Oil Production: Will the Peak Hold?

[RGR]

[21st_century_caveman]

Stick your hand out the window on a sunny day. FINDING energy has nothing to do with solving the problem.

It is true that there is enough energy available from the sun, the earths core and the moons orbit to supply the needs of humanity if we could improve the efficiency of harvesting it and invest some of vast sums of cash sloshing about in the global economy in doing it, but we're not.

Lets not confuse energy and crude oil....I believe economies can grow fine without more crude....just like the US has for 2 years now, and Japan has been doing as well.

Crude oil is only one raw material input, what about all the others?
What is your opinion on Limits to Growth and the possibility that what we are seeing in terms of PO, climate change and supply issues with other raw materials is the begging of us hitting those physical limits?

[jonny2mad]

Im not trying to ignore it rgr Ive read it ,and latter he as I pointed out turned against nuclear


here the 1956 paper

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

[jonny2mad]

our brand of doom as also happened before, I have this really ugly wooden fish carving Im looking at it now its from pitcairn island ,.

if you read collapse by jared diamond he talks about pitcairn easter and Mangareva Island how they used up their resources and turned to savagery and the people on pitcairn died off.
quite predictable

so when europeans found pitcairn it was uninhabited

[Gerontion]

Not really. It simply recognizes that making predictions of Doom is easy, is done quite often, and to date have always been wrong.

It says NOTHING about whether or not the future will be good, or bad, for individuals, or groups.

Here....watch while I demonstrate.

"RUN!!! ASTEROIDS ARE FLYING ABOUT THE PLANET AS WE SPEAK....ONE IS GOING TO HIT.....SELL YOUR HOUSE...LEARN TO GARDEN...BUILD A BOMB SHELTER!!!!"

See? I made a perfectly valid prediction of Doom ( mine is even better because my brand of Doom HAS happened before ). Will it affect my future happiness, the future happiness of my family or country? Darned if I know....I only made a prediction of Doom, I didn't say anything about anyone's happiness or living conditions from now until then.

What's most noticeable about this is that you've repeated yourself and added nothing in the process. By saying that everything is going to be OK, you are making a prediction about the future just as much as the doomers are and to do this, you need to provide some kind of support for your position. Simply saying the doomers are wrong is completely irrelevant to the veracity of your predictions; their falsity, if they are false, does not make your predictions right so if you are going to advance this discussion then you need to back up what you stay. Otherwise, you are still being weird and irrational. Another way of saying the same thing: (i) zombie flesh-eaters being blown away by Mad Max survivalists and (ii) everything being just fine do not exhaust the range of possible future scenarios.

Go to the energy bulletin, seach for "Hubbert" and "Fossil Fuels". The date of his original work was 1956, they have a complete copy there. I'll give you a hint...he wrote the solution RIGHT IN THE TITLE!!! Its hard to miss....but most Peakers do so hard to try.

So by your account, we are facing a transport fuel crisis and the solution to this is nuclear fuel. Is this correct? That seems like a fairly astonishing claim. Could you explain how nuclear power is going to keep 800 million cars moving around (and the trucks, and the planes, and the boats)?

[SunnyJim]

Stick your hand out the window on a sunny day. FINDING energy has nothing to do with solving the problem.

You know exactly what I meant. Don't be obtuse.

Lets not confuse energy and crude oil....I believe economies can grow fine without more crude....just like the US has for 2 years now, and Japan has been doing as well.

I'm, talking about world growth, not pockets that may or may not have done well. We're looking at the global economy as less and less energy becomes availiable to do work and move stuff around. I specifically used energy as I belive that a large component of what grows GDP is net energy converted to useful work. Where we get this energy from doesn't much matter. If I understand you correctly, (and once again your answer uses pedantry to avoid a direct answer) you believe that the world economy (in terms of growth and money etc) will not be affected if less work (in the physics sense of the word) gets done due to declining availiable energy per head of population. I strongly disagree on this point.

If the economy of the world tanks, I don't think anyone will be unaffected. However, I don't make an automatic leap from lack of a transport fuel, % here, % there, to the crashing of the world economy.

OK. I understand your position now and to a degree I agree. If we can use gas instead of oil etc etc then the net work done per head of population can continue to increase then no long term shrinkage of the economy will result. However, fossil fuels are finite, and I can't see any replacement that will offer such huge amounts of energy on a daily basis. So to my mind we will indeed see a slow and gradual decline of the world economy, and particularly western economys as fossil fuels peak. Further more our share of energy per head of capita is getting shared around the developing world. This has the same effect as a huge growth in population as far as energy is concerned.

How the banking system will respond once it sees that the economy is starting on a long term downward trajectory is anyones guess.

btw, you can see this happening already! The affects of peak oil are real and all around us. If you can't see it happening you must be blind!!!!! Check out the drive to bio-fuels, energy poverty and rationing in many countries, food shortages and the credit crunch. All effects of deminishing or stagnating economys.

[clv101]

Two questions for RGR:

Hypothetically, will everything be "okay" (economic growth be maintained) if in the near future total energy supply falls?

Does a say 2012 all liquids peak represent a total energy supply peak?

[RGR]

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.

Are you serious?

[RGR]

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

[RGR]

It is true that there is enough energy available from the sun, the earths core and the moons orbit to supply the needs of humanity if we could improve the efficiency of harvesting it and invest some of vast sums of cash sloshing about in the global economy in doing it, but we're not.

[RGR]

What's most noticeable about this is that you've repeated yourself and added nothing in the process. By saying that everything is going to be OK, you are making a prediction about the future just as much as the doomers are and to do this, you need to provide some kind of support for your position.

[RGR]

You know exactly what I meant. Don't be obtuse.

[RGR]

Two questions for RGR:

Hypothetically, will everything be "okay" (economic growth be maintained) if in the near future total energy supply falls?

Does a say 2012 all liquids peak represent a total energy supply peak?

[SunnyJim]

Stick your hand out the window on a sunny day. FINDING energy has nothing to do with solving the problem.

You know exactly what I meant. Don't be obtuse.

I am not being obtuse, I am trying to very precise. Crude oil contains energy, as does coal, wood, and potatoes. But not all energy is crude. Call it personal quirk, people confusing the two.

Lets not confuse energy and crude oil....I believe economies can grow fine without more crude....just like the US has for 2 years now, and Japan has been doing as well.

I'm, talking about world growth, not pockets that may or may not have done well.

Pockets? My two examples cover 37% of world GDP. Give me 10 minutes more time to research it and lets take bets on whether or not I can get a global majority going? Pockets....good one!

If I understand you correctly, (and once again your answer uses pedantry to avoid a direct answer) you believe that the world economy (in terms of growth and money etc) will not be affected if less work (in the physics sense of the word) gets done due to declining availiable energy per head of population. I strongly disagree on this point.

Richard Duncan, in his Gorge silliness, has a graph showing declining energy use per capita spanning decades, starting in the late 70's.

World GDP grew some 2.2X in the same time period. So your theory would seem to fly in the face of whats been going on for decades now.

Ah well, you're welcome to your argument, and your beliefs. I can see this is going nowhere. Bye bye RGR.

[biffvernon]

Two questions for RGR:

Hypothetically, will everything be "okay" (economic growth be maintained) if in the near future total energy supply falls?

Does a say 2012 all liquids peak represent a total energy supply peak?

I will make an unequivical statement. No country can be rich without abundant and relatively inexpensive ENERGY.

Of course, we may define both abundant and inexpensive differently. And I said energy, NOT crude oil.

And no, I do not agree that peak oil, at any time, past, present or future, is the equivalent of peak energy. May it be? Yes. Is it likely? I doubt it. Does it even matter? Not necessarily, depending on energy efficiency gains as population growth continues to slow down.

That seems a key post. Two important questions with two significant answers. And RGR's second answer introduces the element of doubt that is critical. Can we make use of sufficient energy, given the efficiency gains, to allow the population to be rich? This is where the debate should focus.


PS I've added a link to a blog that RGR, and others, may enjoy on the solar part of PS Forum: http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... 7736#57736