Peak Oil News and Message Boards

waegari wrote:

Tanada wrote:My big concern is it appears at this point the new Administration is going to go after fossil fuel reductions in a big way. Given Peak Oil that is going to happen no matter what they do, but a side effect of this is they will be blamed for the effects of Peak Oil despite the fact that nothing they can do will keep it from happening.

Absolutely. My worst fear is the backlash from that. What sort of a president will Americans support next time around? Obama is bound to disappoint loads and loads of people if he is not 100% candid on peak oil.

Exactly my point. I grew up in a truely Democrat Party family, my parents, syblings and kinfolk all vote Dem almost straight ticket. I think Mr. Obama because of events completly outside of his controll will be dealing with such a mess through Peak Oil that he will be the last Democrat President for a long time, or maybe the last ever because the party may go the way of the Whig party and be replaced in the system.

waegari wrote: Obama is bound to disappoint loads and loads of people if he is [s]not [/s]100% candid on peak oil.

I fixed the mistake for you.

waegari wrote:First: telling the American public that they cannot have it both ways. That is, both energy independence and a downright continuation of the American Way of Life. I didn't get the impression that the crowds at Chicago Grant Park were much aware of that problem.

Actually, you might be surprised. That speech was given in downtown Chicago. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 2/3 of that quarter million people got to the park by El, bus, bike, walking, and carpooling. People in Chicago *get* public and non-motorized transportation.

That's actually a bit hopeful. When President Obama gets hit with constant bad news about gas prices, he's going to fondly remember his hometown of Chicago and how people there accept high gas prices and ubiquitous transit and bike infrastructure, and might think "It works in Chicago, let's start putting it in everywhere."

vtsnowedin wrote:8) Well the President elect did repeatedly stated that he wants to move to energy independance. Now that he has got the job will he put someone on it that is peak oil aware and might push forward something that is usefull? For that matter is there consensus here about what the government should be doing in light of peak oil? I don't think filling bunkers with mylar packed food is a workable national strategy.

Rail. [Edit] ... and bikes.

kjmclark wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:8) Well the President elect did repeatedly stated that he wants to move to energy independance. Now that he has got the job will he put someone on it that is peak oil aware and might push forward something that is usefull? For that matter is there consensus here about what the government should be doing in light of peak oil? I don't think filling bunkers with mylar packed food is a workable national strategy.

Rail. [Edit] ... and bikes.

So I should ride a bike to work in January in VT or at least the seven miles to the nearest rail line. (Valleys flat enough for railroad max grades are rare here)? I will start to do this when A. the price of gas gets to $25/gal from gas tax increases or B. The government confiscates all automobiles after declaring martial law. or C. When hell freezes over.

There is a lot of work that should be done to upgrade the rail system. Its amazing how few miles of double track there are nationwide. But they will have to do a lot more than that to deal with Peak Oil.

The media has never cared about the issue.

They do care about outraged gasoline consumers who'll make a spectacle of themselves on TV.

They do care about international politicos jockying for market position.

They love conspiracy, and watch nutbars doing crazy things like hording supplies (stocking up your pantry..).

As soon as the outraged gasoline consumer disappeared; the story died. No "normal person" face to put on the lead in.

TonyPrep wrote:It's not clear that demand destruction has been enough to get production and consumption back in line. The next STEO estimates, from the EIA, will be interesting since the previous one estimated consumption ahead of production for August and September, with production falling, along with consumption.

If the new STEO, next week, continues that imbalance, then oil prices will have become disconnected from market realities and stocks will be wittled away, almost unnoticed, to leave an oil shock in the brewing, even whilst our economies are contracting.

For fun I'm compiling all the data on oil production forecasts from the IEO back to 2000, when the EIA projected 94.4 mb/d. Should make for a nifty chart.

Neither O or Mc made any earth-shaking pronouncements in the campaign, and we'll not get them now. Maybe O will jack it up to 2 million hybrids by 2015? Incidentally US sales are down 2.7%.



And October looks to be the worst month for sales in 25 years.

September 2008 Dashboard: Recession Catches Up with Hybrids

thuja wrote:We may be able to prolong the plateau phase of Peak Oil through recessionary demand destruction, but the consumption and depletion continues unabated.

My WAG says we most certainly will with demand destruction. Evidently, since everything consumes oil, the more we "save" it, the less we'll grow, prosper, etc.

TheDude wrote:Maybe O[bama] will jack up to 2 million hybrids by 2015?

From 350K to 2M it's 1.65M new hybrid vehicles. At an average of $20K, that's $33B and it only prolongs the plateau.

Incidentally, the war in Iraq costs $341M per day.

VMarcHart wrote:

TheDude wrote:Maybe O[bama] will jack up to 2 million hybrids by 2015?

From 350K to 2M it's 1.65M new hybrid vehicles. At an average of $20K, that's $33B and it only prolongs the plateau.

Incidentally, the war in Iraq costs $341M per day.

And the interest on 700 billion is about 100 million per day assuming someone will lend it to us. and the 700 B is a stop gap measure which probably is too little too late and dosn't actually fix the problem and may have made it worse.
"Such a deal"

vtsnowedin wrote:So I should ride a bike to work in January in VT or at least the seven miles to the nearest rail line. (Valleys flat enough for railroad max grades are rare here)? I will start to do this when A. the price of gas gets to $25/gal from gas tax increases or B. The government confiscates all automobiles after declaring martial law. or C. When hell freezes over.

Yeah. I guess you're just hosed. Luckily, you have a few more years before this becomes completely untenable. Maybe they'll set up a rural bus route in your area. Actually the real problem you'll run into is lack of maintenance on the roads. You must have a plan for when you get snowed-in in the winter. Just plan for that for a month or two each year.

I hope you aren't expecting Obama to solve that transportation problem.

QUOTE: Supply side challenges for battery raw materials and development of batteries may put the brakes on the EV revolution – our analysis suggests there is not enough 'stuff' to go around.

Demand for lithium remains strong and base case capacity is set to ramp up in the longer term. However, the supply picture for nickel and cobalt is far more challenging.

AND: Achieving EV penetration rates of over 10% by 2030 with the current battery technologies presents a challenge.

https://www.woodmac.com/news/editorial/ ... evolution/

10% penetration in 10 years (and that is "challenging," thus an optimistic projection) is much too slow a rate of switchover to postpone the next peak oil crisis. Or maybe we should call it the peak oil-cobalt-nickel crisis!

Daniel Doom wrote:https://www.woodmac.com/news/editorial/ ... evolution/

10% penetration in 10 years (and that is "challenging," thus an optimistic projection) is much too slow a rate of switchover to postpone the next peak oil crisis. Or maybe we should call it the peak oil-cobalt-nickel crisis!

And peak oil demand happening within 3 years or so would certainly alleviate that concern.

And because it doesn't appear to involve the assumptions of EV market penetration that Woodmac calls for, we don't have to worry about that peak cobalt or nickel problem either!!

I understand that doomers gotta doom, and in an environment where scarcity of oil supply isn't the issue at this point, hoping that peak oil demand is as far off in the future as possible is like what, Bad Option #2 to not getting one's doom when they want it?

.

There is much more to oil demand than the suburbia demand for commuting fuel
that's a minor usage an a typical fixation of suburbia
ever heard of industry ,farming , aviation , military and long distance transport

as for global demand , well it is still going strong ......101 M/b/d and rising

vtsnowedin wrote:So I should ride a bike to work in January in VT or at least the seven miles to the nearest rail line. (Valleys flat enough for railroad max grades are rare here)? I will start to do this when A. the price of gas gets to $25/gal from gas tax increases or B. The government confiscates all automobiles after declaring martial law. or C. When hell freezes over.

There is a lot of work that should be done to upgrade the rail system. Its amazing how few miles of double track there are nationwide. But they will have to do a lot more than that to deal with Peak Oil.

Or just take an HEV, a PHEV, or a BEV to work, and relax, even if the price of crude or the environmental laws get to where you can't afford to or aren't allowed to burn it? Wouldn't that be a lot simpler and involve a lot less arm waving?

Just assuming that "peak oil" means we have to plaster rail lines (and lots more) all over the place seems rather presumptuous, especially given that peak oil will most likely be from peak DEMAND, as motor transport moves towards electrification. If the price of oil pushes that more quickly, all the better.

Gasoline has been averaging around $2.50ish, near enough, in the US overall, this year. And the price of WTI has been averaging in the $50's, eyeballing the chart.

How in the WORLD is the price of crude going to get sustainably over $500 a barrel, forcing the price of gasoline to $25 or more? (Taxes don't have to increase, and electric technology means transport wouldn't scale at 10X, etc. so it would actually take a crude price more like $750 or so, I expect).

Given we KNOW that society will adapt to shortages and we NOW have the means to move to electric transport as the economics make sense -- the idea that we'll just sit around and whine while crude zooms to 10X+ its current price in the next decade or three makes NO sense at all.

At least not in the real world, with all the known oil resources, and all those that will become economic (and more to be found) if the price of oil gets to $150 for years, MUCH LESS $500 or more.

Seriously, give it up. Unless there is some sort of ELE (extinction level event), where having enough oil resources on earth is a moot point -- the whole "Mad Max" vision of the world from oil "running out" just doesn't make a lot of sense for MANY, MANY decades, at a minimum. (Oh sure, maybe in hundreds of years, they're fighting over the remaining oil for petrochemicals, though unlike doomers, I believe in society adapting to shortages re things like innovation and substitution -- same as it has since, say, the industrial revolution.)

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. solidified its status as an energy producer by posting the first full month as a net exporter of crude and petroleum products since government records began in 1949.

The nation exported 89,000 barrels a day more than it imported in September, according to data from the Energy Information Administration Friday. While the U.S. has previously reported net exports on a weekly basis, today’s figures mark a key milestone that few would have predicted just a decade ago, before the onset of the shale boom.

President Donald Trump has touted American energy independence, saying that the nation is moving away from relying on foreign oil. While the net exports show decreasing reliance on imports, the U.S. still continues to buy heavy crude oil from other nations to meet the needs of its refineries. It also buys refined products when they are available for a lower cost from foreign suppliers.

“The U.S. return to being a net exporter serves to remind how the oil industry can deliver surprises -- in this case, the shale oil revolution - that upend global oil prices, production, and trade flows,” said Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush and president of the consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group.

Article continues.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-posts- ... 03996.html
If you read further you find the Texas frackoil producers are predicting a decline in just a year or so. But if we can be a net exporter today with gas at $2.75 a gallon I'm sure we can be energy independent if needed by just raising gas prices up into the $4 to $5 range.

vtsnowedin wrote:

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. solidified its status as an energy producer by posting the first full month as a net exporter of crude and petroleum products since government records began in 1949.

The nation exported 89,000 barrels a day more than it imported in September, according to data from the Energy Information Administration Friday. While the U.S. has previously reported net exports on a weekly basis, today’s figures mark a key milestone that few would have predicted just a decade ago, before the onset of the shale boom.

President Donald Trump has touted American energy independence, saying that the nation is moving away from relying on foreign oil. While the net exports show decreasing reliance on imports, the U.S. still continues to buy heavy crude oil from other nations to meet the needs of its refineries. It also buys refined products when they are available for a lower cost from foreign suppliers.

“The U.S. return to being a net exporter serves to remind how the oil industry can deliver surprises -- in this case, the shale oil revolution - that upend global oil prices, production, and trade flows,” said Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush and president of the consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group.

Article continues.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-posts- ... 03996.html
If you read further you find the Texas frackoil producers are predicting a decline in just a year or so. But if we can be a net exporter today with gas at $2.75 a gallon I'm sure we can be energy independent if needed by just raising gas prices up into the $4 to $5 range.

And/or just use a moderate tax credit to encourage far more people to drive, say, efficient mid-sized HEV's instead of full sized SUV's and pickups that most don't actually need. (If they need to haul something, they can certainly rent a truck or van, etc. for a day).

But yeah, just some intelligent incentive to change a moderate amount of driving behavior would do the trick.

Of course, I started advocating for this concept in 1981 in college, as we experienced the third significant oil price/gas scarcity episode in a single decade, re gradually but persistently raising gasoline taxes to encourage conservation and innovation and, in short, DEAL WITH the problem instead of ignore it.

Given where we are 4 decades later and how popular the idea of intelligently using fuel taxes to save lots and lots of oil consumption is in the US, ***STILL*** -- I think we just have to hope we get lucky for a decade or three as the EV revolution occurs. Yes, it's STUPID policy to do that, but it's also normal for the US.

.
Once again .....what demand destruction ?
global oil consumption is rising ,

sparky wrote:.
Once again .....what demand destruction ?
global oil consumption is rising ,

Yes. And it will likely do so for some time yet. However, that doesn't mean demand destruction via things like conservation and better ICE and HEV engines, and of course the increasing number of HEV's and PHEV's don't exist.

It's not a matter of it, but when such vehicles reach a point where the overall demand for motor transport FF fuels will decrease.

sparky wrote:.
Once again .....what demand destruction ?
global oil consumption is rising ,

Yes but as Ronald Reagan used to say about the Federal budget the rate of increase is decreasing. Already the OECD developed countries are flat to a bit of decline while the increase is in Asia (1.7mbpd)comes particularly from India and China. In China EV sales have reached 4.6% of the market but over manipulative communist regulators have cut subsidies for EVs and cut taxes on ICE cars putting a damper on that trend.
All it will take is a price spike from some supply shortage to decrease demand rapidly but at present the low price is keeping demand steady.