All the world's major oil fields are now in decline

[Subdivisions]

There are now thousands of links and sources that confirm this once theoretical phenomenon. Peak Oil is a reality.

Now, consider the following images:


The gigantic building depicted in the image above, if you'll imagine, is one kilometer on each side and 4 1/2 kms tall in the middle of Manhattan.

Here is the same building from a distance:



Now, imagine that that building is full of crude oil. And what volume of oil does this gigantic monolith represent? It represents the amount of oil used in the year 2004. And each successive year, we use that PLUS another 10 stories of oil.

I wonder how many more of those monolithic buildings are left in the ground.

Source: http://abc.net.au/science/crude/ - The is an Internet documentary that tells the story of oil.

[MadHound]

1. About 2.9 trillion barrels are left in the ground

However not all that is easy to get to, nor easy to refine. We're on the downside of supply when it comes to the easily pumped stuff. For instance the largest oil field in the world, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, is having to have double the number of barrel of seawater pumped in than the amount of oil it gets out. This is happening all over the world.

We actually have viable, off the shelf solutions that would stave off disaster, but neither the oil corporations nor the government want to take the lead on this one. Thus we're going to probably ride this oil ship right down to the bottom.

[robinlynne]

2. I think peak oil is a great thing. let's go solar. now.

[Subdivisions]

4. I agree and

I can tell you that solar has become much more cost-effective as the technology has matured.

[Deja Q]

17. There are many things people can do

Let's hope they're all being done.

[Cleita]

3. I read someplace that the peak oil theory is the work of one

man back in the fifties and he got it wrong for various reasons. Apparently, like religion, all these theories don't have a lot of data to back them.

[Solon]

5. You heard incorrectly...

First off, the man in question was M. King Hubbert a Shell Oil Geologist. He predicted, back in the 1950s that the lower 48 states would peak in oil production around 1970. That happened in 1971, everyone else, besides him, especially the media, said that he claimed that we would RUN OUT OF OIL, in 1970, since 1970-71 were the most productive years for oil fields in the lower 48 states, everybody said he was wrong. Nevermind the fact that he actually predicted that that would happen.

ON EDIT: Here's a graph of U.S. oil production, the blue line is Hubbert's mathematical prediction for oil production, made in the 1950s, and the dots are the EIAs actual numbers for production.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Hubbert_US_high.svg

[Cleita]

34. Fair enough.

I'm not that well read on it. I just thought I'd add a comment. I think we really need to work on renewable resources and solar anyway.

[Solon]

36. Hubbert's peak oil theory is...

a simple theory. Imagine that you are an oil prospector, and whether through luck or consulting some geologists, you find a field by digging a hole. As soon as you broke through that reserve of oil, which is under some pressure, and you have a gusher. You quickly cap it, and thanks to the internal pressure within the field, don't even have to pump it out. You get the geologists to send some sonar readings and such, and find out there is about 2 million barrels of oil in the well, not big, in fact quite small, but worth it because its cheap to extract it.

At first, you find that the oil is easy to extract, hell, in the first year you didn't even need to install pumps to get the oil out of the ground, but after that year, you have to install a few pumps to keep it flowing. A decade goes by, and the pressure in the well is reduced by such an amount you have to pump water in just to keep productivity up, as time goes on, after this halfway mark, you soon enough start pumping more water out than oil, and eventually you have to abandon the field as too expensive to continue extracting the oil. Is their oil still left, yeah, probably a few thousand barrels worth, but its too expensive to get out of the ground, so will stay.

This is actually typical for oil fields, all Hubbert did was observe what happens to individual fields, from boom to bust, and extrapolate that to the whole Earth.

[Subdivisions]

8. The lightbulb was the work of one man back in the 80s -

the 1880s.

Global warming was once a theory. Now every scientific organization in the world supports "human-caused global warming" (their term for climate change) as proven fact.

Do you really think oil will last forever? Your comment is unsubstantiated by an obvious research defecit on the subject on your part.

[Hutzpa]

6. There is an alternative

off shore drilling, dangerous but prospective.

[Subdivisions]

9. Sorry, that's not even close. In fact, there are

NO suitable replacements (combined) for oil. Once it becomes more expensive to produce than can be returned on investment, THE PARTY IS OVER.

[terisan]

42. .....and we will reduce greenhouse gases !

[terisan]

7. Peak Oil-ah if it were true what a spendid opportunity and potential future for us all!

[Subdivisions]

11. Peak oil is true for the United States, which peaked in 1971 and

it's true for 64 countries that have peaked of 93 oil producing countries. The rub is this: The remaining countries that are continuing to increase production cannot do so fast enough to overcome the losses from the countries that have peaked. Therefore, the WORLD has peaked and oil production is in a terminal decline from which there will be no mercy.

[Solon]

10. Already we have 2 or 3 posters saying this is a great thing, it is NOT...

Simply because, if it is truly happening now, or sometime in the near past it already happened, and we are on the plateau, that's an unmitigated disaster of damned near epic proportions. This means worldwide economic growth is going to stop, period. In addition to this, if this is true, that means we don't have TIME to actually transition to a petrol free economy or society. Food production, energy production, etc. will have to be rolled back to 1940s levels, and that means we are headed towards a population bust, billions will die, and people say that's a good thing? For fuck's sake, think before you speak!

[Subdivisions]

12. That's a fairly firm grasp of the situation as it stands. And you

are right, we're about to hit the wall - HARD.

[Solon]

18. One thing I notice in these threads is that people are largely ignorant of how pervasive oil is...

in our lives. We are literally surrounded by the products of oil, my keyboard, that I'm typing on now is a product of oil, the piece of cheese I just ate was wrapped in oil and was indirectly produced by that oil as well. Oil is the most energy dense and flexible resource humanity has ever discovered to date, and, as far as we know, there is absolutely NO replacement for it, for all of its various applications.

This is part of the danger, the entire world economy is completely dependent on a SINGLE resource. Even worse, that resource isn't flexible, we don't even have an option of NOT using oil, at least not at this time. If you live in the United States, then using gasoline is a requirement, not an option, unless you live in a few select cities with public transportaion. There is no alternatives available that are even remotely affordable, not to mention most of those require a new infrastructure to be delivered to citizens, an infrastructure that doesn't exist yet. Food production, to be kept at current levels, needs oil based chemicals, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, just to feed the current population of the planet.

[Strelnikov_]

28. . . and ignorant of how long it will take to mitigate the decline of this pervasive

energy source.

I believe we have lots of options to somewhat blunt the pain of quality (high EROEI) fossil energy depletion, but these options will take at least a generation or two to scale for effect.

Wind, solar, nuclear, coupled with a complete restructuring with how our economy works and how we live to deal with the reality of net energy fixed at levels 1/3 of what we consume today. We face a daunting challenge, but there are alternatives.

Problem is, implementation of these alternatives will take leadership and a willingness by the people of the United States to accept a more austere lifestyle and . . .

. . . umm . . .

We're going to hit that wall at 100 mph, aren't we.

Time to move to the back of the bus.

[Subdivisions]

30. ROFL! Caught yourself didn't ya!?

You're absolutely right. We're going to hit that wall at 100 mph. Solid.

[terisan]

43. That is correct...but scarcity deveops alternatives+oil dependence may be killing us.

The first oil well was drilled in the 1850s and soon the whaling industry shrunk. I was hard then to imagine life in US and Europe without the whaling industry.

I think that global climate change, intensified by burning fossil fuels, is a greater threat than limited oil.

[Solon]

44. We consume almost 84 million barrels of oil a day, and the demand is increasing...

There is no comparison to the mid 1800s, Whale oil was mostly used in lamps and such, something that was an inconvenience to be without, but not exactly something that was devastating for civilization. The transition to kerosene, was relatively smooth, because Whale oil was not the center of our economy at the time, coal was just beginning to take that position.

90% of Oil is used for transportation, there is not other source of fuel that hold nearly as much energy as distillates of oil, per gallon.

Nearly all of our herbicides, pesticide, and fertilizers, used today, are derived from oil, and the ONLY reason why there are as many people on the planet now is because of the Green Revolution, which, oddly enough, actually encouraged farmers to breed plants that respond the best to oil based products. If Oil was not used, then the actual population of the planet should be about 2 billion people, rather than 6+ as it is now.

[Deja Q]

20. Billions should practice sensible breeding too, but I digress.

There are so many tangents to the whole issue.

And possibilities.

We are all talking about ONE potential future and not several; many of which aren't as gloomy as some suggest.

[Solon]

23. The great unknown is how long the plateau at the top will last...

or at least be somewhat stable. If the top of the peak, the plateau, lasts a decade or so before a sustained decline starts, then we may have enough time to transition our economy and infrastructures for food and transportation to be oil free, with few disruptions in supplies. However, if the peak lasts for less than a few years, then all of us will have to make do with less, less food, less gas, less of everything, that means MOST people will die.

[Tesha]

22. Actually, it's starting to become hard to think of scenarios where the end result *ISN'T*...

> and that means we are headed towards a population bust,
> billions will die, and people say that's a good thing?
> For fuck's sake, think before you speak!

Actually, it's starting to become hard to think of scenarios
where the end result *ISN'T* "billions will die".

I'm starting to think of that part of the outcome as a given. :(

Tesha

[Tesha]

49. Wiley's thoughts...

[terisan]

38. This boy cried wolf in the 1970s-Opec was supposedly going to choke off our oil; we were

told to say goodbye to ever again seeing gasoline we could afford. Future shock was all the rage.University held great conferences on this sea change in our world. Alternative energy research exploded in the US...............and then shortly after Jimmy Carter was out of office...... Ronald Reagan took the solar panels off the roof of the White House .......gas prices started plummeting........alternative energy research money dried up......in was once again morning----a cloudy morning---in America.

Yes its different this time.....more countries are competing for oil............yet more energy alternatives are being developed. Oil that is expensive to get to today will be less expensive to get to tomorrow (one reason oil companies hire engineeers). Many developing countries are actually taking the lead in energy alternatives----they are not locked in to past habits like we are.

I consider when the first oil well was drilled (in the 1800s) and consider the long history of the human race. Imagine all the people who lived long enough to breed and make more humans-------and they did it all without oil........consider China which reached an enormously-sized population Before they started becoming significant users of oil.

We have big looming problems---climate change is a huge uncertainty and potentially a vast killer. Isn't use of fossil fuel making that potential problem worse?

Worry about the end of the sun......now that would be a massive problem.

[Solon]

40. Read Posts #5, 36, 18, and 33 before you show your ignorance. n/t

[terisan]

47. Ignorant because I don't fall for people playing the Fear card. Try logic or read some economics

on supply, demand, and substitution.

[Solon]

48. Oil is an inflexible resource, as I already pointed out...

for right now, and in the near future, we do not have an option of not using it. If we do this from a purely economic point of view, which is basically wait and see, then we will face shortages in food(famines) and shortages in energy(power failures/can't go to work). The problem is what time scales are we talking about, as I said in another post, if we have over a decade to transition from an oil based economy to an oil free economy, then the transition can be relatively smooth with few disruptions in supplies. However, if it is significantly less than that, then no amount of money thrown at the problem will solve it.

Peak oil means there will be disruptions in the supplies of Oil, similar to the oil shocks of the 1970s, however, the difference is that this time it would be due to a supply shortage whose daily production cannot keep up with daily demand. They will be localized and isolated at first, but will get worse and more widespread as time goes on. Even worse, since we rely on Oil(and Natural Gas) for much of our economic growth, that growth will stop, leading to a recession, or, if a panic occurs, a depression.

The fact is that we would have to radically alter society just to transition to an oil free economy, and that takes time, a LOT of time. To be blunt, we would have to get rid of automobiles as the primary means of transport in this country. Considering the amount of cities and suburbs are designed around the automobile, this will be an uphill battle. Suburbs have too low a population density to make public transportation even remotely efficient, so we would have to literally tear down the Suburbs and build higher density housing. In addition to this, most of those highways will have to go, most likely replaced by high speed electric trains.

Onto food, we will have to find a way to rebuild the topsoil on most croplands, they are in a horrendious condition, 30 years of using oil based chemicals and not using methods such as crop rotation has made the topsoil so poor in nutrients, you would be lucky to have the toughest grasses grow on it. The fact is that the ONLY reason why crop yields are as high as they are right now is because of oil. Remove the oil from the picture, and those crops wouldn't be able to feed 1 billion people, much less 6 billion. Think of the dustbowl in the early 20th century, but multiply it by 100(at least) and you can see the problem.

Its nice to think there are substitutes for all of this, but to be honest there aren't. There are plenty of alternatives to Coal, which we won't have shortages of for probably another 50 years, but there are no real alternatives to oil, especially for transportation. Most of the "alternative" fuels actually USE oil or natural gas to be produced, most biofuels are plants taking up space on arable land, land that would be better used to grow food, not fuel. Of the other alternative, Hydrogen, well, it takes more energy to produce it than what you could ever get out of it, so its unsustainable, and will forever rely on some other source of energy. Its an energy carrier, like a battery, not a producer.

Facts are facts, you cannot try create energy from nothing, especially in the amounts we are talking about here. You can try to throw money at the problem, but all the money in the world cannot magically put food on the table or gas in the car. If you want to make a portable source of energy, then you will have to take energy from somewhere else, and if you want to replace the chemicals used for agriculture with non-oil based alternatives, that will take a LOT more energy. This is energy we already don't have, it takes time to build new power plants, and to develop new infrastructures for an oil-free economy. There is no magic bullet to solve our energy problems, and they won't exist for a long time.

[amandabeech]

13. May I suggest that those interested in the topic check out "theoildrum" website.

Lots of information and mostly depressing.

Look for the "export land" model.

[taught_me_patience]

15. Excellent website

It can be a bit "techy" at times, but is chock full of good information.

[Subdivisions]

16. A gold star for you amandabeech! Ahhh, Export Land.

Basically, "Export Land" is the name given by Jeffrey J. Brown, an independent petroleum geologist in the Dallas area, to describe the dawning tendency of oil exporters to keep more of their oil for themselves due to depletion combined with domestic economic growth. And when oil exporters begin withholding their oil, the United States gets less and less oil.

The http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/export_land_model">Export Land Model explained.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ed9jsKAOHU">Here is an excellent video that describes the export land model.

The ELM will be the reason for more war and more death. And it will hasten the fall of our civilization.

[amandabeech]

25. I've been following the issue for about five years.

I'll give you a gold star for bringing it to the Discussion forum.

We're going to have a real problem with the golden triangle of agriculture, energy and the environment, and it may hit us much sooner than many people think.

[taught_me_patience]

14. Peak oil is a reality

The next 20 years in America will be exciting times as we grapple with the consequences of soaring energy costs. The few carbon burning alternatives are not very viable:

Coal: Dirty, cannot be used for transportation
Offshore drilling - Expensive, environmentally damaging
Canadian tar sands - Expensive
Oil Shale - promising but not viable at this time
Ethanol - Possibly net negative energy gain. Not viable without subsidies. Not enough farmland in all of the united states for current energy needs.

Alternatives are either very expensive, environmentally damaging, or simply not viable at this time. This is a great time to be invested in oil companies, as demand will continue to rise while supplies dwindle. Expect the price of oil (light sweet crude) to rise to $120/bb within the next 5 years.

[Deja Q]

21. Telecommute, live closer and walk/bike to work, dump the segway...

Biofuels derived from sources other than edible, delectable corn.

[taught_me_patience]

26. Yes there are many alternatives

I was only talking about the burning of carbon based fuels. The best alternative, of course, is conservation (something that will never be adopted with neanderthal in chief as president).

[terisan]

46. The energy price that may soar is oil, and it is costing us too much already in loss of our habitat.

Earth is our habitiat and insistence upon continue to burn that crap is costing us a fortune.

[porphyrian]

19. Surprise! There is no tree of fossil fuel elves! - n/t

[Strelnikov_]

24. Geologic Peak Oil (with a mild geopolitical overlay) can be mitigated

with the level of pain equal to the Great Depression, IMHO.

The following is what I am worried about.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1910376#1912170

[amandabeech]

27. I'm not as certain as you on mitigation in the long run, but I agree

with the Persian gulf problem.

The Saudis are trying to get more oil out of Yanbo on the Red Sea, which might help a bit.

Otherwise, we are in deep do-do.

[Subdivisions]

29. The very fact that oil production is going to extremes to

keep up is all anyone needs to know to understand that it can only hold for so long.

Then everyone may as well bend over and kiss their asses goodbye. Unless, of course, you take it seriously, not for granted, and begin to quietly prepare. But regardless, it's not going to be pretty nor is it going to be easy. But it is going to be.

[Strelnikov_]

31. Admittedly, my rosy scenario of a 'Great Depression' level of pain

as we mitigate assumes enlightened leadership and acceptance by the American people of a complete restructuring of how the economy works and how we live.


Because without our dreams, we have nothing.

[amandabeech]

37. Interesting point about the dreams.

Frankly, a "Great Depression" level might be it. I thought that you were speaking of the Stone Age.

[JCMach1]

32. Not another peak oil thread...

The truth is that there is plenty of oil for the right price... marginal oil, tar sands, even coal. If prices maintain high prices all of these are viable financial.

What isn't viable is emerging economies using these sources at the same rate as America... that would lead to catastrophic global warming and pollution.

So PLEASE stop the disintegration of civilization stuff in relation to oil supply... that's simply not going to happen.

What is at stake is the energy future and what it mean for the whole planet.

[Solon]

33. You cannot throw money at the problem, you have to deal with reality...

Oil sands and shale oil take more energy to extract than what you get out of it, in other words, its useless to extract it, AT ANY PRICE! That oil is going to stay in the Earth until it burns up as the Sun expands to a Red Giant in about 4 billion years.

[Subdivisions]

35. First of all, this is GD, not GD-P. Second, there IS NO

fix for oil depletion. And not only will it affect civilization, it is already doing so. Doing a little research, just a LITTLE, bears that out.

But, then again, you're entitled to not preparing...er...your opinion. In fact, I shant rouse you from your daydream. Leaves more on the store shelves for the rest of us.

[terisan]

39. 1st Oil Well Drilled---1859! Obviously the human race could not have survived before that. Proving

that Evolution is false.

http://www.priweb.org/ed/pgws/history/pennsylvania/pennsylvania.html

[Solon]

41. We didn't have 6+ billion people on the planet, nor was society nearly as industrialized as it is...

now. So you were saying?

[terisan]

45. Think post-industrial. I don't understand your disaster mentality. Oil is destroying our habitat.