I have been away but I'm back now. Have I missed much?

[vtsnowedin]

I wonder what makes them think demand for oil will decline in India and China in the near future. That is over a third of the worlds population and they have tremendous room and desire for growth and to move into western lifestyles with the consumption that goes with it.

[woodburner]

I am sorry to say this but you are one of the brainwashed, VT.

Consistent if nothing else.

[vtsnowedin]

Would you care to discuss where I have it wrong?

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

Would you care to discuss where I have it wrong?

Upon review of the entire past page of postings I can't find it. However, you speak with a veneer of rationality (as an older gentlemen the man buns comment struck me as a near perfect characterization of how I feel about the topic) and in my experience that has never been appreciated among any of the "crashers" (a term more accurate perhaps than peak oilers as peak oil was just a means to an end it appears).

Once peak oil became a rear view mirror event without noticeable impact, a change in mechanism was required.

[vtsnowedin]

Once peak oil became a rear view mirror event without noticeable impact, a change in mechanism was required.

A bit off there. it should read 'Once peak oil becomes a rear view event with real impact a change in mechanism will be required.'
We have not reached a true world peak where supply is reduced because of geology not politics and when we do get there much will change and quite rapidly.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

Once peak oil became a rear view mirror event without noticeable impact, a change in mechanism was required.

A bit off there. it should read 'Once peak oil becomes a rear view event with real impact a change in mechanism will be required.'
We have not reached a true world peak where supply is reduced because of geology not politics and when we do get there much will change and quite rapidly.

You forgot to mention a peak because of economics. CSIS did a presentation on such a thing a month or three back, Barclays is now discussing 3 peak oil demand scenarios, and the macro economists are certainly buying into the idea in a big way. From the CSIS conference I learned that decelerating demand increases is quite surprising in their world. Hence them coming around to ideas Amy Jaffe was talking about back in 2015.

Lest we forget, the most recent peak oil idea failed because of basic economic ideas that should have been included in the concept. Peak oilers dismissing what economists already knew 15 years ago about supply and demand was lethal to their credibility at the time and lingers to this very day.

[Vortex2]

Hello again RGR - long time no see.

I suspect that Peak Oil or equivalent will come along in due course ... it's a non-renewable resource and we use a lot of it.

However life, the world and technology have been marching on relentlessly over the last decade.

Peak Oil has moved into the background in the face of climate change (natural on man-made, who cares)

If anyone wants a new windmill to tilt at then AI and Deep Learning might be an appropriate target.

The rate of change of this technology is astounding, with astonishing announcements being made almost every week.

'Just for fun' I recently built an AI system (visual recognition) to see if the hype was justified or not. After three or so months of work I got the system up and running ... and promptly went into a state of shock when I realised how powerful these systems are.

People won't care about Peak Oil if 80% of the middle classes have been made redundant by AI technology.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

Hello again RGR - long time no see.

I suspect that Peak Oil or equivalent will come along in due course ... it's a non-renewable resource and we use a lot of it.

Peak oil expressed as a maximum between a starting and ending point of 0 is as axiomatic as it gets. Peak oil cannot be denied. Those who have been claiming it is happening in one form or another for a century now though...well....an incomplete understanding of resource economics seems to go hand in hand with those claims.

However life, the world and technology have been marching on relentlessly over the last decade.

And no one repealed basic economic theory along the way either.

Peak Oil has moved into the background in the face of climate change (natural on man-made, who cares)

For most, yup. There are a few left here and there though.

People won't care about Peak Oil if 80% of the middle classes have been made redundant by AI technology.

People driving EVs already don't care about peak oil, the old one, or any new ones that might come along. Arguably peak oil is now a plus for the environment rather than a bad thing.

[kenneal - lagger]

Peak oil expressed as a maximum between a starting and ending point of 0 is as axiomatic as it gets. Peak oil cannot be denied. Those who have been claiming it is happening in one form or another for a century now though...well....an incomplete understanding of resource economics seems to go hand in hand with those claims.

Classic resource economics, which says that a shortage of a resource means that its price goes up which results in people looking harder for the resource and so find more of it, forgets about the fact that we live on one planet which logically has a strictly limited supply of most things mineral, oil being one of them. It also doesn't take into account that as the price goes up the market for it eventually folds because people can't afford it any more.

Economics also treats oil and the energy which comes from it as just another resource. The basic equation of economics that "output is the product of labour and capital" hasn't been true since the start of the industrial revolution when fossil fuel power usurped the input of labour to the equation and as fuel use has become more and more efficient the input of that energy has had a greater and greater influence. So economics' treatment of energy as just another resource has become more of an anachronism as it completely ignores the EROEI of the fuel source and the nett energy that the function leaves for further work, or in our present case less work, to be done with that energy.

To summarise Peak Oil isn't what we need to worry about it's Peak EROEI of Oil that is important.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

Peak oil expressed as a maximum between a starting and ending point of 0 is as axiomatic as it gets. Peak oil cannot be denied. Those who have been claiming it is happening in one form or another for a century now though...well....an incomplete understanding of resource economics seems to go hand in hand with those claims.

Classic resource economics, which says that a shortage of a resource means that its price goes up which results in people looking harder for the resource and so find more of it, forgets about the fact that we live on one planet which logically has a strictly limited supply of most things mineral, oil being one of them.

Not quite. Price is the intersection of supply and demand curves, and therefore dependent on 2 variables, not just 1. Also, traditional supply curves do reflect scarcity, as the supply curve is not linear, as shown in this diagram. Source Graph

The naturally asymptotic nature of supply is EXPLICITLY considered in traditional economics, and both the IEA and EIA use these ideas within their projections, and rightly so, but it was the peak oilers who got caught out by not considering even the most basic economic considerations, the supply response to price being just one of them.

If you have an interest in these issues, the International Energy Workshop has a conference in a different country every year, and I noticed some fine work along exactly these lines, and how it demonstrated a far more advanced understanding of not only available resource volumes but their cost, at the global scale. Are you familiar with how resource and supply cost curves work, and answer both the resource and supply (they aren't the same thing) questions related to calculating a robust peak oil answer?

It also doesn't take into account that as the price goes up the market for it eventually folds because people can't afford it any more.

Of course it does. That is the decreasing part of the demand curve. Hence the relationship in the first place.

Those of us now using electricity for the fuel for our cars aren't terribly bothered by the price of liquid fuels, and this structural shift itself is now part of the equation.

Economics also treats oil and the energy which comes from it as just another resource.

So...you are saying that oil isn't a resource? I disagree. Energy is energy, the physical science definition of that one is relatively easy to figure out. But oil is certainly a resource, a non-renewable one human time frames and in terms of that which has been made available via geologic processes

The basic equation of economics that "output is the product of labour and capital" hasn't been true since the start of the industrial revolution when fossil fuel power usurped the input of labour to the equation and as fuel use has become more and more efficient the input of that energy has had a greater and greater influence. So economics' treatment of energy as just another resource has become more of an anachronism as it completely ignores the EROEI of the fuel source and the nett energy that the function leaves for further work, or in our present case less work, to be done with that energy.

When the industry in question, oil and gas, uses EROEI as a metric for any process such as the exploration for, drilling, completion, development, refining or distribution of oil and gas, we can discuss it.

EROEI vis-a-vis its relationship to oil and gas was supposed by Charles Hall back in the early 80's, when it was used to predict the end of the US oil and gas drilling industry by the end of that century. First lesson learned, be careful when a fisheries ecologist ventures into areas they are unfamiliar with. The idea was reborn around the time it became obvious that traditional peak oilers were about to be left with egg all over their faces when peak oil circa Thanksgiving Day 2005 turned into another 5 or 15 million barrels a day of growth since then. The logic behind EROEI is irrelevant as a metric for multiple reasons that I won't belabor here, but I will mention the most important one which is that different forms of energy have different value, and when we are discussing a human economic system, hence a social science issue, not a physical science one. When I can trade you a BTU in the form of sunlight for a BTU in the form of gasoline, and we both feel the trade was an even up exchange, then we can discuss the value of EROEI.

To summarise Peak Oil isn't what we need to worry about it's Peak EROEI of Oil that is important.

According to those who study and provide graphs of this metric, peak EROEI happened quite some time ago. Like...a century ago when EROEI was at its peak, and it has been downhill ever since. You want me to believe that you and I, having grown up in this even decreasing EROEI environment, should suddenly notice it now, when we never have before? EROEI graph provided for reference, demonstrating that it peaked long, long ago. See the left of the provided graph, where it says "legacy oil and gas fields"? Those are old, in terms of time. See the part that says "tar sands" towards the right? Those are relatively new. Between the old, and the new, EROEI has been decreasing all along the way. The peak? Far, far in the past. I'm sure glad we didn't notice that peak metric even less than the peak oil one that was claimed to have happened nearly 15 years ago now!

Source Graph

[Little John]

One possibility is, as the EROEI of hydrocarbons get poorer and poorer, more and more subsidies of one kind of another will be diverted from elsewhere in societal system into the continued extraction of hydrocarbons in order to keep them flowing.

In that sense, the "price" may seem like it is remaining relatively "static" for some time yet. But, this will only be because the price will be being paid elsewhere in those societies in the form of fewer services in return for taxes.

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

One possibility is, as the EROEI of hydrocarbons get poorer and poorer, more and more subsidies of one kind of another will be diverted from elsewhere in societal system into the continued extraction of hydrocarbons in order to keep them flowing.

According to the information/graph provided in the prior post, EROEI has been getting poorer and poorer across all of our lifetimes. Been around longer than half a century now, I can't find any point along the way it has bothered me. Has it somehow bothered you?

In that sense, the "price" may seem like it is remaining relatively "static" for some time yet. But, this will only be because the price will be being paid elsewhere in those societies in the form of fewer services in return for taxes.

I don't understand the relationship you are claiming. "Price" in quotes is different than market clearing price, how? Price has certainly not remained static in the past, isn't static today versus yesterday, so what do you mean by "static", also in quotes? Sorta static? Never static except on occasion? And now that EV drivers like me don't pay fuel taxes, what do I care what they charge those who burn irreplaceable liquid fuels to do something so silly as to move around town to the grocery or take little Johnny to Little League practice? Tax those people to death for all I care, our planet with be happier.

[Little John]

According to the information/graph provided in the prior post, EROEI has been getting poorer and poorer across all of our lifetimes. Been around longer than half a century now, I can't find any point along the way it has bothered me. Has it somehow bothered you?

Clearly, you belong to that class of people for whom the last decade or two have been economically, kind.

Well done.

Go to the top of the class.

Meanwhile, for the vast majority of the people, the last decade or two have been far from economically kind, both in terms of stagnating wages and also in terms of the services they get for their taxes and, in case you haven't noticed, they are rebelling on a number of different continents simultaneously. I suppose an apt term for it might be "global Trumpism".

I don't understand the relationship you are claiming. "Price" in quotes is different than market clearing price, how? Price has certainly not remained static in the past, isn't static today versus yesterday, so what do you mean by "static", also in quotes? Sorta static? Never static except on occasion? And now that EV drivers like me don't pay fuel taxes, what do I care what they charge those who burn irreplaceable liquid fuels to do something so silly as to move around town to the grocery or take little Johnny to Little League practice? Tax those people to death for all I care, our planet with be happier.

When I refer to the "price" I am referring not only to the all-other-things-being-equal (non-subsidized) operations of market supply and demand - which may be legitimately described as the real market price, - but, also, the effect that subsidies will have on that supply and demand and the consequent shifting of the price from that which would be arrived at in otherwise non-subsided market .

[ReserveGrowthRulz]

According to the information/graph provided in the prior post, EROEI has been getting poorer and poorer across all of our lifetimes. Been around longer than half a century now, I can't find any point along the way it has bothered me. Has it somehow bothered you?

Clearly, you belong to that class of people for whom the last decade or two have been economically, kind.

Alternatively, I am one of those people who grew up in Appalachia in the 70's during the last real energy crisis, stagflation, Jimmy Carter created the title and fulfilled the role of Chief American Apologist. I didn't luck me way out that disaster, just learned that hard worked and functioning brains still counted for something. The world isn't much different now in that regard, and the last decade has been fantastic. Invest in the American stock market after the Great Recession and yes, things haven't been all that bad as of late. Certainly not what the peak oilers told us would happen post peak oil in 2005, right?

In the case of the UK, seems like bad times might be more than a little self inflicted? I mean, the US went from claims of peak natural gas and oil to being the world's largest producer of both, and there the Brits sit on some interesting shale formations, without much interest in that type of energy future.

Well done.

Go to the top of the class.

Anyone who jumps into a market at the bottom got the same reward. No brains or talent involved in this type of investing at all.

I don't understand the relationship you are claiming. "Price" in quotes is different than market clearing price, how? Price has certainly not remained static in the past, isn't static today versus yesterday, so what do you mean by "static", also in quotes? Sorta static? Never static except on occasion? And now that EV drivers like me don't pay fuel taxes, what do I care what they charge those who burn irreplaceable liquid fuels to do something so silly as to move around town to the grocery or take little Johnny to Little League practice? Tax those people to death for all I care, our planet with be happier.

When I refer to the "price" I am referring not only to the all-other-things-being-equal (non-subsidized) operations of market supply and demand - which may be legitimately described as the real market price, - but, also, the effect that subsidies will have on that supply and demand and the consequent shifting of the price from that which would be arrived at in otherwise non-subsided market .

Yeah..I don't understand any of that either. Price is price, pick a commodity, and we can discuss it. Pick a manufactured item, and we can discuss it. If you feel like you can back out the effect of subsidies on, say, oil production, use a graph demonstrating the component parts because I'm not sure I even know them all, and so many are factored into the difference between a resource cost curve and a supply cost curve that I don't even know which ones you might be referring to.

Consumers are the ultimate subsidy. They pay what they are willing to pay (the market price) and everything else is just the components that go into it and have been for as long as there has been price I imagine. Can you show the graph of this shifting on a supply/demand chart?

[fuzzy]

You seem obsessed with telling us what some people posted 14 years ago regardless if it was anyone here?

I haven't stopped seeing the logic of peak oil. I never said or thought it would collapse at the peak. In 2005 I was probably at 'The oildrum'. I don't have enough data to predict any timings. But the conventional light oil peak is when things got harder. We started staging massacres, invading oil rich countries, sucking up to the saudi's etc. How has anything you have evidence of contradicted that?? Or are you Bhagdad Bob? The fact that shale oil, funded by ~zero rate loans, has pushed another 10 years out of the clock doesn't convince me we are in a good place.