Is peak oil a fraud? from "Does it matter if global warming is a fraud?"

[Eclipse Now]

Thanks Reason, sometimes I get a little involved and can't tell if I'm being objective or not.

 

Now Stereologist, again with the assertion without backing from source documents. The only real player I know of that 'got it wrong' was Hubbert's prediction that the WORLD would peak around 2000. But give him a break... he was making this prediction decades and decades ago, according to the technological extraction limits of his day.

 

I think even he knew he was bound to be out quite a bit. But as it is, the peak might only be 10 or 15 or (on the outside) 20 years past his initial prediction of 40 odd years ago... so that's not bad!

 

Now, do you want to stop harping on about past predictions and start dealing with the modern case that even governments are starting to admit sounds convincing? You avoided the Australian Senate enquiry and the arguments they put forward. Now try these assertions from Prime Ministers... why are they all taking it so seriously? :beer:

 

The hearing began with a speech the Prime Minister stating that we are about to experience the oil peak and so need to assess measures to mitigate its effects and to transform society to adapt to this, including looking on how transport and car use will look in the future. PM Persson underscored that Sweden is very fortunate to have vast agricultural and forestry resources, and to have excellent access to fresh water and no need for irrigation.

Swedish government embraces peak oil and looks towards biofuels | Energy Bulletin

 

Prime Minister: I'm sure it's causing concern in every county because everyone is on the receiving end of the same phenomenon, which is oil price is very high because probably we're not too far short from peak production if we're not already there. That concentrates the mind on alternatives to oil.

 

I quoted before on what President Bush said in the State of the Union address in January: America must give over its addiction to oil.

 

We have to focus and borrow and adapt practices and ideas from elsewhere

on how to move to the post-oil economy because it isn't going to get cheaper in the long-term.

New Zealand prime minister on peak oil | Energy Bulletin

 

KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 (Bernama) -- Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the era of cheap oil prices is over and the people should accept the fact that petroleum prices would continue to rise.

 

"In other words, the cheap oil price era has ended. This is the reality that Malaysians and the world as a whole must accept.

 

"We can no longer hide from the fact that the price of oil would continue to rise and the era of cheap oil price is over," he said at a special briefing on the oil price hike for staff of the Ministry of Information at the Angkasapuri Auditorium Wednesday night.

Malaysian National News Agency :: BERNAMA

 

But, sadly, the CFC hits, oil demand drops by 8 million barrels a day, the price drops, and people suddenly think everything is OK and suddenly the geological picture must have changed. Yet the geology hasn't changed... and countries around the world are gradually becoming more and more addicted to oil for their agricultural production and transport needs.

 

But as the Hirsch Report demonstrates, we must leave oil before it leaves us!

[maikeru]

Stereologist, my tone was due to your paragraph in post 36:

 

 

 

I'm just wondering what you make of the Australian Senate enquiry? Is global peak oil really doomsday crap and frauds if a national government enquiry is taking it seriously? In comparison, do you want to point to where a national government has held an enquiry into 2012 Mayan Prophecies and taken that seriously? ;)

 

Hi everyone else...

I'm just wondering if my following paragraph from post #37 is really that unclear? Tell me honestly, did you all understand what I was getting at? Sometimes I reply a little too quickly.

 

 

I'll apologise for my tone in this paragraph if others think my writing was unclear, but basically, I'd love it if Stereologist could address whether or not his initial paragraph in post #36 was called for.

 

As the kids say in the schoolyard, "He started it!" :hihi: But really, was my post #37 that bad?

 

Eclipse Now, post #37 is clear and fine. The only problem is the scary stuff you're saying. :beer:

 

Stereologist, rather than knee-jerk responses it'd help if you post credible sources and evidence to back up your claims and interpretation. :cheer:

[Eclipse Now]

Hey, I'm not the scary one... I at least don't think societal collapse is technically inevitable, just that it is politically possible. (However unlikely, it is possible. EG: We could nuke ourselves back to the Stone Age in an all out fight over the remaining oil. It is possible... but this is where I hope to see some entrepreneurial behaviour from the markets, and some calm, sane political leadership to kick in).

 

Check out the tone of this ABC "Catalyst" science program... a nice short piece, only about 15 minutes. Now when I saw that on Australian TV back in November 2005, I cheered and thought the world was about to recognise peak oil. Now it's 2010. Ummm... :beer: Political denial, despite all the evidence, is what really scares me.

 

Anyway, check out Catalyst.

 

Windows media

Real Oil Crisis

 

Real Player

http://www.abc.net.au/science/broadband/catalyst/ram/oilcrisis_hi.ram

 

Now some of these are the scary guys! :cheer:

[stereologist]

I am not disagreeing with peak oil. What I see at issue is the prediction of peak oil.

[Pyrotex]

I am not disagreeing with peak oil. What I see at issue is the prediction of peak oil.

"Peak Oil" is the prediction that oil production will peak.

:beer::confused:

So, I fail to see what you mean by this.

Are you taking issue with the prediction itself?

Or how the prediction was estimated?

Or the average prediction value of the peak? (2010 vs. 2017)

Or the probable margin of error of the average prediction value?

Or the foreseeable consequences of peak oil?

Or what?

[Eclipse Now]

Stereologist, did you watch those Catalyst links above? Honestly, it's well worth it! Watch it twice... the basic information is all there in a really stripped back to basics outline that sums up the case.

 

But honestly... it's not that hard.

 

There seem to be 2 ways they calculate when oil will peak, and these work together.

 

1. URR (Ultimately Recoverable Reserves), or estimating the total conventional oil to be recovered.

 

• If we've roughly counted all the oil we've discovered,
  
• and we've noticed the discovery trends are now all out at sea or in really hard to get to frozen places,
  
• and we've not found a whole new significant oil province like the North Sea since the 1970's,
  
• and if the discovery trend is down, down, down and the peak of discovery was 45 years ago...
  
• don't you think counting all the oil we have found + estimating the oil we will find (based on a 45 year downward trend, even with the BEST technology available to modern science!) will give us the big picture as to roughly when we'll hit half way?
  

This URR game ends up with the fairly smooth double curves of Discovery followed by Consumption, seen below.

(This is even acknowledged by the peak oil Denial camp such as Exxon Mobile. You can see their version of the Growing Gap Graph from Vice President Longwell’s own report)

 

2. Field by field analysis

This is the kind of work Chris Skrebowski of the UK's petroleum review does in his "Megaprojects Reviews". He tries to count the global extra production from various oil projects that are still expanding, and layer that over the top of global decline from all the peaked fields. (Remember, 54 out of 65 top oil producing nations have peaked... see Asleep in America

 

Now it's not as hard as you think to count this. They count all of them, but special attention is given to the top 1% which are the super-giants.

 

Only 1% of the fields, or about 500 fields worldwide, are the super-giants that produce about 50% of the oil. As Kjell Aleklett of ASPO states in "Asleep in America" above, when the giant Russian field declined it took 200 fields to replace it.

 

This is how ASPO ends up with this "layer cake" sort of peak, which illustrates the bendy lines of countries that have peaked v countries that have still got a bit more oil to come online. See the bottom white country? Yep, that's the USA peaking out in 1970 and the other Alaskan fields coming online in 89... a small bump in the otherwise downward trend.

Oh yeah, and have a look at all those country names with dates? That's when each country peaked. Note also that the countries on the right, like Brazil, have yet to peak, but the small marginal increase in their production will not off-set the overall downward trend from the rest of the world. So Brazil's green line might get a tiny bit thicker, if you turn your head sideways and squint a bit. Good for Brazil! But hey? Look at the global production trend. I find it hard to believe that people can debate these scientific FACTS.

 

Oh and in case anyone looks at the graph above and complains, "But it said we peaked a decade ago in 2000...?" This next graph explains that non-conventional oils have increasingly made up the difference... but that won't last forever. This graph is rather terrifying as it includes Natural Gas! Anyone relying on Natural Gas should think again.

Australia at least has a lot of Natural Gas which we can burn for transport, but we keep contracting to sell more and more of it to China, and it ain't gonna be pretty if we break that contract!

P E A K** O I L** |** Lecture

 

 

When these 500 super-giant fields peak, that 50% of the world's oil production will be in permanent decline. So I'm just guesstimating back of the envelope here, but if it takes roughly 200 fields to replace a super-giant, and there are only 50 000 fields worldwide, how are the existing 50 000 going to do it? We'd need 100 000 additional smaller fields just to replace the 500 super-giants that have peaked? That means to offset the 500 big fields, we're basically hoping an extra 200% of the smaller fields magically appears ready for us to start to draw down on. And this is just to maintain today's production as the super-giants all peak and head into terminal decline, not to continue growth in production which India and China and all of us rely on for economic growth! Does this help illustrate the scale of the problem?

 

Now there's problems obtaining data from the Middle East countries, which treat oil data as national security. There IS NO OIL COP going around the world with a giant dipstick. This is why western geologists use the statistics they had accumulated over 30 or 40 years of exploration before being kicked out of the Middle East countries in the 1970's nationalisation of Saudi Aramco. (See Catalyst for more, Realplayer & Windows Media files, 12 minutes).

 

You can also just have a quick look at this great interactive map. Red countries have peaked, green countries have a bit more play in them. Estimating the peak is counting the new oil coming online and subtracting the increasing number of peaked out countries. It's a counting game.

David Strahan | Interactive Oil Depletion Atlas

 

Now with all this evidence, surely people can see that there is a VERY strong case for world peak oil being sometime on our watch, probably tomorrow, or the month after that... or the year after that, but sometime soon! And the consequences could be either a truly nasty economic shock that makes the GFC look like a Sunday School picnic, and that's if we all co-operate and work hard to get through this... but if we fight over it? If the Carter Doctrine comes into play and we go to war over securing the Middle East? :cheer::beer:

 

On a personal note: It's been a while since I've been in a peak oil debate. A lot of this stuff has faded from my consciousness... I was really up to date on this stuff about 6 years ago, but it has started to do my head in and so I focussed more on the hopeful renewable energy technologies and "Better Place" electric car side of the story. Basically, I'm trying to say I shouldn't have got back into this. I'm not a "technological doomer" in that I don't believe we are technically doomed to some sort of Mad-Max event, as many of my doomer peak oil friends have been. However, are we politically doomed? Will sensible post-peak policies win out, or will paranoia, fear, and suspicion prompt a truly suicidal venture into all-out wars over the remaining oil.

 

Just watch this preview Asleep in America to see where international tension over oil has led in the past.

 

Politicians just won't do anything about oil dependency until it is too late! I helped organise a group and we presented all this material to the NSW minority parties way back in 2005 when oil had just hit the historic high of $60 a barrel! We got one guy to give 1 speech in the NSW Senate, but no action.

 

And as the Hirsch report says, even if peak oil is in 10 years, it is already too late!

 

I briefed Maxine McKew who eventually displaced the sitting Prime Minister, John Howard in our 2007 Australian election. I only had 10 minutes, but just 3 days later Maxine then went to a talk by Dr Roger Bezdek that ran for 50 minutes! I had urged her to talk about peak oil during the 2007 campaign. She ousted the sitting Prime Minister... only the 2nd time in Australian history that has happened! What did she say about peak oil during the election? Nothing. What did we HEAR about peak oil during the election, when the Federal Senate enquiry I've been quoting from only came out a few months earlier? Nothing.

 

What the hell is going on with our governments in denial over this? I shouldn't have watched that Asleep in America trailer.... I'm scared for my kids. :hihi:

[Eclipse Now]

One question for newcomers....

 

If someone was born the last year that we discovered as much oil as we use, how old would that person be?

 

The answer is in the graphs above.

 

Also, if you really want a great summary, here is the 42 minute ABC's 4 Corners on peak oil... well worth it!

[Pyrotex]

I have learned more about oil and global demand and production limits and head-in-the-sand politics from you guys than I've learned from the rest of the planet. Thanks. :naughty:

[Pyrotex]

... I don't believe we are technically doomed to some sort of Mad-Max event, as many of my doomer peak oil friends have been. However, are we politically doomed? Will sensible post-peak policies win out, or will paranoia, fear, and suspicion prompt a truly suicidal venture into all-out wars over the remaining oil.... :D

If this country (USA) had more of a European view toward history and the future, I'd say we have a good chance.

Unfortunately, America has some severe political issues right now. There are far too many folks who believe that our rugged, individualistic, free market, under-regulated, damn the torpedos full speed ahead culture was given to us by Jesus his own self. Even the non- or medium-religious who call themselves "conservatives" have an almost religious belief that any political change is a move toward "socialism" or "communism". Look at the debate over health care.

My own mother devoutly believes that Obama is a communist, and that the purpose of the so-called health care effort is just to undermine the constitution, bankrupt the nation, and turn the White House over to the anti-Christ.

Not everybody here would use that same language, but many have the same level of fear and discomfort at any suggestion to impose any planning or organization on the use of any resource at all.

"The government can't manage ****!" is a quote I hear about once a week.

And unfortunately, there is a growing minority who WANT the Mad Max scenario. That fits in so perfectly with the doomsday "prophecies" in Revelations. They will actually work AGAINST any effort to plan for and manage the decline after peak oil. Jesus wants them to. It's all fore-ordained.

So, I vote that in Europe, folks and civilization will survive.

But here in the USA, things are going to get crazier than all hell.

 

Please, somebody, just shoot up here amongst us and put us out of our misery. :naughty:

[Eclipse Now]

< sideways rant on theology in America and peak oil >

Hi all,

sorry for a series of longish posts as of late, but there has been a lot to say! ;)

 

That's some pretty scary stuff you've said there Pyrotex, and the thing that scares me is these people vote! My mum also holds similar views about a potential anti-Christ coming to rule the world.... while I'm a Christian who happens to think a world government would be a good idea! :D

 

So this is a bit of a raw nerve for me, and I just wanted to respond... it's a bit off topic, but this REALLY could influence how the politics of peak oil goes. Please, everyone, in this I'm not trying to convert anyone here... I'm just trying to show how a rather obscure discussion within Christianity about the end-times could actually affect American politics and the world situation, and why this paranoid reaction from many Christians is baseless. So I respect your right to be an atheist, Moslem, Jew, Hindu, or Zoroastrian for that matter. :)

 

Anyway, the interesting bit will be part 2 on politics if you want to skip the theology.

 

1. The theology of "Last things".

Pyrotex, according to Moore Theological College which trains our Sydney Anglican Ministers, our mothers simply have a misguided view of the book of Revelation!

 

As a Christian that also talks about peak oil a bit, I find sooooo many Christians that immediately try to run peak oil through the grinder of the book of Revelation. It's like any time anything bad threatens to happen to the West, it must be something apocalyptic in Revelation! 9/11? Something in Revelation. Peak oil and global warming and any 'scary thing'? Revelation! Oh no, it's the end of the world!!!

 

I blame the "Omen" movies.

They popularised into the culture a previously obscure view of "last-days" thinking that sees the book of Revelation as a future timetable to be "decoded" to tell the future, kind of like a Nostradamus prophecy. One group of Christians will see Gorbechev as the anti-Christ, then when he moves off the world political stage with the whimper of historical certitude and irrelevance, these groups simply move onto their next target.

 

One of my best friends Greg Clarke has a Phd in these "Millennial fears" and wrote a very short, concise book called "666 and all that" which I highly recommend for your mum. It's from a Christian point of view, and takes a roughly Amillennial view (explained below).

 

It basically points out that Revelation is NOT about the future at all, except for the promise that at some stage Jesus will return! That could be in 5 seconds or another 5 million years, we just don't know!

 

The 'apocalyptic' writing is explosive visual language, almost like a manga-comic book, being used to describe a state of present theological relationships, such as a Christian's relationship to the state when the state persecutes us. It was written as the Romans persecuted the early church, and there's strong evidence the "Beast" was actually picture language for Nero... but the Nero meme also equally applies to any time governments and leaders start to persecute the church. So in this sense Revelation was meant to describe the last 2000 years of church experience, not be some code that Christians need to interpret to find the 'bad guy' (like Obama) or governments need to read to interpret how to survive 2012. ;)

 

Seriously, ask your mum this. What good has Revelation been to the church for the last 2000 years if it only helps understand the last 7 years of human history? :doh:

 

The graphic at this wiki on Amillennialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia helps illustrate... the top 3 are simply wrong, and view Revelation as about 'the future' as they incorrectly read a part of Revelation about the 1000 years literally. The "Millennium" and when it occurs in the 'timetable' of Revelation has been a source of debate for a long time in American Christianity.

 

However, what if Revelation is not a timetable of the future, but a round-and-round waltz through various themes on how we are to live, and how we are to relate to various situations and events and people? What if the so called "Millennium" is actually a figurative number that to the Jewish biblical authors always represented "the perfect number of hills", or "the whole picture", or "the perfect fullness of time..."

 

So for some reason the "Millennium" has become shorthand for how one reads Revelation, and I'm proud to call myself an "a-mill!"

 

You could try sending her the Amill wiki

Compass: COMPASS: Apocalypse Now? - ABC TV

Compass: COMPASS: God Is Green - ABC TV

#65 The peak oil society | Apologetics | Sydneyanglicans.net

 

Phew, theology lesson over! ;)

 

 

2. The politics of "Last things", especially in America.

Aaaaargh! I can't find the ABC's Four Corners or Foreign Correspondent episode on USA Millennialists and how they are mucking up US policy towards the Middle East peace process! Basically whichever show it was presented a frightening view of these last-day's guys trying to "help God along" guiding the Middle East towards Israel ascending so that they can rebuild the temple. Why? So the anti-Christ can stand in it, of course! :eek_big:

They've got to help God along a bit it seems and give their particular reading of Revelation a 'nudge' on the world stage! In other words, they're messing with justice in the Middle-East, big time!

:eek_big: :shrug: :naughty: :eek2:

(Sorry, I don't know how to cope with this weird logic or lack of hermeneutics when reading the New Testament...)

 

One of our favourite interviewers in Australia is Andrew Denton. He's kind of a cross between Larry King Live and a Psychologist-comedian-poet.

 

A while back Andrew made a documentary called "God on My Side". This is my mate Greg again reviewing Denton's doco.

 

There are a number of religious claims in the film that are simply, dopey and harmful and wrong......

Another, in my view, is the pre-millennialist attitude to Israel and some of the end-times beliefs espoused by a few people in the film....

There are two critical issues behind the film. The first is the influence that evangelicals have on American politics, and whether a version of that influence is developing in Australia. Denton tells us that the evangelical vote is decisive for the Bush presidency, and therefore evangelicals have some clout when it comes to policy in the US, especially in relation to Israel....

 

The second issue of importance relates to beliefs about the end-times, otherwise known as eschatology. Denton hears some startling beliefs about Israel and the importance of war in the Middle East, about the antichrist heading up the United Nations, and about the insignificance of environmental care because ‘it’s all gonna burn’ soon in the apocalypse, so who cares. When this is what a secularist like Andrew Denton hears, it is no wonder he worries. It is one of the pressing needs of our time that thoughtful Christians clearly communicate what we do and don’t believe the Bible teaches about the future.

Comment on Denton's Documentary God on my Side

 

I'm still looking for the ABC's Four Corners/ Foreign Correspondent episode which details much more of the politics behind this. There are some scary characters in USA religion with quite a bit of clout in Washington. I can't find the ABC material... anyone got any other doco's that track last-days / millennial influence on Washington?

 

< / sideways rant on theology in America >

 

OK, back to the normal subject... anyone got an answer on how old you'd be if you were born the last time we found as much oil as we burn in a given year?

[HydrogenBond]

Oil follow the laws of supply and demand, but with a twist. Say we had cars that could use gasoline or hydrogen as fuel, with both equally effective, and both priced the same. If the price of gasoline went up, for any reason, people would buy more hydrogen, simply because it was cheaper. This would eventually cause the supply of gasoline to increase, driving the price back down. As it falls, people would switch back to gasoline. In the current situation, there is no equal substitute, at this level of supply and demand, allowing the price to swing much easier.

 

For example, we have Coke and Pepsi, which are similar products with similar price points. If Coke raised price, more people would switch to Pepsi. This would cause the Coke supplies to increase in the warehouse. Eventually, they will need to lower the price, to dump inventories. Before long, the price is down again and maybe even lower, until excess supply is gone. This will cause people to buy more Coke.

 

Say Coke lobbies to get rid of Pepsi, so Coke is the only cola to fuel thirst. Supply and demand is still in effect, but with one less layer at the front with Pepsi gone. In this situation, the price can be raised easier without as much loss of demand, since the old top layer of supply and demand is gone.

 

That is why alternate fuels would be useful. Eventually these will add an extra layer of supply and demand at the top, replacing singular product monopoly. With gasoline profits down, due to the competition, there is less incentive to find new oil due to lower demand for gas. Yet even with supplies down, gasoline prices can't sky rocket very easily due to an alternative. The supply and demand curve changes.

 

Peak oil means high supply. The high supply will bring down price. Lower price then means more demand for the cheaper product. One way to express this higher demand per person for gasoline is to buy muscle cars, SUV, or a Hummer. These big boats creates a demand capacitance, since people can't just buy a new car, daily. This helped to squeezed out the subcompact fuel efficient car market, which could have eroded future gasoline demand, because of lower demand capacitance.

 

With the little cars gone and demand for oil structurally high, we lower the supply, to use supply and demand to raise the price and ride the wave of demand capacitance, without that top layer of supply and demand; better curve. The higher price will eventually lower demand, as the life of the bigger cars reach their limit, and people begin to define lower long term demand with smaller cars. Notice that the fuel efficiency offered is not as good as some cars already had in the 1970's (some already got 40-50MPG). This was a free market lesson and adjustment to the last peak and how the ax might fall. A new peak supply makes muscles look good again, so you have to balance.

[Eclipse Now]

Phew... nice to get an on-topic reply and thanks for being kind and not telling me off for the diversion above, which was a little bit 'out there' as a subject. :hihi:

 

Peak oil means high supply. The high supply will bring down price.

I guess now that the GFC has killed off demand for a while, yes, the 'peak' will mean high supply for a while. Nevertheless, we're still at around $80 a barrel.

 

Lower price then means more demand for the cheaper product.

Yes! This is important to understand a see-sawing effect on prices we'll expect over the next few years, more on that later.

 

With the little cars gone and demand for oil structurally high, we lower the supply, to use supply and demand to raise the price and ride the wave of demand capacitance, without that top layer of supply and demand; better curve. The higher price will eventually lower demand, as the life of the bigger cars reach their limit,

But we also must acknowledge that increasing demand from India and China over the next few years will suddenly hit the geological limits of production. If India and China are building new highways, and their populations are buying new cars, and more importantly... buying new agricultural machinery and oil based transport systems for essential goods and services, then we have more permanent 'structural addiction' to oil which cannot be as easily scaled back as easily as, say, someone's decision to drive to the shops or ride a pushbike.

 

So in effect, 'peak oil' then means the maximum oil production limit that demand will permanently overtake, and as you rightly pointed out in the Coke and Pepsi analogy, in this case there is no Pepsi in place.

 

A new peak supply makes muscles look good again, so you have to balance.

Exactly, but muscles tend to work best in cities that are designed differently, and now we're full circle back into the New Urbanism and walkable cities of the Australian Senate report, or the ABC (Australia) Four Corners documentary on oil.

ANDREW McNAMARA, PATRON ASPO AUSTRALIA: Ethanol will absolutely be part of the answer, as will bio-fuels, as will other non-conventional sources, as will more exploration for conventional oil and gas, but in the end all of those things won't make up the shortfall that we're headed for in production of oil. There is no silver bullet. The answers to dealing with peak oil are about using less fuel, and about laying out our cities in such ways that we don't need to use cars the way we have.

Four Corners - 10/07/2006: Program Transcript

[Eclipse Now]

OK, I've done it now, I scared everyone off with the long theological rant. I might go back and edit that post just to say "Hey, Pyrotex, you're mum could read THIS" (and then link to another page somewhere. )

 

So back on topic: if you were born the last time we discovered as much oil as we used, you would be 27!

 

That's right, check this graph:

 

**

 

Some say 1981, some say 1983, but hey, the point is it was over 25 years ago.

 

That is, kids have grown up, been educated, and entered the workforce and started their careers since the world started using more of this product than we could find each year.

 

For 25 years we've been eating into known stockpiles at ever greater velocity.

 

Now, if I were running the world, I might allow 10 years of this trend to go by just to see if it was some sort of marketplace blip. But there are geologists saying every remotely likely land spot has been explored.

 

That leaves the deep oceans, not the best environment, and they're pessimistic about BIG finds there. It's also expontentially more expensive to explore there, costing about $350 grand a day to drill using a deep-sea rig! (Going UP in price too as we move into deeper, more challenging waters). How happy are you going to be if you send out a rig to drill somewhere and it spends a week drilling and finds nothing, at $350 000 a day? Are you just gonna :hihi: ?

 

My point is that I just can't understand why the world didn't realise our MOST important commodity was in trouble about 10 or 15 years into the downward discovery trend. If I'd been running things, I would have started a massive investigation into what we were going to do in a post-oil world about 15 years into this downward discovery trend. That means we would have already HAD the public discussion about why we all needed more fast rail and electric transport and mining and alternative agricultural systems. (Hydrogen harvesters?) We would have made some decisions by now, and be partly through implementing them.

 

As it is, peak oil could have been yesterday, and we're just waiting to see the downward trend... and we haven't even had our slow and democratically complicated "chat show" media circus denialist movement THANG that modern democracies seem to be so good at doing when someone really, really wants to procrastinate!

 

And in case you hadn't guessed, it makes me cranky! :hihi:

 

***************

 

**This is Exxon's graph! Exxon, who are early peak deniers that rely on technology we haven't invented yet to extract oil we can't find yet to produce huge amounts of oil we don't know we'll ever actually produce, just to push world peak oil as far ahead into the future as possible! They've GOT TO have figures look good on paper so we'll keep using their product until the last drop, and not 'wean early'!

[Essay]

I got to see these guys give a fairly apolitical talk, but they admit they are "concernists."

ASPO-USA: Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas

"Very simply, Peak Oil describes the point in time when oil production in an area—an oil field, a state, a nation, or the world—reaches maximum production."

"A growing number of very credible industry participants and analysts believe that we are now at or near the top of the curve of global oil production. Peak Oil is not about “running out” of oil...."

Peak Oil - Challenges & Responses: program areas: Channel 14 Colorado

...to see the schedule for the "Peak Oil: Challenges & Responses" presentation by ASPO-USA

"Experience a Google-Earth fly-over of the world’s energy hot spots, learn the history and current state of oil supply, and potential responses."

 

[...at Mountain Standard Time - USA]

Sunday, January 17th, 2010 (6:00 PM)

Monday, January 18th, 2010 (6:00 AM)

Monday, January 18th, 2010 (2:00 PM)

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 (8:00 AM)

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 (4:00 AM)

Thursday, January 21st, 2010 (3:00 PM)

Friday, January 22nd, 2010 (2:00 AM)

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 (6:00 AM)

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010 (8:00 PM)

 

[...as far as I can tell, this is not available online except as a live broadcast; but....]

...to see the live broadcast of the show:

Cable 14: Colorado

"VIEW CABLE 14 ONLINE " via RealPlayer link (or Windows Media)

 

Thanks Eclipse,

~ :hihi:

 

p.s. ...the ASPO-USA site has lots of info and other video links also.

[Eclipse Now]

The ASPO groups rock, and their oil data is more reliable than the USGS's! Why?

 

It's all about the "P's".

 

A P95 oil estimation is 95% certain, and a P5 is only 5% certain... there might be a 5% chance that there is a good oil find there.

 

The USGS and International Energy Agency and America's DOE's Energy Information Agency tend to take comfort in their big oil picture's by relying on a P50! That is, there's a 50% chance that there might be as much oil globally as they estimate, but then an equal odds chance that there isn't.

 

When the last time we FOUND as much oil as we BURNED was 25 years ago, with absolutely state of the art technologies for discovering oil that I can hardly pronounce, let alone understand, B) and that discovery trend STILL hasn't picked up in the 6 years I've been watching this... I think it's time to play it safe and make plans according to the oil we know is there, don't you?

 

So the race is on. Think of replacing oil consumption with different consumption avoidance 'wedges' much like the Co2 mitigation wedges.

 

Maybe public transport can take some slack, maybe syngas/synfuel (especially from Biochar) can take some more slack, maybe slowly rezoning our cities and encouraging "villages" with a walkable shopping and business district will help some cycle and walk to work there, and maybe some people and towns will even have electric cars.

 

When one considers that Europeans use HALF the oil per capita over American's, one can see that public transport and attractive villages and city cores really does make a difference.

 

And Americans... please don't retort that rail will "never work" in the USA.

 

Remember, "If you build it, they will come". New Urbanism will creep up around the stations, allowing goods to travel between village cores.

 

Quite frankly, at the rate airlines will be bankrupting soon I'm surprised you guys haven't half-built your fast rail corridors yet.:hihi:

[CraigD]

And Americans... please don't retort that rail will "never work" in the USA.

 

Remember, "If you build it, they will come". New Urbanism will creep up around the stations, allowing goods to travel between village cores.

 

Quite frankly, at the rate airlines will be bankrupting soon I'm surprised you guys haven't half-built your fast rail corridors yet.:hihi:

I’m optimistic – and correspondingly, disapprovingly critical of the course of development of fast rail designs to date – that America and other regions that haven’t developed fast rail to the extent that, for example, France has developed the TGV, or various municipalities have built small implementations of maglev systems (predominantly the German-designed and manufactured Transrapid system), may be less behind technologically than it appears, and may even be avoiding the ill effects of “early adopter’s syndrome”.

 

The fast rail technology I believe may prove best is the Inductrack system, an invention of the US’s LLNL.

 

I’ve discussed this system at some length before at hypography, and will fork discussion stemming from this post into a new thread, as it’s off the topic of peak oil, but here are IMHO the key features of this system that make it a “silver bullet” for fast rail in places like America:

• Can use existing rails without extensive overhauls of the rails themselves. The Inductrack system can be installed between and around existing rails. The minimum fixed parts of the system – arrays of conductive loops called “laminated track” - are completely passive, and require no power from electric power grids.
  
• Mechanically simple, and cheap to build and install. The minimum fixed parts of the system can consist merely of thin, uniformly spaced d-shaped aluminum plates.
  The cars must have large arrays of strong permanent magnets arranged as Halbach arrays on their bellies and sides. They must also have conventional train wheels matching the gauge of their rails, as they must rest on the rails when stationary or moving below a minimum “takeoff” speed, though as they are levitated above the rails at higher speeds, these wheels need not be as durable or frequently maintained as conventional trains’.
  
• Largest material requirement is an abundant material. As mentioned above, the laminated track can be made of aluminum, one of the least expensive and most abundant metals on earth.
  
• Power supply flexible. Power may be supplied to linear magnetic accelerators built into the track, or by the trains. In remote areas far from available high-power electric supplies, the trains could use a variety of carried energy sources.
  

and, of course

• Fast. Like all maglev trains, Inductrack trains fly above their trackbeds, so have nearly no “rolling resistance”. Inductrack trains can be especially fast, because at their speed increases, their levitation height does also, making them less vulnerable to potentially catastrophic “crashing” due to railbed damage or construction defects.
  

These point apply to the older “Inductrack I” system, which is intended for high speed, heavy intra-city passenger and cargo trains. The newer “Inductrack II” system, which is intended for lower speed light rail commuter and inter-city trains, requires a specially-built track similar to the Transrapid’s.

[Zythryn]

Other than long distance trains, light rail systems are working well in many cities.

New York of course relies heavily on its own subway system.

Minneapolis recently built a light rail system. Critics screamed that it was a waste of money.

The ridership on it has been beyond even the optimistic predictions and the second stage of the system to the northern suburbs has just been completed.

 

There is no question peak oil is an issue. The question is when.

The past indicators of discoveries and decreasing production is that we are very close, if not there now.

The biggest reason we haven't felt the impact yet (in my opinion) is the global financial crash.

As the globe recovers, oil will be more and more in demand. China has, for the first time, overtaken the US in annual car sales. India is also using more and more oil every year.

Even if the US doesn't recover at all, the slack is being picked up quickly by Asia.

Personally, this is one of the many reasons I want to buy an EV as soon as one is available.