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Peak oil?
Submitted by RSJGringita on Wed, 2009/11/11 - 12:07.
Well, maybe those windmills are an even better idea than the Craig brothers thought. Peak oil, anyone? http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international...
Money quote: "The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying."
Anyone know where I can get a windmill? ;-)
Interestingly, I wonder if Nicaragua - at least rural areas, e.g., along the Rio San Juan - isn't better situated to deal with dramatically reduced supply of oil. People are used to getting by on far less, far more infrequent, or no energy at all - and in many places, solar panels, windmills, and the like are the only way to get energy.
Thoughts?
from an email....
About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest. The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer; how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?" Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together." Please read below.
The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana ..... check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5..3 trillion.
"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.
"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves.... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!
That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight. And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006!
U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World
Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?
They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:
- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States .
HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy.....WHY?
James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.
Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?
Got your attention yet?
Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you complain about gas prices - by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.
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By the way...this is all true. Check it out at the link below!!!
GOOGLE it, or follow this link. It will blow your mind.
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -Thomas Jefferson-
3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed
That's the headline of the article you linked. I couldn't quite fit the whole headline into the subject line, so here it is for your edification: "3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate"
3 to 4.3 billion barrels is, oh, about 100 times less than the "more than 2 TRILLION barrels" emphatically stated in this chain email (which, haven't you learned by now those things aren't reliable? Most of them end up over on Snopes.com). In this case, you didn't even have to read the whole article to find the wild claims it was supposably supporting weren't true. You just have to read the title.
See, it's neither technologically nor economically possible to extract every single drop of oil from a reserve. Typically extraction rates are 1-10%, maybe up to 15% in an ideal spot. Yet most places will have recovery rates of 0-2%, yet every well that's drilled costs $3-5 million - with no guarantees of getting any oil out. To learn more about this, and the Bakken formation in general, check out this well-researched article with pretty graphs and charts:http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868
But back to the topic at hand. So there's 3-4.3 billion extractable barrels. Do you have any idea how many barrels of oil we use in a day in the US? 20,680,000 barrels/day by the most recent estimate I found in a quick Google search (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption). That's 20.68 MILLION barrels per day. Any guesses how long that will last?
208 days. Just under 7 months. And that's assuming the high end of the range (4.3 billion barrels). Whoop-dee-doo. Sorry, but that's literally a drop in the bucket - it's not going to do anything to alter our oil situation.
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Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans
Reading Glasses ??
?? You probably lost your reading glasses ??. The Snopes.com (copycat) journalist as well as Comrade Che were talking about two (2) oil shale reservoirs in the US: The first one is the Bakken Formation field of 3.4 bil. barrels. The second one is Rocky Mountains Green River formation oil shale field of at least 1.5 trill. barrels. The Rocky Mountains oil shale field is real!!. In the Rocky mountains there is lots of geothermal heat by hand, which also could be used to extract this oil in the near future. Extraction technologies have been and are being developed by several oil companies. Shell claims that its Shell ICP process can do it for US$ 30.00 a barrel, with minimal harm to the environment.
BTW your calculation doesn't make any sense, but if it would, it would be wrong. 2 trillion divided by 3.4 billion makes 588 on most calculators and not 100...
Look again
First off, there is absolutely no mention of the Green River formation in either Che's post above *or* in the article he linked. My eyes work just fine; my mind-reading skills, sadly, are not so hot.
Second, most estimates of the Green River formation actually claim 800-1 trillion barrels in total - far less than the 2 trillion claimed by above.
Third, this is oil shale. The problems with extraction of oil shale are well-known - namely, it's a) incredibly costly, b) incredibly environmentally destructive, and c) uses so much energy to extract that it actually takes more energy to extract the oil than the extracted oil would produce. Companies have been trying to extract oil from shale for decades, and to date haven't made any advances - not a good track record, and no reason to believe that'll change anytime in the near future. In fact, many of the existing projects have been shut down due to cost overruns and poor production, and several Australian companies have gone bankrupt. (see, e.g., the Sandefer/QER project where the project was "more than four years behind schedule and more than $130 million over budget; has had repeated technical problems, has never run at full capacity and has never made a profit despite being propped up by millions of dollars of government subsidies" http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2004/2004-07-22-03.asp)
See this page for a good explanation of the current state of the technology (or lack thereof): http://www.oilprice.com/article-Oil-Shale-So-Just-What-Is-It.html
Money quotes (highlighted text mine): "Oil shale must be mined and therefore risks serious potential environmental degradation or all out devastation should something go wrong. The highly complex and expensive extraction process to get the energy out of the solid rock, pyrolysis, is still very much in its experimental infancy phases, with many of the experts complaining that thus far, results are way behind predicted schedules, as well as being extremely disappointing.
The petroleum yield in shale oil pyrolysis provides only “25 gallons per ton” of shale oil and uses large amounts of electricity in the process, so many energy experts believe making such small amounts of energy per ton of material is actually a “lose – lose” energy – environmental scenario, claiming that the extraction process actually eats up more energy than it is able to provide."
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Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans
Well you don't have to be
Well you don't have to be able to read minds to find out that Green River is the only shale oil field in Rocky Mountains. I can't read minds either and I did find out... Look again to my comment. I mentioned 1.5 trillion barrels for Green River and gave you a reference to Wikipedia. Can you give any reliable references for your estimates? BTW your oilprice.com article is mentioning Two Trillion barrels. So what is it? I am aware of all the enviromental disadvantages of the production of shale oil, that's why I mentioned the Shell ICP process. Apparently the anonymous author of your oilprice.com article is not aware of this technology. And yes I know of the failures, but there are successes too. By example Estonia.
Green River
Guil, I found those estimates through a Google search on the terms "Green River formation recoverable barrels". Here, for example, is the first site listed, which claims 1.2-1.8 trillion, with a conservative estimate of 800 billion barrels: http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/oilshale/index.cfm. You can repeat this search yourself and see the other references listed.
As for Shell ICP - well, of course the company is going to make their technology look fantastic. But here's what another quick Google search (this time on "Shell ICP energy return") turned up: "Shell reports that in their ICP in situ process they consume 1 Btu for every 3 Btu’s of energy produced, corresponding to an EROI of 3:1 (Ibid). However, if the energy input is electricity and the output oil this would imply a quality-corrected EROI of close to unity. " http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3839
So, again, above and beyond the environmental issues, this so-called magical technology doesn't even make logistical sense. You'll burn as much, or nearly as much, energy getting that oil out of the ground as you will get out of the oil. Add to that the vast volume of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere and it ultimately costs far more than it returns. Completely nonsensical.
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Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans
Nonsensical ???
OK. You are introducing the term "recoverable barrels" here now. Nor I, nor comrade Che did mention "recoverable barrels". This of course all depends on your definition of "recoverable", which depends on the chosen extraction technology. So I am afraid I have to disqualify your 800 billion reference link. The anonymous author of the article you are pointing at, just makes this statement without any explanation or reference at all. I suggest you do a more "quick Googling" or did you mean "Google" to be your reference link? In the mean time I'll stick on Wikipedia's moderate 1.5 trillion for now, which is based on this 2006 USGS report and even slightly adjusted upwards by this new 2009 USGS report.
About your EROI statement: From the same Oildrum article you are referencing from; Just read two lines further then your "unity" quote of the oildrum article: "On the other hand the utilization of natural gas produced during the ICP in-situ process doubles the energy efficiency to 6 Btu of energy produced for each Btu consumed corresponding to an EROI of 6:1. In addition shale oils are a special case, like tar sands, where a large proportion of the energy can be generated from the resource itself (Ibid)." This is exactly what Shell is doing, it utilizes the gas to heat and cool the shale rock in situ. ICP makes more complete use of the oil shale resource. The entire oil shale column is pyrolized, including lower grade zones that could not be mined economically for surface retorting. ICP also can access deeper oil shale resources than are uneconomical to mine. Overall, much more oil and gas may be recovered from a given area utilizing the ICP process.
You and your Oildrum article are mistaken about the electrical heaters, the effect is quite the opposite...!! According to Shell: "The economics of the ICP process could be improved dramatically if bare electrode heaters were installed that combined both thermal conduction heating with some ohmic heating of the oil shale formation. The bare electrode ICP process is called E-ICP and is a patented 2nd-generation in-situ heating technology. By dramatically lowering the heater well capital costs, E-ICP may economically recover hydrocarbons in lower richness oil shale, thus greatly increasing the US oil shale target resource by making much more of the Piceance basin commercially attractive. ICP requires energy input for heating, freeze wall construction, processing, and maintenance but still generates three to four times as much net energy as it consumes. This energy ratio is very comparable to steam injection in heavy oil projects.".
Shell's process is currently unproven at a commercial scale, it is still in the process of development. But it is regarded by the U.S. Department of Energy as a very promising technology, because it is cleaner and cheaper than all other Oil Shale extraction processes. Shell has been working since 1982 on its in situ process. It's not out of the blue and it deserves a good look. The US Bureau of Land Management published their complete environmental assessment here. I find it very convincing. The Chinese find it convincing too, therefore Jilin Shell joint venture is doing a similar demo project in China now since 2005.
Agree to disagree
I frankly don't have time right now to do a more extensive literature review on this. But, even so, we wouldn't agree, because we have fundamentally different opinions on what levels of energy return are acceptable, amongst other things. Like kevins, I think a 3-4:1, or even a 6:1, energy return is not worth it, especially when you factor in the environmental costs. Further, you ridicule the source I highlighted, while quoting Shell propaganda. Of *course* Shell is going to make their technology look good. Philip Morris used to say cigarettes had not harmful health effects, too. Time and time again companies have been found misrepresenting or flat-out lying about internal research onto the capabilities and detrimental effects of their products. They're simply not reliable.
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Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans
Such a pity . . .
Such a pity...You are not bowing out on your own Forum Topic, are you?
For some reason you seem to think that I am in favor of extracting shale oil in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Well in fact I am against it very much. I am 100% in favor of Green as I stated elsewhere in this discussion already. The whole discussion here is on the question whether the Peak Oil Crisis will occur or not. I think not and I gave many arguments in this thread, which still stand. In fact because of the single fact that there are so many options to fill in this oil gap, it is very, very unlikely that none of these options will work out. Not in the least the development of the Greenriver formation shale oil reservoir. You think it is highly nonsensical? Wake up, it is ready to roll! It has all been decided already by the US Congress in 2005 by means of Section 369(n) of the Energy Policy Act: .....
(1) United States oil shale, tar sands, and other unconventional fuels are strategically important domestic resources that should be developed to reduce the growing dependence of the United States on politically and economically unstable sources of foreign oil imports;
(2) the development of oil shale, tar sands, and other strategic unconventional fuels, for research and commercial development, should be conducted in an environmentally sound manner, using practices that minimize impacts; and
(3) development of those strategic unconventional fuels should occur, with an emphasis on sustainability, to benefit the United States while taking into account affected States and communities....
....Prospective public lands within each of the States of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming shall be made available for such research and development leasing....
US BLM is obliged to facilitate commercial oil shale development pursuant to this act. The only thing BLM can do is to guard the effects on the environment by means of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. The Final PEIS was published September 4, 2008. The BLM has signed this PEIS Record of Decision including approving the land-use plan amendments. BLM has filed Final regulations. These rules also establish a royalty rate based on a time-adjusted rate, beginning at 5% during the first 5 years of commercial production, and then rising 1% every year thereafter until the rate reaches 12.5%. The land lease price is US$4/Acre. So the only thing that needs to be done is that Oil Companies prove that their extraction method is compliant with this PEIS and make their methods profitable on a commercial scale. BLM already did an Environmental Assessment on Shell's test sites in 2003-2006 and found them in order. Shell E-ICP compatibility on PEIS is therefore very likely. As I stated elsewhere in this thread the Shell I-ECP looks the most succesful method, because their EROI is the highest, their yield/acre is the highest and the environmental damage is minimal. Nobody, except the Oil companies, care about EROI. As long it is higher than 1:2, extraction will occur, because it is profitable.
If you find time to bring new arguments to this discussion, feel free to PM me. I will be back..
EROI
An EROI of 6:1 is really poor. Hunter-gatherers and pre-industrial farmers had a better EROI than that. US consumers currently spend something like 50 calories of energy for each calorie of food they consume. That's not going to be possible if our best energy source is 6:1.
Also, conventional oil extraction is dirty enough. If this is that bad or worse, that will be a problem. And when you mentioned coal in your other post, I cringed due to the acid rain and huge ash ponds that result from coal extraction. Not to mention climate change, which I know some folks aren't worried about.
There are no easy answers.
Agreed ...
Agreed. an EROI of 6:1 is really poor. Deep Sea oil extraction has the same EROI and is extracted. So as long as it is profitable the oil is gong to be extracted.
Modern coal fired power plants are very clean in emissions. The fly ash is usually going to road construction companies or cement industries. CO2 will be captured an stored in the near future and is already being done in the US, Canada and other countries.
I am buying me
a couple of big fast gas guzzlers and going to drive all over while we still have gas. Zoom. Zoom Zoom. The sky is falling, The sky is falling. .ZZT
No need to
and smart not to. The knee jerk reaction is "lets pump it all up right now". A bit of thought says with oil at 50-60 a barrel things are OK. In fact,, higher oil prices (within reason) have a lot of benefits...less pollutants in general, CO2 reduction, development of alternate technologies spurred. All that goes out the window if we start pumping. This economic crisis is not caused by $50 barrel oil. Yeah, the $150 barrel scared us silly...how long did that last?.Almost half was speculation, not real supply and demand. In the longer term, the oil crisis is good for us and some other countries too. Make us do stuff we would not do otherwise. Read FYL previous post on that (LEDS, etc)...it is right on the money.
The oil in the ground out west is not going anyplace. When we really need it we will get to it. And, by then extraction techniques will be kinder to the earth (they get that way every year).
People on here...and other places.... are focused on oil because it is the top of mind disaster plot they can deal with, and some have glee that they will be so secure in their luddite agrarian existence when the "crisis" hits and others in real work countries will suffer and get their comeuppance. Ain't going to happen. If it ever did "hit" the ripple down would touch you in your mountain retreat and you would be SOL. ZZT
What if we are wrong?
That is, we all put in LED lights, solar panels, wind generators, drive less, stop using plastic bags, ... and discover there is lots of oil for the next 100, 200, 500 years? All in all, that doesn't seem that bad. Do we all have to "make sure we use up everything that is left on the planet" before we die?
I think very few people
I think very few people would disagree here. Most people are well aware, that using up the planet is a kind of suicide. However the Peak Oil story is just a myth. . .
Sorry guys. . .
Sorry guys...
The "Peak" on alarming and panicking Peak-Oil stories is already declining for some time. This Peak-Oil story is starting to look more and more like the millennium bug story, which is almost forgotten today. Scientific American Magazine had a nice story on it in its October 2009 issue. Leonardo Maugeri the author, says that the peak-oil scenario is overly pessimistic and predicts that by 2030 advanced technologies will be able to extract 50% of the oil to be known underground, up from the current average of 35%. Only one third of all sedimentary basins on earth has been searched for oil. Together with new discoveries, the increased productivity could make oil last at least another century and probably more.
No peak?
I hope you're right. So far, technology has not helped significantly, and I am skeptical about counting on new inventions coming in time. This isn't about running out of oil. It's about running out of cheap oil.
There may be plenty of oil down there, but if you get back less than about 5-10 barrels of oil for each barrel you spend, it stops being worth it. And long before that, if you are only getting a 10:1 return, the relative price of oil goes way up. So unless these new techologies are really cheap and efficient, that still means existing oil users cutting WAY back on consumption, not to mention all the developing nations who are hoping to dramatically increase their oil usage.
The Y2K problem probably would have been pretty severe...except that people noticed it, and spent a lot of money fixing the problems. By 1999 it was clear to me that the world wasn't going to end (I am a programmer). Various flus have also been over-hyped as end-of-the-world scenarios. In contrast, the mainstream press continues to mostly ignore or marginalize Peak Oil, even though it has a lot of credibility because you can simply look at the historical production curves of dozens of nations. If it's so easy to extract more oil, why are all these graphs headed down (quickly)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mexican_Petroleum_Production.PNG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/Hubbert_US_high.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alaska_Crude_Oil_Production.PNG
Remember, those are historical production charts, NOT predictions about the future, and NOT estimates about remaining reserves.
Wake up!
Well the "running out of cheap oil" argument of the Peak Oil theorists is never proved convincingly. All "easy oil" now, wasn't so "easy" at the time it was discovered. It became "easy" when new technologies were developed and deployed. The "difficult oil" of today will be the "easy oil" of tomorrow. The same as it always has been in the past.
The other argument of the Peak Oil theorists is that there are no more new reservoirs found lately. Therefore they conclude that there will be no more reservoirs found in the future. How can you say that if only one third of all the earth's sedimentary basins are searched for oil reservoirs with modern techniques ???
What the Peak Oil theorists also don't tell you is that all their scenarios are based on a max. 35% extraction of existing reservoirs. That means that 65% of the oil is still left. Your graphs are heading down, not because these fields are empty but loosing pressure. These fields are in their secondary recovery phase, meaning that the pressure is maintained by pumping in water, CO2 or Nitrogen. New technologies are being developed for years now to extract up until 60% of existing reservoirs, so called tertiary extraction techniques. Besides many estimates of the oil content of existing reservoirs are very conservative and are continuously adjusted upwards. The content estimates of some reservoirs, like those in the Mexican gulf, have even doubled. In fact geologists do not really understand where all this oil is coming from.
All the Peak Oil theorists are continuously moving their so called Peak to the future. Campbell & Laherrère said it would be 1998, Al Husseini said it will be 2015, US dept. of Energy forecast says it will be 2030, Odell said it will be 2060. It is all just a big laugh.
Wake up! It is just a myth. Too many politicians have a strong interest to keep this myth alive. Modern copycat journalists will repeat the story endlessly, because that is what they are paid for.
Point by point
Ok, let's go point by point through your arguments.
1. "Extraction will become easier." I agree with you. There are some companies now with profitable plans to go back to fields in the continental US that were previously abandoned, to recover more oil. At today's higher prices, and with better technology, it makes sense. However, and this is a big however, oil production is going down in almost every country, and in some cases peaked in 1970 or earlier. Production is going down on newer fields faster than it did in older fields presumably because the new extraction techniques cause a sharper drop-off. So despite extraction becoming easier over the decades, the price has gone up, and production has gone down. Until those trends change, the peak oil believers win this point.
2. "We will find new reservoirs." Maybe we will, maybe we won't. The hard fact is that so far, over the last few decades, we have not. Given the declining production rates for existing wells, we need to find a few more Saudi Arabias just to maintain current production. And that's not counting the increasing demand from India, China, and others. Until we actually find another big field, the peakers win this one too.
3. "Peak oil predictions are based on reserves." No, the strongest ones are not. While there are all kinds of funny numbers floating around for reserves, the bottom line is that oil production on any given field, and in any given country, follows a more-or-less bell-shaped curve. It has happened again and again and again. Whether in the 1950's, or 1980's, or today. whether for a small field or a large one (except for a few of the hugest fields which have not yet started to decline). Peak oil is mostly about production, not reserves, so ignore reserves and the peak oil story remains strong.
4. "Peak Oil theorists keep moving the peak into the future". Not entirely true. Some have, starting with the big shifts caused by the discovery of fields in Alaska and the North Sea, and from the massive conservation efforts of the 1970's. Those were one-time, major events, so it is not surprising that they would cause changes in the models. There have been some folks who have shifted the date by a few years, as you say. And as prices have increased and techology has improved, the projected date may drift slightly. But the "consensus" among peak oil theorists has been between 2000 and 2020 for a while. On the other hand, many peak oil critics have recently been moving their estimates sooner. While 2050-2100 used to be widely accepted, many peak oil opponents are now thinking 2020-2050 is more realistic. In 1998, Saudi Arabia's king warned that the oil boom was over. The CTO of Chevron proposed 2020 as a likely global peak.
So firstly, I dispute your fourth claim, although it is vague enough to be difficult to rate as strictly "true" or "false. Secondly, even if Peak Oil hits in 2030, the effects will be catastrophic, unless we have viable alternatives by then. Based on actions so far, and on the general efficiency of governments and large corporations to be proactive in solving major issues, I am not optimistic that we would use that extra time well.
Four points considered, and none of them are strong arguments against peak oil. Have you read "The Long Emergency" or "The Party's Over"? Have you seen "A Crude Awakening"? When I first heard about Peak Oil a couple years ago, I spent weeks reading and viewing everything I could about Peak Oil, both from advocates and from critics. I have looked at the economic data and geological data. I have looked at historical numbers and future projections. Believe me, I want to be wrong. If you can provide credible arguments or evidence against peak oil, I will read them, listen closely, and evaluate them with an open mind.
Historical data doesn't lie. Just to pick a few examples, oil production has been going down in the continental US and Libya since 1970, in Iran since 1974, in Norway since 2000, and in Mexico since 2003. Indonesia was an OPEC member, but they peaked in 1991 and are now a net oil importer. These countries have every incentive to increase oil production, yet they have not been able to do so.
Almost everyone agrees that global oil production will peak at some point, but we just don't know when. Almost everyone agrees that modern society right now is completely dependent on oil, and if supplies were to decline significantly tomorrow, it would be catastrophic. (Just look at the theoretical exercises exploring "what if" terrorists hit the oil supply lines.) The only open questions are whether we have already peaked, or won't peak for a few more decades, and whether production will plateau for a while, or fall off sharply. And, of course, whether we will have done our necessary work to be prepared for it by then.
Sorry to be such a doom and gloomer. Part of me wishes I had never heard about Peak Oil, and could continue to live my "normal" life in the US suburbs. But in the end, I think it's important to know the truth. If I had a fatal disease, I would want to know it, so I could live my remaining life the best way possible, and/or to take whatever steps I wanted to try to postpone, diminish, or cure the problem. Perhaps if enough people understand the issue, and take steps at a personal/community level, and apply pressure at a national/international level, we might turn it into something less than a disaster. That would be great.
Hope You Sleep Well..
OK, I will try to convince you that things are not that bad as they might look to you.
1. Oil companies are developing new technologies all the time to boost production of existing crude oil reservoirs. Many are pumping seawater, co2 or nitrogen already. Horizontal drilling is another successful option to boost production in existing fields. Bringing in heat by steam (e.g. Kern River since 1960) is successful too as well as injecting chemicals to let oil flow better (China's Daqing field produces +10% since the 1990's). Tests are being done by burning oil in the reservoir to increase viscosity and even biological tests to do the same. Keep in mind that oil production is gigantic, so the budget to develop and deploy new extraction technologies is gigantic too. Price politics is another issue. The production costs of 1 barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia is about US$ 1.00, the production cost of 1 barrel in Alberta (tar sands) is $23.00. The big profits don't go to the commercial oil companies, but to the states. The states could invest in extraction technologies as well if they wanted to.
2. You are quite misinformed. Just to name a few ca. 10 billion barrels spots: The Tupi field (2006), Sugar Loaf field (2007) the Jupiter field (2008) all in the Santos basin Brazil, Tiber field Gulf of Mexico 2009, Bohai Bay China 2009, Several fields in Iran 2009, Kurdistan 2009. Many new big fields are found at great depths below salt formations. New imagery technologies are able to see what lies underneath salt layers. The older seismic technologies couldn't see through salt formations. Most fields in the Santos basin are below salt formations. Many more will be discovered in the future, because 65% of all sedimentary basins (fossil oil finds) on earth are not researched by this new imagery technologies yet. Also recent research continues to provide insight into the contribution of "abiogenic hydrocarbons" into oil reservoirs. Abiogenic oil is oil that is formed by hydrogen (water) and carbonous rock under high pressure and temperature close to the earh's mantle at 150 km depth (so non-fossil). The theory is that this oil flows through cracks to reservoirs closer to the earth's surface. There are many findings that support this theory and can't be explained otherwise. This doesn't mean it is a proven theory though yet. But if abiogenic oil is formed at 150 km depth and flows to higher reservoirs, this means that new reservoirs can be found at unexpected places (other than sedimentary basins) too. The Russians have found those reservoirs already for a long time. For example the northern flank of the Dnieper-Donets Basin. It's oil doesn't contain so called bio-markers, abundances of trace metals and helium are strong presumptive evidence that the oil is non fossile and from a very deep source. I did already mention the huge tar sands in Canada and Venezuela and comrade Che is mentioning even the bigger oil shale reservoirs in the US. The BIG advantage of these tar sands and shale oil fields is that production characteristics could be any curve the market wants. No Peaks! What the Oil Peak missionaries also seem to forget is that LNG is taking over Crude Oil more and more. Natural gas is made liquid and shipped in LNG tankers to LNG terminals all over the world in the near future. Europe is heating its homes with Russian natural gas more and more and so will Asia in the near future.
3. You misunderstood. If new technologies boost the exploitation of existing reservoirs from 35% to 60%, then that will be a gain of 71%, which will flat out the down slope of the Bell curve of the Oil Peak missionaries. Peak Oil is calculating with max. extraction of 20-35%.
4. You just gave more proof that the Peak Oil theory is not credible. If even the theorists themselves can agree on the peak size, how can we?
What will happen in the next decade is this: Production of Green and Fossil energy will balance each other out to extremely stable prices. State Companies are making the most profits out of Fossil nowadays. These profits will be invested in Green. Climate Change agreements will be the biggest drive. US and China will take the lead.
I hope you will sleep well tonight!
Polite debate
I forgot to mention that I appreciate the tone of this debate. We are not calling each other idiots, referring to Hitler, etc. While we may disagree on facts or interpretations of them, we can remain civil. That's great. Thank you.
Not much here
1. Extraction techniques have not yet been able to stop the downward production slopes. Why would we believe they will start to do so? What about evidence like in the North Sea that such techniques actually cause a sharper downward slope after the peak is hit?
2a. New discoveries. We use about 100 million barrels of oil each day, which is about 36 billion barrels each year. Even if we have found 10 fields of 10 billion barrels each, and if we could extract it all at once, they would delay the peak by three years. The largest known field (by far) is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, which has produced 60 billion barrels as of 2005, and might be peaking right about now. We need to find more of those.
2b. Abiogensis is an interesting theory. Maybe it is true. However, even if oil is being produced all the time, so far it has not helped avoid those downward slopes in the production curves. We can hope to tap abiogenic oil someday, but I don't think we should count on it.
2c. Tar sands/shale. As RSJGringita mentioned, these are dirty, low-EROI resources. They might help us through a transition, but they are not "cheap oil" so will not allow us to maintain our current oil-based society.
2d. Natural gas. Again, it may help us with a transition. We do not currently have the infrastructure in place to transport it effectively, and it's hard for me to see us converting every car, truck, bus, and plane to natural gas in the next 10-20 years. (The Pickens Plan advocates doing something like that). Plus, natural gas is also likely to peak soon, and natural gas wells have a much sharper downward slope than oil, so when it does start to decline, the decline will be rapid.
3. I am more interested in historical data and current trends than in wishes about the future. When the slopes start to flatten, I will have more confidence in these new extraction techniques. Until then, we should plan as if they won't be a significant help.
4. As I said, it doesn't really matter exactly when the peak happens. If it has already happened, we are in deep trouble. If it happens ten years from now, we will be in deep trouble. If we have 30 years, and don't plan adequately, we will be in deep trouble. Just because there is debate about the details doesn't mean the theory as a whole isn't credible.
It's really hard to predict the future on this, but since you gave a guess, I will too. I will give my optimistic view.
Over the next decade, if we are lucky, and oil production goes down slowly instead of quickly, we might be able to cut our use by 10% to 25% through conservation, and fill in the rest of the deficit with natural gas, solar/wind/water, and coal. Global shipping would no longer be popular, air travel would be extremely expensive, and we would have to eat somewhat locally. Maybe by then we will have invented some new technologies, and/or will have invested enough in known alternatives, that we will be prepared for the faster severe declines to follow. That would be fantastic.
I slept ok last night. I have moved through panic, depression, and denial, into acceptance. I will do what I can, including trading a highly oil-dependent lifestyle for one that is more sustainable, trying to raise awareness of the issue, and advocating actions to mitigate the problems. But in the end: Que sera, sera. Circle of Life. Ashes to ashes.
Kevin
War on "Peak Oil"
We are almost reaching the point where we start repeating our selves. This usually means that most arguments have been exchanged. What remains is personal vision. I will go shortly through your list:
1. No, the so called overall Peak Oil Bell curve isn't at its peak yet! As a "Peak Oil believer" you should only watch this one.
2a. We certainly will find some more big fields with the help of modern 4d imagery technologies
2b. The Russians count on it!
2c. Cheap enough: $30.00/barrel. "Shell ICP process is of minimal disturbance to the environment. See my comment on Gringuita de RSJ
2d. Visit Europe! It's all gaspipe there already. Asia is working on it as well.
3. I think differently. The historical data are of no use to me.
4. You are overly pessimistic. Read on below.
There are plenty of energy sources that can and will fill in the so called Peak Oil shortage. See my comment on Shale Oil. Coal is another serious option that will fill in. South African SASOL company produces about 38 percent of South Africa's fuel needs by converting coal for decades. Shell makes oil from coal in China and Malaysia for US$ 30.00 a barrel. China predicts that it will produce at least one million barrels of oil per day from coal by 2020. The United States has some of the most extensive coal deposits on the planet, an estimated 200-year supply. Texas coal could be converted for US$ 25.00 a barrel. With the United States possessing 27% of the world's coal supply, U.S. coal-to-oil production could be substantial.
Oil companies don't know yet how fast Green will takeover Fossil. It all depends on how much taxpayers monies will go to Green technologies. So investment in new Fossil extraction technologies is a kind of limited. The same goes for Green technologies. Green gets little guarantee on how much subsidies will be received for how long. Since states control most of the monies in this transition process (concessions, excises, taxes, subsidies), it is inevitable that states will initiate some international agreement/arrangement. This will lead to extremely stable energy prices. The backup scenario: It seems you have forgotten how fast the US can adopt and deploy new technologies. The older generation of Europeans is still not forgotten the build up for the 1944 invasion. In less than 2 years more than 13,000 aircrafts were build. That's about 45 per day...And that is just the aircrafts. What about the Apollo and Space Shuttle program? The Los Alamos project, the Cold War build up, all the Anti-Terror Intelligence Programs that were deployed after 9/11? And so on and so on.
I am convinced that if (??) ever the Peak Oil scenario will unfold and if (??) ever there is even a small threat of economical collapse, the US will tackle this in time by up scaling coal fired or nuclear plants, coal to oil plants, massive shale oil production, or on the Green hand produce massive amounts of solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal plants, concentrated solar power plants...whatever it takes, all in no time. Just to give you an indication of what the US could do if they had to defend the American Way of Life by calling out the "War on Peak Oil": For the US monies that were spend by the FED to the rescue of the Credit Crunch (US$ 2 trill.), you could have build 8,333 "Solar One"'s Concentrated Solar Power Plants in Neveda (US$ 240 mill. each), a total power of 533 GW and total produced energy of 4,667 TWH/year. In fact the best place to survive the so called "Peak Oil crisis" will be the US in my view.
Cheer up!
Hope
I hope you're right. I wish you had been able to offer some persuasive facts or perspectives. My over-simplification of your arguments are:
* Ignore past and current data, and hope for better data in the future
* We can overcome any problem (although I think you are severely underestimating the challenges)
* Everything will be fine
But thanks for the debate. Hopefully other folks have gotten enough out of it to make up their own minds.
I guess I'll end on a Nica note: I still think rural Nicaragua would be a good place to live if Peak Oil causes problems. And I think it would be a good place if financial disaster happens first. And it's probably an ok place even if everything continues as it is today, realizing that there are some legitimate concerns about the political situation.
Understatement ...
I think "oversimplification" is even an understatement. I gave lots of arguments. Maybe they were not new to you, but I don't think you refuted them very well. Anyway, all readers can decide for themselves.
Brittle Power
I will let you "experts" duke it out here but I do recommend reading Brittle Power, a book by Amory Lovins. It is old (1980s as I remember). It is about how our current centralized energy systems are pretty insecure. It was written before the "War on Terrorism".
Myths?
We could sit here and bat statistics back and forth all day, and neither of us will believe the other because we'll presume the other's stats are biased.
So this is when I say, let's follow the money.
You say: "Too many politicians have a strong interest to keep this myth alive. Modern copycat journalists will repeat the story endlessly, because that is what they are paid for."
Really? Like who? And who's paying them? Sure, a few journalists on the left hammer this story time and again, but they're mostly working at fringe journals and are getting paid beans. As for politicians, for every Kucinich you've got an equal or greater number of Cheney's. Let's see, who has more money to bribe (err, "lobby") politicians: oil companies making hundreds of billions of dollars in profits each year and who benefit from the status quo, or nonprofit alternative energy organizations and clean energy companies barely scraping by.
Hmmm...somehow I'm just not buying that the Peak Oil advocates are more powerful than the uber-wealthy oil companies. I've volunteered for groups like GreenLight. Believe me, they're not the ones with the fancy skyscrapers in the CBD here in New Orleans like Shell - they've got cramped quarters out in a low-rent district.
So how exactly do you support this assertion?
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Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans
I didn't bat . . .
I didn't bat any statistics and I wasn't going to. I gave four strong arguments in my comment and you chose not to refute them. OK, your choice. You chose to comment on my last remark about politicians and copycat journalists. I wasn't talking about US Politicians in particular. Worldwide green politicians use the Peak Oil theory to advocate their politics. I am green too, but I think it is wrong to use a myth as propaganda for your politics. It will always backfire sooner or later. By modern copycat journalists I was referring to Terry Macalister the writer of the Guardian article you were referring at. He is bringing no proof to his story other than mentioning that an "anonymous whistle blower" said that "key figures" were distorted and yes, he copied some old quotes as an illustration too. Well if you have nothing to tell, then don't publish your story I would say. Obviously he has to write some unchecked bogus stories every day from his chief editor, otherwise he doesn't get paid. Many free public news articles you find on the Internet are written by copycat journalists. There is no time and money for research for free news. So that's what I meant to say in my last remark by getting paid to repeat stories endlessly.
When
is you best guess for the problem to become really bad...as it $150 a barrell oil (based on suplly not speculation...a steady price of that)? And when is it that the world economies will fail ,based on this shortage.
This is not a bait question...just really want to know what the estimates are if your scenario comes to pass.
ZZT
When
One thing that has become much more clear to me over the last couple years is that large systems can continue to roll along for a lot longer than you might think. So while I used to think the peak oil crash was imminent, I now think we have some time (this recession has relieved the pressure). The other thing that has become more clear is that once change starts to happen, it can be extremely fast. Think of how quickly oil jumped to $150, and how quickly it came back down. Think of how quickly we went from "all is well" into a deep recession. External events like earthquakes, terrorist acts, etc. can cause all predictions to be wrong as things suddenly change direction.
It seems to many of us that as soon as the economy starts to really recover, gas prices will shoot up, with similar effects to the last time they shot up...that is, they will cause the economy to slow down again. Unless and until global oil production shows that it can actually increase, I don't see how we can have a full recovery. On the other hand, as long as we don't have a full recovery, the oil supply will be adequate, and oil prices won't skyrocket.
We may be in a kind of limbo that could last a decade or more. That's bad because it would predict a very long recession. But it's good if it gives us time to solve the problem. Whether we solve it by perfecting these magical extraction techniques that guil is hoping for, or through conservation, or through alternative energy, or all of the above, we really do need to solve it, and more time would be helpful.
I really don't know when things will get bad. Maybe within a year or two. Maybe not for 20. Sadly, even if it happens 50 years from now (unlikely), we probably still won't have prepared for it.
Actually, over the next 5 years, I'm more concerned about a financial melt-down than severe problems due to peak oil. However, if I'm on a farm in Nicaragua, I hope that neither one would have significant effects on my daily life.
No Worries for High Oil prices. . .
I think OPEC and Oil companies have no interest in high oil prices anymore. The higher the price, the sooner they are out of business. China, US and other countries are investing huge monies in green energy technologies and facilities. If oil prices are rising too high, even more money will go to Green. I am not worrying for high oil prices at all. If oil demand will increase too much, more oil will be produced so prices will stay below a certain maximum. Oil companies have several options like making oil out of gas and coal (as Shell is already doing) and of course upscale the production of the huge tar sand reservoirs in Alberta en Venezuela, each of which has oil sand reserves approximately equal to the world's total reserves of conventional crude oil.
Chicken Little
is disapointed. And the gloom and doomers on here just cannot believe any good news.ZZT
Shock doctrine
kevins, if you haven't read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine yet, you should definitely check it out. It covers and expands upon the issues you're talking about in your first paragraph here. Excellent read!
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Life is what happens while we're busy making other plans
Wasting your time
trying to talk real sense to the gloom and doomers. There is ample evidence that reserves and new technologies will carry the day. But makes no difference as some (some) want to believe it...for a variety of reasons.
ZZT
My Peak Oil story
I grew up aware that oil was a finite resource, but never believed it would be a problem in my lifetime. A few years ago, I saw a Peak Oil documentary on TV ("A Crude Awakening") and was shocked by what I saw. I immediately read everything I could find on the subject, discovered it was a catastrophic problem that would hit much sooner than most people thought, and got very depressed. Eventually I worked through my depression and created a web site to try to help others through it. I haven't had a chance to work on it much so it is still just a rough draft from 2008, but it's here if you want to take a look: http://peakhope.com
Few people realize that things don't get difficult when oil runs out. They get difficult when we're about halfway there, and production starts to decline (as has happened already in most oil-producing countries). And few people realize just how amazing oil is, and how much modern society depends on it. It's not just that you will have to carpool or nudge your thermostat a couple degrees. "So one barrel of oil provides the latent energy of up to 25,000 hours of human labor, or 12.5 years working 40 hour weeks." (http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/2/171333/1102) We have become accustomed to buying this much energy for under $100. I'll count natural gas in the same category as oil, since it has similar properties.
My biggest concerns are food production and transportation, which are huge oil users. Historically, hunter-gatherers produced about 10 times as much (food) energy from their efforts as they expended. Pre-industrial farmers had a similar net gain from their efforts. Modern agriculture actually uses more than 10 units of energy to create each unit of food energy. There is no way we can continue to use a finite resource in that way. (http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1250621683.php)
As I mentioned earlier (http://www.nicaliving.com/node/14273), I think Nicaragua has many advantages in a post-peak context. The world is about to go off a cliff, but Nicaragua never climbed very high up the energy usage hill, so doesn't have far to fall.
If the world had continued on the economic boom path of 2005-2006, Peak Oil probably would have already started to cause some painful effects. The global recession has delayed it for a while, and if it turns out to be a depression, will delay the effects even longer. So I had to re-consider whether Nicaragua would be a good place to be either in a depression, or if the global financial system were to collapse. It seems like it would be less bad than most places in those scenarios too.
If you believe in Peak Oil and have any interest in living in a developing country, Phil and Anna's "Living Like a Nica" e-book is a must-read. No, he didn't pay me to say that.
Fits my vision
I have tried to make exactly this point with people I know living in the U.S. While Managua is "too hot", poor people there and most other people in Nicaragua live with no heating or air conditioning. Before electricity became pretty reliable in Estelí, you generally didn't even notice there was no electricity in the tiendas and, around home, there was nothing to notice unless it was nighttime.
With the exception of hot, urban areas, people in Nicaragua are clearly a lot more ready for peak oil than people i the U.S. or most first world countries for that matter.
To put my current situation into perspective, I have almost 2000 watts of solar panels. Until hurricane Ida, I had run the generator once is about six months and that one time wasn't critical—it was more like enough bad weather than I had an excuse to start the generator which is a good thing every couple of months.
Ida added around four hours of generator operation. A small (400W) wind generator in on my ":almost here" list and I expect that would reduce my generator time to zero.
What do I run?
Or, put another way, we use way more electricity than the average Nicaraguan even could. And virtually all of it is "free energy". I know I could not have done this in Seattle.
Completely off grid?
Phil I take it you are completely off grid correct? Are you running a battery bank? Thats pretty good, it looks like you are running most of your electric devices on solar. Any idea how many KWH you are consuming on a monthly basis? I want to eventually do a similar setup in Leon, and as you may imagine the weather in Leon is not as pleasant as in Esteli, so I'll probably need a slightly bigger system. Whats a ballpark cost estimate for your setup? Thanks in advance. ___________________________
Viva Leon....... Jodido!
Yes
The latest rumor is that the grid may be only 300 meters away soon but we still would not connect. Just no reason to.
The whole system is written up here (somewhere). More of that gotta get things organized stuff. Basically 24V at 800AH of batteries. I get between 2 and 10KWh/day of power from the panels so far. Maybe more but I have never needed more.
My guess (until another piece of equipment gets here to replace my guess with facts) is that we average 5-6KWh/day usage. So, that's 150KWh/mo or so.
Solar panel prices continue to drop. You can now find them for less than $2.50/watt in Florida. Mine, with duty, shipping, ... cost about $9000. Add around $5000 for batteries, inverter, controller, breakers, ...
Is it cost-effective? Depends on future electricity costs. When we did it, it all cost less than a grid connection. More important to me, the power is alway on.