Peak Oil- what it is and how it will impact your life

Looks like he wont have to worry about peak oil .

 

Wow!! Take a break for a couple of months and look at the great debate I missed!! Thanks for the kind words RH. And yes I am proud of FPG. Looks like he took up the slack for me here admirably. Looks like the agitator has been dealt with already. Haven't read any of his posts but these in this thread. Guess he wore out his welcome.
And I didn't know about Simmons. Too bad, his was a rsal voice of reason in the oft times contentious and inflamed debates on PO. I always saw him as a calm counter to Kuntsler's inflated rhetoric. He'll be missed.

Great to be back on Monkey time again. I am tapped into a contractors
wireless and have a very weak signal. So won't be here long but I will check in as often as possible.

 

Welcome back MM

 

Moved this behemoth to the new Peak Oil forum
General Survival - Peak Oil at Survivalmonkey.com

 

Wow! This thing has gotten enormous huh? I was just going back and reading the first pages. A lot has changed since then. When I first started this the price of oil was at an astronomical high of $40 a barrel. Now it hovers around $80 and we don't blink an eye.
I was incommunacado during the entire TransOcean Gulf ordeal. I have some comments and maybe some insights that I will share. My internet is so slow that it's easier to cut and paste from Word, so I will post something later. And I will only have access to this connection for about another week. Here today gone tomorrow! Life of a dinosaur hunter. Only now I can't call myself that anymore. I haven't drilled for oil in years. All the activity now-a-days is in natural gas.

And BTW, thanks Quig, good to be back!

 

Welcome back mm

 

It's official, peak oil is here

Somewhere buried in the pages of this mega thread is a post I made that said Dec. 15th (IIRC), 2006 would be remembered as the day that world oil production peaked.

The peak of any field can only be recognised in retrospect. Oilmen were laughing in 1971, recalling that crazy old geologist who had predicted US domestic production would peak in the early 70's. They boasted that they had never produced as much oil as they had that year. And they never would again. US oil production peaked that year and began it's ever increasing slide down the backside of Hubberts peak.

This report just came out from the IEA. This is the first time a recognised authority has claimed that peak oil has arrived. The only fault I have with this report is that the IEA is notoriously known for overemphasizing the contributions of alternative fuels on future energy use while at the same time underestimating the growth of global demand and consumption.This report stays true to form. I hope their assesment is correct, but I believe it much more likely that our future will more closely resemble scenes from Mad Max than Back to the Future.
　
　
　
　
　
International Energy Agency Says 'Peak Oil' Began in 2006

Published November 15, 2010
The International Energy Agency has released its World Energy Outlook for 2010, forecasting for the first time that the global crude oil production peak that so many have long feared, has in fact already been reached—more than four years ago. International demand has since fallen slightly thanks to a recent global economic downturn, but once economies around the world have recovered, the IEA says daily crude production alone will no longer be sufficient to meet their needs.

So is the world is headed for a Mad Max-style apocalypse? Not according the IEA. The 2010 report projects that increases in other fossil fuels like natural gas and tar sands will mostly supplant crude in meeting new demand—with clean, renewable energy sources also making major gains.

The IEA says that daily global oil production will "plateau" at around 68 million barrels per day by 2035, as total energy demand increases by more than 35 percent over the same period. Thanks in part to pledges from governments to reduce their countries' reliance on fossil fuels though, new contributions to the energy mix will help to avert the sort of catastrophic oil spike that many have predicted to coincide with the start of the "peak oil" age.( I was re-reading this article today and realized that this second paragraph could be very confusing to some. So thought I would clarify. This is talking about daily production figures. World production and the peak of it, is determined in yearly production figures. So we entered into a plateau in 2006 for yearly production. But the daily production figures are much more fluid and rise and fall with little impact on the total for the year.
What this is saying is that by 2035 we will only be able to produce a maximum of 68 million bbl/day. We consume now about 86 million BBL/day and are not meeting current demand, we are using up our stockpiles. With the very optimistic forecast of a 35% increase that means by 2035 we will require 116 million BBL/day(other sources predict 118 BBL/day) but only be able to produce 68. We will have a worldwide shortage of 50 million BBls/day. So we will have a shortage equal to over half of our daily consumption today. Not a rosy picture.-MM)

 

I have just been re-eading the above article and I have to comment more on it. Those of us who have been warning of the dangers of peak oil for years now have been accused of being alarmists, doomers, henny penny, the sky is falling, tin foil hat types. But what of the other side? The IEA has long been a detractor of peak oil theorists. They have steadily refused to recognise the data. But now that it is irrefutable they reluctantly admit it but then they go on to propose blatant unfounded hypothesis that show "there's nothing to fear".
Isn't this the opposite of what we have been accused of? Theories based on unprovable, unsubstantiated, "facts".

After stating that "daily crude production alone will no longer be sufficient to meet their needs." They go on to say that future demand will grow by only 35%. becuse of government pledges to cut reliance on fossil fuels. Governments like China and India. Yeah, I see that happening.

And they say that natural gas and tar sand oil will "supplant" the increased demand. The gooey, hard to refine and extremely expensive tar sand oil is the hope of supplanting further demand? At what price? and Natural gas is limited in it's uses for one thing and the countries of the world are dealing with a global monetary crises now, how do they suppose they are going to fund the mega billion conversion of infrastructue from gasoline to natural gas?

And the prediction that "new contributions to the energy mix" will stave off any catastrophic consequences of peak oil.

If warning of the dangers and possible ramifications of PO is alarmism, then what is this wishful thinking, all is well philosophy.

This story reeks to me of wishful pie in the sky dreaming not solid facts.

Leaning to the extreme in either direction is unwise at best. But the idea that we may face dire consequences from this, newly confirmed, peak oil age, and taking steps to negate as much as possible those consequences, seems to me to be the more prudent course.

Prepare for the worst and pray for the best.

 

Finaly found that post I was looking for. On page 4!! Wow. It wasn't Dec. 15th, 2006 but 2005. So the confirmation that 2006 was the year we peaked is pretty darn close. Hubbert predicted 1970 for US peak, it was 1971. Deffeyes predicted 2005 for world peak, it was actually 2006. I would say that Hubberts model for predicting peak oil is confirmed and no longer in doubt.

A leading Geologist and Peak Oil proponent, Kenneth Deffeyes, predicted in 2003 that world oil production would peak on November 25th 2005. It seems he may have not missed it by much.

The production reports are in for last year and many experts are saying that December 15th, 2005 was the day that world oil production peaked.
Peak oil can only be seen in hindsight. Until production figures are evaluated and plotted can you say for sure that a field or region is in decline.

M. King Hubbert predicted that national production in the USA would peak in 1970. Scoffers were laughing when the figures for 1971 came in. They showed that the production for that year had set a record.
But the laughing soon stopped. That was the year that USA domestic oil production peaked. We have never produced as much again. And have been in a steady decline ever since.

2000 was a record year for global production. But it remained flat for the next two years. Then in 2003 just barely surpassed 2000 by 1/2 of 1 percent. 2005 hit the highest peak that we have seen and 2006 is in steep decline. 2007 figures will confirm it. If we continue in the current steep slope, then it will be official.

December 15th, 2005, a day that will live in infamy?

Read more: http://www.survivalmonkey.com/forum...ow-will-impact-your-life-4.html#ixzz16HTjJg1C

 

I have no faith in our own government's policies and evaluations regarding petroleum resource longevity, much less so in the IEA. But I can say, perhaps with my head well buried in the sand, that there are alternatives which will prevent (or at least delay) society falling precipitously back into the dark ages. Natural gas is one that can have massive impact on the slide. I don't believe that solar, wind, or hydro can ever make anything like the impact that ng can make.

There are too many people in the world today. Period. And a very large share of them are NIMBYs and Obbys, that stand in the way of progress. Imagine, if you will, if the numbers of the antis in the 1800s matched those of today. Would society have ever had coal fired power and process plants or railroads? Would Drake and Titusville have happened to permit the expansion of cheap fuels to foster transport? We have them now, and they are inhibiting ng development nation wide. The best minds pretty well agree that there are massive quantities of gas. They also agree that it is safely recoverable and exploitable with current technology (properly applied, of course.)

Back in the 70s, NIMBYs and Obbys were collectively called "intervenors" and they successfully killed expansion of nuclear power at the time. Nuclear is another way to delay the fall, if we can get that portion of the partial differential equation to go positive again. I have often wondered how many billions of barrels of oil and the tons of coal that would have been saved for better and higher purpose had nuclear been allowed to expand.

Here in the developed world, we can hold our own, I think, using the resources we have for a considerable period of time, especially if we can control our own altruism toward the undeveloped (or developing) parts of the planet. What good can come of creating or encouraging more users? Hard hearted? Yes, but I get that way when me and my own are threatened with being over run.

I keep reading that economic growth is driven by consumerism. Growing consumerism is driven by population, or so it seems to me. The answer is obvious, no? At some point, the resources will dictate the sustainable population at any given level of comfort. The only say society has in the matter is what level of comfort it is willing to tolerate. There is a balance to be struck between all living in the lap of luxury at the cost of a lot fewer people, or living in what amounts to the slums of Mumbai with a lot more in the same condition.

It was Marx (or Lenin?) that described the tension between the have's and have not's. That tension exists today, and will again precipitate conflict. (A truly "classless" society is impossible. Even if robots could substitute for labor, the robots themselves would constitute a "class.") I won't see it, but my kids might. Part of my preps go toward seeing that they will have something to work with when the time comes.