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Has World Oil Production Passed Its Peak?
dido writes "Princeton University geology Professor Kenneth Deffeyes has been studying world petroleum production data and has come to the conclusion that the world hit peak oil last December 16, 2005. If he is correct, total world oil production will never surpass what was produced last December. From the article: 'Compared to 2004, world oil production was up 0.8 percent in 2005, nowhere near enough to compensate for a demand rise of roughly 3 percent. The high prices did not bring much additional oil out of the ground. Most oil-producing countries are in decline."
I remember in college a geologist was invited to demonstrate a "resource simulator" for our class. By today's standards it would be considered extremely crude (this was after all, in 1978), (wow, weird unintentional pun).
The simulation was basically a giant video game with a simple graphical display of the world's known and projected resources including but not limited to:
About 20 students in the class were given controllers, each to (again, crudely) simulate usage and comsumption patterns of all of these resources. Also, some students had controllers allowing them to spend resources to explore for MORE resources.
At the time, and years subsequent that demo stayed with me -- it left an indelible image of what could and probably would be.
The results? Basically, no matter what the students did to conserve, and what they did to increase the resources, the "world" pretty much always ran out of fuel and resources by the year 2020. At the time that seemed pretty far away and I don't think many people felt the need to care. Maybe that time has come.
Another interesting piece of the simulation: there were those students who pointed out these "estimates" of known and expected future discoveries of resources were just that, "estimates". The geologist obliged, and let the students rerun the simulations with a magnitude of latitude, i.e., ten times the estimated resources were allocated! The results then?, about an additional 10 to 20 years of resources before they ran out.
Note: the results (we ran many different trials) weren't ALWAYS about running out of oil and petroleum. On a few occasions there were severe food and water crises. A very interesting lesson.
Here's the site devoted to peakoil: http://www.peakoil.net/
D E9-42BC-920B-91E5850FB067.htm
A huge chunk of Saudi exports come from one gigantic field. This means our eggs are in this one basket. Here's an article that discusses that field, and the chance that the Saudis might have screwed it by over-extracting. If you do that, you limit how much you can get out later; you might lose the reserves. [I'm guessing you might damage it, but that some future technology might make it recoverable -- just at a higher cost]
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C89E7E-1
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
The rising prices make ethanol based petrol a much more viable alternative.
Perhaps new cars will implement the required modifications to prevent corrosion throughout the engines from higher percentages of ethanol in petrol.
Actually I don't think so. Artificially causing spikes in oil price just causes more people to seek other energy sources, causing demand for oil to decrease. Then again, our infrastructure is almost hopelessly dependent on oil, so I suppose there would be a demand either way. Anyway, I don't think this kind of production decrease is really that calculated. Occam's razor; we know we're running frighteningly low on oil (virtually guaranteed depletion in our lifetimes). This naturally causes more difficult/expensive, and thus, lower production. Or, on the other hand, do you really think it's a grand OPEC conspiracy to get the whole world to pay more for oil, that just happens to correspond with overwhelming geologic evidence that we simply don't have an unlimited supply of oil?
Take off every sig. For great justice.
The author also seems to support simple extrapolation by stating that "By 2025, we're going to be back in the Stone Age"
That's certainly overstating it a bit, but on the other hand, most people seem to be of the mindset that 'oh this peak oil thing was just something someone made up. Don't believe the hype!' They think it's like Y2K. Scary...until it really happens and it turns out it wasn't so bad after all....
I really, really, really, wish that was the case. But I'm afraid it just isn't. A lot of people are living in fantasy land right now and assuming that any spike in oil prices is going to be like the 1970s. But after a point, it won't just come back down. Extrapolation works rather well in this case because there's no real reason to believe that the world's oil consumption is going to dramatically decrease, and considering that oil-producing countries are basically operating on the same fields they always have been (because there just aren't very many new ones). Oil price fluctuates because of the rest of the supply chain, not because there are new wells being drilled and others shut down all the time. Relatively speaking, it's a fairly predictable economy.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
I have a minor in Geology and recently took a class on Geology and World Affairs, the Professor has his Ph.D in Petroleum Geology and worked in the field for around 30 years with a focus on the North Sea and Texas Oil. That professor also professed the Peak Oil theory, however a problem with him, and other Petroleum Geologists with a focus on "rock oil" is an over specialzation on "rock oil". When I asked during our discussions on Peak Oil about Tar Sands or Oil Shales, I was told that "...if it don't come up through a pipe most Petroleum Geologists don't know a damned thing about it." And that in particular, this Professor with his 30 years experiance didn't know a damned thing about it because that isn't what his firms worked on.
Now then, I don't know what Professor Kenneth S. Deffeyes background is, but I can see he is writing books on the subject as so has a vested and economic interest in this theory. Furthermore he seems to discount Ethanol, fuel cells, Methane hydrates, oil shale, and Nuclear power, as "shimmering dreams" so I think one needs to take what he is saying with a grain of salt since, as stated before, his vested interest to make money at this point is "peak oil".
The truth behind "rock oil" right now is that there is alot being used, and there is alot out there and there are still a good number of basins which have not been explored, including the Arctic Ocean and there is alot of oil we can recoved in "played out" areas with new techniques and with new technologies.
Each barrel of extracted oil from the tar sands requires the release of more than 80kg of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and about 5 barrels of waste water - not to mention the environmental nightmare caused by strip-mining. There is no easy answer to our oil addiction. It's certainly not to be found in Canada's north. It will stave off the inevitable for a few short years, at tremendous economic and environmental cost, but our world will change forever.
The good news is that we will be "forced" to rediscover local agriculture and commerce. No more "made in China" stickers on our locally made goods, and craftspeople will regain the stature they once had. Just remember that suburban "starter mansions" will be the slums of the future -- to expensive to heat, too far from shops, farmland and gathering places to be worth inhabiting. My advice? Learn blacksmithing in your spare time.
In 1956, geophysicist Marion King Hubbert predicted that _U.S._ oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. In fact, U.S. oil production peaked in 1971, so he was pretty close. U.S. production has been going down ever since. This current article is about _World_ production. Hubbert predicted that would peak around 2000.
I read a great article in the New York Times the other day (go figure... its available for free at my law school) about E85. Anyway I was shocked to read that to make a car compatible with E85 it only costs an extra $150. I'm hardly a rich man and I try to save my money, but $150 per car doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, espically considering the way our modern day governments spend and tax the hell out of everything. I was skeptical, about that $150 figure, but here that price is quoute in another article http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A ID=/20060122/BUSINESS/601220310/1003 And Since its so cheap why doesn't our government mandate all (or 50% of) new cars made and imported be E85 comptabile and let the consumer/market choose their fuel? Even if the federal government won't do this, you think some of the midwestern states would. Since the #1 problem with consumer adoption of E85 is its availability, wouldn't these state economies based on farming want to hurry up its availability so they could increase demand for their own product?
If I were an Iowa Legislator I'd want to make every car sold in the state E85 compatible and mandate every gas station sell E85. If the state can succesfuly force E85 onto the market it'd only be a matter of time until gas stations in the surronding states started selling E85 by choice to get those consumers and it spreads. Kind of like how McDonald's spread across America.
Other Problems with E85:
#2 promblem: You get less energy per gallon about 10 to 15% less. But E85 is aparently cheaper than gasoline. So at some point, I don't know where, and I can't find any information on this, there is a "Cost Per Mile" equilabrium between the two. Sure you have to fill up your gas tank more often if you use E85 because you get less milage, but maybe each mile is cheaper. This is a little harder than calculating "MPG" but I'm betting a savy company can add this metric to an onboard dash. If the Prius can calculate MPG, why not be able to enter how much it cost you to fill up the tank and then you get a cost per mile read out, so you can see which is cheaper for you.
Oil from the ground is so 20th century I could care less about stories about it. Europe has begun licensing TDP tech and we have a full-scale refinery running near Kansas City. If we ever get serious about putting domestic oil production the whole idea of oil from the ground will be beyond quaint.
t ion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymeriza
It works, it provides clean water and high grade deisel oil, cleans the air by providing higher octane product, less emissions from refinery gasses, can empty landfills of plastic, can clean the water supply from biomass waste. Don't as me why the hell the DOE hasn't gotten behind it. A tenth of the cost of the Manhatten project could make us the largest oil producers on the planet*.
Also check the Wiki references to plastic conversions. Say good-bye to plastic waste and ocean pollution as well. Grey water dumping would also be convertable on the cruise ship level. Plus domestic production nullifies the middle east cartels, and puts tanker accidents off our coasts to an end. The middle east argument alone is a national security problem and it's criminal that this tech hasn't gone into a crash program status.
And this blows all previous gas alternatives out of the water, doesn't require massive leaps in corn production and doesn't require an change in transportation systems or distribution.
I'm confident that we will engage in this tech at some point - but it'd be nice to hear more about it. Try googling it sometime - you'll find almost nothing in the pop-press. I've even had dialogue with MSNBC about it - and they claim they're aware of it - but never say dick. Neither did Wired and they were talking new-oil on the fricking cover of their rag less than a month ago. FEH!
* The KC Star reported that from bio-waste alone via agribusiness we could convert all organic waste-fodder into 20 billion barrels of oil. We consume 12 billion barrels at present. We could ergo go from being the largest consumers to the largest producers.
...and may I just mention that you can thank the so-called European Left that there is a thriving industry developing energy conserving technologies for power plants, heating plants and transportation. I'm telling you, forget about the IT business, microelectronics, pharmaceutical companies. They won't save the world. Energy conservation is The Next Big Thing.
Oh, and by the way, we Europeans aren't all French. Actually, most of us can't stand them at all.
Part of the issue is when he refers to the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia. It produces roughly 6% of the world's oil production (5 million barrels/day). The Burgan Field in Kuwait recently had to scale back its production because it couldn't sustain a pump rate over 1.7 million barrels per day (That's about 2% of the world production). When the two biggest producing oils fields in the World have their production rate capped: you either have to look else where for additional oil or you have to start using less. In the mean time you end up with more people who want oil then can be supplied. Then who ever can pay for it will get it.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
Production will start a long, slow decline, and prices will start a long, steady rise.
I thought the whole point of the peak oil theory was that prices won't rise slowly and steadily, but exponentially, due to various psychological and economical effects resulting from the fact that "the end is in sight," as it were.
Actually, running out of oil in the middle east could benefit the US and Canada. You have to remember that the US and Canada are setting on some of the largest oil reserves in the world in the form of oil shale and oil sands. Shell recently announced that they had a method of extracting (at a net energy gain) oil from oil shale in Colorado. As prices go up it becomes more feasible to extract oil from harder to use sources. An oil "emergency" would prompt the government to assist in lowering the costs of production. The Shell oil shale extraction system, for example, would be a perfect fit for the use of the portable nuclear reactors (a technology already being developed for other uses anyway).
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
Ah, the beauty of one-dimensional thinking!
What about drilling for more oil to serve our (and emerging countries') current energy needs, while we build more nuke plants, ramp up alternative fuels, innovate with solar (a HUGE energy source), add more windfarms, research large-scale geothermal, and continue work on a hydrogen economy. Eventually we'll also get hydrogen fusion working as an energy source, which will effectively forever end energy as a bottleneck of human expansion and industrialization.
The Oort cloud is the limit! (For now at least...)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
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