[Graeme]

The Peak Oil Downside Will Be Steeper Than The Upside

Those readers who have some passing familiarity with the concept of peak oil have no doubt seen a picture of the traditional statistical distribution known as a “bell shaped curve.” These bell shaped curves make sense to people, because in a world with finite resources, what goes up, must come down. These symmetrical bell shaped curves are however lulling us into an attitude of complacency, leading us to believe that we have decades to move off of oil. This is just not so, and this article discusses five serious reasons why this erroneous perception needs to promptly be abandoned.

kickingthegasoline

[Pops]

Man that guy has more hats than me! Today he's a sustainability expert and just last year he was a Independent Information Security Consultant & Author – http://www.infosecurityinfrastructure.com/

Anyway I agree with him about the problem with those unreliable, selfish people in Export Land, I think a couple more preemptive wars are in order!

[Armageddon]

Man that guy has more hats than me! Today he's a sustainability expert and just last year he was a Independent Information Security Consultant & Author – http://www.infosecurityinfrastructure.com/

Anyway I agree with him about the problem with those unreliable, selfish people in Export Land, I think a couple more preemptive wars are in order!

Asshats or tin foil hats ?

[Pops]

Asshats or tin foil hats ?

Hard to tell the difference sometimes.

[hillsidedigger]

Of course the Peakoil downslide will be steeper.

The upclimb featured limited demand and abundant oil near the surface.

The downslide will feature overwhelming demand with any available oil being deeper and deeper.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Of course the Peakoil downslide will be steeper.

The upclimb featured limited demand and abundant oil near the surface.

The downslide will feature overwhelming demand with any available oil being deeper and deeper.

Yes, and the author lists this as his 5th reason:

The fifth reason why world oil supplies will decline considerably faster than we now generally believe involves the fact that we produced the least expensive oil first.

[Armageddon]

Asshats or tin foil hats ?

Hard to tell the difference sometimes.

[FireJack]

This is why you have to be prepared before it happens, as the system could fall apart pretty quick and you can't prepare then. See a lot of talk about how just because nothing has happened yet nothing is going to happen, but I can't help but notice were currently living on money printed out of thin air. I'm not going to worry about when anymore, I'll just keep preparing and hopefully it will be enough.

[Sys1]

Wow! Graeme posting a doom thread! A clear sign for me of TSHTF or TEOTWAWKI!
Grab your hat, our roller coaster civilization is heading to the ground at Mach 10.

[Pops]

I'm not going to worry about when anymore, I'll just keep preparing and hopefully it will be enough.

I'm with you, Jack.

I can understand folks thinking they should play along with the game long enough to buy one more can of beans, one more box of ammo, might as well throw in one more DVD and surely everyone deserves that "last vacation before the end" and needs a car with better milage.


In my experience, the hardest but also the most liberating adjustment we've made is learning to want less. People talk about all sorts of silly things like flint knapping and making shoes from old tires and composting human waste but never talk about how they have given up buying new shoes, let alone TP.


The best prep item you can buy is nothing.

[davep]

Wow! Graeme posting a doom thread! A clear sign for me of TSHTF or TEOTWAWKI!
Grab your hat, our roller coaster civilization is heading to the ground at Mach 10.

Haha! That was my reaction. My personal doom-o-meter just went up a notch.

[vision-master]

Just picked up 8 lbs of Quaker Oats (oats nuts raisins granola) for under $10 ($9.32). Vaccum packed it and added to my stash.

[jupiters_release]

Wow! Graeme posting a doom thread! A clear sign for me of TSHTF or TEOTWAWKI!
Grab your hat, our roller coaster civilization is heading to the ground at Mach 10.

Haha! That was my reaction. My personal doom-o-meter just went up a notch.

+2

[Graeme]

Actually, my intention was not to create alarm but to post an article that I thought was "ïnteresting". One doesn't have to believe everything that one reads especially if the author is not connected to the oil industry. However, I do agree with the author's point of view:

Charles Cresson Wood is profoundly concerned that modern industrial societies are not yet rapidly transitioning away from petroleum-based fuels. Global warming research, dependence on foreign countries for oil, considerably higher prices for oil, and the world’s peaking production of oil, all indicate that now is the time to move to alternative transportation fuels.

This quote from his article reveals a weakness in his arguments though:

But total world production of oil does not have another source that it can draw upon when worldwide supplies dwindle, as the United States did back in 1970.

Here is another point of view from industry experts. I've seen conclusions similar to what is posted in the above in the journal Science. The last 2 conclusions located in the blue box on the left of this article are IMO cause for concern.

[argyle]

I'm not going to worry about when anymore, I'll just keep preparing and hopefully it will be enough.

I'm with you, Jack.

I can understand folks thinking they should play along with the game long enough to buy one more can of beans, one more box of ammo, might as well throw in one more DVD and surely everyone deserves that "last vacation before the end" and needs a car with better milage.


In my experience, the hardest but also the most liberating adjustment we've made is learning to want less. People talk about all sorts of silly things like flint knapping and making shoes from old tires and composting human waste but never talk about how they have given up buying new shoes, let alone TP.


The best prep item you can buy is nothing.

+1

[mcgowanjm]

This quote from his article reveals a weakness in his arguments though:

But total world production of oil does not have another source that it can draw upon when worldwide supplies dwindle, as the United States did back in 1970.

Here is another point of view from industry experts. I've seen conclusions similar to what is posted in the above in the journal Science. The last 2 conclusions located in the blue box on the left of this article are IMO cause for concern.

Thank you.

Future World Oil Production

World oil production will reach a peak plateau by 2020-40. This was one of several key implications of a Hedberg Research Conference released at the AAPG Annual Convention in Long Beach.

so why not go to the source, the IEA and the WEO 2008 Report.

580 of the largest 800 fields are declining by 8%.
Cantarell at 500,000 bpd, at least a year ahead of schedule. At this
rate will be flatlining at 150,000 bpd in a year.

May2005 was PO. Everything else is cover. The World Economy tells you exactly where we are. now. One convulsion away from the Olduvai.

He, too seems to disregard the Peak Oil story and its implications as the master resource driving growth in industrial economies.

Personally, I am not at all sure that the Peak Oil story, or its associated general resource scarcity story, will shed a whole lot of light on the question of inflation-or-deflation. I say this because I think it is a short way down the road of depletion-and-scarcity before the major complex systems we depend on for daily life become so unstable that general socio-economic collapse ensues. After all, capital finance is only one of these many complex systems -- some other biggies being food production, trade and manufacture, transportation, electric power distribution, infrastructure maintenance, the military, and governance. Inflation-or-deflation will only be symptomatic of larger failures and instabilities in these systems necessary for modern, civilized life.