peak fossil fuel in 15 years reboot

[jackson33]

POM; in my discussions with you folks, i have mentioned an ora of an alternative issue. my contention has been the apparent dislike for the American Capitalistic track, which is a constant bulls-eye for anarchist and fanatical thinking groups around the world. posting something "what and why something cannot be done", by inference means the ideas are correct. this is not true, by any rational economist, geologist or member of society. there is not now or will there be reason for any society to change course in regards to activity or travel habits, in the foreseeable future.

 

this is what you say one commodity has been searched for by current technology in recent years. i have noted as others, that 20 years ago means nothing, that technology faulty and many large finds substantiated in places by that older means was faulty.

 

the planet has about 197 million square miles...of which 139m are oceans and 57.5m are land. very little ocean has been researched and you know this. of the land service; 3% urban, 40% for farming, 30% forest, 10% ice covered and about 10% wetlands...i can only guess how fast this checking or in some cases rechecking can be accomplished, but i do know there are limited resources for any program. the cost for an oil company, for just one ocean rig to RENT is near 100k US$ per day. Pool Company and those that do exploration for these companies and Haliburton, are not cheap and also have limited resources, with emphasis on ocean research.

 

1veedo; most all you and POM have suggested, i have seen, by some one.

my interest in economics, business and other subjects cross many paths, which over the years i have read many opinions. since you are arguing an issue, assume you also know the opposing viewpoints and have seen them. if your avoiding the oppositions viewpoint in your study, this is not my problem. i have given some searches i used, but common sense tells me you know where to find any viewpoint, certainly on this topic...since much is from memory, i am subject to error, but when questioned and reviewing a post, in this case i see no errors, statistically. my opinions are just that and am very cautious to mention.

[1veedo]

Again you have absolutely no reference for how much ground has been left unexplored. All you're doing is posting a little pie chart of what makes up the surface of this planet, which is btw a red herring. You have not, however, posted any data from any reputable sources that tell how much of the Earth's surface has been searched for oil (and of this how much is drillable, cause we cant drill just anywhere. You have to remember that the hard-to-reach areas of the planet are left last, while the easy-to-reach areas are searched/drilled first).

 

Do you not realize that every square foot of America, and the majority of other countries for the matter, have been searched for oil? You can fly planes with certain equipment that can find oil. They do not pick up everything, but they find a good bit of it. For the other fields, you have to drive a truck along and stop periodically to take measurements.

 

It's even easier to find oil in the ocean then it is on land. It's more expensive, of course, but it is a fast process. What's most expensive is actually setting up the drilling rig -- discovery is really pretty simple.

 

You dont seem to understand a basic principle of geology which is that on a matter-of-fact basis, conventional oil will peak. I don't know why you're trying to debate this, because this is like debating against any other principle of science. As I've pointed out above, and I don't want to repeat myself but sense you didn't read the thread, what's up for debate is more along the lines of whether or not we can use shell/tar, hydrogen, and when the peak is going to happen.

[Pangloss]

Sorry I wasn't able to drop by yesterday. Wednesdays are my "busy" days.

 

When I say "Guesstimate" I'm saying that although we don't really know with absolute certainty the FINAL URR (Ultimately Recoverable Reserves), we do know with absolute certainty that known projects (about 12.5 mbd) WILL NOT replace known decline (30mbd) by 2010. Somewhere between now and then, maybe 2011, the recession will start. And continue. And continue.

 

That's a perfectly reasonable opinion based on the evidence presented.

 

 

Ummm, shouldn't we prepare for peak oil right now anyway?

 

Yes. This is a point I've agreed with you on in the past. (I differ with jackson33 in this area.)

 

 

to argue that US production peaked in 1971 due to it not being economical to pump the oil out anymore is ludicrous, the price sky-rocketed to almost 5 times what it was when production began to decline, why in god's name would production decline during a time of all time high prices, and the prices didn't return to their normal level until 1985 or so.

 

Ok, fine, prices kept climbing.

 

What I need to see is some cost-of-production data showing that it would have been less expensive for them to pull more crude out of US soil than to buy it on the overseas market. That would actually prove, rather than just imply, that oil production "peaked" because of inability to produce more.

 

In fact that kind of data would add a great deal of validity to peak oil's case in general for me. Because this idea of capping wells to preserve them for later is a very long-standing, well-documented supposition (Yergin even talks about it in "The Prize").

 

 

But — correct me if I'm wrong — you're not actually challenging peak oil as a demonstrable scientific and engineering occurance are you? We've drilled in over 50 thousand oil fields' date=' and have a long history of the business, and KNOW that this occurs. Please tell me you were just challenging my dates for peak oil, not peak oil itself — but it certainly sounds like it? I'm confused. How can you challenge peak oil?

[/quote']

 

I think I might've just partially answered this question above while responding to Cpl.Luke. I've always agreed that production capacity "peaks", but there's a difference between production peaking because of economic efficiency and production peaking because the well's run dry. I don't think a single oil well has ever run dry in the entire history of the oil business -- it's *always* a matter of economic efficiency. I feel that "peakniks" essentially steal a scientific observation to add legitimacy to their wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee interpretation of that observation.

 

If you can answer the question I posed about production costs, that would be of interest to me. Like I said before, I'm keeping an open mind here.

 

But unlike some people around here, you won't win ME over with a few politically correct, ideologically appealing phrases.

[CPL.Luke]

pangloss pom just posted a case where an oil fiel had peaked in 92 nnow they are pulling 1% oil and 99% water out of each well. Also while oil prices are high somebody is going to get permits to drill oil wells, it doesn't matter if some other company can get a higher marin by importing it, there's sti a margin to be made by pumping the domestic stuff. And if prices going up nearly 5 times wasn't enough to bring production up what will 20x? 50x? 100x? I personally think that if prices ever get that high were already screwed and oil would be to expensive to use anyway.

 

 

also take a look at the curve hubbert made with the one that actually happened

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hubbert_US_high.svg

[Pangloss]

I will admit that the reasoning is somewhat flawed. But I still need to see more detailed production cost data.

 

Bandwagons are fun because they're easy. For a more interesting challenge, ask more questions.

[bascule]

The problem with all these projections is that they assume that demand will continue along present trends because people aren't switching to alternatives.

 

If a viable alternative enters the mainstream, then the peak goes away. Overproduction would lead to a scaling down of both extraction and discovery.

[Pangloss]

Why? We've already shown you that a dozen official agencies have stated that the US peaked, we've argued that there was a profound recession in the US because they couldn't get at enough oil from domestic or overseas sources, and we've shown you what "peak" means.

 

I've explained to you why. Data showing that oil production would have been less expensive domestically produced than it would have been if purchased overseas during the period in which you claim that oil production peaked because it could no longer be domestically produced in sufficient quantity (as opposed to just being more expensive) would, if it existed, seem to make your case beyond the point of interpretation, opinion, and doubt.

 

Do you have this sort of data, or are you just going to sit there and keep mischaracterizing, spinning, obfuscating, and ridiculing my honest and intellectually substantiated opinion?

 

I would like to point out that NOT having this sort of data to show me DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE WRONG. It simply means that you don't have the data. If and when the data shows up, we can take up the issue again. What's wrong with that? Why is it SO important to convince everyone that your interpretation of this data is the only possible correct one?

 

The polite thing for you to do, rather than mischaracterizing and attacking, would be to say "I'm afraid I don't have that kind of information at this time, but I will keep an eye out for it. I respect your opinion on it, but I disagree." Then we agree to disagree, shake hands, and walk away.

 

That is how respectful discourse is done.

[CPL.Luke]

Pangloss at this point in he discussion I'm afraid that enough evidence has been shown to demonstrate that your oppinion is wrong as to bring this discussion to the point of requesting direct reciepts and radar reports for the appolo landings in order to accept that they occured.

 

 

thus in a normal line of discourse this would be the time when you should be showing us some evidence that says that your oppinion/interpretation is correct. otherwise if you refuse to get involved in backing yourself up we should then agree to shake hands and walk away. I simply don't see why only one side of this debate has had to present all the evidence, all the projections, and all of the cited claims. And the other side gets to sit back and say I don't agree, thats not the right interpretation etc.

[Pangloss]

I'm confused, you want to agree to disagree, except that my opinion is invalid and I can't be allowed to have it? I have to conceed that you're right and I'm wrong? How is that "agreeing to disagree"?

 

That's just rude, especially when I've explicitly indicated not only an open mind AND an acceptance of the evidence, but have even stipulated the exact means by which you can convince me of your argument.

 

Agreeing to disagree means you state that you respect my opinion on it, and I do the same. I've been willing to do that since I agreed to return to the discussion with POM here. If YOU can't do that, then you need to step away from the keyboard, because I have *not once* done what you just said that I've done.

 

The other side ALWAYS gets to "sit back and say I don't agree". That is an absolute given. If you don't like it, you're in the wrong place, flat out, full stop.

[Pangloss]

The other side ALWAYS gets to "sit back and say I don't agree". That is an absolute given. If you don't like it' date=' you're in the wrong place, flat out, full stop.

[/quote']Except when we quote historical facts that everyone agrees with, otherwise you become the one asserting a unique position. You become the one asserting that the moon landing did not happen.

 

Please prove it.

 

Wow. You've literally just declared that other people don't have a right to their opinion.

 

See this is what I figured would eventually become more clear to everyone. You just keep repeating your assertions, over and over, until you're the last man standing, and then claim victory. That's why you insist that your opinions are facts and refuse to countenance another point of view, and it's why you consistently spin other people's opinions.

 

You have NOT become the majority opinion.

 

You have NOT established your opinion as fact.

 

You have NOT put me in a unique position.

 

You've simply attempted a war of attrition.

 

That's why you refuse to shake hands and walk away, or agree to disagree, and that's why you can't acknowledge or agree on someone else's opinion. Cpl.Luke hasn't picked up on that yet, but eventually he'll disagree with you on something and he'll figure that out.

 

Whatever. You've stated your opinions and you've had your say. NOW I can close this thread on the basis that the discussion has been finished and complete, and all side have had their say, and the discourse has now devolved beyond the point of meaningful dialog, which is a reason why we close threads all the time. You may open a new one on peak oil, but if you refer to to me or to this meta-discussion in it, I will remove it. So I'm putting this thread on 24-hour suicide watch. Get your last licks in now.

 

Unlike you, I've NEVER said that you can't have your opinion. I'm sorry you don't respect the opinion of myself and literally dozens of other posters who have expressed skepticism and critical analysis of your opinion. But you will abide by the rules of this board, as long as I have something to say on it, and that includes acknowledging other points of view, and not spinning, distorting, or misrepresenting what they think.

[CPL.Luke]

Pangloss, if you look back a number of threads you will see that I have disagreed with POM a number of times, I've seen him argue points like this over and over again, and the only thing that he has ever claimed as fact is that oil will peak and then decline. That is an incontrivertable mathematical fact for any resource which is consumed at a rate greater than the rate at which it is produced.

 

I personally don't see how you can say POM has been waging a war of attrition on this one, on almost every new post some new pieces of evidence has emerged that casts doubt on your point of view. And yet you simply say that you don't feel the evidence is a valid indicator, and post your argument about how companies stopped drilling new wells at some point even though the price was skyrocketing, you challenged whether oil wells have ever actually peaked, and we produced evidence that had shown they had.

 

Peak oil is a mathematical fact, the only thing that would prevent this from being true is if there was some vast oil producing mechanism in the earth that continually resupplied the earth with oil at a rate greater than or equal to the rate at which it was extracted, as there has never been any evidence for such a mechanism, and plenty of evidence against it we can assume it doesn't exist.

 

You can have an oppinion on anything in the world except a mathematical truth, as a mathematical truth is by definition a logically proven concept, and there is no way around it. You can have an oppinion on just about everything else in the world other than that however, and you could easily make the argument that such a mechanism like the one I mentioned above does exist and possibly provide evidence in that direction.

 

I suppose the source of my frustration in this thread is that you are arguing against a mathematical theorem, and when debating such a topic there is necessarily a right and a wrong answer, as the math will always produce the same answer using the same inputs, and the same approximations. The only way to have a valid oppinion on why something mathematical is not true, is to show that one of its assumptions is fundamentally incorrect, or that the math was done in an incorrect way.

 

In the case of a peak theory you have one fundamental assumption

 

1. that the resource is being used at a rate greater than that at which it is produced

 

If you were to argue that this scenario is not the case with oil I would still respect your right to your oppinion, but as this is not the case, and instead you are arguing against peak in a way reminiscent of poster's arguing that Relativity is wrong, or that Quantum Mechanics is wrong. I have a hard time leaving with that same respect for your oppinion.

[Pangloss]

That's actually not what's happening here, Luke. What's happening here is that you've got a black box, and believe you've eliminated every possibility about what's in that black box except for what you believe is in there, and you're forcing everyone to agree with you about what's in it, even though perfectly viable alternative contents have been suggested.

 

Now I've shown you one way you can open the box and look and see what's inside -- via a tool that actually exists in the real world. But since you lack the tool to open the box (which does NOT mean your guess about what's inside is wrong), you're attacking the other opinions about what's inside by challenging the fact that they don't have definitive proof about what's inside either.

 

And you declare your opinion "mathematically correct" and then decide that it's just too frustrating to allow anyone else their opinion.

 

That's what's happening here.

[jackson33]

Luke; there is an underlying motive in what is being attacked through "peak" and it goes to the heart of the issue. peak coal, this oil and the idea we are facing a catastrophic event, all being in the next 20 years are taking on a GW issue and the comments of Mr. Gore. it would be much easier to argue the GW issue per any one topic and i think beneficial to POM if this is the point.

 

peak anything, like it or not requires a firm knowledge of what has not yet come or in fact known today. POM and the coal peak was an obvious error in choice of topics, where oil seems to have some value. i might add very long, post, with primarily the same information, from like minded sources, to me takes on this "i am the" attitude, pounding the table and with no direct rebuttal to an argument.

 

in your post above; i have addressed why surplus productions of products which are oil based is neither practical or cost/efficient to the producer. any oil based product, starts to breakdown from the day produced. likewise efficiency is reduced as time goes by. additionally, pertaining to gasoline or petrol, the limits of the products are based on refinery capacity, not the available crude to produce the products. this gets into shipping, transferring and even distribution problems. an example would be area shortages, where every one simply tries to top off their little gas tanks, in a short period. then add the stations with there larger tanks, the farmers with tanks and problems will occur.

 

having said all this, i do oppose a valid topic issue, being tanked for what would seem to be personal reasons. i also understand why, GW or capitalism are not directly address by some as there are no certainties such as an eventual possibility that something may or may not be.

[CPL.Luke]

Jackson personally I feel that the free market/ minor government intervention (once the peak becomes readily apparent) will mitigate any major recession, in the graph I posted with inflation adjusted oil prices there were a number of highlighted areas where the economy had gone into recession.

 

an apparent pattern is that the recessions started when the oil price rose dramatically, and then after a year or so end as the economy adapts. I would never underestimate the free market, however some prudence is always warrented when it comes to a fundamental sector of the economy.

 

Pangloss, and Jackson: if you look back in the thread, I have never once said when peak oil will occur, just that it will. My oppinion on how when it will occur from the charts presented would lend me to think that it will occur sometime between 2015 and 2030 although I am slowly beginning to think it will be sooner.

 

I would very much disagree with you pangloss on your interpretation of events here. My last post did not just label my oppinion as being mathematically correct, I layed out the argument on how peak theories for any resource are developed, and that the only way to disagree with the conclusions of said theories are to show that the assumptions don't match the problem at hand, if I were to go to any one of my professors and try to prove or disprove a solution to a problem without using one of these arguments I would get laughed at.

 

One example where peak theories haven't worked very well would be fisheries. Due to te fact that fish can have good years and produce a large number of new fish, it is hard to say whether or not you are harvesting more than are produced. Similarly when some fish species are theatened in a given area they tend o migrate to others, andthen return the next year.

There are a million reasons why you can' apply peak predictions to some types of fish.

 

However for a resource like copper, we can be relatively certain that there is no way for copper to be reproduced, and we can also calculate how much copper there is on the entire planet, and about where it should be in the mantle from newtonian mechanics. We can then deduce how fast this resource will peak and be depleted from available information. this would be an area where peak theories are very important and very relevant.

 

When you look at peak oil you have to decide whether or not the peak theory can be applied, and the only way for it not to be applicable is for there to be a stream of oil coming in to replenish all of our old supplies, as no evidence for this has been presented ever in the hundred year history of oil harvesting, it is safe to say no such mechanism exists (you could debate me on this as it is a matter of oppinion on whether the lack of evidence for this rules out its existence). In the absence of such a mechanism which provides more oil than we consume peak oil is an incontrevertable fact.

 

Like Jackson has said we may not know the exact date of oil peak, and the unknowns may be very large and thus make it almost impossible to give a date with any sort of certainty for peak oil. I anyone here made that argument my oppinion would differ from theres, and again at the end of the day I would just say that we don't agree.

 

but to say that the whole of peak oil is wrong without providing any sort of argument to show that peak theory doesn't apply to it (or that the theory itself is incorrect), is plane and simply wrong. If you said that to any mathematician he would laugh at you.

[Pangloss]

My last post did not just label my oppinion as being mathematically correct

 

Really? Hmm. Let's see....

 

Peak oil is a mathematical fact

 

As for the rest, logical responses have been provided, you just don't like them. I'm sorry you feel that way.

[Pangloss]

You are entitled to your opinion on the American peak not actually being a real geological event

 

Much better, thank you.

 

You're right, I don't have any evidence that my alternative is the correct one, and I agree that any definitive answer carries a burden of proof. I have posted evidence that suggests my alternative is correct, but I agree that it is not conclusive. I also feel your position is not conclusive, but I respect your opinion on it.

 

Just to try and end on a more positive note, I would appreciate you sharing any information you come across that would indicate that production costs were less than import costs when domestic oil production "peaked". I think you're a very resourceful person, and I imagine if that information is out there you'll stumble across it eventually, and when you do I'm sure you'll leap at the chance to show it to ol' Pangloss.

[Pangloss]

Such as?

[foodchain]

The earth does not have infinite matter to it, it does not have infinite oil either. I think I can do this with apples and oranges, at some point, even the rate of apples and oranges could be destroyed simply from over usage, or not enough apples and oranges. Plus going from conservation laws, where is all the carbon going to end up, how about h20, unless a black hole is spewing such out in the center of our planet, I simply don’t understand how someone cant see that oil is finite really, past synthesized stuff, in which you run into how much matter is the earth and the environment and such.

[Pangloss]

Ummm' date=' why are you ending this thread?

 

There's still a lot to discuss.[/quote']

 

Never mind, I think I understand what you're asking. I'm closing this thread because it consists primarily of meta-discussion (i.e. you and I arguing about discussion methods). That's what we do with such threads.

 

As I said, you can start a new one to focus on peak oil, so long as you leave me out of it. I intend to bow out of the discussion, leaving you with an unobstructed platform. So long as you abide by the rules, you won't have to worry about my inconvenient... opinions. I expect you'll find that quite useful.

[1veedo]

I think I might've just partially answered this question above while responding to Cpl.Luke. I've always agreed that production capacity "peaks", but there's a difference between production peaking because of economic efficiency and production peaking because the well's run dry.

This actually goes together. Physically after the peak, it becomes harder and harder to pump oil and thus more expensive. Eventually there comes a point where it's no longer economical to extract any more oil from the well. So you're right in saying that it is a matter of economic efficiency, but what dictates the return on investment in a well is basic geology.

I don't think a single oil well has ever run dry in the entire history of the oil business -- it's *always* a matter of economic efficiency. I feel that "peakniks" essentially steal a scientific observation to add legitimacy to their wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee interpretation of that observation.

No, wells never (or rarely, I wouldn't think) run completely dry. They leave the expensive oil there if it's not profitable.

 

Wow. You've literally just declared that other people don't have a right to their opinion.

There is a difference between an opinion and a fact, as CPL.Luke pointed out. What we have here is a fact, not an opinion. An opinion is something like, "I like scienceforums.net." A fact is something like, "In 1971 the US produced more oil then it did in any other year."

 

Btw peak doesn't happen for absolutely everything. It does happen for most things, and I can't give you specifics (although at one time I thought coal was one, and may still be), but there's a little section about it in Beyond Oil: A View From Hubert's Peak.

 

Also, the US isn't the only country that has ever peaked. So while you're bickering about the US peak, this is really unimportant if you consider everyone else that has peaked. But if you want to talk about the peak itself, after the 1970s when all this stuff calmed down, the US never reached the same production capacity ever again, as evident by the fact that US production is still decreasing. The peak year is the year that a country/well/whatever has the highest production rate, and for the US, this happens to be 1971, even if maybe there were some other factors besides just physical factors that led to this (and as I've posted before, the historical peak year is always before the mathematical peak year).

[Pangloss]

This actually goes together. Physically after the peak, it becomes harder and harder to pump oil and thus more expensive. Eventually there comes a point where it's no longer economical to extract any more oil from the well. So you're right in saying that it is a matter of economic efficiency, but what dictates the return on investment in a well is basic geology.

 

No, wells never (or rarely, I wouldn't think) run completely dry. They leave the expensive oil there if it's not profitable.

 

Agreed.

 

 

There is a difference between an opinion and a fact, as CPL.Luke pointed out. What we have here is a fact, not an opinion. An opinion is something like, "I like scienceforums.net." A fact is something like, "In 1971 the US produced more oil then it did in any other year."

 

I don't dispute the fact that oil becomes more expensive to pump after a certain point. I disagree with the interpretation of what that plateau actually means.

 

 

It's simply not fair to drag everyone through ALL these points a 4th or 5th time in yet another thread. You have already closed other peak oil threads on this forum before. The discussion will not get anywhere if you keep closing them down' date=' we'll keep going over the basics. And then I'll probably get into trouble for repeating myself again.

[/quote']

 

I think you've misunderstood what I'm planning to do. I have no intention of shutting you down or of going through all this all over again. What I'm doing is bowing out and giving you the floor all to yourself. This thread (like all the previous ones) will remain here and it can be read and referenced in the future. And a fresh start will give you a chance to recapture all the people who dropped away on page 128 because they were tired of watching us argue (a common problem in long threads even when people aren't arguing).

 

You should be happy about that. I'm not sure why you're not, but I assure you there's no hidden agenda here. I'm simply giving the reboot a reboot.

 

 

So Pangloss has a point... and was asking how we know it was not sheer economics or politics that has meant America did not voluntarily scale back production. I think we have more than adequately addressed Pangloss's concerns, but he still entitled to his opinion.

 

I appreciate that. As I mentioned before I will continue to follow your peak oil threads and keep an open mind about the subject.

[CPL.Luke]

POM I do agree with pangloss that another thread should be created to discuss certain specifics, if a thread gets over 5 pages it loses readers, and eventually will be flooded with new people who read up to page 2 or 3, and then posted something that has already been adressed. Or they go and read the lat few pages and do the same thing.

 

think of this thread more as one on the existence of a peak, and this discussion has settled the matter of whether it exists or not as much as is likely to happen.

 

Starting a new thread on say the reporting methods or something like that will lead to new discussion and keep each one individually focused/

[Pangloss]

Cpl.Luke sees my point there, and I discussed it with the other mods and admins and there's a consensus there that we should reboot as well.

 

Why would it mean a lot of repetition? I think you have a distorted view of what a thread is and how people use it. What you need is a blog and a wiki, not a discussion thread. (And maybe a time slot on Air America.) But whatever, I'm tired of fighting about it. Do whatever you want.

[YT2095]

POM, I have a few questions for you, nothing fancy and all pretty straight forwards.

 

1) What is your Purpose to all these posts? is it to Convince us all about PO?

2) suppose we all agreed with you, Then what would you want here?

 

 

I`de appreciate a Direct answer to me in here, as concisely as you can make it.

 

thnx

[Phi for All]

Energy Watch Group of Germany have published their report into peak coal by 2025!

 

http://www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coal_English.pdf

And if you have any questions about the "independent" Energy Watch Group or their report, the report asks you to contact Dr. Werner Zittel at Ludwig Bölkow Systemtechnik, a consulting firm pioneering alternative energy solutions. LBST's website offers no solutions that involve coal.