Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Plantie, one problem with peak oil credibility is that monthly, short-term production fluctuates a lot and interpreting any given drop as the all-time peak has several times proven mistaken.

spike wrote:EIA says C+C is 81.2 mb/d, latest data. This graph seems wrong.

If you check where the graph comes from, it originates from a Happy McPeakster location. So it has probably been modified to reflect their cherry picked information and definitions of oil, they've been doing that alot as of late.

tita wrote:So, picking old graphs to make some point doesn't work.

Doesn't work if you've got functioning neurons. Rarely do folks accuse peakers of having any of those.

shortonsense wrote:Once PO gets painted with the crackpottery brush, convincing any regular person of its value is more than difficult.

Precognitive quote of the week, and pretty much what happened.

shortonsense wrote:

mos6507 wrote: You're here to mirror JD's position in peak oil debunked, which is that peak oil is real, but nothing to worry about.

Actually, I am here because I believe that resource depletion is an important economic issue, and I am distressed that the topic is being sullied by crackpottery.

Indeed!!

This is apparently a conversation between two perma banned folks, and yet it is obvious that they had chunks of what has been going on for years now?

shortonsense wrote:Momma didn't raise no fool. I am doing just fine and dandy in THIS peak oil because I paid close attention during the LAST one.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you....



So now we have someone who knew the jig was up...in real time to it happening, but before it became obvious to everyone else. Now it probably is worth going through this entire thread and seeing how much this person knew, because since then the world has come to realize that this peak thing is a crock, and this person was saying it first.

spike wrote:Plantie, one problem with peak oil credibility is that monthly, short-term production fluctuates a lot and interpreting any given drop as the all-time peak has several times proven mistaken.

Spikie, of course you are right.

Of course every short term drop in oil production shouldn't be considered to be the all time peak in oil production. Even over the long term oil production can go up and down dramatically. For instance, oil production in the US just exceeded the level it hit almost 50 years ago in 1970---. That means M. King Hubbert and many others who claimed the peak in US oil production was in 1970 were absolutely, totally and completely wrong.

Get it now?

Cheers!

Plantagenet wrote: That means M. King Hubbert and many others who claimed the peak in US oil production was in 1970 were absolutely, totally and completely wrong.

That is a gross overstatement. That seventy years of technological advancement has allowed us to improve recovery rates enough to create a second uptick in US production does not negate the validity of Kings work. He often acknowledged the possibility of such advances and the margins of error they created.

vtsnowedin wrote:

Plantagenet wrote: That means M. King Hubbert and many others who claimed the peak in US oil production was in 1970 were absolutely, totally and completely wrong.

That is a gross overstatement. That seventy years of technological advancement has allowed us to improve recovery rates enough to create a second uptick in US production does not negate the validity of Kings work. He often acknowledged the possibility of such advances and the margins of error they created.

That's true.

OTOH, the "peak is now" club tends to often discount advances in technology, thus projecting the downward slope (when it occurs) to be steeper to much steeper than it is likely to be (even to the point of fast-crash doom, at times).

Technology gains, efficiency gains, etc. should greatly help on the downside, (just as, sadly, the constant BAU growth in population and global energy demand hastens the day the downside arrives through increased demand).

Somehow the broad strokes making the big picture often tend to get lost or discounted, IMO, in the constant bickering over peak or not, doom or not, and trying to pick a specific date for the peak. If, for example, we're on some sort of undulating plateau (which seems reasonable to me), trying to pick THE peak won't be possible until it's clear we're on the far side of the plateau. Or arguing that oil obtained via technology X "doesn't count" somehow, although the things that consume FF's don't care as long as blending occurs to handle API requirements of refineries, etc.

You start off by picking the low hanging fruit. When you can't reach any more you go get a ladder. When you have reached all you can with that ladder you go get (or build) a taller ladder but eventually you will get to the top of the tree and more or taller ladders won't help. The market gets complicated when the guy in the next orchard has more low hanging fruit to sell when you have already had to start using ladders.

vtsnowedin wrote:

Plantagenet wrote: That means M. King Hubbert and many others who claimed the peak in US oil production was in 1970 were absolutely, totally and completely wrong.

That is a gross overstatement.

Not at all.

We've just exceeded the 1970 peak in US oil production. M. King Hubbert's claim that US oil production peaked in 1970 is incorrect.

I repeat----we are producing more oil in the US now then we did in 1970. M. King Hubbert said the US peaked in 1970 but we didn't.

Look at the numbers. The US didn't peak in 1970.....we are now producing a larger amount of oil then we did then.

More oil. Bigger number. Now more then 1970. Put the two numbers beside each other and the current number is bigger then the production number for 1970.

Its bigger now. More oil being produced now.

Bigger.

BIGGER.

B I G G E R.

B I G G E R.

B I G G E R







CHEERS!

Outcast - "That seventy years of technological advancement has allowed us to improve recovery rates enough to create a second uptick in US production does not negate the validity of Kings work." Yes and no. The monopolistic control of oil prices by the Texas Rail Road Commission kept the price of oil under $35/bbl from the 40's to early 70's. This was the pricing structure that Hubbard knew he was constricted with. Imagine if such control had continued until today: would and of the tech (shale production, Deep Water production, etc) exist today? Look at the chart: oil price booms (along with expensive new tech) and slumps came after the TRRC lost control of oil pricing:

https://www.google.com/search?q=inflati ... 8715219829

Oil development has existed in two very different universes for the last 70 years. Hubbard's universe disappeared in the early 70's. Not really fair to criticize him for oil development in a universe that could not be predicted when he did his analysis, is it?

ROCKMAN wrote:Outcast - "That seventy years of technological advancement has allowed us to improve recovery rates enough to create a second uptick in US production does not negate the validity of Kings work."

Just for clarity, I agreed with this statement, but I didn't make it. That was vtsnowedin

Outcast_Searcher wrote:

ROCKMAN wrote:Outcast - "That seventy years of technological advancement has allowed us to improve recovery rates enough to create a second uptick in US production does not negate the validity of Kings work."

Just for clarity, I agreed with this statement, but I didn't make it. That was vtsnowedin

Again, I must disagree. Hubbert's work has no validity today---its proven to be wrong.

People seem to think that Hubbert's contribution was the idea of peak oil. That isn't true.

Its common knowledge that finite resources run out. Athen's silver mines were depleted 2000 years before Hubbert, numerous mines were depleted since then, and when the oil age started in Pennsylvania the shallow oil fields in Pennsylvania quickly peaked and were depleted in the 19th century. When the oil in Pennsylvania started to run out people claimed that was the peak in global oil production---and that was back in the mid-19th century!! Since then many people have predicted or claimed oil was peaking at various times due to events in Texas or other areas. But they all were wrong----just as wrong as Hubbert has turned out to be with his predictions of when oil production would peak. Oil is a finite resource and if we exploit it long enough and use it up then it will run out. Thats obvious. But determining exactly when oil production will peak remains a major question.

The reason Hubbert's claims gained more credibility then those of other people in the 19th and 20th century who claimed oil was peaking, is that Hubbert claimed that he had derived an EQUATION that allowed him to predict when oil reserves would peak and then decline. M. King Hubbert is famous for the 1970 US oil peak because he PREDICTED it in advance using his simple equation. And then he went on to predict global oil production would peak in ca. 2000 using his simple equation. I agree Hubbert's work was important---Hubbert deserves credit for being the first person to attempt to use a scientific appoach to predicting the timing of peak oil.

But now we know his equation is wrong---it actually doesn't predict future oil production. Rather then going down since 1970 as Hubbert's equation predicted, US oil production has recently exploded upwards, exceeding the 1970s peak. Similarly, Hubbert's prediction of global peak oil in ca. 2000 has been proven wrong.

Face facts--- Hubbert's claim that he could predict when oil resources on a local, national and global level would peak and decline has been proven wrong.

People really need to be honest enough to accept the facts, IMHO.


M. King Hubbert said he could predict the timing of peak oil using a simple equation. He has been proven wrong.

Cheers!

If you say that oil decline is terminal and can never be reversed, as Hubbert did, then you have to question his assumptions and validity.

But now we know his equation is wrong---it actually doesn't predict future oil production. Rather then going down since 1970 as Hubbert's equation predicted, US oil production has recently exploded upwards, exceeding the 1970s peak. Similarly, Hubbert's prediction of global peak oil in ca. 2000 has been proven wrong.

that is incorrect, there is nothing wrong with his formula what was incorrect was the assumptions. His assumptions for total reserves were much smaller than what has been discovered and even though he noted there was already a double peak in Illinois historically he simplified the model to deal with only one peak. It is the volume of total oil that drives the peak calculation have that wrong and you can't possibly be right.

And what many either don't know or forget is that Hubberts real claim to fame was in the development (along with Rubey) a complete understanding of pore fluid pressure and how it assisted in the creation of rock failure through fracturing. It was this original work published in the fifties that lead to the basic concepts employed in fracking...which is what created the second peak in the US.

there is nothing wrong with his formula .....

Except its proven to be useless for predicting the exact things that M. King Hubbert claimed he could predict.

His equation doesn't accurately predict the predict the total amount of oil that will be recovered, it doesn't predict the date when peak oil will occur, and it doesn't accurately predict the magnitude of the peak level of production, and it doesn't accurately predict the rate of decline after the peak.

Why not face facts? M. King Hubbert claimed that he had a scientific method of predicting changes in the rate of future oil production, but his equation doesn't do what he said it would do. His inaccurate predictions of when peak oil would occur should now be relegated to the long list of other people's inaccurate predictions of when peak oil would occur.


Except actual oil production rates for the US and global oil in the real world haven't behaved the way the "Hubbert curve" predicted they would, i.e. Hubbert's scientific hypothesis has been falsified.

Cheers!

Plantagenet wrote:

there is nothing wrong with his formula .....

Except its proven to be useless for predicting the exact things that M. King Hubbert claimed he could predict.

His equation doesn't accurately predict the predict the total amount of oil that will be recovered, it doesn't predict the date when peak oil will occur, and it doesn't accurately predict the magnitude of the peak level of production, and it doesn't accurately predict the rate of decline after the peak.

Why not face facts? M. King Hubbert claimed that he had a scientific method of predicting changes in the rate of future oil production, but his equation doesn't do what he said it would do. His inaccurate predictions of when peak oil would occur should now be relegated to the long list of other people's inaccurate predictions of when peak oil would occur.


Except actual oil production rates for the US and global oil in the real world haven't behaved the way the "Hubbert curve" predicted they would, i.e. Hubbert's scientific hypothesis has been falsified.

Cheers!

OK so Hubbert was wrong? dose that mean that we will never run short of oil?

vtsnowedin wrote:OK so Hubbert was wrong? dose that mean that we will never run short of oil?

No, of course not. Oil is a finite resource, and we're burning it at a prodigious rate. At some point we'll deplete the world's oil resources (or people will just shift to something else by choice).

Hubbert didn't invent the idea that the world would eventually run out of oil---people have been saying that for 150 years, ever since the first oil wells in Pennsylvania started to dry up. Hubbert's claim to fame is that he came up with a scientific model to predict the pattern of changes in the rate of future oil production, including the date of peak oil---but his numerical model doesn't work, so his prediction of the date of peak oil has turned out to be just as bogus as all the prior predictions.

a few of the many bogus predictions of the end of oil made during the last century

Cheers!

His equation doesn't accurately predict the predict the total amount of oil that will be recovered, it doesn't predict the date when peak oil will occur, and it doesn't accurately predict the magnitude of the peak level of production, and it doesn't accurately predict the rate of decline after the peak.

perhaps you should actually read the 1956 paper instead of talking out of your backside. He assumed what the ultimate oil recovered would be and then used that to derive peak based on the assumptions he outlines. The formula is completely consistent with his assumptions and his inputs. It was the assumptions that were wrong. He assumed the US oil picture and global picture would be shaped by a set of finite reserves that would be developed and there would be no realtionship with price.

It is clear you do not actually understand what he did or what the conditions surrounding his conclusions were.

vtsnowedin wrote:OK so Hubbert was wrong? dose that mean that we will never run short of oil?

What the failure of Hubbert's curve means is that we no longer have an easy way to predict when it will run short. We're in uncharted territory and I can see why that might feel disconcerting.

The paradox in the old days was that yes, doomers were freaked out over the future, but they felt they had a certain amount of clairvoyance about how this would all play out and when thanks to the perceived symmetry of Hubbert's curve.

It's easier to sort of make your peace (or feel superior to the "sheeple") if you think you already know how the future will unfold.

People's certainty wound up being shattered which, in most cases, caused them to alter their short to mid-term life-plans, while of course, a few die-hards dug in their heels and now insist that their changes were worth pursuing regardless of how long it takes to play out. But given how many stories by posters here such as Plant's frivolous plane trips around the world, I'd say most of us are taking full advantage of the persistence of BAU whether we want to admit it or not.