Does anyone know about the "Peak Oil" Theory?

[Horushawk]

I heard we are going to run out as early as 2006. I need to get my facts straight. Thanks!

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

1. Sadly for a few years :( ... n/t

[Peak_Oil]

61. You rang?

www.dieoff.com

[eyepaddle]

67. LOL Awesome! nt

[arcos]

2. we're never going to run completely out...

it will just get too scarce and expensive.

[radwriter0555]

3. Dave McGowan holds forth... it's a myth. Think of it as the Islam or Jews

oil Industry and survival. The mongering of fear that it will run out, which is false.

Here on dave's page http://davesweb.cnchost.com/, starting in March 2004, he has a lengthy series of articles well researched, debunking the peak oil terror alert.

[arcos]

4. no one claims it will run out...

just that production won't be able to keep up with demand, thus making oil scarce and causing prices to skyrocket

[RafterMan]

6. Dave doesn't "debunk" it

He presents an alternative, minority viewpoint on oil formation.

Sure it's an idea. But would you bet your future on it?

[radwriter0555]

63. Right, so we should trust the OIL COS instead? Gee, they're so honorable,

honest and concerned with our well being... aren't they?

[RafterMan]

64. Uhm

Why should we trust oil companies? Why does preparing for an oil-free future mean trusting oil companies?

And even if we did, is your mistrust of oil companies so deep that you would bet the future that they're lying?

[radwriter0555]

74. Sure they are. They're pretending there is a shortage so they can maintain

their profiteering and gouging, it's VERY simple.

Pretending there is a shortage justifies a myriad of profitable scenarios including invading oil rich countries to allegedly maintain OUR way of life.

It's the marketing of fear. Don't tell me this is a new concept for you?

Think Xmas when the cabbage patch doll was in such demand and only barely available -- allegedly.

Gee, the oil cos would NEVER seek to profit on fear..w w w w would they????

Honey, the iraqi oil wasn't acquired to put it ON the market, it was acquired to keep it FROM the market.

[RafterMan]

78. I repeat

What's your plan if you're wrong?

[radwriter0555]

82. LOL! what's my plan? it's not MY problem. It's the OIL CO problem.

I'm not a giant industrial corporate refinery banking on 56% profits (like Shell oil garnered 2 quarters ago).

And the only "problem" they are now facing is the development of efficient fuel technologies for industry and commerce.

The premise for their "the oil is leaving, the oil is leaving" is merely to make their profits NOW and to underscore their geo-political conquests into the middle east for the sake of global power positioning.

There is no great peril of a global oil shortage, just as there really aren't any muslim terrorists running amuck.

This is all smoke and mirrors for the sake of profit and power.

[RafterMan]

91. Of course it's your problem

How do you plan to live without energy?

And if the "problem they are now facing" is development of efficient technologies, how does hyping peak oil provide a disincentive?

Your reasoning is deeply flawed.

[Solon]

70. Actually that is the point...

It has nothing to do with trust on our part to oil companies, they have been OVERESTIMATING their reserves for 2 decades now. For their own well being, it is in their best interests to keep oil as cheap as possible, because its the quantity that makes the most money. Because of this, it is in their best interest to actually downplay peak oil, what use is all this black gold under their feet if they can't sell it, because it is too expensive?

[radwriter0555]

76. No... that isn't how marketing works. Profitability lies in making the

most money off of a low availability product.

More product on a shrinking market makes for lower prices. Oil cos want to make the most amount of money in the shortest available time.

What's REALLY scaring them is that countries like india and china, which are fast becoming the new industrial hubs on the planet are seeking out alternative sources for many types of fuel including oil... China just struck a deal with Venezuela, for example and is strengthening it's relations with Canada. NOT OPEC. This puts a major dent in oil co plans for domination of that market, hence the interest in putting restrictions on nuclear fuel capabilities. The oil cos want china on the oil dole NOT the nuclear power dole, since, obviously they won't make a profit on nuclear generated power.

[Solon]

83. Venezuela is a member of OPEC...

also, the rate of growth in China and India is going to lead to scarcity, soon I would think. But the point is that the Oil companies have an ideal price to keep oil at that would allow them to remain profitable and at the same time, hopefully sustainable as well. That price is around 25 dollars a barrel, I think we passed that point, don't you? Also, restrictions on Nuclear Power plants have little to nothing to do with Oil Companies, that would be Coal Companies there, Oil isn't used for Electrical Generation, mostly for transportation use, in which there is no real substitute.

[radwriter0555]

84. Pardon me, but the number one use for oil is energy production, i.e.,

to generate electricity and power.

Remember the fake California Energy crisis? Oil cos were behind that little debacle that has literally bankrupted California. Please see the link below for back up on my position.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/sep/ca/frame.html

[Solon]

87. Read your own site...

that graph is for TOTAL energy use, not electricity...

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/sep/ca/frame.html

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. McGowan never explains what would happen to the oil if we didn't burn it

According to his theory, the Earth should be awash in all the oil it produced, but wasn't burnt by humans for the billions of years that we didn't exist, or extract the oil from the ground. And yet it's not.

We know that carbon dioxide levels have risen dramatically since we started burning coal and oil, so the oil can't have just been oxidised and vented to the atmosphere before the Industrial Revolution started. So what happened to it?

Until he can answer this, his ideas are useless. If oil is produced by abiotic processes, it's at the same slow rate that biological processes are thought to produce it. Which means that Peak Oil will happen just the same.

[hatrack]

47. He isn't pimping that "abiotic oil" idiocy, is he?

If so, pathetic.

[arcos]

69. exactly! nt

[TreasonousBastard]

14. Dave is a bit hysterical for my taste...

and seems to have an abundance of tin hats, although I haven't read everything there.

I don't disagree with some of what he says, but I did immediately catch an error on Saudi potential production, which leads me to suspect there are other errors.

[radwriter0555]

62. Dave McGowan has accurately predicted the fate of our nation for the

past 10 or so years, as an activist writer.

His missive on the 2000 election called "life under a bush" horrifyingly predicted -- not as a psychic, but merely as actions -- 911 and the invasions into the middle east.

[RafterMan]

65. Abiotic oil

is not a political argument, it's a scientific one. What's your plan if Dave is wrong?

[rman]

88. how come no fields with abiotic oil have been found?

in short: if it's there, where is it?

and why has abiotic oil theory so little support from the oil/science community?

[nascarblue]

5. 2010...Documentary link

: Satellite imaging applied to oil exploration has confirmed a stark reality. With increasing consumption, and diminishing reserves, the world is rapidly running out of oil. At the current rate of production, the west will be first to hit the zero mark by 2010. At this point, both the United States and Europe will depend entirely on outside sources for their oil. Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, while self-sufficient today are next, and due to run out by 2013. With this exploding oil consumption, Asia will run dry in 2018. The reality, however, is that major conflicts are likely to erupt before any of these players actually runs out of oil.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/22/143233&mode=thread&tid=25

[alexisfree]

71. very interesting ....

Documentary...I saw part of it two months ago yes they said 2010

[rman]

7. read up on it in the DU Peak Oil group:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=266

also see
http://www.peakoil.net
http://www.hubbertpeak.com
http://www.peakoil.org
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

almost forgot:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com

[RoeBear]

8. Interesting reading...

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I immediately found an incorrect assumption:

"In practical and considerably oversimplified terms, this means that if 2000 was the year of global Peak Oil, worldwide oil production in the year 2020 will be the same as it was in 1980."

There is absolutely no reason to assume that the bell curve slope is going to be the same on both sides of the peak. So to assume that production in 20 years after the peak would be near the same as 20 years before the peak is patently ridiculous.

[rman]

11. you missed the significance of the qualifier:

"In practical and considerably oversimplified terms"

whatever the case will be, production in 2020 won't be higher then in 2000 -that is assuming the peak was in 2000. its looks more like it'll be in 2007/2008.

[slor]

9. If I was not hog-tied by recent...

financial disasters in my life, I would buy a scooter. I may still do it, in a few months. I do believe many people will wish they had.

[GumboYaYa]

79. I got rid of my car for a scooter a few months ago.

Now my gas bill is about $1.00 a week.

Do it; you won't regret it.

[nascarblue]

10. One more "banned in the US" documentary link

This documentary on peak oil has been shown in Canada, France, and Germany, but not here...

http://911busters.com/video/IQ1_20_END_OF_SUBURBIA_VIDEO_24.2_.html

[Deja Q]

40. Cheney and * believe peak oil will happen... instead of preparing people,

they want us in the dark and pull a power game.

I hope the world is watching.

[mhr]

44. Thanks For The Link

eom

[SlackJawedYokel]

13. Scientific American did an article on this a few years back.

The worlds oil decline is going to mimic the US oil decline of the late 60's/early 70's.
In fact, according to the model used, we're in the middle of the peak this year.
Basically there are some facts... we've found almost all of the drillable oil fields on the planet... and some assumptions... that oil drilling/pumping techology won't make any spectacular leaps in effeciency.
Right now most oil fields still contain oil... it's just difficult to get to and not as economically useful as lighter/sweeter crude, making it *less economically feasible*(ie., not as profitable) to pump it out.

What made the Iraqi oil fields irresistable to BushCo was that it's light sweet crude sitting near the surface... almost the best possible(most profitable) scenario for drilling/pumping.

IIRC, the model predicted that we had another 50 years of oil consumption at the rate we're going, given the current situations.
Not sure if they factored in China becoming more of an industrial power/fuel user, though.

The truly laughable part of all of this is that the limited life-span of the petro-fuel paradigm was *created* by those companies who benefitted from it the most when Big Oil and Big Auto conspired in the early and middle parts of the 20th century to dismantle the more economic urban mass-transit systems in place to remove competition for their individual people movers(and the oil/gas/tires to make them go).

My next vehicle purchase will be a hybrid and when a valid consumer alt-fuel vehicle becomes available, I'll get one of those.

Cletus

[Skink]

15. I going with a Hydrogen powered car.

I just bought my last gas type vehicle. Should last 6 or seven years by then Hydrogen will be on line.
It is preposterous to think we as humans will stop doing the things we do if one fuel is not available. I would recomend that we stop choosing our leaders from the cesspool of petroleum based terrorists.

[RC]

35. Where is the energy for that Hydrogen going to come from?

Oil? That is what bu$h wants. counter productive.
Coal. That has the same bell curve as oil, just a longer time frame, as in 35 years instead of 15 to 20 years.
Water? Electrolysis? A very inefficient use of energy.

Most of our oil goes into plastics and fertilizer. Think about no more plastic bags and scarce groceries. Most people won't have enough window boxes to grow their own food.

[SlackJawedYokel]

38. Hydroelectric? Wind?

Clean-burning coal?
Solar?
Sex?
:D
Or a mix of all of the above?
(just so long as we can stop the TVA from constructing more nuclear power plants)

Most of our oil goes into plastics and fertilizer.
Your point being?
That somehow there isn't a problem because "most of our oil" isn't put into our vehicles?
Fact is that the oil that goes into making that plastic and fertilizer isn't the same quality as the stuff that goes into our cars, which requires more processing if it isn't light sweet.
The lowest grades of oil can be processed into plastics, etc. and *that* stuff will be around for a longer time.

Think about no more plastic bags and scarce groceries.
Gosh... reusable cloth bags and non-fertilizer-based "organic" farming...
Hmm... sounds plausible to *me*.

Most people won't have enough window boxes to grow their own food.
Sounds like people will need to move closer to the food, don't it?
Or wait... maybe Fred the non-fertilizer-based farmer can set up shop at the local farmers market instead?
Heck, he can even drive his converted cooking oil diesel truck into town to do it. :D

Being cynical doesn't solve problems.

Cletus

[NickB79]

66. Non-fertilizer-based farming sounds plausible to you?

I grew up on a farm, and am well aware of the increased yields seen when fertilizers are properly applied. We *might* be able to get by here in the US with organic farming, since we have so much quality farmland and relatively low populations, but the rest of the world will suffer badly. When fertilizers go, a couple billion people go with it. The Green Revolution was the only thing that prevented massive starvation in the 1970's, relying heavily on fertilizers. The world population is now significanly higher than it was then. The only way we could transition to a non-fertilizer-based method of farming and still feed enough people would be widespread use of genetically engineered crops that can fix their own nitrogen, or grow in low-fertility soils. Since Monsanto and other biotech companies don't want to lose profits, though, I doubt that technology would be freely distributed to starving farmers in much of the world, however.

On edit, I saw you mentioned clean-burning coal as a possible power source. No matter what technological fixes you apply, coal can never be clean-burning. You can use scrubbers to filter out the particulate matter and various noxious gases, but in the end you still have millions of tons of toxic coal ash produced annually. This ash is filled with various heavy metals, making it hard to dispose of. You also have the massive release of excess CO2 into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. If farming without fertilizer wasn't bad enough, imagine trying to farm without fertilizer AND with the climate shifting around you. Finally, the environmental effects of strip-mining for coal are well-known and devastating. I would much prefer nuclear power plants over clean-burning coal any day.

[Eloriel]

73. Chemikcal fertilizers are components of unsustainable agriculture

I'd like to ask for some links to back up the claims you made about "a couple billion people" dying if the world shifts back to non-chemical fertilizers.

As someone who has always supported organic gardening (and farming), but who only within the last 5 years actually DID any organic gardening (or indeed any gardening at all), I can tell you that IMO gardening and farming organically is the only sane way of doing things. I mean nothing else makes any sense at all.

For one thing, it's my understanding that yields under organic farming are NOT less than with commercial, chemical farming.

Second, what's "good" about basically strip-mining the soil? That's what commercial agriculture amounts to -- never, ever putting back anything into the soil other than the bare minimum required to grow plants (N,P,K), and adding other poisons with abandon. The soil itself withers and dies. You can't have healthy plants (and people who eat them!) without healthy soil, and all the various practices under commercial agriculture deplete the soil and kill the all-important microorganisms which are essential for keeping the soil healthy. You can't keep doing this forever, which is the main reason it's unsustainable, but the eventual loss of acess to oil (and thus commercial fertilizers) is another, tho IMO lesser, reason it's unsustainable. So if the world HAS been able to artificially increase its population based on commercial farming, that's quite temporary and an "adjustment" is coming one way or the other.

In contrast, organic methods are Nature's very own processes applied systematically and in some cases speeded up. Look around you, wherever you live (even in the desert): Nature (the Earth) definitely knows how to grow things. She grows things everywhere, and the only thing is that if we humans want to grow things she doesn't offer in our local area, we have to cooperate with her (ideally, rather than try to dominate and defeat her) and help out by providinge some of the things she doesn't in that local area (including the particular seeds and plant stuff we desire). All we have to do is hitch our wagon to Her very own natural processes.

Compost, compost, compost. Ultimately, that's all one really needs, aside from water if rain isn't regular or sufficient. It amends the soil, adjusts the pH balance to ideal levels, feeds the microorganisms, provides earthworms (which also help amend the soil and feed it too), and after a few years, according to longtime organic gardeners, is pretty much all one needs (no other fertilizer). 1 inch applied twice a year keeps one's garden in great shape.

Mulch. Helps suppress weeds (and make those that survive very easy to eradicate by pulling or hoeing), prevents erosion, keeps the soil evenly moist and at an even temperature, and protects the plants from all those problems. It degrades naturally over time, also helping to feed the soil and its microorganisms. Mulches aren't absolutely necessary, but they really do help so much.

No tilling, unless one wants to plant cover crops over the off season to turn under and further feed the soil and its microorganisms. This alone (no tilling) is a tremendous time, labor and energy-saver. Some of the cover crops used are legumes which add nitrogen to the soil. Of course, rotating crops during the growing season can also help add nitrogen to the soil.

Healthy soil creates healthy plants that are far more disease and pest resistant and don't need artificial poisons (especially if also doing things that attract the beneficial insects that are the pests' predators) . There's also some fascinating info on how some of the microorganisms in healthy soil actually assist plants to put out hormones, scents, etc., that repel pests. But they can't do that if they're no longer in the soil.

There's just NOTHING in the so-called "green revolution" of artificial, poison-laden, strip-mining farming to recommend it in my mind.

[JohnyCanuck]

80. A couple examples of what you are referring to.

From the web site of the UK based Institute of Science in Society.

Organic Outperforms Conventional in Climate Extremes

Long-term research has shown that organic cropping systems give higher yields than conventional during periods of drought or torrential rains. Lim Li Ching reports


The Rodale Farming Systems Trial was started in 1981 at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, USA. It compares the benefits and risks of three farming systems, two organic – manure-based (MNR) and legume-based (LEG) - and one conventional (CNV), on a long-term basis.

The MNR system is a 5-year maize-soybean-wheat-clover/hay rotation, the LEG a 3-year maize-soybean-wheat-green manure, and the CNV a 5-year maize-soybean rotation. The MNR system includes livestock and uses manure as fertilizer, while LEG incorporates leguminous crops into the soil. Both the organic systems rely on mechanical cultivation and heterogeneous crop mixes for their weed and pest control. The CNV system uses mineral fertilizer and pesticides.

After a transition period of four years, crops grown under the organic systems yielded as much as and sometimes better than conventional crops. Average maize and soybean yields were relatively similar in all three systems over the post-transition years (1985–1998).

Five moderate drought years, with total April-August rainfall less than 350 mm, occurred between 1984 and 1998. In four of them the organic maize out-yielded the CNV by significant margins. For example, in 1998, organic maize yielded 141% and 133% relative to CNV in the LEG and MNR treatments, respectively.

www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicOutperforms.php


Organic Agriculture Fights Back

<snip>

A review of replicated research results in seven different US Universities and from Rodale Research Center, Pennsylvania and the Michael Fields Center, Wisconsin over the past 10 years showed that organic farming systems resulted in yields comparable to industrial, high input agriculture.

* Corn: With 69 total cropping seasons, organic yields were 94% of conventionally produced corn.
* Soybeans: Data from five states over 55 growing seasons showed organic yields were 94% of conventional yields.
* Wheat: Two institutions with 16 cropping year experiments showed that organic wheat produced 97% of the conventional yields.
* Tomatoes: 14 years of comparative research on tomatoes showed no yield differences.

The most remarkable results of organic farming, however, have come from small farmers in developing countries. Case studies of organic practices show dramatic increases in yields as well as benefits to soil quality, reduction in pests and diseases and general improvement in taste and nutritional content. For example, in Brazil the use of green manures and cover crops increased maize yields by between 20% and 250%; in Tigray, Ethiopia, yields of crops from composted plots were 3-5 times higher than those treated only with chemicals; yield increases of 175% have been reported from farms in Nepal adopting agro-ecological practices; and in Peru the restoration of traditional Incan terracing has led to increases of 150% for a range of upland crops.

Projects in Senegal involving 2000 farmers promoted stall-fed livestock, composting systems, use of green manures, water harvesting systems and rock phosphate. Yields of millet and peanuts increased dramatically, by 75-195% and 75-165% respectively. Because the soils have greater water retaining capacity, fluctuations in yields are less pronounced between high and low rainfall years. A project in Honduras, which emphasized soil conservation practices and organic fertilisers, saw a tripling or quadrupling of yields.

www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicAgriculture.php

More articles on organic agriculture and the benefits both we and our soils would gain from moving away from energy intensive factory farming methods (which will not be sustainable over the long term anyway) are here:

www.i-sis.org.uk/susag.php

[RafterMan]

39. From nuclear plants

And only 13% of our oil goes into non-transport/heating uses.

[SlackJawedYokel]

43. And speaking of nuclear waste...

have they put any into that mountain out west, yet?
I heard there were all sorts of issues with that inept excuse of a project.

Cletus

[RafterMan]

45. Reprocessing and transmutation

can reduce nuclear waste by 99.5% by weight, and reduce the time it's dangerously radioactive to a few hundred years.

Yes, it would cost money and yes everyone would prefer a breakthrough in solar, but nuclear doable and long-lasting.

[SlackJawedYokel]

48. Capitalists *lose* money?

Yes, it would cost money
And this is the only reason it won't happen.
It can't possibly be profitable.
Sad, isn't it?

but nuclear doable and long-lasting.
I'll wait for them to perfect fusion reactors.
Fission reactors just cause more problems than they are worth, IMO.
We're only pushing back the problems with current policies.

Cletus

[RafterMan]

51. No,

It's not profitable *now*. The more scarce other resources become, the more the price goes up until it becomes economical.

Where else are you going to get the energy, long-term? I mean without technological breakthroughs? As they stand, wind and solar just don't scale to the size of the problem.

[JohnyCanuck]

55. The problem is you have to consider not just costs in dollars

but costs in terms of energy as well. That is, how much energy do you need to put into the process to get energy out (in the form of crude oil) at the other end. When it comes to the point that you are using significantly more energy to find, pump and refine the oil than the energy recoverable from the oil itself, then you're stuck.

I've seen estimaes for the Energy returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) ratio for a traditional land based oil well in the early days of its production life ranging from 40 to 1 to a 100 to 1. The EROEI for alternative fuels and oil sands oil is generally much lower, for example the EROEI of oil produced from the tar sands in Alberta is currently running around 1.5 to 1. Probably the only reason it is economically feasible to develop the tar sands right now is that there is a relatively cheap source of natural gas fuel available from small natural gas deposits that are not big enough to develop and connect up to the pipelines running to the South, aka "stranded" natural gas.

As the more easily discovered and easily accessible and recoverable oil is the first to be found and pumped, the overall average EROEI for oil is getting smaller and smaller. As our biggest and most abundant oil fields become depleted with the remaining oil they contain consequentially becoming more energy intensive to develop and pump out of the ground and we have to go into deeper water and more isolated and inhospitable regions of the earth to find more oil to satisfy our demand the EROEI will keep dropping. At some point in the future the EROEI will be negative but before we even get to that point the diminishing EROEI will force us to make major adjustments to the free and easy use we make of oil derived energy in our economies.

And as far as finding more oil, if we expect to continue on our merry, energy intensive, SUV driving North American way (which the rest of the world is also in a mad rush to emulate) we also have to take into account the amount of new oil we will need to find due to an exponential growth in demand, ie. the doubling effect . I'd recommend watching the video on exponential growth I mentioned in my post #31 in this same thread.

And here's a snip from an article that appeared in Earth Island Journal.

Industry experts assumed in the past that oil resources would last 50 years, based on calculations that simply divided estimated reserves by the present annual use. But this method of prediction failed to account for an increase in Third World oil use.

If everyone on Earth were to consume petroleum at the per capita rate of industrialized countries, it would require a fivefold increase in current oil production to meet the demand. If, by 2060, the world's population reaches the expected 11 billion mark and all were to consume as much energy as the average Australian does now, annual worldwide oil production would need to be increased about 30 times.

It seems that the oil companies and oil exporting countries have been fibbing. It is in their interest to state that remaining resources are in good shape, because their business agreements limit them to pumping and selling a proportion of their remaining resources. In fact, the rate of oil discovery is falling sharply. The world consumes 23 billion barrels a year, but the oil industry finds only 7 billion barrels a year.

Economists argue that scarcity will result in price increases, making it more profitable to access poorer deposits. That seems plausible only if one thinks only about dollar costs. The fact is, as an oil field ages, increasing amounts of energy must be exerted to pump the oil out. The cost of this energy must be subtracted from the total value of the energy in the oil retrieved. According to a 1992 study, these two curves actually will intersect around the year 2005. Beyond that point, the energy required to find and extract a barrel of oil will exceed the energy contained in the barrel.

www.dieoff.com/page116.htm

[RafterMan]

56. The problem is

we were talking about nuclear, not shale/tar.

:)

[JohnyCanuck]

58. Oops Sorry.

Somehow I got my posts mixed up and thought you were referring to oil derived energy not nuclear.

Anyway any excuse to bump a thread.

[Strelnikov_]

52. Actually, Nealy All Petroleum Is Converted To A Fuel

Gasoline, Fuel Oil, Kerosene and Diesel.

Nitrogen fertilizer (annhyd. ammonia) production uses natural gas (different source, same ultimate problem).


http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/petflow.htm

[rman]

27. peak oil in mainstream media

foreign affairs magazine
sunday morning herald
hallifax limited
buletin of atomic scientists
petroleum review
us news and world report
san fransisco chronicle
the independant
nature
bbc news
los angeles times
ABC news

to name some of the more prominent mainstream media outlets

[amazona]

16. it's hysteria

The end of oil has been predicted many times, even as early as 1960! There are no "facts" when it comes to speculating about the future, keep in mind that it is always speculation.

[rman]

25. it's not hysteria

Mr Hubbert predicted early in the previous century that oil production in the US would peak in the 1970's - it turned he was correct.

[TreasonousBastard]

17. No one really knows...

because there are unexplored areas, such as the Florida Gulf coast, that haven't been touched. Add up the provable reserves, if you can find the honest numbers, and do some math with expected annual use, and you get the time when we run out. Or, get to the point where it is too expensive to burn, and will be used primarily as a raw material for chemical and plastic production.

There is also a crackpot theory gaining ground that oil is not from long dead dinosaurs, but is being produced as we speak by geological processes. I'm not going to look it up, but I remember some discussion elsewhere a while back where this Swede (I think) actually found oil in a mountain. Created, he says, by the mountain moving and squooshing around the carbon in there. That it took him months to get one lousy barrel did not seem important to him at the time.

At any rate, whether or not there will be an oil crisis in our lifetimes, and there likely will be, there are massive environmental and economic benefits to reducing oil consumption.

[RafterMan]

20. Thomas Gold

an Austrian who worked in the USA, not a Swede but drilling in Sweden.

And he's not a kook, he's the guy who came up with the idea that pulsars were rotating neutron stars. Not saying I buy this theory, but he's not just some nut.

[TreasonousBastard]

24. Yeah, that's the guy...

but I didn't say he was nuts, just the theory.

One brilliant success doesn't necessarily lead to others.

[nascarblue]

21. That's a big reach...

Unexplored areas? Come on man. That's a big reach. With the way we're exploring for natural gas now, it's no wonder we're having hurricanes and tsunamis. Plus "Peak Oil" doesn't mean running out. It just means you're at the peak and the demand is higher than the supply. Simple things like the SUV and gas mileage restrictions would help add a few years but Bush is too hell bent on bringing on the apocalypse.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/22/143233&mode=thread&tid=25

[TreasonousBastard]

29. There are deepwater areas that haven't been explored....

and, there's all that oil shale that's too expensive to extract.

Florida's Gulf Coast has been off limits since Jeb, along with previous governors, doesn't want to piss off the environmental lobby. Atlantic exploration is killed off for the same reason. And some guy just bought leases from Cuba in the hope that there might be oil there.

What's in China, India and the rest of Africa? South Asia? Anybody looking?

[SlackJawedYokel]

42. My understanding is that

all of the oil fields we can *get* to have been mapped out.

Oil shale falls into the "not profitable" category just like the heavy stuff at the bottom of most "tapped out" oil fields.

Florida's Gulf Coast has been off limits since Jeb, along with previous governors, doesn't want to piss off the environmental lobby.
Hasn't stopped them from pumping off the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf coast.
And I think you're missing the point a bit.
That oil isn't being drilled because it isn't *profitable* or politically expedient to drill(no matter what the environmentalists want to believe).
That oil will sit there until about 2030 when oil prices are so high it *will* be profitable to drill.

What's in China, India and the rest of Africa? South Asia? Anybody looking?
Again, my understanding is that we pretty much know where all of the available oil is located.
It is just a matter of drilling.
And that is constrained by a combination of investment opportunity, cost and politics.

Cletus

[NickB79]

60. We can't extract oil from those areas and be cost-effective

Deepwater areas aren't explored for the reason that they are deepwater. It's very expensive, and in some cases impossible, to extract oil from them. And with oil shale, it is true there is a lot of oil locked up in it. However, it is not just cost that makes it hard to extract. You need to use massive quantities of water in the extraction process, while many oil shale deposits are in areas with limited water resources, such as the American Southwest. In the meantime, fresh water is becoming almost as valuable as oil in many parts of the world.

The oil deposit found in Cuba was ~100 million barrels, if I recall correctly. That would satisfy the US demand for just 5 days, as hard as that is to believe.

China has been looking like mad lately, but with little success, they are looking to Venezuala and Canada.

[Strelnikov_]

53. Yep, 'Peak Oil' Is About Where The Rate Of Supply Has Peaked

It is not the 1/2 point in oil reserves. There will still be a lot of oil left in the ground.

Demand will chronically outstrip supply, resulting in decades of 70's style oil price shocks as economies try to adjust.

It is an economic tsunami heading straight for out shores.

[rman]

26. discovery of new fields peaked decades ago...

in spite of ever improving technology.

[Strelnikov_]

54. Disconnect Between Discovery And Use Graphically Displayed

[radwriter0555]

75. Really? Better google Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, Canada and North Korea

then. Better yet, take a gander in Alexanders Oil and Gas (online) and see what they're saying about new strikes.

There is PLENTY of oil...

[Solon]

86. Let me see...

Mexico's find is unsubstantiated

http://www.mexidata.info/id270.html

Total possible reserves for Gulf of Mexico, including yet to be found oil, 3 billion barrels. http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whatsnew/techann/2004/2004-073.html

Total Worldwide demand for Oil per day is 82.2 million barrels.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3554462.stm

OK, now for some math, lets see, we have 3,000,000,000 barrels in the gulf, possibly at least. Divide that by 82,200,000 and lets see...hmm, OK, that will last about 36.496...Ok I'm rounding it up, it will last a little over a month and will run out at around noon that day. There feel better now?

[eallen]

36. Oil's origin might not be relevant to economics of production....

Even if (some) oil is produced by purely geological processes, that really has little to do with the economics of oil production. Those processes clearly are not renewing existing reservoirs on a timescale adequately short to matter to us. If there are large, extremely deep reservoirs, geologists haven't yet figured out how to find them.

Regardless of how oil originated during earth's long, long history, the economics of its production -- a short blink of the eye compared to earth's long past -- is a matter of seach and exploitation of now existing reservoirs, as driven by economic demand. Hubbert created an economic production model based on various assumptions, including (a) continuing growth in economic demand for energy, (b) the absence of cheaper substitutes for oil, (c) the economics of seach and exploitation, and (d) the absence of upside surprises in the search process. Like all models, how well it fits reality will depend greatly on how those assumptions play out. Like many economic models, even if it is right, it might be hard to make precise predictions from it looking forward. (Many peak oil proponents fail to realize that peak oil is essentially an economic model. They mistakenly think it is a geological model. That reflects how poorly they surface the economic assumptions in their own thinking.)

[gorbal]

18. Read Thom Hartmann

Any doubters should read "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" by Thom Hartmann. You can read an exerpt here-

http://www.thomhartmann.com/weremade.shtml

[0007]

19. Google Al Bartlett and get the real skinny

There is a beautiful video Al Bartlett put out, about an hour long, well worth it to view it if you can find it. Which I'm sure you can.

[JohnyCanuck]

57. Links are here 0007

And I agree it's an excellent presentation.

Real Player version:
http://edison.ncssm.edu/programs/colloquia/bartlett.ram

MP4 also playable on Apple Quick Time
http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

[0007]

59. Thanks man for putting up the links

Mr. Bartlett's presentation was the best I've seen yet in an unbiased manner. I liked his analogy of the "bathroom freedom", correlating population with democracy,

[corbett]

22. 3 URLs

If no one is worried about peak oil, why will the Saudis not tell ANYONE outside the Royal Family just how much is left in their fields?

http://www.peakoil.net

http://www.drydipstick.com

and

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061203_simmons.html

[nascarblue]

34. Simmons used to be on Cheney's energy task force Nt

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061203_simmons.html

[Horushawk]

23. Thank You All!!

This was my First post to DU, I am very grateful for the quick response!!:toast: :yourock:

[gorbal]

32. Welcome

Although it says you have made thirty nine posts...welcome;)

[JohnyCanuck]

41. I think Horushawk probably meant

this was his first post to start a brand new DU thread.

Welcome to DU Horushawk :hi:

[arcos]

33. Check out this from National Geographic...

unfortunately, the full article is not available online, but you can get a taste of it... http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0406/feature5/

[DownNotOut]

28. http://911busters.com/video/IQ1_20_END_OF_SUBURBIA_VIDEO_24.2_.mov

http://911busters.com/video/IQ1_20_END_OF_SUBURBIA_VIDEO_24.2_.mov

[gorbal]

30. That's a great doc

I"m watching it right now. It tells you pretty much what is going on. The good news is that it "probably" isn't going to be as sudden as what happened during the oil embargo, and the effect on peoples lifestyles should hopefully be enough to wake "most" people up.

[JohnyCanuck]

31. Exponential growth and resource consumption

This is a Real Player video presentation by a Math prof discussing exponential growth rates and how they effect the rate of consumption of resources. Needless to say this effect is usually vastly underestimated by the general public and our politicians. Don't let the word "Math" scare you off from watching this, you just need to know what a percentage is and how to multiply by 2. The math does not get any more complex than that.


http://edison.ncssm.edu/programs/colloquia/bartlett.ram

This is another link to the same presentation that will work in Apple Quick Time if you don't like Real Player

http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

Discussion revolves around how with even a small growth rate in the consumption of a product (including oil and energy) the amount of product consumed keeps doubling in a time period defined by the number 70 divided by the growth rate. For example a 5% constant increase of consumption of resource X year by year would mean that the consumption of resource X doubles every 14 years (70/5 = 14) and in each 14 year doubling period more of the resource gets consumed than in all the previous 14 year periods that have come before. It's very relevant to the situation we find ourselves in with regards to the oil situation and the lecture also touches on exponential growth and the implications for peak oil.

Thanks to DUer mhr for bringing this presentation to our attention in this DU thread:

www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2841021

[SlackJawedYokel]

46. Using the lilly pond to Illustrate the point of exponential growth.

If a lilly pad in a pond doubles its number every day and after 30 days covers the entire pond, on what day will it cover half the pond? Although most people answer "the 15th day," the correct answer?

The 29th day.

IOW, we don't recognize the danger until it is far too late.

Cletus

[dummy-du1]

68. Very nice video

Here's the talk "Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis" in print:

http://www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_index.htm

Are there still people, that don't get that? It seems, that Professor Bartlett is holding this same talk for almast 30 years now. At least decision makers should have heard about it. Will they ever tell us the truth, that we should better choose birth control, before nature will do the job on its own?

[JohnyCanuck]

92. Thanks for that link.

The example below from Professor Bartlett's paper puts the situation into perspective quite nicely for those who say we just have to put more emphasis on encouraging exploration and discovery to find the yet undiscovered oil to meet our future need. Just exactly how much are we going to have to discover to keep the single occupant SUVs and half ton pickup trucks humming down the highways on hour long morning and evening commutes and the 747s and airbusses jetting us halfway across the world for exotic vacations? It's going to be a lot more than most people realize.



V. EXPONENTIAL GROWTH IN A FINITE ENVIRONMENT

Bacteria grow by division so that 1 bacterium becomes 2, the 2 divide to give 4, the 4 divide to give 8, etc. Consider a hypothetical strain of bacteria for which this division time is 1 minute. The number of bacteria thus grows exponentially with a doubling time of 1 minute. One bacterium is put in a bottle at 11:00 a.m. and it is observed that the bottle is full of bacteria at 12:00 noon. Here is a simple example of exponential growth in a finite environment. This is mathematically identical to the case of the exponentially growing consumption of our finite resources of fossil fuels. Keep this in mind as you ponder three questions about the bacteria:

(1) When was the bottle half-full? Answer: 11:59 a.m.!

(2) If you were an average bacterium in the bottle, at what time would you first realize that you were running out of space? Answer: There is no unique answer to this question, so let's ask, "At 11:55 a.m., when the bottle is only 3 % filled (1 / 32) and is 97 % open space (just yearning for development) would you perceive that there was a problem?" Some years ago someone wrote a letter to a Boulder newspaper to say that there was no problem with population growth in Boulder Valley. The reason given was that there was 15 times as much open space as had already been developed. When one thinks of the bacteria in the bottle one sees that the time in Boulder Valley was 4 min before noon! See Table II.



Table II. The last minutes in the bottle.


11:54 a.m. 1/64 full (1.5%) 63/64 empty
11:55 a.m. 1/32 full (3%) 31/32 empty
11:56 a.m. 1/16 full (6%) 15/16 empty
11:57 a.m. 1/8 full (12%) 7/8 empty
11:58 a.m. 1/4 full (25%) 3/4 empty
11:59 a.m. 1/2 full (50%) 1/2 empty
12:00 noon full (100%) empty




Suppose that at 11:58 a.m. some farsighted bacteria realize that they are running out of space and consequently, with a great expenditure of effort and funds, they launch a search for new bottles. They look offshore on the outer continental shelf and in the Arctic, and at 11:59 a.m. they discover three new empty bottles. Great sighs of relief come from all the worried bacteria, because this magnificent discovery is three times the number of bottles that had hitherto been known. The discovery quadruples the total space resource known to the bacteria. Surely this will solve the problem so that the bacteria can be self-sufficient in space. The bacterial "Project Independence" must now have achieved its goal.

(3) How long can the bacterial growth continue if the total space resources are quadrupled?

Answer: Two more doubling times (minutes)! See Table III.



Table III.

The effect of the discovery of three new bottles.

11:58 a.m. Bottle No. 1 is one quarter full.
11:59 a.m. Bottle No. 1 is half-full.
12:00 noon Bottle No. 1 is full.
12:01 p.m. Bottles No. 1 and 2 are both full.
12:02 p.m. Bottles No. 1, 2, 3, 4 are all full.

Quadrupling the resource extends the life of the resource by only two doubling times! When consumption grows exponentially, enormous increases in resources are consumed in a very short time!

www.npg.org/specialreports/bartlett_section2.htm

[KayLaw]

37. Bush should know

Look at the Crawford ranch. It's a peaknik's dream home.

[lectrobyte]

85. I'm not sure I follow -- does he have a solar house or something?

That'd be a surprise, for some reason. Got a link with more details? Thanks.

[alphafemale]

49. Hubbert's Curve/Peak Oil

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

[hatrack]

50. Best single work for the non-professional on this topic - Kenneth Deffeyes

"Hubbert's Peak" is the title. It's not a very conspiratorial book - no members of Skull & Bones or the Trilateral Commission appear anywhere in its pages.

What you get instead is a very straightforward quick look at the basics of petroleum geology as well as explanations and critiques of Hubbert Curve theory.

Another good resource is "Myths and Realities of Mineral Resources" (I think that's the title by Walter Youngquist. It's from his book "Geodestinies", but you should be able to Google for this section.

[DemocracyInaction]

72. From both liberal and conservative sources............

..apparently "CHEAP" oil will run out in about 10 years. It's not that it is down to a thimble full. It's that places like mega-population China is starting down the road to "glutton" (like us) and therefore it will be like now buying diamonds instead of immitation "glass" rings. And such an enormous rise in costs will bring nation's like ours to it's knees. We simply cannot survive in a 2/3 consumer economy with the blow this will land. And to this day we pick our nose and do nothing. Life for the newly born isn't going to be anything like we know today.

[txaslftist]

90. How did you know I was picking....

anyway, whatever the reasoning, whether its peak oil or the environment or the despoilation of the ANW, there are plenty of good reasons to get out of our dependence on oil, esp. foreign oil.

[mattclearing]

77. The sooner we run out the better.

If it happens, which I'm by no means sold on, it will force us to start re-evaluating our policies based on something more worthwhile than the perceived need for black goop.

[dogindia]

81. I belong to an email yahoo energy discussion group

It is very informative

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/

[amandabeech]

95. Energyresources is great!

I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Peak Oil.

Go back to the beginning and read many of the earlier posts for a good understanding of the topic and to avoid asking others to reinvent the wheel in current posts.

[Grip]

89. Bad Science

I would really avoid debating Peak Oil. The science is really bad.

The current geological thinking in oil is that it may be either the result of natural geological processes or archea bacteria. Either way, oil may well prove to created in/by the earth its self and as a by product of dead dinosaurs.

There are many good reasons to get of the oil pipe but Peak Oil is not one of them.

[rman]

93. by all means do avoid discussing it

btw, the science has been proven to be correct: Hubbert predicted the 1970's peakoil of US fields.

[Grip]

94. Ok, so when?

I would love to make a fortune in shorting oil futures.

When will we run out? Care to name the year?

By the way, ask your Geology professor (PhD. only please) what he thinks of Peak Oil.

[rman]

97. production is likely to peak in 2007/2008

from then onwards oil will become more expensive and there will be shortages, rationing and more oil wars to get control over as many fields as possible.

maybe i wasn't clear Hubbert's prediction: he predicted early in the 1900's that there'd be a peak of US oil fields in th 1970's - turned out he was correct. hence peak-oil is also known as the Hubbert peak.

[Solon]

98. Its not about running out...

That is a stupid argument, there will always be oil in the ground, especially in deepwater basins and shale oil, but it is no economically feasible to extract it. When you have to expend 2 btus of energy to get 1 btu of oil out of the ground and in usable form, that is stupid. Its about when demand EXCEEDS supply, and most geologists think it will happen by the end of the decade, at latest. Think of the oil shocks of the 1970s where the price of oil skyrocketed for short periods of time, now think of that happening on a regular basis from now on. Our entire global economy is predicated on unlimited growth, yet that growth is impossible without having the energy to make it go. How many economists and others out there would think we can grow our economy using LESS energy than the year before. I can think of none.

[Solon]

96. Not bad science, good arithmetic...

Hell, you can do the calculations yourself if you feel up to it. Let's see, according to the USGS, there are 3.02 trillion barrels of oil left in the ground, only conventional mind you. Don't believe me, look at this website(PDF DOCUMENT): http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/sumtbls/wout.pdf

World Oil demand right now, per day is 82.2 million barrels, source here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3554462.stm

Also, cannot forget this, World oil demand has been increasing by about 1.5 to almost 2 percent a year: http://edition.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/12/10/worldoil.ap/

Also is the fact that peak oil discovery peaked in the 1960s, this is a fact: http://wwwistp.murdoch.edu.au/teaching/N212/n212content/topics/topic5/04discoverandprodn.html

OK, first, lets do a flat calculation, as in "we have oil that'll last a thousand years, at current demand!"<--tongue firmly in cheek :)

OK, so divde 3 trillion barrels total by demand per day and you get, lets see, 36739 days, or about 100 years!!!! Holy cow, that's more than enough time for us to move to any other alternative energy source out there, don't you think? Of course, we would have to stop all economic growth NOW to do it, but that shouldn't be a problem, should it? NOTE: This is with the assumption that ALL that oil is usable, 100%, which is physically impossible.

OK, now that we know that we have 100 years, based on oh, let's see, normal growth of 1.5% a year, about an addition million barrels a day growth. Hm, lets see, doubling time is about 46 years, that means that by the end of the century, lets see, base use is 82.2mbpd, 46 years later...164.4mbpd, 46 years after that...328.8mbpd by the end of the century, or in 92 years to be exact, around the year 2096-7. If your wondering about how I came up with these numbers, take 100, mulitply it by the natural logrithim of 2, that equals 70, then divide that number by 1.5, or any other percentage growth figure. I'm being conservative to the extreme, by the way.

OK, so I gave you the doubling time, so lets see how much oil will need to be in the ground to last 100 years, using these calculations. USGS gave the number 3 trillion in conventional reserves, so lets see.
Over 13 trillion barrels of oil will be needed in the ground to cover our demand by the end of the century, even the overly optimistic reserves of the oil industry do not go even half that high. Oh, BTW: that is just to cover the year 2096 or so, not all the preceding years before it, so think about that.