[Graeme]

Has peak oil theory passed its peak?

Opinions vary as to when oil production will peak. But a series of big finds, along with increased efficiency following the recession, may buy us some time. Simon Wilson investigates.

Do we face an energy crunch?

YES

• Oil companies and Opec have been overstating their reserves for years, according to some peak oil analysts.

• The Deepwater Horizon disaster will inflate the costs and risks of offshore drilling, decimating oil exploration (just as the Three Mile Island accident put back the nuclear industry by 30 years).

• Developing world demand is set to explode: much of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are on the cusp of the $3,000-$4,000 income bracket – the point where demand for energy surges.

NO

• The world's proven oil reserves have doubled roughly every 15 years since 1850, and we now have more than ever before – over 1.4 trillion barrels.

• High prices will continue to drive new technologies and oil discoveries, while the surge in liquefied natural gas and shale gas will take some of the heat off oil.

• Slower economic growth in rich countries has moderated demand in the past, and is likely to do so now.

moneyweek

[ian807]

• High prices will continue to drive new technologies and oil discoveries, while the surge in liquefied natural gas and shale gas will take some of the heat off oil.

Sure, for a while. Technologies tend to plateau as they mature. The number of discoveries lessens. The impact does too. You'll notice that we're not driving cars that get 500mpg and oh, that we passed peak oil in the continental USA in the 1970s and somehow the magic of technology hasn't changed that.

Gas is great, and will slow powerdown, but only for a decade or two. Gas plays deplete far more rapidly than oil fields.

Peak oil looks like one of the biggest challenges to our planetary culture. It's not. The challenges are overpopulation and overcomplexity. It's not that we can't live with less energy. It's that the whole multi-system integration that makes modern life possible is dependent on cheap liquid fuels and cheap energy in general. Knock it out too suddenly and we don't get time to adapt. It's not that we can't adapt, it's just that many of us will starve before we do.

[tubaplayer]

Yeah right

Have you seen the production figures for BPs Thunderhorse field. It is falling off a cliff already. They will be lucky to get 15% of what they originally claimed out of it.

AND for the umpteenth time it is NOT about reserves - it is all about how fast we can pump it out of the ground. It doesn't matter a tiny bit if there are ten thousand trillian barrels of reserves. If we cannot pump it at more than 85 MILLION barrels a day it is game over.

[Tami]

Yes indeedy. Those worry-wart Malthusists are sooo wrong.

Of course Malthus was wrong. And to a large extent, because he couldn't predict the future direction of mans ingenuity any better than we can today. The conversion of a noxious, foul, sticky and ugly, tough to dispose and property value reducing substance like oil, into a transport fuel and excellent chemical feedstock, was a turn which Thomas had no chance of seeing in advance.

Judging the validity of peak oil on the failings of Malthus just doesn't seem fair though.

[Tami]

AND for the umpteenth time it is NOT about reserves - it is all about how fast we can pump it out of the ground. It doesn't matter a tiny bit if there are ten thousand trillian barrels of reserves. If we cannot pump it at more than 85 MILLION barrels a day it is game over.

What is so special about 85 million barrels a day? Is it a magic number of oil production, or just the one most associated with peak, or plateau?

[americandream]

For those with the attention span of a gnat, the peak oil issue will certainly have faded by now or be in the process of so doing.

However no amount of denial alters the fact that aren't enough resources on this planet to meet the ever growing demands of an open consumerist system (and you haven't as yet come back with an example of a closed self-replenishing consumerist cycle yet, Graeme. This delay convinces me that you are seriously mentally blocked so deep is your indoctrination).

Any thoughts of mining the stars also fail to take account of the fact that the planet's orbit can only cope with so much fuelling debris before we are completely enclosed by an asteroid belt of our own making.

We are here for the duration on a finitely resourced rock and we had better get used to that idea...SOON.

[americandream]

Tami's attitude is symptomatic of the malaise that has overwhelmed us in out inability at making our books balance, as a society. They just don't want to be told that one should not live beyond his or her means then wail for socialised relief when they are broke.

AND for the umpteenth time it is NOT about reserves - it is all about how fast we can pump it out of the ground. It doesn't matter a tiny bit if there are ten thousand trillian barrels of reserves. If we cannot pump it at more than 85 MILLION barrels a day it is game over.

What is so special about 85 million barrels a day? Is it a magic number of oil production, or just the one most associated with peak, or plateau?

It is not magic Tami, just a finite earth.

Tami, why don't you show me, field by field, with p95 reserve and production/capacity standards how we are going to compensate for 6.7% known field global petroleum decline.

I'm waiting.

[MD]

YES

• Oil companies and Opec have been overstating their reserves for years, according to some peak oil analysts

.

OPEC's reported reserves jumped significantly between 1988 and 1990. Just prior to those increases their individual annual production allotments were tied to their stated reserves. That simple fact remains the most logical explanation for the increase in reported reserves.

Conclusion: Peak Sooner

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t95/chief_bottle_washer/opecresrveschart.jpg

• The Deepwater Horizon disaster will inflate the costs and risks of offshore drilling, decimating oil exploration (just as the Three Mile Island accident put back the nuclear industry by 30 years).

Clearly costs will go up, and exploration will go down. How much remains to be seen.
As for risks, I can see increased financial risk, but from here it looks like environmental risks will be decreasing in the future, not increasing.

Conclusion: Peak Sooner

• Developing world demand is set to explode: much of Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are on the cusp of the $3,000-$4,000 income bracket – the point where demand for energy surges.

Demand tends to push peak production forward, and demand for energy is both intense and relentless.

Conclusion: Peak Later

NO

• The world's proven oil reserves have doubled roughly every 15 years since 1850, and we now have more than ever before – over 1.4 trillion barrels.

Somewhere hidden in that fuzzy fact lives a maximum production number that will likely remain fuzzy forever as there are other more significant factors in play. The important and so often overlooked question is: what percentage of the reserves are very inexpensive at very high flow rates, and what is happening to those reserves?

Conclusion: Reserve growth from this point forward won't contribute as much to production as it has in the past.

• High prices will continue to drive new technologies and oil discoveries, while the surge in liquefied natural gas and shale gas will take some of the heat off oil.

Conclusion: Peak irrelevant. These are replacement fuels.

• Slower economic growth in rich countries has moderated demand in the past, and is likely to do so now.

So when demand drops off so does exploration and production, no?

Conclusion: Peak Sooner

Final Conclusion:
The overall argument is weak and the article fails to even address its own title.
I'm amazed this piece of crap made it to publication.

[lper100km]

First of all, Peak Oil is a definition, not a theory. In a closed environment, it is the mid point of the recoverable, finite reserves.

Any ‘theory’ is merely speculation about the size and recoverability of reserves, and the consumption rate. Such speculation does not in any way alter the definition of Peak Oil or the inevitability of eventual decline in reserves and production. It will have some impact on when the Peak is thought to occur, but not the fact of it.

Oil pricing is responsive to the supply and demand and to trading trends and irregularities.

Since there is much unknown about the actual amount of oil reserves, there is too much speculation about when PO will occur, is occurring or has occurred. This morphs into a theory about when it will happen and when it doesn’t seem to be happening, eventually questions arise whether PO is real. By definition, PO is real. One day, presumably in hindsight, it will become painfully obvious that it is real and the great games of ‘I told you so’ and ‘How could it have been prevented’ and the even greater game of ‘taking steps to ensure it will never happen again’ will begin.

I’m somewhat amazed that this powerfully simple concept has not been applied to the world’s other finite resources that are being consumed. Granted, unlike oil, many are recyclable to some degree and this varies the formula, but not the inevitability. Even nominally self sustainable resources, such as fisheries, have their peak if consumption, disease, pollution outstrips stock replenishment, since they are then a finite and declining quantity.

Anything we use on this earth has been derived, either directly or through intermediate processes from raw resources that are essentially finite. One day, we will visit the global supermarket only to find the shelves are bare.

The article title and concept is nonsensical.

[efarmer]

Folks with short attention spans are fed long term challenges and issues by allowing them to reach the edge of chaos and then jamming smaller chunks of crisis in their mouths.

[Tami]

What is so special about 85 million barrels a day? Is it a magic number of oil production, or just the one most associated with peak, or plateau?

It is not magic Tami, just a finite earth.

The earth was finite at 60 million barrels a day as well. And 40. And, if oil production climbs in the future, it would be finite at 95 million a day as well.

Why a magic number?

Tami, why don't you show me, field by field, with p95 reserve and production/capacity standards how we are going to compensate for 6.7% known field global petroleum decline.

I'm waiting.

I don't understand. You appear to be asking a rhetorical question. Which does not relate to the magical 85 million barrel a day number in the first place, or how that number is somehow special and defined by a finite earth?

[americandream]

It's a threshold against which to measure oil's availability. To the extent that it has any use, it is a reasonable and contemporary profile of the world's energy use at a point of expansion (with China and India increasingly extending the frontiers of the American style of consumption). Were this figure to be consistently breached and then outperformed indefinitely along with an exponentially expanding global economy, then we can rest assured that oil is abiotic and that the little folks down below are producing a sufficient volume to meet our ever expanding consumerist lifestyle. If however, it were to consolidate on a plateau and/or fall, then we are being prudent and taking note.

The alternative is too all adjourn down the local bar and to hell with such reasonable activities such as keeping inventory.

What is so special about 85 million barrels a day? Is it a magic number of oil production, or just the one most associated with peak, or plateau?

It is not magic Tami, just a finite earth.

The earth was finite at 60 million barrels a day as well. And 40. And, if oil production climbs in the future, it would be finite at 95 million a day as well.

Why a magic number?

Tami, why don't you show me, field by field, with p95 reserve and production/capacity standards how we are going to compensate for 6.7% known field global petroleum decline.

I'm waiting.

I don't understand. You appear to be asking a rhetorical question. Which does not relate to the magical 85 million barrel a day number in the first place, or how that number is somehow special and defined by a finite earth?

[eastbay]

The simple fact that the Deepwater Horizon exists al all is extraordinarily powerful evidence demonstrating for all to clearly see the increasingly harsh reality of our deepening desperate quest for liquid energy.

In other words, we're now spending seemingly endless billions of dollars in our effort to pick the remains of the increasingly scarce high hanging fruit.

[Tami]

The simple fact that the Deepwater Horizon exists al all is extraordinarily powerful evidence demonstrating for all to clearly see the increasingly harsh reality of our deepening desperate quest for liquid energy.

In other words, we're now spending seemingly endless billions of dollars in our effort to pick the remains of the increasingly scarce high hanging fruit.

It would seem to me that deepening desperation causes something much worse than $75/bbl? And if the desperation was deepening, we would see other effects, like FINALLY the traffic jams would start to thin out a little?

It seems to me that peak oil has to actually DO something that Joe Average might notice, before it can be wheeled out as an honest boogie man.

[americandream]

Wheel it out when it's too late and we might as well close our stable doors (those of us who own horses) after the horse has bolted. We know that continued expansion of American style consumerism across the globe is a disaster waiting to happen. Monitoring its lifeblood, oil, in a bid to warn as many as will listen is rather appropriate I venture. The fact that the effects of peak oil are not immediately evident to the man in the passenger seat on Clapham omnibus does not detract from the fact that it is becoming clearer to the driver and thats a start.

The simple fact that the Deepwater Horizon exists al all is extraordinarily powerful evidence demonstrating for all to clearly see the increasingly harsh reality of our deepening desperate quest for liquid energy.

In other words, we're now spending seemingly endless billions of dollars in our effort to pick the remains of the increasingly scarce high hanging fruit.

It would seem to me that deepening desperation causes something much worse than $75/bbl? And if the desperation was deepening, we would see other effects, like FINALLY the traffic jams would start to thin out a little?

It seems to me that peak oil has to actually DO something that Joe Average might notice, before it can be wheeled out as an honest boogie man.

[Lore]

It would seem to me that deepening desperation causes something much worse than $75/bbl? And if the desperation was deepening, we would see other effects, like FINALLY the traffic jams would start to thin out a little?

It seems to me that peak oil has to actually DO something that Joe Average might notice, before it can be wheeled out as an honest boogie man.

Peak Oil is like a slow poison, it doesn't have to do anything right away in order to eventually end your way of life. As Kunstler calls it, it's The Long Emergency.

It should be apparent to most everyone by now that markets are short sighted and somewhat inept at gauging serious flaws in the core economic fabric. Artificial manipulation of an obviously depleting resource to keep it seemingly plentiful and cheap is a deceit that can only last just so long.