The future of oil supply

[Catweazle]

I thought Ralph was a technical bod and would know about things like that! Or should that be bot?

I forgot that some machines, sorry, "people" don't understand sarcasm. My point is that simply converting oil into something much more bulky doesn't help. Refinery gain is another propaganda tool, much like "GDP" and "Consumer Price Index", it doesn't go anywhere towards explaining why oil prices remain high while industry is struggling and peoples standard of living is dropping.

Whole cities are going bankrupt, foodbanks are getting swamped, Tesco is putting extra security staff near the "reduced" bins to stop fights, payday loan companies are breeding like rabbits, government borrowing is at record levels....I could go on.....but what's the point.

[Ralph]

Did I not learn somewhere that energy can be neither created nor destroyed or some such mantra.

Certainly you would know this if you have ever had a thermodynamics class. But we aren't weren't talking about an energy correction factor, but a volumetric one.

I think PS_RalphW said that there may be more volume but it has a lower energy density.

The 2nd Law REQUIRES that there be less energy coming out the far side of a particular process. Refinery gain is on a volume basis, certainly not an energy one. When you go to a refinery to buy a consumer product, you do it on a volume basis, give me a gallon of petrol please, or perhaps give me gallon of jet fuel please.

You certainly do NOT wander up to the front of the facility and ask for a 1,000,000 BTUs in whatever form they want to hand you.

That would make sense and shows that refinery gain is just a bit of window dressing to fool non technical people that we are safe with oil.

Refinery gain is not window dressing, it is the measure used to compare inbound refinery volumes to outbound refinery volumes.

To be honest, I don't even think peak oilers are so stupid as to think that refinery gain can somehow save the world through ever increasing efficiency, but it is a fun thought experiment. How many doublings of change in refinery gain before a single barrel of input can generate all the world demand? Albert Bartlett could tackle that bit of ridiculous extrapolation like he did that for oil consumption.

I thought Ralph was a technical bod and would know about things like that! Or should that be bot?

A refinery is a factory, no different really than a car factory or shoe factory. It takes in raw material, bits and parts and pieces of stuff, and churns out finished consumer product day in and day out.

A bot wouldn't understand that the refinery is the single largest hiccup in the peak oil theory. You see, there is no requirement that the factory build consumer products from only conventional crude oil.

Economists are the ones who know this and then model it correctly (such as the IEA in their 2008 WEO report and corresponding cost/supply curve) and chemical engineers are the ones who make it possible.

[Ralph]

My point is that simply converting oil into something much more bulky doesn't help.

Of course it "helps". Try and put 28API gravity crude in your fuel tank instead of gasoline, and see how much it "helps" to have the petrol instead.

Refinery gain is another propaganda tool, much like "GDP" and "Consumer Price Index", it doesn't go anywhere towards explaining why oil prices remain high while industry is struggling and peoples standard of living is dropping.

Quantifying volume change is not propaganda. It is quantifying the amount of tank storage needed on one side of the refinery, versus the tankage needed on the other, for any day the factory is running. Quite an important piece of information I imagine, if you are the one responsible for storing those less dense products on the outbound side of the refinery.

Whole cities are going bankrupt, foodbanks are getting swamped, Tesco is putting extra security staff near the "reduced" bins to stop fights, payday loan companies are breeding like rabbits, government borrowing is at record levels....I could go on.....but what's the point.

Fortunately fuel shortages, rationing, and declining oil production (which hasn't) certainly don't have anything to do with bad financial decisions (individual or collective), poor political leadership, home as ATM stunts, or any of the other shenanigans that cause consequences as you mention.

[SleeperService]

Hi Ralph

You're going round in circles. Already had this picture (or a very similar one) but you never explained how LPG would be available when the oil is exhausted.

Perhaps there are secret LPG reserves or maybe the methane about to be released from the permafrost and seabed deposits will be re-purposed????

[Ralph]

Hi Ralph

You're going round in circles. Already had this picture (or a very similar one) but you never explained how LPG would be available when the oil is exhausted.

Liquified petroleum gas? You can make it from natural gas if you run out of oil. You do realize peak oil isn't about running out though, right? And the amount of liquid fuels we have under the $150/bbl price point (in 2008 dollars) is measured in another century or more, by Europeans themselves, right?

Perhaps there are secret LPG reserves or maybe the methane about to be released from the permafrost and seabed deposits will be re-purposed????

Gas hydrates were discussed at the 33rd Oil Shale Symposium back in October. They are under consideration as a resource by the presenters there, they didn't have quite your disdain for how resources become reserves with the application of technology and capital. Not sure what the fascination is with only LPG, chemical engineers can rearrange methane into probably any configuration you'd like. I recommend micro-generation with natural gas rather than going for LPG, probably far more efficient and cost effective.

[Pepperman]

An interesting and thoughtful interview from Richard Miller:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014- ... oil-supply

[Ralph]

An interesting and thoughtful interview from Richard Miller:

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014- ... oil-supply

Miller does a reasonable job of recycling all the reasons used to predict peak oil in 2000. Or 2005. but then Miller isn't Einstein is he?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And without access to IHS he can't update his model. Nice of him to admit it though. Of course, those who do have IHS, and did it field by field like Miller says he once upon a time did, keep coming up with those pesky additions that make the peakers circa 2000/2005/2008 look so amateurish.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.as ... wOwIP3pTlI

Maybe those pesky Brits need to talk to the folks doing the science, them being geologists and what not, and there being many more of them who understand this stuff.

[emordnilap]

A kind of a desperate tone to this article

[SleeperService]

A kind of a desperate tone to this article

Indeed, but there is a refreshing change in outlook. Mature='Peaked' and the realization that they need to explore everywhere NOW!

I think Mr Osahon may understand PO and the implications, I suspect he won't be in his job much longer. Pity.

[emordnilap]

Indeed, but there is a refreshing change in outlook..

Let's hope so.

[biffvernon]

Piper Alpha exploded in 1988 and there was a resulting shut in of 30 Million m3/yr but why had production started declining ~4 years earlier?
Interesting to see that Brent, which gives it's name to the pricing standard, has pretty much vanished.
Unless someone finds another Buzzard, production by the end of this decade looks like approximately diddly-squat.

[SleeperService]

In order not to cause panis I've managed to locate the unedited graph that was posted above



So you see there is lots more oil than you think and everything will be allright.

Really it will

[emordnilap]

Heh heh. You're not also called Ralph by any chance are you?

[biffvernon]

Love it.

[SleeperService]

Heh heh. You're not also called Ralph by any chance are you?

No He's sitting at the desk opposite.......Err.....Whoops!