spike wrote:When I started, "unconventional" was used broadly to mean "currently unrecoverable" including "deep" water fields, more than 500 feet.
And Colin Campbell was lumping "polar" oil in there as well, but notice, you reference a TIME when this word meant something. Prior to wild spread establishment of use of mud systems and the rotary table, fields like Ghawar or Prudhoe would have been "unconventional". Water bearing formations and depth being a bit hard on cable tool rig drilling.
I am quite a bit happier with the word "currently unrecoverable" because it means something, and doesn't require reconfiguring the geologic world, or making up words that only mean "gee I only found it yesterday, therefore it must be so unconventional!"
spike wrote: There is a difference between production methods with conventional reservoirs and continuous deposits (shale), and for heavy/tar oil, chemistry is different.
But it all comes out as gasoline, and you can't differentiate the source.
Peakers walk into the trap of "if the source matters all that much, why don't they sell it that way at the gas stations" trap all the time. "Sorry my good gas station attendant, I don't want any of that cheaper and nasty derived from tar sands gasoline, I'll pay more for the same product derived from only the best and most conventional light sweet Arabian Light based crude for my fine German performance sedan thank you very much".
A chemical engineer can make the consumers desired product out of light sweet, heavy sour, tar sands, shale derived, hydrate derived, shale gas derived natural gas, so who cares what gets put into the manufacturing facility, what matters is what comes out.
Plant Thu 27 Jul 2023 "Personally I think the IEA is exactly right when they predict peak oil in the 2020s, especially because it matches my own predictions."
Plant Wed 11 Apr 2007 "I think Deffeyes might have nailed it, and we are just past the overall peak in oil production. (Thanksgiving 2005)"