Peak oil phenomenon and how it is wrong - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

KylePavao · #1 09-01-2005, 12:58 PM

Oil is running out, but no one wants to talk about it.

Actually, lots of people have talked about it.

In 1914 ... When the US Bureau of Mines estimated reserves at 10 years.
In 1939 ... When the Department of the Interior gave a 13 year projection.
In 1972 ... When The Limits to Growth predicted we'd be out of oil in 20 years.
In 1987 ... When Paul Erlich said the oil shock would come in the '90s.

... and so on.

But that doesn't stop George:

... the resource upon which our lives have been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial.
Oil itself won't disappear, but extracting what remains is becoming ever more difficult and expensive. The discovery of new reserves peaked in the 1960s.

Actually, known world oil reserves, measured in terms of years of consumption remaining, have been steadily increasing since 1940 - even while consumption simultaneously increases. At current rates of consumption, the one trillion barrels of currently known reserves will last about 36 years. The same analysis done 36 years ago would have yielded somewhat lower known reserves.

As far as the expenses are concerned, the price of oil was essentially in same (in real terms) in 1963 as it was 36 years later (when OPEC began adhering to production cutbacks, artificially inflating the price).

Moonbat continues:

The most optimistic projections are the ones produced by the US Department of Energy, which claims that this [i.e. peak production] will not take place until 2037 ... Even if the optimists are correct, we will be scraping the oil barrel within the lifetimes of most of those who are middle-aged today
Well, despite my youthful appearance (see photo), I'm 43 this month, so I guess I'm middle-aged. I hope to still be alive in 2037, at the age of 77. According to the most optimistic projection, that will be the year of peak production - hardly a scraping of the barrel. But even if more pessimistic views are correct, I'd still be willing to bet that petroleum reserves, measured in terms of years of remaining consumption, will be significantly greater than my life expectancy at that time. In fact, if I had to pick a number, I'd bet on ... 36 years.

Monbiot goes on to dismiss what may be the best medium-term solution to the non-problem with two sentences:

there are plenty of possible substitutes, but none of them is likely to be anywhere near as cheap as crude is today. Petroleum can be extracted from tar sands and oil shale, but in most cases the process uses almost as much energy as it liberates, while creating great mountains and lakes of toxic waste.
"Nowhere near as cheap?" The American Geological Institute disagrees:

Traditionally a high-cost endeavor, mining for bitumen [the petroleum component of tar sand] has become much more feasible over the past two decades with the cost for producing a barrel of oil now roughly $8.
And there's a lot of tar sand out there: "Oil production from tar sands in Canada and South America would add about 600 billion barrels to the world’s supply" - at a price below $30, according to the US Energy Information Agency.

That's a 60% increase in known reserves (another 21 years), available at today's prices.

But that doesn't include oil shale resources, which exceed conventional resources by 50%, according to the World Energy Council.

The same report points out that: "the production of shale oil is competitive at crude oil prices above $25/bbl."

Even if these resources exceed conventional oil deposits by 50%, let's assume that the levels are equal. That gives us another 35 years of petroleum, bringing us up to almost 2100. This is a conservative estimate - Bjorn Lomborg's analysis concludes that a price increase to $40 will allow us to "exploit about 5 times present reserves."

George admits that "Natural gas is a better option, but switching from oil to gas propulsion would require a vast and staggeringly expensive new fuel infrastructure." I wonder if he'd concede that it just might be achievable within the next 100 years.

There's more, of course. Nuclear power is dismissed out of hand as "expensive and lethal." Another possible solution, underground coal gasification, may have some promise, but at a cost: The Likely Elimination of Life on Earth. So I guess we can't do that one then.

Unsurprisingly, Monbiot's ultimate point is that the "impending end of the Oil Age" is the motivation for Bush and Blair's evil war.

Given that this is still at least 100 years away, we should give The President and the Prime Minister credit for being very farsighted indeed.

Plantman · #2 09-01-2005, 01:42 PM

Where'd you get this from?

crash9 · #3 09-01-2005, 02:12 PM

Price makes sure that you never completely run out of anything, but we've built up what we have on very cheap easy to get crude. Peak or not it's getting more expensive to find, develop and refine. We've got enough shale to equal known reserves, but it's 7-10years away if we go on an all out crash development program now, and nobody is. Sand in Canada is happening - buy SU and forget about it - if it tanks at the end of this current spike, double up, because we're not so much in a supply driven market - except for the current shutdown in the Gulf - but a demand driven market coming from Asia.
China has what? - 31/2 times our population with India close behind. As just those two benefit from the free market revolution demand is going to go very high. We're very close to capacity right now. This has all just begun in the last few months - the dollar bottomed in January and the bull market in crude was only reflecting the fall in the dollar - now it's demand that's driving price. Even if these populations are much more conservative in their consumption over the next decade demand for crude will increase dramatically before shale's online or sand is a major part of the supply.
Nobody really wants to appreciate the power of China, but they're building a Houston every thirty days. They'll have a setback - sure - thank God, but it will only provide a chance to buy.

Hogweed · #4 09-01-2005, 04:52 PM

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

this link tells a different story and it is like this: peak production has been reached and supply will continue to increase (as china and india continue to industrialize) at a rate of 2-5% per year. my conclusion is get used to $3+ a gallon gas

KylePavao · #5 09-01-2005, 05:13 PM

I've read your doom and gloom website hogweed. It is indeed quite a hard reality to live with, if its the truth...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645

About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

Analysis of seismic recordings revealed the presence of a "deep fault" at the base of the Eugene Island reservoir which was gushing up a river of oil from some deeper and previously unknown source.

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Similar results were seen at other Gulf of Mexico oil wells. Similar results were found in the Cook Inlet oil fields in Alaska. Similar results were found in oil fields in Uzbekistan. Similarly in the Middle East, where oil exploration and extraction have been underway for at least the last 20 years, known reserves have doubled. Currently there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 680 billion barrels of Middle East reserve oil.

Creating that much oil would take a big pile of dead dinosaurs and fermenting prehistoric plants. Could there be another source for crude oil?

An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not a stepchild of unfathomable time and organic degradation. The theory suggests there may be huge, yet-to-be-discovered reserves of oil at depths that dwarf current world estimates.

The theory is simple: Crude oil forms as a natural inorganic process which occurs between the mantle and the crust, somewhere between 5 and 20 miles deep. The proposed mechanism is as follows:

Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system – huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.

At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.

Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."

In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.

In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.

Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.

Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.

There are a number of observations across the oil-producing regions of the globe that support this theory, and the list of proponents begins with Mendelev (who created the periodic table of elements) and includes Dr. Thomas Gold (founding director of Cornell University Center for Radiophysics and Space Research) and Dr. J.F. Kenney of Gas Resources Corporations, Houston, Texas.

J. R. B. · #6 09-01-2005, 06:49 PM

Kyle, I read a similar article many years ago about the origin of crude oil and that article paralleled yours. I don't believe that it is dead dinosaurs either. I also believe that it somehow seeps back up into so called empty wells. Even if you and I, with the articles we have read are wrong, I'm still going to experiment next year with crushing my own oil seeds (flax seed and rape seed) for my own fuel. The rag-heads and big oil can keep their crude.

Emmerich · #7 09-01-2005, 11:46 PM

In recent years 3D Seismic has identified fault blocks that were not located using 2D. These deeper (and shallower) zones were always there, the technology wasn't advanced or precise enough to see them. Same source rock. Same dinosaurs. No magic. Plus stronger prices allows the testing of smaller fault blocks and justifies the capital required to get the production on line.

Emmerich · #8 09-01-2005, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J. R. B.

Kyle, I read a similar article many years ago about the origin of crude oil and that article paralleled yours. I don't believe that it is dead dinosaurs either. I also believe that it somehow seeps back up into so called empty wells. Even if you and I, with the articles we have read are wrong, I'm still going to experiment next year with crushing my own oil seeds (flax seed and rape seed) for my own fuel. The rag-heads and big oil can keep their crude.

There is no credible theory besides organic material being the source of hydrocarbons. What do you think a depleted oil well is exactly? It is when the rock (no rivers, no pools) has no more energy to give up any more oil into the well bore. You can get seepage, but thats all it is, not a new source of oil. The recovery factor for most oil reservoirs is less than 15% which means you get 15% of the oil in place.