[AdamB]

welcome back mut, long time no drivel

What a nice welcome back, surprised you remember me, with your Australian sized intellect.

I've been busy. Not all of us are in retirement where we pretend we have ridden on racetracks, don't know what oil is, and spend our days cutting and pasting talking points because we can't think for ourselves, alternating with Nazi fanboi clubtime.

Your country figure out how to build a car yet? Oh sorry..my bad...just googled the answer...nope....still too difficult of a challenge. I'll stop back to pay attention to you when..you know....you evolve.

[AgentR11]

I was kinda thinking about multiple peaks... we always assume the theory requires a simple bell, but all that is really required is that the area under the curve is finite, meaning some peak exists, but there is no guarantee that the peak is a simple top of the bell curve peak. Those dips in between could be quite drastic too, given how unstable prices impact the overall economy, and how that drastically impacts oil demand at any particular point in time.

[theluckycountry]

The peak was always defined as "Peak of oil production" and was based on cheap conventional oil production. The consequences of the "Peak" was that economic growth would plateau and decline along with oil flow, because our economies are Oil. So all we have to do is look around at the World in toto and say "Is it growing still? In the conventional way...

The metric of GDP cannot be used for this, though it is, because it's delusional now. The Market cap Value of Tesla for example is not in any way reflective of the companies actual value. And all the big stocks suffer this phenomena. They pay next to no dividends, float on an ocean of debt, and are prone to instant and disastrous collapses in price, like the NVIDIA collapse the other week. People don't seem to realize the frightful change that has occurred in these markets even though analysts have been pointing it out for over a decade. The same applies to house prices, they in no way reflect the actual value of the properties now, properties that are made out of junk materials, sited on junk land far from water, food sources, and jobs in many cases.

All this implies that we have not been growing in real bread and butter terms, only in perceived terms, in virtual or daydream terms, in oil dependent terms. And that's just the rich West. Go to Bangladesh or Ceylon or Niger, or Venezuela, or Brazil, or any of the former "Developing" nations to see the real effects of peakoil, to see the well entrenched reversal in economic growth. I observed long ago that the ongoing collapse of these nations has been the reason the West has not suffered much as yet from the decline of conventional Oil supply, Their collapse has freed up oil for use by the wealthier nations, not much, but enough to make the decline "Not too bad as yet".

I won't even talk about the non-conventional, the pointless uneconomic oil extractions that have been added to the mix to push the numbers up and obfuscate the decline of oil. The purpose of those were simply to make money for the extractors, aside from a few jobs that came and went they added nothing to the real economic growth of the nations that engaged in them. They are like the EV bubble that promised cheap clean transport as efficient as our Gasoline cars but proved to be anything but! And now there is a shell game underway to include Gasoline burners in these EV numbers so that the figures don't look as bad as they really are. Why the sudden push to include hybrids? Hybrids were around in the early 2000's, long before the first commercial electric car rolled off the floor at Tesla. The Toyota Prius hybrid was never included in the early figures. In fact that technology was seen as being surpassed, that was the "stepping stone" remember, the stage before the transition to Real Electric Cars. So why include them now? Why, because their sales far exceed the sales of all electric cars that's why. They are no longer the stepping stone they are the Go-To. People have tasted the EV and spat it out, but the trillion dollar industry isn't willing to give up just yet! There are still profits to be made, it's just a matter of changing people's perceptions.

Unfortunately there is no going back to conventional oil because all the fields are depleting at furious rates, they are well down on their 2008 figures. The pointless production numbers the IEA and other political smoke and mirrors organizations put out cannot hide the fact that we are off the bumpy plateau now and beginning the long decline on the other side of the bell curve. It's why hundreds of millions are fleeing the once rich oil provinces of north Africa and the middle east, the once wealthier nation of Mexico. These nations have all passed their conventional peaks and modern life there is becoming untenable. You turn the taps off and you're sitting in a favela or barrio twiddling your thumbs and wondering where tonight's meal is coming from. A car, a trip to the beach? Forget it.

[mousepad]

The peak was always ....

I mean, your whole rant, from the beginning to the end is pretty much dead wrong. Amazing.
How is it possible to be that wrong?

[theluckycountry]

I mean, your whole rant, from the beginning to the end is pretty much dead wrong. Amazing. How is it possible to be that wrong?

You obviously weren't around at the beginning were you? Now turn off your TV and go have a drive around your city and tell me what you see.

[theluckycountry]

Peak Steel

There is a saying, attributed to Stalin, that “quantity has a quality of its own”. And if there is an area of life where this is most certainly true it is steel production. This metal is literally everywhere: from cars to kitchen utensils, from computer housing to hard disks, or from bridges and pipelines to tanks and warships. It’s perhaps no exaggeration to say that without steel there would be no such thing as modernity. There is a problem however: global steel production has stopped growing in 2021. Now it’s back to 2020 levels, producing the longest period of zero growth since the early 90’s (the fall of the Soviet Union). Are we seeing a return to the great stagnation of the 1975–1995 interval, when crude steel output barely grew for decades, or is this just one of those hiccups in global production growth? I suggest we are seeing another side effect of plateauing oil production, but let’s not get ahead ourselves just yet.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-156171460

[theluckycountry]

Back in the 00's, in the early days of mass internet, countless intelligent and qualified people came online and voiced their concerns about the impending peak of global oil production. They had done a mass of research, built up on the work of the Club of Rome, Hubbert, and many others. Now all we have is a bunch of cheeto munching TV addicted naysayers who go to the gas pump, see the price is still the same, and assume it was all BS. They do no research, they just post a few sentences, voicing their opinions

One of the big pushes back in the beginning was to get the world's governments to address the issue. To mitigate, or at the very least, acknowledge it! Early peakoilers grew more and more perplexed and frustrated when all their efforts fell on deaf ears. These were often highly qualified professionals in positions in government too. Well it's obvious now that the ears weren't Deaf. They could hear alright, they just didn't want to change course. That's the nature of corrupt governments. But something had to be done, just to shut these peakoilers and their doomsaying UP! So governments began making pronouncements about great transitions, to electric cars and 'trucks', to the unlimited oil in tar sands and shale deposits. They effectively buried the whole peak oil discussion under a mountain of lies and propaganda. Interest rates were dropped to 400 year lows and people were encouraged to go out and spend on the great transition.

We saw the exact same thing back in the 80's with recycling. people were screaming about all the plastic and other modern packaging that was clogging up landfills and making it's way into the World's oceans. They demanded redress, basically a switch back to products that "Would" be recycled like steel and aluminium cans, paper bags that had served us for centuries. Sorry, Corporate profits, and the Governments gave people recycling bins and told them to get to work cleaning plastic bottles so that they could be recycled. It didn't work though did it. The oceans are full of plastic and so are the landfills. No one hardly recycles it now, we used to send ours to China for them to do it but now they have turned their nose up it all goes into the landfill aside from certain drink bottless with a refund of 10-cents. A scam in itself when you read into it.

The propaganda about oil has been total. It's come to the point now where most people believe we never passed the peak! If they even engage in it hey talk of "many" peaks, not understanding the way data has been manipulated and non-oil products have been included into the oil accounting. Natural gas liquids for example, that are only useful for making plastic bags but are included in oil production figures. Now I can remember when Alan Greenspan famously stated that debt doesn't matter. Only a complete idiot would believe that, but a whole generation went out and bid up the price of houses to the point where the entire market globally had a crash. It wasn't in every city or country, and not all at the same time, the US crash preceded the Australian crash by a year, but that hardly matters. Why mention this? Because it's an example everyone can identify with regarding the Lies that drive our societies now.

But oil is the maker of everything. The master resource that took the average man out of poverty and put him on the road to an abundant life. Imagine the social turmoil when that process reverses (as it is now). So naturally governments had to hide the truth, and they still do! It will probably never be admitted outside of some distant future record of the history of the 20 and 21st centuries. Why do people, who are generally honest, have this pathetic belief that what's said on TV and the other mainstream media must be honest too? That the a politician vying for office must be telling the truth too? It's childish given all the evidence of past lies and corruption. It's like believing in the tooth fairy? But the answer to me is simple. They are basically unwilling to face the truth, to sacrifice anything of their modern lifestyle. They will though, they'll lose the lot in many cases, but until then it's fingers in ears and eyes closed as they cling to the bold lies that promise them a happy future.

Where are all the wise early peakoilers? Did they give up because they were proved wrong as many believe? No, they simply realized that their efforts were being wasted and they went off to do other things, awaiting the inevitable outcome as we passed through the bumpy plateau and began the inexorable slide down the other side of the bell curve. They got tired of being shouted down by the dumb masses on forums like this. Of dealing with the 'Stupid' people that are always the greater mass of any society.

[AgentR11]

The simple reality is that collapse didn't happen as predicted. It turns out it is far cheaper than one might expect to get grain from field to store, as long as there is some sort of economic system functioning. People get their cheetos, there is no risk of that not happening any time in the near future, and predictions 50 years out impress no one.

That doesn't mean that peak oil didn't or won't happen depending on peak of what exactly makes up oil, but that as I said from a very long time ago, Demand Destruction is not the problem, it is the solution, and it proceeds as needed and when needed.

[theluckycountry]

...We saw the exact same thing back in the 80's with recycling. people were screaming about all the plastic and other modern packaging that was clogging up landfills and making it's way into the World's oceans. They demanded redress

“Recycling” Makes Plastic Pollution Worse

If you’re like many people, you’ve always thought a numbered-triangle symbol on the bottom of a plastic container tells you it’s recyclable — giving you peace of mind that when you toss it into a blue bin, it will be turned into something else. That’s not true. Those symbols are Resin Identification Codes (RICs)...
Reluctant to burden citizens with figuring out which plastics are recyclable — a chore that could dampen participation and cause confusion as recyclability of various plastics changes over time — many municipal recycling programs simply encourage people to toss all their RIC-stamped plastics in the bin and let the recyclers sort it out...
The public’s falsely favorable perception of plastic recycling has been deliberately cultivated. Knowing consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of their purchase decisions, plastic manufacturers and product-packagers are quick to say a package is recyclable — failing to differentiate between plastics that are technically recyclable and those that are actually being recycled in practice...
However, governments get in on the deception too. Many cities, states and countries calculate their recycling rate based merely on what’s diverted from landfills — even if that plastic is incinerated or shipped off to another country where its fate is far from certain…

The most famous such ad was the “crying Indian” commercial that debuted in 1971. More recently, you’ve surely seen the ad that shows a plastic bottle — personified with a vulnerable yet determined female voice — blowing down streets, roads and highways before finally being placed in a recycling bin by a passer-by, and then happily turned into a park bench overlooking the sea. Neither the crying Indian nor the talking bottle are brought to you by environmentalists. They were underwritten by chemical and consumer product companies. While the ads are attributed to Keep America Beautiful, that entity is itself the creation of major packaging and beverage companies.

“The marketing of it, for decades, has been ‘You’re saving the Earth. That’s all you need to do, public. Keep consuming. You can do all this disposability and all you have to do is simply put it in that blue bin — your job as a citizen is done’,” the Burbank Recycling Center’s Amy Hammes told NPR. “So it led to more disposability, really, because we had that Get Out Of Jail Free card to ease our guilt.”

https://starkrealities.substack.com/p/r ... tion-worse

But even with this knowledge people will continue to wash out their bottles and put them in the appropriate bin. They will faithfully follow orders until new orders are given. I never have, I use that bin for cardboard, sure, but I'm not an unpaid bottle washer for items destined for the landfill. It was all explained to me years ago by a Uni Professor who did a study at a recycling plant. It's all Bullshit except for the metals.

[AdamB]

I was kinda thinking about multiple peaks... we always assume the theory requires a simple bell, but all that is really required is that the area under the curve is finite, meaning some peak exists, but there is no guarantee that the peak is a simple top of the bell curve peak.

It was only presented as a simple bell because Hubbert laid it out that way, had prior historical examples within the US as well as examples from other fuels.

And it was claimed to be that single peak right up until the backtracking became necessary, as peaks came and went. And I don't mean the US peak oil in 1970 and later in the 21st, but the global peak of 1979. Hubbert had predicted global peak more early to mid 90's. That one was a solid miss, both in terms of volume and time, as 1979 came along early and lasted right into Hubbert's global peak, and then ignored his prediction and just kept right on trucking.

Primarily multiple peaks as an idea arrived when it became obvious that Hubbert was wrong, and while some backtracked and fudged in other ways--"look, Hubbert meant these other kind of oils and not these ones I like!" that is just after the fact dodging.

Multiple peaks as an original idea is perfectly ok at the end of the day. Hubbert himself, when he claimed peak oil for the US in 1950 (he made the predcition in 1938 I believe) speculated that could be one or more peaks between then (1938) and the time he called peak for (1950).

The most illustrative peak to date in my mind was the 1970 US, which set the table for the apparent validity of Hubbert's idea, and the 1979 global peak, which demonstrated that the world did just fine, continuing to grow, and manufacture, and survive, for 15 years without any increase in oil production from the 1979 volumes.

At the end of the day it is far more an economic issue than an oily one, but non-renewable resource depletion is much more definative sounding and can be turned into scary rhetorik than wish-washy stuff like the price-supply-demand relationship underpinning basic economics.

[AdamB]

The peak was always defined as "Peak of oil production" and was based on cheap conventional oil production.

Hubbert's Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels

Morons can search for the word "conventional" if they'd like. Those who aren't morons already know it isn't there.

[AdamB]

The peak was always ....

I mean, your whole rant, from the beginning to the end is pretty much dead wrong. Amazing.
How is it possible to be that wrong?

This is peakoil.com.

Besides the fact that without moderation we get the idiot brigades from down under, we weren't all that great at getting it right ourselves way back when this place started. There were some here who once seemed to be in the know, even Mike Lynch was posting, agreeing with guys like Reservegrowthrulz and giggling over the value put on the opinion of accountants like Matt Simmons or yellow journalists like Ruppert. Savinar, most recently a substitute school teacher, having apparently given up his palm reading astrology money making ventures, hung out here before he got quoted on the House floor by Bartlett. Then he just levered that fame into an Amazon store and selling his lackeys solar ovens and window box tomato growing solutions for when TSHTF. Remember all the cool abbreviations?

That those who can't think their way out of a wet paper bag are still around isn't a surprise. But it appears to be mostly limited to foreigners. 'MURIKA!

[AgentR11]

I don't recall too many of the old abbreviations though EOTWAWKI kinda rings a bell. Looking at the FED EMRATIO chart (employment % of population), I wonder if its more a question that we got used to the relatively brief interval of the tech bubble from the 90's to the 2008 cliff from the real estate collapse, and now things have settled back in closer to historical average. We then look into the past with rose tinted glasses and think, oh but now is so much harder than it was back then, yet the house was 1000 sf, the car was an unsafe killing machine and the one job the family could find amongst themselves was *hard*.

What is the world as we knew/know it really supposed to have been I wonder. Or is it rather just a Return to the World as it Usually is.

[AdamB]

I don't recall too many of the old abbreviations though EOTWAWKI kinda rings a bell.

OMG!!! I remember that one, but only after you mentioned it. Those really were the good ol' peak oil days. It seemed reasonable, you can build fantastic end of the world scenarios on it, and when the Mayan Calendar and Yellowstone exploding and US draft schemes were all playing out, at the beginning of the internet when Life After The Oil Crash made the US Congress? The good ol' days.

Looking at the FED EMRATIO chart (employment % of population), I wonder if its more a question that we got used to the relatively brief interval of the tech bubble from the 90's to the 2008 cliff from the real estate collapse, and now things have settled back in closer to historical average.

At the end of the day, it is all economics. Oil, gas, non-renewables, they are all just part of the overall system folks are pinning their hopes of collapse on.

Peak oil was cool because it was claimed to be geologic in nature, you can't make more oil with money, right? And then when the US turned DRILL BABY DRILL into becoming the world's largest producer of oil and gas....EVER...the same people blamed it on QE1 and QE2. Because now you CAN make oil from money.

Poor perspectives of the totality of the system involved mostly, and of course most folks don't know dick about oil and gas, reserves and resources, what changes in incremental recovery mean in terms of the resource to reserve transition rate, and on and on.

We then look into the past with rose tinted glasses and think, oh but now is so much harder than it was back then, yet the house was 1000 sf, the car was an unsafe killing machine and the one job the family could find amongst themselves was *hard*.

What is the world as we knew/know it really supposed to have been I wonder. Or is it rather just a Return to the World as it Usually is.

I dunno. The whole rose tinted glassess affects us all differently I imagine, depending on how we grew up?

I know when I fled the backwaters of Appalachia at age 18 I had no intention of going back to that lifestyle. It wasn't a "good ol' days" or anything I wanted to do with ever again.

Amusingly, when I began participating in the peak oil world, there was a large "back to earth" contingent involved, stop being modern, go be a farmer, the guys who wanted to be he-man Rambo types with guns and ammo, they all could use peak oil to feed their fantasies. It is part of what made the topic so wide ranging and interesting.

Once the professionals figured it out, they took all the fun out of it. And then all folks are left with is like...pretending people deciphered the Mayan calendar wrong or something. Those who pretend they can excuse poor peak oil calls by putting words in the mouth of a seminal American geologist, I mean really, it is like a 3 year old confronting a PhD in mathematics and tell them that 2+2=5.

[theluckycountry]

Demand Destruction is not the problem, it is the solution, and it proceeds as needed and when needed.

It is the consequence, the natural outcome. The GFC curtailed demand across the world, Covid lockdowns really curtailed demand for oil across the world. A Great depression will have a a similar effect, only more lasting. It will push a lot of weak hands out of the game, a lot of highly indebted hands, a lot of hands that lose their jobs. After the dust settles the transition to luxury suburban lifestyle as was experienced after WWII will be absent, there being no cheap abundant oil to fuel it.

Whoever predicted the rapid mass collapse of Western society back in the 00's was just posting click-bait. The petroleum geologists and critical thinkers never put that idea forward. It was idiots like Michael Ruppert that plagiarized the work of others and then put there own doomsday spin on it to pump their sites. The average person can forgiven for falling for that at the time, but not now! It's been clear since 2012 what the real schema is, a slow decline in access to oil and Gas, compounding year on year, following the natural bell curve, just as the likes of ken Deffeyes put forward. "We will see high price volatility" he said, and so we have.

People that chose to ignore the peak of oil production have continued to pile on debt, gone out and bought modern junk houses in unsustainable suburbs, filled their driveways with over-priced electric cars. In short the see the sun still shining, at least on them, and are living as though nothing will change in their lifetimes. In 20 years we will be in an entirely different world and there will be a lot of angst as those people lose their access to the delights of the oil age.

[AdamB]

Why no matter what, humanity will experience peak oil.

I love this title, from someone back in 2004.

They were completely correct. Peak oil is now 7 years behind us, and we have been experiencing it for that long.

And?