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peak oil is indeed real...and we need to learn a lot more about it to understand its ramifications. Check out The Oil Drum: http://theoildrum.com/ if you're curious.

Please DO NOT build your wind farm in the United States of America.

Let them eat OIL.

Cordially,
Kilgore Trout, ACTIVIST

P.S.: For more information about your addiction to oil, please read The Oil Drum

Sounds pretty complex to me. That huge an area of photovoltaic cells is hugely expensive. Plus, electricity isn't getting any cheaper, so it may be more valuable to just sell that power to the grid. If it's PV, there's no reason to centralize it in a solar farm either. You're better off distributing it out to rooftops closer to the consumers, even after the expense of inverters and smart meters.

It does make sense to centralize solar if you're doing concentrating thermal power. You can even store the heat from solar thermal to generate after dark.
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3882

IP and any kind of knowledge are non-rival goods -- I can give them to you and still keep mine.

This and many other important considerations of a steady-state economy are explained here, by Herman Daly:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941

I would direct interested people to the following article at the oil drum. It discusses why Brazil's ethanol program is energetically feasible while the US program is impossible. Basically, they demonstrate that as soon as the energy gain is less than around 5:1, the economy spends all it's money on maintaining current energy needs instead of expanding. A ratio of less than 5:1 results in gradual degradation and stagnation of the economy.

The Oil Drum

It's an *extremely* interesting read. It also explains why, regardless of how much oil might exist, as soon as it costs 1/5th as much energy to explore and drill for it, it is energetically no longer worth doing. It makes "peak oil" a lot scarier, as oil is currently only at around 13:1 at best.

Actually concentrating solar thermal power can work 24 hours (energy storage is practical and cost effective on a large scale, especially when stored as heat) and is being implemented right now in a lot of projects.

It is projected to be cost-competitive with coal in the not-too-distant future and is cheaper than nuclear power if you take decommissioning costs into account (which most nuclear advocates don't).

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3791

Do you have a reference for this 10% figure? I usually rely on theoildrum.com for accurate stats, for instance, they claim "transportation" is about 67% of oil consumption. And light vehicles are about 2/3s of that. So our automobile use is about 45%.

I don't see "plastics" broken out there, but I'm pretty sure that is a minor component, maybe 5% at most.

Here's a link to the Oil Drum article: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3814 Scroll down to the charts under "US oil consumption by sector". The stats are actually from EIA, which has a bad reputation for estimating oil reserves, but I suspect they do a good job of breaking down consumption.

I suggest that anyone who is interested in oil reserves, production, and refinary information go to The Oil Drum.
http://www.theoildrum.com/

Half-wit nerds who THINK they know something are welcome to LURK, anybody else who thinks they know something are welcome to LURK, and those who ACTUALLY know something are welcome to think about posting.

The population has exploded in the past century for one and only one reason - PEAK OIL. For every calorie of food that we consume it takes about 10 calories of energy to make. It is not sustainable to expend more calories than you consume. Through the use of oil, we have been able to have machines do the manual labor of farming. Through the use of natural gas, we have created fertilizers to grow crops. Take away the fossil fuels and our farming capacity dramatically drops.

Industrializing 3rd world nations will only hasten the global die-off. Look at the HUGE impact on commodities that China & India have place since they industrialized. If China was to consume like we do in the US, it would take 7 planet earths. A real good DVD to watch is A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash.

I strongly urged all /.'ers to read The Oil Drum blog, especially the daily DrumBeat's.

What few people realize, is that the earth can support more people than what is commonly called the "carrying capacity" - temporarily.

You state that as fact, but as far as I know the concept of "carrying capacity" is not defined or even studied. Whilst it makes intuitive sense that there must be some limit, it also makes sense that this limit would itself be fluid - changing with the march of technology and changes in living standards. I've never seen anybody calculate a carrying capacity for 21st century Earth, especially not scientifically. People who use the term invariably assume it must be lower than our current population - how much lower is usually pulled out of thin air.

It becomes clear that the world just can't go on like that forever. It probably can't even go on like that for more than a couple of years. The green revolution has been made possible by oil and gas and both are getting much more expensive each and every year now.

Your list of societies is disingenous - you list a primitive, fully collapsed society like Easter Island right alongside Great Britain, which last time I lived there imported half its food because you can't grow strawberries there year round, not because it was about to collapse. Britain could feed itself tomorrow simply by converting some of its farming capacity from meat production to cereal production.

Also, the green revolution was triggered mostly by the development of nitrogen fertilisers, weed killers and crop varieties that could handle being treated with them. Although we use hydrogen from natural gas to make nitrogen fertilisers today, you can produce it using electrolysis without problem. And whilst it's true that today farm machinery is mostly gasoline powered, that's something independent of the green revolution. If you haven't already read it, I suggest checking out Stanifords Food to 2050 for a data-based analysis of whether the green revolution can be sustained.

And no, it's not a "global problem" like the one-worlders want us to believe. Some countries will be able to manage well (like Iceland which with almost zero immigration and geothermal energy plants is well prepared)

Only a small proportion of Icelands power comes from geothermal. Most of it is hydro. Iceland has much bigger problems than electricity anyway - there's basically nothing there, and whilst it has energy in abundance the economy is mostly based on industrial fishing. Once the fish stocks are exhausted, there'll be little left to sustain it.

I would be very surprised if there will be more than 3 billion people living in 2050.

Ah ha, I knew it. As soon as I read the term "carrying capacity" I was waiting for the ass-pulled number. Why 3 billion? Why not 2, or 4? Or 100 million? I don't see any particular constraints on slow population growth - it's been boringly linear for most of the 20th century in most developed countries, and in large parts of Europe is going to head sharply downwards soon due to natural demographic trends anyway. Whilst places like Africa or Chian might get miserable, Africa is already miserable and there's no obvious reason why in the long term China would see different population trends from other developed countries.

I recently read a calculation that with the expected number of cars in 2050, the 13.4 MT reserve base of lithium will be pretty much depleted. So, I don't think that we will let all that much escape into the environment. That is for 4 billion cars each with a 55 mile all electric range. But, at that kind of scale, many other environmental impacts of driving may be a concern. In my opinion, we will likely have about 3 times as much lithium serving as stationary storage as that in vehicles just because when a battery is no longer transportation grade, it is still a pretty good battery so it won't be recycled until it is kaput. Based on this idea, I estimate that the US will be able to store about 0.5 days of its average electric power consumption with used batteries from cars if transportation is converted to mainly electic power. So, renewable energy gets some extra benefits from conversion of transportation to electriciy, namely the ability to get greater penetration without having to provide its own storage.

I would be interested to know if the storage tanks and engines from these vehicles might be used in a similar way once they are no longer transportation grade. Presumably the engines last a long time since they see much less heat stress than ICEs. The tanks might be used at lower pressure safely when they are older, though not on the road. If one used the heat from compressing air to heat water for home use, one might beat battery charging efficiency (about 86%) in overall system efficiency. And, use of the engine provides cooling, perhaps for refridgeration. The stored energy might even be greater if tanks and engines last longer than degraded batteries. About 2 days of storage is all we really need for a 100% renewable grid that includes both wind and solar. This is another interesting potential freebee for renewable energy. With the cost estimates for building new nuclear power plants coming in around $5 to $6 billion, the lower cost renewable alternatives look much better if they can overcome the intermittancy issues. A synergy between conversion of transportation from fossil fuels and a more general conversion through the storage made available from the transporation sector seems quite intriguing.

Since when did the leader of a country threatening to wipe an ally of the United States off the map not constitute a real threat?

I do not speak Arabic, so I don't know. Do you speak Arabic? And, when did the ability to tell the veracity of a politician by seeing if their lips are moving change?

Via
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3211#comment-260805

This link exists:

http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2004/articles/0503arabs.html

Which says:

"Arabs are forced to overassert and exaggerate in almost all types of communications, as otherwise they stand a good chance of being gravely misunderstood. If an Arab says exactly what he means without the expected exaggeration, other Arabs may think that he means the opposite. This fact leads to misunderstandings on the part of nonArabs who do not realize that the Arab is merely following a linguistic tradition."

If Blackwater is correct - Was there a threat, or just overrated lingal/political hype?

Otherwise this would be a non-issue. $10/gallon of gas would help. For more on this and judgment based on discount rates, see the excellent paper at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2592#more.

So the price is too low. How we adjust the gas tax to cover carbon output and military spending?

Nice idea, I'd also check out concentrating solar power though. To me this seems to be a simple, conventional engineering task. Future information here: CSP on The Oil Drum

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3060

The prophets of 1970 said: -We would be out of oil by now

No, what was actually said was that in the year 2000 oil production would peak and then start to decline. That's not the same as "oil running out" - indeed, oil will probably never run out. Production rates will get so low however that we might as well have run out. This prediction was made by a petroleum geologist working for Shell, and was based on extrapolation of trends and observed decline rates in existing fields.

Well, oil production didn't peak in 2000. I guess that means it'll never peak! Oh, wait. Shortly after his prediction, the world went through the oil shocks of the late 70s and 80s, which if you plot the production graph pushed the peak date forward by about 7 years. That means if you adjust Hubberts prediction for the oil shocks, production should be levelling off about now. Is it? Well, yes.

No doubt you post anonymously because you know you are providing false information. Such stuff has been refuted numerous times including yesterday: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3006#comment-242422. Hansen tends to get things right sooner than most. Perhaps you are so petty that this annoys you.

Algae biodiesel might happen some day. It's no silver bullet though, see e.g some points raised by an expert in the field.

Another blog site, similar to Slashdot exists for those interested in the world energy infrastructure much like Slashdot exists for those interested in our computational infrastructure.

Here's the link: The Oil Drum.

Its run by several extremely qualified TECHNICAL engineers, and they spare no quarter in detailed numerical and graphical analyses of the global energy situation.

It is not a "gloom and doom" site, however they will link you to a few if that's what you wish to see.

more here, someone who figured it out for one particular personal case and is realistic enough to qualify his analysis as "sketchy", but I think it's insightful:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/10/1/181114/6 67

Actually, there probably isn't so much coal to burn.
See http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2396

The same is true of virtually all other sources of biomass fuels.

Basically companies like ADM have, after clearing the people off their farm lands, decided that it is unnecessary to feed people so long as they can get government subsidies.

As far as I can see, the only potential biomass replacement for fossil fuels is oil from algae -- but even that has severe problems, as is pointed out by the head of the algae pond experiments for NREL.

Some sort of combined use system is necessary in order to pay for the infrastructure costs, but if the engineering challenges can be overcome the payoff can be enormous: a reduction of ecological footprint of a factor of 1000 for developed (and soon to be developed) nations.

There's that, but the other reason nobody builds more refineries is that people in the business know that by the time a new refinery gets built, there probably won't be enough oil production in the world to keep said refinery busy. The bloggers at TheOilDrum just released a study on Depletion Levels in Ghawar. In addition, refineries have to be customized for a certain feedstock, light vs. heavy, sweet vs. sour. There's a risk of betting on the wrong supplier, and you're betting on supply for decades in the future.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2423#comment-176191

People like Kunstler and his epigones (who are legion around here) basically hold humanity in contempt, and look upon some future of scarcity, suffering, starvation, with essentially unconcealed glee while pretending to bemoan humanity's insufficient awareness of the problems soon to beset it (excepting themselves, the superior people, of course), its paltry efforts at preparation, etc.

I call it Apocalyptic Personality Disorder (APD).

All of the "alternatives" that might actually mitigate some of the effects of peak oil, coal, nuclear, etc., tend to be either dismissed or downplayed, while those that make their proponents feel morally superior (conservation (even conservation through the forced demand destruction of mass privation), wind/solar, etc.) are presented as the only ones having any reality (for various complicated reasons that are basically rationalizations added after the fact to justify conclusions arrived at emotionally).

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2423#comment-176292

[...]

I mean, it's all very obvious: even if you do succeed, for example, in lowering per capita consumption, if you don't stop the population from growing, any realized savings will eventually be overwhelmed and absolute consumption will rise. The Oil Drum has had some good posts on that topic.

The Birkenstock types living in huts made of recycled tires ("sustainable!" "off-grid!") are not seriously trying to address actual social problems in the world, rather, they want to a) feel better about themselves; b) be accepted and valued within their chosen peer group. (While they may pretend to be "setting an example" or "exploring alternative, sustainable ways of living" the example they usually succeed in setting tends to be frightful enough to deny them meaningful converts, which, as I've been saying, is rarely the point, merely the rationalization. Of course, as we've also discussed at length on this site, if they really were successful in their efforts to proselytize for conservation on any meaningful scale, which is to say, if they did reduce demand for energy measurably, they would just lower the price of energy, making it easier for those outside the flock to continue their profligate ways.)

Anyway, I think you are being kinder to these people than they deserve. To me, they claim to want to "kill off a consumer society" not because they are trying to save the members of that society from vapid, banal pursuits (guiding them to a sort of Buddhist awareness beyond mere material want gratification), but because they view those people as inferior to themselves, Those Who Are Above The Wants of This World, and want them to suffer (or at least want their own superior status recognized.

You are certainly right in identifying this approach as centered on the United States, or at least the "West" (it is rare indeed to find denunciations of those in the Third World who actually are living in the supposedly spiritually fulfilling conditions of scarcity and impoverishment for attempting to improve their material condition). That's reserved for us, because the status game is in the West; nobody ever won any points by showing that he could underlive a Kalahari bushman.

Solar can't provide enough power right now. So if we don't take on fission, we're going to end up burning coal. I think it's obvious which is worse in that equation.


And I totally agree with this.

But the research money should be on breeder reactors and renewables. If we try and do conventional reactors to replace coal fired power stations, by the time we have replaced all the power stations (which will take 20 years if we bring several nuclear stations online each week for a couple of decades), we will have done it just in time to start running out of U235.

If you want to replace worldwide coal with Uranium (which I support totally as an interim measure, even if that interim is longer than our lifetimes) then it does not appear to be rational to me to do this with conventional reactors.

With regard to cost (and cost is secondary to actually having enough material to generate power for the whole world), I'm not so sure that breeders will be as cheap as the price of conventional fission reactors.

But it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. We need cheap power, and lots of it. Coal is a really bad way to get it, and coal is a non renewable resource anyway. It will damage the environment, and emit more carbon dioxide per unit energy released than hydrocarbons fuels. It is hard to see how it is the way forward, when we will ultimately run out of coal anyway, and possibly somewhat sooner than people think. In fact, just as the USA peaked for oil production around 1970, it peaked for coal energy production in 1998.

By this I mean that whilst the USA produces more coal by volume now than in 1998, but because of the decline in grade of coal, the energy produced is falling yearly. And the USA has some of the worlds biggest reserves of coal, so running out of easy coal in the USA actually has similar significance to Saudi Arabia's big oil field (ghawar) moving into depletion phase, which it probably did about a year ago. Both represent enormous reserves, so both the USA and Saudi Arabia will be producing for decades, but it represents a good time to think about where we are going and where we want to be in a few decades.

Hope this clarifies my position.

Michael

Interesting post:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2423#comment-176292

I do believe much of the status is self-conceived more than socially conferred (ie, these people are driven by the need to feel better than others, to exult in the moral superiority obtained by having acted righteously or refrained from sin, etc.), though they tend to find each other and build echo chambers to validate these inner assessments (how much of the internet can be described this way...?)

Though "paid liar" may be the most charitable thing I could call you.

If we'd listened to that butterfly collector back in the early 70s, we'd have put lamp black across the north and exacerbated whatever situation we seem to now be finding ourselves.

Except that we never saw any hint of an imminent ice age. Advancing glaciers, later spring thaws... none of these things showed themselves.

We see all the signs of global warming, from temperature anomalies to the northward shift of plant hardiness zones. It's the difference between a theory having no basis, and a theory being irrefutably correct in the basics. This debate is exactly analogous to the scientific issues vs. political controversy over evolution: the scientists are talking about selection mechanisms and evidence of gene co-option, and the pols are listening to the cranks demanding that the science classroom discussions include "GODDIDIT".

Your role in this is to be an extra in the mob of cranks.

The current manmade global warming stuff is also a media driven thing - this time with some 'scientists' jumping on board the gravy train.

The cooling and contraction of the stratosphere is not a media-driven thing. It is a greenhouse-gas driven thing, as more and more IR radiation is filtered out of the windows where the gases of the stratosphere can absorb them. You might note that this is itself absolute proof that the surface warming is not driven by the sun; greater solar input would warm the stratosphere, not cool it.

And this rhetoric is typical of you propagandists. It's always "gravy trains" and "alarmist industries", without the slightest attention to the evidence. Evidence is the difference between alarmism and warning of a real threat, and it's the evidence that you cannot debate or even allow yourself to look at.

I guess that makes you an amateur and a true believer who knows even less than the professional you attacked at the beginning of your post. Knowing that which is incorrect is paramount to knowing less than nothing.

While you have been relentlessly attacking me for several posts (without linking to, or even mentioning, a single verifiable fact - for reasons which are no mystery anymore) you have never named the professional I allegedly attacked. Well, you won't find anyone named, or even referred to, in it. To borrow a phrase, it appears that every word you've written is a lie, including "and" and "the".

(aside before I end this: even Robert Zubrin is with me on the merits of hydrogen. He has a strong record in aerospace research; all you have is bald assertion.)

Let's talk about consequences here. If the scientific models are wrong but we act on them anyway, we might lose GDP equivalent to a small recession. Or we might show overall gains; most anti-GW measures are "no regrets" actions which have benefits beyond climate, such as reduced pollution and consequent improved public health. The march of technology makes this outcome highly likely - and it's the GW denialists (such as TXU) who want to build dozens of poorly-scrubbed coal plants which will dump particulates in the air and mercury in the food chain.

If the scientific models are right and we fail to act on them, we will lose GDP equivalent to a major global recession. We will also lose coastal cities around the world, and entire ecosystems along with millions of species. We'll lose all the fertile land in the world's river deltas which winds up under salt water. And the billions of people who lived on that l

I've always been curious why more people don't use gas.

I'm trying to keep this as factual as possible, but it does go off on a tangent. Be kind with the modding.

In the past it had more to do with regional availability and perceived safety issues. In the future, it's going to be because we're competing with power plants for dwindling natural gas supplies. The US is growing its electricity production capacity, mostly with coal plants, because they foresee a tightening of natural gas supplies. Canada is a large supplier, and they've managed to nearly deplete one of their minor reservoirs of natural gas (2% of their gross deliverable gas, it feeds the Northeastern US) in only 10 years http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/23/73422/6 86. Currently the US public is exhibiting NIMBY behavior against LNG terminals, but that's mostly because they don't realize how precarious the natural gas delivery is going to be in the next 5-10 years (very little spare capacity to absorb the constantly growing demand). Unless the Canadian tar sands have lots of natural gas in and around them, we're going to see some costs start to rise at levels that will likely cause economic shock globally (which could cause the demand to subside, but only due to a gradual lowering of living standards).

Hydrogen is not the solution. Alcohol is not the solution. If there is any solution, as the article says, it will probably be moving as much transportation to electric as possible, and getting electricity from solar photovoltaic.

Hydrogen is not the solution. Alcohol is not the solution. If there is any solution, as the article says, it will probably be moving as much transportation to electric as possible, and getting electricity from solar photovoltaic.

Not very long:
http://www.energybulletin.net/22442.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/2/204936/5 16
http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2006/2 0061115.html

Unfortunately the study costs over $1000, so it will be some time before a full debunking is finished. Someone has to go buy the damn thing.

http://www.energybulletin.net/ and in particular: http://www.energybulletin.net/22442.html

http://www.theoildrum.com/ and in particular: http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/14/18285/6 47

Whether we will ever exceed current production levels is an entirely open and empirical question. Even if we do, that doesn't prove that "Peak Oil" is "wrong"... just that we haven't hit it yet. The evidence I read suggests we're approaching the top.

Read this too:

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/2/204936/5 16

http://www.energybulletin.net/22213.html

http://www.energybulletin.net/ and in particular: http://www.energybulletin.net/22442.html

http://www.theoildrum.com/ and in particular: http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/14/18285/6 47

Whether we will ever exceed current production levels is an entirely open and empirical question. Even if we do, that doesn't prove that "Peak Oil" is "wrong"... just that we haven't hit it yet. The evidence I read suggests we're approaching the top.

Read this too:

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/2/204936/5 16

http://www.energybulletin.net/22213.html

http://www.energybulletin.net/ and in particular: http://www.energybulletin.net/22442.html

http://www.theoildrum.com/ and in particular: http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/14/18285/6 47

Whether we will ever exceed current production levels is an entirely open and empirical question. Even if we do, that doesn't prove that "Peak Oil" is "wrong"... just that we haven't hit it yet. The evidence I read suggests we're approaching the top.

Read this too:

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/2/204936/5 16

http://www.energybulletin.net/22213.html

I will believe this when I hear that the oil companies have built enough new refinery capacity to process all this oil for the next 14 years. Let them put their money where their mouth is. If the oil companies actually believed that peak oil were not the case, they would be building capacity so they could sell all that they could pump. Instead, we hear about limited refinery capacity. Believe me, a refinery can make lots of money if there is lots of crude feeding it. I hope they reveal all the facts behind their assertions in a traceable form since available capacity in oil fields is always held pretty close by the companies that own them. It sounds to me like propaganda since the US finally has reacted to the price shocks that precede peak oil and if we give up SUVs etc. it could really rain on the oil company parade. There is a lot of money to be made by the current glut/shortage mentality. Let the glut make people insensitive to the cost of their actions and then collect lots of money with a shortage from the inflexible deamand that results. Also, read another view which challenges some of their assumptions.

The grand irony of this report is that the CERA is complaining that Peak Oil theorists are using closed sources for their data (which they are not), while the CERA's 16 page report is sold at $1000 a copy.

So if you want to fact check them, you have to pony up. Meanwhile, you can get the other side of the story, with full citations of data from the EIA & IEA here at The Oil Drum, free of charge. Other ironies are also there. The report gives an estimate to how much oil remains undiscovered. Needless to say, if it is undiscovered, how would they know how much is down there?

For a more balanced and skeptical look at them (as well as the
fact that a number of years ago they predicted no more than $40 oil for decades),
see these from a good blog on oil (unlike Slashdot):

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/6/214757/68 45
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/13/162534/9 53
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/08/more-tho ughts-on-cera-report.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/21/01620/66 97

The essential problem behind Peak Oil is that the existing
oil fields, which are large and supplied a major amount of oil,
have natural decline rates.

In order to increase production overall you have to find all this new exotic oil (which is very expensive to extract) and make enough not only to make up for the natural decline rate but also add some more.

That is very unrealistic by many people's estimation.

Also, even if it were possible, it also means that the new oil will continue to be very expensive---because if it weren't expensive, then all those technologies for oil extraction from difficult locations (deep sea ocean, arctic, oil sands) wouldn't be worth it. So, even if there is more oil in a molecular sense, it will get ever more expensive and difficult to get. That is the core take-away message of Peak Oil, and it is essentially irrefutable.

Think about it this way. If you go looking for oil, the first things you will find are the really big oil fields that are easy to get at. It is an obvious fact.

Don't confuse the addition of "reserves" in the past---those were very conservatively defined if they were part of western oil companies---as the proven reserves in the able-to-report-it-on-the-balance-sheet is a regulatory issue, not a geophysically oriented good estimation of what's out there.

The geophysics has changed in the last 5-10 years, and the fundamental rate of major new oil discovery in feasible locations has globally declined.

For a more balanced and skeptical look at them (as well as the
fact that a number of years ago they predicted no more than $40 oil for decades),
see these from a good blog on oil (unlike Slashdot):

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/6/214757/68 45
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/13/162534/9 53
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/08/more-tho ughts-on-cera-report.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/21/01620/66 97

The essential problem behind Peak Oil is that the existing
oil fields, which are large and supplied a major amount of oil,
have natural decline rates.

In order to increase production overall you have to find all this new exotic oil (which is very expensive to extract) and make enough not only to make up for the natural decline rate but also add some more.

That is very unrealistic by many people's estimation.

Also, even if it were possible, it also means that the new oil will continue to be very expensive---because if it weren't expensive, then all those technologies for oil extraction from difficult locations (deep sea ocean, arctic, oil sands) wouldn't be worth it. So, even if there is more oil in a molecular sense, it will get ever more expensive and difficult to get. That is the core take-away message of Peak Oil, and it is essentially irrefutable.

Think about it this way. If you go looking for oil, the first things you will find are the really big oil fields that are easy to get at. It is an obvious fact.

Don't confuse the addition of "reserves" in the past---those were very conservatively defined if they were part of western oil companies---as the proven reserves in the able-to-report-it-on-the-balance-sheet is a regulatory issue, not a geophysically oriented good estimation of what's out there.

The geophysics has changed in the last 5-10 years, and the fundamental rate of major new oil discovery in feasible locations has globally declined.

For a more balanced and skeptical look at them (as well as the
fact that a number of years ago they predicted no more than $40 oil for decades),
see these from a good blog on oil (unlike Slashdot):

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/6/214757/68 45
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/13/162534/9 53
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/08/more-tho ughts-on-cera-report.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/21/01620/66 97

The essential problem behind Peak Oil is that the existing
oil fields, which are large and supplied a major amount of oil,
have natural decline rates.

In order to increase production overall you have to find all this new exotic oil (which is very expensive to extract) and make enough not only to make up for the natural decline rate but also add some more.

That is very unrealistic by many people's estimation.

Also, even if it were possible, it also means that the new oil will continue to be very expensive---because if it weren't expensive, then all those technologies for oil extraction from difficult locations (deep sea ocean, arctic, oil sands) wouldn't be worth it. So, even if there is more oil in a molecular sense, it will get ever more expensive and difficult to get. That is the core take-away message of Peak Oil, and it is essentially irrefutable.

Think about it this way. If you go looking for oil, the first things you will find are the really big oil fields that are easy to get at. It is an obvious fact.

Don't confuse the addition of "reserves" in the past---those were very conservatively defined if they were part of western oil companies---as the proven reserves in the able-to-report-it-on-the-balance-sheet is a regulatory issue, not a geophysically oriented good estimation of what's out there.

The geophysics has changed in the last 5-10 years, and the fundamental rate of major new oil discovery in feasible locations has globally declined.

For a more balanced and skeptical look at them (as well as the
fact that a number of years ago they predicted no more than $40 oil for decades),
see these from a good blog on oil (unlike Slashdot):

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/6/214757/68 45
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/13/162534/9 53
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/08/more-tho ughts-on-cera-report.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/21/01620/66 97

The essential problem behind Peak Oil is that the existing
oil fields, which are large and supplied a major amount of oil,
have natural decline rates.

In order to increase production overall you have to find all this new exotic oil (which is very expensive to extract) and make enough not only to make up for the natural decline rate but also add some more.

That is very unrealistic by many people's estimation.

Also, even if it were possible, it also means that the new oil will continue to be very expensive---because if it weren't expensive, then all those technologies for oil extraction from difficult locations (deep sea ocean, arctic, oil sands) wouldn't be worth it. So, even if there is more oil in a molecular sense, it will get ever more expensive and difficult to get. That is the core take-away message of Peak Oil, and it is essentially irrefutable.

Think about it this way. If you go looking for oil, the first things you will find are the really big oil fields that are easy to get at. It is an obvious fact.

Don't confuse the addition of "reserves" in the past---those were very conservatively defined if they were part of western oil companies---as the proven reserves in the able-to-report-it-on-the-balance-sheet is a regulatory issue, not a geophysically oriented good estimation of what's out there.

The geophysics has changed in the last 5-10 years, and the fundamental rate of major new oil discovery in feasible locations has globally declined.

For a more balanced and skeptical look at them (as well as the
fact that a number of years ago they predicted no more than $40 oil for decades),
see these from a good blog on oil (unlike Slashdot):

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/6/214757/68 45
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/13/162534/9 53
http://www.theoildrum.com/classic/2005/08/more-tho ughts-on-cera-report.html
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/21/01620/66 97

The essential problem behind Peak Oil is that the existing
oil fields, which are large and supplied a major amount of oil,
have natural decline rates.

In order to increase production overall you have to find all this new exotic oil (which is very expensive to extract) and make enough not only to make up for the natural decline rate but also add some more.

That is very unrealistic by many people's estimation.

Also, even if it were possible, it also means that the new oil will continue to be very expensive---because if it weren't expensive, then all those technologies for oil extraction from difficult locations (deep sea ocean, arctic, oil sands) wouldn't be worth it. So, even if there is more oil in a molecular sense, it will get ever more expensive and difficult to get. That is the core take-away message of Peak Oil, and it is essentially irrefutable.

Think about it this way. If you go looking for oil, the first things you will find are the really big oil fields that are easy to get at. It is an obvious fact.

Don't confuse the addition of "reserves" in the past---those were very conservatively defined if they were part of western oil companies---as the proven reserves in the able-to-report-it-on-the-balance-sheet is a regulatory issue, not a geophysically oriented good estimation of what's out there.

The geophysics has changed in the last 5-10 years, and the fundamental rate of major new oil discovery in feasible locations has globally declined.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/17/11737/18 12

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/12/114231/2 81
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/17/11737/18 12

No more increasing capacity = peak oil. It's as simple as that. We now have nine and a half months of "rearview mirror" action to look back and see that world oil production has retreated from its all-time high of just over 85 million barrels a day (m/b/d) achieved in December 2005 (just as geologist Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton had predicted). For 2006, production has remained in the 84 m/b/d range every month reported so far, while demand has exceeded that. (Source)

First, many people on slashdot will favor the "but, dude, we have technology!" argument. Many will not understand the difference between a fossil fuels energy source and their laptop.

Yeah, I was surprised by the slashdot geeks' comments as well. Seeing that programming computers is very technical, detailed, and mathematical, I was expecting the /. crowd of nerds to understand and embrace Peak Oil. Instead, it's their unwavering belief in "technological improvements" that will put this "so-called peak oil theory" to the trash bin.

I was absolutely flabbergasted by that thread over at /., you would think that they'd be able to come to grips with this faster than the normal public.

Just an fyi, we're not one-sided, we're not partisan (I would point you to our press release: http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/4/26/121441/8 91 [theoildrum.com]), and we encourage empirical/scientific study of these phenomena. In other words, we're not your daddy's peak oil site. Read the site at least a bit (and know what you're talking about) before you spout off like that, eh?

• increase incentives to explore for more oil
• increase incentives to find alternatives
• increase efficiency standards of energy usage

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/9/8/11274/836 38
we'll never get as much oil out of that as you've heard, my friend.

In other words, we're not your daddy's peak oil site. Read the site at least a bit (and know what you're talking about) before you spout off like that, eh?