Peak oil

dtmeister said:

For those who missed the Four Corners documentary a few weeks back, the
whole thing is online.

http://abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/

--
..dt

Thanksfor the link as I'd missed it.
Scary stuff

Cheers

Geoff

Not that oil is going to *completely disappear*, more of the case that it's going to be highly likely that *cheap oil* will be in shorter supply.

Quoted message said:

Not that oil is going to *completely disappear*, more of the case that
it's going to be highly likely that *cheap oil* will be in short
supply.

'ere we go again ;-)

Luckily rising prices fosters innovation in other fields of
technological endeavor!

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/tesla-roadster-electric-060-in-four-seconds-188565.php

Jules said:

Quoted message said:

Not that oil is going to *completely disappear*, more of the case that
it's going to be highly likely that *cheap oil* will be in short
supply.

'ere we go again ;-)

Luckily rising prices fosters innovation in other fields of
technological endeavor!

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/tesla-roadster-electric-060-in-four-seconds-188565.php

D'ya see the add for a video phone at the bottom of the page! Great...
something else to be scared of on the road!

--
Bean

Remove "yourfinger" before replying

Quoted message said:

D'ya see the add for a video phone at the bottom of the page! Great...

Don't worry... these newfangled electric cars will drive themselves soon
enough ;-)

dtmeister said:

For those who missed the Four Corners documentary a few weeks back, the
whole thing is online.

And as usual 4 Corners picked a story then favoured one side and attacks
the otherside using mostly emotional rhetoric and editing to get the result
they started with.

Campbell's ideas are not new, he has made a living out of peddling the same
stuff and ignoring any facts the contradict what he says.

Firstly he argues that more oil is being consumed than discovered, thus we
are running out of oil. Nice common sense. Shame that it isn't very a very
accurate picture. It doesn't matter how much oil is discovered, only how
much oil is actually produced. And for the entire period of Campbell's
crisis production and reserves are greater than consumption.

Campbell then argues that the Middle East is lying and reserves are only
half what they say. This solves his problem, since with the offical figures
there is no possible crisis, but he is yet to explain why the Arabs have
stopped conspiring to cut supply and drive up the price but are instead
lying about how much oil they have to drive the price down and [censored] away
millions. Thank those nice Arabs giving us all that half price oil!

What's more there is no evidence that the discovery rate for the late 80s
and 90s will extrapolate of into the future at the same rate. That
assumption is nonsense. During that period oil was the cheapest ever,
Russia entered global markets and there was a massive glut of oil.
Government's changed the relative amounts of subsidies to favour nuclear,
wind, solar and biofuel.

So as the price of oil rises money spent on exploration will increase.

What's more as the price rises alternative technologies will be utilised
and oil will be used more efficiently so that consumption/capita in Western
nations will decrease. It is no matter to replace a Commadore with a car
that uses 1/3 the oil with today's technology. We just like Commadore's
more than we are prepared to pay less for petrol, but that is changing.

So all Campbell's work is complete nonsense, which is why it has been
ignored by those who make billions out of knowledge about the true sitution
regarding oil. It is however lapped up by those with a religious belief in
hard environmentalism since it supports their prejudices.

The real situation is that it is not Campbell's stupid graphs that mean
anything but other matters. Demand for oil in China and India is going to
skyrocket and while the price of oil will drive up exploration, make
marginal oil fields economic and increase efficiency in production and use.
However, we don't know (and Campbell doesn't have a clue) is if future
exploration and technology will stay ahead of demand.

Unfortunately there is more than enough carbon to meet demand for decades
since there is enough natural gas and coal for people to switch to. Oil
prices will probably rise. That is a good thing however. Western Economies
are not depedant on cheap oil anything like the extent they were in 1970s
during the Oil Crisis. The American's may have to give up their SUV and
ship goods across the US by train but the world is hardly going to end.

dewatf.

dewatf said:

[snip]

Unfortunately there is more than enough carbon to meet demand for decades
since there is enough natural gas and coal for people to switch to.

[snip]

dewatf.

There is? I look forward to steam-powered air travel!

Nevertheless, the peak oil crowd seem to get supply and demand mixed up. India and China are pushing demand to ever higher levels, thus pushing up prices and inducing suppliers to produce oil at a faster rate. The problem is that 'peak oil' means oil is being extracted faster than it can be replaced, leading to an eventual negative supply shock. Less supply means higher prices and lower quantities = bad for the economy. Yes, there are substitutes available, but the income effect tends to dominate the substitution effect for demand inelastic goods. i.e., bad in the short run, but probably no difference in the long run as substitutes are found and consumers and producers adjust to the new reality.

Although the economy as a whole could decline as a result of reduced oil supply, this doesn't mean everyone is a loser - the costs of running out of oil will be felt most heavily by heavy oil consumers. Winners include the alternative energy crowd. Petrol service stations might go the same way as the Nauru Phosphate company...

R

quote='dewatf'On 23 Jul 2006 03:22:44 GMT said:

For those who missed the Four Corners documentary a few weeks back, the
whole thing is online.

Quoted post said:

It doesn't matter how much oil is discovered, only how
much oil is actually produced. And for the entire period of Campbell's
crisis production and reserves are greater than consumption.

Production follows discovery, so the rate of discovery is very important.

Quoted post said:

Campbell then argues that the Middle East is lying and reserves are only half what they say. This solves his problem, since with the offical figures there is no possible crisis, but he is yet to explain why the Arabs have stopped conspiring to cut supply and drive up the price but are instead lying about how much oil they have to drive the price down and [censored] away millions. Thank those nice Arabs giving us all that half price oil!

If the Arabs cut supply, then other markets and producers become favoured suppliers and will benefit from higher prices, plus the markets will not let them, plus the status quo in Saudi Arabi relies very much on US support

Quoted post said:

Russia entered global markets and there was a massive glut of oil.

And then eventually Russia peaked in production, as has North Sea, Bass Strait.

Quoted post said:

So all Campbell's work is complete nonsense, which is why it has been ignored by those who make billions out of knowledge about the true sitution regarding oil.

Hasn't been ignored by Matthew R Simmons, Investment Banker and adviser to the White House. Hasn't been ignored by Hirsch in his US Dept. of Energy report, hasn't been ignored by most investment and insurance groups that now have sections dedicated to dealing with peak oil investment issues.

Quoted post said:

However, we don't know (and Campbell doesn't have a clue) is if future exploration and technology will stay ahead of demand.

...........for how long exactly, or will supply ALWAYS exceed demand.

Quoted post said:

Unfortunately there is more than enough carbon to meet demand for decades since there is enough natural gas and coal for people to switch to. Oil prices will probably rise. That is a good thing however. Western Economies are not depedant on cheap oil anything like the extent they were in 1970s during the Oil Crisis. The American's may have to give up their SUV and ship goods across the US by train but the world is hardly going to end.

dewatf.

I don't know any "hard environmentalists" that say the world will end with peak oil, only that oil prices will rise significantly (not probably) and so will most things that rely on cheap oil, which is pretty much everything, and that the world economy is not prepared for it.

Peak oil isn't an environmental problem per se, and many "environmentalists" (whatever that term means) couldn't give much of a toss about it because climate change is much more likely to cause the end of the world. Peak oil is being driven by those people who perhaps cannot imagine a world without easy oil.

Pat

Quoted post said:

Nevertheless, the peak oil crowd seem to get supply and demand mixed up. India and China are pushing demand to ever higher levels, thus pushing up prices and inducing suppliers to produce oil at a faster rate. The problem is that 'peak oil' means oil is being extracted faster than it can be replaced, leading to an eventual negative supply shock.

If peak oil means oil is being extracted faster than it is replaced, what is is being replaced with??? An oil reservoir holds a finite amount of oil. It does not get replenished, replaced

Quoted post said:

Less supply means higher prices and lower quantities = bad for the economy. Yes, there are substitutes available, but the income effect tends to dominate the substitution effect for demand inelastic goods. i.e., bad in the short run, but probably no difference in the long run as substitutes are found and consumers and producers adjust to the new reality.

Which substitutes are going to be found, and exactly how are they going to replace a substance oil that was, and is still is, relatively cheap, accessible and very versatile.

Pat

vaudegiant said:

Quoted message said:

Nevertheless, the peak oil crowd seem to get supply and demand mixed up.
India and China are pushing demand to ever higher levels, thus pushing
up prices and inducing suppliers to produce oil at a faster rate. The
problem is that 'peak oil' means oil is being extracted faster than it
can be replaced, leading to an eventual negative supply shock.

If peak oil means oil is being extracted faster than it is replaced,
what is is being replaced with??? An oil reservoir holds a finite
amount of oil. It does not get replenished, replaced

Well it does. It came from somewhere after all. It just takes a while 🙂

Dave

"dave" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

vaudegiant said:

Quoted message said:

Nevertheless, the peak oil crowd seem to get supply and demand mixed up.
India and China are pushing demand to ever higher levels, thus pushing
up prices and inducing suppliers to produce oil at a faster rate. The
problem is that 'peak oil' means oil is being extracted faster than it
can be replaced, leading to an eventual negative supply shock.

If peak oil means oil is being extracted faster than it is replaced,
what is is being replaced with??? An oil reservoir holds a finite
amount of oil. It does not get replenished, replaced

Well it does. It came from somewhere after all. It just takes a while 🙂

Dave

My understanding is that oil reservoirs tend to be a bit messy in terms of
structure. If you go back to a well that was dry a few years ago you're
likely to get a bit of oil out of it as the oil percolates in from adjacent
pockets over time. In this context though, I suspect "replaced" means
"discovered".

vaudegiant said:

If peak oil means oil is being extracted faster than it is replaced,

"peak oil" refers to the peak in production. With any oil field,
eventually production peaks and then declines. This will happen
to world production one day. Maybe it has already happened.
We don't really know, because the Arabs won't let anybody else check
their data, and the rest of the world has already peaked.

The basic idea is that we need to do much more to prepare for higher
oil prices, and drastically reduced consumption. Otherwise, the change
will be far, far more painful.

It is easy for one consumer to halve oil use, but MUCH harder for a
whole economy to restructure without collapse.

"ritcho" wrote

Quoted message said:

There is? I look forward to steam-powered air travel!

The Warp-Drive is coming soon.

Theo

"vaudegiant" wrote

Quoted message said:

If peak oil means oil is being extracted faster than it is replaced,
what is is being replaced with??? An oil reservoir holds a finite
amount of oil. It does not get replenished, replaced

I look at alleged reserves with a certain amount of scepticism.
Certainly there is a finite amount of oil in the earth but were not
the Germans making synthetic oil during WWII.

The first "oil crisis" was in 1885 when it was predicted that there
was only 15 years of oil supplies left. That was one year _before_ the
first motor car took to the roads.

Theo

vaudegiant said:

I don't know any "hard environmentalists" that say the world will end with peak oil, only that oil prices will rise significantly (not probably) and so will most things that rely on cheap oil, which is pretty much everything, and that the world economy is not prepared for it.

There's a few loony tunes predicting the end is nigh, we're all gonna be rooned or something. What scares me is that PO has finally hit the mainstream media and the fuggin' spammers have caught on. We *are* stuffed. :o

ritcho said:

There is? I look forward to steam-powered air travel!

Methanol/02 turbojets would seem more likely.

Quoted message said:

Nevertheless, the peak oil crowd seem to get supply and demand mixed
up. India and China are pushing demand to ever higher levels, thus
pushing up prices and inducing suppliers to produce oil at a faster
rate. The problem is that 'peak oil' means oil is being extracted
faster than it can be replaced, leading to an eventual negative supply
shock.

The problem with Peak Oil, as stated by Campbell are empirical.
He:
- assumes that production and discovery during the 90s, a time of record
low prices and global oversupply, is the maximum
- assumes figures for reserves that suit his model
- assumes that demand is completely inelastic.

If you do the figures on what is being produced, what size reserves are and
what projected demand is (including from China and India) you arrive at a
theoretical market prices of $US40-50/barrel (and Campbell's opinion is
factored into that).

The reason we are paying more for petrol at the moment is that S11 heralded
an escalation of conflict between Muslim extremists and the West; there is
political and economic instability in Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon,
Nigeria, Venezuela, Bolivia and Russia; and there is a shortage of petrol
refining capacity.

The fact that any uncertainties are likely to reduce production more than
demand means that futures traders have driven up the price of oil to over
$US75/barrel.

dewatf.

It's interesting just how much obfuscation can be generated over the
state of oil reserves. We know with absolute confidence how much we had
in the not too distant past, so extrapolating forward this doesn't
dissapear.

"The Economist" had a whole special issue on "peak oil". It very
thoroughly debunked the whole concept. Oil won't run out soon because
we already know we have lots of it.

Supply and demand still apply. So if there is more demand the price
will go up. There is definitely a price where people will stop using
it: how many hours of work are you prepared to do just to actually get
to and from work? Not too many I'll bet. So either you won't work or
you will find another job closer to home, or you'll take the train. As
oil gets scarcer, it gets more expensive, but it may actually last a
very long time.

It is your classic media frenzy beat-up that serves only to titillate,
drive fear/greed and sell newspapers, sell advertising. In short it is
a total heap of [censored].

The real question to ask here is: what could the world actually do with
the resources/money that are used to parade these idiots around in
their steel cages? How many diseases in the third world could we cure?
How many starving people would not be starving?

Or, how evil is a car? Is it just a totem for satan, or is it the very
embodiment of satan itself.? Is the driver evil, or the whole
combination? etc etc etc

dave said:

vaudegiant said:

Quoted message said:

Nevertheless, the peak oil crowd seem to get supply and demand mixed up.
India and China are pushing demand to ever higher levels, thus pushing
up prices and inducing suppliers to produce oil at a faster rate. The
problem is that 'peak oil' means oil is being extracted faster than it
can be replaced, leading to an eventual negative supply shock.

If peak oil means oil is being extracted faster than it is replaced,
what is is being replaced with??? An oil reservoir holds a finite
amount of oil. It does not get replenished, replaced

Well it does. It came from somewhere after all. It just takes a while 🙂

Dave

Theo Bekkers said:

"ritcho" wrote

Quoted message said:

There is? I look forward to steam-powered air travel!

The Warp-Drive is coming soon.

Theo

... to a theatre near you. Oh wait a minute... you tricked me!

R

Quoted post said:

"The Economist" had a whole special issue on "peak oil". It very thoroughly debunked the whole concept. Oil won't run out soon because
we already know we have lots of it.

It is your classic media frenzy beat-up that serves only to titillate,
drive fear/greed and sell newspapers, sell advertising. In short it is
a total heap of [censored].

Well The Economist would say that, wouldn't they. I don't know of anyone who has said that oil will 'run out'. Peak oil is about oil becoming very, very expensive, nothing more.

Quoted post said:

It does not get replenished, replaced

Well it does. It came from somewhere after all. It just takes a while

Dave

Please explain how substance that formed several hundreds of million years ago, in very particular geological circumstances, is being replaced as fast as we are using it?

Most of the worlds oil reserves / regions have already peaked. This is a simple scientific fact that not even the 'oil industry' disputes. This is not doomsaying, and has certainly not been taken up by the mainstream media.

Pat