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Guest Post: Peak Denial About Peak Oil
Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
Peak Denial About Peak Oil
It is par for the course that with oil hovering between $70 and $80
per barrel Americans have continued to buy SUVs and Trucks at a rapid
pace. Politicians don’t have constituents screaming at them because gas
is $4.00 per gallon, so it is no longer an issue for them. They need to
focus on the November elections. It is no time to discuss a difficult
issue that requires foresight and honesty. It is no time to tell the
American public that oil will be over $200 a barrel within the next 5
years. Anyone who would go on CNBC today and declare that oil will be
over $200 a barrel would be eviscerated by bubble head Bartiromo or
clueless Kudlow. Bartiromo filled up her Escalade this morning for $2.60
a gallon, so there is no looming crisis on the horizon. The myopic view
of the world by politicians, the mainstream media and the American
public in general is breathtaking to behold. Despite the facts slapping
them across the face, Americans believe cheap oil is here to stay. It is
their right to have an endless supply of cheap oil. The American way of
life has been granted by God. We are the chosen people.
A funny thing happened on our way to permanent prosperity and
unlimited cheap oil. The right to prosperity was yanked out from
underneath us by the current Greater Depression. The worldwide economic
downturn has masked the onset of peak cheap oil. Therefore, when it hits
America with its full fury, it will be a complete surprise to the
ignorant masses and the ignorant politicians who run this country. A
Gallup Poll in August asked Americans about our most important problems.
Where is the concern about future energy supplies? It isn’t on the
radar screens of Americans. They are probably more worried about whether
The Situation will hook up with Snookie on the Jersey Shore reality
show.
It is not surprising that the American public, American politicians,
and the American media don’t see the impending crisis. The organizations
that have an interest in looking farther than next week into the future
have all concluded that the downside of peak oil will cause chaos
throughout the world. The US Military, the German Military, and the UK
Department of Energy have all done detailed studies of the situation and
come to the same conclusions. Social chaos, economic confusion, trade
barriers, conflict, food shortages, riots, and war are in our future.
http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf
The U.S. was warned in 2005. Its own Department of Energy
commissioned a report by Robert Hirsch to examine peak oil and its
potential consequences to the US. The introduction stated:
“The peaking of world oil production
presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management
problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price
volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation,
the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable
mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to
have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in
advance of peaking.”
The main conclusions reached by the experts who worked on this report were:
- World oil peaking is going to happen, and will likely be abrupt.
World production of conventional oil will reach a maximum and decline
thereafter. - Oil peaking will adversely affect global economies, particularly the
U.S. Over the past century the U.S. economy has been shaped by the
availability of low-cost oil. The economic loss to the United States
could be measured on a trillion-dollar scale. Aggressive fuel efficiency
and substitute fuel production could provide substantial mitigation. - The problem is liquid fuels for transportation. The lifetimes of
transportation equipment are measured in decades. Rapid changeover in
transportation equipment is inherently impossible. Motor vehicles,
aircraft, trains, and ships have no ready alternative to liquid fuels. - Mitigation efforts will require substantial time. Waiting until
production peaks would leave the world with a liquid fuel deficit for 20
years. Initiating a crash program 10 years before peaking leaves a
liquid fuels shortfall of a decade. Initiating a crash program 20 years
before peaking could avoid a world liquid fuels shortfall. - It is a matter of risk management. The peaking of world oil
production is a classic risk management problem. Mitigation efforts
earlier than required may be premature, if peaking is long delayed. On
the other hand, if peaking is soon, failure to initiate mitigation could
be extremely damaging. - Economic upheaval is not inevitable. Without mitigation, the peaking
of world oil production will cause major economic upheaval. Given
enough lead-time, the problems are soluble with existing technologies.
New technologies will help, but on a longer time scale.
The Hirsch Report clearly laid out the problem. It urged immediate
action on multiple fronts. It is now 5 years later and absolutely
nothing has been done. In the meantime, it has become abundantly clear
that worldwide oil production peaked between 2005 and 2010. The Hirsch
Report concluded we needed to begin preparing 20 years before peak oil
in order to avoid chaos. We are now faced with the worst case scenario.
http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/joe2010.pdf
The US Military issued a Joint Operating Environment report earlier
this year. They have no political motivation to sugarcoat or present a
dire picture. This passage is particularly disturbing:
A severe energy crunch is inevitable
without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While
it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and
strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce
the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds.
Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions,
push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse,
and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India. At
best, it would lead to periods of harsh economic adjustment. To what
extent conservation measures, investments in alternative energy
production, and efforts to expand petroleum production from tar sands
and shale would mitigate such a period of adjustment is difficult to
predict. One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a
number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their
nations by ruthless conquest.
Here is the summary of their analysis:
To generate the energy required worldwide by the 2030s would require us to find an additional 1.4 MBD every year until then.
During
the next twenty-five years, coal, oil, and natural gas will remain
indispensable to meet energy requirements. The discovery rate for new
petroleum and gas fields over the past two decades (with the possible
exception of Brazil) provides little reason for optimism that future
efforts will find major new fields.
At
present, investment in oil production is only beginning to pick up,
with the result that production could reach a prolonged plateau. By
2030, the world will require production of 118 MBD, but energy producers
may only be producing 100 MBD unless there are major changes in current
investment and drilling capacity.
By
2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as
early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.
Energy
production and distribution infrastructure must see significant new
investment if energy demand is to be satisfied at a cost compatible with
economic growth and prosperity. Efficient hybrid, electric, and
flex-fuel vehicles will likely dominate light-duty vehicle sales by 2035
and much of the growth in gasoline demand may be met through increases
in biofuels production. Renewed interest in nuclear power and green
energy sources such as solar power, wind, or geothermal may blunt rising
prices for fossil fuels should business interest become actual
investment. However, capital costs in some power-generation and
distribution sectors are also rising, reflecting global demand for
alternative energy sources and hindering their ability to compete
effectively with relatively cheap fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will very
likely remain the predominant energy source going forward.
Just this week, the German magazine Der Spiegel obtained a
confidential study about peak oil that was done by the German military.
According to the German report, there is “some probability that peak oil
will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is
expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later.” The major conclusions of the
study as detailed in Der Spiegel are as follows:
- Oil will determine power: The Bundeswehr
Transformation Center writes that oil will become one decisive factor in
determining the new landscape of international relations: “The relative
importance of the oil-producing nations in the international system is
growing. These nations are using the advantages resulting from this to
expand the scope of their domestic and foreign policies and establish
themselves as a new or resurgent regional, or in some cases even global
leading powers.” - Increasing importance of oil exporters: For
importers of oil more competition for resources will mean an increase in
the number of nations competing for favor with oil-producing nations.
For the latter this opens up a window of opportunity which can be used
to implement political, economic or ideological aims. As this window of
time will only be open for a limited period, “this could result in a
more aggressive assertion of national interests on the part of the
oil-producing nations.” - Politics in place of the market: The Bundeswehr
Transformation Center expects that a supply crisis would roll back the
liberalization of the energy market. “The proportion of oil traded on
the global, freely accessible oil market will diminish as more oil is
traded through bi-national contracts,” the study states. In the long
run, the study goes on, the global oil market, will only be able to
follow the laws of the free market in a restricted way. “Bilateral,
conditioned supply agreements and privileged partnerships, such as those
seen prior to the oil crises of the 1970s, will once again come to the
fore.” - Market failures: The authors paint a bleak picture
of the consequences resulting from a shortage of petroleum. As the
transportation of goods depends on crude oil, international trade could
be subject to colossal tax hikes. “Shortages in the supply of vital
goods could arise” as a result, for example in food supplies. Oil is
used directly or indirectly in the production of 95 percent of all
industrial goods. Price shocks could therefore be seen in almost any
industry and throughout all stages of the industrial supply chain. “In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse.” - Relapse into planned economy: Since virtually all
economic sectors rely heavily on oil, peak oil could lead to a “partial
or complete failure of markets,” says the study. “A conceivable
alternative would be government rationing and the allocation of
important goods or the setting of production schedules and other
short-term coercive measures to replace market-based mechanisms in times
of crisis.” - Global chain reaction: “A restructuring of oil
supplies will not be equally possible in all regions before the onset of
peak oil,” says the study. “It is likely that a large number of states
will not be in a position to make the necessary investments in time,” or
with “sufficient magnitude.” If there were economic crashes in some
regions of the world, Germany could be affected. Germany would not
escape the crises of other countries, because it’s so tightly integrated
into the global economy. - Crisis of political legitimacy: The Bundeswehr
study also raises fears for the survival of democracy itself. Parts of
the population could perceive the upheaval triggered by peak oil “as a
general systemic crisis.” This would create “room for ideological and
extremist alternatives to existing forms of government.” Fragmentation
of the affected population is likely and could “in extreme cases lead to
open conflict.”
Even the International Energy Agency, which has always painted a rosy
picture of the future, has even been warning about future shortages due
to lack of investment and planning.
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2009/WEO2009_es_english.pdf
Americans think that the discovery of oil on our soil in 1859 has
entitled us to an endless supply. It is not so. We account for 4.3% of
the world’s population but consume 26% of the world’s oil. As China,
India and the rest of the developing world become economic powerhouses,
they will consume more and more of the dwindling supply of easily
accessible oil. As the consumption curve continues upwards, the
production curve will be flat. The result will be huge spikes in prices.
It will not be a straight line, but prices will become progressively
higher. As the studies referenced above have concluded, the result will
be economic pain, social chaos, supply wars, food shortages, and a
drastic reduction in lifestyles of Americans. They won’t see it coming,
just like they didn’t see the housing collapse coming or the financial
system collapse coming. They’ll just keep filling up those Escalades
until the pump runs dry.
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Oh we applaud you as well for taking time out of your busy schedule to parade your ignorance about. Believe me, we've had quite a few laughs as well.
And VK, I dont see those yelling we're in dire straights reducing their lifestyles at all! Still 3 people on a private 777 flying all over the place coast to coast to meet for coffee, personal jets for all execs and politicians, but YOU need a bicycle...hey go for it man!
I remember a lecture given to us in school about peak oil, and how it was here and soon going to cause worldwide chaos etc etc etc, in effin 1974!!!!! I call bull**it!
The entire oil situation is 100% a political problem, and not a resource problem.
I don't care anyway, I tear up the roads in my 54mpg Harley
Right! Peak oil was a dire emergency in 1970! Wildly hyped back then. Its a control problem, they want set prices, massive controls, and massive new taxes and the sheeple lap it up like manna! Oooo we're scared please tax us and control us more! America is just a Stockholm Syndrome basket case, and Im cheering for its quick demise.
Ok you win, peak oil is here, we are running out and anarchy is on the way.. That being said where is the push to build 80-200 standardized nuke plants in this country? Until you (Gore, etal) start acting liking a crisis is imminent and push nuclear I will stay calm.
People, the fingers are staying in the dam for a long time get used to that, deflation is here for a good long while and default and the other boogie men are still way under the bed....
But, frankly, if the survivors are codgers like Kunstler, I'd just as soon be fucking dead.
Amen.
Abiogenic Oil. It's a gas!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
Who knew there were that many dinosaurs?
Actually oil doesnt come from 'dinosaurs' at all, but vegetation from swamp bogs, decaying plant matter that is obviously ongoing at all times. Anyway, yes its obvious that oil IS regenerating!
You did not really expect a Peak believer to know that...did you? They are all about opion....not PROVEN FACTS. They love theory.....just like the whole global warming army... and Algore nuts.
Hey curb, where exactly is your data? Can you justify your assessment by PROVEN FACTS or are you just blowing that out of your ass. Anyway Curb, what background in science do you have to toss around statements devoid of any support, validity, or substantiation to give credibility to your observations. Is science just convenient when it works for you, fits into your whimsical paradigm or only when you choose to accept aspects of it. Get a life Curb, and at the least get an education, cause your assessments are about as valuable as shit in the wind.
Shit in the wind is pretty valuable. I got some shit in my wind. Now I feel like there is a wet spot between my hairy ass cheeks.
Lol...maybe they can show me ONE oil well in the history of the world that hasn't peaked.
Proven facts? Fuck, this shit has been out there getting measured by professional oilmen and geologists for fucking 100 years.
WAKE UP MORONS, the USA peaked in 1970. 40 years ago...get with the fucking program already. How motherfucking out of date can you be to talk about not having CYR's "PROVEN FACTS" when the effin facts are 40 years fucking old?
GFD, there's a wiki page showing major nations' peak production dates; anyone can look at it and check the references. JFC
So says.....whats his name!
Gotta ask this: are you people fucking stupid?
Do you want PRODUCTION CHARTS which SHOW a C&C peak in 2005? Or do you want to stay stupid?
The origin of oil is IRRELEVANT. I don't care if it comes from the three of your ASSES. If you consume it at above the rate it replenishes, you have a fucking problem, moron. Even idiots as clueless as YOU can figure this shit out, right?
So you DENY peak. You therefore claim that oil production can GROW FOREVER. Only a raving MORON would believe something so utterly absurd.
The problem with you retards is that you don't even understand what Peak IS despite the best efforts of dozens of people with far more cognitive ability than you trying to explain it to you in details that those pathetic things you call brains can grasp!
Let me try one more time: we consume oil in this world at a RATE. We do not CARE how much oil is in the ground. We care solely about the RATE at which we expect to use it.
Peak oil is the point at which the RATE we can extract oil from the ground peaks. After that point, we can only produce it at decreasing RATES compared to previous years. As our economies are all built on growth, we NEED to have an INCREASING RATE of oil production because energy is a net input to EVERYTHING. If we wanna have more people doing more things (growth), we must have energy at an increasing RATE.
Peak Oil has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with reserves, only to do with the RATE at which those reserves can be produced.
Now, this may fucking shock you, but ALL OIL FIELDS have PEAKs. Every single fucking one in the history of oil. 100%. All. Todo. Got it? Now, this may be a leap for you guys to get your heads around, but if you see that individual wells have peaks and entire fields have peaks (they do) and collections of fields called COUNTRIES have peaks (they have, approximately 60 of the top collections of fields we refer to as "countries" have met a measurable and DEMONSTRABLE peak in their oil production), then is it so hard for you cretins to grasp that collections of countries that we call the fucking EARTH might also have a peak??? Is that REALLY so fucking hard?
Or are we to assume that wells peak, fields peak, collections of fields called countries peak, but the collection of countries called the earth, well...naw, it will continue geometric growth in production FOREVER?
+ Gazillion, Fucking Epic Trav! Peak Bitchez!!
Production charts. based on data provided by whoooo......
Remember...statistics are just as good as the data sets they come from. Ask ALGORE how his hockey stick theory went..... Up in smoke.
You guys only provide one side to the story...your side......Would love to know if you are long oil or short oil......
Stop TALKING YOUR BOOK!
Oh right, so your no stats tumps trav's sources?
You're a fucking retard.
Wow, what a pussy response. You've been obliterated. Quit posting before it gets even uglier for you.
This whole thread is making me sick!... I have been a member of this site since the Spring of 2009 and I am sad that it has become the dumping ground of the stupid, witless, and ignorant. For a period last year, the folks who attended here and contibuted here were informed, connected to reality, and generally questing for better information and more knowledge. It has become a place ( as have many other high profile site) where the uninformed, stupid and ignorant go to spew their inanity.
There was a series recently, I think 4 articles, in the New York Times on Stupid People. It was quite interesting. The take away for me is that stupid people do not know they are stupid. They are unable to perceive their own stupidity, and they are unable to recognize that other people may have better information, better analytical skills, or better solutions. They are what one of my friends call "double dumb". They don't know, yet they don't know that they don't know.
The problem in these exchanges, on topics that require informed comment, insightful estimations and carefully considered obsetvations, is that the informed and knowledgeable are sucked into an unending round of challenge and then response. Nothing wrong with challenge and response... but why continue to offer good energy and consideration to those who are incapable of receiving it? The Carpenter is reported to have said something about "casting pearls in front of swine".
Let's please allow these exchanges to expire.. it does nothing for the informed to respond to the uninformed who can not hear...... They are only here because we respond.,. when we quite responding, they will go somewhere else.
Billy Bob
Downing Effect and Dunning-Kruger...actually, researched psychological phenomena.
I keep trying, though, but I've gotten more abusive as the years have gone by. I've been doing this peak thing since like 2003 or something, maybe even before that. I used to be patient, polite, try hard. Friend of mine had a 1400+ SAT back when that meant something, couldn't get this shit. I tried over and over, because I am stubborn and I refuse to admit defeat. No Kobayashi Maru for me. Eventually, I succeeded.
His position was classic Downing; he assumed that if it were real, he'd have known about it.
Most people, when they are forced to accept the truth of peak, retreat to the Jiminy Cricket Defense of hopium OD. "They" will just "come up with something."
And, maybe they will...I have long said that fusion power is our way outta this, but that sadly always seems a decade off. But the stupid are very clearly outbreeding everyone else, and this modern idiot is so brash and cocksure; it so totally amazes me how self-important and grandiose literally mediocre people are. It's really quite astonishing at times.
People who cannot write with a modicum of clarity, have a paucity of vocabulary range, lack even basic grammar and language structure, nevermind their ubiquitous incoherence...these people expect to be taken SERIOUSLY in their opinions, for god's sake.
I marvel at it, and wonder just exactly wtf is going on in their heads; do idiots like CYR actually believe that they can match wits with me? That their level of knowledge on this topic is at parity with mine? It appears patently obvious to me and several others here who is knowledgeable on this topic merely by what they write; it seems to be self-evident, but I guess I must conclude that it isn't. This is a very confounding phenomenon, probably warranting further investigation into how to surmount it.
I really believe that, ceteris paribus, it would be more advantageous if stupid people were told early on that they were stupid as opposed to being subjected to the abuse of ersatz self-esteem-oriented "education," which serves only to compel their belief in the fabrication that they are intelligent. Instead, we irrationally dump metric assloads of resources into futile and vainglorious attempts to put everybody on the righthand side of the bellcurve. It's not just asinine, it's really rather self-destructive. The average will not invent the transistor or microprocessor or anything else for that matter because such an endeavor is outside of the purview of the average! As a society, we'd be better served by placing at the disposal of the intelligent our resources so that they could provide society with all of the whizbang cool consumer merchandise that the cretins ooh and ahh over. Along with technical quantum leaps. Instead, there is mass agonization over poor ghetto kids with IQs of 80, so we need to cut manned space flight and other science research because dem kids gots ta has sheeit n' gibs me dat.
Why not just give one child's scholarship money to the other child who's a heroin addict? Seems to make about as much sense.
Over $100 billion spent on the last G-20 meeting, for SECURITY, each of them flew multiple luxury jets there, and yet the sheeple believe THEIR story that you MUST now have massive controls put on you, new huge taxes, and a permission slip for what you drive? Its all hillarious to me, seeing the total implosion of humanity. And they LIKE it!
I'm not so sure about the idea of peak oil. I get some arguments on both sides. Certainly a lot of natural gas available in the US. Of course, not without some environmental impacts.
I can be sure of one thing - there's no way the entire BRIC countries can reach the same standards of living with the same carbon usage - and that will create problems.
Did read an interesting article last week on Peak Helium though. 10 years or so to total depletion (or something like that). No way to reproduce more.
Oh man that sucks...no more helium balloons to inhale then talk funny at parties? We're screwed.
Ok, TJ...lemme help you out.
On ANY energy-related topic on ZH, just scan down and find my posts. I mentioned the 2002 Helium peak in many previous posts.
Helium naturally replenishes because it comes from U238 alpha decay. HOWEVER, the RATE at which it can be extracted from the earth will reach a peak point and then decline.
Helium is an absolutely CRITICAL element, necessary for the very bleeding edge of technology, irrespective of what this sheepdog idiot says below me. He is used in cryogenics, MRI and high tech imaging; yet we waste it on kids' balloons. This is the tragedy of our society filled with fucking consumptive viruslike cretins.
The deer on the island don't mean to consume themselves into self-destruction; they are just too stupid to know not to. Humanity is cursed similarly.
You do know that if He stocks decline, they will stop using them for balloons, right?
You should also know that if that He wasn't used for balloons, it would be lost into the atmosphere and no one would have gotten to enjoy it, right?
You keep saying people are stupid. You are a person, too. I guess you have low self esteem. In the real world, people overcome obstacles as they come before them, not a hundred years before they get to them. All you need to maintain access to that which is vital is sound money so that those applications that are most vital to the economy (and can therefore command the greatest access to those resources) have the priority. This means no debasement or taxation, both of which are means by which governments gain access to goods and services that are more valuable than any service provided by said government.
No...usage for balloons will compete with real usages and price will rise.
In fact even peak deniers such as Douchinger (who dives) have noticed the He price trend and supply tightness.
Sound money is fucking irrelevant. You can put all the sound fucking money, the entire WORLD'S WORTH of gold in front of a depleted oil well and COMMAND IT to deliver you more oil and it will not.
I got no freakin idea where you got the notion that money was somehow the end all and be all of life. You can't eat gold nor run your car off of it.
I drove cab in Vancouver. All cabs are run on natural gas. Cheaper, cleaner, no loss in power. We already have an alternative to oil. Instead we blow all this money on scams that don't work too hot or cost a fortune. We need oil for making stuff. At some point we gotta stop burning it up. Maybe we need $200 oil to move us to running our vehicles on natural gas. In the meantime, the only politician who is talking about oil is Sarah Palin. And she's the one who removed the logjams stopping a gas pipeline from Alaska. Dumb Palin, dumb like an Arctic Fox.
i had a friend back in the 80's that just converted his truck to natural gas. he was a motor head and did it himself. he said win/win. just hard to find gas stations with natural gas. guess, what they did the same thing with diesel. it's the gas station companies that are the obstruction, maybe.
What is the problem, exactly? It's not as if all oil sources are equally accessible, and we are suddenly going to wake up one day and realize "ZOMG WE HAVE NO OIL LEFT!!111".
No. We are currently utilizing the most accessible, cheapest oil sources. As those dry up, we'll start accessing the more difficult, more expensive sources of oil, and that will raise the price of oil overall. Over time the price will continue to increase, and that will naturally wean people off oil, as alternative energies become more competitive and profitable. We will all probably be using alternative resources well before the oil resources are completely exhausted.
So, what's the problem? The only way I could see this natural market process circumvented is if government gets involved, and holds the price of oil lower than it naturally would be.
This article in Forbes gives some more insight: http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/18/oil-spill-economy-terrorism-opinions-co...
How is that energy-from-static generator and invisibility ray shield going, Galt?
Unless some more, and different, UFO's crash with new technology, it looks like we better work on improving what we have now.
Is your comment even a response to anything I said? Who said anything about needing some futuristic technology?
As oil resources become more expensive to process, and oil approaches $500 a barrel, solar power will look much more appealing, and attract more R&D and customers, making it more efficient and cheaper.
My comment is based on your comment and how it relates to one of the main premises of your avatar's most popular book, free energy, which you clearly haven't read. That is sad.
Better either find a new avatar, or read the book.
The problem is the way the commodities markets work. When supply is met by demand, prices are stable. When there is "one bushel" more supply than demand, the price structure is broken, and prices drop at a far greater percentage than the oversupply [See The Devil's Bushel]. The corrolary to this is when supply drops below demand. Now, the opposite happens and the price gets bid to the moon. Of course the world cannot function like it has on $150/bbl oil, so demand crashes and prices plummet in a vicious cycle [bumpy plateau].
If we managed our contraction, we could wean ourselves off of the oil teat - but no one want's to take the hit. Instead we're embarking on WWIII as we speak: The war for the last of the easy resources [see Resource Wars]. It is going on right now - most of us just don't know it yet.
Anyone think Gas prices are down because the Government now owns GM?
hmmmmmm
+1
I believe July 2008 was the peak. I wrote about it in April 2009 and warned clients.
Always talking about peak resources. What about those issues no one wants to discuss like peak entropy? What happens when the entropy reservoir reaches capacity eh? What about peak planning? What happens when idiocracy rules the day? (already is). There is unlimited electrical energy flowing from the upper ionosphere it forms hurricanes, thunderstorms, etc. Here's another what about peak ignorance? What happens if the masses suddenly get smart and realize the unlimited electrical potential given to us freely from the sun?
Entropy sure isn't what it used to be.
I just farted out my nacho bell grande. I agree.
Anyone interested in learning more about peak oil, should read "The Long Emergency."
- and "Beyond Oil" by Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes
http://gustavus.edu/events/nobelconference/2007/deffeyes-lecture.php
Wrong all over.
Your chart has consumption exceeding production by 1-3k bpd for most of the last decade. How do you think that happened? An enormous secret stockpile somewhere that we drained down? Or is your data just wrong? Ooh this is a tough one. I'll give you three guesses.
Your chart is at least right that production and consumption both dropped sharply in 2008-2009. Ever heard of Opec? Production quotas? In which Arab oil producers agree to produce less than capacity? (And Iran and Venezuela agree to pretend to.)
Your chart is also right that production and consumption have rebounded, but by less, in 2009-2010. Compliance with Opec quotas has been deteriorating as demand has been rebounding. If this trend continues, we'll start rubbing up against Opec capacity in another year or two. But the Saudis have almost 2mbpd of delayed fields that they were scheduled to bring on line in 2008-2009. I suppose you take on faith Matt Simmons' claims that these fields are worthless, even though his book has been debunked a hundred times over.
And where do you get your figures for demand from 2011 on? Timothy Geithner? My expectations are for stagnation in 2011 developing into a severe crisis by 2012-2013. If I'm completely wrong and somehow the US is saved from fiscal crisis (by aliens? discovery of a perpetual motion machine?), then maybe oil capacity will be under real pressure from demand by earliest 2014.
Completely unrelated...anyone been watching Silver? It is going nuts today.
I just ate some multi-vitamins. I'm healthy now.
May you all Forever be in Tormented in Stasis whilst crossing the Flaming River of Blood in the Seventh Circle of Hell for your Callous disregard of the Bearers of all Reasonable Spiritual and Alkhemical Truths of Mankind.
Nobody gets out alive who fucks with Snooki and JerseyShore. If Peak Oil don't matter to Snooki, it ain't.
Remember, we're America and History Don't Apply to Us.
You should've read my post dude. I think u stole it and compressed it.
I found some ants on the dishes in my computer room. I like to think they are helping me clean.
I believe in Peak Oil, because we're talking about "economic recovery" not hydrocarbon in the ground. Also, King Hubbert actually did a little work in arriving at his thesis, unlike the typical message board dolt who talks about endless supplies of oil and gubment plots.
Quinn’s main point is correct. Oil usage patterns are completely unsustainable, especially in the US. I understand the desire of most people to maintain the status quo, but I don’t understand the “bury hour head in the sand” mentality. The same is true of water, BTW, but don’t tell people that they can’t grow bluegrass in the desert. They will insist that it is their God-given right until they turn on the faucet and get gravel, at which point they will demand that their incompetent government rescue them from themselves.
That said, in my area of rural Texas many fortunes have been made on the back of a barrel, and it seems that people here understand very clearly what is happening. When you see wealthy independent producers driving Priuses to town in Texas, it sort of gets your attention.
Man, this writer rips Maria.
I think she is hot. And recalling how excited she got mentioning that Ebay up $50 during dot.com must have really gotten her blood boiling.
Rip Kudlow, but, Maria. Dude...
Hey does Mtn Dew count as fruit in my diet?
I think it does.
I'll disagree with the graph...we start getting brownouts and blackouts... the rest is going to come much much faster. Rationing of fuel is when things will start to get nasty....
Exponential functions are a bitch to contend with.
30 pieces of silver (Judas (for those that don't get allegory)) compounded at a very modest rate since that payment, would have hollowed out the Earth.
So it didn't happen.
Neither will the human population growth of the planet be sustained, regardless of how worthy (or precious (that last foreign ADE ladle))
The numbers on the currency tickets that make it all go around, can and has grown towards infinity. But numbers are a virtual creation, and their magnitude does not always remain anchored to real human concerns.
Oil and oil consumption will not grow towards infinity.
Travis, I love your comments and laconic style. NO BS.
So few people understand ramping of production rates vs dr. seuss type numbers of reserves. 1000 bizilliongigillion barrels of oil in reserve.
Here is canada and how hard it is to ramp production significantly.
Alberta's Oil Sands, the second largest source of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia. Through responsible development, advancement of technology and significant investment, the Government of Alberta in conjunction with industry seeks to enhance Alberta's role as a world-leading energy supplier. New projects are being added every year and production is expected to increase from 1.31 million barrels per day in 2008 to 3 million barrels per day in 2018, keeping pace with demand and providing a sound economic basis for the future.
to me this is the big motherfucker in the room; i have no idea why some many people see gold as the savior to their wealth; oil bitches; it's $70 now like gold was $800 after the fall; and if you're think'n long term; it only goes up; while gold... really has no practical use; if you're thinking about making money; you think about oil, cause everyone will need it; and it's limit; and will only go up.
I wonder, all the peak oil deniers, can you give us some idea why you can't grasp this shortage?
Can you give us:
- Your age,
- do you own oil stock,
- do you watch fox news, or do you depend on Rush Limbaugh to arrive at your opinions?
- Do you ever second source your opinion with real outside research, from a non-political source?
- Is Peak Oil, a "Political" position to you, instead of an economic one?
Exactly - then call us sheep. Fuck'em.
Irony bitchez!
"Add Jesse Jackson’s ride to prominent vehicles being stripped in Detroit.
Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.
Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs. Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large."
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100903/MIVIEW/100903001/1467/opinion01/...
this country is just one sham stacked on another platform of shams. it will topple eventually. but damn, the player's getting exposed are just coming out of the woodwork. i bought into all this crap. even took a sustainability class from these chokers. i see your point to everything ZH. just propaganda, over rated spokespeople with the microphones. i walked out on inconvenient truth, though. couldn't stand to watch gore's mug. the film's attempt to glorify this inconvenient boob-tube. that was one hell of a piece of visual/audio piece of propaganda BS.
lemonobrien has a point.
The future: 9 Billion People.
China now the second largest economy in the world.
China bidding for Oil Companies World Wide.
Where is the oil going to come from for this kind of Economic Third World Boom?
Well, one thing is for sure. China sure isn't going to pipe any oil from Iran through Afghanistan to its western border.
http://www.mytravelguide.com/g/maps/Southwest-Asia-map.gif
Oh, that's right, we are engaged in the longest war in American history, in Afghanistan, because of a bunch of Saudi Arabian terrorists flying jets into our buildings in 2001.
After we leave the chinese will make deals; they already made major mining deals in Afghanistan. We're caught in a catch 22; we leave they win; we don't leave, we bleed to death. This is why all the talk about Iran; Iran, China, Russia; and if you haven't heard; Russia now pumps directly to China.
Leave? Most of us just got there, right Barry?
No, the chi.coms will be stuck shipping oil through those highly defensible straits for some time, I am afraid.
EROEI? No, for this effort we use this metric:
COKFCEDBNOALLICACDPFDTCFFILDCEIMOUSD (Cheap Oil Kept From Competitive Economies Divided By Number Of American Lives Lost In Combat Against Cave Dwelling Poppy Farmers Defending Their Country From Foreign Invaders Less Defense Company Earnings In Millions Of USD)
Are you absolutely sure oil is a result of decaying organic material? What if it's a byproduct of earth's core spinning around and around....
I make no claims that this is true, but I am open to the possibility that *what is assumed* to be true may in fact might just not be true.
/lurker mode back on/ ;)
http://www.oralchelation.com/faq/wsj4.htm
I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT ON ASITE LIKE ZH,
WITH AN ARTICLE WITH CLOSE TO 200 POSTS NO ONE HAS MENTIONED THE MOVIE COLLAPSE WITH MICHAEL RUPERT.
NOMINATED FOR DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR.
All should Watch: http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/50078/Collapse__part_1_/
Good documentary.
Very sad. There are a lot of smart people on ZH that get the fundamentals of economics. Yet these same people use magical thinking for energy issues. Very soon they will learn a harsh lesson that our economy and food production are proportional to energy use.
Thanks VK for trying to educate the science morons on this site.
Documentary recommendation above,"Collapse", also coorelates population to industrial revolution (cheap energy). An eye opener, or at least something to contemplate. On the topic, one question I've got is; If the United States is past peak production and OPEC members are at peak oil, with all it's ramifications, why are we wanting to consume the United States' last reserves as quick as possible? You know, "Drill! Baby, Drill!Wouldn't it be purdent to save our resources for the future, on a humanistic basis?
How would this help the NWO?
Good one! :)
Why isn't there a label on the chart for 'Tarted-Up Fascists'? Something's not right there.
You doom mongers assume we are anti-science or our opinions are generated in a far right wing hothouse. I assure you that is not the case, I can also assure you that your "scientific" opinions have been denigrated and cheapened by your brethren propogating the MMGW debacle using outright lies.
You cannot convince reasonable people of your theories until you realize reasonable people want solutions along with their ration of doom. Where are the calls for 80-200 standard design nuke plants? That never materializes but the calls for control, taxation and big brother monitoring of the stupid populace never stops, hmmm..
You cannot convince reasonable people of your theories until you realize reasonable people want solutions along with their ration of doom.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/bottomlesswell/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ulWxBRqHc
I agree that nuclear is the only feasible large scale energy source that can mitigate our coming problems. It takes a lot of surplus wealth to build a nuclear plant. And we have little surplus wealth as demonstrated by current debt crisis. Our wealth will further drop as oil production drops. Therefore we would be really wise to shed a bunch of optional expenses like military and shift these precious funds to nuclear construction. Of course even this is not a silver bullet because first problem will be decreasing liquid fuels which nuclear does not directly address.
ah Peak Oil, I have a love-hate relationship with that theory
I love the theory because back in '06 when I first read of it, it opened up my eyes to bigger picture and the coming economic collapse
I hate it because the first thing I did was run out and buy expensive solar panels, a wind turbine, camp stove fuel, matches, etc... all that's sitting in boxes waiting for doomsday, when I should have been putting every penny I had into precious metals
In short, I think we have bigger fish to fry before peak oil becomes an issue, like:
a. hyperinfation
b. socialism
c. social degeneration
I'll take B, Bob. :)
Agreed, better use of resources. If these come to pass and I think it will be years before A., our use of oil will drop correspondingly.
I'll take C.
d. all the above, with a bullet
Humans will burn or fission everything they can get their hands on; coal, natural gas, uranium, thorium and will extract energy from sunlight and wind. However, this will not be enough to maintain the high net energy fantasyland we have created. Be prepared to change, either gradually or suddenly to new living arrangements and lifestyles. There likely won’t be great investment opportunities, but rather a commandeering of just about everything until the new reality gains acceptance. I suppose its already happening as too big to fail corporations are shored up like a faltering leg on a three-legged stool.
In the end we’ll be back to relying on sunlight, simply because it is out of our reach and beyond our insatiable appetites.
Ahh yes the "Malthusian insatiable appetite theory" "coal, natural gas, uranium, thorium and will extract energy from sunlight and wind" if we do all this how long do you think it will last before we develop fusion? Although I suppose the doomers will say pulling hydrogen from seawater is harmful..
If it comes down to it we will drill to the core and tap it or get serious about helium 3. The people I run with are not about to crawl into the hole we are told to lie down in so Malthusian luddites can feel vindicated.
Can we please get a weather report from Mulligan's Valley? And any naked photos of Dagny, too!
Since Angelina Jolie is playing Dagny in the upcoming movie, I hereby second the HH's call for nude photos! Lots of them!
The tools necessary for a contained fusion power plant do not yet exist, if they are possible at all. The development of fusion power would require the support of a society that is more complex than our own. We will be losing complexity from now on, even though much of it is fluff. If fusion is to come to our rescue, I would guess that it needs to be operating somewhere within the next 20 years. If not, the loss of complexity, poverty and general chaos will strip away any chance of maintaining such a complex and large-scale endeavor.
We’re starting to feel some hunger pangs but starvation is what we will be experiencing. When the caloric intake for society is not met by eating fossil fuels, we will begin to burn what small amount of fat we have (70 day grain supply, SPR). Then most energy is directed to the critical organs (military, farming, transport) while the rest of the economy lies around comatose. Then we start eating the muscle tissue (taking nourishment from existing infrastructure) until it is damaged beyond usefulness and our essential organs are so incapacitated that we collapse and die (as a civilization that could not change in time.)
the only hope for fusion is if someone brutal takes over and turns and says, ok, Trav, now wtf do we do here?
And most people will not like the truth. Hell, I would set a reproduction permit bar at IQ 105. The demographics trends would skew so freakin massively that people would think it was racial genocide. Our only hope for humanity is if there is a sudden outbreak of rationality. Right now, clearly things are headed in the opposite direction.
Only once people understand the problem or understand that they cannot understand the problem and therefore should defer to one who can, will the necessary sacrifices be made to resurrect an energy growth paradigm. With existing human demographics, such a thing is impossible so long as one man has one vote.
The concept of peak oil is a reality, but the way it is presented in the article is ridiculous. The "peak oil" event will be slow over a period of decades. The key is for the developed world to survive will be implementation of an alternative transportation system immediately or the chaos described in the article will occur.
What is more of a threat is the loss of access to the middle east. It would be crippling to the US.
As for short term oil prices, they are dropping folks. No one is really using all of the the oil being produced. The commodities market is a sham like the stock market. Long term oil prices will rise though.
By the way if y'all want to look at something technically interesting, consider the Sabatier reaction by which methane is made from CO2 and H; this runs Sabatier reactors, which are routinely considered for manned space flight for several reasons (exothermic reaction, can be used to make fuel in the Martian atmosphere, meaning only light hydrogen need be transported). This is what makes abiotic methane in the ocean floor, atmosphere of Titan etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
Thus a very handy hydrocarbon can be....synthesized. It is handy in that the most efficient electrical generation systems we have already use it--combined cycle natural gas power plants eg the most common build in the US for the past thirty years. These natural gas CC units are so efficient (65% plus thermal efficient without back end heat recovery/CHP) why? Because we have cannibalized the R&D going into aeroderivative turbines (jet engines) and that R&D has been super-massive for over 50 years massive why? Because most of it is military spending. Jets, whoosh. Pushing the tech envelope, you better believe it. Then we strap 'em down on a concrete pad and blast CH4 through 'em for power while boiling water with the exhaust for more power. Hellz yeah. Works great.
So, maybe the defense budget will save all of our sorry asses in the end. Just need a lot of hydrogen, and that can be electrolyzed out of good ol' H2O, and etc. Costs and mass-energy balance? Those who know, don't say; those who say don't know. In other words we have no fucking idea....but if it works, in the end the 'price' won't matter so much now will it?
For purists, wind and hydro etc. could be used to make the H, then we make the CH4 and run everything with it...transportation could be electric, H, CH4 or some combination.
Yes it would be goddamn expensive most likely. But probably not expensive enough to cause the Dark Ages. A good deal....if you like civilizations....
Also gasified biomass could provide similar service, most likely at lower cost. See 'biomethane' powering several Scandinavian cities, soon coming to a utility near you. NASA nut/visionary James Hanson told the UK press we have to 'run civilization on wood' and while he is really not very good at energy policy, there are extremely critical but expensive R&D tracks like hot gas cleanup and scale up of high temp/pressure gasification that are NOT HAPPENING because we are all so stupid and waste our time arguing about cap and trade and paleoclimatic data series filters. When we're not just laying about like giant cockroaches staring at illuminated panels.
There, two helpful suggestions. Sabatier reactors and biomass gasification to leverage existing natural gas infrastructure. Happy Labor Day Weekend. I rarely post in my area of actual expertise, so it's kind of a special present.
Sounds fucking AWSUMZ.
But, where does the hydrogen come from?
Did a single ONE of you like study science in high fucking school or were you ALL cheating off of me?!?!?!
Electrolysis of water for H2 fuel is net energy NEGATIVE, bud.
Please don't be a dippity-doo. There is an energy cost to get the H. So what? The motive power, to use slightly older terminology, is not the H. It's the electric power to make the H. Synthesized methane is a big storage and conversion system, to get the transportation sector to work. It's better than having it...NOT work. I thought that was your point as well, or didn't you have one?
Maybe you need to go back to systems theory class. No cheating.
Jim, from this post I can only assume you are smuggling indo from Canada, bc ur fuckin high as a kite, son!
There's an "energy cost" to get the H2? No shit? Hydrolizing water is endothermic. Meaning that to replace ALL natural hydrocarbons with synthesized ones, even assuming a 100% efficient, 2nd law violating process, would require MORE energy than the freakin natural hydrocarbons contain!
There's no way to cheat physics...the energy to do things has to come from somewhere.
As for the transportation sector, a gasoline fuel cell is a better idea than any of the rest of this BS.
Systems theory, lol...unplug the system, then talk about theory.
Hydrogen so impractical, even Kalifornia has given up on it.....going to try compressed air engines next, everyone in Kalifornia knows air compresses itself for free.....
Kalifornia, know how to party.
in the city, city of compton, keeps' you rockin.
he who controls the dance floor, controls the people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWOsbGP5Ox4
kiss kiss cutey. R.I.P. 2pak you too, HST.
For those who are interested, I recommend Jim Kunstler's book The Long Emergency for a no-bullshit look at Peak Oil and the problems we face.
There are Peak Oil believers and deniers. There are those who think it will never end ("Cornucopians.") There are those who think science will arrive "just in time" to save the day with cold fusion, electricity from quantum fluctuations, or what have you (the "Cargo Cults.")
One eye-opener that is not all that apparent: what a miracle fuel oil is, as compared to all of the other options. And most of the solutions people offer as replacements for oil themselves depend on oil to permit their efficient manufacture and transport.
Read the book.
Oil is amazing, all the work that gets done on it and yet it can be sold cheaper than bottled water half a planet away. One would be a fool to think any change will be less than wrenching.
Energy is a bad news business for the most part. 'Cept for all the money if you are on the rent extracting side of course.
Fuck Kunstler. fuckin jew racebaiter libtard is what he is. read his latest blog post and tell me it doesn't make you puke.
Whether you are a tea party person or not, to hear the slander leveled at ordinary people who are just sick of the bullshit in DC...this type of demagoguery needs to be answered with gunfire in my opinion.
My recent run-in with a friend over a similar topic leads me to the conclusion that we are so far gone that war and mass death is the only solution here. There is a time for every purpose under heaven and methinks it's time to kill. The differences have become irreconcilable, which is highly tragic, but strenuous wishing won't unspill milk, now will it?
50 years ago if someone called you a bigot for not voting democrat or a communist for not voting GOP, they got punched in the mouth. Nowadays, people are insulting with impunity; it's as if they were raised by wolves. Some people even have forum avatars giving everyone the middle finger!
Hm.
Solar energy flux at the surface of the Earth is about 1.4 kW/m^2.
Average American household electricity consumption in 2008 was--round number--1000 kW hrs / month.
Assuming 8 hours a day of sunlight and 30 days per month (hey, the sun needs coffee breaks, too), you get 240 producing hours per month.
So, that's about 336 kW hrs per m^2 month. Conversion is at best 20% efficient, however, so you'd probably need 15-20 m^2 / household to supply the need. Let's go crazy and assume we want to power 300 million households (one per person in the US): that's 6 billion square meters, or 6,000 square kilometers. Somewhere in size between Delaware and Puerto Rico.
BLM public lands in the state of New Mexico alone are almost 60,000 square kilometers.
Why is energy scarce again? Plants figured all this out about 4 billion years ago....
LOL...burn all the plants then!
Let's see here...at what rate do plants convert solar power to energy?
Wow, the sun is up there raining energy on us, I agree, we needed to devote our best minds to this instead of granite countertops.
But, we didn't. We were too busy strenuously wishing for "them" to "come up with" a solution so we can perpetuate happy motoring and exurban McMansions.
We are as deer on a fucking island. I give this problem to people to assess their intelligence.
Bacteria are in a bottle, the bottle starts empty at noon and is full at midnight; the bacteria double every minute. At what time is the bottle half full (yes I know that it can't be literally empty at noon, assume it has one).
The vast majority of people give the wrong answer...they do not understand exponential compounding. If you were a smart bacteria, who did understand geometric growth, you'd sound an alarm of imminent doom when the rest of the idiot bacteria were laughing at you because the bottle would be freakin at 1/1000 of capacity despite being very near time-wise to capacity.
Humanity will have to alter its reliance on oil, but people used to live without it for many thousand years. An easy solution is to go back to using horses and sail ships. Quality of life may come down, but that's minor issue comparing to global warming
Horses, bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bareback bitches!!!
Bingo with respect to humanity's survival. But there's a catch -- humanity survives but how many humans can survive without petroleum based agriculture on its current scale? Bunk with respect to AGW.
Yes, well basically "burn the plants" is an excellent capsule summary of a million years or so of human energy technology. Sort of makes you feel proud to think that what we're all discussing here is different in degree, but not kind, from our ancestors on the savannah looking for some nice, dry wood lying around so they can make a fire.
Aside from the clever use they make of solar power via transpiration, plants do an interesting thing with sunlight: They use it to create a proton gradient. Proton gradient + electron reservoir + molecular oxygen turns out to be the recipe for a proton exchange fuel cell....
Obviously, nobody knows what the exact solution looks like. But since the sun is the main (pretty much the only) actual energy input into the system we inhabit, and since the amount of energy would appear to be more than adequate, this seems like a pretty sensible direction to investigate....
The "exponential function" videos on Youtube are a great teaching tool for this concept.
Pretty well answers the question of whether people are smarter than yeast...
can't be bothered w/ that, man, too busy watching Jersey Shore.
Actually, I've never watched that shit...it's on MTV or somethin? The Yo Ghetto channel?
Anyhow, so my accountant answers 6 o'clock like everyone else does. I was like yeah um lemme make sure to check those tax numbers.
Imagine a smart bacterium. He's at 10 minutes to midnight looking at rapidly impending doom. Would the Dunning-Kruger bacteria listen? Nope. They'd say nigga pleeze, this bottle only 1/1024th full! We got miles and miles of space left, stop DOOMING and being played by "TPTB" who just want to deprive all of us of our god-given right to large SUVs and granite countertops. And if you spoke too loud, they'd band together and kill you.
Then 2359 comes and they'd hate you ^2 for being right when they weren't. I've noticed another effect where abruptly or rudely awakened idiots react violently to the intrusion of reality onto their faux self-concepts. They start trying to get rid of the people who tried to warn them (good fucking idea, eliminate the few who were smart enough to anticipate the problem). The mediocre in my experience very steadfastly resist acknowledgement of reality even when it has them tied down and is bitchslapping them.
LOL..watching the exponential youtubes now, I use these SAME FREAKING analogies- you can see my 10 minutes to midnight bacteria bottle in one of the preceding paragraph.
This is a very good series...should be REQUIRED viewing for all people
Now we just have to figure out how to grow solar panels without using fossil fuels. Maybe Leo has some seeds?
"Now we just have to figure out how to grow solar panels without using fossil fuels..."
...or rare earth metals. Oh, of course in the near future you can buy solar panels from the Chinese (but no longer rare earths)...
You'll need a REALLY big battery though - it's dark at night remember.
For kicks and giggles, why don't you rework the calc to include the BTU equivalent associated with US annual oil usage - household eletricity usage is only part of the equation.
a bit high on the solar flux. desert tortoise voted no on the desert panels.Also, not enough Windex... leo's solar portfolio decimated by the desert tortoise and lack of windex...
You haven't lived until you get to sit in 120 F weather behind a pickup truck protecting an endangered tortoise crossing a road.
We didn't wash the mirrors since the winds would knock most of the dust off.
We just bought a Volkswagen TDI Sportswagen. SUVs are just to gas hungry to drive- even the smaller ones.
A few points:
"A funny thing happened on our way to permanent prosperity and unlimited cheap oil. The right to prosperity was yanked out from underneath us by the current Greater Depression. "
Was this by policy? I ahve been wondering for some time if the financial crash was not created to turn down the oil flow.
Second point: If the Chinese economy crashes, we will get some temporary relief (maybe 2-4 years cheaper gasoline). With India's Nano production ramping up, even this will not help for long.
Third point: I'm not necassarily on the peak oil bandwagon, but eventually (and it could be soon) we could start running out. Abiotic oil anyone?
www.EnergySolution.US
Pretty amusing comments here... As fields mature, you have to pump the oil UP outta the ground and that is expensive. Some fields pump way more water than oil, so you have chemical costs to cull out the oil. Its expensive and the net "add" is a lot less than one might think. Plus the oil is low quality. Sure, you might add "X" number of bbls to overall production, but the net energy "add" is much, much less. When gasoline is $5/gallon, these same idjits will be screaming that its goldie's fault. World of hurt coming dead ahead.
I really don't see what the big deal is about peak oil.
If its true, then eventually the price of oil will rise above alternative fuel sources and consumers will move to acquire energy from those sources.
If its not true, then consumers will continue sucking down oil.
Worrying about it as if this is some kind of massive problem that is going to send us back to the dark ages is ridiculous.
The market WILL find alternative sources of energy as the cost of oil becomes prohibitively expensive. We SHOULD NOT take public funds and hand them to alternative energy speculators. We SHOULD allow everyone and their brother to drill for as much oil as possible and break the government granted monopoly big oil has on drilling rights.
I'm with you. It'll all take care of itself. Not gonna worry about it. Gonna cuddle up with a big open gas flame in the fire pit outside and watch Snooki on JerseyShore while I bemoan Global Warming.
Hey Knuckles. There's a Darwinian event coming and you're going to be on the wrong end of it. From a species perspective, that's probabaly a good thing. Enjoy what remains of your ignorant bliss dickhead.
If "socialism" means we lock up Insurance Exec's for Insurance FRAUD: RESCISSION, then I'm All For SOCIALISM.
If "Socialism" means we can CONTROL Wall Street Fraud, them I'm all for "Socialism".
If "Socialism" means we can stop the top 1% from robbing the middle class of ALL it's benefits, then "Socialism" is Gods Revenge Against the Wall Street Mafia.
I highly recommend reading this report by Feasta.
It is the most comprehensive (and readable) report which studies how higher energy costs combined with the Global debt problem will lead to disaster.
http://www.feasta.org/documents/risk_resilience/Tipping_Point.pdf
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Very important piece of work. Most of the advanced material I've read on the subject (Greer, Kunstler, TAE, TOD, Orlov et al) is, let's call it 'Grad' level. This is definitely 'Post Grad', taking the other material forward and connecting some dots.
Lots of comments, almost everything already mentioned. I'll try a few things I didn't see, and I didn't scan every single post in careful detail.
1) Do not get excited about news of new discoveries. The depletion rate of field PRODUCTION (not reserves) past peak is about 5.5%/yr. The vast majority of present production is from the old supergiants at Ghawar, the rest of the middle east and Russia. So take the 85 million bpd and reduce it by 10 mbpd (for the fields not yet post peak) and you have 75 mbpd, which is then reduced 5.5%/yr for a total of about 4 mbpd of new production that has to be added each year Just To Break Even. That's 1/2 of a Saudi Arabia that has to come on line, Each Year, just to break even on production..
2) Forget transitioning transport to electricity. The horsepower to watts conversion is just too devastating, especially for large trucks and agricultural combines, that need 450+ horsepower engines that run all day on maybe 2 tanks of fuel, loaded in 10 minutes. Remember, you can't feed 7 billion people with old 100 acre family farms. Those idyllic wistful bits of nostalgia worked in a world of 2-3 billion. Now you have 10,000 acre farms and they have to get planted before planting season is done. Oxen won't do it.
3) The population of NYC was 1 million in 1910. It took hundreds of thousands of horses to haul food in from the farm suburbs (that are now concrete) to feed that million every day. There are now 8 million in NYC and the average calorie travels 1500 miles to feed each of them. This will never work on anything but infinite oil, and that doesn't exist.
4) Don't presume there is an answer.
Great article, love the picture of the ice storm, but what does it have to do with peak oil. Oh I get it, that's how you see the end. I prefer Road Warrior.
NWO is organizing Peak Oil probably to concur with WOIII is my idea.
The Energy Non-Crisis by Lindsey Williams - Lindsey Williams talks about his first hand knowledge of Alaskan oil reserves larger than any on earth. And he talks about how the oil companies and U.S. government won't send it through the pipeline for U.S. citizens to use. Hear Reverend Lindsey Williams tell the real TRUTH about Alaskan oil and gas: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147
Der Spiegel 1 September 2010: Military Study Warns of a Potentially Drastic Oil Crisis - 'Peak Oil' and the German Government http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
After reading as much of this thread as my various spincters can handle, I think it's safe to say that the headline is bang on:
Peak Denial About Peak Oil
And then came Thorium . . .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html
Thorium does nothing. It doesn't fuel transport trucks that bring you food.
Oh lord, not Thorium again. That article was thoroughly debunked in the comments on the Telegraph site. Please, please, please read the science behind it.
No amount of energy is enough as long as people think they can afford hauling their lardy asses around in 1-3 ton trucks, whereas a bicycle with an assistant motor would suffice.
You first
Two things, HUGE SUV's are starting to not be in demand.
Next, with the figures given,Peak Oil may be on the horizon......
But, not for the USA, if, and a huge IF, some Pols grow a set, and allow the development of our OWN reserves.
The amounts are mind boggling...OIL.
Not counting if we wised up, and started adding an LPG conversion option to our gas powered vehicles.
We have more Natural Gas than all the Middle east combined.
Our KNOWN Oil Reserves are unreal........not to mention what is suspected, but not yet explored.
We could be totally energy independent within less than 5yrs, if we got rid of the Eco Nazi's.
This is why we don't drill as we could domestically. Someday, we'll need OUR oil to pay OUR debts.
The US does not have mind boggling amounts of oil. Period.
The whimsical wave of the hand and claim that technology improvements will solve the problem by increasing the amount of oil recoverable from any one place just doesn't work. It's not a technological problem. It's a physics problem. Read about the two relevant parameters: Permeability and Porosity.
Bakken will likely never produce more than 600K barrels per day. Think carefully about that. It Doesn't Matter How Much Is There. It only matters how fast it can come out, and permeability and porosity determine that.
You simply have to understand how the oil business works. Exploration companies are NOT necessarily production companies. Explorers buy leases and drill and hopefully find something. They then make a press announcement of ENORMOUS SIZE and ask for bidders from the producers. They want to sell those leases for 100X what they paid for htem. The producers, if any of them believe the hype, then find themselves committed and They, Too, will claim big numbers lest they be fired if they overpaid. In the end you will not know anything until you see the barrels per day production figures. All the other hype must be ignored.
For Bakken, that's never going to be more than a few hundred K bpd. That will ramp up and get ballyhooed while the wells in Texas, California and Oklahoma are quietly P&Aed (plugged and abandoned). Please understand this because your life DOES depend on it. You can't just find new production. You have to find production in quantities greater than the production decline each year of the dying, pumped out fields.
Pardon me for asking so bluntly but how the hell do you know? I have seen enormous figures from multiple independent sources for the bakken and adjoining formations and I live here, so again how do you know this?
Have you seen numbers on their projected production? Not reserves. Production. Look for production expectations.
God damn you people know too much about oil. It's like you are cult of oil drillers. LOL
It's ironic that on ZH, one of the most amazing sites on the web for skeptical insight into the murky world of finance and politics, that there would be so much resistance to skepticism about the dogma of Peak Oil scarcity which only serves to advance the restriction and control of energy, resources and finances by the same old cartel of malignant Malthusian bandits.
Can you name another industry anywhere that attracts and determines a greater military/political action to preserve control of global financial and industrial policy other than the petroleum industry? Another business, other than the military or global finance and that is as guarded, secure, capital intensive and focussed? Why would you expect them to tell the truth if there was an abundance of oil?
There is no real leverage in energy if you don't multiply the power in it through the process of artificial scarcity when the endgame is social engineering. Remember this is an industry that provides the commodity that makes real industrial production possible and as a critical commodity traded primarily in fiat ponzi USD and GBP debt notes makes the fake financial cogs turn. It is a critical commodity to the crim class and its access must be physically and geographically controlled by their military and scientifically suppressed by their media and legends if power is to be effectively projected over global resources (which especially includes the sheeple).
Everything they say is a lie so why not Peak Oil? Does the science support an alternative? And if it does would it be widely discussed or dismissed by the comfort bad religion offers? If abundant oil was available at depth throughout the world and technology developed to safely extract it and better consume it would it not nurture wide-spread economic and energy independence around the planet? You have to ask yourself, who would gain from that scenario?
When science is heresy, your mind is a prisoner and your body will surely follow.
Let's see what the real science says instead of the faithful propaganda...
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/266424
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Peak_Oil___Russia/peak_oil___russia.html
http://www.gasresources.net/energy_resources.htm
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v2/n8/full/ngeo591.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/4848193/Methane-Generation-at-High-PT-NobelHerschbach-0405930101v1
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/02/17/337289/index.htm
Here is the trump card for all those cornucopian claims, which, btw, do not come from as respected a source as the CEO of Chevron in the OP photo, but have a look very simply at this graph. Nothing more, and remember that the price of oil is now 50% higher than in 2005:
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=1800
Saudi Arabia claims to have 4 mbpd excess production capacity and they hold it back because "there is no demand for it". Odd how the Russians found demand for theirs, isn't it? How very nice of the Saudis to just let the Russians have that 50% increase in sales revenue per barrel out of the generosity of their hearts.
Oh, and btw, the old fields of western Siberia are declining 12%/yr in production. They drill 5000, repeat, 5000 wells per year to hold their production up. They are scheduled for a fall off next year. I won't call it "peak". You can look that up yourself. Russia's oil production peak was back in the 1980s. They did 12+ mbpd in 1988. THAT was their peak. It's been all down from there, with huge numbers of wells being used to slow the collapse.
As for the abiotic silliness, if oil can be created out of nothingness underground, then why drill in 5000 feet of water? No, don't wave your hands about environmental policies. They don't apply in Brazil, and their offshore drilling is also hyper deep. If abiotic oil is everywhere, why not drill in downtown Havana? US environment regs have no effect there, but have you noticed, perhaps, that there is no drilling in downtown Havana?
Russia is selling its capacity because it needs cash. But not to worry tho:
http://www.oilru.com/or/34/664/
Saudi Arabia says not worry about Peak Oil:
http://www.saudinomics.com/2010/01/key-points-from-davos-2k10.html
China passes U.S. for Saudi Oil consumption; no peak oil
China has passed the United States in consumption of Saudi Oil, now at over a million barrels a day, according to Aramco CEO Khalid al-Falih. This milestone was expected someday as China’s growth and consumption increases on a dramatic scale, report Arif Sharif and Rob Verdonck in Reuters. There is still plenty of oil in the ground and the world should put aside fears about "peak oil", said Khalid al-Falih at the Davos forum, Gerard Wynn (Reuters) reports.
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2004/saudi-relations-interes...
Unlike Chevron, Russia has the benefit of having refined a more productive and accurate exploration regimen based on abiotic oil formation.
Saudi Arabia just had the dumb luck of being located at a point on the planet where the Earth's crust is thinnest and being closer to the Upper Mantle has the benefit of productive reservoirs being continually replenished as documented.
The low hanging fruit that are the shallow structural captures have been mostly harvested and in that respect Peak Oil maps a possible outcome if deeper sources are not targeted and exploited. Saudi Arabia proves that it is just not everywhere, location is still important and if it is not bubbling up under your feet you will have to look for its new deeper pools.
Maybe it is in Havana and maybe not. You don't know until you look with a new set of eyes and a new potential understanding.
Last time I checked the Sun was not the centre of the universe but rumour has it that it is no longer the greatest influence on the planet's warming.
Gimme some of that old time religion...
Just...idiotic.
You actually believe it's possible there is abundant oil under downtown Havana?
Uh, and maybe there's a continent the size of australia out there that we haven't discovered yet, right?
BTW, the Saudis are liars.
You misunderstood. I was ridiculing the idea that abiotic oil exists in any meaningful quantities. If it did, it could be found anywhere at all, and if anywhere at all, and you were concerned about US environmental regs, you could drill in Havana.
The fact that Cuba doesn't drill in Havana is more or less conclusive proof that abiotic oil is not everywere, as it would have to be if it was indeed abiotic.
You seem to KNOW many things. The earth's crust is an open book to you.
"The fact that Cuba doesn't drill in Havana is more or less conclusive proof that abiotic oil is not everywere, as it would have to be if it was indeed abiotic."
So the cap structures of impermeable rock would not matter to the abiotic oil theory. The oil would not then collect under their strata because it is special right? Of course you must then know where the concentration of plants and other oil producing organisms were heaviest over the Earth during the Mesozoic era and hence where to drill. But if large parts of the Earth were covered in these organisms for millions of years ( as most land was concentrated in the equatorial regions)what happened to the oil that did not collect under these geologic cap structures or did it all just migrate there for us to find?
Ad hominem, conflation, non sequitur, proof by assertion, straw man...you’re a regular titan of logic and the polemic aren’t you?
Oh, and charming...I forgot charming
If you sold a product that was in high demand and you were flush with cash and knew that your product was going to sell for at least double it's current price in 5 years.....
What would you do?
Yea, me too.
No, sorry, that doesn't fly. They have said explicitly that the reason they do not produce more is "because there is no demand". This is a proven lie. The Russians clearly have demand.
Look, this is not really very much in the world of conjecture. Some is, for sure, but really not very much. OPEC is 12 countries (down from 13 last year when Indonesia became an importing country as their fields depleted). 9 are producing flat out. They don't even claim to have spare capacity. The UAE, Kuwait and KSA do claim to have spare capacity, but that graph above suggests they do not.
And before you dismiss it as "a conspiracy with too many people in on it", remember that Lee Raymond at Exxon was sure, and assured the government, that it didn't matter if OPEC put on an embargo. He felt he could ramp up Texas production any time he wanted to.
He tried. He failed. The embargo smashed economies and spiked oil prices. Only the surge in production from Alaska and the North Sea undid it. Both of those sources are now way past peak.
Anyway, KSA's alleged excess capacity should NEVER be considered to be anything other than alleged. The graph is highly suggestive that they don't have it.
Watch this, moron:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Cass Sunstein, is that you?
Jim Quinn your articles always produce provocative discussions.
Thanks for the post.
Peak oil is a non-issue for at least the next decade for supply/demand reasons, not political reasons.
Look, I'm a conservationist, I would be happy if peak oil would save our coral reefs from the next major El Nino. I would be happy if oil went to $200, in inflation-adjusted dollars, in the next five years. But it's not going to happen.
Opec is still producing less than published capacity. The Saudis have 2mpbd of ready-to-go capacity in addition to their published capacity. It's the peak oilers who are simply reading sensationalist books and articles and not reading any serious research.
Besides, near-term peak oil depends on V-shaped global recovery. That's just not going to happen. Most of you peak oilers know that very well, but you still cling to near-term peak oil theory because you want to believe that peak oil will save us from global warming, or because you want to believe that SUV drivers will be punished by some kind of oil market karma. Get real. It's not going to happen.
I don't think you quite understand what's happening here.
It doesn't matter what you think motivations are. It doesn't matter that you think global warming will subside, or not. It doesn't matter what the oil market does. And most of all, it doesn't matter what politics does.
This is a planet killer. The estimates are that this planet, without oil fueling tractors, making insecticide, making fertilizer, fueling refrigerated transport, and transport itself, can feed 900 million people.
There are presently 7 billion people on the planet.
There is no law of the universe that says this population reduction happens slowly. There is absolutely zero reason to believe that 20 year olds will intellectually evaluate the situation and choose to abstain from sex and procreation. There is no reason to believe that a miracle technology is going to arrive in the handful of years available for it to do so.
There is no reason to believe this story has a happy ending. It's not about trading oil. It's not about buying guns. It's not about storing food. Odds are extremely high that of that 900 million, the US won't be much of a %. Maybe not China, either, whose rice has to travel 800 miles from Bali.
African farmers have good odds. Brazillians, who can get 3 crops a year with no winter and offshore oil, have good odds. Americans have very poor odds.
Most people reading these words will not die of natural causes.
Way to go Tyler. Between peak oil and anything Israel, ZH gets a hit fest and proof positive we are freakin' doomed.
Great discussion. Zero hedge is so full of religious nuts with no science/math background, and no interest in facts. But then, that is the human condition.
Thank you trav777! On almost every thread, I quickly scan for your comments and ignore everything else.
I am a chemical engineer. So I understand this issue. The entire history of human society is based on continuous growth and cheap energy. Make energy more expensive and marginal businesses and farmland have to be taken offline. Peak oil means economies shrink. Economies shrink, debt can't be repaid. Which shrinks the economy again. And so on.
However I don't fear peak oil and debt. I welcome it. I want to live in a world that is not overcrowded and polluted with fossil fuel chemicals. I believe continuous growth and over population are the root cause of virtually every other problem facing mankind. Peak resources is what will force crazy apes to live sustainably.
Have we forgotten the Arab Oil Embargo in the mid 70's so soon? We had Odd and Even days at the time for weeks as it took hours sitting in line to get a rationed amount of gasoline and even then no gaurantee that the station will still have fuel when you do finally pull to the pump.
We have a great oppertunity to take on a different fuel and possibly even a entirely new system of transport other than the obselete Interstate Highway System. Houses and Commercial Buildings can provide for most own needs harvesting off the sun and the wind assisted by Nat Gas or other alternative at nighttime.
Or even driving copper or other metal rods far enough underground to generate a change in heat and use the very earth itself to quietly provide heat and cooling.
Consider the following. A gas station with tanks for three grades of fuel. About 10,000 gallons in total or more. That works out to about 1000 cars taking 8 gallons assuming 4 cars fueled every 15 minutes at 4 pumps it will be all gone in 36 to 50 hours give or take a few for a 24.7 station.
Truck stops have the ability to deliver 300 gallons of fuel to each 18 wheeler in a few minutes time. Some stops have as many as 50 pumps going 24/7 and each 18 wheeler will consume 300 gallons in approx 1200 (One 24 hour day or less for two drivers team) miles or about 3 days if single different parts of the nation deliver different performance to the trucks.
In my 30+ years being involved with big rigs I have seen fuel mileage increase from about 4 to only 8 or so with spikes close to 10 mpg depending on specific situations and as much as 20 gallons per hour in mountain climbing or 10 gallons overnight sleeping for 8 hours at fast idle.
Ships consume a horrendous amount of fuel, however they have engines so big that they can cross whole oceans hauling cargo cheaper than a equivilent number of trucks can carry coast to coast.
You can put 400 loads onto a train and ship it coast to coast in 10 days or less with less fuel.
River barges as well as maritime shipping can haul more with less fuel.
Course we can always go back to the Steam Technology for vehicles, ships and trains when the oil finally does run out. There is plenty of coal, just not the kind that EPA wants anyone to use.
Now the big problem is this. China and other Nations produce the stuff. We dont. So.
We need to create a entirely new domestic industry that will provide everything we use, consume and provide for parts as well as make adjustments in technology and ways of going to work, doing work and phasing out obselete models of industry.
For example. Why have 1000 people commute to work to sit in a cubicle for a set number of hours? That is a waste. My temp work has consistently shown to prove to my employer that a task or mission of the day can be completed in a certain amount of time (Usually way less than 8 hours) and we go home when finished. That is the end of it. No need to sit fighting a 3 PM Crash or the 4 AM slows waiting for the authorized time to clock out and finally go home.
And what is the small business to do when the taxes are raised next year? I cannot rely on them being open to provide me with bolts, wood, tools and other necessary items so I may maintain my home or whatever from time to time. If these small businesses are crushed then I must travel further and further consuming fuel in greater quanity to get the things I need to finish necessary projects about the home.
Or simply stay home, order it online tax free and pay the shipping and have a brown truck show up (I have done quite alot of specific buying with no problems online these last few years)
Or have a professional show up with the necessary parts and make it finished and pay a price so that professional can enjoy feeding his family and perhaps someday retire with a little bit of money in the bank.
What is debt?
Is it the ability of a teenager to get a cell phone without worrying too much about what it will actually cost to feed or finance such a monster?
Will it lead to young adults waving fresh credit cards saying to each other, I can carry a higher minimum balance than you can so I can buy more stuff than you can, nyah nyah.
Now I see these young adults unable to get work in some areas. The lucky few become trained and do a good job. The rest sit on the street corner and smoke or trade underground out of sight of the Economy at large.
They do alot of walking with a occasional ride on the subway or a carjacked (Stolen) vehicle. What do you think will happen if everyone is stuck on foot, bikes and horses?
Life will become much slower and possibly no more nighttime workers except for those jobs which are vital to the Nation such as power plants.
So. A slower nation getting a good night's sleep and resting on Sunday will consume less fuel and buy more time to convert over to something else to keep things going.
Don't want to rain on the gloom parade, but what about synthetic oil made from gas? GTL technologies, based on Fischer-Tropsch process, has been around for ages, and recently we are seeing commercialization of this technology. Once natural oil is sustainably 100+ USD/b then we can see more of those units pop up around the world.
Suddenly all the recent tensions with Iran look much more logical. The US could soon start an operation to liberate the good people of Iran from under their current oppressive regime. The new peace-loving democracy in Iran will be executed by Halliburton and Exxon, all sponsored by the generous US taxpayers.