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Let's Discuss Peak Oil For A Change

Unread postPosted: Tue 30 Aug 2016, 21:23:49
by ralfy
Most people worldwide earn less than ten dollars a day and lack one or more basic needs, including education, health care, and shelter. That means for most of the world population the sky fell some time ago.

For the industrial civilization that the same population relies upon, the sky will fall not because of peak oil or climate change but because of both plus multiple crises amplifying each other:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... g-collapse

The key point to consider involves crises amplifying each other.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 00:45:22
by AdamB
Plantagenet wrote:
AdamB wrote:"the faithful", is a good way to describe what is required of acolytes. Funny how all of this was discovered and known long ago, and yet, the "faithful" are only required to believe....no thinking required.

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/200 ... igion.html


You are remarkably ignorant.

Peak Oil is not a religion. Peak Oil is a scientific hypothesis, originally formulated by M. King Hubbert.


Peak oil isn't a religion? Well...opinions vary. From 6 years ago no less, when it wasn't clear yet that the price response to $100+ oil would be glut.

OilPrice.com wrote:Peak oil is a religion. And like most religions, the majority of followers do not have a clear understanding of exactly what it is they are supposed to believe. They only know that they believe it, and they are right, dad-blame-it! Meanwhile, the world keeps turning.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Wh ... sider.html



Plantagenet wrote:Yes, some of Dr. Hubbert's predictions have not occurred. However, the overall hypothesis remains valid, i.e. that at some time global oil production will reach a peak and then decline.


Absolutely. But you have chosen the only axiomatic part of his seminal work on the topic. Nothing wrong with that. Always helps to stand on common ground when figuring these things out. The problem then being, people conflate the axiom with the ability to keep slapping bell shaped curves on things, not taking the required 10 seconds of thought to figure out why that the particular shape is NOT axiomatic.

Plantagenet wrote:I think we'll eventually see that prediction validated.

Cheers!


I agree completely.

And 2+2=4. Can't wait for Mr StarvingLion to come along and deny that one!

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 00:57:00
by AdamB
ennui2 wrote:Oil depletion will be validated.


Oil depletion was validated after Drake filled his 1st bathtub with oil and kicked off the beginning of the "running out" (now peak oil when oil, obviously, wouldn't run out) debate.

Perhaps I do not understand what you mean by "validating depletion"? The very act of removing the first barrel was itself depletion, the first barrel of it. We had more than a trillion more barrels of additional depletion since that time, and look to hit multiple trillions before we really get through the ongoing transition in our transport choices.

ennui2 wrote: The simplicity of Hubbert's perfectly smooth and symmetrical bell-curve as applied to global scale won't be.

Few people here understand the devil's in the details.


Few people care about the details. Why should they, a majority aren't looking for an objective analysis of the topic, if they were these threads would be filled with tales of conversations with EIA and IEA and BOEM and USGS scientists, research people inside DOE in the fossil fuels research divisions, we would talk about what our calls to RyStadt and CERA and IHS revealed. Go back through the archives and it is stunning, what passed for a reference back then. Nowadays? Crickets.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 00:59:42
by AdamB
ralfy wrote:Most people worldwide earn less than ten dollars a day and lack one or more basic needs, including education, health care, and shelter. That means for most of the world population the sky fell some time ago.


Not if they once made less, and worked themselves up to a decent raise to get to that 10 dollars a day.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 01:05:59
by AdamB
pstarr wrote:As long as most people fail misunderstand what science is about, there will be little chance for human progress.


I tend to agree.

pstarr wrote:Or to avoid the oncoming tragedy of peak oil. Some people need to stop lecturing and listen and read.


Oncoming tragedy? Onlooker says it happened a decade ago, him and some unnamed "experts" anyway. You are looking at peak oil a decade in already...$1.95/gal here, pickup sales are up, natural gas is so cheap they are retiring coal plants to use the new cheap fuel, I mean peak oil in onlookers world is:

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Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 01:15:38
by ROCKMAN
"The simplicity of Hubbert's perfectly smooth and symmetrical bell-curve as applied to global scale won't be." Hubbert did not make such a prediction. In fact he specifically says it will not be symmetrical but will exhibit a long tail. An easy mistake to make given how many folks have drawn a "Hubbert curve" that has little resemblance to his work.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 01:42:08
by ennui2
ROCKMAN wrote:Hubbert did not make such a prediction.


That's like saying Islam is the religion of peace.

We know what the tenets of the peak-oil movement were back then and there was no talk about "undulating plateaus" and what not until the chart-watchers realized that things weren't all smooth and symmetrical after all.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 02:05:40
by peripato
pstarr wrote:You two are twins of misdirection. I say one thing, and Adam responds with something onlooker said who-knows-when? Rockman makes a simple obvious correction (Hubbert's long tail) and you ennui go off on world religions?

This is like debating a bad AI program. All nonsense with a fancy dictionary.

Indeed. It's the epitome of trolling...

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 11:54:14
by Revi
Whatever. Peak oil is not dead, just because we all made predictions that didn't happen on schedule. We have a problem that is not going away. If we had switched to a less intensive lifestyle as a country we wouldn't have the problems with debt and pollution we are experiencing now. Woulda, coulda, shoulda... I have a feeling that peak oil will be back with a vengeance soon enough.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 12:46:07
by Plantagenet
AdamB wrote:
Peak oil isn't a religion? Well...opinions vary.


For heaven's sake. Why are you wasting everyone's time with this drivel?

Opinions vary on everything. Nonetheless, it is obvious to anyone with a brain that the peak oil theory is a scientific hypothesis promulgated by a Ph.D. scientist in a series of monographs and refereed scientific publications.

Yes, you can find various examples on the internet of people saying peak oil is religion, but almost without exception these are not meant to be taken literally but are instead rhetorical statements intended to ridicule both the idea of peak oil and its proponents.

Cheers!

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 17:54:12
by onlooker
And here Adam, is where you reveal your bias against the essential logic and scientific basis of peak oil. My use of faithful was a figure of speech yet you ran with it. Why is that? It is because you and a few others have no basis to critique other than the sky has not fallen YET. In your world if civilization does not crumble immediately to fine bits of dust you think peak oil does not exist. You seem oblivious to the peak oil dynamic which was a term originally here penned by Rockman whose expertise dwarfs most of us here on this site. You and others do not wish to acknowledge the signs present already which quite a few checked agreement with. The whole focus on LTO-Unconventional Oil is precisely because we peaked with the good stuff easy to get, refine and produce light sweet crude. The price of oil, all the lending being employed, the sluggish economy all are further signs of peak. Our Economies are not functioning adequately anymore because of a debt and growth based system reliant on cheap bountiful cheap energy. This is also logical and axiomatic. The deep water exploration, the lack of noteworthy discoveries now for some time, the using of reserves at much higher levels than new oil coming online, all these are further signs of trouble for the Oil industry. But you guys want it all or nothing. Civilization must immediately collapse or peak oil does not exist. Not caring to recognize that it is a process that takes time to unwind and that the behemoth Oil industry is trying to postpone doom as long as possible. So you guys are the ones railing about predictions of doom not knowledgeable people who understand that the peak oil and economic dynamic has been and will be manifesting itself in different ways on the bumpy road to collapse.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 18:52:49
by AdamB
Revi wrote:Whatever. Peak oil is not dead, just because we all made predictions that didn't happen on schedule.


Didn't get the volume right either. Or the price path. So..if you don't get ANY of the key components correct, don't you think it is time to reevaluate the techniques whereby peak oilers screwed it up so badly?

revi wrote: We have a problem that is not going away.


Oh, the glut will go away.

revi wrote: If we had switched to a less intensive lifestyle as a country we wouldn't have the problems with debt and pollution we are experiencing now. Woulda, coulda, shoulda... I have a feeling that peak oil will be back with a vengeance soon enough.


You've always had that feeling revi. The cure to low oil prices is low oil prices...so you'll be right soon enough. And then peakers will proclaim peak (again), rinse, repeat, etc etc.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 19:00:29
by AdamB
Plantagenet wrote:
AdamB wrote:
Peak oil isn't a religion? Well...opinions vary.


For heaven's sake. Why are you wasting everyone's time with this drivel?


I provided a reference, from oilprice.com. They didn't consider it drivel, wrote an entire article about it. Seemed disturbingly accurate, if you ask me.

Plantagenet wrote:Opinions vary on everything. Nonetheless, it is obvious to anyone with a brain that the peak oil theory is a scientific hypothesis promulgated by a Ph.D. scientist in a series of monographs and refereed scientific publications.


The more the single peak hypothesis is discredited by the reality of oil production, the less i'm thinking that it matters how esteemed the authors were, or where they published the concept.

You are aware of scientific racism, as just one example?

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-9-most-influ ... 1575543279

Plantagenet wrote:Yes, you can find various examples on the internet of people saying peak oil is religion, but almost without exception these are not meant to be taken literally but are instead rhetorical statements intended to ridicule both the idea of peak oil and its proponents.
Cheers!


So the reason why you don't even mention the quality of the reference provided is because it ISN'T one of those kinds of references?

I might agree with you there.

Have a good day!

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Wed 31 Aug 2016, 20:42:31
by ROCKMAN
Adam - "The more the single peak hypothesis is discredited by the reality of oil production, the less i'm thinking that it matters how esteemed the authors were, or where they published the concept." I agree with you. But the problem isn't with the "peak oil hypothesis" because it isn't an hypothesis but an absolute fact: there will come a day when the world will never produce more oil (or NG, or coal, or watermelons, or etc). The hypothesis is the speculated date of any such peak.

Which is why you've never seen the Rockman offerr such a date. And I'm as f*cking esteemed as they can come. Just ask my momma. LOL. But I'm so smart I know what I don't...and that's what I don't know.

And then there's the other good reason (besides the possibility of being wrong and hurting my esteemness): the date doesn't make any eaningful difference to what matters to all of us. Maybe in 50 to 100 years we can look back and be completely certain that the final single PO date was June, 19XX. And the price of oil that date? IMHO it could just as easily be $40/bbl or $100/bbl. And the global economy might be booming or crashing on that date.

So again: why argue about the date of any event if that event is of little or no importance?

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Sep 2016, 09:47:46
by ennui2
ROCKMAN wrote:So again: why argue about the date of any event if that event is of little or no importance?


Because...internet.

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Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Sep 2016, 12:02:40
by AdamB
ROCKMAN wrote: But the problem isn't with the "peak oil hypothesis" because it isn't an hypothesis but an absolute fact: there will come a day when the world will never produce more oil (or NG, or coal, or watermelons, or etc). The hypothesis is the speculated date of any such peak.


Plantagenet and I discussed this already. The axiomatic part of Hubbert's claim is not in dispute. BECAUSE it is axiomatic. Of course there will be a peak. Of course the random speculation of when that peak takes places is wildly entertaining, and some zealots are very unhappy when they call one date, and get it wrong. So unhappy that they begin to redefine what hydrocarbons are in order to not be wrong! Don't ask me why, ignorance of basic organic chemistry has never struck me as a valid excuse for being so wrong.

Rockman wrote:And then there's the other good reason (besides the possibility of being wrong and hurting my esteemness): the date doesn't make any eaningful difference to what matters to all of us.


Quite true. What matters is the relationship between supply and demand, not supply alone. But this is the part of where economics grabbed peak oil by the short hairs and ripped them out, leaving peakers screaming about unfair it is, others knowing things they don't. Like it the other guys fault that peakers refused to learn from all the past claims of peak and running out. Those who refuse to learn history are doomed to repeat it...

Rockman wrote:Maybe in 50 to 100 years we can look back and be completely certain that the final single PO date was June, 19XX. And the price of oil that date? IMHO it could just as easily be $40/bbl or $100/bbl. And the global economy might be booming or crashing on that date.


Hubbert looked back on peak oil in Ohio, during the early 1900's. Used it as an example in his seminal 1956 work. Then it about peaked again. 80 years later.

Might need to sit on that 100 year marker, just to be sure. Took the entire US 55 years to repeak, so, yup, call it a century to be sure.

Rockman wrote:So again: why argue about the date of any event if that event is of little or no importance?


Agreed. Everyone who ever picked a date, in the past or now, are just run of the mill ignorant. The date just doesn't matter, and the event itself is axiomatic. Sounds like its time to close up the website and go home, now that we've discounted the value of any conversation related to this topic for at least a century.

You did it Rockman!!

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Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Sep 2016, 12:33:53
by ROCKMAN
Adam - Actually long ago for me the PO date debate shifted from mildly entertaining to annoying distraction. Not quit as bad today but originally dominated the entire discussion.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Sep 2016, 12:39:35
by ROCKMAN
Glad to see that the "effects of PO" are already upon us is leading the poll. The only thing happier would be to see it called what it is: the POD! LOL. As I just said to Adam better to discuss all the aspects of the POD then to endlessly debate the date of global PO.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Sep 2016, 12:43:15
by onlooker
Sorry Rock, so use to calling it peak oil, if I can I will change it.

Re: Peak Oil - points of contention or agreement

Unread postPosted: Thu 01 Sep 2016, 15:04:40
by GoghGoner
I picked 4 points - the most popular ones. 87 total votes surprised me, I thought maybe 5 votes.