Report Blasts "Peak Oil" Theory

Rei writes "Today, the Cambridge Energy Research Associates released a report dismissing the Peak Oil theory, suggesting that world oil production will continue to increase for the next 24 years, and then only level into a plateau. The report, which suggests that world reserves are enough to last 122 years at our current rate of consumption, also blasts Peak Oil theorists for repeatedly making unscientific predictions and then shifting them whenever their predictions fail to materialize."

Comments

Who pays their bills?

[John Jamieson]

Does anyone know who they really speak for? Do they have an agenda?

Re:Who pays their bills?

[thrillseeker]

Make of that what you will..

I can't imagine why an energy research organization would actually seek out and listen to national energy secretaries in developing energy analysis - can't they just publish some near-term doom-and-gloom conclusions with only selective data like everyone else?

Re:Who pays their bills?

[cnelzie]

It's most definatly usefull.

    The past has proven time and time again that reports provided by people backed by certain corporations, such as Cigarrette Manufacturers, Oil Firms and both the RIAA and MPAA are filled with half-truths, straight lies, clear misrepresentations of data (once the data is brought out into the public space), as well as a number of other "Dirty Pool" tactics.

    Simply because of who is backing this report, the publishers of the report have a tremendous amount of work that they must perform in order to be taken as anything other than what any "corporate shill" will say.

    If they are not 100% open with the methods they used, the data they collected as well as with the stastical analysis they performed, their work is going to be suspect. Perhaps their first line would be to see if they can get their report published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.

    Personally, I would be far less skeptical of a piece that could make it into a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Re:Who pays their bills?

[SEMW]

>I can't imagine why an energy research organization would actually seek out and listen to national energy secretaries in developing
>energy analysis - can't they just publish some near-term doom-and-gloom conclusions with only selective data like everyone else?

So when a single company with stated links to oil-producing countries comes up with the conclusion that we should continue to rely on oil, that's "seeking out and listening... in developing energy analysis", but when "everyone else" (and that does include pretty much everyone) comes to opposite conclusion, that's "doom-and-gloom... with only selective data"? That's some good, objective critical thinking skills you got there...

Great...

[TheSam]

...so now we have 122 years to procrastinate finding a solution our limited fueld supply rather than 24 years...

Well, let's take a look at the speakers

[Channard]

who are going to be at their next conference. We have..

H.E. Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al Hamli, Minister of Energy, UAE and President of the OPEC Conference (2007), David Crane, President & CEO, NRG Energy, Incorporated, David J. O'Reilly, Chairman & CEO, Chevron Corporation

John G. Rice, Vice Chairman of GE, President & CEO, GE Infrastructure, John W. Rowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Exelon Corporation, Charles W. Shivery, Chairman, President & CEO, Northeast Utilities

Neil H. Smith, CEO, InterGen, Jeff Sterba, Chairman, President & CEO, PNM Resources, Rex W. Tillerson, Chairman and CEO, ExxonMobil Corporation

Jake S. Ulrich, Executive Director, Centrica plc, Don Voelte, Managing Director & CEO, Woodside Energy Ltd, Theo H. Walthie, Business Group President, Dow Chemical Company

Daniel Yergin, CERA Chairman

H.E. Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al Hamli, Minister of Energy, UAE and President of the OPEC Conference (2007), David Crane, President & CEO, NRG Energy, Incorporated

David J. O'Reilly, Chairman & CEO, Chevron Corporation, John G. Rice, Vice Chairman of GE, President & CEO, GE Infrastructure

John W. Rowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Exelon Corporation, Charles W. Shivery, Chairman, President & CEO, Northeast Utilities

Neil H. Smith, CEO, InterGen, Jeff Sterba, Chairman, President & CEO, PNM Resources, Rex W. Tillerson, Chairman and CEO, ExxonMobil Corporation, Jake S. Ulrich, Executive Director, Centrica plc, Don Voelte, Managing Director & CEO, Woodside Energy Ltd, Theo H. Walthie, Business Group President, Dow Chemical Company, Daniel Yergin, CERA ChairmanH.E. Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al Hamli, Minister of Energy, UAE and President of the OPEC Conference (2007)

David Crane, President & CEO, NRG Energy, Incorporated David J. O'Reilly, Chairman & CEO, Chevron Corporation John G. Rice, Vice Chairman of GE, President & CEO, GE Infrastructur John W. Rowe, Chairman, President & CEO, Exelon Corporation

Charles W. Shivery, Chairman, President & CEO, Northeast Utilities Neil H. Smith, CEO, InterGen Jeff Sterba, Chairman, President & CEO, PNM Resources Rex W. Tillerson, Chairman and CEO, ExxonMobil Corporation

Jake S. Ulrich, Executive Director, Centrica plc Don Voelte, Managing Director & CEO, Woodside Energy Ltd. Theo H. Walthie, Business Group President, Dow Chemical Company

Daniel Yergin, CERA Chairman

I'm detecting an air of possible bias there. Not just is there no-one on the speaker list with an environmentalist bent, but most of the speakers apart from those employed by CERA are heads/employees of major oil/chemical companies.

Wonder who's putting out this report?

[indytx]

From Answers.com:

"CERA was acquired by IHS Energy in 2004. . . . Some of the company's largest clients include international energy companies, governments, utilities, and financial institutions."

http://www.answers.com/topic/cambridge-energy-rese arch-associates

"IHS is one of the leading global providers of critical technical information, decision-support tools, and related services to customers in the energy, defense, aerospace, construction, electronics, and automotive industries. We have developed a comprehensive collection of technical information that is highly relevant to the industries we serve ."

http://www.ihs.com/About-IHS/

Re:From the first link

[Chris Burke]

To prevent people from getting serious about switching away from oil, of course.

They want the current supply of oil to seem scarce so prices are high, but they want the hypothetical, future supply to seem infinite so that you never have to stop using oil.

Which is pretty much what we have now. The price of oil goes up based on fears about Middle East stability, damage to refineries on the Gulf Coast from Katrina, and so on, threatening the immediate supply. On the other hand, off-shore oil deposits and ambiogenesis promising that the oil supply will never actually run out. They make massive profits, but everyone still feels comfortable with their oil-based ICEs.

Re:Unfullfilled predictions

[JebusIsLord]

Good troll.

Disruption of the gulf stream - not predicted to happen just yet, so this prediction hasn't been refuted.

Deep freeze in Europe - same. That's like saying that the theory about the sun gobbling up the earth when it becomes a red giant is wrong because it hasn't happened yet.

Desertification of the US midwest - underway. I live in Alberta (Canada), and we expect to run out of glacial runoff in the next 15-20 years, leaving our river and main source of water bone dry for half the year. On top of that, the climate is getting dryer, and the water shelf is dropping. These are known to most residents here.

US crop failures - we'll see. Technology is improving all the time to offset this. Its happened before, though.

More frequent/severe Atlantic hurricanes (were there any this year?) - Nope, but again they expect a trend towards stronger storms, and last year it was certainly evident.

Inundation of coastal cities - Once again this is something that will happen down the road. No one thought we'd be under water in 2006. And we aren't. So the predictions are correct thus far.

Decline of coral reefs - underway. Most of the reefs affected by El Nino (Belize's great barrier reef in particular) are almost completely dead. Scuba diving was a lot more interesting about 15 years ago.

Disruption of Antarctic ice shelves - underway. There has been massive breakups of ice shelves in the last few years. Actually the predictions were mostly wrong; this is happening faster than we thought.

Pandemic skin cancer outbreaks (remember the ozone crisis?) - are you disputing the ozone hole now? That's a separate issue, but one that governments at least took significant steps towards solving around 15 years ago. The hole is larger this year than ever before, btw.

Slashdot refused to print this story

[Travoltus]

I wonder why...

Exxon-Mobil announces that PEAK OIL is coming in 5 years:
http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj0 5cavallo

Mind you, this is a major oil corporation, not some environmentalist "whacko" group...

They are supposed to be debunking peak oil theory?

[AmazingRuss]

Looking at that chart, the only difference I can see between their line and the one they are "debunking" is that their line wobbles for a while before the downtrend is clear.

Both theories look equally valid, as presented, and both have pretty much the same implications, with a 20 year time difference. Short term thinkers are the only ones that will be impressed by this.

Re:WTF

[RockDoctor]

Speaking as someone who deploys those newer and better technologies (I specialise in extended reach and horizontal drilling, much of which uses advanced sand management, expandable screening and/ or electrical submersible pumps, drilled with minimally invasive drilling fluids, tight control of equivalent circulating density and high-precision geological optimisation of well placement), what restricts the impact of those "newer and better technologies" are 2-fold:
- many reservoirs have poor to crap permeability characteristics, which reduces maximum (let alone optimum) flow rates, and severely impacts the economics of projects. That's inherent to the rock that the oil is in, and is only improved as the square root (approximately) of the pressure differential that you put across the reservior. At best.
- most new discoveries are small. A couple of hundred million barrels in place, maybe 40~60 million produceable. That's 5 to 8 days of consumption at todays rates. Which means that you can't justify the cost of pipelines and infrastructure to produce the stuff.

Look at, if you care, the "Last Great Hope" oil province of the late 1990's - the Falklands province. Review it's history - a significant war fought over it's control delayed exploration drilling for a decade and a half. There's a basin, source rocks (second best in the world), and reservoirs of moderate quality; tectonics and timing of thermal events within the tectonics are good for producing accumulations, and indeed accumulations have been found. But they're not big enough to justify building the necessary platform-based infrastructure, and the distance to shore is too long to flow the oil in a pipeline (we're back to the back-pressure as anything flows ; it all adds up from the valve at the surface separator all the way back through the pipes to the reservoir-completion interface). Net result - a "stranded" oil province. OK - that's one province I've had a professional interest in. Oddly enough, that's a common set of problems. Same goes for the potential stuff in the Arctic outside Alaska : no route to market, and building the necessary railway lines and pipelines across Siberian tundra is a 20-year project (don't suggest using the - - (sorry for my spelling, my atrocious Russian is getting rusty) line - it's stuffed to capacity already (as anyone who's used it would know) and it doesn't get within 2Mm of the necessary areas.) with a very uncertain prospect of success at the end.

Some of the biggest components of the "anticipated reserves" part of the future oil extrapolations are based on finding whole provinces with similar productivity to their geological counterparts elsewhere in the world. But there is no (zero, nil, zilch) well control on a lot of these anticipations. It's an easy mistake to make - I tried to get involved in the Falklands drilling campaign (first job application I'd written for 4 years), on that basis. Thought there was a big potential. Busted after the second well (of 6 in the campaign). East Greenland is "booked" as a huge gas province, extrapolating from the geological and thermal history of the Norwegian coast; zero well control. Laptev sea is "booked" as a light oil and gas province; one well and only 14000km of seismic. East Siberian-Chukchi Seas similarly booked; zero wells and 7000km. Sea of Okhotsk, several pinprick wells with no discoveries on the best prospects from the very limited seismic. Sea of Japan I haven't received data on, yet; some political difficulties over exploration. Sea of Bohai has proven prospects, but similar political difficulties.

You can look at models of reserves projected, but you've got to read the definitions of "proven", "likely" etc that go for the different classes of "reserve". As Shell discovered publicly a couple of years ago (and everyone else knew privately), a reserve isn't a reserve until it's been drilled, tested and produced. And e