Post Peak Oil: Spending more to get less

[GliderGuider]

Via the Post Carbon Institute:

[FBaggins]

1. The actual article doesn't support your title

The bulk of the additional expense appears to be on megaprojects that are still a couple years away from production.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314

[GliderGuider]

2. Mmmhmm. The WSJ doesn't support the idea of peak oil...

Quelle surprise!

[FBaggins]

3. And a peakist sees the peak in any data - regardless of reality

Last edited Fri Jan 31, 2014, 08:32 AM - Edit history (1)

Equally surprising.

[hunter]

9. Have no fear, they'll let us know peak oil has passed...

... as they sail away in the last lifeboats.

[CRH]

4. When I think back to 2000, ...

when Colin Campbell was writing of peak oil and Simmons was inferring that US NG was peaking, not much was written by either of the two that hasn't been confirmed in history.

Campbell stated that sweet crude would be peaking soon and that we wouldn't know exactly when until after it happened. He spoke of a period of plateau when other less easy and economical forms of oil would fill the gap for a time, but in the end the decline would continue. This would cause a substantial hardship on developed economies that would progressively get worse as newer forms of energy probably would not be able to make up the demand difference. I think this has pretty much been borne out in what is happening since 2008, with the development of tight oil to temporarily fill the gap extending the plateau as global coal use has replaced some of the past demand as well.

As for peaking NG, conventional NG appears to have peaked in the US near the time Simmons was warning, and only through the controversial practice of fracking at the cost of environment, has the peak been pushed back several decades. But, it comes at the cost of environment, property rights, and the deregulation of the gas industry through blind eye EPA enforcements.

Personally I fail to see where peak oil or nat gas has been disproven. I think it is happening now in the plateau, but the cliff is still out there in our future, and coming faster than replacing the expanding energy demand can be realized. Not much I see happening today, changes what I believed back in 2000, except the added challenge of faster than thought probable, change in the climate, adding to the potential for hardship for economy and society.

[GliderGuider]

5. The three most delicious words in the English language:

"Told you so."

[FBaggins]

6. The amazing thing is that you think you can say them with a straight face

Those of us who have been saying that we need to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels because we're destroying the environment can most certainly say "told you so"...

... but the folks who were preaching that peak oil had already arrived and that peak natural gas passed a decade earlier... can't say they told us so without looking ridiculous.

As with all malthusians, they can continue to say "we'll be right any second now - just watch", but they can't claim to have been right.

[GliderGuider]

7. Thanks for sharing.

[FBaggins]

8. Here's an example of the "told"

A prediction of what 2010 would look like (made in 2004)

As with all such peakist graphs, the peak is always right around the then-current date... and it's all downhill from there. We're now in 2014. Where are we on the graph?

The peakist can (and will) continue to say "here's the excuse for why we turned out to be wrong... we'll be right tomorrow". They can't say "told you so". Not if they expect the listeners to keep a straight face.