[Energy24]

Im writing an article on Peak Oil for a Hydrocarbons publication in Australia and being a complete novice I would love to include an extract from an expert which just highlights their take on the situation dire, optimistic or somewhere in the middle!

Please let me know if you are interested

[copious.abundance]

You can find opinions from "experts" telling you everything from, We Are On The Cusp of Imminent Doom, to, There Is Plenty Of Oil Remaining For A Long While, to, everything in-between.

Not sure if that helps any.

[Energy24]

I have done fairly extensive bookish research and had a good look over this site - and its fascinating but would love a chance to succinctly get a hold of one or a few peoples views to compare and contrast

[copious.abundance]

Well, in that case you may have noticed on this site that I'm a cornucopian. So my view is, there is plenty of oil left, they are still finding more, and that the Age of Petroleum still has a long ways to go.

However, in the event I am wrong, there is definitely plenty of natural gas, which makes a perfectly good (and in some ways, a preferable) substitute for oil.

If you really want to write something interesting for your article, it might be more insightful to highlight the differences of opinion on the subject, rather than taking one side or another and focusing on that. Maybe title it something like, "Glass half empty or half full? Debate rages over peak oil issues."

[Energy24]

, "Glass half empty or half full? Debate rages over peak oil issues."

Love it! I am going that way it seems the pessimists have the louder voice in the literature so Im eager to get opinions from you lot

[TheDude]

Here's an article you might find useful: Do you believe in 'peak oil'?

[copious.abundance]

@Energy24

Well, if you want my opinion, I'm not sure it can be summarized very succinctly (other than the very brief blipvert I gave above), but I'll try.

1. Existing proven reserves: The doomer/peaker types here tend to distrust stated proven reserves, particularly from certain Middle Eastern OPEC nations. While I do admit they are far from perfect (but, nothing is perfect), I do not share their distrust of OPEC reserves. They commonly cite the large increases in OPEC proven reserves in the 80's as a case of "give me a break," and I do admit that looks rather cheesy. However, I tend to think those OPEC nations simply re-classified some P2 and P3 reserves as P1 reserves (note: If you do not understand that terminology you'll have to do your own research). One might consider *that* to be a bit cheesy, but that does not matter to me - they would eventually have re-classified them anyway, if not in the 80's, then sometime in the 90's or later. To me, the timing is trivial. I do not disbelieve that there are huge amounts of oil in the Middle East (literally, trillions of barrels). I can show you studies of individual rock formations in just one or two US states which contain hundreds of billions of barrels of oil-in-place. Given that, it is not difficult at all for me to believe there are trillions of barrels of oil in the Middle East.

2. Motivation for belief: An extremely important thing to understand when you read the writings of the peak oil crowd is, the majority of them consider themselves to be avid environmentalists, and so they essentially want oil production to peak. They see oil as an enabling mechanism for industrial/technological civilization, and they do not think industrial/technological civilization is anything "good" or "desirable" and they want us to "power down" to a more "sustainable" level of civilization. I can provide you many, many links on this forum to support this claim. So, when they scream at you, "Oil production has peaked or is about to!" and throw all kinds of charts and graphs at you to scare you into believing this (such as this chart here), what they are really doing is trying to get you to share their belief that industrial/technological civilization is on the threshold of doom unless we somehow prepare or "do something." Some of them believe there is nothing that can be done and that we are doomed no matter what. Additionally, there is also a large crowd here who, to put it bluntly, are psychologically addicted to doom (for whatever reason) and see peak oil as an enabling mechanism to carry out this doom.

Unfortunately, this #2 seems to often get lost on the unsuspecting newcomer who sees charts like the one I linked above and believes the person who made the chart to be an authority on the subject when, in reality, they aren't.

All add more later. In the meantime, no doubt someone will come along and rebut what I wrote.

[TheDude]

US Proved Reserves vs. Production:



Lot of good that did us. OPEC pumped up their reserves one after the other, in the wake of discussion to implement a system where each member's quota would be based on the size of its reserves + population - a system which wasn't implemented, by the way, contrary to what you will read.

Compare this graph with the flat reserves levels OPEC nations show - to me it is if they are daring people to laugh at them, which of course they don't do. What these nations dread more than anything is its customers moving away from using oil, as by and large it is their only source of revenue, keeping us in the dark has been very much to their advantage. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ~Upton Sinclair

Regarding OF2's point #2 I actually agree as regards prophets of the imminent end of the world. That won't happen for a long time - 50 years, perhaps. Find all the oil you want, it won't replenish aquifers. Countries can destabilize quite fast, witness the Soviet Union. Read Dimitri Orlov to get an idea of what that was like, and what he sees as the relative strengths of other countries in weathering such a calamity.

[Graeme]

You could also paraphrase much of the material in the wikipedia article.

[Energy24]

The Wiki article is very good - its just nice to hear from people what they really think about a topic especially one as heated as this!

[AirlinePilot]

Go find The Hirsch Report. Google it. Read the whole thing.

Then understand what Oilfinder does not. Its not imminent doom, but it is long term a giant problem with which mankind must come to grips with. It appears we are not doing that and will result in great long term pain and suffering for us to move into the future by continuing to deny it.

It will be one of humanities greatest challenges.

[JohnDenver]

Countries can destabilize quite fast, witness the Soviet Union. Read Dimitri Orlov to get an idea of what that was like, and what he sees as the relative strengths of other countries in weathering such a calamity.

The "collapse" of the USSR was pretty bogus as far as civilizational collapses go. Take a tour around Moscow today, marvel at the normalcy, the new wealth and growth, ride the newly electrified trans-siberian railroad. It's amazing how a collapsed society can achieve all these things. Apparently countries can restabilize quickly too.

[JohnDenver]

Go find The Hirsch Report. Google it. Read the whole thing.

Also read the definitive debunking of it:
Why Robert Hirsch is Dead Wrong

The Report takes an afternoon to wade through. The debunking only takes two minutes, and it's just a link away!

[TheAntiDoomer]

Go find The Hirsch Report. Google it. Read the whole thing.

Also read the definitive debunking of it:
Why Robert Hirsch is Dead Wrong

The Report takes an afternoon to wade through. The debunking only takes two minutes, and it's just a link away!

The link is to JohnDenver's own (anti) peakoil website. There is a name for such internet self-promotion? Sleezy?

JD's site is hardly anti-peak oil if you care to read it pstarr, in fact it has a disclaimer acknowledgeing peak oil will happen. What JD's site is anti doom. Understanding the concept of peak oil and being a doomer are not one in the same.

[hillsidedigger]

Famine will impact the world's number of people before oil depletion does

and famine could be imminent.

[AirlinePilot]

I think JD and the cornucopians on this site improperly assume that the reactions to PO and the policies which NEED to be implemented will somehow be benign. They will transpire over a long period of time, (They arent yet) and they will cause only slight disruption from everyday norms.

if you truly understand the magnitude of the issue and how humans are wired, you get why some of us are Doomers. I'm not a "Fast Crash" Doomer at all. i see it as a long emergency which we appear to be on the threshold of.

Hirsch understands this, he even has talked about it. its only recently that he has begun talking more about alternatives. My guess is he is more the closet Doomer. He sees what is coming as some of us do, but he also understands that doing something, within a more reasonable context is better than nothing. He has some star power to affect change and he is doing it as best he can.

Conservation on a meaningful scale will only come with pain. Some of us think that pain will be significant, others dont. Its purely a judgement call based on your life experience and your outlook on reality. Personally i think it is going to drag down the global economy and our standards of living quite dramatically over the course of my remaining years. Being aware of that means you understand and can cope better. Thats my main reason for spending time at this site and i believe its important.

[TheDude]

Countries can destabilize quite fast, witness the Soviet Union. Read Dimitri Orlov to get an idea of what that was like, and what he sees as the relative strengths of other countries in weathering such a calamity.

The "collapse" of the USSR was pretty bogus as far as civilizational collapses go. Take a tour around Moscow today, marvel at the normalcy, the new wealth and growth, ride the newly electrified trans-siberian railroad. It's amazing how a collapsed society can achieve all these things. Apparently countries can restabilize quickly too.

"Bogus"? Are we scaling the veracity of these things in some fashion?

From Wiki, effective enough for a nutshell:

Since the USSR's collapse, Russia faced many problems that free market proponents in 1992 did not expect. Among other things, 25% of the population lived below the poverty line, life expectancy had fallen, birthrates were low, and the GDP was halved. These problems led to a series of crises in the 1990s, which nearly led to election of Yeltsin's Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov, in the 1996 presidential election. In the recent years, the economy of Russia has begun to improve greatly, due to major investments and business development and also due to high prices of natural resources.

My point was that the USSR dissolved fairly rapidly, which could be the fate of other ostensibly eternal nation states, and that their prospects are potentially grimmer than that of the FSU states, as Orlov details. How those states have recovered in the meantime isn't the issue - with the world's economy growing in an abundance of cheap energy comparisions with a world of declining supply aren't pertinent.

The TSR was a Tzarist project, not a pet project of Putin's. Electrification took 74 years, I'm giving Stalin credit for that one. Finishing the job was a snap with all the revenue the FSU has coming in from Gazprom and Lukoil.

Been listening to Medvedev's stern warnings, JD? Kremlin: Battles over energy resources could lead to war. Thought you said that war over resources was "unlikely." This could all be one big rattling saber, of course.

MOSCOW – A Kremlin policy paper says international relations will be shaped by battles over energy resources, which may trigger military conflicts on Russia's borders.

The National Security Strategy also said that Russia will seek an equal "partnership" with the United States, but named U.S. missile defense plans in Europe among top threats to the national security.

The document, which has been signed by President Dmitry Medvedev, listed top challenges to national security and outlined government priorities through 2020.

"The international policy in the long run will be focused on getting hold of energy sources, including in the Middle East, the Barents Sea shelf and other Arctic regions, the Caspian and Central Asia," said the strategy paper that was posted on the presidential Security Council's Web site.

"Amid competitive struggle for resources, attempts to use military force to solve emerging problems can't be excluded," it added. "The existing balance of forces near the borders of the Russian Federation and its allies can be violated."

[AirlinePilot]

There is a huge difference between a "collapsed society" and what happened in the former USSR. All that happened there was regime change really. A shift yes, but far from what I or any other rational folks would typify as a collapse.