Oil Production: Will the Peak Hold?

Forum for general discussion of Peak Oil / Oil depletion; also covering related subjects

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Adam1
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Post by Adam1 »

I'd second what SunnyJim says (I'm an option C person). I think internet forums do have a different flavour in the US. In conflict situations, Americans tend to be more direct and more combative than here in the UK, in my experience. That is reflected in peak oil forums, even the oil drum sometimes.
RGR wrote:The big assumption which is generally ignored by the export land model is the reaction to falling export revenue as a "one act pony" country loses the ability to do its "one act". As its ability to subsidize its own citizens decreases, the country is forced to react. Trendologists don't build that reaction into their models. They try and avoid the entry of economics into any model they build...which is why trendology doesn't tend to work in systems dictated, ruled and affected by economics. Ask yourself, if trendology works, why don't we just all predict the stock market tomorrow, become day traders, and become millionaires?
I agree that the ELM is too simple to model exactly what will happen. What it tells me is that the "energy crunch" will be complicated and exacerbated because of this dilemma faced by today's oil exporting countries. For example, Mexico's leaders face a real problem managing their own population's and their northern neighbour's competing demands for oil. The key implication of the ELM is that international conflict is much more likely than it would otherwise would be.
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RenewableCandy
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Post by RenewableCandy »

RGR wrote:and between building out solar panels and wind power, the rest of the world is so busy they obviously don't NOTICE the zombies rioting in the streets, countries nuking each other for leftover oil, North America is falling off the gas cliff, etc etc.
I've sussed it! RGR was not thrown off LATOC for a fundamental philosophical disagreement, but rather for the unauthorized(sp) use of sarcasm.
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Gerontion
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Post by Gerontion »

Perhaps I?m being unfair and ignoring important posts, but RGR?s arguments seem to be based ? at least in part ? on the fact that in the face of an (alleged?) peak, American consumers are still leading grossly profligate lifestyles. And they are. But as American consumers can be expected to buy a place at the head of the queue for oil allocation, I?m not sure what the point of this is. True to form, America is doing a exemplary job of exporting its suffering to third parties, in this case Iraq. RGR may be stuck in a traffic jam but Iraq is stuck in a fairly gruesome war. Maybe I'm being over-sensitive, or showing 'an agenda', but this seems more than a little problematic.
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RogerCO
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Post by RogerCO »

The Peak, whenever it occurs, is not of any real interest. After all, as has been said many times before here, we only know it has occurred when we see it in the rear-view mirror.

I think the comments from RGR and others are quite a refreshing antidote to the tendency to unproductive doom laden arm waving.

Remember it was only 30 years ago when we consumed a third less energy in this country (roughly) - life wasn't that bad in the 70s (Bay City Rollers and 3-day week notwithstanding) and the initial rollout from peak is unlikely to bring sudden transformations, however much we may want them.

We (most of us on this forum) live in a relatively affluent country, and there are many poorer people elsewhere who will soak up most of the early pain post-peak. Like it or not that is the way it will be - things may get more expensive for us, but we'll be able to afford to live for a while.

And at the end of it all a society without oil is still feasible - look at life pre-1859 - a lot less people certainly but a 3% pa decline in population will half the number of humans in about 30 years, and also need not be too painful - think of all the extra homes we wont need to build.

What I find far more worrying is the other event that we will only recognise when we see it in the rear-view mirror. A climate tipping point could conceivably move us into an environment where we simply don't know if civilization is possible. The only experience we have is of the climate that we have had for the last few thousand years - and unlike a post-peak-oil world we simply do not know the physical features of post-climate-switch world.

But what is needed is some sound study and preparation, not a lot of arm waving about the end of the world; so I thank RGR for bringing some sound yankee common sense to the party.
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clv101
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Post by clv101 »

RogerCO wrote:And at the end of it all a society without oil is still feasible - look at life pre-1859...
I think, generally, it's a mistake to look to the past for clues about how the down slope of oil production is going to look. We aren?t getting into a time machine and returning to 1859, we are moving forward to 2159, just with less energy than we?ve had in the past. One variable (energy) will return to previous levels however pretty much every other variable is very different. We are heading towards a lower energy future, not returning to a low energy past, we aren?t going backwards we're continuing to go forward, just with some different variables than we?ve had in the past.
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jonny2mad
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Post by jonny2mad »

when I was a kid I talked to Americans quite a few in the oil business who were sure America hadn?t peaked and that even if it had it wouldn?t matter as we could run everything on nuclear power , this thread reminds me of them.
You get oil people who believe the futures going to be like star trek .

If we peaked in 2005 you wouldn?t expect things to go to hell the next day.


clv101 why wouldn?t things regress our economic system is built on the idea of growth and I?m not sure you could change it , I can think of periods of human history when you have a lack of resources and things have gone backwards some are in collapse by Jared diamond .
how much of our modern technology can run in this low energy & resources future

Look at a car and a horse and cart

at the moment with lots of energy and resources we can make cars and then after a few years they wear out and we replace them with more cars , the fuel for them we get from oil after refining it .

with a horse and cart well the horse produces more horses, the cart can last a very long time 100 years + and the technology is pretty simple I think I could make one and the tack completely myself I have friends who have done that .
The fuel for the horse comes from grass or hay and the whole thing is very simple. There are some iron parts for a cart but mostly its wood compared to a car its very low energy you can even use charcoal to work the iron .

anyway I think if your looking to low energy it would be a better bet than cars so I think if you talking moving forward to a low energy future in a lot of ways it will be moving backwards
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Post by emordnilap »

j2m - I largely agree with what you say and not just the last post.

Can you imagine trying to provide that style of transport for the weight of numbers of people we have today?
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Post by Blue Peter »

jonny2mad wrote:clv101 why wouldn?t things regress our economic system is built on the idea of growth and I?m not sure you could change it , I can think of periods of human history when you have a lack of resources and things have gone backwards some are in collapse by Jared diamond .
how much of our modern technology can run in this low energy & resources future

Look at a car and a horse and cart
What do you mean by regress? Do you mean move smoothly back down the path of our ascent, so that 2040 might rather resemble 1970 (assuming a 2005 peak)?

I don't think that complicated systems work like that. Irreversible changes (not specifically in the thermodynamic sense) have occurred and they can't be smoothly undone. We can't smoothly go back to using horse and carts rather than cars - we haven't got the land, the horses, the people who know how to handle horses. Things will fall apart and then recover at an appropriate level, which could be quite low,


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jonny2mad
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Post by jonny2mad »

well that just means you will have more people on foot and the uk is over populated but for transporting goods I see the return of the horse because their lower energy .

used to be up until the 1960s things were delivered in the uk by horse ,
at the moment we have lots or pasture being used for cows and sheep if theres a demand for transport you will see less cows and more horses
"What causes more suffering in the world than the stupidity of the compassionate?"Friedrich Nietzsche

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clv101
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Post by clv101 »

jonny2mad wrote:clv101 why wouldn?t things regress our economic system is built on the idea of growth and I?m not sure you could change it , I can think of periods of human history when you have a lack of resources and things have gone backwards some are in collapse by Jared diamond .
how much of our modern technology can run in this low energy & resources future
Indeed our economic system is built on growth, which means we don't really know what will happen when the energy supply contracts. Our economy is unlikely to shrink smoothly inline with energy.

What I mean by not going backwards, is just that. No time machine. We are going forward - just because 50 years in the future we'll have the same energy available as 50 years in the past - does not mean anything else will be like it was in the past. This is not a single variable system, very far from it.
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Post by biffvernon »

Yes - the future will be very different from the past. We could have a very large amount of non-fossil fuelled energy and we may put to use our knowledge of how to use energy efficiently.

I've nothing against horses personally, but when it comes to growing large quantities of cereals a tractor does a more productive job even if its fed with the biodiesel it has grown itself.

So we have declining fossil fuels and increasing population on one side but on the other side we have increasing renewables and more efficient ways of getting useful work out of the energy. A great deal hangs on which side progresses fastest and, of course, the two sides are closely coupled.

The whole argument between doomers and optimists hinges on this. Can we maintain civilization in the face of declining fossil fuels by using renewables cleverly? It's easy to have strong opinions but not so easy to prove the case, one way or the other.
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Keela
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Post by Keela »

biffvernon wrote: The whole argument between doomers and optimists hinges on this. Can we maintain civilization in the face of declining fossil fuels by using renewables cleverly? It's easy to have strong opinions but not so easy to prove the case, one way or the other.
Well said. And I admit that I wobble between the two views. . . .
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Post by Kentucky Fried Panda »

If all we had to worry about was maintaining civilisation I reckon we'd be fine. It's the fighting over what's left that worries me. The armies of the world aren't just going to link arms and sing "we are the world".
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Post by snow hope »

biffvernon wrote: The whole argument between doomers and optimists hinges on this. Can we maintain civilization in the face of declining fossil fuels by using renewables cleverly? It's easy to have strong opinions but not so easy to prove the case, one way or the other.
I agree.

Based on how well the UK has done over the last 17 years, ie they have doubled renewable energy from 1% to 2% (correct me if I have got those figures wrong), then I fail too see how we will get renewables up to a level (even in the next decade) where we can use them cleverly....... unless of course we find a silver bullet.

And most of us know there is no silver bullet......
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Post by RGR »

SunnyJim wrote:
Last edited by RGR on 30 Jul 2011, 15:53, edited 1 time in total.
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