Peak Oil's Bell Is Ringing 64 comments
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“Our ignorance is not as vast as our failure to use what we know”.
-- M. King Hubbert
A minority of geologists have long argued that hydrocarbons were formed through inorganic processes operating on carbon sourced from the earth’s mantle. Theories for an inorganic origin ranged from hydrocarbons raining from the sky early during the Earth’s formation and trapped into the surface rocks which, later transformed into petroleum. In all these cases, the presence of organic matter was attributed to the petroleum picking them up as it moved through crystal rocks containing organic material.
Unfortunately for the inorganic theory, all major petroleum discoveries have come from methods that assume an organic formation process. However, hydrocarbons are almost surely derived from organic decay and because of this, the petroleum reserves are limited. We will eventually run out of “affordable” oil, the big question is when? Peak Oil Theory tends to answer this question.
Oil resources are finite; this is irrefutable. It is equally true that no one knows just how finite they are and trying to assess their order of magnitude is a very complicated puzzle. In 1956, geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s. Almost everyone inside and outside the oil industry rejected Hubbert’s analysis. The controversy raged until 1970, when the U.S. production of crude oil really started to fall. Hubbert was right. Hubbert predicted that annual oil production would follow a “bell-shaped” curve; the curve which become to be known as “Hubbert’s Peak”.
The bell-shaped production curve, as originally suggested by M. King Hubbert in 1956.
The earth’s endowment of oil is finite and demand for oil continues to increase with time. Accordingly, geologists know that at some future date, conventional oil supply will no longer be capable of satisfying world demand. At that point, world oil production will have “peaked” and begin to decline. It has taken 50 – 300 million years to form, yet mankind has managed to burn roughly half of the global oil reserves in merely 125 years or so. The world is consuming about 86 million barrels of oil per day, or 40,000 gallons per second, and the demand is growing exponentially.
As Albert Einstein said, “One of nature’s biggest forces is exponential growth”. Dr. Colin Campbell, leading geologist says, “It’s quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it’s gone”.
Statistics prove that oil production in 33 out of 48 countries has approached a “peak”, and if the rate of consumption is not reined in, it can potentially end our Oil Age. The world is not running out of oil itself, but rather its ability to produce high-quality, cheap and economically extractable oil on demand. The rate at which world oil producers can extract oil is reaching its maximum, and possibly that is what is meant by “Peak Oil”. The last few years have had a Reserve Replacement Ratio of less than one – a jargon for saying that more is being drilled out of the ground than being discovered. The Stone Age did not end because of the lack of stones, and the Oil Age won’t end also because of lack of oil. The issue is lack of further growth, followed by gradual, then steep decline.
It is important to recognize that oil production peaking is not “running out” of oil. Reserves are an estimate of the total amount of oil in a reservoir that can be extracted at an assumed cost. Thus, a higher price outlook often means that more oil can be produced, but geology places an upper limit on price-dependant reserves growth.
In the oil world, the prevailing classification system for assessing reserves has been outlined into three categories:
- Proven reserves – defined as the amount of oil and gas in place, in known reservoirs, that can be estimated with “reasonable certainty”. The concept of “reasonable certainty” is associated with a probability of profitable recovery of at least 90%.
- Probable reserves – the probability of profitable recovery falls to 50%.
- Possible reserves – profitable probability of recovery no less than 10%.
Today, all major sources estimate that the world’s proven oil reserves vary between 1.0 and 1.2 million barrels and are geographically highly concentrated. Nearly 65% of oil is found in the Persian Gulf area. As per the present oil consumption of 85 million barrels per day, the life span of proven oil reserves is about 38 years.
Economists argue that this projection is misleading because future demand will be higher than today’s, thus shortening the effective longevity of today’s reserves. This argument is itself flawed as it assures that only consumption grows, while resources are fixed. Technological advances have dramatically increased the recoverability of oil from its reservoirs. On an average, only about 15 to 20% of oil in a given reservoir can be recovered from its rocky prison by relying on natural pressure known as “primary recovery”. Over a period, many new technologies have enabled bringing additional oil to the ground by injecting natural gas and water down into the reservoirs generally referred to as “secondary recovery”.
It goes without saying that we must discover before we can extract. It is also true that if we extract more than we discover, we will eventually exhaust the surplus reserves built over a period of time. Presently, the world is consuming four times as much as it discovers. World oil demand is expected to grow 50% by 2025 i.e. to approximately 120 million barrels a day. Peak Oil as a theory is difficult to prove, until the peaking occurs. Geologists and economists has described three forms of this:
- The “weak” form. This school believes that global oil production will peak unpredictably at some point in next 10 to 20 years. Until then, oil production will decline in most nations but will be offset by increased production from Middle East and Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries;
- The “moderate” form of peak oil will occur when the Middle East & FSU countries will be unable to significantly increase the production, although they will maintain current levels of output for many decades; and
- The “strong” form, the worst predicted, is when the Middle East will prove unable to increase its production, leaving a catastrophic effect on the global economy.
In addition to the above, another, and the most dangerous form of “peak oil” predicted is “political peaking”. The Middle Eastern nations can produce more oil to meet the world’s growing thirst, but will they? Is it better to pump more and invest the surplus? Or leave it in the ground for future generations?
The arrival of Peak Oil may be slightly delayed if worldwide demand for oil would fall; a global recession can hit demand for oil-based products. This would result in spare capacity building up again. Furthermore, high oil prices themselves can dampen demand. We have actually taken our lifestyles and the cheap and abundant supply of oil all for granted. The main worry is not the present levels of resource use and ecological impact. It is the levels we want to raise. The supreme goal of all countries is to raise incomes, the “living standards” and the GDP as much as possible.
With this energy base dwindling, there is simply not enough time to replace a fluid so cheap, abundant and versatile. It is rich in energy, easy to use, store and transport. No other form of energy can replace it in time, either separately or in combination. Other renewable forms of energy also require lots of energy to construct and require a petroleum platform to deliver. To cite a few examples:
- Natural gas is a diminishing resource as well and cannot satisfy the growing demand for energy;
- Ethanol has a net energy value of zero;
- Solar energy produces marginal net energy, but is still decades away at best from being a viable substitute given the recent rate of progress in efficiency and costs;
- The widespread belief that hydrogen is going to save the day, hydrogen fuel cells are not an energy source at all, but are more properly termed a form of energy storage. Free hydrogen does not exist on this planet. It requires more energy to break a hydrogen bond;
- Coal is abundant, but its net energy profile is poor compared to oil;
- Obtaining usable oil from tar sands requires huge amounts of energy; and
- Nuclear power plants are simply too expensive and takes ten years to build, relying on a fossil fuel platform for all stages of construction, maintenance, and extracting & processing nuclear fuels.
The Economic Armageddon
Oil is the fuel that enabled the growth of modern civilization, and the industrialized countries now rely on it to an extraordinary extent. Oil provides 40% of all primary energy, and 90% of our transportation energy. Oil peaking will create a severe liquid fuels problem for the transportation sector, not an “energy crisis” in the usual sense that term has been used. The physical and chemical versatility of oil, combined with its high energy density, cannot replace any other known energy source or even adequate substitute. In short, oil is the lifeblood of the current world. As the chief economist of Morgan Stanley said, “… we have a 90% chance of facing an economic Armageddon.” The bell is ringing for us to wake up and as Albert Einstein said, “you cannot solve this world’s problems with the same thinking that created them”.
The main changes we need to effect are a move away from “too much” globalization towards local economies that values and preserves own natural capital such as local food supplies, traditional skills, protecting the flora & fauna, the practices of optimum land use and urban design. Peak Oil will certainly pose enormous challenge for future generations; we need to respond now for a harmonious future, time now to put our “Plan B” in place. As pointed by Lester R. Brown in his bestselling book Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in trouble writes:
Sustaining our early 21st century global civilization now depends on shifting to a renewable energy-based, reuse/recycle economy with a diversified transport system. Business as usual – Plan A – cannot take us where we want to go. It is time for Plan B, time to build a new economy and new world. Our central survival task for the decades ahead, as individuals and as species, must be to make a transition away from the use of fossil fuels and to do this as peacefully, equitably, and intelligently as possible.
Whether Hubbert’s theory is correct or not, we must ensure that our society can function with dwindling supplies of black gold.
From an economist’s perspective, the concept of “peak oil” does not exist. An economist sees the availability of oil as a function of technology and investment i.e. as long as people are prepared to pay the price there is enough material in the earth’s crust to create oil. We have to be ready to pay the price both in monetary and environmental terms.
According to the First Law of Thermodynamics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be converted from one form into another. This is also known as the Law of Conservation of Energy. Fuel is the scarce resource, not energy by itself. Crude Oil is also one such scarce resource. How do we choose how much to produce? How do we allocate scarce resources that have alternative uses to their “best” use? And, how do we know what is the “best” use? All these are economic questions. The answer is “the best use is one that provides the greatest satisfaction for the greatest number of people”.
How do we achieve that “best” use? The answer is, “in a free society we achieve that through free markets”. A fundamental economic axiom is that human creativity and inventiveness respond to the incentive of price. In a free society, market prices tell us how much to produce, how much to consume, and how much to conserve, of our scarce resources. In a free society market prices will allocate resources to their best use.
Michael Crichton, the famous novelist, in his novel State of Fear has rightly said:
There are many reasons to shift away from fossil fuels, and we will do so in this century without legislation, financial incentives, carbon conservation programs, or the interminable yammering of fear mongers. So far as I know, nobody will have to ban horse transportation in this century.
The conclusion line is that the wolf is not at the door. Only the inability of the decision makers to grasp this reality and to act accordingly may push the world to that “resource curse”. From Sri Lankan perspective, it is worth quoting Mr. Ashantha de Mel, CMD, Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, who says, “alternative forms of energy is an aspect that we can explore, but it is more important to try and reduce consumption…”
To avoid a crunch, energy policy needs to reduce the demand growth – “fuel switching”, or to increase the supply of unconventional liquids. A major overhaul in the thinking process is desired towards energy policy around the globe. Time is not far when an oil price spike might break down opposition to a much greater interventionist approach by the governments in their energy sectors. Thus it might do for energy policy what 9/11 did for US military and security policy. Greater government intervention might return us to the ‘bad old days’ when much of the intervention was ill informed, unhelpful and positively damaging. The Trojan horse led to the fall of Troy, it is for the policy makers to decide whether they need to be remembered by our generations to come, as the Trojan horse is.
Hence the buzz phrase of the day as posted on Indian Oil message boards is “Save oil today or walk to your destination tomorrow”.
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This article has 64 comments:
When the numbers and quotes, don't say what you want, give them more numbers and quotes to try and get the price up again.....
control unrestrained population growth & we can postpone the exhaustion of petroleum.
coal-to-syncrude rides to the rescue.
> jack
Wouldn't we be better off to prepare for peak oil and have the theory proven wrong than to not prepare at all and actually face the Armageddon to come.
I won't be around because I am to damn old but when the world does run out of oil you can bet the next theory will be born and it will be called "the demise of the human race due to lack of oil."
According to most independent scientific studies, global oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 9%.
No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always exceed production levels; thus oil depletion will continue steadily until all recoverable oil is extracted.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.
We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from "outside," and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: www.peakoilassociates....
I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. survivingpeakoil.blogs.../
POM1 = when oil runs out
POM2 = when folks realise that POM1 will happen real soon now
POM2 is when energy becomes a political problem and not an econmic problem.
On the other hand, even if all of the advocated steps are taken and we are able to battle the forces of evil to a draw, the result will still be disastrous for the simple reason that war has now become a distraction from the real problems facing the world which include global warming, environmental degredation, food and water shortages, population growth and (last but not least) peak oil.
War and the preparation for war is one of the least (perhaps the very least) productive uses of time and energy on the planet. The world as a whole (and we have to think in these terms) simply cannot afford a future where a large percentage of resources are spent on national defense, war and the aftermath of war.
The clear interests of the entire world and its inhabitants are in finding a way to move beyond war. As the world's mightiest war machine, the U.S. should take the lead in this direction.
Switching to localized production requires that once-outsourced manufacturing now needs to be done locally and manufacturing that was once done for a global market is now done for a local one. Businesses that were once profitable because of economies of scale and scope are no longer so, resulting in overall global economic loss. Producers for a local market are rarely able to achieve the efficiencies of a global producer, the result will be an overall increase in the cost of goods or decrease in quality, or both.
We experienced "peak oil" over the summer: a period when demand for a product with a highly inelastic price nearly exceeded supply. It's a good starting point to see if free markets will provide the necessary structure to prevent peak oil from affecting quality of life.
Over the summer price was also affected by hedge funds and other financial players speculating on the market. Prices plateued a bit when China and India decreased subsidies and then collapsed when speculators had to cover losses on unwinding positions when the commercial paper market collapsed. The speculative positions taken by non-market players may have caused prices to fluctuate more than they might have in a pure supply-demand market. My feeling is that the speculator's role may be overplayed however, as we saw a similar price spike in the 1970's when there were few players outside the market.
The idea that the market will solve this problem is a good one. As the margin between supply and demand grows thin prices rise. People then switch to other modes of transport or use other fuels, the price declines, and then people (perhaps) switch back, until a kind of equilibrium is reached.
There are a couple of problems with the free market model, however, that argue against a pure market solution. First, switching costs can be high, incur an initial investment cost, and take time. For example, switching to public transport from a car incurs a time cost of the customer and long-term will overload the public transit system resulting in a need for infrastructure investment. Switching to PHEVs requires a huge retooling investment from auto manufacturers and also requires time.
Second, because fuel prices are reflected in almost every product and service, fluctuation in fuel prices does not just affect the amount of driving we do but also the quantity and types of products we buy, resulting in a ripple effect across the entire economy. Price spikes in oil accompany periods of global economic growth, price collapses accompany periods of global recession.
Third, market policies are not determined globally; some countries implement subsidies while others allow market forces to rule. Subsidies distort the ability of supply signals to be sent to customers and modulate demand.
Lastly, since the price of oil is inelastic, prices fluctuate far out of proportion to the number fo marginal barrels of production out there. This results in dramatic price swings (both up and down) depending on the availability of oil. A drop in demand of less than 2% has led to oil prices dropping by roughly 50%.
We need policies that not only help us reduce demand, but also help dampen price spikes and troughs. It is nearly impossible to expect the market to be able to create technological solutions to high oil prices over the course of eight months. What happens instead is that demand for other goods and services is curtailed to free up consumers cash to fill up a tank, until consumer demand drops cause a recession.
In the case of petroleum, the answer is not "prices allocate their best use". the answer is "prices cause global economic instability and prevent long-term investment and decision-making" - at least on the part of consumers and producers.
My argument is that the only solution is to move away from oil to a diversified energy portfolio. Policies should be geared towards promoting electricity for transportation, whether through EVs or public transit, since electricity represents a diversified energy source. Let the utilities then decide which source is most efficient for them. If climate change is a concern, a general carbon tax would tilt economics in the favor of renewables and biofuels.
the inability of worldwide oil supply to keep up with worldwide oil demand can only lead any thinking human being to once conclusion: any country that imports 70% of its oil must adopt a strategic, long-term, comprehensive energy policy! here is one in case anyone needs help understanding what is necessary:
thefitzman.blogspot.co...
long_on_oil said it best:
"wouldn't we be better off to prepare for peak oil and be proven wrong than not to prepare and face the Armageddon to come(?)."
there are more worthwhile reasons to develop alternatives to oil besides avoidance of Armageddon. the serious development of wind and solar power and the modernization of the electricity infrastructure in the US would make for a stronger economy as well as a healthier environment. a healthier environment would reduce health care costs. converting autos in America to natural gas would also improve the environment. building out the required infrastructure would be economically beneficial.
we used to be a "can do" country. we are known, historically, as innovators. what happened? why can't we do this?
OIl
>> For most of the last two decades oil drilling rigs have been operating at well below capacity. With low prices oil has not been worth looking for.... therefore nobody looked too hard. There have been some recent signifcant finds and in a year or two, we will have a much clearer picture. We were already told for certain oil is running out in the 70's (35 years ago).
>> Ethanol from sugar cane is cheaper to produce than gasoline.
Natural gas for electricity
>> There is tons of excess electricity, the problem is storage. Large power generators take days to bring on line, so they run 24 hours a day. When peak power consumption is only an hour or two a day. Since the other 22 hours are carrying wasted excess everyday, there is a lot of potential. Solar and wind today provide worthless power, because they are the most expensive and totaly unreliable. America can't shut down because it is cloudy day.
Energy consumption has ballooned because energy has been so cheap. Raise the price, and behaviors and consumption change dramatically. With dramatic improvements in information technology and logistics, the transportation demands of many transactions falls dramatically (eg: If I, and everyone else in my building order from Amazon, instead of driving to Target, Barnes & Noble, etc . . . and all these orders are delivered by one UPS van, leaving from one warehouse-- how many hundreds of gallons of gas are saved?)
There's lots and lots of energy in this world: the problem is that its been priced too cheaply, based on the cost of the "low hanging fruit"
Meanwhile the world is at cross purposes with regards to terrorists who will obtain and detonate a nuclear device in some large city in the west bringing on a great depression and a real decline in oil usage.
Running out of oil isn't even in my top ten of problems facing the US or the world. It makes fdr good reading though.
Politicians trying to socially engineer society can prove even more disastrous. Allowing markets to work will be the best approach going forward in optimally allocating energy resources to those uses which are of greatest value to society at large. Beware politicians claiming to be able to do this more efficiently!
Good Luck.
On Nov 16 09:16 AM ferguson wrote:
> The New York Times lead editorial this morning (11/16/2008) calls
> for a military restructuring and buildup to deal with a different
> but still dangerous world. As we look at the real world around us,
> the editorial has a lot merit.
>
> On the other hand, even if all of the advocated steps are taken and
> we are able to battle the forces of evil to a draw, the result will
> still be disastrous for the simple reason that war has now become
> a distraction from the real problems facing the world which include
> global warming, environmental degredation, food and water shortages,
> population growth and (last but not least) peak oil.
>
> War and the preparation for war is one of the least (perhaps the
> very least) productive uses of time and energy on the planet. The
> world as a whole (and we have to think in these terms) simply cannot
> afford a future where a large percentage of resources are spent on
> national defense, war and the aftermath of war.
>
> The clear interests of the entire world and its inhabitants are in
> finding a way to move beyond war. As the world's mightiest war machine,
> the U.S. should take the lead in this direction.
Ammunition, currency for the new revolution.
harness the CH4 as a resource for energy.
Mexico is a good example. Till recently they were our number two source of imported oil. Mexico is suffering a strong decline in oil production such that their exports will probably reach zero by about 2010 or 2011. Instead of being a supplier they will then compete with us for oil on the world market. As a side note, the Mexican government gets some $60B a year from oil exports. What happens to the stability of our neighbor to the south when those funds dry up?
Lets review...
Oil sands in Canada and Venezuela - lots and lots of reserves.
Oil shale - amazing amounts of reserve.
Alternative energy - limitless in some forms
So just as Malthus did not anticipate the advance in agricultural technologies applied to farming making each acre phenomenally more productive in food, these peak oil idiots refuse to recognize that there is a LOT more hydrocarbons than they think, that extraction techniques are ever increasing, that other forms of oil - not just the cheap drill a hole and get it - are very abundant and that alternative forms will be come more viable and possible with each passing day, etc...
The article sounds all gloom and doomish and makes a snappy headline - but please stop publishing them - they are a waste of time to re-read day after day.
This trend has recently been reversed as someone with a brain stopped looting the oil firms.
Get your facts straight.
On Nov 17 06:15 AM neutrino23 wrote:
> What makes this even more serious for the US is the Export Land Model.
> This describes how oil producing countries experience increasing
> demand and decreasing supply so that exports fall faster than production
> falls. As large importer what is really important to us is not just
> worldwide oil supply but the amount of oil available for export.
>
>
> Mexico is a good example. Till recently they were our number two
> source of imported oil. Mexico is suffering a strong decline in oil
> production such that their exports will probably reach zero by about
> 2010 or 2011. Instead of being a supplier they will then compete
> with us for oil on the world market. As a side note, the Mexican
> government gets some $60B a year from oil exports. What happens to
> the stability of our neighbor to the south when those funds dry up?
Oil sands and shale very difficult and expensive to extract. Does not really serve as a good long- or a short-term solution. The United States needs to do a better job of conserving and investing more in alternative energy resources and R&D.
Perhaps if we put it in dollar terms instead of screaming about how we will "run out" our audience will understand why we need to direct our money to mass transit, renewable energy, and efficiency rather than oil wars, subsidies, and bailouts for GM/Hummer.
Beware of "true believers" and scam artists trying to get you to invest or buy their books about how their pet technology could solve the energy crisis by contradicting the laws of physics and about how mainstream science is conspiring to ignore their resounding results. Most of all, don't buy the book and then become yet another "true believer" posting opinons on web sites based mostly on wishful thinking and repeating what your book said. If it actually worked, wouldn't someone be fabulously rich by now? Think critically.
The first useable plug in hybrid launches in china this month.
www.nextautos.com/repo...
Nanosolar have been projecting 1$/W solar for a while without delivering but are in production now and should be able to churn out the stuff by the acre soon with a bit of luck
www.time.com/time/spec...
www.nanosolar.com/blog...
The stone age ended because superior technology was invented and the oil age will be the same
> we used to be a "can do" country. we are known, historically, as
> innovators. what happened? why can't we do this?
"I don't see any lower than it is today", Boone Pickens said late last week. And Jim Rogers is buying it to. Maybe its time to get in.
oiltradersblog.blogspo.../
Control unrestrained population growth? You sound Hitlerian!! Maybe you should start with yourself -- maybe I consider you to be "excess population". Who decides? It is NOONE'S right to decide for anyone else how many children they should have. Period. Violating the intrinsic rights of the human person is never the solution to economic or political problems!!
On Nov 16 08:38 AM john s. gordon wrote:
> eliminate wars and we can postpone the exhaustion of petroleum.<br/>
>
> control unrestrained population growth & we can postpone the
> exhaustion of petroleum.
>
> coal-to-syncrude rides to the rescue.
That's funny. Is that how our highway system was built, thereby ensuring dependence on oil-based transportation? How about the GI Bill and homeowner incentives after WWII? How about all those manufacturing jobs pushed into existence by the war? How about our arrangements with oil supplying nations, and the wars we fight over it (and pay for)? There never was a truly free market involved in creating our economy. There is no such thing as a free market now. Trying to solve problems by deregulating one tiny part of the global economy ignores the reality that nothing exists in a vacuum.
The left has one answer for all problems ---go without. Conservation is not the answer to anything.
Stalin had a problem --not enough food. He solved it by starving 20 million people. Go without and solve the problem.
So, supplies are infinite? Can I have some of your gold, then?
jimrogers-investments....
Both of the scripts being run by the Google Corporation on Seeking Alpha have been flags as unsafe by my computer security software.
There is another script that is also being run by Seeking Alpha from nuconomy.com that is flagged by security protection software as a privacy concern. Now I have to use a computer at an Internet cafe to post on their computers. Crazy!
Is Seeking Alpha now violating privacy of posters, or reporting back to Paulson, Pelosi and Frank who is posting what against them? LOL!
PEAK OIL:
Peak Oil is now. Here is the problem our world economies face:
1. World falls into a deep recession or depression and oil goes DOWN.
2. Economies recover and oil goes UP. Then...
3. High oil prices drive economies into another recession or depression.
Over and over it will go until we can all find renewable energy resources, but keep in mind that it will be impossible, with current technology, to live like we've been living for the past several decades with cheap energy.
GREAT ARTICLE! Good to see this pointed out, especially as we've seen oil price plunge. It is only TEMPORARY.
Peak oil is just another iteration of the law of supply and demand. If politicians don't solve the problem markets will. (painfully so) Natural gas is the bridge for the US. It will buy us plenty of time to invent our way to the next bridge.
Will we give free markets a helping hand and invest in changes ahead of time?
I doubt it, but we'll get there one way or the other.
This pointy head argument has been made since the famines of the middle ages. Freedom and, invention and free enterprise is the ultimate answer. As long as these elements survive a socialist administration, we'll be OK. Actually, this is one area where a small dose applied government investment and leadership would really help.
There, I said it, I'm a socialist for a day. And i didn't even have to invoke the convenient lie of global warming.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
Ladies, give up your makeup - it's petroleum based too.
We're not at peak oil, there are billions of barrels in the US - we're at peak "willingness to drill." big difference.
"efficient solar" will provide 2.5%, a glorious 2.5% of power in 2020. Rolling blackouts anyone?
Emphasis should be put on cleaner coal which with better catalytic capabilites is easily achievable - a 10% reduction in coal emissions negates ALL, yes, ALL, alternative energy options deployed.
There is NO global warming, there are only cyclical changes - you know what they're finding under those receding ice floes? Villages, civilizations, implying that this has happened before. Our earth's rotation and axial tilt cause these changes not us.
Now, is pollution bad? of course, but it's not global warming - the two are non sequitirs.
So, less pollution good, global warming, fake. Nice try. And there's no point in driving toxic Priuses and using Mercury Laden fluorescent bulbs that are far more poisonous to our environment than nuclear energy.
They have the audacity to tell the physicist that cold fusion can be done and that some guru actually did it on his kitchen table. Of course, a conspiracy among scientists is repressing these results.
They will tell the climatologist that his 30,000 year old ice cores and fossils are meaningless because the earth tilts on its axis or something. Of course, a conspiracy among scientists is repressing these results.
They will tell the professional petroleum engineer and the geologist that there is an infinite amount of oil off the coast of Florida that is being produced by the earth's crust, rather than ancient organic material. Of course, a conspiracy among scientists is repressing these results.
They will tell tens of thousands of expert biologists that living things that are better adapted to their environment DO NOT reproduce at a higher frequency than living things that are less adapted to their environment, that mutations and genetic combinations DO NOT result in differences in adaptability, and that the earth is 5,000 years old. Of course, a conspiracy among scientists is repressing these results.
They tell their doctor, who studied medicine for a friggin decade, that their herbal supplements can cure cancer. Of course, a conspiracy among scientists is repressing these results.
For some, belief is seeing. For others, belief is whatever you wish for.
That doesn't mean oil production won't peak. It doesn't mean that oil is being produced (by bacteria or whatever) in any meaningful quantities right now. But it does mean that dismissive conclusory statements about "peak oil" mostly serve to illustrate the ignorance of the utterer.
Oh well. It's not like SA's standards are particularly high these days.
First of all oil and natural gas are abiotic. This should be obvious to any rational person who can comprehend the sheer amounts of the resources in question. There is absolutely no way any reasonable amount of biomatter could have produced these quantities of oil and gas. It is simply impossible for a biological process of any kind. It is completely ludicrous and there is absolutely no proof whatsoever that there has ever been even 1 tenth of 1 percent of the biomatter necessary to produce this much oil. Yes oil is most definately abiotic. However, it is produced in very small quantities each year, making it finite for all intents and purposes. Go to youtube and type in "conspiracy of science" if you want to Begin to understand where oil really comes from.
Second, and this is where people really show their ignorance: one cubic mile of oil per year is totally and grossly unsustainable. There is no question of that. So many dominoes have to line up in the proper direction just to get production that high. And now those dominoes are falling en mass. It is ending. But it will take a long time to go from our current one cubic mile per year production to the one cubic furlong of oil that we'll be producing 50 years from now. Note that even one cubic furlong is a heck of a lot of oil. There will always be some amount of oil production, and small pockets of civilization supported by it. But for the unwashed masses, there is only enslavement and dieoff waiting for them.
The third and most important point is that it IS possible to maintain an advanced civilization of 6-50 billion people given our current allocation of resources. The current economic depression is gifting us with the largest energy supply glut in history. But we seem doomed to fail to take advantage of such gifts. Instead we will allow ourselves to be controlled by eugenics and transumanist propaganda and misled into giving away freedoms and fighting wars and bla bla bla. The species needs to wake up and realize the level of control and power wielded by secret societies. This will ultimately be humanity's undoing. People cannot objectively look at themselves the way we look at an ant colony or a petry dish full of bacteria. That makes them extremely vulnerable to manipulation, including incredibly advanced forms of manipulation.
There are great occult forces at work, and it is possible and absolutely necessary to design a society in acknowledgement of these forces, in such a way that nullifies their power without ever knowing exactly who or what they are. It doesnt matter who or what the illuminati is. The force itself may not even be of human origin. But such knowledge is not necessary to nullify its power. Nothing in history has ever proven so fatal as willful ignorance.
These is utterly false. Just ask the Russians.
Crude needs to retest the 2007 low of $51. It's almost there at $54 per barrel.
stockcharts.com/charts...
Keep it simple BUY DXO Double Long Crude $3.73
stockcharts.com/h-sc/u...
www.populartechnology....
1. Modern Nuclear Reactors can be built in 3-years (not 10) and last 60-years (Westinghouse)
www.westinghousenuclea...
2. EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) is irrelevant:
Thermodynamics and Money (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
www.forbes.com/free_fo...
"The economic value of energy just doesn't depend very strongly on raw energy content as conventionally measured in British thermal units. Instead it's determined mainly by the distance between the BTUs and where you need them, and how densely the BTUs are packed into pounds of stuff you've got to move, and by the quality of the technology at hand to move, concentrate, refine and burn those BTUs, and by how your neighbors feel about carbon, uranium and windmills. In this entropic universe we occupy, the production of one unit of high-grade energy always requires more than one unit of low-grade energy at the outset. There are no exceptions. Put another way, Eroei--a sophomoric form of thermodynamic accounting--is always negative and always irrelevant. "Matter-energy" constraints count for nothing. The "monetary culture" still rules."
1. Modern Nuclear Reactors can be built in 3-years (not 10) and last 60-years (Westinghouse)
www.westinghousenuclea...
2. EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested) is irrelevant:
Thermodynamics and Money (Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
www.forbes.com/free_fo...
"The economic value of energy just doesn't depend very strongly on raw energy content as conventionally measured in British thermal units. Instead it's determined mainly by the distance between the BTUs and where you need them, and how densely the BTUs are packed into pounds of stuff you've got to move, and by the quality of the technology at hand to move, concentrate, refine and burn those BTUs, and by how your neighbors feel about carbon, uranium and windmills. In this entropic universe we occupy, the production of one unit of high-grade energy always requires more than one unit of low-grade energy at the outset. There are no exceptions. Put another way, Eroei--a sophomoric form of thermodynamic accounting--is always negative and always irrelevant. "Matter-energy" constraints count for nothing. The "monetary culture" still rules."
Unconventional reserves are only viable when oil is at least $60/bbl,, higher for some types. At that price other energy sources are a better (and cheaper) long-term bet. Oil is not a good long-term bet for an energy supply. The pricing will be volatile in the meantime and not necessarily beneficial to long term exploration.
Yeah, right, the vast majority of the scientific community is in on a giant hoax, and they're all holding their secrets, because obviously betting against energy producers is really profitable for scientists. That sounds reasonable.
Here in the real world where science actually means something, we need to get prepared better.
There is no vast majority of scientists supporting Peak Oil or Global Warming. There are merely a handful making declarations while thousands speak out against it:
NO 'Consensus' on "Man-Made" Global Warming
www.populartechnology....
Western countries generally believe that Oil is of ORGANIC origin, The former Soviet block, and now Russia, believe that Oil is of INORGANIC origin. Many very large discoveries have been made by the Russian’s using the INORGANIC origin idea.
A basic introduction to the Inorganic origin of hydrocarbons is available in a title “The Deep Hot Biosphere” by Thomas GOLD