[MonteQuest]

I think the only real solutions will arise from addressing the demand rather than the supply side of things. We need to reduce petroleum consumption around the world....the only solution is to gradually decrease our consumption of petroleum.

But that's what peak oil will do. The end result is the same: reduced economic activity leading to recession, and finally, a depression without end.

We will address the supply side first, in a desperate effort to continue BAU.

Gradually decrease our consumption? 10%/yr? That's what we will have to do to keep up with decline, in order to have a surplus to apply to growth.

[dashster]

Give me what you estimate is the cost to build track.

Scalability is the ability of a system, network, or process to handle a growing amount of work in a capable manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth.


Now, increase that by 88% by 2030, and then add this along with new rail/truck hubs every, what, 200 miles? This represents 13 billion tons of truck freight/yr versus 2 billion tons on rail. To add it would be a 650% INCREASE.

Still want to debate this?

Yes I would still like to debate this. First thing is, you say that there is an increase of 88% in rail freight traffic by 2030. But you are a doomer. So how did you arrive at a 88% increase in rail freight traffic by 2030? There was a 2007 study on what it would take to upgrade the rail system. They quote the DOT in their 2007 report, which is probably what you are using:

The U.S. DOT estimates that the demand for rail freight transportation - measured in tonnage - will increase 88 percent by 2035.

The US DOT is not a doomer agency, so you cannot just use their optimistic forecasts for freight tonnage in your own reply, without stating why you are not a doomer with regard to rail freight shipments. Or you have to adjust their forecasts to your scenario. The United States still embraces population growth, but they only project population growth to go up 33% (~= 100 million) by 2065 or so. So we would have to be really doing well to be shipping 88% more stuff by rail in 2035.

As far as absorbing truck traffic entirely - in the above referenced report they say that rail traffic is 50% of what it is for trucks. So if they absorbed 100% of truck traffic, rail traffic would need to grow by 200% in ton miles. But it probably would not exactly equal a 200% change in number of trains. On the one hand trains can pull train-cars taller than what a truck-trailer is. But on the other hand, truck loads are likely less dense than current train loads, requiring more or larger trains to carry the same tonnage as, for example, a coal train.

[Tanada]

I posted this originally at the end of November 2014, right after OPEC announced they were not going to support prices and would be going after maximum market share instead. Despite all the heated political rhetoric being generated these last few months I still think this will be the ultimate influence, not our politicians, unless someone is foolish enough to start another war.

I believe conventional oil hit peak in between January 2005 and December 2008 but the way things are measured is so technical and obscure different people can pick any value in that period as peak. We got lucky that in the USA fracking had become mature enough technology by 2008 that ramping it up between 2010-2014 obscured the conventional peak very well, but it is the red queens race. Pops has posted graphs repeatedly over the last couple of years showing that in real terms all of the growth in world oil supplies has been USA fracked oil. The world market and end consumers do not care where the liquid fuel comes from and what damage is done extracting it, all they care about is how much it costs them individually to consume it.

Technically the world as a whole is producing more oil today than it was in 2008, but every bit of that hard fought growth has come from very high depletion rate fracked wells. If the USA fracking bubble pops due to this theoretical oil glut USA production will rapidly fall back to the conventional decline level plus deep water oil plus sweet spots where the oil producers can still make money fracking.

Who knows, once this bubble is popped perhaps the push to develop Utah tar sands will take off again, it was just starting to get attention from finance when the Fracking boom took off and sucked up all the capital for investment. Or maybe the Thermal Depolymerization of Lignite coal will be the next big player. Or maybe they will fire every arrow in the quiver of idea's and still fail to replace declines in conventional oil.

That, IMO, will be the final peak.

But look on the bright side, because there are so many idea arrows in the quiver we have so far delayed world terminal decline for 6-9 years depending on where you place conventional peak. BAU has managed to stumble along years past where I thought it would end. At this rate we will continue to use up conventional reserves at that 4.6% rate MQ mentioned above and every arrow in the quiver will have a larger gap to make up between conventional production and over all demand. Even if every arrow is as successful as the Fracking arrow each only applies to a limited resource base which limits its potential effect. Athabasca/Utah tar sands are huge, but we can only extract them at a limited rate. Orinoco super heavy oil is the same, vast but slow to extract. Lignite TDP requires large factories and big mines to have much impact. Probably the biggest possibility is underground coal gassification being used as feed stock for F-T synthetic fuel production. There is a lot of coal too deep for surface or shaft mining that can be drilled, fracked, control burned in place and used as feedstock for F-T. It has been done a few places, but just like the Utah tar sands the Fracking boom in the USA sucked up all the capital and it has not been deployed so nobody really knows what it will cost in money and environmental terms. If it turns out to be as cheap as some of the estimates I have seen online we will fall back into happy motoring for another 20 years. At the end of that 20 years conventional oil would only be producing about a quarter of what we have today. Then what?