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How Long Can The Shale Revolution Last?
Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
A new study has cast serious doubt on whether the much-ballyhooed U.S. shale oil and gas revolution has long-term staying power.
The U.S. produced 8.5 million barrels of oil per day in July of this year -- 60 percent more than just three years earlier. That is also the highest rate of production in three decades.
Put another way, since 2011, the U.S. has added 3 million barrels per day in additional capacity to global supplies. Had that volume not come online, oil prices would surely be much higher than they currently are.
That has “revolutionized” the energy industry and geopolitics, as scores of energy analysts have claimed. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts that U.S. oil production will hit 9.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019, and gradually decline to 7.5 million bpd by 2040.
This would allow the U.S. to be one of the world’s top oil producers for an extended period of time. With such an achievement now at hand, many analysts are predicting an era of American dominance in geopolitics. For example, in an op-ed on Oct. 20, columnist Joe Nocera considered a “world without OPEC,” in which U.S. oil production soon kills off the oil cartel.
Or consider this rather triumphalist piece in Foreign Affairs from earlier this year, where two former National Security Council members who worked under President George W. Bush boasted that the recent surge in oil production “should help put to rest declinist thinking” and “sharpen the instruments of U.S. statecraft.” In the following issue, Ed Morse of Citibank went further. “Despite its doubters and haters, the shale revolution in oil and gas production is here to stay,” he declared.
But a new report throws cold water on the thinking that U.S. shale production will be around for the long haul. The Post Carbon Institute conducted an analysis of the top seven oil and top seven natural gas plays, which together account for 89 percent of current shale oil production and 88 percent of shale gas production.
The report found that both shale oil and shale gas production will peak before 2020. More importantly, the report’s author, David Hughes, says oil production will decline much more quickly than the EIA has predicted.
That’s largely because of high decline rates at shale wells across the country. Unlike conventional wells, which can produce relatively stable rates for a long period of time, shale oil and gas wells experience an initial burst of production in the first few years, followed by a precipitous decline thereafter.
Hughes estimates that the average shale oil well declines at a rate of between 60 and 91 percent over three years. Wells in the Bakken decline by 45 percent per year, which stands in stark contrast to the 5 percent annual decline for an average conventional well.
Or put another way, oil and gas companies will have to keep drilling at a feverish pace just to stand still. This means the industry is on a “drilling treadmill” that will be unsustainable over the long-term.
Predicting what oil production will be in 25 years is difficult, to say the least, but the Post Carbon report projects that oil production from the Bakken and Eagle Ford will be just one-tenth of the level that EIA is forecasting. The EIA predicts that the Bakken and the Eagle Ford will be producing a combined 1 million bpd in 2040. Hughes thinks it will be just a small fraction of that amount – a mere 73,000 bpd.
This is not the first time that David Hughes has taken aim at EIA data. In a December 2013 report, he skewered the high estimates for the potential of the Monterrey Shale in California, calling the EIA’s numbers “simplistic and highly overstated.” Several months later, the EIA was forced to back track on its figures, downgrading the recoverable oil estimates in the Monterrey by 96 percent.
Hughes says the implications of getting it wrong are “profound,” since so many companies are basing very large investments on incorrect projections. He says rosy estimates have cut into investment for renewables, while steering capital towards expensive oil and gas export terminals that should now be called into question.
An article in CleanTechnica points to the possibility of boom towns turning into “ghost towns” if the pace of drilling drops off. If David Hughes and The Post Carbon Institute are correct, there could be quite a few ghost towns popping up in the coming years as the shale revolution begins to fizzle.
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David Hughes is a fucking idiot who missed the whole shale revolution in the first place. Don't believe a word this guy says.
slotmouth... sounds like you would get along great with the PORTER STANSBERRY crowd hyping the GREAT SHALE PONZI.
I've actually been actively shorting these companies, they are victims of their own success. They are overloaded with debt and their cashflow will continue to decline as oil does. Read this guy's bullshit from back in 2007 and 2010 saying shale would never amount to anything they'd never produce, we have peak oil. Now they're billionaires from all the oil they produced and he's still a fucking joke.
+1000
This "revolution" ends at $65 per bbl. And all those poor prostitutes who went up there to get rich will be trapped in North Dakota along with broke oil field workers in 15 feet of snow and no weed to keep them warm at night.
Maybe we can go rescue the hookers and strippers. We can call ourselves "Johns Without Borders". We can quarrantine ourselves when we get back.
"Johns Without Borders". lol But who will want to donate ?
victums of their own success! aman brother...
good to know it is down their for future use.
in the meantime, the cheap oil gets used at a faster rate
til, hmmm, next episode being produced, called "future unknown",
but sure to have explosive highlights!
BHPB is looking to divest of its shale gas assets at something like half of what they dished out for them.
BHPB has a lot of unproductive investments. Just ask them how much they've tossed into that worthless hole in the ground in Canada? Literally in the billions so far.
So you're saying hookers will be cheap in ND? Interesting.
Theyy smoke Meth, not Weed, up in the bakken....
The Wall Street Journal did a good piece on this last Friday, pointing out, among other things that fracking is 300% more efficient now than when it started in 2009, and many more new technologies are waiting to be implemented.
The Sky is always falling on ZH, even when it isn't.
Nothing says "your recovery sucks" than the collapse of THE ENTIRE ENERGY COMPLEX.
The USA produces a billion short tons of coal a year...and can sustain that production for another hundred years. So can China I might add which is now desperately trying to protect "ma and pa coal miner" by putting on big tariffs against Aussie coal...which of course will only make things worse for coal.
So in other words this is about more than just an oil boom...although clearly this is about an oil boom too.
No mention of BP's Macanudo (sp?) oil spell which shut in a million barrels of "regular oil" (or is it two?) until last year.
That production is now coming on line and with the experience gained as noted above in the shale patch my view remains that we're gonna get an oil glut much as we had in 1986 here in the USA.
I did just see a Honda 700 motorcycle that looks pretty darn good that gets 70 plus mpg and costs 6 grand brand new. Looks like a world beater to me.
There is a coal fired, co-generation plant about two miles from my house. Extremely efficient. Most universities have one, and they won't blow up or become bombs from any of a dozen "unforeseen" events.
The Sierra Club has been suing universities for years getting them to close down their coal plants. The press has been quiet about it. The VA has been building a shit load of gas fired cogen with recips as the prime mover.
"Macanudo" I like how your mind works.
The act of drilling fracked wells is 300% more efficient given a new process change, not a technological change.
http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/88437/about-shale-oil-miracle%E2%80%A6
Just over a year ago, Goldman Sachs assigned a team of researchers to analyze this shale issue, focusing on the Bakken. The report - easily and quickly readable on the net - surmised several decades of million barrel per day production from the Bak with a peak above 2 million in the early 2020's.
Don't trust the Squid? Fine. Credit Suisse released a far more comprehensive report weeks after GS' and came to the same general conclusions.
... And, then again, we DO have a contrary analysis compiled by the Post Carbon Institute ...
Can't have good analysis without some anal. So they did a couple of studies. Are they putting their money in or is it just more talk for the muppets?
Ackshully, replacement, I dunno what the Muppet slayer et al did with their own skin. What I DO know is their report (I skimmed thru Credit Suisse's, read GS's) coincided with everything I have read dating back to 2007/2008 and the early days of the Bakken.
I personally have no financial stake in any of this, but I have a keen interest in and, frankly, a good deal of appreciation for what these petrepeneurs have accomplished.
Conversely, I do not hold in especially high esteem those who denigrate the record of these men/women/companies with intentionally negative information in some form of display what seems to be rank anti industrialism.
The author of this current report - Mr. Hughes - has been spectacularly wrong in virtually all his prognostications for years (Google his track record), and yet he is paraded out once again as some type of expert.
Sorta like Cramer.
DUH! We only need 15 to 20 more years of oil to transition to the new energy technologies. We're good.
Nothing a good old war can't solve.
Isn't there a war we can start in some turbanville somewhere?
slotmouth... good for you, a DIED IN THE WOOL CAPITALIST. So are some of those so-called Billionaires going to pay for dismantling and cleaning up the 500,000+ shale wells in the U.S. when the companies you've been shorting go bankrupt?
Hell, there are 100's and soon to be 1000's of wells that are abandoned in Wyoming after the low price of natgas killed the economics of producing gas there. Now, the state (and public) have to foot the bill to clean up these wells.
Aint the SHALE ENERGY INDUSTRY grand..
No, you're completely right, Cunningham is pure fucking joke. This guy is almost as bad Phoenix Capital Research...
many people made fortunes of the stock markets since their collapse in 2008, doesn't mean stocks aren't a shitty investment. Everything is about hype these days
just another report by a non profit 501c corporation. all a bunch of academics sucking up almost $1 million in grants. actually paid earthworks to prepare some of the work.
earthworks: a non profit org. dedicated to "protecting" communities and the evironment from the "adverse" impacts of mineral and energy development....no axe to grind here
You're right....this crap is the equivelent of cheap oatmeal in a meatloaf......FIILER! OH GAWD WE MIGHT RUN OUT ONE DAY! reads like it is straigh outta Kuntslers blog
We got a few years and the WHOLE SHALE HOUSE OF CARDS comes down... and with it the majority of the NET PRESENT VALUE of most paper assets.
In two months, the GOP will own the Congress and they will open fed lands to oil drilling. Your few years might never come because there is an awful lot of oil sitting under fed lands.
At $6M per well, not long, at least for oil.
Look at this table before junking (yea, right).
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/historicalbakkenoilstats.pdf
Whoa.
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/historicalbakkenoilstats.pdf
That is impressive to look at the ramp since 2011.
Averaging 4000bbls per well
33M bbls per month.
That is a shit load of oil.
Ignoring the debt, depletion, etc. and looking at it from a geology, drilling, etc. viewpoint... amazing.
Let's look at it from an economics point of view (since Geology doesn't pay the bills).... $6mm to drill/complete. That means the well has to produce 60,000 barrels (@100/barrel) to break even. From the report, it shows average well production of 4000 barrels per well per month. So, its going to take 15 months to break even.?.
Now, I understand that these well flow hard for a short period.....but do you notice the trend on the Bakken field? 4000 b/month/well but with ever increasing # of wells drilled?
Is there money to be made? Yes. Is it super high returns? No. The only people making money there will be drilling and completion/fracking contractors....
Who knows? But for the play as a whole about 130 barrels per day per well.
That 6m turns into about 60m by the time the well is played out using your stats.........
It still takes 30 years to play it out............
Just think about it!
luckylogger,
I look at the marginal costs. To me, it doesn't suggest anything like 30 years unless oil prices rise and then rise some more. That's not going to happen.
8200 wells producing 1,000,000 barrels a day.
Several months later, the EIA was forced to back track on its figures, downgrading the recoverable oil estimates in the Monterrey by 96 percent.
96 percent. Let us ponder that for a moment.........
WTF!!!!! 96 percent!!! That is not a miss it is like Stevie Wonder tossing the ball from the free throw line whiile facing in the opposite direction.
Have you seen his wonderful piano ? No, neither has he
Philo, shockingly unbelievable as it may sound, the EIA did NOT officially release any statement on the Monterey's Technically Recoverable Reserves, despite the massive hoopla quoting various EIA personnel. The data was to be released "shortly" according to the numerous press accounts ... meanwhile the voluminous EIA 2014 Annual Energy Outlook report was recently released with scant mention of the Monterey at all.
This whole episode stinks to high heaven.
sheeeit
according to this guy there is no oil
Ghost towns? Absolutely bullish. After all, that's how China has pumped its growth these past few years.
http://olduvai.ca
"The Post Carbon Institute"... ???
Code for mean green weanies who think wind and solar are going to replace "fossil" fuels...
Maybe there's some truth to it, but Darley is indeed part of the peak oil crowd which I listened to a while to only then see oil slumping back at 30$ in early 2009.
Gawd every time I see that name and the jumping stick figure - can't help but try to stifle the laughter. Fuckin' excellent...!!! 'alangreedspank' - holy shit that is so good...
Probably 20 years.
Just wait until it becomes clear how fracking poisons the water supply.
Lawsuits and sick and dead people, but delayed to keep the dream alive.
Quickly diminishing returns - they are sucking molasses out of sand, in February.
Well, if dead people start suing you know you're in deep trouble and water pollution will be the least of your concerns!
Lol, yes, but think "relatives" and "tobacco lawsuits".
Just wait till it, (fracking) poisons the water supply? That will be a very long wait. You have no clue how the process works and fracking fluid is almost all sand and water.. Ag chem run off is a 100 thousand times the problem, and us humans are still alive with a growing lifespan
Agree with you about the Ag chemicals.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-fracking-wastewater-wells-poisoning-ground-beneath-our-feeth/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fracking-suicide-capitalism-poisons-the-earths-fresh-water-supplies/5368362
Sorry, EB, that is just inaccurate and continuously, consistently shown to be the case.
A few weeks ago, the Dept. Of Energy released the results of the most lengthy, comprehensive monitoring of well water in Pennsylvania and its potential degradation due to frac'ing operations and found zilch, Nada, absolutely no negative impact whatsoever.
A consortium of five universities Stanford, Duke, Dartmouth, Ohio State and the University of Rochester also just released the results of their 18 month study on this topic with the identical conclusion, that is, hydraulically fracturing oil/gas formations DOES NOT contaminate well water or aquifers.
I don't trust the Dept. of Energy, nor would I trust University studies funded by grants from the oil industry.
You may be right, who knows in this world.
Common sense would suggest that chemicals pumped into the siltstone and sandstone aquifers of the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming will eventually end up in the water supply.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/ch_i/I-text2.html
Investment cycle is profitable to those in early, and because developers can borrow (and pay themselves huge bonuses) at virtually 0%. Without the Fed funny money, many drillcos would be in trouble, or would not have bothered. More importantly, NONE of these operations would be viable if any VALUE was put on the counter-tradeoff of fracking: grossly excessive use of clean drinking water, and the destruction of water tables through re-injection of BTEX and other contaminants, plus massive unlined flowback ponds seeping slowly into aquifers.
From Drought Central: Confirmed: California Aquifers Contaminated With Billions Of Gallons of Fracking Wastewaterhttp://www.desmogblog.com/2014/10/07/central-california-aquifers-contami...
All well casings crack or corrode eventually, and zombie wells (even if capped properly by 'responsible operators' ie ones who are not bankrupt, folded, or 'walkaways' will percolate slowly up to aquifers for ever after capping. Any seismic activity will magnify or exacerbate this, and fracking itself 'liquifies' huge tracts of ground where it's carried out, destabilising formations that are punctured with wellbores.
NONE of these operations would be viable if fracking was not exempted by Bush (and VP Cheny who joined the Whitehouse directly from CEO chair of Haliburton) from the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 (the "Halliburton Loophole,") underground injection control (UIC) program of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Other exemptions are also present in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Fracking is an unmitigated disaster for anyone not profiting directly from destroying other peoples drinking water and legacy for future generations, land rights, community cohesion (divide and rule to gain access), river, stream and wetland critters, roads that were not designed for frack traffic, etc.
And none of it would be happening if the death cult that have been running the unfolding vested-interest kleptocracy trainwreck uneconomy, gave two shits about you, me or your kids unless extorting, fleecing, or toll-boothing us. If the technology that the breakaway civilisation (search Secret Space Programme or links below) had been/was being utilised to benefit humanity. Instead we have FuckUpShima, Arctic Icecap Deathspiral, Extreme Deforestation, Chemtrails, HAARP, Transhumanism, and Fracking. As no technology exists yet, and likely won't in time, to remediate the consequences of human 'progress', looks like we have an opportunity to step up the plate and answer the question that has entraced thinkers, philosophers, writers and artists for centuries: why are we here?
We're here folks, to save ourselves from extinction. Nothing else is more important IMHO right now, than to recognise the impending collapse as potentially unrecoverable, using the tools/solutions that we don't even have. A wholly different hyper-dimensional conscious energy that our nascent understanding of Quantum Physics/Mechanics is unlocking needs to be concieved, one potent enough to restore the hydrological cycle to balance, revert the atmosphere to breatheable, and disarm the chemo-magnetic dynamism of radionuclides (for starters). So start entraining those lively hearts and minds to the Shumann frequency, get down to the beach, lake, river, pond or other watercourse, and apologise to GrannyEarth for crapping in her living room for so long. Ask forgiveness and a second chance.
Or alternatively a community Koumbayah bend over and kiss your ass goodbye convention in your closest FEMA stadium...
Peace
www.secretspaceprogram.org
www.gizadeathstar.com
www.geoengineeringwatch.org/
www.enenews.com
http://emotopeaceproject.blogspot.com.au/
So ... no sarc tag means you're serious?
Good comment. I like the way you pulled the disparate threads together.
One problem with old (linear) thinking is that if you give someone an idea, then a second idea, you discover that they have lost the first idea - it fell off the end! That leads to many of the knee-jerk reactions you can see around here - responses unencumbered by the thought process!
The challenge today is to develop the ability to comprehend complex adaptive systems. We need to suspend judgement until we can recognise patterns and, if necessary, come up with new consepts and innovative approaches.
My take on it is very simple : I love horses ..
Me too.
What crap. The graph shows that the Bakken has already peaked. What total non-sense crap. Not only do they set records there every year, there are 3 formations! The Bakken is only one of them. Let me add that old oil wells will eventually be fracked too. Bottom line is oil is going down in price, but not far enough down, or not far enough down for a long enough time to stop the shale boom. You heard it from Gusher!!!
Well then, I guess that means I can proceed with my Lingenfelter LS-7 drop-in project...? Was kinda worried there for the past 2 years that $5/gallon might be a reality. Not good for hungry valves on 7 litre motor. But now I can...!!! Hey wait a minute - what if they start $$$printing again though...? Gawd I hate this...
Gusher, while I do not imagine many (any?) ZH readers will go over Hughes' report, I most certainly will. In fact, I have downloaded it and speed read the executive summary.
Just. Incredible. Crap from an extremely knowledgeable analyst.
He immediately sets the parameters by emphasizing the importance of several formations while completely omitting the Utica dry gas play which anyone can quickly Google to see it is far larger in areal extent as well as thickness than even the Marcellus that is one mile above it. Recent 'monster' wells in the Utica - with 24 hour IPs of 25 to 46 million cubic feet of gas in wells located 400 miles apart - may show that this Utica formation to be amongst the largest on the planet. Hughes doesn't even acknowledge it.
Additionally, Hughes dismissively characterizes the potential of the Niobrara and the Permian (the PERMIAN???) by saying they have already had several decades of depleting production. He completely ignores the fact that the relevant horizontal developments have only been recently introduced these past 3 or 4 years.
The only people apt to be swayed by this stunningly inept analysis are the willingly ignorant.
Can you tell us what the relevant horizontal developments are that have"only been recently introduced these past 3 or 4 years"?
What did they start doing 3 or 4 years ago that they weren't doing in 2006?
There are those who are willingly ignorant about shale oil. And there are those who are willful snake oil salesmen
What were they doing in 2006? Drilling one well. The ramp up took years. And it has been slowed by lack of pipelines to get the oil out of ND and to the refinery.
They have been fracking oil in the Bakken since December 1953.
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/stats/historicalbakkenoilstats.pdf
I think you're confusing a 'shale oil well' with the oil wells that existed for all the 20th century. A 'shale oil well' isn't even a well. The oil isn't under any pressure, which is why a 'shale oil well' only produces a couple of hundred barrels a day.
They are called oil wells just to lure suckers into investing in them as if they were 'gushers'.
oh, wait a minute...
YES and thanks for exposing a shallow analysis. Oil Traders who put their money where their mouths are will consider these articles just another noise.
If you want to get involved, get involved with the physicals and not the papers. In getting the shale oil and gas off the ground, there is a massive infrastucture promoting pork belly policies coupled with frauds and financial spins to engender a "hype". All snake oil sales have to be tempered by real global demand.
Bottom line, the reserves underground is a game changer that checks the pricing power of the present oil cartel.
"There are 3 formations!"
Which they have been drilling the living shit out of for half a decade and better with increasingly high decline rates....
You are wrong. The ramp up was slow at first. And the Bakken is the main drilling zone. The others are hardly touched yet. This has a long way to go in ND.
Bobby: I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A #2, chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Bobby: I want you to hold it between your knees.
How about another 6.5+ earthquake under Los Angeles, North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Ohio or Pennsyvlania should do it? Or maybe another cancer epidemic that no one can explain? How about we shove more water underground on the West Coast to pull up more oil? Search this database for dots in blue which are health and safety issues associated with energy and fracking. Government regulators have so many issues to deal with in this space. They are completely overwhelmed and cannot stop the cowboy drilling tactics. http://www.drillingmaps.com
On the other hand, maybe there's a lot more oil than anybody figures. Overwhelmed storage facilities, overwhelmed refineries that aren't able to accept the light sweet crude, ancient export policy restrictions, a collapsed Saudi state, there are plenty of reasons to hope the shale play peters out quickly.
Lower prices don't shut wells off, it curtails new drilling. But the vertical hole is drilled, they just drill horizontally in a new direction 2 degrees off the last well. Maybe not as expensive as everybody thinks. Expect the unexpected perhaps.
Good point. That's what happened in the 30's.
So long as variable costs are below what they can fetch on the open market per barrell, a lot of these leveraged companies will have no choice but to drill MORE and MORE further reducing price.
Tons more O&G than anyone's imagined. Neptune in Pisces, the reunion roadtrip, back again from 1848, when it was first known (in the US) as "Keir's Rock Oil". Barring a disaster in the mid east, it'll go under $50, easy-peasy.
One of the bigger factors in the coming years will be the additionsl recovery of much of the 90% or so of the remaining oil that the shales still hold after the initial drilling is done.
With deep-pocketed, commited companies investing tens of billions into advancing extractive technologies, it is a virtual certainty that the output from these fields will continue to grow over an extended period of time.
Exactly- See my post above!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You hit it right on the nose......
Is there a nascent shale scam incubating in paradise?
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-10-28/u-dot-s-dot-shale-boom-revives-st-dot-croix-oil-refinery
You people that actually think shale oil/gas is some sort of a scam seriously need to seek medical attention. Say what you want, whether production is likely to continue to increase or not, IT IS NOT A SHAM. Jesus.
I haven't recommended ZH to anyone for over a year.
This sort of crazy, commie, foaming at the mouth stuff on the evening shift, is the reason.
Same. I've been here since the beginning....back when it seemed to be exclusively good content with few insane people. There was obviously difference in opinions, but not the insanity that seems to be prevalent today. Something has happened in the past 18 months, not sure why this site seems to attract such people that you usually would find in the comments section of a story posted on Yahoo.
If fracking was as viable as some people like to claim, then there would be zero need for any kind of sanctions against Russia in general and its oil sector in particular. Frackers would just put Russian oil production out of business through their alleged eficiency. Another thing. If fracking had indeed become so efficient since 2009, then fracking firms would not have to spend 120% of their cashflow on capex.
Instead of down arrows, I would like to explain that the oil pulled up in the US is way different than the oil from Russia, or Saudi. Its light & sweet, it poses a problem for US refineries who are tuned to ME oil. The oil is here, and growing in quantity. Federal laws prohibit export. As for Russian sanctions, we both know that is a joke.
Homegrown oil keeps the reserve currency in short supply.
Someone doesn't understand geopolitics....
Shale oil and gas is yet another disastrous scam. While I was hauling water for fracking wells in Utah, I saw the city of Duschesne run out of water for two days in a single week because of fracking's demand on local water resources. Drinking water is becoming so scarce that Nestles' is buying up water rights so that they can bottle and sell drinking water. We can live without oil and gas - we can't live without water! It's way past time that we end the reign of these these greedy corporations before water becomes more expensive than gasoline!
Water has been more expensive than gasoline for quite some time - hate to burst that bubble.
You muat be part of the "1%" - ask your domestic servant to tell you what the price of drinking water is. I pay 47 cents per gallon at Safeway (that's a grocery store that working people use to buy food and drink from). The price of gasoline here (Denver, Colorado) is $3.04 per gallon. So maybe you need to get in touch with the real world.
How does the demand for water from the Shale O&G industry, make said industry a scam??? That doesn't really make sense. Maybe if the industry talked about all the water they were using out of the Duschesne, and that they are running out of supply, but you actually knew the water source wasn't deminishing, then maybe that could lead one to wonder, " is there some sort of scam going on here?"
I know I'll be pilloried for writing this, but I'm not sure why people focus on the "peak" anything.
Oh sure, there's all the "we're going to run out of...and starve/freeze/not be able to do anything" diatribes, but I'm wondering if anyone can go back to the 1800's and find articles about "peak whale oil", because I'm sure there must have been at least one.
And that played out pretty much not at all according to script.
I doubt this will, either. Prices rise, marginal products take on new interest, they get more fully developed and become cheaper, and voila...we're back where we were with little interruption.
Worried? Not a whit - except for people who go nuts for this and could cause a political problem (like a war) and make it all more outlandish than it needs to be.
Oh..."The Post Carbon Institute" did an analysis that said oil was on the way out. Interesting.
Well , that was deep enough . And the same amount of gas .
Shale oil extraction will last indefinitely .
Extraction on small scale will always take place .
It the Big Thing that is biting the dust .
See
Oil and Banks are going the way of taxis .
There is an Uber waiting for them .
See why :
https://www.academia.edu/9031355/The_Were-Sheeples_Almanac
https://www.academia.edu/9031355/The_Were-Sheeples_Almanac
The ability to dramaticaly reduce one's personal consumption of energy in the coming years will be worth money. Crafting a low energy lifestyle will keep food in your belly. Gas guzzlers, McMansions and the likes will be millstones for millions.
For those who believe that the shale-scpeticism is merely doom mongering, consider this from the ever-optimistic corporate press: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-01/junk-bonds-fuel-the-shal...
Assuming this info is correct, the Spice will flow quite nicely for 10 years.
After that you simply need Agenda 21 plus increased tech efficiencies plus Green tech plus remaining carbon fuels, to go another 100 years. And I strongly suspect that the top 40% of the US pop will be on the right side of that Agenda.
Even if fracking produced 1000 million barrels of oil per year it would scarcely put a dent in that huge annual deficit.
Think about the $100 bills that wouldn't be sent to the Middle East for each barrel of oil.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-30/will-wall-street-love-fr...
another controversy with no clear answers. awesome.
all we ever have is speculation with so much bad info and liars out there
Oil is worth the money, it is time to move. Where there is power there is strength for a nation. KEYSTONE NOW!
Homegrown oil keeps the reserve currency in short supply.
The FED's worst enemy.
One thing not addressed is the fact that technology is constantly evolving....
Fact is we are only recovering 10% or so of the oil in the rocks.....
There are some very good geologists out there that say we can get to 70% by 2020....
Do you know how many years supply that is with Saudi Arabia alone....
Let alone all the other feilds....
This report is put together by some greeny global warming dipshit that is living in the 1990's !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fact is these problems have been solved by technology......
Saudi Arabia is doing too little too late to stop the wave of oil coming to market....
Go ahead and down arrow me but it is a fact..
The world is not ending, like they have been saying for thousands of years.....
It is just evolving,......
Do not worry our kids will figure it out, just like we did.
The little fukers are soo spoiled that they might be in for a shock, but they will figure it out...........
Dude, we are still boiling water to get most of our electricity.
How technologically evolved is that?
A report from the Post Carbon Insitute, run by a collection of watermelons. What do think thay are going to say? 315 pages of carbonphobia.
What ever the reserves are the US better make good use of the reprieve and not launch another drunken spending binge.
People's short memories are amazing. The Bakken for example has had 3 booms now, each one was/is touted to be immortal. Sometime between lunchtime tomorrow and 3 years from now it will emplode and people will be shocked, shocked I tell you. Then, a handful of years down the road when oil gets weally weally exthpenthive... it will be game on again. I am guessing there will be a shorter duration between scams in the future. Shale is the best fools game in town.
A guy named Flak posted this numerous years ago, more than a couple people here should read it.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
The Shale boom has already PEAKED. Just read the production estimates from both websites of the very companies doing business in ND and PA. Who needs the EIA? Not only many who promote the shale boom never mention the toxic waste left behind and all the political hurdles. Cost are rising for shale extraction. Not only that the whole USD boom is about to turn very ugly as all the states pensions are busted and bankrupted.