Think Peak Oil is a hoax or fantasy? Think again:

[Subdivisions]

These graphs are based on THE WORLD PETROLEUM LIFE-CYCLE, by Richard C. Duncan and Walter Youngquist. The paper was presented at the PTTC Workshop "OPEC Oil Pricing and Independent Oil Producers", Petroleum Technology Transfer Council, Petroleum Engineering Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, October 22, 1998.

http://dieoff.org/42Countries/42Countries.htm

The complete paper is archived at http://dieoff.com/page133.htm

And that is exactly what a graph of the entire world's oil production will look like post-peak. We're at the top of the peak right now, on a plateau that has lasted for nearly 3 years now. How much longer will it hold before we begin the long, horrifying slide down the right side of Hubbert's Peak?

[Double T]

1. No one WANTS to believe IT!

Otherwise THEY wouldn't be driving around in GIANT gas guzzling, emission spewing SUVs!

[Subdivisions]

4. Did you look at the graphs of those 42 countries? Look at the

United States chart. We peaked in 1970 - just as Hubbert predicted in 1956. If I'm reading it right, there's also 10 years of missing data there. The paper was written in 1998. Wonder how much worse it's gotten since then?

[El Pinko]

11. My impression was that since the 70s, wells in the US were capped because imported oil was cheaper

I think there are fields of capped wells in the US that could still produce but were not as profitable so they were capped.


Now that prices are higher, many of them are being uncapped and pumped again.

I don't dispute Peak Oil as a concept. I think we are very close to peak right now, which I think is why OPEC has been unable to increase production and drive down prices, but I don't think we're really at the worldwide production decline stage just yet. The reasons for the decline in US production are more because imported oil was cheaper - there are thousands of capped wells all over the US capable of further production, but the industry prefers huge, cheaply extracted pools of oil like Saudi Arabia and ANWR over more difficult sources.

In the short term, economic stagnation will probably pospone the real supply-demand imbalances for at least several more years. But speculators are already driving the prices up now.

[bullwinkle428]

2. Too many people seem to be willing to take the "Dubya Bush

& his legacy" approach - "Who cares what happens in the future - I'll be dead anyway! Smirk-smirk-smirk...heh-heh-heh..."

[merwin]

3. All I can say is...

who cares? Yeah, it's going to suck when gas costs $15/gallon, but it will force us into better habits and new technologies.

[tavalon]

13. I agree to an extent, it's just that those better technologies will be slow in coming

and people who are barely making it are going to drown while waiting for the saving technologies. That sucks.

[NJCher]

5. the Bakken formation

In ND and SD has a projected 500 billion barrels of oil. Here's an article on it:

http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2008/02/26/984/booming_oil_patch_lights_up_north_dakota_rangeland

Excerpt:

Thanks to record prices for oil and new technology that allows for easier extraction, the state's oil patch is booming again, creating riches for farmers, ranchers, retirees and speculators lucky or smart enough to own mineral rights in the Bakken Formation, a vast oil deposit stretching from the Dakotas into Montana and Canada.



Cher

[Subdivisions]

6. Happens every time. Someone comes along and blasts

the Bakken Formation into the discussion as if it is our saviour. NOT!

From the article you linked:

Since oil was first discovered near Tioga, N.D., in 1951, North Dakota has never challenged the big oil states. In 2005, Louisiana produced 1,463,000 barrels a day and Texas 1,331,000 to North Dakota's daily rate of 91,000 barrels, according to the online industry monitor Gibson Consulting.

We use over 25% of the world's daily production of oil in the United States. That's 25 million barrels EVERY DAY. I don't give a fuck how many billions of barrels the Bakken supposedly has, it is contained in hard shale ROCK and it will NEVER produce oil in a high enough quantity nor at a fast enough rate to compensate for Peak Oil.

Now, what were you saying about the Bakken?

[NJCher]

8. now now

Let's not get our knickers in a bunch over what you might perceive as "hope." Actually, I wish there wasn't another drop left anywhere. Maybe it would be like after 9/11 and we could get some peace and quiet and lead another type of lifestyle.

Alas, I am afraid that is not to be the case. The greedy bastards will continue exploiting the earth for every last barrel. They will not care what level of degradation they will take the earth to, nor will they care how many species they destroy.

I know people who live in the area of the Bakken Formation and they are telling me that infrastructure is going in at an intense rate. Someone(s) must think it's worth investing a huge amount of money in.

Over 100 a barrel oil apparently makes this feasible.

Also, I would point out that the quote you selected doesn't do anything to make your case. Just because it never has doesn't mean it never will.




Cher

[Subdivisions]

10. Well, we do agree on some things you just said. But Bakken

will never be able to make up the difference. Also, if there were anymore easy oil left, they wouldn't be in the Bakken. Ditto for the outer shelf, the ANWR, Yukon, Brazil, and many other plays hyped by faith and hope.

[Solon]

15. Its not the price per barrel that we should be concerned about...

its how much energy it takes to extract it in the first place. If it takes more than one BTU of energy to extract one BTU of energy out of that oil, it stops being an energy producer, and becomes an energy carrier. It's probably more efficient to extract batteries from the ground, for all the good the Bakken formation does for us.

[BigDaddy44]

17. The greedy bastards?

I got news for you.....WE are the greedy bastards. There is no "they". We all use the stuff, therefore we are, collectively, the greedy bastards. WE are the beast that continually needs feeding.

(My apologies to you NJCher if you personally use no oil whatsoever)

[NJCher]

19. Go ahead and assume responsibility: I won't.

I view the predicament as systemic--systemic in the sense that capitalism as practiced in the U.S. is a system in which it is too easy to hijack the system for the profits of a couple powerful industries. Specifically, I mean the oil companies, in collusion with the car companies, have conspired the make us dependent on one form of energy. This is nonsense. We should have as many energy choices as we do detergents at the grocery store. Where the American citizen has to take responsibility is in failing to stop this egregious power move. That is the responsibility in a democracy and Americans have failed miserably. Now they (and those of us who did try to stop it) will have to pay the price.

I have been an environmentalist since the very first Earth Day, for which I was the chairperson at my campus. Since that time I have pretty much always worked a part-time job so I could work part-time at no pay for environmental causes. I don't have much of a retirement plan because of that but at least I can have my guilt-free moments (like this one).

Yes, I consume oil and I hate doing so. I keep my consumption to a minimum.




Cher

[happyslug]

7. Yet only producing 53,000 barrel per day at present

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation

Recovery oil is only 1.4 to 12.4 billion barrels of Oil and this is with the use of Horizons drilling. But daily production is just 120,000 barrels per day in North Dakota and 95,000 barrels per day in Montana. Compared this to the North Slope of Alaska, with its 738,000 barrels per day production in 2006Http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/072207/hom_20070722008.shtml
and its 730,337 barrels per day production in January 2008
http://www.adn.com/oil/story/320364.html
and this is with massive drop in production since 1998 when production peaked.

The North Slope was originally estimate to have 9.6 billion Barrels of recoverable Oil:
http://www.api.org/aboutoilgas/sectors/explore/historyofnorthalaska.cfm

Please note the US Energy Department is to double check the calculations on these fields, some people doubt these are truly recoverable given that the oil is in shale. Most oil wells have a 40-50% recovery rate, these may only be 1-3%.

Please note, it may be possible to recover more than 1-3 % of the oil in these formation, but over a very long time period. These fields may seep for generations. If that is the best way to get the oil out the affect of this field on what we need today will be minimal. Lets see what the Feds say is the Recoverable amount of oil and how long will it take to be recovered.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Ironic the US and Mexico Graph look VERY similar

but they are the truth and this is the way things are

[JCMach1]

12. Doesn't cure my doubts about 'peak oil' theory

Which I find the equivalent of the Chicken Little story...

However, there are key facts about oil that everyone should know:

-It's a finite resource! That's a given... now put away the silly charts.
-Why put the charts away?: There are too many unknowns in the equation (new supply, demand, pricing, oil sands, shale, the effect of new technologies)... I could go on.

-I am not burying my head in the sand as some supporters of the theory might think, because I would be the first to tell you given some of the variables that I mentioned above, it could be MUCH WORSE than the charts in the mentioned study in the OP (especially on the demand-side).

Also,

It seems to me peak oil theory has been distributed largely through two channels:

1. Left-wing types and organizations who want to scare people into conservation and to develop alternative energy (not saying the goals are wrong).

and

2. Right-wing industry types and companies who $benefit$ from the narrative that oil is in short supply.

ASBESTOS UNDIES: CHECK

[Solon]

14. Basically your saying that extrapolation is useless?

A few facts, oil discoveries have been declining since the 1960s. ANWR, which everyone seems to tout as a savior contains 300 days or so of oil, at current consumption levels, for the United States alone. That is about the average size for fields found nowadays.

Unconventional sources happen to be impossible to extract at anything approaching an efficient level, and there is no technology on the horizon to change that. For tar sands or oil shale, it takes more energy to extract the oil than what is produced by the end product. This changes oil from a source of energy to an energy carrier, similar to hydrogen or batteries.

I'm reminded of a speech and Q/A section I saw from John Perkins, the guy who wrote "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". Well, most of the stuff he was talking about was interesting, then, during the Q/A section, one of the audience mentioned Peak Oil and asked if that had any economic consequences on an international level. John Perkins responded by saying its not a problem because "oil can be made from anything, even this podium." I really wanted to scream at him for spouting such ignorance. Of course, ANYTHING organic can be made into complex hydrocarbons, basically oil, but he has no fucking clue how much energy it takes to do it. He's good at analyzing some aspects of economics, but fails at science, with a big fucking F.

The fact of the matter is that negative consequences to Peak Oil don't have to occur on the "downward slope" as you put it, but at the peak itself. All you need is for oil production to remain static to plunge the world economy into a recession, and the downward slope on the other side is for the depression that will follow.

The biggest problem is time, right now, our primary means of transportation is based on oil, whether we are traveling by land, sea, or air. More than that, oil is the basis for the "Green Revolution" which allowed for 6+ billion people to live on this planet and be able to survive. Whole crop strains have been bred and, more recently, engineered to take advantage of Oil based fertilizers, tolerance for oil based pesticides and herbicides, etc. The prices at the gas pumps are only a part of the reason why bread prices have been increasing.

The fact is that there is even if we listen to the optimists, with there "undulating plateau" theory, that's the oil company line, by the way. There would still be serious consequences for the world, and we don't have the time necessary to wean ourselves off the oil teat without some disruption in our lives. The oil shocks of the 1970s are going to be nothing compared to this.

As far as who is advocating the theory, remember, for the longest time, it was mostly geologists, most in the oil industry, who said there was a problem, and they were ignored, and some vilified, by that same industry. That's only changed in the past few years as the evidence for peak oil has become too large to ignore. Besides that, regardless of who advocates for the theory, the fact is that the evidence supporting it is adding up. Its becoming to obvious to ignore much longer, the only question is what we should do about it.

[JCMach1]

23. I am much more concerned about the carbon-use issue

We will most likely put Manhattan under six-feet of water before we run out of oil.

For me that's reason enough to consider alternatives. I don't need ever-changing charts to reason that.

[robcon]

16. It's not a hoax or fantasy. It's just a hoax.

Intentional misinformation, at least by some..

[wuushew]

21. please elaborate

n/t

[mmonk]

18. While oil deposits have their cycles,

oil companies have been making obscene profits in conjunction with higher prices. A decline in the resource to the point of the danger of running out would be signaled when there are high prices combined with profit decline.

[GliderGuider]

22. The signal of Peak Oil

The signal of Peak Oil will be a decline in absolute production and consumption figures for some reasonable definition of "oil" (either all liquids or crude & condensate) in the presence of rising prices. Profit declines can be influenced by other factors, such as the declining net energy of the oil being recovered.

The world has been on an oil production plateau for three years since early 2005, even in the presence of rocketing prices. This is a strong signal that we are probably at the peak right now. The next year will tell the tale.

[mmonk]

24. Extraction costs will have to increase.

Some of that has started which is true. I think we will see some shifts in production to different areas, so the plateau will remain for awhile with an occasional spike in new areas. I still think we have a little while to go. Older areas are beginning to have assorted problems and have reached theirs but I think some new areas will be worked. Costs still have to begin a parallel with price.

[bryant69]

20. Oh you have graphs? Oh well now I'm totally convinced.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Taverner]

25. FEAR! HORROR! DIE OFF! DIE OFF!!!

Peak Oil is a reality, but this report has been pretty much debunked as to inflate the consequences and the numbers.

For example, it doesn't take into account Sand Oil.