Shortages: Is 'peak oil' idea dead?

[Aurora]

Roger Harrabin - BBC Science & Environment - 19/06/12

Since humans found that oil was better than coal for shifting vehicles, people have fretted over oil wells running dry.

Bouts of anxiety are periodic. In the seventies a Shell geoscientist, M King Hubbert, sounded an alarm that supplies would peak by 1995 "if current trends continue."

They didn't peak. Fear is a powerful motivator and forecasting a shortage can be a good way of avoiding one.

Article continues ...

[biffvernon]

Worth reading right to the final paragraph.

Or if you've not got the time, just the final paragraph.

(But Roger really ought to talk more to Robert.)

[adam2]

Predictions of peak oil in the 1990s were somwhat premature because demand was slightly constrained by economic downturns, and a little more oil than expected was discovered.

It appears though that oil production has now peaked, probably in about 2005, about 10 years latter than expected.

Despite the bad and worsening economic situation, oil prices remain high.
Many experts suggested that oil would soon decline to the "normal" price of about $30.
Some suggested that a bad recession would drop prices to below $10.

Not much sign of that happening.

Brent crude, which is arguably more representative than West Texas remains only slightly below $100.

[JohnB]

Worth reading right to the final paragraph.

Or if you've not got the time, just the final paragraph.

(But Roger really ought to talk more to Robert.)

I've got the time, but not the motivation, having read similar many times before!

The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones and when the Oil Age ends it may be because we've run out of space in the atmosphere to safely dump the emissions. If we ever take the threat of global warming seriously, that is.

If that happens, the Oil age will end when we run out of living people to burn it.

[emordnilap]

Worth reading right to the final paragraph.

Or if you've not got the time, just the final paragraph.

(But Roger really ought to talk more to Robert.)

I note Mr H is a great fan of unproven technology.

[Yves75]

In the end quite interesting the two faces of the same "problem"(more situation than problem), and the way people approach it :

1) Pollution (CO2 but far from only that) due to the use of abundant fossile energy since industrial revolution
2) Limit due to said fossile energy finiteness, and unknown consequences of these limits.

It somehow ends up in : my view "co2/pollution" is more important than yours "diminishing stock", and vice versa ...

[AnOriginalIdea]

It appears though that oil production has now peaked, probably in about 2005, about 10 years latter than expected.

Well, using Colin's 1989 prediction, about 16 years later than predicted. Of course, there are articles like this by Stuart showing an interesting profile in production which...doesn't...quite...look....peakish. The TOD declared peak of 2008 shows up, but looks premature. (I would say "again", but I suspect that would be considered rude, in polite company)

[SleeperService]

If that graph was presented with the full vertical axis and over a slightly longer timeframe it would show something else.

The oil 'peak' is actually a plateau, it's not perfectly flat but it definately doesn't show the BAU you're suggesting. I'd suggest the 2009 dip was caused by demand falling caused by the slight financial crisis that preceded it. The fall back that your graph suggests in the second half of the year should be interesting.

If the price of oil DOES fall then tar sands fracking and the rest become uneconomical and will either be subsidised or cease. Supply falls and price goes up, hence the bumps in the plateau. If you took only conventional production into account on your graph I'm pretty sure that the plateau would have a definate downward slope.

Colin's prediction may be out in time but the nuclear lobby's promise of electricity 'too cheap to meter' was a complete bust. The energy lobby are completely without morals and obviously lie to get what they want.

[emordnilap]

Question everything.

Campbell's predictions - which are only for crude oil, which is what he knows - are often deliberately put alongside others' figures for world production which include everything as well as crude oil.

Just saying.

[PS_RalphW]

Question everything. Especially numbers.

In the US the official oil production numbers are collected by the EIA. In Texas there is another organisation called the Railroad Commision which collects Texas oil production numbers (from the days when Texas oil was shipped by railways). They use different methodologies, with the EIA using a sampling and estimation method and the RRC collating all production numbers directly. In the last year the numbers they produce have diverged with the EIA being 0.5Mbpd the more optimistic.

If the US cannot count its own oil production to better than 5% accuracy, how much credence can we give to global figures? 2Mbpd is noise.

Oh and remember that the figure above includes NGL which is not generally used as a transport fuel (although LPG is a growing market) and
'refinery gain' which is the increase in volume when heavy oils are converted into less dense products like petrol with no increase in energy content, and biofuels which are not and never have been oil. Biofules is the largest single growth factor in the 'all liquids' supply in recent years.

[AnOriginalIdea]

If that graph was presented with the full vertical axis and over a slightly longer timeframe it would show something else.

Correct. It would show the claimed peaks in 2005 and 2006 as well, or more of the "bumpy plateau" which stopped being a plateau only recently.

Colin's prediction may be out in time but the nuclear lobby's promise of electricity 'too cheap to meter' was a complete bust. The energy lobby are completely without morals and obviously lie to get what they want.

The energy lobby does the same thing other lobbies do. And as long as we desire and purchase their products, we enable and by extension condone their behavior.

[AnOriginalIdea]

Campbell's predictions - which are only for crude oil, which is what he knows - are often deliberately put alongside others' figures for world production which include everything as well as crude oil.

Just saying.

Colins prediction in 1989 was that in 2012 the world would only be producing 30-32 million barrels of "crude oil" per day. Put that number beside any combination of productions rate of crude oil, liquids, heavy oils, condensate, deep water production, polar, tar or whatever else we turn into fuel for our cars, homes or feedstock for the chemical industry and he is still wrong by a relatively large margin.

His lack of experience with the resource pyramid outside of "crude oil" was his downfall in this game, because when he made that prediction these non crude oil resources were already being turned into fuels and products around the globe. The idea that it would continue happening, only moreso, was available to him and he chose to ignore what can come from small beginnings.

[emordnilap]

Colins prediction in 1989 was that in 2012 the world would only be producing 30-32 million barrels of "crude oil" per day.

These early assessments were, however, according to Campbell himself, "based on public domain data, before the degree of misreporting by industry and governments was appreciated."

[AnOriginalIdea]

These early assessments were, however, according to Campbell himself, "based on public domain data, before the degree of misreporting by industry and governments was appreciated."

So....using all the pumped up data from the late 80's in the public domain, he proclaimed peak in 1989...and when he removed all the pumped up OPEC revisions.....his estimates of peak moved years/another decade/into the next century?

Someone might think the exact opposite would have happened instead?

[Totally_Baffled]

An original idea

You have a point.

It begs the question - what is it that is being underestimated by peakers that has meant the rate of production continues to confound predictions.

Ultimately it doesnt change anything we still have to get off FF's, but it is interesting that production was meant to have stalled REGARDLESS of price, technology,reserve growth, tar sand etc because they could "never offset the rate of decling in existing fields", or because "EROEI would make new oil irrelevant regardless of price" etc etc