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

I can't believe that more people haven't commented on this. Do you realize what this means?

I went back and read over every page of this thread last night. From the begining there have been scoffers and deniers, those who argued that there was no such thing as peak oil, that it was a conspiracy of the oil companies, that oil magically replenished itself, that we could make oil from cow farts and garbage dumps etc, etc, etc.

Melbo and I both, and others, were laughed at on other boards for talking about peak oil. But those threads are now stickied.

Here in this thread we have had our myriad of critics and scoffers. And even those who conceded that peak oil theory was possible sagely predicted that it wouldn't be in our lifetimes. Or that it was something to worry about in the future. We would be saved by new discoveries, new technologies, something would come along to save us.

And many of the scoffers used the IEA reports as evidence against PO.

The early posts in this thread are eye opening. The decline of Mexico's (one of our top 3 suppliers) oil production. Venzuela's falling production figures, Saudi Arabia's declining oil output.

But, in spite of all the evidence that world oil production was nearing the top of the bell curve and would soon "Peak" there still were the deniers and the pie-in-the-sky all is well crowers. I and others were accused of being "shills" for the oil companies. Spreading propaganda and lies to justify the rise in oil prices.

But now, a recognised world authority on energy matters, arguably the foremost world authority, has proclimed that;

"the global crude oil production peak that so many have long feared, has in fact already been reached—more than four years ago."

"has in fact already been reached"

"already been reached"



and;

""daily crude production alone will no longer be sufficient to meet their needs."



Well, excuse me for a moment while I indulge my inner child;




Okay, that out of the way let's get serious. So what does this mean? A leading world authority has come out and said yes it is confirmed, the peak of world oil production has arrived. We will never produce more oil than we are at this point. We are on the plateau that Hubberts models show as a 4 to 7 year fairly stable period before we start the ever increasing downward slide. And we are already 4 years into it! So in the next 3 years we will start to see world production begin to decline at an ever faster rate.

Many "experts" predicted this would not happen until 2025, 2035, 2050 and other even further off dates. Well folks, they were wrong. Or they knew the truth and hid it as long as possible. While we, on the internet and in the trenches, were debating and defending the Peak Oil scenario it was queitly and quickly approaching. And in fact had already occured 4 years ago while the debate still raged.

Well, the debate is over. Now comes the "What next" discussions. And there will continue to be the "Alternatives, renewables, cow farts, will save us" crowd that will still be waiting for the magic bullet to arrive. And scoffing at those who continue to forecast, accurately I might add, the coming hardships resulting from this now confirmed peak.

Could the IEA be wrong? It's possible, but highly unlikely. The evidence of declining fields around the world has been piling up for the last 40 years. The US in the 70's, North Sea in the late 80's, Mexico, Canada, Venzuela, Saudi Arabia. You cannot have proven declines in the major oilfields of the world and not expect it to eventally affect total world production.

All predictions are that our demand for oil is going to keep increasing worldwide, and now we know that our ability to meet that demand is no longer there. So what next?

I quote this 2007 article from this thread as a starting point. The future is not going to be the same as the past. Get ready for it.

"Deal with reality, or reality will deal with you." -Matt Savinar

 

A primer on the dibilitating disease known as "Ostrich Syndrome".

 

The resulting cut back in exports is a factor that many don't consider. As oil supplys dwindle nations will begin to horde. Import dependent countries like th US will be the hardest hit. No matter what the world production figures are the impact will be magnified for developed countries.

I can't find the link to the articel but I recently read that 2011 is forecast to set record high food prices.

Many countries in the Middle East are ramping back on their oil exploration budgets for the next year. If it wasn't for the massive push for natural gas, the drilling industry would be in the worst slump since the bust in the early 80's.

I used to hunt dinosaurs, now I pull dragons from the ground.

 

I would encourage everyone to go back and re-read the first page of this thread. The accurracy of the prognostications made in these early reports is astonishing. Some very good info. Here are a few snippets.

Some "cornucopians" claim that the Earth has something like a creamy nougat center of "abiotic" oil that will naturally replenish the great oil fields of the world. The facts speak differently. There has been no replacement whatsoever of oil already extracted from the fields of America or any other place.
Now we are faced with the global oil-production peak. The best estimates of when this will actually happen have been somewhere between now and 2010. In 2004, however, after demand from burgeoning China and India shot up, and revelations that Shell Oil wildly misstated its reserves, and Saudi Arabia proved incapable of goosing up its production despite promises to do so, the most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production.
It will change everything about how we live.
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Most of all, the Long Emergency will require us to make other arrangements for the way we live in the United States. America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities rot away and to replace them with suburbia, which had the additional side effect of trashing a lot of the best farmland in America. Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It has a tragic destiny. The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.

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At some point, everyone will be forced to recognize oil depletion. If you have never been told of the problem, you probably won't see it until the television news comes on after a four-hour-long power cut and informs you that the world is facing a crisis. If you have already heard about it but don't believe it, a bell might go off in your head when you hear that world oil production has fallen for the fifth year in a row.(we are in the 4th year in a row now as of 2010)
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As the oil shortages grow worse, so does society. Unemployment and the cost of living will rise, governments will find it more difficult to pay welfare. People may well turn to crime to obtain what they need. Ordered Transition becomes Anarchic Transition. Riots may break out. Life in the towns and cities will become harsh and uncomfortable.
Thoughts of retreating to a piece of farmland in the wilderness may seem attractive but should be treated with caution. An independent community needs a certain minimum size to be self-sufficient so it will be difficult to remain isolated and away from envious eyes. The only certainty about the the Transition will be that it is unpredictable. Wars and plagues may spread your way. The government may requisition your land for agricultural use. Those fleeing the towns and cities may stumble across you. You may need to be prepared to flee your hard-worked homestead. An ability to be flexible and access to usable transport may be the survivor's most important qualities.

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Quite plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next decade, there will be less energy available for the production of food.

Soil, Cropland and Water

Modern intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn groundwater and surface water, and even (largely due to increased pesticide use) caused serious public health and environmental problems. Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted water.
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Much of the soil in the Great Plains is little more than a sponge into which we must pour hydrocarbon-based fertilizers in order to produce crops


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Presently, only two nations on the planet are major exporters of grain: the United States and Canada.[41] By 2025, it is expected that the U.S. will cease to be a food exporter due to domestic demand. The impact on the U.S. economy could be devastating, as food exports earn $40 billion for the U.S. annually. More importantly, millions of people around the world could starve to death without U.S. food exports.[42]
Domestically, 34.6 million people are living in poverty as of 2002 census data.[43] And this number is continuing to grow at an alarming rate. Too many of these people do not have a sufficient diet. As the situation worsens, this number will increase and the United States will witness growing numbers of starvation fatalities.
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Given that the current U.S. population is in excess of 292 million, [40] that would mean a reduction of 92 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third. The black plague during the 14th Century claimed approximately one-third of the European population (and more than half of the Asian and Indian populations), plunging the continent into a darkness from which it took them nearly two centuries to emerge.[41]

None of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people[42] to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race.
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Food production is going to be an enormous problem in the Long Emergency. As industrial agriculture fails due to a scarcity of oil- and gas-based inputs, we will certainly have to grow more of our food closer to where we live, and do it on a smaller scale. The American economy of the mid-twenty-first century may actually center on agriculture, not information, not high tech, not "services" like real estate sales or hawking cheeseburgers to tourists. Farming. This is no doubt a startling, radical idea, and it raises extremely difficult questions about the reallocation of land and the nature of work. The relentless subdividing of land in the late twentieth century has destroyed the contiguity and integrity of the rural landscape in most places. The process of readjustment is apt to be disorderly and improvisational. Food production will necessarily be much more labor-intensive than it has been for decades. We can anticipate the re-formation of a native-born American farm-laboring class. It will be composed largely of the aforementioned economic losers who had to relinquish their grip on the American dream. These masses of disentitled people may enter into quasi-feudal social relations with those who own land in exchange for food and physical security. But their sense of grievance will remain fresh, and if mistreated they may simply seize that land.

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Some regions of the country will do better than others in the Long Emergency. The Southwest will suffer in proportion to the degree that it prospered during the cheap-oil blowout of the late twentieth century. I predict that Sunbelt states like Arizona and Nevada will become significantly depopulated, since the region will be short of water as well as gasoline and natural gas. Imagine Phoenix without cheap air conditioning.


The Mountain States and Great Plains will face an array of problems, from poor farming potential to water shortages to population loss. The Pacific Northwest, New England and the Upper Midwest have somewhat better prospects. I regard them as less likely to fall into lawlessness, anarchy or despotism and more likely to salvage the bits and pieces of our best social traditions and keep them in operation at some level.

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How will we know when the oil decline bites. People have made various predictions. The first is from the ASPO Newsletter of March 2002 (the ‘Nemesis Report’).

Initially it will be denied. There will be much lying and obfuscation. Then prices will rise and demand will fall. The rich will outbid the poor for available supplies. The system will initially appear to rebalance. The dash for gas will become more frenzied. People will realise nuclear power stations take up to ten years to build. People will also realise wind, waves, solar and other renewables are all pretty marginal and take a lot of energy to construct. There will be a dash for more fuel-efficient vehicles and equipment. The poor will not be able to afford the investment or the fuel.

Exploration and exploitation of oil and gas will become completely frenzied. More and more countries will decide to reserve oil and later gas supplies for their own people. Air quality will be ignored as coal production and consumption expand once more. Once the decline really gets under way, liquids production will fall relentlessly by 5%/year. Energy prices will rise remorselessly. Inflation will become endemic. Resource conflicts will break out.

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This spreading of rolling blackouts will ultimately cause severe recession, especially as oil prices go higher, which will happen later this decade. Oil powers aeroplanes, electricity, jobs. Bartlett is quoted as noting that modern agriculture is merely a way of converting petroleum into food! Without energy, food supplies decrease.

Another implication concerns the ability of governments with socialistic tendencies to maintain their socialism…this is the last generation of Brits and Scots who will have the social programs like National Health Care. Governments all over the world will not be able to finance plentiful services in the face of high oil prices.

Political instability will ensue. I am sure that a few leaders will be headless after the masses get to them. It is in such times that Lenin, Hitler and other dangerous individuals take the reigns of power. Life will be a bowl of cherries then.

After the world Hubbert peak, when energy costs go way through the roof, there will be a period in which an emphasis on conservation will occur. This will be like the early 1980s when the price of oil caused the world to become more energy efficient. Smaller cars were purchased, insulation put into houses and lighting changed to efficient bulbs. That will occur again putting off some of the worst problems. But this time, unlike the 80s, there will not be increasing oil production. Every year unrelentingly we will require further efficiencies in our energy use. Every year inflation will add to the price of goods because oil gets scarcer and scarcer
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If you are reading this, you have one big advantage over 99% of the rest of the world – you are aware of the problem. Almost everyone else believes that oil is plentiful or at least a minor problem. They worry about global warming, or poverty, or wars. They will not know of oil depletion or believe it until it hits them in the face, until the prices at the pump go up every day and unemployment begins to soar. But you do. Watch the newspapers and television, searching for the statistics that are usually given little emphasis – in particular, oil production.
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As the years go by, the plateau will begin to drop and a permanent decline will become clear. Oil companies and governments will pass it off as a short term ‘blip’, assuring everyone that there is plenty of oil and production will begin to rise soon. This is your advantage for, while the unenlightened will be placated, you will read between the lines and act. Do not miss your chance.

 

I have never been a big fan of the IEA outlooks each year. I have thought that they were over optimistic at best. Critics within the oil industry accuse them of over emphasizing the effect of alternatives while those in the alternative sector accuse them of downplaying thier contribution.
But one thing that all their critics seem to agree on is that their figures for oil production are over optimistic.
This is not good news in light of the just released 2011 World Outlook that has confirmed peak oils arrival but rosily predicts that alls well. For those who aren't familiar with them this is from wikipedia.

The International Energy Agency (IEA, or Agence internationale de l'énergie in French) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. The IEA was initially dedicated to responding to physical disruptions in the supply of oil, as well as serving as an information source on statistics about the international oil market and other energy sectors.

The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India and Russia. The Agency's mandate has broadened to focus on the "3Es" of sound energy policy: energy security, economic development, and environmental protection.[1] The latter has focused on mitigating climate change.[2] The IEA has a broad role in promoting alternate energy sources (including renewable energy), rational energy policies, and multinational energy technology co-operation.
　
Ahead of the launch of the 2009 World Energy Outlook, the British daily newspaper The Guardian, referring to an unidentified senior IEA official, alleged that the agency was deliberately downplaying the risk of peak oil under pressures from the USA. According to a second unidentified former senior IEA official it was "imperative not to anger the Americans" and that the world has already entered the 'peak oil' zone.[8]

The Guardian also referred to a team of scientists from Uppsala University in Sweden who studied the 2008 World Energy Outlook and concluded the forecasts of the IEA were unattainable. According to their peer-reviewed report, oil production in 2030 would not exceed 75 million barrels per day while the IEA forecasts a production of 105 million barrels per day. The lead author of the report, Dr. Kjell Aleklett, has claimed that IEA's reports are "political documents".[9]

The anticorruption NGOGlobal Witness wrote in its report Heads in the Sand that "Global Witness' analysis demonstrates that the Agency continues to retain an overly-optimistic, and therefore misleading, view about potential future oil production." According to Global Witness, "the Agency's over-confidence, despite credible data, external analysis and underlying fundamentals all strongly suggesting a more precautionary approach, has had a disastrous global impact."[10]

 

1. The government lies, and all their "experts" too.
2. The corporations lie, there is no profit in telling the truth
3. You are the enemy, a slave, and you are not as informed as you would like.

YouTube - Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura, Season 2 Episode 7 (BP OIL SPILL) - FULL LENGTH

Peak oil? How about we pay more attention to WHO profits instead of debating theory? The agenda is clear to those who do the proper research. It's all connected, every bit. Too big to be controlled? Not if the same key players are always at the head of the conspiracies. It is always about control.

 

People can claim it's all a conspiracy, or it's big oil or the NWO or whatever boogey man you want to blame but the fact, let me say that again, the FACT, is that the oilfileds of the world are depleting. The FACT is that new discoveries peaked in the 1960's, the FACT is that alternatives are decades away from ever coming close to replacing fossil fuels.
It was not some youtube video, some college lecture, or some book that convinced me that there was something to peak oil. It was my first hand, eyewitness, hands-on experience of drilling oil wells for over 30 years. I have been all over the world and have seen and am seeing the results of peak oil and oil depletion. Results that are increasing in intensity and frequency at an alarming rate.

So people can stick thier heads in the sand, they can scoff it all off as conspiracy, they can complain and gripe when gasoline hits $4, $5 and more per gallon. They will cry conspiracy when the government steps in an enacts rationing. But it will still happen, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent it. It's coming, and whether or not you believe in it doesn't make one bit of difference. Deal with reality or reality will deal with you.

 

I don't do conspiracy theories, especially those that span generations. There is always an axe to grind, a case to mis-state, to stir folks up into a frenzy, to find a reason to scream "Off with their heads!!" Just diversion from a proper look at the reality of the situation. We all know people that basically run around in circles, tearing their hair out, and crying that the sky is falling whenever something comes along that disrupts their complacent daily lifestyle. They are not prepared for reality for whatever reason you care to assign.

I don't quite do "unjust enrichment" so often, either, in reference to those that took the risks to develop petroleum. (Just watch, the same thing is going to happen with thorium.) The returns turned out to be worth the risks. That's not to say the risk takers weren't often scummy, some of them were, and there are very likely some still around. Those same guys and their corporate heirs are taking similar risks today, under much closer scrutiny, trying to find more petroleum to carry the world forward until some magic replacement comes along. The shame of it is that oil became a one source dependency brought on by convenience and the myth of unlimited. (At the sure and certain risk of drawing fire, how could humanity have so blithely tossed all our eggs in one basket? Seems pretty obvious to me that the pool can hold only so much water; the planet being the pool for those that are analogy challenged.)

Rate of discovery of major fields may well have peaked, and maybe there are some more out there that remain hidden, that's not for me to say or guess at. One way or another, the cost of the benefits of petroleum products is going up, driven simply by supply and demand. Our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to reduce the demand, to make oil and its products serve higher and better purpose than (for example) carrying our lazy butts all over for the whim of the moment and burning up unnecessary gallons and kilowatts keeping the house at sunbathing temperatures in the dead of winter. (Remember the mandated 68 degrees winter max in public buildings in the 70s? That works if you are busy, not so much if you are sitting in front of a computer reading and creating/repeating conspiracies while scarfing down a microwave supper. Remember the warm temps in the kitchen at meal times? Doesn't work if you eat at Mickey D's.)

Yes, it's going to be a while until we are able to get off the oil carousel. There has to be a bridge that will get us to renewables, if renewables are even possible with population as high as it is. I'm thinking natural gas (which will be subject to the same effects of discovery/depletion) might just be a good part of that ---

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

 

You make some very good points. The change itself would be a major obstacle and very painful process.. People don't realize just how hard it would be to change over to anything else. If a new miracle energy source were discovered tomorrow think about the vast amount of labor and money that would be required to change over to it. It would make the 1930's work programs look like a weekend nieghborhood clean-up. It would be more on a par with building the great pyramid.

 

here is a source I haven't read about. But I watched this documentary seems like there may be merit in it?
FUEL (2008) - Production Photos - Yahoo! Movies