. Been offered jobs at the mall during the season, just out of the blue. It runs in the family, my uncle was the same way, except he had these most piercing blue eyes, he was a perfect Santa.

[mousepad]

True story, so I get SC patches on all my walking jackets and carry candy to hand out.

Get out. Is that really true?

Seriously. At the end of my suburban block there is a elementary school. When daylight savings time comes around, it gets dark by 5PM, so I go for my "as daily as possible" walk about 5-10 minutes after school lets out, and being in suburbia half the kids can walk to and from school, the young ones with their parents. I'm out walking, and some of them see me from across the street and freeze, and then point. The parents laugh, and then drag the staring kids away. I also bump into them on my side of the street going in the opposite direction, and they do the same thing...freeze....point, ask mommy or daddy, who tend to chuckle, and I of course are required to smile with a twinkle in my eye and give them the occasional wink and greeting.

I've been bum rushed twice, walking on the sidewalk and I hear this clicker clatter of little feet and they run right up beside me and look up, with this stunned, OMG look on their faces. And they freeze. It used to be weird but nowadays all I need to do is smile, and say hello, and on occasion make a christmas crack, for the kid or parent, depending on which of them begins talking first.

I've seriously considered wearing one of those red santa hats, the long white beard is all natural, and I've got the rolly polly shape as well. Happens mostly in the fall, after it starts getting chilly. Been offered jobs at the mall during the season, just out of the blue. It runs in the family, my uncle was the same way, except he had these most piercing blue eyes, he was a perfect Santa.

LOL! You shouldn't have said that. I cannot take you seriously anymore after having this picture of you burnt into my mind. You seem a gentle soul, yet here you are, posing as a hardass.

[AdamB]

LOL! You shouldn't have said that. I cannot take you seriously anymore after having this picture of you burnt into my mind. You seem a gentle soul, yet here you are, posing as a hardass.

Am I not allowed to be a gentle soul who, once personally affronted by a group of true believers in the early days of web forums, became inquisitive and incorporated the interest, study, and required bad attitude when dealing with such folks to remain in tune with not just the professional geoscience world as it relates to peak oil....but also...the nutters?

It is unfortunate that peak oil as a concept was discredited by new oil volumes before I could get credit for having solved it.

[AdamB]

We obviously peaked back in November 2018. And post peak is unraveling almost exactly as we knew it would. The only inexhaustible resource is Adam B's trolling.

Revi, good luck in the election next week. We're all pulling for you here. Can you imagine, you can stand up in the halls of power and on the record and tell folks about peak oil? Don't mention how long you've been hoping and praying for it (might cost you credibility), but you can have some fun with it right? Scare some of those backwoods types in your state district into buying solar panels and whatnot? State tax breaks for EVs? In any case, good luck, and let us know how it goes!

[AdamB]

Revi, have you done any polling or anything like that to figure out what your chances are of getting elected? As you can imagine, a peak oiler within the state legislature has all peak oilers all a-twitter over the possibilities.

[AdamB]

I am live blogging this evenings election result for our very own Revi!! He is attempting to bump off a Republicrat that has poorly represented his local Maine district and probably knows that peak oil hysteria was a crock like everyone else but Revi will not be denied! I haven't seen any of Revi's election advertising, but I'm sure his maple syrup and film making on Peak Oil would be prominent pluses on his side when convincing the locals that a Democan (non-communist) is better for the locals than a Republicrat ( non-proto-fascist).

Go Revi!

[AdamB]

8:40 PM EST Maine state results just started to flow in. Some races being called have only 12-14% reporting, kind of interesting. No Revi results in yet.

9:24 PM EST No updates on Revi's run for office, zero votes reported so far in his district

9:52 PM EST No updates on Revi's run, but more of the districts are gaining vote totals and %'s so hopefully soon his district will have some results. Waiting with fingers crossed for Revi!

10:05 PM EST REVI TAKES A HIT!!! 95% OF THE VOTE IN!!! 61-39 IN FAVOR OF THE REPUBLICRAT!!! REVI LOOKS COOKED!!!!

Well, there was hope, and I know we were all rooting for Revi. Maybe his maple syrup needs more sugar or even Maineiacs know better than to fall for discredited peak oil ideas? Still, we were cheering for him regardless!! I say if we all support him next time, fund his local TV advertising, show up and do local interviews with him, testifying to his true blue faith in a discredited religion, maybe have some flapjacks on tape using his syrup, we can instill confidence to the viewers that Revi, the man who built his own EV, is worth the risk for Mainiacs!! 2024 or bust Revi!

[AdamB]

Final election results for Revi, defeated by a Republicrat, 60.6% versus Revi's 29.4%.

Thousands of people voted...3.....thousands.....or so.

Sorry Revi. We were pulling for you.

[Plantagenet]

The EIA is predicting that global oil production will go up in 2023, but by less then 1%.



Their prediction is global oil production will go from 99.92 million bbls/day to 100.67 million bbls/day.

eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil

The EIA apparently is counting the ca.150 million bbls Joe Biden pumped out of the strategic petroleum reserve as "oil production" in this years data.

I wonder if they are counting on Joe Biden pumping another 150 million bbls next year from the US strategic petroleum reserve as well?

Cheers!

[ROCKMAN]

And technically that oil wasn't "sold". It is "loaned" to oil companies which are then required to pay it back in kind over a set period of time. Maybe one year? So that volume should be subtracted from future oil production estimates to be fair.

[AdamB]

And technically that oil wasn't "sold". It is "loaned" to oil companies which are then required to pay it back in kind over a set period of time. Maybe one year? So that volume should be subtracted from future oil production estimates to be fair.

How's retirement going Rock?

[Tanada]

Remember Peak Oil? It Never Went Away

Remember peak oil? We recently wrote that it’s back but according to one of the original “peak oilers,” Richard Heinberg, author of the 2005 Peak Oiler classic “The Party’s Over, Peak Oil Is Back,” it never really went away.

According to the analysis done in the ’50s by geophysicist King Hubbert, peak oil was supposed to be happening about now, when production of oil would reach its maximum rate and then start its inexorable decline. In her excellent post—”What is Peak Oil? Have we Reached It?“—Katherine Gallagher described what might happen as peak oil bites:

“A drop in oil supply would lead to a spike in oil and fuel prices, which would affect everything from the agriculture industry to the transportation industry to the technology industry. The consequences could be as serious as widespread famine as food supplies dwindle or a mass exodus from metropolitan areas as the oil supply drops. At its worst, peak oil could lead to massive public unrest, geopolitical upheaval, and the unraveling of the fabric of the global economy.”



Balfour & Associates

We previously showed this dire rendering of Hubbert’s Peak from 2005, which puts us in the middle of confusion and heading into a period of chaos followed by collapse. It didn’t quite happen this way, thanks to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other unconventional oil sources like the Alberta oil sands. But according to Heinberg, author of the 2005 Peak Oiler classic “The Party’s Over, Peak Oil Is Back,” in fact, it never really went away.

In Resilience, Heinberg noted that fracking may have sent production soaring but the wells declined rapidly, and the boom was financed with cheap money. But it did let us worry about other things, like climate change. If there was any discussion of peak oil, it was a worry about peak demand rather than supply, where nobody wants the stuff because we have electrified everything.

But the European energy crisis caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine has put the supply question back on the table. Heinberg reminds us of the key points about our dependence on energy:

Energy is the basis of all aspects of human society.
Fossil fuels enabled a dramatic expansion of energy usable by humanity, in turn enabling unprecedented growth in the human population, economic activity, and material consumption.

This is ground covered by Vaclav Smil in his book “Energy and Civilization: A History,” writing: “To talk about energy and the economy is a tautology: every economic activity is fundamentally nothing but a conversion of one kind of energy to another, and monies are just a convenient (and often rather unrepresentative) proxy for valuing the energy flows. “

Smil also introduced us to the economist and physicist Robert Ayres, who wrote that fossil fuels didn’t enable the economy; they are the economy. “The economic system is essentially a system for extracting, processing and transforming energy as resources into energy embodied in products and services.”

Or, as I interpreted it in my book, “Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle“: “The purpose of the economy is to turn energy into stuff.” Following those trains of thought, one concludes that with no oil we have no economy.

Heinberg then pointed to new research and concludes that we passed peak conventional oil in 2005 and that “tight” oil from shale and fracking, along with unconventional sources like tar sands and extra-heavy oil, are not far behind. Will this lead to chaos and collapse, or can we have gradual and smooth decarbonization of our economies?

“That depends partly on whether countries dramatically reduce fossil fuel usage in order to stave off catastrophic climate change. If the world gets serious about limiting global warming, then the downside of the curve can be made steeper through policies like carbon taxes. Keeping most of the remaining oil in the ground will be a task of urgency and complexity, one that cannot be accomplished under a business-as-usual growth economy.”

But as Heinberg concluded, these measures will not be enough to dig us out of our coming crises. “Keeping the situation from devolving further will take more than just another fracking revolution, which bought us an extra decade of business-as-usual,” he said.

In what sounds like me calling for sufficiency—or what others call degrowth—he concluded:

“This time, we’re going to have to start coming to terms with nature’s limits. That means shared sacrifice, cooperation, and belt tightening. It also means reckoning with our definitions of prosperity and progress, and getting down to the work of reconfiguring an economy that has become accustomed to (and all too comfortable with) fossil-fueled growth.”

In the 1970s, reducing energy consumption was all about energy independence from foreign sources. In the 2000s, it was about peak oil. From the 2010s to the present, it has been about climate change. Throw in new research on particulate pollution and we have the new four horsemen of the apocalypse: war, climate change, peak oil, and cancer.

It seems we now have four good reasons for doing something about fossil fuels. Perhaps this time, we will.

[AdamB]

Remember Peak Oil? It Never Went Away
It seems we now have four good reasons for doing something about fossil fuels. Perhaps this time, we will.

Yeah, that is a really BAD article. I usually don't mind the uninformed doing their thing, but this one stands out for everything from misinformation to sheer topic ignorance. They don't even characterize Heinberg's work correctly, although he himself in a recent article is now on the record as being WAY revisionist on his own work, which this article appears to have borrowed from liberally.

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - Retirement is very boring. Between MS and Covid trapped at home. At least while working I could get something done online. Amazing: oil prices boomed but just a slow increase in rig count:

https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_oil_rotary_rigs

Should have been reaching or making new record count when oil prices peaked. Tells me companies did not have much inventory of prospects ready to go. Most folks have no idea how many YEARS it takes to generate economic prospects that take into account current oil prices. What gets drilled quickly are prospect already in the files but just waiting for better prices to reach economic levels.

For a petroleum geologist with 40+ years of experience this tells me how close we are to (or just at) PO. Too subtle for many outside the oil patch to recognize.

[AdamB]

Should have been reaching or making new record count when oil prices peaked. Tells me companies did not have much inventory of prospects ready to go.

I was reading some proprietary information this morning, companies even with the higher prices are having a tough time completing the wells they've got from a supply chain standpoint, and it is starting to show up in the DUC spread (TD to completion time) across public and privates, with it happening to privates worse than publics. I would have thought rigs would respond to the higher prices as well.

Alternatively, yes, inventory, it ain't what it used to be. I'm actually working on that angle right now.

Most folks have no idea how many YEARS it takes to generate economic prospects that take into account current oil prices. What gets drilled quickly are prospect already in the files but just waiting for better prices to reach economic levels.

Most folks don't know a rotary table from a kelly bushing, let alone any of the nuances involved in prospect, project or oilfield economics in general. We can't blame them of course, not everyone is cut out for life working in the patch.

For a petroleum geologist with 40+ years of experience this tells me how close we are to (or just at) PO. Too subtle for many outside the oil patch to recognize.

Yeah, well, we've been claiming PO in the modern era for 32 years now, I'm not about to start holding my breath anytime soon just yet, unless folks want to angle for PO from the demand side, like the IEA seems to have recently done.

[ROCKMAN]

What do you "we", white man? LOL. Some 47 years ago my first mentor at Mobil Oil explained how we would be approaching PO (we didn't use that term back then) sometime in the early 2000's. Trying to be more precise would have been a fool's game. And one reason is what you just alluded to.

[AdamB]

What do you "we", white man? LOL. Some 47 years ago my first mentor at Mobil Oil explained how we would be approaching PO (we didn't use that term back then) sometime in the early 2000's.

Hubbert was in that ballpark in the 50's, and in the early 70's post that US peak created quite a conversation item in the geoscience, academic and government world. I've got a stack of old pubs on that topic, so it wasn't just your mentor talking about it back then.

Trying to be more precise would have been a fool's game. And one reason is what you just alluded to.

Hubbert wasn't a fool, and he offered only maybe a 5 year range on his 1956 stab in the dark. Not enough of a range, but better than the near certain bobble head estimates that followed in the modern era (beginning in 1989 with Colin Campbell predictingd global peak in 1990). Based on ongoing claims still making the same fundamental mistakes of certainty and avoiding multidisciplinary requirements, no one has paid much attention to doing it right.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Sad to say but there is no need of any cheating to get Democrats elected in Vermont. Chittenden county has enough college students and transplanted flatlanders in it to swing most statewide elections to the dims favor.

Burlington! I was just there in June, had some lunch and looked around. Seemed like a nice place.

Yeah, in June it's likely fantastic. I was offered a job by IBM in Burlington when I interviewed in my home city of Lexington, KY, in '81.

Upon checking on the weather, and learning they have the long poles so you can find the fireplugs in winter, I said NO THANKS -- I'll wait and see if the hiring freeze loosens up in Lexington, and if not go for a masters on a teaching assistantship on UK's dime and wait it out.

(I don't even like KY's winter weather, though now it seems a lot more mild re the amount of snow we generally get vs. 40 years back). I'll leave north of the Ohio River to those who enjoy cold weather, at least in winter. But places like Toronto, the Detroit area, Philly, etc. can be really nice -- in the summer.

[AdamB]

(I don't even like KY's winter weather, though now it seems a lot more mild re the amount of snow we generally get vs. 40 years back). I'll leave north of the Ohio River to those who enjoy cold weather, at least in winter. But places like Toronto, the Detroit area, Philly, etc. can be really nice -- in the summer.

Having adapted to high altitude, semi-arid areas, I find east of the Mississippi to be both...less interesting....and buggy for a good chunk of the year, and dreary and damp the other half. I loved my trip around the Adirondacks and up and down and side to side in Vermont this past Labor Day, the weather was nice, the bugs were minimal, etc etc. Where I come from, the tri state area of PA, WV and OH, it is reasonable, albeit muggy, in summer, and occasionally buggy in general, and typically dreary in the winter. The temperature and snow don't bother me, but once the hardwoods lose their leaves, ick. Brown everywhere, usually damp feeling, just doesn't work for me. But I'll do from the Canadian to Mexican borders all day, any day, any time of the year, 2 wheels or 4. And Highway 1 in California north of LA up to the NW tip of the US isn't bad either.

[ROCKMAN]

Adam - I suspect you understand the problem he, and others, had was that the timing of PO depended on much more than the amount of oil left to be drilled. The demand from the global economy being one big reason for instance.