Oil Production: Will the Peak Hold?

[Adam1]

All distances one-way:

Me - 5 miles (until end March) by bike or bus, depending on state of my back (occasionally 35 miles by bus & train depending on work requirements)
Colleague 1 - 1.5 miles by Tube
Colleague 2 - 40 miles by train and bus 60% of the time, 10 miles by train 40% of the time
Colleague 3 - 15 miles by train
Colleague 4 - 50 miles by train 60% of time; 70 miles by car 40% of time
Colleague 5 - 5 miles by bike 33% of time; 30 miles by train 66% of time

[RogerCO]

Work city centre location 200yds station

Me - 10 miles - 50% bike, 50% car 5m+train 5m (winter)
colleague 1 - 5 miles - bus
colleague 2 - 15 miles - 1 mile walk, 14 miles train
colleague 3 - 4 miles - bus
colleague 4 - 20 miles - train door-to-door nearly (lives by station)

That's all I can see from where I'm sitting now. Ironic that I'm the only one using a car (albeit for only part of the journey on dark winter days over unlit hilly lanes) as I'm supposed to be the greenest one in the office :

[PS_RalphW]

Work in city 1/2 mile from railway station.

Me - cycle 4 miles
Emp 1 - cycle 3 miles
Emp 2 - cycle 6 miles (until he broke his hip falling off)
Emp 3 Motorbike 8 miles.

I work in a small department. Used to be two more

Emp 4 walk 1 mile.
Emp 5 drive 30 miles alone in an 8 seater.

[emordnilap]

Work in city 1/2 mile from railway station.

Me - cycle 4 miles
Emp 1 - cycle 3 miles
Emp 2 - cycle 6 miles (until he broke his hip falling off)
Emp 3 Motorbike 8 miles.

I work in a small department. Used to be two more

Emp 4 walk 1 mile.
Emp 5 drive 30 miles alone in an 8 seater.

Excellent! There again, Cambridge.

[RogerCO]

I work in a small department. Used to be two more
Emp 4 walk 1 mile.
Emp 5 drive 30 miles alone in an 8 seater.

so did Emp 5 get her just desserts

Excellent! There again, Cambridge.

It may seem like an advantage to cycle in the bleak flatlands of East Anglia, but with the Cornish lanes every uphill means you can stop pedalling and recover on the subsequent downhill. And the hedges shelter you from the warm wet atlantic wind unlike that chill gale that howls into your teeth direct from the Urals.

[RenewableCandy]

I was about to say the same about emp. 5 but without assuming they were female

[RGR]

The trend is quite clear. More wells are drilled as smaller and smaller pockets of gas are employed to provide the same supply of gas. The smaller the pocket, the faster the depletion rate.

[RGR]

RGR, I am not pretending anything.

[biffvernon]

Go google up the Olympic Dam

Don't just google it, google earth it. It is an amazing sight - one of the great scars on our planet. It would never have been allowed in Surrey. Only worsted by Canadian tar sand exploitation.

Just because it's a long way away is not an excuse.

[Vortex]

Just because it's a long way away is not an excuse.

Many years ago I went on a company sales tour inside the UK

We were based in Bedford, but spent a few days in the Port Sunlight area.

I was horrified by what I saw there ... the heavy industrialisation ... and then one of the other people in our group said bitterly:
"This is what Northerners have to live with so that you Southerners can have a pampered life."

It's not just Alberta ...

[Erik]

Hirsch has been calling for an energy crisis since the early 90's. Much like Campbell and his yearly estimates of when peak oil will occur, crying wolf only works for so long.

... until people presume that there never was a wolf and lose interest? But we all know, don't we, that the wolf does exist, that it is very much out there, and will be scratching at the door very soon. Who cares whether "soon" means now or, say, 2015? The wolf IS coming, we just don't know how hungry it's going to be.

[SunnyJim]

RGR, I'm reallly pleased that none of this really worries you. That is an truly enviable position to be in.

However, with the population increasing as it is, you surely must agree that something at some point is going to give?

Personally I think we will enter a long protracted economic contraction. As we in the privilaged west have less energy per person made availiable to us (based on population growth and the increasing demand of those who currently use very little energy, and at some point the decline in fossil fuel and nuclear energy - they are finite right?) then our lives will be come physically harder. We may have to walk further, or take to the bike, do more digging etc than we have been used to. Some industries will disappear, those that are particularly energy intensive and un-necessary will be hard hit. Other work will spring up in its place. More will work the land and become involved in agriculture for example. No society won't simply break down, it will slowly 'grind down'.

However, this is looking at our society. If you look at what will happen to those in poor countries that have come to rely heavily on food and fuel imports then there could be sharper changes. Countries that have unstable political situation (all political structures become less stable when people are asked to accept less tomorrow than they have today) or much corruption could see civil unrest, but it won't be attributable to energy shortages, it will be seen as an economic issue. The fact that energy has become scarce will be seen as a consequence of the economic and political woes, not as the source of those troubles.

[Andy Hunt]

Hirsch has been calling for an energy crisis since the early 90's. Much like Campbell and his yearly estimates of when peak oil will occur, crying wolf only works for so long.

... until people presume that there never was a wolf and lose interest? But we all know, don't we, that the wolf does exist, that it is very much out there, and will be scratching at the door very soon. Who cares whether "soon" means now or, say, 2015? The wolf IS coming, we just don't know how hungry it's going to be.

Somebody forgot how the story ends . . .

[emordnilap]

Much like Campbell and his yearly estimates of when peak oil will occur, crying wolf only works for so long.

Where is Campbell wrong? He forecast peak regular conventional oil production as being mid 2005 and, three years on, he was right.

[kenneal - lagger]

I think RGR only comes on here to wind people up.

Oh! And did you see that the oil price is dropping again, it's back to $99.50. I won't bother with that extra bit of insulation then.