Article: The Twilight of Petroleum

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 05 Feb 2013, 16:26

This is the IEA's estimate of energy availability over the next 20 years:

This is Antonio Turiel's estimate of net energy availability over the next 20 years:

Puts things in perspective.

More here.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 06 Feb 2013, 04:44

The important point isn't when the decline occurs but when the production can't keep up with the increase in demand because the price will skyrocket again. That will occur before the decline starts, so any time now.

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 06 Feb 2013, 09:31

Has the IEA always put NGLs on the same graph as oils? I know they've been doing it a lot recently. It seems deeply misleading to me as they have very limited use in transportation.

Post by **adam2** » 06 Feb 2013, 09:44

Pepperman wrote:Has the IEA always put NGLs on the same graph as oils? I know they've been doing it a lot recently. It seems deeply misleading to me as they have very limited use in transportation.

Are you certain ? I thought that natural gas liquids were voltatile liquid hydrocarbons found in wells that produce mainly gas.
Useful as used in the production of petrol or aviation spirit.

Early on in the oil and gas age, I believe that petrol engines were sometimes run on natural gas liquids straight from the well without refining or treatment.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 06 Feb 2013, 10:04

The problem with oil and transport fuels is that not all oil is used for transport fuels and not all transport fuels come from oil. Also there is no clear cut-off point on the scale of hydrocarbon molecule size that defines what oil is.

Petrol and diesel are oils that have been refined (exracted) from the mixture(s) that are crude oils (no two batches are exactly alike) and then chemically modified to some extent, and then mixed with other chemicals to further refine the finished product.

NGLs are used in both the chemical modification stage and added as a percentage of the final product. As is ethanol.

However, the energy content of the finished product which comes from NGLs is quite small, and only a small percentage of the global NGL supply is used in petrol etc.

Simply lumping the volume of NGL extraction to the global oil supply is very missleading.

Pepperman · Post by **Pepperman** » 06 Feb 2013, 10:10

Ah yes I guess they are components/additives.

Thanks for the clarification.

boisdevie · Post by **boisdevie** » 06 Feb 2013, 10:22

Interesting graph. Especially the 'fields yet to be found' bit which seems to increase in size. But if they are yet to be found how do we know they even exist? Seems to me like wishful thinking.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 06 Feb 2013, 10:35

boisdevie wrote:Interesting graph. Especially the 'fields yet to be found' bit which seems to increase in size. But if they are yet to be found how do we know they even exist? Seems to me like wishful thinking.

It's what happens when economics is being driven by blind faith in the free market. The reasoning starts with "how much oil do we think the global economy will need?" and then goes on to assume that if we want it badly enough, the free market will ensure that it is worth somebody's while to find it. That's how these estimates were always arrived at before Peak Oil became a widely-understood thing, and the forecasters have been back-peddling ever since. It never had anything to do with geology or known reserves, because there was never any reliable data to go on. All they had was the self-declared figures of the oil-producing nations, which are known to be worthless (unless you believe Saudi Arabia can continue producing as much oil as it wants to for several more decades, as they still claim.)

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 06 Feb 2013, 11:13

At least one well-known authority on oil maintains that the geology is the easy part - all significant deposits of oil are known about and have been known about for decades.

Post by **adam2** » 06 Feb 2013, 11:50

boisdevie wrote:Interesting graph. Especially the 'fields yet to be found' bit which seems to increase in size. But if they are yet to be found how do we know they even exist? Seems to me like wishful thinking.

We do not know for certain what oil fields are yet to be discovered.
Recent history does however strongly suggest that we are not suddenly going to stop finding new oil.
Oil is still being found, but at a much lower rate than we are consuming it.

Figures from different sources vary but it is generally accepted that we are consuming several barrels of oil for each new barrel discovered.
Even if discovery rates improve, which is possible given enough effort, it seems unlikely that discovery will ever again outpace consumption.

I would consider the graph in O/P to be unduely optimistic, that is I believe that some oil is yet to be discovered, but not as much as they claim/hope for.

Post by **kenneal - lagger** » 06 Feb 2013, 15:30

We've only just started on the Arctic and after that there's the Antarctic to go, when the ice there melts of course. There could be as much as we have found so far!!

Just looking at it from the economist's and the oil man's point of view!

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 06 Feb 2013, 15:50

kenneal - lagger wrote:We've only just started on the Arctic and after that there's the Antarctic to go, when the ice there melts of course. There could be as much as we have found so far!!

Just looking at it from the economist's and the oil man's point of view!

The human race might be "lucky" and still exist to extract it, if only to help run their air conditioning.

Oh, don't forget Greenland, either; we're working on getting rid of all that pesky snow and ice.

Halfbreed · Post by **Halfbreed** » 08 Feb 2013, 01:49

adam2 wrote:
Early on in the oil and gas age, I believe that petrol engines were sometimes run on natural gas liquids straight from the well without refining or treatment.

It was considered natural gasoline. Still happens all the time today, just don't do it in a modern engine, use that old carburated Ford. Lawnmower maybe? Sooner or later it (a nastier solvent than manufactured gasoline) will eat the seals and maybe burn the valves.

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 08 Feb 2013, 15:15

Is that why petrol is referred to as "gasoline" in the States? I'd always wondered.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 08 Feb 2013, 16:37

RenewableCandy wrote:Is that why petrol is referred to as "gasoline" in the States?

No. The first person to export oil from America to London was a man named John Cassell. It didn't have a name, so he called it "Cazeline", after himself. He then discovered an Irish supplier who was using his name, threatened to sue, and the Irishman responded by changing the C to a G. Gazeline then mutated into gasoline.