When will the oil supply peak? Some say it already has

ROCKMAN

Dude,

I suspect the angry villagers miss the truly significant aspect of charts like yours from CERA. EOR has worked great in KR Field. With the operative word being "has". It's not difficult to assume that many see this as a big chance to increase production across the entire US if not the whole world. KRF was discovered around 50 or 60 years ago and EOR there and in most other fields in the San Joaquin Basin has been going on for over 30 years. As you probably now it's been the same story in west TX as else where. I know of very few fields that haven't undergone secondary and even tertiary EOR. Bottom, line I think those reports offer little more than false hope when you consider the scale of PO.

CarlosFerreira

I suppose Peak Oil as it was predicted, is happening or already happened a few months ago. Keep an eye on ASPO's website and the reports. The general idea is that there is little or no increase in extraction right now. Saudi Arabia keep on saying they can increase production, except they won't; we don't know about that. Everyone else has the taps wide open right now, or so we hear.

Arguably, we are at the apex of the corner: demand is being destroyed a bit (because there was so much fat, it could be trimmed without much pain - I'm talking about people reducing a bit the miles they drive), and there are unconventional, and expensive, ways to increase production a bit, like tar sands and going back to oil wells that were deemed uneconomic a while ago.

PO theory did not address these issues. I expect these postponement strategies are buying a little time before the trouble really sets in. Remember: we still have it around, but the added cost of extraction is going to hurt the economy, because more and more capital is diverted to buying the same (or less) raw material - oil.

My guess is this is the last call. It's upon us.
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dohboi · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Dec 05, 2005 Posts: 1435

"PO theory did not address these issues."

Whose version of "PO theory" didn't address these issues. All the major works I've read--Simmons, Kunstler, Heinberg...certainly address the issues of tar sands and other poor EROEI sources as well as demand destruction.

The really important recent contribution to PO theory, for my money, is shortonoil's insights into the very rapid arrival of the dramatic reduction of available energy. This means that even before peak oil, we are already on the down curve of peak available energy (as reflected in the exponential growth in oil prices over the last decade or so).

Eventually, and this may be fairly soon, within ten twenty years at the outside, we reach the point where it costs more energy to extract the oil (whether from traditional deposits or from tar sands or oil shale) than the energy of the oil thus extracted.

At that point, oil is no longer an energy source, but rather it becomes an increasingly inefficient means of transferring energy, like electricity or (potentially) hydrogen. This is when it becomes what I call a boutique commodity, something that only the very wealthy or the military can afford to run their vehicles and machinery.

The current dip in prices could provide a precious chance to use the still very cheap oil we have to prepare for an essentially oil-less future, or (more likely) it will lull us into assumptions that the worst is over and that we are about to go back to $10/bbl oil for the indefinite future.

TheDude

Carlos - you should read Canada ’ s Oil Sands Resources and Its Future Impact on Global Oil Supply by Bengt Soderbergh. From the conclusion:

Temperedoil

I have a long running debate, if it can be called that, with a friend of mine over Peak Oil. I am thinking it might be better to no longer discuss the topic with him, but it is still of some interest to me in the sense that I regard him (or his position) as being indicative of the general viewpoint among many people who have not yet grasped the full meaning or importance of Peak Oil. Andrew's response to anything I might suggest as evidence showing the reality of Peak Oil is always covered by five basic lines.
1) technology (will solve everything and technological progress is natural, eternal, and a certainty)
2) "that" is what "they" want me to believe (no specifics of the "what", "they" or "why", and no attempts made at exploring such questions)
3) I am naive (to believe that which "they" want me to believe)
4) oil is a renewable resource (not specified as to how this might be the case, but I am guessing that he subscribes to the abiotic hypothesis of the origin of oil)
5) have I ever looked at Google Earth? Earth is huge!

We are all being led to believe, by the media at large and by the statements of various players in and outside of the oil industry, that there is plenty of oil, no risk of supply ever falling short of demand (except through temporary above ground factors or unless we are talking about some situation thirty to a hundred years away by which time technology will have solved the problem anyway), and that anybody who believes the baloney of Peak Oil obviously doesn't know anything about oil.

This is the thinking, the line of reasoning, and perhaps one could say the propaganda that we are up against when we seek to inform others of the Peak Oil situation. It may at least partly stem from the issue of people generally having enough to worry about, and preferring the comfort of hope for a brighter future with more toys more easily acquired than one where we are all going to have to work much harder for a far less affluent lifestyle (those of us who do not starve to death or wither away under the effects of disease or the like).

I agree with what many people on these forums have suggested regarding Peak Oil not being the problem: the problem is a large and growing population chasing finite resources on a finite world. Yes, Earth is a big place relative to the average human, but we live on and extract mineral resources from a tiny fraction of that volume - and, of course, we are still talking about a finite ball of rock.

I do not know what it will take for a significant majority of people to come to the realisation of how bleak a future we are painting for ourselves as we continue to live as we do. Perhaps when starvation hits such nations as the USA, UK (and Europe generally), Australia, people will wonder if there is something more going on. On the other hand, how many people are aware of just how dependent our food supply is on a growing and reliable supply of cheap oil? Even then, such possible explanations as inept politicians, trade restrictions, global warming, may get first billing.

CarlosFerreira

ROCKMAN

Carlos,

I'll offer one thought on measuring all these upside oil sources (tar sands, shale oil, etc). Tell folks like I do: I don't care what anyone says this source or that source will produce so many years down the road. Tell me how much is being produced now. And then tell me how much will be produced next year. Then have them divide that number by 12 and have them point out where that increase came from last month. If they can't show the monthly growth then there is no growth and all the projections of this much and that much are worthless. I've spent my career listening to oil company geologists and engineers tell me how much a well or field will produce AFTER THEY GET THE WELL/FIELD DRILLED. My response is always the same: come back and talk to me when it's done. Right now all they have is words and they sell real cheap.

CarlosFerreira

Sounds like a good advice, since I really haven't been able to pour predictions in the tank of my car! Laughing

I'm really interested in economic modeling, but all forecasts are so different, you really have to take them with a pinch of salt.
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ROCKMAN

Guys,

As far as getting the masses to appreciate PO we can thank the Fox network for making it more difficult. (Dude,,you've seen thi already so catch a nap)

Let me dump on you about something that has been gnawing my butt raw since Saturday. On the Fox Bulls and Bears (where there is usually decent reporting on oil matters) they had one of their Wall Street gurus go on and on about the oil shales. He said (I swear I’m not exaggerating) that if the feds opened up the leases we could bet 800 billion bo and we would likely be flowing 1 million bopd in a year thanks to horizontal drilling technology. I know Dude and others here know how absurd his statements were (which were not challenged by anyone on the show.

First, oil shale leases have been available for 30+ years. And about 30% are on private land and can be had for just writing a check. Thus there is nothing to stop anyone from doing what he says can be done. Except that it physically can’t be done, of course.

Second, there is no oil in the “oil shales” to flow. The shale contains kerogen, a SOLID. I can only guess this idiot was confusing oil shales with formations like the Bakken. Originally they would strip mine the kerogen out and separate it from the shale and then cook it to make oil. Terribly inefficient and destructive to the environment. Shell is trying to cook it in place and then flow it out of the shale. Last time I saw their number they thought the current in situ effort would take 4 years to cook the kerogen before they would try to produce it.

The worse thing about his speech was who was listening to it. Joe Six-pack doesn’t listen to this show. But a lot of folks on the upper end of the economy do but many don’t have a tech background to understand how wrong this guy was. And these are the folks who can have an impact of the political system. Rarely do I ever write a bitching letter at the media but I will this time. There’s no telling how many hundreds of thousand of folks bought his stupidity and how many millions they’ll repeat it to. It’s been a while since I’ve been this PO over PO.

Ibon

It is important a moment to remember that we are just now entering the chapter where pain and consequences start doing their work. Many in the peak oil community have been surprised about how quickly events have unfolded that were predicted already years ago; high fuel costs, financial crisis, obsolescence of the SUV, etc.

Does anyone doubt that the acceleration of events will not continue?

Within a very short time (could be as long as 3 years) we will witness a flood of main stream media around the topic of peak oil and related "overshoot" topics and this will be profound in how it starts exerting itself into our cultural values.

The collective as a whole is not far from having a BIG lightbulb go off in their head around our predicament.

My guess is that in one year from today looking back on this thread we will be amazed about how much we underestimate the mainstream from understanding the fundamentals of resource depletion and overshoot.

We are entering the beginning stages of a cultural shift toward frugality and constraints and soon social values will move away more and morefrom the obscenity of excess consumption.

From an economics perspective we have popped the last of the bubbles with the housing market. With the fuel that drove us to these excesses in permanent decline there is no more easy credit out there for another bubble to be created. We will move back to a 1950's economy where we can only buy and spend with money that we earn. Credit contraction will mirror fossil fuel depletion.

This powering down as often mentioned is not idealogically driven or because people finally "understand" peak oil. It is a consequence of it.

Remember we don't have to have a majority of citizens understanding the intricacies of peak oil to move in the right direction toward the early stages of mitigation which is about consuming less.

As the economy continues to contract we will also have some very cold water thrown on our beliefs about technology or the government being able to bring things back to the good old days.

Those of us so immersed in the truth of peak oil lose sight of the forest for the trees sometimes. We've got our heads full of thousands of facts spanning many disciplines from geology to psychology to urban design to geo politics etc. etc. We connect the dots with all these facts. The average J6P will not need to have all this info to understand it. He will understand it when he has to ride his bike to town to pick up his beer.

My prediciton; when the current hope that gas prices are going down is destroyed with the next surge in prices we will see more serious discussions on the main stream media around peak oil and related topics and less mindless witch hunts searching for scape goats. People are more and more getting it that we have a deep systemic problem.
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AirlinePilot

shortonoil · Fission Joined: Dec 02, 2004 Posts: 2726 Location: VA USA

ROCKMAN said:

Ibon

You guys are forgetting that the day will come that shale oil will be revealed as another pipe dream. All these talking heads are doing are planting the seeds to the future appointment with being discredited.

That is what has happened to Bush and Co. for example and many of you in 2003 were saying that the media and the masses were stuck in an illusions of lies and deception etc.

Let's not underestimate the power of reality to wear down all the pacifying lies around peak oil that still persist at the moment.

Reality events are piling up now faster than the pacifiers are able to keep the lid on the truth.

THe turning point when this all back fires happens more quickly than we imagine.

Expect it in the next 12-24 months.
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ROCKMAN

You're right Ibon. Except today anyone with a decent high school education could tell OS is a pipe dream if it's explained to them. Unfortunately you're probably right that it will take a couple of years to filter down. Unfortunately that will be two more years wasted not beginning an adjustment towards reality. I just hope it's only two years.