[Pops]

About ten years ago these clowns convinced me of Peak Oil Pretty Soon, now...

Together with new discoveries, the increased productivity could make oil last at least another century.

Crap, guess it's back to suburbia!

Double crap, I forgot the link.

[mos6507]

The question isn't how long oil will last. It's how long it will remain affordable.

I mean, after all, oil was still available, to a select few, in the world of Mad Max. It was still doom.

[dinopello]

About ten years ago these clowns convinced me of Peak Oil Pretty Soon, now...

Together with new discoveries, the increased productivity could make oil last at least another century.

Crap, guess it's back to suburbia!

That's about right assuming symmetric production down to the last drop. 100 years on the upswing and 100 years on the downswing.

[rangerone314]

About ten years ago these clowns convinced me of Peak Oil Pretty Soon, now...

Together with new discoveries, the increased productivity could make oil last at least another century.

Crap, guess it's back to suburbia!

So we'll be at 74,000,000 bbl per day for 100 years, or we'll be down to like 100,000 bbl per day in 100 years?

[TWilliam]

The question isn't how long oil will last. It's how long it will remain affordable.

I mean, after all, oil was still available, to a select few, in the world of Mad Max. It was still doom.

Shhhhh mos. Quit trying to confuse the public with relevant issues...

[ian807]

Yeah, I read the article. Very hopeful sounding. I hope the facts are as hopeful.

As has been repeated ad nauseum on this board, we're in no danger of running out of oil any time soon. What we will be running out of is oil that is:

1) inexpensive
2) minimally polluting (light sweet crude vs. heavy sulfurous oil)
3) very energy positive (i.e. it takes less energy to get the oil than the oil produces)
4) easily accessible (see item 1)

The new finds are interesting, but lately have tended to be deepwater finds with fields in scattered areas. This is expensive to drill. Moreover, the types and distribution of oil in these finds hasn't been very well assessed yet. All I see is estimated quantities of oil, which, by itself, is meaningless. I don't see either production costs or energy ratios (i.e. how much oil does it take to produce 1 barrel of new oil) for this new oil.

The problem isn't as much energy as it is money and complexity. Right now, our society and the many complex technological tasks needed to keep it functioning depends on inexpensive hydrocarbons. When they get too expensive, things start breaking down. If we don't adapt quickly enough, many folks on planet earth will be getting hungry. If governments will not deal with this effectively, we've got problems. Big ones.

Suppose everyone in Mexico couldn't get their produce to market next year or get fertilizer at a price they could afford. What do you think would happen there? And in the US? And central America?

I hope technology can help us get past this. Unfortunately, innovation doesn't happen on schedule.

[heroineworshipper]

Ubuuuba will make sure it either runs out in 3 years through SUV stimulus plans or is not available anymore.

[Pops]

Sorry I forgot the link.

[yesplease]

The question isn't how long oil will last. It's how long it will remain affordable.

I mean, after all, oil was still available, to a select few, in the world of Mad Max. It was still doom.

What do you consider to be affordable? TOD already had a couple articles on where oil could go and where it was likely to go. For the most part I expect it to stay below $150/bbl because prices that high will cut demand (personal transportation) significantly.

As others have pointed out, energy costs and the oil price are limited by the size of the global economy. For example Francois pointed out that $590 / bbl was the theoretical upper limit for the price of oil and that the practical limit was more likely less than $200 / bbl.

[yesplease]

About ten years ago these clowns convinced me of Peak Oil Pretty Soon, now...

Together with new discoveries, the increased productivity could make oil last at least another century.

Crap, guess it's back to suburbia!

Double crap, I forgot the link.

That's the funny thing about reserves. Higher prices tend to reduce demand, so what's available lasts longer, and increase reserves, so now there's more available. What we really need to know is the change in reserves/production wrt the change in price. If oil can go quite high w/o increasing reserves/production then we're effectively at peak in the sense that we'll probably see consistent significant declines in production soon after. If not, then we're still probably on the same bumpy plateau we've been on since ~1970.

[SeaGypsy]

Since honesty and credibility are not common virtues in the oil industry; the 'answer' as to when HSD's formulaic peak has been reached is unlikely to be detected via his formula. More likely as Orlov and others have been saying the speeding up of demand destruction cycles will be the obvious manifestation of peak. Right now it seems that inertia in the west and eastern growth can be sustained at $70 bl.
How long this will last?
If it were possible to get accurate information from the sources, it might be possible to answer this question.

[Blacksmith]

Since honesty and credibility are not common virtues in the oil industry; the 'answer' as to when HSD's formulaic peak has been reached is unlikely to be detected via his formula. More likely as Orlov and others have been saying the speeding up of demand destruction cycles will be the obvious manifestation of peak. Right now it seems that inertia in the west and eastern growth can be sustained at $70 bl.
How long this will last?
If it were possible to get accurate information from the sources, it might be possible to answer this question.

How long will $70 be worth $70?

[Tanada]

Since honesty and credibility are not common virtues in the oil industry; the 'answer' as to when HSD's formulaic peak has been reached is unlikely to be detected via his formula. More likely as Orlov and others have been saying the speeding up of demand destruction cycles will be the obvious manifestation of peak. Right now it seems that inertia in the west and eastern growth can be sustained at $70 bl.
How long this will last?
If it were possible to get accurate information from the sources, it might be possible to answer this question.

The problem with your conclusion is inertia only maintains what already exists, it doesn't grow anything. The entire USA and Canadian economies are based on GROWTH, not a steady state economy, and so even thought they are purportedly shrinking at only a small rate the entire system is in crisis.

[frankthetank]

OR oil will stay cheap but nobody will have jobs


I'd love to know what production will be in a 100 years... I'd guess 10 million barrels a day? more/less? Population will be half or less what it is now...or less.

[drew]

Back to the original post....
I have a subscription to SA. Been reading it for 20 years now. The article is crap. The author, (by who he is) obviously knows what the definition of PO is but chooses to change the definition and talk about reserves instead.



Drew

[yesplease]

The problem with your conclusion is inertia only maintains what already exists, it doesn't grow anything. The entire USA and Canadian economies are based on GROWTH, not a steady state economy, and so even thought they are purportedly shrinking at only a small rate the entire system is in crisis.

Isn't it closer to the system purportedly being in crisis? As much as it sucks for the unemployed, the great recession is a heck of a lot better than the GD was. I just don't buy the whole economy based on growth lemma. People tend to like growth because it means more stuff, and w/ a growing population, even a steady state economy implies that per capita economic output is dropping, but none of that means our economies can't exist w/o growth. I don't think people would jump for joy, or that elected officials wouldn't promise just about anything, but IRL, people cope w/ a wide variety of conditions w/o seeing TEOTWAWKI.

[Pops]

The BP 2009 statistical survey states otherwise. Oil 42 years,

Yea, and it's been 40-something years for 30 years.

Oil use per capita (worldwide) has been virtually flat for 30 years as well.

We keep finding just enough and devising just enough better recovery methods to stay even. Which isn't to say our per capita primary energy use has been flat, in fact its been increasing but an increasing share has been contributed by gas and that other alternative - coal.

You all probably have seen my favorite graph - I updated an Olduvai inspired primary energy per capita comparison...



Natural gas use flattened and coal use began to drop in the early '90s, but then we all got on the global market wagon and needed something to push it along. Surprise, surprise oil couldn't keep up. So we used more and more nat. gas but by the turn of this century gas couldn't keep up so we poured on the coal!

Coal use has increased around 25% in the last 5 years.

That oil is being replaced by coal certainly must tell us something.

[Carlhole]

Crap, guess it's back to suburbia!

Not back to suburbia.

Onward! Onward! Toward the singularity!

[Tanada]

The problem with your conclusion is inertia only maintains what already exists, it doesn't grow anything. The entire USA and Canadian economies are based on GROWTH, not a steady state economy, and so even thought they are purportedly shrinking at only a small rate the entire system is in crisis.

Isn't it closer to the system purportedly being in crisis? As much as it sucks for the unemployed, the great recession is a heck of a lot better than the GD was. I just don't buy the whole economy based on growth lemma. People tend to like growth because it means more stuff, and w/ a growing population, even a steady state economy implies that per capita economic output is dropping, but none of that means our economies can't exist w/o growth. I don't think people would jump for joy, or that elected officials wouldn't promise just about anything, but IRL, people cope w/ a wide variety of conditions w/o seeing TEOTWAWKI.

I don't think static output or shrinkage equals no economy, but it certainly equals an economy completely different in its driving forces to the constant growth economy we have been using for the last 125 years or so in the westernized countries.