Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Pops wrote:

For fields which have passed their peak, observed output declined on average by 6.2 percent per year, according to the IEA ("World Energy Outlook 2013").

In a low price and or credit constricted scenario I'm thinking 6% per year is plenty steep enough to cause as much pain as any tree hugger can stand.

Subbing in rapid CC as the apocalypse du jour for those bored with the timeline of peak is all well and good but off topic here

If you look at how poorly the American economy has preformed over the last seven years even though for the 2010-2014 period domestic oil production was growing like crazy, well, how bad will it be with a decline in available oil?

Subjectivist wrote:If you look at how poorly the American economy has preformed over the last seven years even though for the 2010-2014 period domestic oil production was growing like crazy, well, how bad will it be with a decline in available oil?

And we're the bright spot!

There is more going on than just PO. China demand jacked up the global commodity markets like a big snort of crank, ditto the derivative Mortgage Ponzi, the peak of Baby Boomer earning, globalization, automation, Trickle-Up tax cuts, deregulation of "efficient markets" and on and on.

Having said that I'm not really sure what will happen, mainly because the peak will be so shrouded in the fog of crappy pontification like mine and populist anger like is already apparent. Could be production starts to decline here soon and the price will rise some. Is that the peak?

Who knows.

I guess I think if there is a decline in production much below current demand at the same time GDP is still positive the price will rise. I kinda think if that happens next year production might continue higher after this little breather. If it takes a while for production to fall and storage to deplete and prices to rise and drilling to resume... maybe not. All the while we are burning 95 million barrels a day, depletion never sleeps.

If supply doesn't return, can't return because of geologic reality, the price will be forced above the pain threshold, it must in order to lower consumption to match supply. I don't think it will go ballistic, just to the point where enough demand is killed off, $125-150 maybe... maybe $200-250 temporarily, just until folks get the idea that something has changed. Enough folks will be priced out at $4-5 gallon that demand will fall back a little and a few new wells will come online and increase or maybe just balance decline... for a while.

But when price goes the limit - 5% of GDP right? Recession typically follows and lots of places are on the verge of it slready, so there's that.

I really think the worst case is piddly little on and off shocks as the speculator game continues apace and they keep the market in turmoil that sends no clear signal. Then one day the gyrations stop because we've jumped the shark...

I agree with the shark analysis, and there's really no way to know for sure where the dropoff will be. There's also no way of knowing how, for instance, additional pushes for unconventional (which is on their own track separate from Hubbert's curve) will buffer things. Maybe we'll have a methane-hydrate revolution or an arctic drilling revolution which keeps pushing the Olduvai chasm further in the future (which of course will just make the climate impacts worse--pick your poison).

The whole point behind Dan Yergin's The Prize was to say that the unconventional _mattered_ and you know, he was right. It's not the whole story, but it's the current chapter, and shouldn't be ignored.