[raizcapoeira]

Can anyone give me a reason as to why so many people (including a number of former peakniks) have so readily endorsed this idea that peak oil is "dead"? To me, for anyone to so readily reject peak oil on the grounds that somehow what they personally believed would materialize didn't exactly happen is rather ridiculous. A rough analog is people rejecting Malthusian equilibrium out of hand because of a ridiculous superficiality which the actual mechanics of the theory allow for.

The model didn't exactly fail, either:

[SeaGypsy]

Could cut and paste from dozens of threads here to answer that. Primarily the MSM and vested interests across the board have nothing to gain and much to lose by general awareness of the truth. Investment flows are required to prevent catastrophic collapse in supply. These require medium term confidence, years and even decades of return. Although the line 'peak oil is dead' is a big fat lie- it may just be the lie which is preventing rapid descent to Olduvai's gorge. Certainly the tripling of prices in the last few years is helping prevent this, create the current plateau, buying some time- for better or worse.

[Rune]

I came to the conclusion that peak oil would not be a sudden event with a precipitous decline.

If anything, there will be a time to go until peak, and then it will plateau for quite a while and then the decline may not be that steep. I think of the many reports of natural gas supplies lasting for a very long time.

But still, the use of fossil fuels is problematic. It is a problem because it's heavy, global, wide-spread use keeps the price high. It's a problem because of CO2 emissions. It's a problem because of health hazards, It's a re-current geopolitical problem.

And it surely will not last forever. I am glad the price is where it is. I think it'ls very likely that peak oil will be a demand peak.

But I became aware of alternatives that are clearly atractive, to me and a whole lot of other people - not neccessarily most people around here.

My favorite for clean, green, baseload energy would be Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors. If you want to read a great historical overview, read "Superfuel" by Richard Martin. You won't be disappointed.

Or go to http://www.Flibe-Energy.com or EnergyFromThorium.com.

It just makes so much sense and you really could run civilization for millenia on it. Look at some of my posts in "Aternatives To Fossil Fuels" thread. You could even make liquid fuels using them.

Then, I follow other new energy developments such as Joule Unlimited's approach. There is a thread around here on that - BBC Horizon Covers Joule Unlimited. I follow developments in efficiency such as the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell which will be commercialized in a few years and which doubles the efficiency over internal combustion engines.

I have not forgotten about the huge deposits of Heavy Oil that can be found in various places like Venezuela. Do I think that there might be some innovation that allows for cheaper production of heavy oil? Well, I would not bet against it.

If they can frack shale, they can use produce and use heavy oil - not that I would want them to.

In a crisis, human beings innovate rapidly - think Manhattan Project during WWII.

It would only take 5 years and a billion bucks to achieve a design for, say, a 300MW Small Modular, Factory-Produced, Thermal Breeding LFTR. You could use them in isolated areas or you could group them together to function as a larger unit.

Once you have 5 factories up and running, you could build a lot of them. Thorium is very abundant and extremely safe compared to the Uranium fuel Cycle. The Chinese have a well-funded program, hiring top-talent, to originate a design eventually replace their coal industry. They claim they could run their civilzation for 20,000 years on Thorium.

And I have not forgotten about advanced solar and an array of other energy technologies. I just pick on a few that I like and follow their development.I follow developments in Hot Fusion, which looks like it could be a reality by the 2030s.
I am referrin to NIFs efforts with Laser-Inertial Fusion. Look up LIFE Reactor.

I am simply not so unnecessarily pessimistic about science, innovation and the rate of development of new technologies as most of the other posters around here.

But it is clear to me that there will be plenty of time to develop technologies like this because fossil fuels will be with us for a long enough time.

[lowem]

Lost track of the number of times we've flipped/flopped over the idea of whether it will be a fast crash, slow crash or an ongoing undulating plateau. Plateau guys might turn out to have been right. People are going about business-as-usual, stock markets particularly the S&P500 seem to have broken all time highs, and that in itself is a little bit worrying.

[raizcapoeira]

Be careful there scrubroot, your charts assume a symmetrical logistic curve (often modeling population growth and decline) that does not necessarily describe oil regions, including earth. Oil production does not necessarily follow such a predictable pattern. But yeah, you are right,some people have no faith.

Others have too much faith in fancy toys. Many such as Rune, simply ignore evidence that our industrial civilization is already rusting away, and can not support $100 oil, 7 billion humans or his techo dreams. He doesn't believe in economics or limits apparently.

Yeah, strange. Hubbert's peak isn't a Gaussian function/bell curve as many casually say. From many models I've seen of peak oil, it's an unevenly distributed logistic curve. And, yes, of course oil production doesn't necessarily follow that pattern. I suspect the undulating plateau will continue for quite some time, with gas playing a larger and larger role. But gas is no panacea. The fact that we are being forced to use gas is proof of the increasing marginality of our fossil fuel resources. Let's just put it this way: I in no way see a "decarbonization" of the global economy happening. Idiots like Amory Lovins have been prophecizing for decades that alternatives' growth will accelerate so much that it will make a dent in the percentage of our energy supplied from fossil fuels. So far, none of these predictions have materialized at all whatsoever if you actually observe global numbers.

As for thorium, it kinda reminds me of methane hydrates. So close but so far away; ultimately unfeasible. At least its proponents aren't as completely and utterly deluded as nuclear fusion dead-enders and aspiring asteroid miners are.

[sparky]

.
On Britain building a new power plant
the underlying politic is fascinating , so is the base price estimate
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/2 ... 3X20131020

the French , Japannese , Russian and Chinese are now the big weight in nuclear technology
from the mining to the reprocessing
I doubt if enough competent nuclear engineers could be found in the U.S.
to build a new one

If no nuclear , then the last solution , the power of prayer
Archbishop of Canterbury said suppliers should be "conscious of their social obligations".
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/2 ... 3B20131020

[dolanbaker]

If vehicle fuel economy (mpg) had remained at 1970s levels, peak oil would have come & gone by now.
Chances are we would have seen the introduction of wide spread fuel rationing in most countries around the world, or fuel prices so high that only the top 50% of employees being able to afford to run a car.

[ralfy]

I'd look at oil production per capita.

[dorlomin]

If no nuclear , then the last solution , the power of prayer
Archbishop of Canterbury said suppliers should be "conscious of their social obligations".
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/2 ... 3B20131020

The archbishop is a former oil industry executive.

[dolanbaker]

I should have also added,
Substitution of other fossil fuels is also a major mittigating factor, without which oil consumption over the past 30 years would have been much higher.

[Pops]

I don't recall who said it but, "Depletion never sleeps" - it certainly never dies, for every barrel that is extracted, someone somewhere needs to find and develop another or the flow slows.

Time and scale have always been the question, I like this chart:



Russia (yellow line) kept the wolf away in the oughts, I don't know anything about them, or what is the reason they are plateaued. The US is keeping the wolf away in the teens, personally I think the tight oil miracle can't be replicated elsewhere at the scale seen here and I'm not sure it can be replicated here but that's just an opinion.

MENA still has a kick or two (Iran, Sudan, Iraq) then there is Brazil, the arctic, etc.

The question of course is, and has always been, what will replace the giants. It's the old 80/20 rule; most of our oil comes from just a few giant - and pretty old, oil fields. Without a replacement giant, when one more line on that chart starts looking like the European line, the fix is in. The boosters say we'll replace one giant with thousands of midgets, maybe.

[Rune]

As for thorium, it kinda reminds me of methane hydrates. So close but so far away; ultimately unfeasible. At least its proponents aren't as completely and utterly deluded as nuclear fusion dead-enders and aspiring asteroid miners are.

Thorium-based nuclear power

It has been done and is being done, all over the world.

Posting your personal dislike of of a particular abundant, clean energy source that could run civilization for thousands of years isn't going to stop the rest of the world researching and developing a modern nuclear reactor technology that has already worked in the past.

[John_A]

Can anyone give me a reason as to why so many people (including a number of former peakniks) have so readily endorsed this idea that peak oil is "dead"?

Because they confuse peak oil with peak oil CONSEQUENCES....two totally different things. Peak oil is a given, it must happen. But it ignores things like conservation and substitution, ignores most economics altogether really. Bashing peak oil is easy nowadays because oil production was supposed to decline, it didn't, and worse yet, it increased after it was supposed to have already declined.

So give it another decade or two and maybe we'll get a peak. The question is more of an economic one, does it matter?

The model didn't exactly fail, either:

There are plenty of models. Including the ones proclaiming peak as far back as 1989. Or as far down the road as 2037. And you are referencing one from in between somewhere. Lots of estimates of it happening in between somewhere.

[rollin]

Besides the obvious cornucopian blitz of "news" about oil production gains from various new technologies and unconventional non-crude oil production sources, there has been a deliberate inclusion of any liquid fuel by national and international agencies, thus enlarging and confusing the numbers. Add to this the obvious plateau of production due to extensive fracking and deep water drilling, time has marched on.

The length of time, over ten years from the first predictions and the passing of stated dates where oil production would crest and start to fall, produce a wearing effect on the mind. One can only stay in a heightened state for so long before it either causes physical damage to the body and mind or the person must shift his outlook to a calmer state. I think many peak oil people have shifted downward to a more practical and day to day outlook, and are just not thinking about it as much. They will resurface as more dramatic data and effects pile in.

My analysis concludes the 2017 to 2023 period to be the first of the major peak oil step downs into descent for the more developed world. Of course we all know that the effects are current and continuing. It is just that they are not dramatic or de-convoluted enough for the mainstream to see them as peak oil effects. Or they can be spun as individual incidents or economic problems.

So for now the great dream will go forward, at least for some or at least in the minds of many.
For such an adaptable species we certainly don't do well with obvious change.

[dorlomin]

Currently here in the UK, energy is often the first and second lead story on the days news. Over the past few months it is rarely out of the top 3 stories. We have slumped 20% in petrol sales on the past 6 years.

Today the former conservative Prime Minister was calling for a windfall tax on the energy suppliers to pay for heating for the poorest over the winter. Yesterday it was a new nuclear plant with a strike price double current energy prices together with another big company giving a 10% hike in costs.

The bland sloganeering of the 'Peak Oil is Dead' crew holds little water when fear for the fate of our poorest and elderly grips the country over their ability to get through winter.

The fugue that weaves itself in and out of the current news items is a leitmotif of or two headed problem: An approaching upper limit of the CO2 level we can safely sustain and a flattening volume of liquid hydrocarbon.

[ROCKMAN]

dorlomin – “We have slumped 20% in petrol sales on the past 6 years.” And you seem to imply that is a bad thing. Obviously your MSM doesn’t understand the dynamics as well as ours. Decreased consumption is a good thing…ignoring what caused the decrease. If your elderly can’t get enough NG to heat their homes this winter that’s more good news…even less consumption.

Amazing isn’t it: both our countries are faced with the same problems: high prices and potential supply disruptions during peak demand periods. The UK produces about 65% of the oil it consumes while the US according to our DOE, even with increased production, produces only about 45% of the oil we consume. And your MSM is focused on this “problem” and ours is giddy over our “good fortune”.

Whose spin machine do you think is being more honest with their public?

[Rune]

Can anyone give me a reason as to why so many people (including a number of former peakniks) have so readily endorsed this idea that peak oil is "dead"?

Because they confuse peak oil with peak oil CONSEQUENCES....two totally different things. Peak oil is a given, it must happen. But it ignores things like conservation and substitution, ignores most economics altogether really. Bashing peak oil is easy nowadays because oil production was supposed to decline, it didn't, and worse yet, it increased after it was supposed to have already declined.

There is no confusion.

I first read about peak oil when Ken Deffeyes book, "Hubbert's Peak" hit the shelves. Then, I searched online and found die-off.org. Intrigued, I read Heinberg's "The Party Is Over" and later, hisd "Powerdown".

I read "Twilight In the Desert" by Matthew Simmons. And I read david Goodstein's book (can't remember the name of it). I followed Charles Maxwell's alarmist reports (financial analyst barron's). I read Kunstler's, "The Long Emergency. I was an early subscriber to "From the Wilderness", a subscriber to ASP's newsletter. Read a book by Colin Campbell - "Oil Crisis". Countless articles, websites and, of course, this forum.

Peak oil would merely be an economists' geekish area of knowledge were it not for consequences. All of these books were talking about consequences.

Some of those early books were talking about calamitous events which werejust around the corner. Heinberg had co-authored a book call "High Noon for Natural Gas". Boy, was it ever worrying and depressing.

By the time of the 911 attacks, I knew full well about peak oil. When Bush/Cheney were elected in 2000, I knew they were oil men. I wondered if the election were significant because they were both oil men.

then, when 911 happened, and I watched the subsequent invasion of Iraq, do you think I was not wondering if it all had something to do with peak oil? Of course, I was!

I was pretty damn sure of it at the time.

But it is nearly 15 years since I first began reading and thinking about peak oil. None of the calamitous events which were supposed to be entirely evident to everyone by this time has happened.

Peak oil has been pushed off into the future yet again. We are not living in a Mad Max era. It looks like oil and natural gas will be available for so long that it is doubtful whether the subject will ever reach such dire dimensions again. Because now, the price is higher and there is so much going on technologically to
mitigate or eliminate any consequences.

So, now I pay attention to emerging technologies that interest me - like thorium or solide oxide fuel cells, or even the weird cold fusion story.

At least the whole peak oil debate got me interested in energy. That interest hasn't gone away.

[Rune]

If everyone here is lamenting why peak oil has lost much of its resonance with the broader world - even though facts, figures, data, and consequences seem so utterly important you - just examine your own reasons for not being interested in my latest posts on 911 and the new documentary that is out.

"It's for nutcase truthers."
"It makes my head hurt."
"It's irrelevant".
"It's flat wrong".
"Why would I waste my time on something that has been proven false?"

This is exactly how the rest of the world looks at peak oil doomerism and YOU guys are nutcase truthers!

[dorlomin]

dorlomin – “We have slumped 20% in petrol sales on the past 6 years.” And you seem to imply that is a bad thing.

No, it is a symptom of a changing paradigm in energy consumption in one of the worlds largest economies. Some of that loss is people buying smaller cars, others people shifting to diesel. That shift is happening because of stagnant growth and being outbid for energy on the worlds energy markets.

Liquid hydrocarbon is a constrained resource, even during an extended slump in the OEDC economies it is a bull market for this resource. Young people are giving up driving and the single speed bicycle is as much a fashion icon of the hip young things of the trendsetting districts of London, Bristol and Brighton as the latest iphone.

Energy is so deeply embedded into this countries history it is often over looked. Coke allowed the first Iron bridge to be built in Ironbridge 1779, Boulton and Watt powered the cotton mills with their coal fired steam engines and in 1911 Fisher and Churchill decided to make the battle fleet of the Royal Navy all oil. From that moment our energy fate was no longer bound by the coal fields of Wales and Nottingham, but the oil fields of Persia. Our biplanes hunted the Red Baron on Persian oil and our Spitfires hammed Goerings bombers on it. The Suez Crisis, the 3 day week and the Winter of Discontent were built around the politics of energy. The economic boom of the 80s was funded on oil and gas from the North Sea.

But now our oil is depleting fast and we can no longer bid enough for Persian oil to keep up our post 80s lifestyles. Over the past 200 years the history of our energy is our history.

Peak oil may be dead because zombies are not roaming the streets or depletion has not kicked in a 8% a year yet. But "peak" means top. We are not getting more out of the ground. That means people have to use less so the new economies can continue to use more.

Peak oil may be dead for the internet trolls, because their childish standards have not been met. But peak oil is here and happening for the consumers of the world.