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Chart of the Day - Alaska Oil Production
Perception versus the reality of peak oil.
I asked 10 Americans the question, "How is oil production going up in Alaska?" Nine said they do not know, and one said great. Here is the truth in my personal Chart of the Day.
Alaska produces about 10% of the oil in the US.
It once was producing over 60,000,000 barrels per day month (now can you all get over the typo and look at the chart?), but Alaska now produces less than 18,000,000 barrels, or not even one third of what it once did.
Change is indeed coming to America. It just is not the type of change that sells Chevy Suburbans, McMansions, Disney cruises, or airfairs, so do not expect to hear or read about it in the mainstream media.
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The graph is correct, it was 60,000,000 per MONTH (2 million barrels per day at peak sounds about right) but in the body of the post the author used the units of "per day". Bone headed mistake...
The pipeline can only accomodate 1,000,000 barrels a day. I guess they let the rest pour out all over the ice. That would explain the black bears in Alaska.
you really are stuck on stupid.
Come on brother this shit is not that hard.
thats why the lady is no longer alaskan governer; she saw this coming, she now is all in with Louisianan oil and Bakken and frakkin gas; clever kitty sarah!
60,000,000 barrels per day. lol. good credible article
not
As far as I know at its peak the pipeline accomodated roughly a million barrels a day. At least that's what I was told while I was working there in the early 80's.
Eventually that Pipeline will have to be retired as volume drops below what it can handle.
We need to open that Anwar. That will take care of the volume. But no, they have had 40 years to open that goddamn treehugger place.
Opening the coastal plain of ANWR to petroleum production (and remember, there is no guarantee of how much oil might be there in the first place, if there is any significant amount at all) could just be considered kicking the can down the road, could it not? You know, the exact same sort of thing that we all here condemn our politicians for in regards to monetary and fiscal policies, yes?
No akak, it's rolling the barrel, not at all like kick the can.
Oh, you mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mD-JeYjozc&feature=related
I stand corrected.
UGHHHHHHH.............
PASS THE BEER!~
Man that shit takes me back.... WAY back to the days you stuck a 5 dollar tank of gas to go shopping on 15 gallons (LEADED Gas...) Hell the station had usually spills all over that ran out onto the main road whenever it rained.
Today that station is LONG gone, but if you spent a few minutes you probably can still smell it.
At a $100 bucks a barrel, Americans would suck the dots off dice to get oil out of the ground to sell, it's just NOT there to sell anymore,hence the term peak oil. That's why strip mining sludge and ruining waterways is now the preferred method of north american oil production today. Why would anyone bother with such a massive infrastructure play like that if there was oil still in the ground to be pumped?Oil producers are multi national, borders mean nothing, they simply follow the oil,governments have no say in the matter.
Domestic oil production as it relates to the environment can be summed up succinctly -- destroy the environment to the point that complaints stop.
It's been the dirty secret in oil for damn near 100 years..
Oil production is a function of the desire to print fiat money.
The more oil that the US imports is the more worthless pieces of paper that we can send overseas.
That's how the game works.
So you are not seeing a commodity on the decline in that picture. What you are seeing is a flood (a gusher, if you will) of fiat money being sent outward bound.
It is absolutely key to
1) get US production down
2) manufacture a sense of scarcity of oil and hence pump up "environmental concerns"
3) wage war on foreign oil producers so that "we" control the nozzle anyways
so the murderous lie continues
@ Seize Mars. Perfectly accurate and concise analysis on both points.
But oil production in moving along a similar slope everywhere. And the slope for new oil discoveries looked like that one a few decades ago. Are you saying that the "lie" is that there is an abundance of oil, but that the whole world is currently pretending that we can't pump it out as quickly or find new discoveries to backfill? Help me understand.
The murderous lie to which I was referring is that of central planning. Central planning of oil production and of money production.
Instead of our choices feeding back into production decisions through a price mechanism, they are all centrally planned.
Oil production is not a market driven process, it's a politburo decision, right there with how much should money cost. Fiat money and oil go hand in hand. As for relative abundance of oil, well, we won't really know until it runs out, because the central planners won't allow prices to soar accordingly.
Sorry if this doesn't square with your worldview, it's my opinion.
It's a conspiracy of the whole. Even you are a member of it. Me, too. My house sits on trillions of barrels of oil that I can produce at any time for 50 cents/barrel, but I'm voluntarily refraining from doing so, because I would rather have less money and pay $4/gal for gas.
Silly Horseman, don't you know the Earth contains an infinite supply of oil, almost all of which can be obtained at very low cost? Also, burning fossil fuels does NOT cause ANY environmental problems WHATSOEVER! Humans can continue using increasing amounts of oil year after year in perpetuity, with zero repercussions. So STFU, douchebag!
I am guiltier than most when it comes to sarcasm’s corrosive effects on clarity but to see people fall for it being used as an absurd straw man to negate or deride the idea that abiotic oil production may indeed provide for much higher reserves than detected or support the suspicion that reserves are higher than disclosed (as in Alaska) is disappointing.
No one is suggesting there is an infinite supply of oil on this finite planet ...and yes it is a dirty and destructive source of energy. Dirty like the logic and/or manipulative propaganda techniques invoked to keep people buying the dogmatic sale of ‘Peak Oil’ shortages as the result of the compression of increased consumption (yes) with dwindling production in some fields (yes) and with limited ancient biologic stock source (biotic-very possibly no) and non-replenishing fields (not always).
This simplistic negation is religion-worthy as it serves to only promote faith at the expense of proper scientific investigation and skepticism.
The bigger issue is the heresy. Challenging any of the underpinnings of this Peak Oil evangelical matrix threatens to not shatter the reality of a limited resource (yes it is limited) but more dangerously crack the facade of credibility and science of the industry purveyors of such dogma and make people really begin to think...What else don’t they know? or What else do they know that they are not telling us? Perhaps the truth about this resource’s inventory is as veiled, guarded and faulty as this ‘petroleum science’?
But like any product this false sell fuel argument hinges on its marketing and distribution. One can only speculate the resources put into its perpetual refining and manufacture as well.
You sirrah are one of two things
A a gov shill
B a total fool
what ever i do hope you enjoy your slide into the never never land that all naves,fools, charlatans end up in
You forgot
C. Sarcastro
This needs a sarc button
I was thinking maybe our own williambanzai could design one.
Naw - it's Falak for god's sake - he's always on sarc.
NFP
Burgess shale and Maclean Frakking... get the message? It sold the west in the auld days. Just saying. Read history of the man who talked turkey looking at Mount Ararat the wrong way! Good auld Kim.
When he said "How is oil production going up in Alaska?" I thought he meant "By what means are they producing more?" I bet that is why 9 out of 10 Americans couldn't answer.
Why should we pay American workers good wages to drill for oil in Alaska when we can simply bomb the fuck out of an Arab oil producing nation and steal their oil using slave labor to drill for it?
That seems to be the policy the US has adopted.
Besides that rather small space under your rock, when has this actually occurred? American government is too incompetent and obsessed with appearing to be on the "side of truth and democracy" to actually operate in the rapacious manner you posit. If they did actually "steal the oil", the US would be worse off in reputation (speaking relatively, of course) but stronger economically.
It's the fact that trillions are spent on wars that neither spread democracy nor create new economic satellites out of the 'conquered' that makes America's wars the shitheaded wastes that they are.
Don't forget Nixon's petrodollar deal either, which "committed" the US to be Saudi Arabia's condottiere, in exchange for making the dollar thsole means of transacting oil contracts.
Is it "our" plan to use up the rest of the world's supply before what's left of the domestic supply?
No, it is "our" plan to control the rest of the world's supply so they can't sell their oil too cheaply and drive the price (and profitability) down.
I thought it was OPECs plan to keep prices up. Anyhow, thanks.
Pay no attention to him.... his logic is flawed beyond belief...
"Why should we pay American workers good wages to drill for oil in Alaska when we can simply bomb the fuck out of an Arab oil producing nation and steal their oil using slave labor to drill for it?"
Obviously because 'we' ( by that I assume you mean Americans in general ) are not in charge to make that decision.
Mission accomplished.
Where's my flight suit?
You left it off at the shop to have more stuffing added to the codpiece, remember?
I think hedgeless horseman means 18,000,000/MONTH....not DAY. If your worried about peak oil, lets present charts on Bakken Shale, Eagleford Shale and other relatively new plays in NA. Those two alone have reserve estimates that are approximately 7-10 times largeer than Alaska. Get government out of the way. And quit circulating hype and b.s.
Yes, because decimating our resources for ridiculously short term gain IS the best strategy to push on with.
Just when you thought you had two big ones there are countless others -- like Niobrara shale.
Oil and crooked banking (the same racket) are about to celebrate their 100 year of bullshit day, much to the destruction of everything else (literally).
It should be "you're", NOT "your", in your second line.
Aside from that, it is a specious argument to try to compare reserves by just barrel equivalents of oil. Trying to compare actual petroleum direct from the ground with shale-derived hydrocarbons is a misleading, apples-to-oranges comparison, as the return on energy invested (EROI) is VASTLY lower for shale oil than it is for petroleum --- not to mention the significant environmental problems associated with shale.
akak, my fellow grammar Nazi, if you correct their spelling how will be able to tell who has completed grade school education?
Lasvegaspersona, something tells me that you have nothing to worry about in that regard, even IF their spelling and grammar were to suddenly become flawless. Fixing grammar and spelling is one thing, fixing ignorance is something else --- and fixing stupid quite another thing altogether.
"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain."
Your a teecher preechor man or just abit uptite,...eh?
Hannibal
Your a teecher preechor man or just abit uptite,...eh?
UPTIGHT!
GEEZ!
I use the "your" vs. "you're" line to grade levels of education.
Month...day...whatever it takes. Next time I will just let the chart speak for itself.
I would think that you would want to have this type of dramatic reduction in production hyped, if it is indeed due to government interference. No?
I think you meant 60,000,000 bbls per month.
With the sky high oil price, they only need to produce a little.