Oil Production: Will the Peak Hold?

[RGR]

RGR, which (most closely) is your position;

a) That peak oil will never be reached.
b) That it will reach us, but our lives will not change at all.
c) That our lives will change but we will simply see a gradual change to our way of life not a total collapse into anarchy.
d) That peak oil will reach us and our society will collapse.


Because I think most of us would regard c) as the most likely outcome.

[RGR]

RGR, have you been to any of the ASPO conferences?

No.

[RGR]

I've sussed it! RGR was not thrown off LATOC for a fundamental philosophical disagreement, but rather for the unauthorized(sp) use of sarcasm.

They didn't like that either.

[RGR]

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.

[SunnyJim]

RGR, which (most closely) is your position;

a) That peak oil will never be reached.
b) That it will reach us, but our lives will not change at all.
c) That our lives will change but we will simply see a gradual change to our way of life not a total collapse into anarchy.
d) That peak oil will reach us and our society will collapse.


Because I think most of us would regard c) as the most likely outcome.

I'll go with b), with the occasional recession and other transitional economic effects, thrown in for good measure.

I think we have some agreement here, but I find it hard to get over the language and mostly argumentative nature of your posts. I don't find that they hang together with any particular picture of what you think the future might hold. Mostly they just seem reactionary, and rather than enlightening us with your knowledge, it seems you are happier to criticise and damn others for their thinking rather than proposing alternative more logical and appealing arguments. I hope that this is simply a phase on joining the PS forum, and that you get it together to find a more positive contribution, because it would seem that you have alot of knowledge and probably have alot to contribute!

I didn't realize I was being argumentative. I thought I was being reasonably clear when I point out the portion of PO I think is silly, which is where people take an important transport fuel and manufacture the silliest scenario they can imagine, and attribute it to running short of said transport fuel.

OK. Maybe not argumentative. I suppose it feels that way when you're being accused of being a 'doomer' when you're not... anyway, thanks for the more reasonable explanation.

b) ?

That's an interesting position. So do you think that;

a) We will find replacement for the energy/day we obtain from fossil fuels, allowing the economy to grow, or
b) That fossil fuels have no real affect on our economy. - The economy can grow despite a large reduction in net energy utilised by our society?
c) Really our lives will not be affected by a greatly reduced economy? - i.e. GDP and monetary wealth does not equal happiness, and that we may learn to live with less with no real pain to our lives?

[Gerontion]

Some did. And they wrote books. Of course, some of these people also said we would all die from Y2K as well.....and look how well THAT turned out

Yes but to argue from the fact that some made incorrect predictions that the immediate future would be catastrophic to the conclusion that the long-term future will therefore be idyllic, with no further support, is wierd and irrational. Given the problems with scaling up replacements for oil in the likely time frame, the conclusions you seek to draw need, I believe, far greater support than simply pointing to either previous errors in prediction or the existence of well-known lunatic fringe on LATOC. Your approach is remarkably similar to arguments - thankfully not heard quite so oftern now - against climate change: how can warming be a problem when Time had a cover in 1970-whatever about how we were going to enter a new ice age? You certainly give the impression of knowing a lot about this so why don't you flesh out your arguments? I think many would be interested to hear this.

Often ignored in the Peak debate is Hubberts solution, in the EXACT same paper he published the peak concept itself

What is this? I haven't read it and would be interested to know.

[PS_RalphW]

OK RGR, here's the detailed analysis.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3673

Please explain how unconventional gas can completely replace conventional gas by 2014.

[clv101]

Yes but to argue from the fact that some made incorrect predictions that the immediate future would be catastrophic to the conclusion that the long-term future will therefore be idyllic, with no further support, is wierd and irrational. Given the problems with scaling up replacements for oil in the likely time frame, the conclusions you seek to draw need, I believe, far greater support than simply pointing to either previous errors in prediction or the existence of well-known lunatic fringe on LATOC.

...weird and irrational. Yes that sounds about right. I don't understand why RGR is allowing his opinion on peak oil to be influenced by "the lunatic fringe on LATOC". An argument isn't weakened when some "lunatics" pick it up and twist it to their way of thinking. The rational observer will ignore that at evaluate an argument on its merits rather than its secondary association.

[SunnyJim]

Of course, some of these people also said we would all die from Y2K as well.....and look how well THAT turned out!

I know there was a after this, but I fail to see the relevance. Y2K disaster was only averted by a huge amount of work an testing by the IT industry. A huge amount of work was done to ensure that systems did not cause problems. If that work had not taken place our lives would have been inconvenienced. It's only because the industry took the threat seriously, and responed that it passed with such a non-event.

Of course the people that raise the issue of prospective Y2K problems are not those warning of peak oil. The Y2K problems were raised by key IT industry and accademic figures. Peak oil is being warned about by ex-geologists, ex-oil company CEO's, NGO's and the like.

A percentage of those that are not warning us of peak oil but are screaming hysterically shouting that the world is going to end may well be the same people that we're running round screaming that we're all going to die at midnight Dec 31's 2000, but they are a tiny minority aren't they?

I would think that most of us are right to be concerned about PO. The main reason we need to be concerned is that unlike Y2K, the industry itself can not fix PO. They can keep drilling, and try to make the wells more productive and all that technical stuff, but they can't keep the price of oil down unless they can increase production which is looking unlikely. If that is true then the response to the problem needs to come from either the market, or goverments. Goverments seem to be uninterested in directly confronting the issue, which means that it will be left to the markets.

Higher prices of oil will cause demand destruction. Demand destruction will lead to reduced GDP's of countries that have reduced demand. The war for oil will be largely undertaken on the trading floors of the commodity markets. Countries will buy oil to store, trying to boost their 'strategic reserves'. The poorer countries (or those that don't simply create money and a demand for that money) will drop out of the bidding one by one, having to give up on oil and rely on alternative forms of energy, probably a mix of human, animal, renewable and biomass derived energies. For the rest of us (in richer countries) we can look forward to oil for the forseeable future, but we can look forward to an ever decreasing economy as less and less oil is used in the country, and so less and less gets moved around, built, and heated.

The one spanner in the works is the issue of the ever decreasing economy. If GDP is set to move to a long term downward trend, then there is no incentive at all for banks to lend money. If money lending ceases, as capital gets repaid (and many default), and new loans are not created then the money supply shrinks. We will have a shrinking economy alongside worsening inflation for core products like energy and food. Fundamentally there is a problem that banks cannot continue to work in a shrinking economy. The problem arises because as money supply shrinks there is by definition not enough money to repay the capital on loans, let alone the interest. This could cause a collapse of the economic system, or a move to government controlled money supply (nationalisation of the banking system! Over my dead Rock...), which means a rise in the power of the state, which will no doubt lead to market manipulation (price fixing to avoid inflation as is already being seen in many countries for food and fuel), and less personal autonomy.

The alternative is to raise enough awareness that it becomes a public issue, and we have enought time to debat the issues and find intelligent solution. That we re-design the banking system to work in a different way somehow. I have no idea of the solution for the economy and how we depend on growth, or even if there is a solution on a national/global level.

[lancasterlad]

As the then IT Manager for a finance company in 1999/2000 I can say with certainty that had we not done a lot of work on our systems, the business would not have survived past 1st January 2000.

The Y2K bug didn't hit because it was planned for - maybe a lesson to learn there. I have to admit though, the press hype made the problem appear far worse than it actually was.

[Vortex]

Y2K was also a great opportunity/excuse to chuck out crap legacy systems.

The Y2K reviews showed up all sorts of bugs etc - not just the Y2K issue.

The IT world really received a good spring clean due to Y2K.

And, yes, HUGE amounts of work were done to prevent any Y2K problems.

[emordnilap]

b) ?

That's an interesting position. So do you think that;

a) We will find replacement for the energy/day we obtain from fossil fuels, allowing the economy to grow, or
b) That fossil fuels have no real affect on our economy. - The economy can grow despite a large reduction in net energy utilised by our society?
c) Really our lives will not be affected by a greatly reduced economy? - i.e. GDP and monetary wealth does not equal happiness, and that we may learn to live with less with no real pain to our lives?

The figures quoted elsewhere on this site make me question (b) [or at least question my understanding of how today's society functions economically].

Those figures included the fact that sixty years ago, there were under 3 billion people on the planet but today, with just over twice as many, we're consuming over 15 times the amount of oil per capita, plus we have the nuclear, gas, coal, hydro and renewable energy etc etc plus, apparently, we're getting far more efficiency from each barrel. This is daunting if not frightening.

[jonny2mad]

dear rgr

Ive read hubberts 1956 paper where basically he talks about a nuclear future but this was the happy 1950s where we would all be living in plastic houses and flying in hoverplanes

later he turned against nuclear power and in the 1970s-80s thought that we might be able to transition to solar if we started then ........hmmm we didnt .

We are in a crisis in the evolution of human society. It's unique to both human and geologic history. It has never happened before and it can't possibly happen again. You can only use oil once. You can only use metals once. Soon all the oil is going to be burned and all the metals mined and scattered." That is obviously a scenario of catastrophe

hubberts solution to this situation was a world without money and the work ethic and growth how likely do you think that is .

http://www.energybulletin.net/3800.html

The people who are saying latoc are nutters I think dont understand the situation.
latoc is about people getting ready to survive collapse ,a collapse if you read hubbert he could see coming if things were not changed ,and those things are not going to be changed .

your a cornucopian and Id say that sort of thinking has got us in the mess we are today

[RenewableCandy]

dear rgr

Ive read hubberts 1956 paper where basically he talks about a nuclear future but this was the happy 1950s where we would all be living in plastic houses and flying in hoverplanes

later he turned against nuclear power ...

We're not back to Zeta again are we? No wonder RGR's gone all quiet...

[RGR]

I'll go with b), with the occasional recession and other transitional economic effects, thrown in for good measure.

b) ?

That's an interesting position. So do you think that;

a) We will find replacement for the energy/day we obtain from fossil fuels, allowing the economy to grow, or