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Duncan Clarke Responds to David Strahan
Posted by Chris Vernon on September 3, 2007 - 5:00pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
The Last Oil Shock and The Battle For Barrels
Last month David Strahan published an open letter to Duncan Clarke, which we discussed here. Duncan Clark has been good enough to respond to Strahan with an open letter we are able to publish today. Full text below the fold.
Dear David,You are right to say that The Battle For Barrels (Profile Books, 2007), my book on the global angst over the end of oil, takes the peak oil thesis seriously including its restrictive technical model, selected data sets and related claims, and also ‘identified some obvious weaknesses’ as you put it.
Part of the text sets out the social context of peak oil, an anthropological phenomenon of significance and not of inconsequential interest as you imply. Ideas have histories and contexts which sometimes illuminate their meanings, so I offer no apology for that. I fail to see why you should suggest that this somehow leads to any diminution of the core theory advanced, which I treat in-depth.
The key points in the book focus on the static nature of the technical model. This is found wanting when examined in relation to its assumptions, both overt and hidden, that fail to correspond to common upstream industry practice, SPE views of conventional reserve dynamics, and evidence of growth in oil reserves. The model exhibits an unnecessary disdain for the multiple and complex impacts of economics – as well as many other real oil world considerations which have been treated at length in my Empires of Oil (Profile Books), just published.
I am not alarmed by peak oil’s prominence in public debate. The lobby has after all developed a slick public relations machine for such purposes. That I acknowledged. The problem is that the arguments promoted by the lobby are built on shaky foundations: the future they project is derived from a linear model of the oil world, whereas non-linearity is far more probable.
Most peak models have likewise been based on presumptions about the narrowest boundaries for both resources/reserves and potential for exploration and discovery. The idea that “all is known” is one such limitation. In addition, there is minimal allowance for a range of key influences in these models: from an array of technologies, to global market-adjustments, crude price impacts, shifting corporate strategies by many players, and a plethora of state-driven policies worldwide.
Paradoxically, whilst it was not my task to do so (I note that you berate me for not doing it in numerical terms), it would theoretically be feasible to create a dynamic model incorporating such factors. Many of my observations lay the foundations by pointing out where the related weaknesses in contemporary peak oil notions lie.
None of the arguments I make hinge on who else amongst the ‘great and the good’ might have endorsed points made pro or con (it matters not to me that Clinton, Soros or whoever back peak oil), so it is of little use for me to follow your lead in this arena, or to respond blow-by-blow to many ad hominem comments and misinterpretations made on arguments advanced in the book. You are entitled to say what you like, and have, but I think The Battle For Barrels provides a rounded but tough assessment of all the key arguments for peak oil, and constitutes a fair and robust critique.
It was never my intention to offer a set of different modelled data that would tell anyone ‘when exactly’ some peak might or might not occur. So many have done that already, and the book assesses a wide range of such views. The book focuses rather on why the models advanced had failed in the past, why (mostly for the same reasons) they may well continue to do so. It also examines the fundamental determinants of actual upstream developments, now and in the expected world oil future. You happily acknowledge the many past failures of peak oil predictions, so maybe some caution on contemporary estimates is equally advised.
Discourse on randomly selected items in this debate – about some countries in crisis, Kuwaiti claims, estimates by others, statements by CEOs - do not help to ‘prove’ the case either way. You say that ‘the obvious facts ... suggest the peak is close’. My reading is the opposite. Yet I went to some lengths to note the above-ground issues of key relevance that have made reserve access and exploitation tougher for the players. This is perhaps our key difference. To me the future cannot be glimpsed simply by assuming a now-fixed and narrowly conceived finite quantum of restrictively-defined geological bounty, placed in a model found to be static and wanting, and then imposed with inflexibility on a complex oil world depicted as lacking societal adaptation.
Much of your critique rests on the advocacy and theses articulated in your own book, The Last Oil Shock (John Murray, 2007), which builds of the idea that the world is running out of oil, that soon will come the ultimate oil shock leading to a series of severe dislocations, eventual catastrophe, and - voila -the extinction of Petroleum Man. Once that optic is accepted, and it is because of acceptance of the very peak oil models I have discussed, the question turns towards surviving the doom. Here you offer judicious policy notes and suggestions to politicians, notably those in Britain. It is an activist agenda, quite different to mine. At the same time, I discern that you exhibit a wider perspective than most “true believers” (some interviewed and many quoted) but in the end your case is locked into the peak oil litany.
There seems to be continued reliance on the notion that the mainstream in the media, government and the corporate oil world act with almost overwhelming ignorance, duplicity and calculated denial, or at best complacency. I am much less sure than you, and have not encountered this in a wide exposure over many years to many segments of the industry on six continents.
You imply that the last oil shock might easily have started on 24 February 2006 when there was a suicide attack in Saudi Arabia aimed at the world’s largest processing plant, the shock not being that peak oil has passed, or might still, but the all-encompassing crisis that is almost bound to be precipitated as a result. All manner of co-mingled disasters are then construed or in different ways imagined. I find it all of interest (and believe that it includes some trenchant observations), but the realities of the world appear more absorbing than these flights of imagination.
Your view that the world oil supply will decline in the next decade or so, that unconventional oil options will not save the day and that much touted alternatives are incapable of filling the gap, all this leading to a global liquid fuels shortage, is one perspective that can be tested in due time. But the key point must be that it is only probable if the mainstream peak oil model is valid.
As you know I disagree with your predictions. My book seeks to explain why this model appears deeply flawed in conception, design and application to global industry practice. Moreover, the model’s own lubricant - the evidence used to reach its ultimate results, without which there would be no prophecy about last oil shocks – is one that greatly discounts world oil resource and reserve potential, future exploration efforts and discoveries, inherent oil market dynamics, crude price impacts and inter-fuel transitions, the future application of multiple technologies, the on-going and substantial phenomenon of reserve growth in the world’s oilfields, societal adaptation, and much more besides.
It is worth recalling the long history of peak oil’s prediction failures, stretching at least back to the early 1990s (even before). Many geopolitical considerations account for our contemporary paradigm. The diminished corporate access to oil, limited by a surge in resource nationalism in important countries, is one of them. This new 21st century paradigm may be expected to continue. But it does not mean that the world has run out of reserves or the supply of oil, let alone all liquids. Nor, despite peak oil’s assumptions, is all now known once and for all on world oil reserves.
The world oil game is arguably one of the hardest things to understand and measure, let alone predict with precision. Its history teaches many lessons, the failure of forecasting one of them. It also instructs us about human ingenuity and adaptability. Like the weather, the oil industry could take many unexpected turns in future. It seems to me that The Last Oil Shock is tied by an umbilical cord to the imminence of catastrophist notions drawn from peak oil models. This case remains to be proven and Petroleum Man will more than likely be around for a very long time to come. As we have both made our case at length in respective books and in these letters, I trust we can conclude our discussion.
All best,
Duncan Clarke
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One point, of several, missed by Mr. Clarke, is that HL works perfectly well if technology (& oil recovery) advances at a steady rate. Only a sudden and massive change in oil recovery and oil discovery rates will upset the model. Steady improvement, year after year, decade after decade, will fit nicely into HL as I understand the mathematics.
Alan
Alan,
I think you raise an extremely important point here. HL works well not only with a steady rate of technological advances, it works fine also with steady rates of reserve growth, steady rates of market-induced improvements in efficiency, and for that matter steady rates of improvement in government policies, if only we had them . . . :-(.
The fundamentals of Hubbert's thinking are stunningly simple. The objections to the theory, however, (as I see it) are based on a misunderstanding or outright denial of these fundamentals:
1. There is a fixed amount of oil in the ground, and for the sake of discussion I'll throw in natural-gas liquids, oilsands, biofuels and even shale.
2. First we got the easy oil, mostly from giant and supergiant oil fields. The easy oil is gone and will never return, regardless of technological advances.
3. The oil that remains is increasingly expensive to extract, despite technological advances.
I do believe in the importance of technological advances and in the power of the market to mitigate somewhat the increasing scarcity and cost of oil. But no combination of technological advances and market-driven re-allocations of resources is going to spare us great and long-lasting pain resulting from Peak Oil. Therefore, we need proposals such as yours--policies and plans based on long-proven technologies, because the implementation of your ideas would provide significant mitigation of the negative effects of peak oil.
...steady rates of improvement in government policies, if only we had them . . . :-(
Of all the factors, historic experience suggests that gov't policies are the most susceptible to large discontinuities :-)
And that is PRECISELY what I am trying to create, not scheduling a sudden visit by the JIT Technology Fairy (although she will be most welcome whenever she decides to visit), but a sudden and massive change in gov't policies.
Of *ALL* of the options, this seems to be the most promising one !
Best Hopes,
Alan
JIT = Just in Time
Most major Private Oil Companies (POC's) are making two basic arguments: (1) Technology will save us and (2) POC's can do a much better job of exploring for and producing oil than the National Oil Companies (NOC's).
It's interesting to see how the POC's did in two regions that were developed by POC's, with virtually no restrictions on drilling: Texas and the North Sea.
Texas peaked in 1972. The North Sea peaked in 1999. In both cases, the initial production declines corresponded to generally rising oil prices.
Texas has shown a long term decline rate of about 4% per year, the North Sea about 4.5% per year (crude + condensate). And this is with the best available technology.
Saudi Arabia is now declining at about the same stage of depletion that Texas started declining (around 55% or so depleted, based on HL), and the world is now declining at about the same stage that the North Sea started declining (around 50% depleted, based on HL).
And like Texas and the North Sea, the initial Saudi and world declines are occurring against a backdrop of generally rising oil prices.
And yet, many major oil companies still assert that they can provide virtually limitless oil. You know, a polite person would call this misleading. A less polite person would call it fraudulent.
From the Most Recent U.S. Weekly Petroleum Data Report
5,158 domestic United States oil production 8/2006 (EIA)
5,154 domestic United States oil production 8/2007 (EIA)
2,245 domestic United States NGL's 8/2006 (EIA)
2,463 domestic United States NGL's 8/2007 (EIA)
The United States produced more total liquids this year than last. What is the decline rate?
At 7.7 million barrels/day total liquids the United States is not far behind Saudi Arabia or Russia.
The main problem is that this precious liquid is in danger of production decline, not that it is in an actual decline in the United States.
Eventually the world supply will drop. Live and let live. Not waste a drop.
Try averaging the decline rate from 1972 to the present. That might give you a better picture.
Rainsong, we are importing 14.25 million barrels a day, or 5.2 billion barrels a year at an average price of about $60 a barrel this year.This is a real national security problem and economic drain on our economy. Even President Bush says so, because we are importing 68% of the oil we use, and its just silly to say otherwise.
Bob Ebersole
rainsong, you are looking at only the last two years. You're missing the long-term trend. I refer you to this graph:
http://www.theoildrum.com/uploads/44/cera_figure_1.jpg
Since the early 70s there have been a few good years, but the long-term trend in America has been 2% [edit] yearly decline.
America now produces 50% what it did at peak. To get back up to the peak, we'd need to find a lot of fresh Saudi Arabias on American soil. As a practical matter this isn't ever going to happen.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec5_7.pdf
1972 (C+C):
Lower 48: 9.4 mbpd
Total US: 9.6 mbpd
2006 (C+C):
Lower 48: 4.5 mbpd (down 53%)
Total US: 5.1 mbpd (down 47%)
Lower 48 production showed a recent rebound primarily because of the ongoing recovery from hurricane damage to production and transportation infrastructure. Also, Total Liquids somewhat distorts the US production situation, because of the increasing contribution from refinery gains.
In any case, since 1972, the Lower 48 has shown a long term decline rate of 2.2% per year, the total US, 1.9% per year.
Based on the HL plot, the US is about 85% depleted (conventional C+C).
In order for our crude oil imports to just stay flat, we have to reduce our crude oil consumption at the same volumetric rate (bpd) that our domestic crude oil production declines.
Rainsong,
It would also be reasonable to see what kind of effort and cost was required to get this 2.5mb out of the ground as compared with 1948 or so, when we first swung through this level of production, or even what it costs compared to last year. Are we pumping a lot more water/gas to maintain pressure? Are our maintenance costs for countless smaller wells becoming a much stronger fraction of the production expense? The flow is certainly the critical number that gets all the attention, but the state we are in is also illustrated by how hard we have to scrabble now to keep from slipping down the slippery wall of this pit.
Bob
nice rethorics. basically the guy says:
1 - you've cried wolf many times before, therefore there's no wolf;
2 - your evidences are just tiny facts that can support many theories;
3 - there's tech ya know?
4 - things are too difficult to grasp. Don't bother;
5 - because things are difficult to grasp, I can say about them whatever I want, nevermind your facts. I can say blah blah blah. See? I rule;
6 - you've ad hominemed me, how bad of you;
7 - here's my repply: you're a doomer;
8 - you're a doomer.
9 - you're a doomer.
10 - there. I've showed you how you are a doomer and thus you are totally wrong.
1 - you've cried wolf many times before, therefore there's no wolf;
As our old pal JMG says, remember that in the parable, the sheep end up getting eaten.
| The problem will solve itself.
| But not in a nice way.
jbunt
What is the source of this "cried wolf" crap. I have been following oil for 40 years, and other than Jimmy Carter or maybe some unknown environmentalist - who has actually written a well documented book in the last 40 years that has previously said that PO is (was) here. Even now, the consensus (among PO experts) is that it is near, but perhaps not quite. Although recent statistics have peaked, we are not sure what, if any, production restraints are in place due solely to a lack of transparency from KSA, among others.
Luis,
When you want to engage in a debate / argument with somebody, the first thing you have to do is to take the other person serious, even is you don't agree with him. Calling the other guy names, or making fun of his arguments, even if you think they are untrue, is not the way to get the discussion going.
Mr Clarke is not particulary 'insulting' or 'behaving badly', so I see no reason not to listen first.
So I take it that you believe in the "civilized discourse" approach that lead us down the path of cozy inside-the-beltway punditry. Ever see the British parliament in action?
I believe both these guys are British. They can handle themselves quite all right.
The British have nothing on the Taiwanese parliament.
Puts CSPAN to shame.
The corruption level in government is inversely proportional to the number of fights in parliament. If no one is fighting then you know everyone is bought.
I respect your opinion but I don't agree at all. I didn't call him names but I did make fun of his arguments, because he didn't make any whatsoever. He just called the other guy a doomer:
"your case is locked into the peak oil litany."
... as if that was some kind of an argument. The notion that he denies Peak Oil is laughable, because even the industry acknowledges PO.
And then he goes to claim that PO view...
...is one that greatly discounts world oil resource and reserve potential, future exploration efforts and discoveries, inherent oil market dynamics, crude price impacts and inter-fuel transitions, the future application of multiple technologies, the on-going and substantial phenomenon of reserve growth in the world’s oilfields, societal adaptation, and much more besides
... which is blatantly false. Either he is beating a straw man, or being ignorant or being a liar. I think he's the third. Then he makes another ignorant rant:
This new 21st century paradigm may be expected to continue. But it does not mean that the world has run out of reserves or the supply of oil, let alone all liquids. Nor, despite peak oil’s assumptions, is all now known once and for all on world oil reserves.
... which is completely unrelated to PO. First, no one is saying that oil "is running out", second, no one is saying that all is known once and for all. This is completely a wrong criticism of PO.
The world oil game is arguably one of the hardest things to understand and measure, let alone predict with precision.
Yet, he's the one who claims that oil will be alright, just because he awoke with good feelings, as he gives no data whatsoever. Have faith will ya?
Right.
And why should I "respect" such fraudulent speech, so full of rethorics and shallow of content, that serves no purpose than to derail debate and to further delay the political PO lobbyism that he so envies about (why sure, the oil majors lobby is certainly smaller...) and to delay the public consensus that something is got to be done about it. He's no more than a shill, and I am happy and all the way to joke him whatever I want.
luisdias,
I think you did an excellent job of knocking Duncan Clarke down.
You could have also pointed to the blatant hypocrisy embedded into Clarke's "sound" logic.
On one hand Clarke says:
In other words, Clarke adopts a linear forecasting approach in which PO models will continue to include gross errors just as they had before.
On the other hand Clarke says:
He wants to have it both ways. He is allowed to maintain a linear model of failing PO models that will continue to fail forever in the same way but we are not allowed to have model of increasingly converging PO models because it is only "we" who fail to appreciate where the knee in the nonlinear curve occurs.
I'm sure westexas is holding his breath every night for that surprising nonlinear up tick in Lower 48 production.
Mr. Clarke and Mr. Strahan:
I've been in the oil and gas business since 1975, and was raised in it, so I believe that i can claim to have been in it all my life. A lot of the perceived contreversy is based on a misunderstanding of mathematics and a misunderstanding of the oil and gas business. Unless the dark matter in the universe is actually petroleum, we will eventually run out of oil. So where the controversy lies is an almost wilfull misunderstanding by the both of you.
When I was born in 1951 there were 2 billion people on earth, now there are 6.5 billion and the population growth is exponential, projected to hit 9 billion by the end of my life. If the world still had 2 billion people the peak oil debate would be academic it might be a worry, but not an immediate worry. And with a third the CO2 polution because of a stable population, global warming would not be nearly so threatening.
M. King Hubbert used a definition of oil that would today be considered crude and condensate and his projections seem to be right on time within a range of about 10%. Bitumen is not oil, its tar. And its cost of production it 3 to 10 times as high as the substances we commonly call oil. Adding plant products to the oil supply because they can be used in a similar manner still doesn't make them oil; they are not fossil energy. The fact is that M. King Hubbert was right, crude oil plus condensate is decreasing in production while demand is climbing, oil is just plain going to be a whole lot more expensive in the future than in the past. The oil business has done a fantastic job of providing inexpensive hydrocarbons, but the inexpensive petroleum is just about gone.
About a week ago 1observer wrote a key post on the THAI process for the Alberta bitumen that details a very promising method that Petrobank is developing for the deeper tar sands in Alberta. It costs $15,000.00 per barrel per day of production and gets 80% of the hydrocarbons in place produced. It makes over a trillion barrels of bitumen economicly feasible, but its still fantasticly expensive-its about triple the cost of onshore oil like the Austin Chalk which are considered resource plays- operators generally get about the same amount out of a well that they have invested in the well. That means oil prices are going to have to stay an inflation adjusted $70/bbl for Petrobank to make money. And this is still a heavy oil that will require expensive refining after the in situ upgrading.
Likewise the US department of Energy has done a number of assessments of the world oil supply with emphasis on the United States. In one published a year ago "Basin Oriented Strategies for CO2 Enhanced Recovery" they summed up the United States:
582 Billion Barrels of Original Oil in place
172 Billion BBl. Cumulative production
20 billion Bbl. proved reserves
Leaving 390 Billion Barrels as "future challenge", or stranded oil in old fields in the USA.
Much of this oil can in fact be recovered through the new drilling and production techniques developed in the last 20 years. 3D and 4D seismic allows wells to be more effectively placed to produce wells and the fluid and gas levels to be monitored for best production. Horizontal wells allow more of the formations to be accessed by the wells and really raising the effectiveness of the wells. Steerable downhole drill motors can pinpoint the location of the wells. Tertiary production techniques like CO2 injection, solvent flooding and microbiological enhancement- the conclusion is that we can now produce up to 65% of the OOIP and many fields should be worth redrilling- in fact as much oil remains to be produced onshore as has been produced in the US since Col. Drake's well in 1859.
But don't kid yourself, it going to take $70/bbl to make this worthwhile. The highest US production was reached in 1973 in the U.S.,about 10 million barrels a day. It seems rather improbable that we can get the rate of this production over about 1/4th of the highest US production, about 2.5 million barrels a day and we are using 21 million barrels of oil a day.
Steve Andrews of ASPO says its not the size of the tank, its the size of the tap.
Its crucial that we use all our silver BB's accumulated thus far, especially conservation. Alan Drake's electrification of rail program will save 2 million barrels of diesel and gasoline a day a greatly reduced price. Electrifying automobiles will save another 6 or 8 million barrels a day, and redeveloping fields and developing the Alberta Bitumen ought to be just about enough to end Nort America's addiction to foreign imports, but its going to take them all. And, meanwhile the rest of the world wants to be prosperous too. So lets get serious and get to work.
Bob Ebersole
An excellent counter to both writers.
Your Steve Andrews' quotation is on target: "It's not the size of the tank; it's the size of the tap."
All discussions must account for world population growth. After all, if population were one billion, we would still have cheap oil--and it would be plentiful, which brings us back to "supply and demand."
One dimension of the problem that has not received enough attention is actual usage. You point out that the U.S. uses 21 million barrels a day, while producing only 2.5 million. We need to understand not U.S. usage, but world usage.
There are four major interrelated variables:
TOD has focused almost exclusively on the first and the fourth: Production and Reserves. While we seem to know usage in the U. S., we know little about world usage. It seems to me we can “back” into this problem by looking at the past by asking a simple question: How long does an above ground barrel of oil stay in the pipeline. In short, how many days’ usage of processed oil do we typically have in the pipeline or storage? (We could, of course, get the answer by asking: How much oil does each country use?)
Clearly, we are producing enough for all needs, at present prices. Usage cannot outstrip production.
Looking into the future, we then have to ask two related questions:
Of course there are ancillary issues that will affect this kind of model: Economic shocks (a la Stuart), alternate energy growth and other conservation measures, poverty users being priced out of the market, technological advances, unexpected discoveries (arctic oil?), etc.
Actual usuage and population growth need to be more fully integrated into TOD models.
I’m not convinced that population growth is that important for the peak oil or oil supply/demand evaluations. For example US per capita oil consumption is approximately 26 times that of India’s. Population isn’t the key determinate, it’s how we use it. A planet of 1bn people behaving like Americans is (in oil demand terms) worse than a planet with 20bn people behaving like Indians.
Good point, and one the die off and olduvai people miss entirely. The relationship between energy consumption and population is not altogether clear.
Total energy consumption = energy per capita times the number of capita. What's not clear about that?
Now what you appear to be saying is that you want to raise the number of capita without limit at the expense of energy consumption per capita, perhaps on the excuse that you have the infinite wisdom to know much better than they what is energy "waste". In other words, you appear to want a world ever more overflowing with people living in ever deeper misery. Which, although the "die-off people" do neglect human ingenuity, seems awfully close to their point.
Don't get your undies in a bunch. I hardly see how Nascar, or Delta airlines, or NFL football, or Winnebagos helps support the population. Energy per capita usage is only a coincidental relationship at best. How much energy do we expend on wars that kill people? How does that equate. So if we expended all our energy from nuclear bombs the energy per capita would go way up, but I seriously doubt the population would too. I know, it is heretical to not drink the energy per capita koolaid. How else would the sheep be made to get hysterical?
Perfectly clear. I'd only add that the numerical ranges of the two variables are not equal, population has a smaller range than the energy per capita variable. As the system evolves I think energy per capita is the more dominant term.
Useless spew from the oil industry which peddles only lies. Why doesn't the US have the biggest population in the world? Energy consumption went up and the birth rate went down. Utter bullshit designed to frighten people.
Urm, pardon? What are you trying to say?
All I'm saying is when thinking about future global oil demand, per capita behaviour is more influential than population numbers.
That is the key metric!
It seems incontrovertible that the world has produced as much oil/day as it can, and the rate of production is in decline. We can avoid the term "peak" and call that something else, or change the definition of oil. It doesn't matter, I believe.
It might not even be important that the world is at peak oil production -- what if there were an infinite supply of oil? Things are spinning out of control on earth, Too much energy is making people too fat, too irascible, too greedy, too lazy, too unimaginative.
What matters is what is done with what we have -- and it looks like the lower-energy regimes actually work better. I can tell you for sure that Astoria, OR was a nicer place when there were more fish, more trees, smaller boats, no helicopters and the Coast Guard really protected and helped us instead of being an arm of the Homeland Security Military Industrial Police State
"A planet of 1bn people behaving like Americans is (in oil demand terms) worse than a planet with 20bn people behaving like Indians."
But lets look at the real world: Indians and Chinese (and others) are trying their best to shift their lifestyle closer to the American example. Now think about the impact that will have on oil price and scarcity, and the future of "economic growth".
In my view, Peak Oil already happened back in 1979. That's when per-capita oil production peaked. Population growth is still on-going and it factors in with the now-stagnant, and soon to be declining, oil production.
And I havn't even mentioned the other essential resources that are declining, especially per capita, such as fresh water.
bullshit. the 1979 peak is a math construct. nothing more. it only shows the limits we are facing in another frame. it has no impact whatsoever in the real world. the most important impact will be chindia trying to be the first world. the most surprising is that they are already seeing that unless they make huge different things than what is done in the first world, they will never make it.
Of course they will never make it. the vast majority of their people will always be peasants.There's a pretty good chance of famines in those places to boot.
In the mean time their striving toward our way of life will guarantee that there will be no significant slackening of demand (unless prices are much,much,higher. It will be one or the other) It isn't hard to imagine Indian demand tripling from these levels. Of course that will never actually happen.
Matt
This "math construct" has some relation to real life, you know. Since 1979 the world has had less oil production per capita. To residents of the first world this sounds inconsequential, since they've seen their own per capita oil consumption increase further since then. Only when oil production itself peaks will the impacts show up, the theory goes.
But if per global capita oil consumption has declined while it has increased in some places, it means that it must have decreased faster in other places. Inequality between nations, and even more so within nations, has therefore deepened in the last 28 years. This is well known from economic data. And when oil peaks, the same process will probably continue: an ongoing concentration of remaining oil consumption towards the rich. This can be expected to result in some unpleasant responses from the have-nots, and the rich circling their wagons. I think we're already seeing all of that happening.
The techno-fixers will no doubt cry out that since 1979 we've increased the efficiency of oil usage and that is why "economic growth" has continued. I agree that there has been a slight improvement in efficiency. But certainly smaller than the growth in population over the period. There has also been a fuel shift, away from oil towards natural gas and, more recently, back to coal. When NG plateaus and coal is found lacking, we'll run out of options, and the stark reality of population pressure will be obvious. And has there been true "growth" since 1979 in per-capita well-being (counting more than just money)? No, not even within the USA!
"it has no impact whatsoever in the real world. the most important impact will be chindia trying to be the first world."
- self-contradictory.
"the most surprising is that they are already seeing that unless they make huge different things than what is done in the first world, they will never make it."
- where do you see that? Both China and India are busy with the world's biggest building boom ever, building highways and cars and coal-fired power plants. It's the population! My jist of comment above was that you can't count on those "chindians" to maintain their low per-capita impact - and why should they? This is not to say that the "first world" has no responsibility to curb its gluttony. But the way things are going, the "race to the bottom" will even out the consumption considerably (between nations, not within them).
One clarification on population: oilmanbob, in an otherwise excellent exposition, said "now there are 6.5 billion and the population growth is exponential, projected to hit 9 billion by the end of my life".
Actually, the world population growth is no longer exponential, and hasn't been for a while; in fact the growth rate is negative. The 9 billion projection is an estimated "peak population", based on current trends. Many industrialized countries are now experiencing population decline, and the U.S. would be close to zero except for immigration.
The growth rate is negative? Pardon me?
While true that growth rates have leveled off some, the population is still growing quite rapidly. Demographers are expecting a large echo boom from those who were born during the last big surge,which should take us pretty close to 8. Right about then we should start having famines because of fertilizer shortages and /or because the West decides that erstwhile surplus food is too dear to send overseas.
Matt
What I think he meant is that the growth of the growth rate (growth rate squared) is negative.
Just because it isn't growing as quickly as it did several decades ago doesn't mean population isn't increasing exponentially.
It clearly is.
Right. What I said was that the guy meant the growth of the growth is negative. In your graph that's clear. Since 1960 that the red line is going down, although that stalling from 1980 is worrying.
I hope the trend will be down.
But of course, only time will tell.
(or hard data)
Hi Chris
The problem for agricultural yields is that oil derived products are not the only issue. Loss of arable land (1% or more per year) for instance is another major issue. It is clear that unless some way is found to dramatically increase yields per acre yet again, that food supply is going to become a major problem. The trends are all the wrong way and several will need to be turned around at the same time.
Already per capita grain production is down 20% since the mid 1990's. The USDA reported the lowest grain stocks ever recorded this year - 53 days.
The UN is predicting 2007 as the year when more than half the worlds people became urbanized. By far the majority of these people buy their food and are therefore dependent on oil derived agricultural products.
As with all things peak oil, it is possible to question individual statistics. However individual statistics do not matter, it is the whole picture and the trends that are important; and this is where I become alarmed. It is not clear to me that we can continue to feed ourselves, let alone enjoy continued economic growth with its attendant population increase.
I agree. The most intractable part of this problem in my opinion is how we square the need to feed a growing population with a reducing cultivated area (desertification, sea level rise, urbanisation), with reducing productivity per hectare (loss of irrigation from fossil aquifers, glacial melt water, fossil fuel inputs), whilst we simultaneously link the food and energy markets through biofuels.
We are attempting to do a lot more with a lot less. I don't see it adding up.
Go vegetarian. That frees up 70% of agricultual land at a stroke.
No it doesn't. A lot of grazing land is not suitable for growing any type of vegetation that humans can eat. It is, however, wonderful for raising livestock which we can eat.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
The concept proposed by the link below may not be practical for grain production or for any food crops at all if the energy requirements and development costs are too great, but if not almost all of the vagaries of farming - light, temperature, water and weather, pests, fertilizers, environmental degradation, etc... - are addressed and minimized.
Additionally, this concept also addresses localization, the need to produce food where it's largely consumed, the very large cities, eliminating much of the food transport and fuel consumption problem and providing low-skill jobs where they're needed. And the amount of "arable" surface area is vastly increased.
The concept is called vertical farming. I'm surprised that no one has ever linked to this or similar sites before though the idea was featured in an article in the NY Times recently.
http://verticalfarm.com/
FWIW I ran that link in a TOD:Canada Round-Up months ago.
oilmanbob:
Thanks for the nice analysis/summary. I'm suprised at your acceptance of the 80% number for the THAI extraction process. If I remember correctly that 80% number was based on a laboratory experiment. Does your field experience really lead you to believe that such numbers can really obtain outside of a glass beaker? I have no experience with these technologies but I do know that scaling up lab bench experiments can take a very long time and that real world processes very rarely are matched out in the real world. Am I missing something?
jjhman
CO2 EOR has been proven by actual field production to get 65% and its been used for 35 years in the limestone reservoirs of the Permian Basin. Petrobank has been producing their THAI wells for about a year with an increase in production rates from the reservoir and the burn rate proceeding at their predicted rates. Petrobank says 80% of the OOIP is produced, and they are they guys doing field experimentation. I have no reason to doubt them, and I certainly hope that they are right. It would be a real blessing for Canada and the world. Bob Ebersole
You have every reason to doubt them; and should keep on until they actually get a well to run for 5 years or longer, which is the minimum for that 80%.
TJ,
You're misunderstanding Petrobank's process. The calculate the oil in place by taking a core so the know the porosity and tar and conate water situation-they can tell you withi about 2% the exact amount of the tar in place per cubic meter. They are also shooting 3 D seismic, which shows them the exact geometry of the reservoir rock almost like a cat scan.
Petrobank then runs a horizontal well through the bottom of the tar reservoir rock. They then drill a well to intersect with the horizontal well, charge it with gas and air, then set the well on fire in a verticle front in the well. By controling the oxogen, they control the fire, and they make actually a smoldering mass, no flame until the rock is 700 degrees farenheit The controlled burn moves ahead in teh rock at 10" a day, cooking the tar out of the rock and into the horizontal well, while the combustion gases pressure the tar down the hole and out to the tanks
.
The gravity starts atabout 6 or 8 gravity, but the heat transforms it to 12 grravity and they put it in a tank to settle out the produced sand. They keep track of the progress of the fire front, probably got devils coming up and watching it from hell, at any rate, they can predict the exact life of the well by controlling the length of the horizontal leg of the well.
The time the well produces has nothing to do with the recovery rate from the formation. The amount of bitumen doesn't decline until the very end of the well life, and they can perdict the well life within days. Bob Ebersole
The amount of bitumen doesn't decline until the very end of the well life, and they can perdict the well life within days.
Based on what? The blurb I read said their longest running well was a little over a year.
TJ
As I said, you are misreading how the process works. The fireflood advances at 10" a day, and that is monitored from the surface. Its controled by injections of air. The first well was 100 meters, the current wells are 500 meters and the new wells will be 750 meters, but that increases well life, not the recovery percentage. Don, 1observer posted a couple of times down the thread explaining these things.Increasing well life will be relevant as to the profitability of any gaiven hole, but not the recovery percentage from the formation.
I doubt they are lying, but you apparently think they would rather lie than tell the truth. As I noted, this is still an expensive process, but it certainly looks economic to me, and it looks as though they are making steady progress towards improving the technique.
Bob Ebersole
Frack. You and 1observer don't even know if an oxygen plant (major investment) is required for this and you understand the process? And its economics?
I have no idea if they're lying or not. They're running pilot scale tests right now, due to finish in several years. They don't know yet. Well, anyone who thinks scale-up from bench scale to kilometer-sized reaction beds is trivial probably deserves to be separated from his money.
Kudo's oilmanbob excellent post. One more thing.
The base price is not constant we have seen the process of receding horizons in action already. Oil shales are always profitable at some magical barrel price 20 dollar higher than today. So the 70 oil base is a moving target and as we begin to replace technology and infrastructure developed with cheap oil it will accelerate upwards. Its not a static number. I'm of the opinion that a global peak will cause a serious strain on the ability of the oil industry to even continue to extract current reserves much less expand hard to extract sources.
Reports on the tar sands projects seem to bear out this hypothesis that most of the remaining oil is not worth extracting for use as a cheap fuel. So our wasteful economic lifestyle will end long before we ever extract most of the remaining oil.
Memmel,
I agree that we can't expand liquid fuels by very much if at all Climate change won't allow it, even if we figure out how to produce more its crazy to do so. Our government seems to want to wreck the earth with resource wars. But its an attitude thing.
I'm 55. When I was a kid most families had one auto. Both my father and my grandfather used to ride the bus to work, and didn't feel deprived. A bus ride with a newspaper or a book is much more pleasant to me than turning my knuckles white grabbing the steering wheel, paying too much for parking then walking several blocks through Texas heat to the office, when the bus could have dropped me off across the street.
And I agree about receeding horizons, but that doesn't mean some individual projects aren't worth doing, and that THAI process looks economic, and also the steam assisted gravity drainage may prove profitable in some areas. Sun seems to have the costs on SAGD to US$30k/bbl/day. Its like everything else-if your overhead isn't too high it may work. But there is a fallacy in thinking that all of the tar sands will be economic, just as not all producing wells make money. It takes management and skill, and a person or company needs to reassess projects often. Bob Ebersole
Don't disagree with you. But we are barely into Peak Oil and the oil industry is already suffering sticker shock across a wide range of costs. This certainly will not get better.
Even with that tar sands projects that your mentioning a lot of the investment was made pre expensive oil. We are just now starting to enter the period when most of your costs are for items created with expensive oil. The oil industry like any industry that consumes real goods will soon find that costs will escalate dramatically and producers are forced to pass on higher production costs.
A good bit of the rosy news on production is from price inflation caused by rising commodity prices. Expect profits for most manufactures to plummet even as price increases continue. The oil industry will suffer just like everyone else.
Now into particulars some of the smaller well managed oil companies will make handsome profits and sure some of the tar sand projects will be profitable. But from the big picture "Big Oil" will be increasingly unable to expand and the industry as a whole will be shrinking as costs increase.
The market which operates in the now just cannot price in the profit margin needed to continue expansion but at the same time keep expenses low enough to continue. I don't know if a free market is even capable of ensuring a depleting critical resource is exploited correctly. The time scales are simply to different and the economy to unstable.
The problem is simple the market is ignoring a major condition peak oil and won't price itself correctly.
At least in my readings free markets both bubble and fail because people ignore real market conditions and fundamentals. The oil industry is in this sort of fantasy world overall. Its detached from the reality of peak oil and probably won't come to earth till its too late.
We will see I may well be to sensitive to the situation that the oil industry is in but in general all I see are conditions that lead to less and less of the available oil being produced much less expansion. And given peak oil is generally not on the radar I think the whole industry/market is whacked. After the housing bubble anytime I see a situation where a market is ignoring a major fundamental condition I get worried.
Memmel,
The profit model of big multinational oil companies and many of the large independents has always depended on their finding and exploiting large, virgin oil and gas fields. For the last twenty years or so they've been using up their saved capital since the finding rate is below production, and E&P has always been the big source of their profits, the margins on refineries and convenience stores isn't nearly do high. And thats why they've been so persistent in trying to get the Gulf of Mexico off Florida and the Alaskan wildlife preserves opened up.
There are many independents who will do very well redeveloping old oil resources in the US by watching their overhead, and I hope to be one of them. I'm currently working on a prospect redeveloping an old Texas field found in 1915 and am just now starting to raise the money.
That's why I know a lot about the oil situation, I'm trying to get some of the 80 billion barrels that the US D.O.E estimates is stranded in the Texas Gulf Coast. Send me your email and I'll send you a copy. My email is Bob Ebersole two thousand and four at Yahoo.com all lower case, numerical and run together
Bob, I don't mean to nitpick but we should not exaggerate population figures. In 1951 the world had a population of about 2.593 billion.
http://www.infoplease.com/year/1951.html
It hit 2 billion around 1929, nine years before my birth. Of course the exponential projection of 9 billion will run smack into declining oil production and subsequently food production. It is anybody's guess as to how high world population will really get before it heads the other way, but my guess is just a tad over 7 billion.
Ron Patterson
A decline in food production will come not from a lack of petroleum but rather wanton waste and greed. If food production were a priority it could be increased even as petroleum production decreased. I get sick of hearing this same old saw from brain dead CEOs flying in private jets and repeated by toads.
What's the difference?
There won't be enough oil to support both our wanton waste and greed and food production for everyone.
And of course wanton waste and greed will take priority. Always has and always will.
Well, then they should come out and say that, not some bullshit theory tying population to oil production. Wanton waste, greed, war, selfishness, etc., is what will cause the die-off, not an oil shortage.
I always thought it was the wanton waste and greed that caused the oil shortage.
Bob, thanks very much for this post. It speaks very closely to where I'm coming from.
Just a couple of points:
I addition to THAI, Underground Coal Gasification appears to be progressing well. There remain a number of questions regarding it's scalability but it looks very promising and quite profitable at $70 per barrel of crude oil. It appears to be a bit behind THAI development but there are also many more players in the game than THAI.
If this technology works out, effective world liquid hydrocarbon reserves will increase by a factor of ten and our challenge will be to restrain global warming over the next century.
This is the one technology that can really keep the party going in my opinion. And the scariest from a global warming perspective. I actually hope we crash and change our ways before we achieve widespread use of in-situ coal gasification.
Your estimates of a factor of ten may underestimate the real amount of coal that could be processed with a technically workable coal gasification program. Their are vast coal seem under the oceans also. And who knows how many deeps seems have not been fully mapped out. If we burn all this to continue growing we threaten the survival of our planet.
However I pray other resource constraints and global warming will work to destroy our current crazy economic model before we can inflict even worse damage on or environment.
If this is the route we take we deserve what ever happens to us. To some extent the excess of the oil age can be forgiven we did not really understand global warming until the 70's but massive exploitation of the coal reserves given what we know know is unforgivable.
Amazing.
I just had exactly that same conversation with one of my unemployed post-college kids today. (Except for the year of birth but pretty damn close there too.)
The younger generation doesn't get that point because they have not seen it with their own two eyes how the planet used to be less populated and less polluted. As far as they are concerned, it has always been like this and it always will continue to be like this --no changes; business as usual.
They can't see that we are like bacteria swimming in the accumulating cesspool of our own waste product and not appreciating that the finite resources of our petri dish will soon be gone.
This is a good debate and may lead people eventually to a fundamental and largely unstated fact of the oil and gas industry. It is this: the oil and gas business is not about maximising production of a fixed volume of hydrocarbon assets inthe ground, it is about maximising profits, returns on investment and share prices for private oil companies and about maximising revenues for the state exporters. Business is about money, not the good of mankind and his need for resources.
The "tank" of hydrocarbons may be a fixed but still unknown volume, but the volume produced is not primarily about the total volume of hydrocarbons in place (resources) but instead about the volume that can be recovered for a given rate of return. Is that volume the same at $25 or $50 or $100 per barrel of oil equivalent? No it is not. That is why tar sands, ultra-deep water oil and other liquids from whatever source, synfuels, agrifuels and the rest are suddenly part of equation when they were not at the average prices prevailing from 1985 through 2005.
Of course there are physical limits to ultimate recovery, but the volume of economically recoverable reserves is a function of value and not just of price because recently costs have been rising at a similar or even faster rate than price. If the investment in squeezing more from the hydrocarbon orange is not coming fast enough to satisfy demand, then that is a function of perceived future values and not primarily of technically recoverable hydrocarbons. OPEC is insistent that if they invest too much in capacity and demand weakens then they will have no return on their spending because they will have created surplus again.
We do not know what resources remain in the ground. We do know that the exploration effort remains far too low to find out whether or not the USGS and IHS are right or wrong about the yet-to-find potential. We do know that if investment in new capacity remains inadequate, then we will have insufficient supply and much higher prices. When physical shortages hit the system and prices take off again, we can be sure that the perception of higher returns on new investment will translate into higher effort to capture what remains under the ground.
Think money and the debate will draw the two sides of this long running argument a little closer together.
Not really.
Money people are interested in making more money, not more oil or more alternate sources of energy.
The money will flow to whatever one of competing enterprises that appears at the moment to produce the maximum $RO$I in the shortest time. If it happens to be buying up tulip futures instead of oil futures, so be it.
The debate is about competing models. Clarke models the world as a linear series of failed predictions regarding the end of oil and as a non-linear advance of technologies towards the singularity. Do you buy into that model? On what rational basis?
Phenix
Thanks for that comment. Exactly, so money people are interested in making more money, because the market expects rising not flat returns. For this very reason, why should an oil company invest right now in very expensive new oil which is unlikely to return more money than old oil that he may still have in his bag? He will not do so readily and by a collective response of the same kind we see that annual decline from old offshore oilfields is after many years of net growth larger than new capacity additions. We see that the oil companies are more demanding of new fields. The new reserves activated for each year of drilling work is now larger not smaller than it was 20 years ago. Field life is shorter to mximise short term cash. And so on. Yes, if tulip bulbs or soya or ethanol will make more money, the money will go there.
And NO, I do not subscribe to a linear series of failed predictions as being a guarantee of a successful prediction. Best to just look at the evidence as dispassionately as possible and conclude, as we usually do, that we do not know enough to say one way or the other what is the certain result, but neither will we grab any trendy "inconvenient truth" ideology as it passes the door in a gush of cheerleaders.
I daresay that I done more in-depth study of these subjects than either of the antagonists in this debate.
I never use Hubbert models.
There is a large and growing cottage industry, usually predicated upon some ill-conceived notion of "peak oil theory", that ultimately depends on a complicated view of the world that is nowhere to be found in that literature.
My experience in the peak oil debate over the last 2 and 1/2 years is that humans frame this problem and others in terms of their religious beliefs, which are emotion-laden, pre-conceived and not amenable to argument, not any scientific view of the world or recognition of its complexity.
Dave
humans frame this problem and others in terms of their religious beliefs...not any recognition of [the world's] complexity.
And, dare I say it, quasi-religious beliefs - ranging from the bizarre pining for a 'simple' mindless world of agricultural hard labor in a fantasized ahistorical past, a world utterly devoid of intellectual effort; to speculative-fantasy visions of an idealized future powered by perpetual-motion machines, with 'consumers' effortlessly plucking goods and services from thin air, and thus likewise utterly devoid of intellectual effort. In other words, a veritable wide-spectrum Rorschach test almost designed to elicit all the possible ways to quest after sloth.
I never use Hubbert models.
There is a large and growing cottage industry, usually predicated upon some ill-conceived notion of "peak oil theory", that ultimately depends on a complicated view of the world that is nowhere to be found in that literature.
I thought petroleum engineering and geology were taught in engineering schools. I thought engineers were taught how to use analytical techniques. So why haven't any of the fundamental (although yet to be accepted) theories of oil depletion ever been filtered down to the undergraduate level? Just because something is not found in the literature does not mean that some underlying truth is not there. A calculated choice has been made to not universally teach oil depletion in schools.
Let me give you an example based on my experience. I went to engineering school (electrical) but did take courses outside of my major. One of the classes I took out of the geology department was limnology, which is essentially the study of lakes. Remember that geology was a part of the engineering school that I went to. But get this -- a big part of the course study was understanding the life-cycle of lakes, essentially the whole eutrophication thing. So why was it deemed important for geology professors to teach detailed theory behind how all lakes will eventually go kaput, but the geology or petroleum engineering professors in the other classes do not ostensibly teach anything about oil depletion? This is absurd, that on the one hand, the certainty of every lake eventually filling in is agreed upon, but that the end of fossil fuels is never touched. And to top it all off, the math and models behind oil depletion is likely easier than anything you would come across in a lake die-off analysis.
Now explain to me why no models are found in geology literature.
Because limnologists aren't paid as much as oil geologists and they don't own the Congress and the Media. So they can actually be left alone to be scientists and not Pharisees. Look at the rest of science in the current administration. It is either ignored, demonized or twisted to be useful to a political purpose -- depending on the field of study and its applicability to a political purpose.
Too true. I noticed Glenn Morton posted further down in the thread and he has a link to a peak oil article he wrote in 2000. His article links to a college class from the same geology department that I took the limnology class from years ago.
Well, here is the current syllabus for Geology 3005:
I have no knowledge how detailed the course is, but the fact that the instructor actually teaches simple arithmetic is somewhat reassuring. Is this stuff really that hard to describe analytically?
The general idea can be understood by almost anyone - "finite resource running out"
The first order mathematical approximation can be understood by almost anyone with an education "if the effort to extract increases each year by x%, we will reach a maximum extraction rate when 50% of the resource is used up"
The problems occur when people are take a simple mathematical model and attempt to apply it a) to uncertain data b) without understanding the underlying assumptions c) without correcting for known abnormal events (eg. 70's oil embargo)
IMHO it is only people with the equivalent of university education in maths (note: not a degree - there are plenty of people with knowledge, but no formal qualifications) who can follow through the assumptions, the long range uncertainties, and the complex inter-relations to form a sensible quantitative outlook. "simple arithmetic" can give a good introduction, and highlight that there needs to be study in this area (PO) but as the various discussions and models presented at this site show, as a whole PO is anything but "simple".
Yet the point remains that Duncan Clarke doesn't even attempt to go this far. If you look at his open letter, he invokes "non-linearity" as an excuse to not go any deeper, saying that PO people assume a linear analysis. The problem is that Duncan Clarke is so mathematically illiterate that he does not even realize that the logistic equation in HL is a non-linear differential equation!
Dave,
I've followed your columns since I began to read The Oil Drum. And while I've occasionally disagreed with your conclusions, I have always admired your perceptiveness, your honesty and your discernment. And I'm sure you've done more in-depth study of the issues, your columns reflect this.
Once again you've sliced through the knot, humans do frame these issues according to religious beliefs, and we have some awfully distructive religious beliefs in the world.
I'd like to suggest a true solution from my own perceptions and beliefs. As I stated above, I see the root of the problem in the uncontrolled population growth in our world.
Any examination shows that this uncontrolled growth is in the poorest parts of the world. The 1.6 billion people who live without electricity have the highest population growth. Their child mortality is appaling because they have dirty water supplies, cook on fires that cause childhood respertory disease, have extra children as economic help when they go to work and financial secutity in the parent's age. And, don't forget sex is a primary entertainment in a world where a person can't read or watch TV after dark. Even religion is entertainment as well as an attempt to manipulate the supernatural. And women without power in their relationships can't say no, and sex has been a barter good since the old stone age. If there is evil in the world its watching children starve and die of malaria and disentary.
The poor people want and need to be more prosperous, yet the world can't stand more fossil fuel useage because of climate change. The answer I see is to get the poorest of the poor renewable energy and education. Wind Turbines, solar and microhydro will provide the energy slaves they need to help improve themselves, and if we just get them elementary education and a computer and a link to the internet they will educate themselves and leapfrog the coal and petroleum use thats strangling us in pollution. If we get decent electric cars available for the rapidly industrialising economies of the world, there won't be the competition for fossil fuels that threatens the security and peace. If we get the world Alan Drake's electric rail plans implemented famine will go away.
Maybe the doomers and apocolypse predicters are right, but what truly scares me is that they may be wrong. The population of India is 1.3 billion, near a quarter of the world population on a land area equal to the eastern half of the United States, so it really is possible to stuff even more starving people on the globe.
The cost will be high. If we spend $1,000.00 per desperately poor person a year on this, it equals US$1.6 Trillion , and thats about what the world spends on arms and armies every year. I think the time has come for the world to do it, or we will all suffer the consequences, not just the poor.
That's my religious belief. Bob Ebersole
Its good to get a response posted here and I am pleased to see that both authors have respect for each other even though their conclusions are different.
If you read Paul Kennedys "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" you get a feel for the ebb and flow of 'power' over the millenia and not just a narrow focus on a single event (although it is sometimes a single event or tipping point that can be identified that starts one era and begins another).
It would seem to me that we are to be witness to such an event. It would not surprise me to see "poorer" Nations that where not so far along the road of development -but who embraced a more sustainable frugal existance- leapfrogging the current top-tier developed Nations as we sail through this turning point.
The incentive for them is the increasingly unaffordable high price of energy resources and the absolute need to create a more sustainable model of existance, at a minimum to become energy efficient. Meanwhile the richer Nations -whos wealth is primarily derived from an economic model based on cheap oil that is about to become redundant- fail to capitalise on this wealth and drive merrily towards the cliff edge without sufficient preparatory measures being implimented.
The US/Developed Nation consumer is so profligate in their use of energy that it is bound to feel like a harder landing for them than an Indian who has just had the first solar light installed in the village.
Nick.
P.S. I have received my copy of "Backyard Aquaponics": http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/ -there is some really very useful information in here and on the web on how to massively increase food productivity... Worth investigating if you worry over where the food might come from when we run out of Gas fertilisers or Phosphates.
Me too!
Even the missus likes the idea. Currently we're getting a new in ground concrete water tank. No prizes for guessing what we're thinking of doing with the old 22kL corrugated iron tank!!
I've addressed "exponential growth" in a previous comment.
Since Bob mentions the poorest parts of the world, I'll add that fertility rates in the third world are also coming down (as they'd have to produce a mid-century peak). I've read recently about one cause of this: the effects of the spreading microcredit movement, among which is a clear decline in fertility rates in the areas where it's been successfully applied.
BTW, I'm not trying to be cornucopian here -- just saying that we shouldn't buy more trouble than we've actually got.
Just take the countries of N. Africa and throw Jordan in there too. Check out what % of their food comes from imports. These %'s swing wildly from good to bad years but overall they are large. Morocco imported 62 % of their food one year. Jordan imports everything. Food and water for it's 5.5 million people. For most of these countries it's usually about half. The populations of these countries is just staggering when compared to any reasonable definition of what they could actually support. They will grow by at least another 25% in the relatively near future barring a widespread sterilization program. They are surviving on two things:Abundance and goodwill. The music is about to stop.
Matt
A slight quibble: India population is 1.1B. China is 1.3B.
Both are cause for concern. China is more scary, IMO.
No matter the claims that China deliberately abuses their own people, surely at least 300M of them will reach economic parity with USA. What then?
Yes, there is a moral imperative, but there is also a big stick.
Dave: If possible would you be able to put up a link? They have probably appeared here before. A quick link, if its not too much trouble, would make the background reading easier.
Thanks.
Phenix
If you have examined price-impacts, as you say, you may have grasped the reality that economically recoverable reserves as well as new resources are a function of value not just some fixed volume notion defined during a 20 year period of largely low prices. One must say that your refusnik attitude to shift from the unholy grail of a fixed recoverable reserves number sounds to me more like a quasi-religious and self-satisfied ideology than a rational conclusion to serious research. Anybody who disagrees with the PC/PO theory is obviously a madman. Sounds a bit like Scientology.
When I said I had examined price-impacts, and also said that I never do Hubbert modeling, the obvious conclusion would have been that I do not believe in "a fixed recoverable reserves number."
You are either some kind of willful moron or totally ignorant of the "peak oil" subject matter.
I hope someday you will explain why this bitterness
The guy is a pretentious wanker. (Who uses the word optic outside of the field of optics?)
The problem is that the arguments promoted by the lobby are built on shaky foundations: the future they project is derived from a linear model of the oil world, whereas non-linearity is far more probable.
Clarke decides to draw on the non-linearity card. This is code for saying that something is not understandable or calculable from a mathematical perspective, therefore please give up.
As we have both made our case at length in respective books and in these letters, I trust we can conclude our discussion.
This is the equivalent of the 4-year old who takes his toys away from his playmates and goes home because something upset him. Boo-hoo.
As one of the earlier people to have published on the coming energy crisis (
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF12-00Morton.html#The Coming Energy Crisis admittedly in an obscure journal—intentionally so as not to cause problems to my career), I feel I have a need to comment on this letter.
Duncan Clarke wrote:
“Part of the text sets out the social context of peak oil, an anthropological phenomenon of significance and not of inconsequential interest as you imply. Ideas have histories and contexts which sometimes illuminate their meanings, so I offer no apology for that”
For this you are to be congratulated. One of my worries is how easily it is for humanity to fool themselves by falling into a group-think. Early in my adult life I fell into an utterly false group-think and escaped it only after intense struggle. And I worry if I have fallen into another. (google Morton’s Demon). Because of that, I am interested in counter views to peak oil. Thus your’s interests me.
Duncan Clarke wrote:
“It was never my intention to offer a set of different modelled data that would tell anyone ‘when exactly’ some peak might or might not occur.”
All of the counter-arguments to peak oil I have read have this aspect in common—they avoid numbers and this troubles me. Nature is infinitely modellable by means of numbers.
Duncan Clarke wrote
“To me the future cannot be glimpsed simply by assuming a now-fixed and narrowly conceived finite quantum of restrictively-defined geological bounty, placed in a model found to be static and wanting, and then imposed with inflexibility on a complex oil world depicted as lacking societal adaptation.”
This statement misses the absolute fact that there is only so much matter on earth. The earth’s mass IS a “now-fixed and narrowly conceived finite quantum of restrictively-defined geological bounty.” And if the mass of the earth is fixed, then so is the mass of iron contained in it, the quantity of aluminum (aluminium for the Brits) is also fixed, and so is the much lesser quantity of oil and natural gas. The question is not whether these quantities are finite and fixed, but how finite and fixed they are. The earth is not an infinite mass of matter and neither is oil.
You comment that peak oilers seem to feel that governments are operating with ignorance in this area. This is one place where I think the peak oil myopia is at least partly in place. It isn't all governments. When I lived in China, I met with a very high government official who is near the center of the Chinese government’s economic efforts. The very first question he asked me and my boss after the pleasantries were exchanged, was: Do you believe in Peak Oil. After we told him that we did, but that it was merely our personal opinions, he acknowledged that he was concerned about that issue.
Indeed, I see in China governmental actions aimed at securing oil supplies. I don’t see similar actions in the West. So, limited to Western governments, there may be some truth in the governments failing to see the issue.
One thing to remember, past failed predictions do not logically allow one to automatically assume that the oil supply is infinitely great, and infinitely productive. The questions I have is why have price and technology not increased the production in the Permian Basin of West Texas, the North Sea, Oman etc etc etc.
Glenn Morton (AKA Seismobob)
Now retired, but formerly
Exploration Director for China for Kerr-McGee;
Dir. Of Technology for Kerr-McGee;
Geophysical Manager for the Kerr-McGee North Sea;
Geophysical Manager for the Gulf of Mexico for Oryx Energy and Kerr-McGee
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
All of the counter-arguments to peak oil I have read have this aspect in common—they avoid numbers and this troubles me. Nature is infinitely modellable by means of numbers.
This is an incisive observation. To take one example, I have looked and looked, but have never found any mathematics or models behind Michael Lynch's writings. Lynch and his cohorts are just blowhards who have figured out how to make empty punditry pay off.
I have debated Michael Lynch regarding Peak Oil, and like Peter Huber, he has an interesting position (Huber is more extreme than Lynch).
In effect, they assert that individual sources of energy will deplete, but our aggregate energy consumption will increase essentially forever (Huber explicitly takes this position).
This is analogous to saying that some oil wells in a field will peak and decline, but the aggregate production from the field--which is the sum of the production of discrete wells--will never peak and decline.
I have taken the opposite approach regarding oil production, to-wit, that discrete regions like Texas and the Lower 48 do serve as useful models for Saudi Arabia and the World. And in fact, as the mathematical and historical models suggested, Saudi and world crude oil production numbers are down, relative to their 2005 peaks.
I have debated Lynch, reviewed a paper of his before it was published in the O&G journal and went to the 2004 SPE talk to meet him. I wanted to look the guy in the eye to see if he really believed it.
As I sat in the audience of the Peak oil debate, Lynch put up the UK production and said that there was no problem. But I spoke up loud enough that those around me heard me. He had only shown the UK production up until 1999. He had failed to show 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 figures which were readily available IN 2004!!!. The guy pulled a sleight of hand of Biblical proportions.
I have little, no correct that, NO respect for the man.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
I have infinite respect for seismobob, aka Glenn Morton, ever since his friend DarkSyde from DailyKos introduced his writings to me several years ago. Thank you SeismoB!
He had only shown the UK production up until 1999. He had failed to show 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 figures which were readily available IN 2004!!!.
He knows...
Mr Morton,
This is a nice addition to this discussion.
With all due respect, I want to point out that this issue has been around for quite a while. For example, recall Gever, et al., Beyond oil: The threat to food and fuel in the coming decades (first edition, 1986).
Here's some other ones:
Office of the Govenor State of Oregon, TRANSITION: A Book on Future Energy; Nuclear or Solar?, 1975.
Denis Hayes, Rays of Hope: The Transition to a Post-Petroleum World, 1977.
The difference is that now, Peak Oil appears to be close at hand, whereas, back during the earlier problems with oil supply, the disruptions were short lived. If so, we no longer have the luxury of business as usual, as pointed out in the Hirsch Report. An orderly transition may not possible today.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf
E. Swanson
Glenn, if I may be so bold, that is perhaps a bit of a 'blinders" statement, from several different angles. Are things really as they seem, when you talk about these, the "ultimate" issues? Is anything to be won from not revealing that truth? I'm guessing there is, for the wizards behind the curtains.
No high ranking Chinese official has ever pronounced the words Peak Oil either, far as I know. You may have talked to someone in China who could be compared to Matt Simmons, certainly no "dud" in present US policy, but someone who is quite clear on the topic. Simmons can, and likely will, be used by the Cheney's and Rove's, and their puppet masters, in a while, to say: "we DID tell you so". They know, they're just scrambling for position.
And reading too much into the lack of the term in Washington utterances is dicy. Ruling parties have a vested interest in not using it. As soon as that term, and its implications, are out there for everyone to see, the world will be a different place, and so will be the power game.
Also, I DO see "similar actions in the West". Key word is Iraq. That, I think, is the US version of "governmental actions aimed at securing oil supplies". I just don't think it's aimed at average Americans driving cars, but at fueling tanks and jets.
There may be some people in either Beijing or the White House who fail to "see the truth", but they are not important. The key figures know it all. They have to, because failing to do so is a key threat to their power. Power doesn't react, it acts. And yes, often behind the scenes, and by not revealing truth. China simply seems to have less problems with the link between "independent' and "government" interests. Simply a question of who has the real power. And I will not attempt to show who does, not even if the wizard is not one and the same in both DC and Beijing. But that's by no means excluded.
ilargi wrote:
"Glenn, if I may be so bold, that is perhaps a bit of a 'blinders" statement, from several different angles. Are things really as they seem, when you talk about these, the "ultimate" issues? Is anything to be won from not revealing that truth? I'm guessing there is, for the wizards behind the curtains.
No high ranking Chinese official has ever pronounced the words Peak Oil either, far as I know. You may have talked to someone in China who could be compared to Matt Simmons, certainly no "dud" in present US policy, but someone who is quite clear on the topic. Simmons can, and likely will, be used by the Cheney's and Rove's, and their puppet masters, in a while, to say: "we DID tell you so". They know, they're just scrambling for position.
"
I am delighted that someone challenges what I say--we all need challenging to keep us straight. Is anything to be gained from not revealing the depth of the problem we have in energy? Yes. As I have flown around the world, I have spoken with people next to me about this issue, and I find one thing to be absolutely constant--no one wants to hear that their life style is at threat. Freely elected politicians get no benefit from telling people that because the people like optimistic leaders, not pessimistic leaders. So, yes, election to high office is to be gained.
The person with whom I spoke was a high level government official--it is not kosher to name drop at those levels, so I won't. I can assure you it wasn't someone like Matt Simmons or someone outside of a high government position. I was amazed I was meeting people at that level since I couldn't meet equivalent people in my own country.
While we may be on opposite sides of the political debate THe silence in the west is largely on both sides of the political spectrum. The republicans lie, telling people that we can be energy independent again; the dems lie telling people we can conserve our way to success. Both are wrong and both are playing to their own side's desires. Neither is telling the truth. We can't conserve our way to success without shutting down the country (not what I call success), and the oil isn't there to be energy independent again.
I used to think that Iraq was about the oil, I am not so sure anymore. My reading (probably wrong) was this. We had troops in Saudi Arabia which caused problems for the Saudi Government (Al Qaeda said they were American puppets). The Sauds wanted us out but not while Saddam was still in power (because if Saddam had not stopped at the Kuwaiti border, we would have a very different world today.) The Bush admin probably thought they could take Iraq, open the oil taps, drive down the cost of oil and help our economy while having a large oil supply under American control. It didn't work out as they wanted. Nothing ever does.
You may be right. I hope the war was about the oil, but if it was, we seem to have lost focus.
As an aside, I have a friend who is on the other side of the political debate from me. We go to lunch regularly to debate each other--keeps us both sharp. Last week we were at lunch and he made the comment that we should be bombing Saudi Arabia because of their spreading of wahabism. He came out of a buy out of a company in ok fashion. I shut him down by simply asking if he wanted to pay $400/bbl for oil and destroy the value of his portfolio. Suddently he wasn't quite so eager to bomb Saudi Arabia. The problem is very complicated.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
okay...
What?...Did I miss something?
Glenn,
Yes, the problem is very complicated. We are faced with a situation that has so many layers that it's almost impossible to peel the onion to the center to find the basic truth. The Saudis are part of a very old culture that sees the world with much different eyes than those of us in the West. They know very well how powerful addictions are, for example, their punishments for alcohol and drugs are extreme by Western standards. While it's not correct to lump everybody in Saudi Arabia into one pile, I suspect that they may be planning a big surprise for us.
After the oil crises in the 1970's, the U.S. energy policy appeared to have become "Drain Saudi Arabia first" , in a manner of speaking. This would have long term impacts, in that it would take this oil out of Saudi hands more rapidly than if we had gone on an energy diet and begun the transition to renewables, but we would be left with our oil addiction as Peak Oil kicked in. The Saudi's are clearly aware of the potential to switch to alternatives, which was the reason they flooded the market in 1986, driving the world price for oil down below $10 per barrel.
Like any successful addiction merchant, be they into drugs, sex or consumer toys, the goal is to extract as much wealth as possible from those addicted. Thus, the first thing you need to do is create some addicts, usually by marketing or by giving away some of the product at no or low cost. Once the demand has been successfully "created", the noose is tightened and the addict is likely to spend the rest of his/her life chained to the supplier(s), handing over a large fraction of his/her earnings in the process.
With this thought in mind, I've been wondering why the Saudis might intentionally inflate their reserves. One reason might be to lull the oil addicts into complacency, thinking that the Saudis will be able to supply all that extra oil that the world will need as economic development pushes up demand. Could there be some hidden purpose behind their repeated assertions that they have lots of oil? As you note:
If world oil production is at peak oil, that scenario is quite likely to happen. Any disruption in oil supply would do. For a brief period, lots of bucks would flow to the oil producing countries, the Saudis being near the top. The financial strain would send asset prices into the toilet. The Saudis (and others), with all that cash, could simply buy everything at a discount. I mean everything, including all those distressed mortgages and bankrupt companies. If the U.S. decided to use our military, the Saudis could just say, "Come on down, the flames are burning bright at the wells, refineries and tanker terminals". Burn Baby, Burn! (You can thank Saddam for that idea.) And that would make the economic mess even worse, so we would be walking on egg shells, so to speak.
Are we over a barrel or what?
E. Swanson
Black_dog, I liked your very thoughtful post. There is, I think a flaw in your chain of logic, although you are correct that the issue has so many layers we will never find the bottom of this onion. The flaw came to my attention when a young Saudi, living in London, saw my early web pages on the oil crisis. He emailed me to ask if that meant that the US would not longer be able to project its military force, thus destroying the US hegemony (his words).
I wrote back noting that he shouldn't be too gleeful because as we ran out of oil, the cereals and other food stuff we exported to Saudi Arabia would decline. I noted that I can live quite a while without oil, but only about 30 days without food. Saudi Arabia imports about 70% of their cereal. This remains true after a brief internet search tonight. The Saudi's get an average of 2900 calories per day. Cut off the imported grain and they might get a wee bit hungry. On the other hand, the US, can feed itself even if we run out of oil by merely not shipping wheat overseas. Yeah, lots more people will be on the backside of a cow plowing the earth, but we would feed ourselves. They wouldn't.
Here are some stats on Saudi ag abilities (1000 tonnes)
Cereals production 2797 Imports 5678
Veg. oils prod. 14 Imports 367
Sugar Imports 739
roots/tubers prod. 316 Imports 179
meat prod. 641 imports 463
Milk 1045 Imports 1359
http://www.fao.org/es/ess/yearbook/vol_1_2/pdf/Saudi-Arabia.pdf
There are also 144,000 tonnes of fishery imports.
So, if they want to starve themselves to death. Let them play that card.
Glenn, aka seismobob
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
Thanks Seismobob, for spot on analysis.
re: "I see in China governmental actions aimed at securing oil supplies. I don’t see similar actions in the West."
Actions do speak louder than political postures. It seems that the Iraq invasion was a misguided effort by some Western governments to secure the Persian Gulf for our side.
For my time and money, Oilman Bob makes a lot of sense here. It isn't whether or not a massive and unprecedented implementation of our efforts and expertise COULD maintain or even increase production; the question is whether it is an efficient use of our efforts.
At some point, reducing consumption becomes the path of least resistance, including economic resistance. Whether or not developing the Arctic or Tarsands or whatever complicated advanced recovery technique is possible is not going to impress the marketplace if a cheaper and more easily implemented alternative is available.
The wild card here is the viability of long term finance. We couldn't build a cathedral over 150 years on a twenty year finance scheme despite the fact that the ones that were built are still there and being used. We have an upcoming crisis in our society's concept of long term finance/investment/benefit that nobody seems to notice. Because our profit horizons are so short, our future is appearing to be also short.
Mitigating this will shake the foundations of western capitalistic society; not mitigating this will destroy western capitalistic society. Whatever the limits of the oil supply, we are reaching the limits of our business model and may be at Peak Private Enterprise Organization. That hairy rascal Marx may have had a point in the long run.
Who will buy $150/barrel oil versus $150 solar? If both take a huge investment over a long time, but the payback period is open ended on solar.....
"Because our profit horizons are so short, our future is appearing to be also short"
This must be the most profound statement of this, or any, thread.
"Because our profit horizons are so short, our future is appearing to be also short."
I would say that since our profit horizons are so short, our vision is also short. Our businesses just can't think past the next quarter.
The free-market economy is a lot like the stabilizers on an airplane. It is a lot easier to use the stabilizers than actively control for every bump; however, the stabilizers will not prevent you from flying into a cliff.
"The world oil game is arguably one of the hardest things to understand and measure, let alone predict with precision. Its history teaches many lessons, the failure of forecasting one of them."
In other words: stop using your forebrains.
So shut up, you gloomy sots!
"I trust we can conclude our 'discussion'."
Arguably so, Mr. Clarke.
About the reality behind the two books and both letters, it's really very simple:
1. Oil is finite. Finite resources do not supply infinite demand. In the long run it makes no real difference exactly WHEN this finite supply will be exhausted. It will be.
2. Infinite population expansion requires infinite resources. This is impossible on a finite planet. Therefore, population expansion will exhaust finite supplies. Therefore, oil (water, minerals, land, food) will be exhausted. Therefore, population will collapse.
About the writing style of the two contenders:
1. Strahan used facts and mathematical realities to present his case.
2. Clarke used obfuscation, opinion, and conjecture in his response.
There's a saying that goes, "We starve our grandchildren to feed our children." I have altered it slightly to: "We starve our children to support our own hedonistic lifestyles."
One of the realities of the dominant culture's destruction of the planet is that it has resulted in a complete disconnect between humans and their descendants. I have children and grandchildren and feel a strong love and attachment to all of them. What about my descendants seven generations into the future? They are still my family. In our destruction of the landbase that we depend upon for existence, we have guaranteed that our great-great grandchildren will be living a survival level existence if they survive at all.
So, Duncan Clarke, what you are really saying is that you want to ignore the mathematical reality that a finite planet cannot support an infinitely expanding population using an infinitely expanding finite resource (oil) and that you would rather support your hedonistic lifestyle by living in absolute denial and condemning your children's children's children to a life of stone age standards.
Snowflower, disgusted with all those who choose to starve their children.
The be fair in general only some of our children will starve it may well be half or more. But once we are past the bottle neck thats probably coming we still will have a lot of population and the now empty cities and dumps can be looted for metals etc. Sure the value of most of our items will be in the recycling but it will exist. And I'm pretty sure that we will keep most if not all of our knowledge this time around.
We have not had a huge loss of knowledge since the printing press was developed.
So sure our children will suffer but maybe they will change in a fundamental way and maybe the or their children will finally fight against the concept of continuous expansion.
Although we are the worst in many ways until we finally let go of at least some of our greed we will continue with these cycles. So don't be too hard on people they are acting like they have for thousands of years just we have become better at exploiting and destroying our world. I assure our ancestors did the same to us.
I agree that we won't have a huge loss of knowledge. I just hope that we'll have enough of the "older" knowledge that let us get to where we are. There are not a lot of blacksmiths, farmers, cooper, etc in the world, and learning how to do what they did is not always as easy as looking it up in your local library or online.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
Not much to add to the above. This is where it would be nice if Duncan replied to some of the points being made here, but I guess he's gone back into his ivory tower with Vinod Khosla. We're not worthy, we don't understand market forces and the wonders of technology. And my guess is that Duncan is a GW denier too, that little crack near the end about the oil industry being as changeable as the weather was cute.
It's all really very simple: if there isn't a lot more oil out there, we're in deep trouble. If there IS a lot more oil out there, then we'll screw up the atmosphere even more by burning it, and we're in deep trouble. And I really don't think this conclusion is the result of some deep psychological problem.
(edited to add:) Unfortunately, all of this will become moot when President Cheney starts bombing Iran. We'll never know whether or not the world really reached Peak Oil. I just hope the building war(s) don't lead to a population reduction that includes me!
Sunspot: Actually, while they avoid putting it in print, all of the cornucopians like this guy and Yergin agree with the doomers that no more cheap oil will be found. They agree that if there is a lot more oil out there (like under the melted Arctic ice cap) it will be extremely expensive oil.
We're past peak.
Mtnlion said: "We're past peak."
I sincerely hope you are wrong; I fear greatly that you are absolutely correct and the numbers, avoided by the likes of Duncan Clarke and Michael Lynch, seem to back up your fearful observation.
Glenn
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
Glenn,
AS a consummate outsider, I appreciate your acknowledgment. I"m not much of a charts and graphs guy ,but I have been following the debate on the drum pretty regularly. It seems pretty obvious to me that the old numbers are not going to be exceeded. Thanks again
Matt
And yet everytime I pull into the gas station, I leave with gas. As much as I want.
Now I'm pretty good with math, so I get it. But why would anyone be wary of shortages when it's always available?
President Bush "We've arrived at Peak Oil!"
Mr. Sixpack "Can I still get gas?"
Bush "Yes"
Six "For how long?"
Bush "It will be an undulating plateau for perhaps 10 years"
Six "????"
Ben Bernanke "I'm cutting interest rates!"
Six "Why?"
Ben "Because you're going to lose your house."
Six "When?"
Ben "Soon"
Six "Will the repossession process undulate for perhaps 10 years?"
Ben "No."
Thats genius, the phrase undulating plateau will haunt the world for the next 10 years
Mr Clarke,
it is impossible to argue with you, as your argument is not even wrong.
It is not falsifiable.
There is nothing tangible in there to attack.
No numbers, no data from the field, no theory, no models, no causalities. Nothing.
Just conjecture.
You can surely _believe_ in such a thing - you might even be right (although science is not on your side right now), but scientific knowledge it is not.
It's just a belief.
And defending a belief with no data against a person who has at least given data and a model... well, that's just poor form in argumentation and you should know better (both as in skill and as in manners).
Well put.
If I came out of reading that letter with anything in hand, it was, 'Maybe his actual argument is only in the book, which I guess I'd have to read to be able to comment..' .. and I don't say that to defend him. If he has an argument besides the strawmen of 'how many times the prediction has been wrong', or the Linear/Non-linear question, which he didn't go on to explain, just made the claim.. then he had every opportunity to use them. I heard a great number of snarky putdowns, including the intimation that he had been hit with ad-homs in Strahan's letter.. ie, 'You're a Namecaller!', but any reference to his actual argument was ultimately hearsay.
Did he have anything to say about the success of Hubberts' lower-48 prediction, and how that model was extended to form the global analysis? (I'm asking in case someone did read his book and has some idea of his response to it..)
Bob
I am not an oil man. My beliefs about peak oil, although certainly greatly influenced by Campbell, Deffeyes, Simmons, TOD and others do not ultimately depend on these sources. They rest upon what I read ALL THE TIME in the MSM, the WSJ, the FT, the ExxonMobil ads. Oil is becoming very difficult and expensive to get! Exxon would never spend the kind of money they do if it weren't necessary.
Spill a jar of pennies on the floor from several feet up. Now try recovering them. At first you can pick up a lot easily. But it requires more and more effort to pick up the remaining pennies. But this is a weak analogy. It's more like spilling pennies in a swamp or something 3D. (Maybe that's weak in the opposite direction.)
So Exxon's bragging about how hard they are working to bring us more oil already tells me something's amiss.
Nor can this be blamed on resource nationalism. If there were plenty of oil to be had, resource nationalism wouldn't matter so much.
Moreover, the fundamental presumptions behind the debate are completely askew. It's quite natural to think to oneself that oil might be a finite resource, that we have be using exponentially more of it over the decades, and therefore won't there come a time when it might run out? Gee, could that happen anytime soon? So if the peak oil debunkers started off by saying, yes, good questions, right to worry, BUT, it just so turns out that your very natural and proper commonsense concerns are misplaced (or premature) for the following reasons ... .
But that's not what happens. It presented as if the peak oilers are Chicken Littles or otherwise off. This is a very strong hint of special pleading. If my wife finds me in a bar holding hands and more with another woman, and my response to her reaction is to attack and say she's paranoid and insanely jealous, then my credibility is lost. I would have to first admit the damaging appearances before going any further. That's what wrong with peak oil debunkers, They do not admit that is they who have the special case to make, that they are in the position of having to go against what common sense would suggest as a very strong possibility. The debunkers take advantage of people's lack of historical perspective: there has been enough oil as long as I can remember, and so why shouldn't there be still?
(Excuse some sloppiness here: I know it's not a matter of running out, but of being half gone.)
...holding hands and more with another woman, and my response to her reaction is to attack and say she's paranoid and insanely jealous, then my credibility is lost. I would have to first admit the damaging appearances before going any further ...They do not admit that is they who have the special case to make, that they are in the position of having to go against what common sense would suggest as a very strong possibility
Something along those lines developed between two co-workers once. One had just found out that the lump in her breast was malignant. Busy-body reported actions of what I believe to be genuine comforting to his wife.
As noted, no special situation is suggested by the oil industry.
Alan
A very fine piece of word-smithing Mr. Clarke.
But if that's all you have to offer, why bother?
It is no secret that the world has been very well explored for some time now. The underlying geology is quite well understood. The only thing that remains at this point is to fill in the cracks so to speak and go after the few mid-size and smaller basins that remain.
The evidence is there for all to see, if one actually looks of course, that efforts to maintain recent high production levels, let alone increase them, are experiencing difficulties.
Alternatives? As the CEO of Chevron has publicly admitted- it's a problem of scale. The oil companies have done an amazing job of supplying ever increasing quantities of energy supplies to an ever expanding world economy. It should be obvious even to a 10 year old that this can go only so far.
I, like Oilmanbob, was born in the early 50s and spent my career in the oil business, fwiw. I entered the business just as U.S. oil production was peaking, although it took several years for everyone to admit it. We had a solution to our problem then- oil importation from the rest of the world was stepped up.
Where next do we go for cheap energy? You have totally failed to address this. Do this and make all of us happy.
i just wonder if this duncan clarke guy has viewed a plot of discoveries vs production. this cannot go on indefinitely. and if "new and improved" technology or reserve growth or eor are going to save us, then we need to be pulling that rabbit out of the hat real soon.
Maybe he covers it his book, but his response above is somewhat dodgy.
We've heard about new & improved technology for a while... but the reality is tar sand and war. Our oil is predicated on misery in Iraq, misery in Africa and, at some point, whenever Canadians wise up... misery in Canada.
SacredCowTipper nailed it the other day when he said...
One can look at this or that, and find areas where a "silver BB" might make an improvement, but the substrate to all this is the number of BTUs available to us, and that number is decreasing.
"It is no secret that the world has been very well explored for some time now. The underlying geology is quite well understood."
(?????)
Is that really true?
Folks, can anyone give us some feedback on that? Especially as it relates to deep offshore, offshore South America, offshore Africa, offshore China. Ghawar....
And given the newer drilling methods, do we actually have any idea what is in the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) of the U.S.?
In fact, if the case can really be made that (a) the world has been very well explored for some time now and at all the depths we are now able to reach and (b) "The underlying geology is quite well understood.", then really, this discussion is over, you simply count your oil, count your consumption, divide, and go home......and based on the numbers either enjoy life, or run for the hills...or shoot yourself!
I must tell you that some of the Ghawar depletion posts and models I have seen on TOD, with the endless strings of charts, simulations, computer models, numbers and stats, where even the brightest statisticians and oil field modelers in the trade cannot come to any consensus, give me great reason to doubt that ""The underlying geology is quite well understood."
And recent surprises off the coast of China, South America, and Africa give me great reason to doubt that the "world has been very well explored for some time now."
For now I am staying with my longstanding contention that niether "The Last Oil Shock", "The Battle For Barrels", "Twilight In The Desert" (as good as it is) nor anyone else has disproven:
We are running completely blind. As Matt Simmons once said, "we are like a car hurtling down a dark highway, with no lights and no map."
This is why the whole Duncan Clarke vs. David Strahan spitting match does nothing to inform the energy debate.
As so often happens in these arguments, one party takes the position that "I know with authority", so the ennd is near, the gig's up, catastrophe is the only possible outcome.
The other party takes the position that "I know with authority" so don't worry, be happy, all's well.
What if my first assumption is the NIETHER party knows shiit with authority?
(and by the way, niether do I....there is no divinely inspired knowledge when it comes to oil and gas fields.....it comes only through hard work and the drill bit)
Clarke earns a bonus point for coming closest to admitting this:
"The world oil game is arguably one of the hardest things to understand and measure, let alone predict with precision."
Exactly correct, but this was no danger to us as long as much of our supply come from inside our borders or at least from North America. Now, given that all assumptions about supply are becoming only guesses, and we are bleeding to death as our wealth pours out of the U.S. to buy oil (and soon natural gas) from what are essentially proving to be people who would just as soon see us destroyed, how is it any benefit to us if the "peakers" are wrong? Duncan is flogging a dead horse. Let us assume he is right.....there is oil around the world...but expensive, and in the hands of adversaries......so what?
We stay on "status quo" and commit national suicide by pouring the last of our wealth and self determination out of the U.S. to get it? How is that any solution to anything?
The good part of all this debate is that it narrows the focus.....makes us think more in terms of "rifle" aiming than in terms of shotgunning around...here's the deal....
If it don't involved reduced consumption of fossil fuels, and renewable alternatives that are produced inside your national borders, it is a waste of time.
DISCLAIMER: The remarks above are clearly "United States" centric. All the same ideas are valid however for any nation. Simply insert "Europe", "The U.K", "Japan", and the logic is the same.
RC
ThatsItMout questioning the statement
"It is no secret that the world has been very well explored for some time now. The underlying geology is quite well understood."
Then asked:
"(?????)
Is that really true? "
The industry has searched for oil off Greenland, in the Mountains of Tibet, China is very well explored, even out in the Gobi desert of Central Asia now, The coastal areas of China are very well known. Take Tibet. It is so remote from anything that there are places to go that require weeks of journey via donkey. Any oil to be found there must be absolutely huge to finance the pipeline from that place and the tectonics of the area make it unlikely that such field sizes exist. Why? The place is a geologic train-wreck. I have been on the ground in Tibet, the faults are so numerous that traps are either going to be leakey or small. Along the southern border of Tibet, erosion has stripped off all of the sedimentary rocks--no oil there. As one goes north about 200 miles one gets into the very widespread Ordovician carbonates (which are found all over China). There is very little production out of them--yeah there is some in China but it is not the major Chinese reservoir. Go further north and one finds Jurassic and younger rocks even further north. But north of the Jurassic trend, the entire place is so incredibly scrunched up in the continental collision, that trap size will always be an issue. Even a 500 million barrel field in those locations, if not right next to a railroad, would have trouble making money.
South American has been explored throughout its sedimentary basins. Africa? East Africa has been tried and found wanting over and over. The game in West Africa is nearly over. If your company isn't in there now, it will only get the chicken-bones but not the meat. Russia, Europe, the North Sea and North America have all been explored extremely thoroughly.
The only places that I know of that have potentially large reserves are 1. the deepwater Gulf of Mexico off of Mexico. I have seen some really nice prospects there--If we are lucky we might get 5 million per day out of it (which happens to be the amount of natural decline the world's productivity loses each year. We have to find that much production just to stay even.
Another place is Antarctica. I have seen seismic there and believe that there are oil fields to be found. But there are 2 problems. First it is illegal to explore there and secondly, how is one to protect the platform from a Connecticutt-sized chunk of ice floating your way???
Finally, parts of the offshore Arctic Ocean might have some oil.
That is about it.
This doesn't mean that some big fields won't be found, they will, but as the statistics show, the are getting rarer and rarer as each year goes by.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
Maybe there is oil under the Antarctic continental glacier. We can't get at it now, but after global warming melts the ice maybe their are several super giants --- maybe.
melt on ! party planet
seismobob
Thanks for the feedback, and some great links.
So, for the sake of argument, we accept that world is now completely explored, and that all the fields found of only marginal size and will be of little benefit....(I am not accepting that, but for the moment, let's say I do....then we know exactly how much oil we are dealing with.
Saudi Aramco recently published the following numbers, taken from the BP statistical review:
North America-50 billion barrels
South America-99 billion barrels
Europe- 19 billion barrels
Africa- 77 billion barrels
Former Soviet- 77 billion barrels
Asia Pacific- 39 billion barrels
Middle East- 686 Billion barrels
World- 1050 billion barrels (a trillion barrels)
We know from discussion here that many do not accept the OPEC claims regarding the Middle East. So we first must ask, do we still accept the normal rule of thumb, "a trillion used, a trillion still remaining (the "halfway" argument)? If so, we know the oil must be somewhere....and now assume that this is IT, there will be no more to be found, or no more that will become economical to develop at a higher price, etc., and I take it we are throwing the possibility of reserve growth completely away.....
Could be I guess....What's interesting is that a year of so ago Khebab did a great post showing that the world oil consumption was only, (get this) one cubic mile per year if you measured it in volume. One cubic mile.
And interestingly, when you look at oil installations on Google Earth, you suddenly realize that areas you thought were HUGE are actually tine specs.....Canterell offshore Mexico, for instance, and offshore Saudi Arabia (most people do not realize that Saudi Arabia is now as much an offshore producer as onshore one, if you look at it field by field....blows the stereotype of the oil well standing in the desert, doesn't it?)....the point being that when we say the "world has been explored," are we talking about an almost mile to mile exploring, both onshore and offshore, because that is what it would take
(I know that recently the Saudi's were still claiming that a fair section of Saudi Arabia alone had not been explored on the Red Sea side and the "empty quarter, but we are pretty much dismissing any information they give....
Anyway, it was fun to track out to a few developments that I was not even aware, and I want to go back to the great links you provided, appreciate the info! :-)
Brazil
The Papa Terra field
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4563896.stm
Petrobras estimates it contains at least 700 million barrels of crude - about 10% of Brazil's current reserves.
Brazil
Peak year projected: 2016
http://www.energyfiles.com/americas/brazil.html
Angola
http://www.energyfiles.com/afrme/angola.html
(This production profile for Mauritania seemed interesting...
http://www.energyfiles.com/afrme/mauritania.html
Just remember, it's a big ole world out there, lots of places to hide, ( and we are looking for one cubic mile new oil per year, which would match discovery to consumption one to one.....vertical or horizontal, onshore of offshore...:-)
RC....
Don't buy your last paragraph. Humans are resourceful if nothing else and they have scoped everything out to first order. Take a look at the discovery curves and we are well past peak on new discoveries. According to the generic models of random discoveries, the probability of overturning this trend is quite small.
Tieing this back to Duncan Clarke, this is just another type of analysis that he and his cohorts Michael Lynch and Peter Huber (a M.E. PhD no less!) would never consider doing. Real analysis deflates their arguments too quickly as they would much rather practice in their standard talkingpoint rhetorical flourishes.
I gotta go to work, so this will be short: THatsItImout wrote:
"the point being that when we say the "world has been explored," are we talking about an almost mile to mile exploring, both onshore and offshore, because that is what it would take"
That is what 3D seismic does for us. Almost the entire Gulf of Mexico is covered with 3 dimensional seismic data. Same with the North Sea. Old 2D grids are good for showing large structures and almost the entire world has that.
The Papa Terra field, with its 700 million bbl will last the world less than 2 weeks at current consumption levels and that is 10% of Brazil's reserves.
Yes, Angola will peak in 2016, but its peak may likely be buried by the decline in the NOrth Sea, the GOM, and the rest of the world
Yes it is a big world, when one flies around it one realizes that. But most of that area is oceanic crust covered only by the thinnest of sediment--we can rule out finding oil in about 70% of the earth's area for those reasons. We can rule out finding oil on granitic platforms and areas with less than 1 km of sediment. That takes most of the world out of play
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
...And of course the Falklands basin does not appear to be too promising to date.
All of these places that you mention are unknowns and, as you have pointed out, the best basins have been well explored. The Arctic and Antarctic may hold promise, but will not mitigate depletion in the near term. Greenland's potential has recently been down graded, The Antarctic is off limits presently, The Arctic will require a few years yet of dividing the polar sea between the adjacent countries, then licencing, seismics, etc.
No, SiesmoBob is correct. The best has been explored. Give or take the odd 0.5 Gb - 1 Gb surprise.
Finding another KSA? - Unlikely.
"the recent surprises offshore china" ........well there were two that i recall 1) the discovery of "nanpu" and the claim of 1.2 gb and 2) the downgrade to 632 million bbls. but either way we have to find a nunpu every other week (1.2 gb) or every week (632 mmbbl) to keep up. and yes, there are new fields being discovered every day but as far as i can remember we havent found a nanpu in the last week, or the week before that or the weeks before that (back to the pilgrimage to the oracle in omaha, may '07 i think it was)
and one further comment: yes there is lots of territory to explore, offshore in ever deeper water and of course under the north pole.
You mention Nanpu. I hadn't heard that it was downgraded. That field frustrates the heck out of me. When I worked China, CNPC was testing a well about 100 meters off our lease boundary. They had a 3 leg jackup and a tanker with a tiny flare which the drillers joked needed weekly propane shipments to keep going.
I need to be careful in what I reveal here so some facts will not be revealed. We had a prospect about 500 m south of our boundary. We set up our rig, I asked the guys on the rig to send a picture a day in of that tanker. I wanted to see if it got lower in the water. It did, so they were putting something into it. We drilled our well, and to leave out the gory details it was a dry hole, about 600 meters from their 'successful' well in the same formation. When they announced a 1.2 billion bbl, I simply couldn't believe it, although there is lots and lots of activity just north of our old block. I always told people that it was either a big scam, or they learned something important about the rocks that we didn't know. I still don't know which the case is.
Do you have a reference for the downward revision on Nanpu? Boy that field makes me mad!
As to lots of territory to explore, only 4 deep water basins in the world have proved prolific of hydrocarbons. GOM, Brazil, Nigeria and Angola. Most of the others have been drilled and found wanting.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/Oilcrisis.htm
First, could I offer a warm welcome to Mr. Duncan Clarke? He is one of the very few peak oil skeptics from the oil industry who has had the intestinal fortitude to enter into a dialogue with us.
And especially to post here on The Oil Drum -- talk about entering the Lion's Den! So, despite our disagreements, I have to tip my hat to him.
Also, I applaud his courtesy and civil tone. It would be classy on our part to return the favor.
For more on the argument between Duncan and Strahan, see the review of their books in the Guardian last April.
It seems to be overlooked, but Mr. Duncan has paid The Oil Drum and the peak oil blogosphere a great compliment:
In the little world of peak oil, it's easy to become discouraged about getting the message out - to see only the problems and frustrations. It should be a source of satisfaction to the dozens of peak oil volunteers on the Internet barricades that we are seen as a "slick public relations machine."
Bart
Energy Bulletin
I could not have said it better myself, Bart. Well said.
Let's be civil folks--civil engagement on these issues is important. No one has a grasp on the complete truth of all of this, but the more we can engage each other and discuss the ideas--without thinking that we have a license for the truth--the closer we can get to an understanding this pressing problem and addressing it with decision makers.
Evidence wins, sooner or later.
I have found that anyone who says they know everything about anything is a complete fool, no matter how long they have studied peak oil or any other topic.
Having the conversations to learn and promote knowledge: that's the most important thing.
(If you all will pardon me, I have to go grease the slick public relations machine now.)
I have to go grease the slick public relations machine
The one grease with which we are cursed with an inexhaustible supply !
Alan
It is slick. TOD (and others) presents a powerful persuasive argument.
However,
Its only a public relations machine if you consider a wedge a simple machine :-)
I must disagree with you, Bart, although I do admire Clarke for having the temerity to post something here.
First, there is no "slick public relations machine". If anyone believes that, they are guilty of an over-inflated opinion of themselves. Second, peak oil (see the YouTube video I posted the other day) is still a subject in the dark, completely unknown by the large majority of Americans, unlike climate change. At least most of them have heard about the Earth's global mean surface temperature getting warmer according to the instrumental record since the late 1800's. They wouldn't put it exactly that way, but they know that there are more extreme weather events, the weather feels warmer, and the Arctic is melting down.
Furthermore, Clarke's arguments are not anything new. It is re-hashed economics & technology will save us stuff. Yergin could have posted the same crap.
This peak oil argument is not going anywhere with the public, if you want my opinion, and that is depressing.
Maybe it's not going anywhere fast but awareness is certainly growing. I'm meeting people on an almost weekly people in the most unlikely of mainstream situations who are talking in general terms about oil, depletion and the future.
Just yesterday there was a government advert on TV encouraging people to train as teachers. It was the usual format of lots of precocious children asking deep questions, "aren't children great". Well one of the questions was "what are we going to do when the oil runs out?". It's a little thing, but also government sponsored and on mainstream TV.
I'd say public awareness is building, just not as quick as we'd like to see.
The argument/debate is over among real scientists.
Even the Yerginites admit that Peak Oil will happen.
They just happen to believe that the Oil Fairy will bring them everlasting plateaus of undulation before PO happens.
The real issue is how to transform our society so that it does something proactively about PO rather than just continuing business as usual and waiting for the motorized infrastructure to drive itself over the cliff.
I think we should be a bit more generous to Mr Clarke, who has responded to a slightly aggressive letter in a forum of articulate people who generally oppose his views. Having recently found myself in a similar position in a very different field, I think this is to be commended.
Having said that, I read both books when they came out hoping to find two sides of a balanced argument, but either I didn't understand BfB's thesis, or there wasn't much thesis there to begin with. I remember thinking that if that was all he could find to counter Strahan's arguments, then Peak Oil must be right. Nor has he said anything new in this letter to bolster his position, and I agree that the absence of numbers is very disappointing.
Mr Clarke, can I tempt you back to answer one question. Do you think that oil output will never peak, or just that it won't peak within the foreseeable future (say 50 years)?
Andy
Mission: improve the soil
Ok, here I go.
First, the letter wasn't "posted" here by him. It was an open letter and was posted as such.
Second, he is a shill. He gives no data, no back-up to his claims, just like you said. He says things are too difficult to grasp, so let's call it even.
That's bullshit and he's not being serious. He's a Hack. A Shill. And we should not have the slightest respect for it. Why should I applause him for "talking with us"? That's surreal. Why would I thank a snake for trying to bite me with "care"?
I have enough of these crackpots. bury them already!
Luis,
Mr. Clarke has agreed to engage in a dialog and has written in a courteous manner. If we want to engage in dialog with people who disagree with us, we should do the same.
I don't know the details of how his letter happened to be posted at TOD, but Mr. Clarke has responded directly to the peak oil camp which takes a certain amount of courage.
Mr. Clarke has years of experience in the oil industry (as a consultant I think). I've read his work and I am certain he believes what he says. His views represent much of the oil industry, as well as some analysts like Peter Odell. (See the comments on his book by people in the industry.)
It is counter-productive to the cause of peak oil to stoop to the level of name-calling. It is harder to respond to opponents with logic, arguments and insight, but in the long run, this is how the technical argument will be won.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
First. This is a blog where people are supposedly free to "comment" on things, unless you ban them of course. I'm not repplying to Mr. Clarke nor do I believe he reads anything I say, therefore I don't have to be courteous to the guy.
Second. The guy engaged in a courteous dialog? Are you serious? Did you bother to read what he wrote? His strategy is anything but courteous:
1 - He made total FUD with blatant lies:
He "denounces" the propagandistic machine that supports peak oil to instill fear. Says its based on shaky foundations. That's uncertainty. And then takes the non-linear out of nowhere to instill doubt. It's plain obvious. The guy doesn't care at all about the data. He's just making FUD.
2 - He made misrepresentations of Peak Oil:
It's false. A lie. Peak Oil models deal very well with tech advances and policies, reserves growth and the like. The safe, easy oil just has been pumped already. Political and geological barriers only highlight that we are entering the next half of oil age. That was said over and over. Therefore he's lying.
3 - You do the maths, punk, I'm here just to bash you, ya know?
Translation:
Now do what I say, punk. Yeah I know it's hard work, that's why I'm not doin' it. And when you've done that, I'll bash you again, by sayin' your math is too complicated, therefore must be wrong somewhere. You don't stand a chance. I rule.
or further down, where he links oil production with the weather:
This is important. If he was serious about this, he should be the one doing these maths. He's not. Nor anyone else is. He's just bashing other's maths because he doesn't like them.
4 -
The wolf doesn't exist, because peter called it too many times. We all know how that story ended, yet the guy doesn't take the lesson. He just repeats the error of the village which see their sheeps eaten.
5 - Twist arguments for your own. Brilliant! How could have anyone guessed that the paper-reserves of ME argument could in fact be an argument against peak oil?
He's just being a shill here. Totally.
6 -
Reality is subjective. Reality is subjective. Stop making stupid maths, stop criticizing bush, hear my voice, all is well. Hear my voice: 2+2=5.
7 -
He's not serious about it. I mean the argument is somewhat valid, but then again how come so many countries are facing exactly these boundaries? Where's societal adaptation in there? He's inconsistent. All over.
8 - Jee, you ad hominemed me. How bad of you. My turn: You're a doomer.
9 - reality is virtual, subjective and surreal:
Brilliant. Man, I couldn't have written it better if I wanted to be an ass. Reality will only happen if the models are right! To hell with reality! To hell with the data! If I prove the model's wrong, I have altered reality. I'm God.
10 -
translation:
you're false because I say so, na na na na na. I'm gone. See ya!
Which gives to the final point. I couldn't care less to be polite about the guy. He's done with the discussion. I'm done as well. Move on. We've got bigger fish to fry.
Luis;
Your objections are all correct, but you've used them to conclude that it justifies being rude and nasty to the guy. Look at your real motives, and adjust your dosage.
It's funny enough that he called the Peak Oil community a 'Slick Lobby', and yet he used all the tools of Dippidy-doo-diplomacy to ease that knife right in (ie, Pot/Kettle/Black), but do take the hint from it, that you don't win the debate by being driven into a rant. I really do agree with you that his tone was condescending and imperious, while it had absolutely no content that I could see, just references to arguments he may or may not have made elsewhere. He asserts that the predictions and method have been proved wrong, but then what of Hubbert's lower-48 prediction? How does that not support that there are predictive formulas that may well be working.. only it's going to be too late once we 'Know' how accurate it actually was for the global forecast?..
But this is a PO PR issue as well. You may be right, but if you lose your temper, those in the bleachers will say you basically admitted your own guilt and failure. Keep on the high road if you can.
Bob Fiske
I'll take that in mind next time. Thanks Bob.
Right on.
By the way, I did laugh out loud during this thread enough times to write it right out, not even insult it with an energy-efficient acronym. (or, EEA)
'Blessed are the cranks, lest we ever let our guard slip'
Bob
I'm with Bart here. Clarke's letter was written specifically for us here. He didn't have to - many others who publicly disagree with the peak oil thesis wouldn't dream of writing anything for inclusion on The Oil Drum.
I did consider adding a note at the bottom reminding our community to respond in a civil manner but decided against it in the end, trusting the discussion not to get out of hand. We may disagree with Clarke but it’s valuable for us to be aware of what the contrarians are saying, which is why I gave Clarke the opportunity to reply here.
wtf? But he's like Jesus Christ or something? The guy lies, misrepresents, dismisses the data, and acts like a cool guy smiling all the way for his own rethoric, because he believes in the industry. No content. Pure blind faith. Add some ad hominems like calling the other guy a radical, and then accuse the other of ad homineming him. There's a name for these guys. It's called a shill. And then you criticize us for denouncing this obvious reality?
Let me tell you something. Imagine there's this guy who's a puppet. He's constantly telling you that nothing is wrong. You take your precious time arguing with him. He keeps telling you he's not convinced. So you spend double time. Triple time. And voilá. Years have passed and you are still arguing with the guy the validity of peak oil. He's meaningless. He's not the guy who should be convinced.
It's the others.
The people who are watching.
And I cannot put the guy in the same level that we are. I cannot honestly do that, because he doesn't also. If people don't like my style, poor luck.
Hell, when I made what seemed to be some "cornucopian" statements in here, people went crazy with me. You weren't there defending my ass, were you? Why not? Why is this guy so special? So he made a book. Wow. So he is able to lie to the people, and you get scared shit with him? Bash him. He's a loony. A hack. And this is theater. This is CrossFire all over again.
Do you really believe he gives an atom of interest to the answers in here? I don't even think he bothers to read the posts in the blog, nevermind the hundreds of comments.
But if you are so inclined, there are other styles in here represented. Take your pick and read it. For me, he's making fun of us and I believe we should not spend an iota of time arguing with these guys, and I make that point. We're wasting time. It's like talking to a brick wall.
Pointless.
Waste.
If we are move the subject forward we can not ignore the contrarians – we should allow them to make their case as best they can then it’s up to us to demonstrate their failings (as you’ve done), make a better case and trust the judgement of society to agree with us.
We very rarely entertain the contrarians views on TOD, largely because they simply aren’t willing to engage. Clarke has been willing through his book and this exchange with Strahan. I agree that his position isn’t credible and his arguments are weak to non-existent but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take this opportunity to evaluate them. It was valuable to evaluate CERA’s contribution for similar reasons.
Our job isn't to convince Clarke of our analysis, it's to show others his isn't credible.
Its garbage. Evaluation completed.
Joking aside, I see your point. I leave to you the politeness. For me, I won't waste any more of my time debunking the bullshit out of him.
I agree that his position isn’t credible and his arguments are weak to non-existent ...
That is a very ad-hominen attack. Calling someone weak is akin to labelling them a sissy-boy. Questioning his credibility could also damage his career and livelihood. Perhaps we should tone it down?
Our job isn't to convince Clarke of our analysis, it's to show others his isn't credible.
I don't want to participate in the politics of destruction.
:)
Are you being sarcastic?
That's why we usually attach the insurance-policy smiley at the end.
If this guy's career is based on false assumptions, than why shouldn't our questioning damage it? Should we also not question con-men? Just because a speaker is using pretty words and a mild tone to deliver garbage, doesn't mean we shouldn't denounce it as garbage.
I believe that Mr. Clarke won't use numbers in his arguments because they scare the crap out of him. They should.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
Just a quick point: use of the vernacular of conspiracy theorists etc is unlikely to increase the credibility of posts.
Just a quick point: insinuating somebody is a conspiracy theorist, is not good form in argument.
The guy had NO proof for his argument. Absolutely none. There is no way to even evaluate his position from his argument. Only from the data from the field, which he does NOT provide.
He should go through the TOD shredder just like everybody else.
No silk gloves, no special treatment.
If he wants to play the game, he should know the rules.
I was simply pointing out that the use of language is important.
I would say that TOD is the de facto location to have CIVILISED discussion on Peak Oil.
You can always visit peakoil.com if you want to experience life in the raw.
The main contributors here at TOD almost always use well structured English, and rarely use profanities.
Sadly some posts contain words and phrases which you wouldn't want to hear in the presence of, say, your parents, your children, your priest etc.
Other posts, such as the one containing the word "shill", devalue themselves by revealing possibly mental rigidity in the poster.
The use of bad language etc is also likely to put off any journalist dropping by to find out what this Peak Oil thing is all about.
Surely a valid and cogent argument doesn't need to be embellished by uncivil language?
The anonymity offered by the Web allows people to be abusive, coarse and uncivil ... but I don't think it's mandatory.
MM:
I really do agree with this, and I do try to live up to it. I hope it shows. As Bernie Sanders likes to say.. 'Honest people can disagree'.. and a constructive dialog is an extremely important tool if we are to address any of the challenges that face us as a civilization. But it does seem clear that Mr. Clarke comes from the world of lively and well-sharpened debates that we Yanks watch in awe and envy out of the House-of-Commons every week, and should have no difficulty 'taking it as well as he can dish it..'
That said, I think the rules of slander are pretty fair. If you are going to call someone a name and accept the concordant risk to your own reputation by doing so, your obligation is threefold.
1) Define that label you've applied to him.. (ie, Shill)
2) Prove your claim
3) Sign your name
My family would have been well-served to know how to 'mix it up' a little better than we did. Non-confrontation and conformity doesn't make everything nice, any more than solving your problems with endless barfights..
Bob
hmm lets see.
1) Shill = "a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty." Dictionary.com
I can't prove personal profit, but if Mr. Clarke offers no evidence for his claims, my accusation is correct for the second and third definition at least.
So, no 1 checked.
2) I've done that in other comment posts. Checked.
3) Done that.
Guess I'm out of jail.
Have a nice day.
Yes, the Slander-fairies had already taken note and credited your account.
Just a correction. It's libel, not slander ;)
Indy
First of all Mr. Clarke, you are fatuously misstaken regarding a numerical model of resource depletion which incorporates general economic considerations.
Such a model was developed at MIT some 30 years ago, by Meadows etal, who published their findings in "Limits to Growth", a report to the Club of Rome. Their findings, which showed that BAU(Business As Usual) would collide headon with rsource constraints during the period 2000-2100 was and to my knowledge is still being debunked in similar vein to Peak Oil.
Not acknowledged in your treatise, is Hubbert's 1954 successful prediction of USA production peaking in 1970, and that he made this prediction some 16 years prior to the peak, and regardless of the many technological improvements during that period, peak nonetheless occured.
Much over stated, is the issue of reserve growth. As Campbell and LaHerre point out, this is an accounting fiction. To base your policy or other propositions on an accounting fiction, is perfidy.
Not acknowledged is the successful prediction of rising oil prices made by Campbell and Laherre in SA in 1997, then debunked, and now debunked by the likes of you. Yet they were among the few who got it right regarding the 2000-2003 crash. Interesting To note that the concurring work by economists at Argonne Labs has been suppressed.
Now, just who pays your salary, and sponsors your books?
"Dubya?" Exxon?
AND if you are correct........
Exactly why has the US spent a trillion in a bald attempt to secure a pipeline route from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan, much less hegemony over the oil reserves of Iraq, and the pending demolition of Iran to dominate their reserves too........
Because, I think you are full of CRAP...........
INDY
That's not polite.
Rather, that's the truth.
Actually, the lack of coherent arguments from those who counter peak oil data with gobbeldygook is what scares me and convinces me that peak theories are closer to the truth than anyone is comfortable with. Westexas uses Hubbert Linearization, Dave Cohen uses other analyses, yet they come to similar, not identical conclusions. I keep looking for peak oil disputers to come up with something tangible. Their lack of data is much more wanting than any purported past failures of peak prediction. Clarke says, "it's not my job" to come up with any mathematical models. It is very difficult to decipher exactly what he is saying, other than peak oil theories are unsatisfying. Peak oil predictions are fairly specific, while Clarke's counter-arguments are quite vague.
The undulating plateau of Yergin, et al, is a peak oil model. The curve is different in shape, and the peak is different in timing, but nonetheless there is a point at which supplies decline.
Westexas, Dave Cohen, Stuart, et al. Who do you think has the best counter-arguments for peak oil and what are they?
I have been reading this forum for some time now. This conversation revolving around Peak Oil (or not) and Population finally forced me to say something. I see three basic problems facing our world today:
1. Unsustainable and growing use of limited natural resources (potable water, arable land, metals, fossil fuels - esp oil) and a growing and non-linear demand upon those resources exacerbated by the below. Peak Oil theorists are correct; it’s just a matter of when?
2. A growth-oriented economy based upon consumerism, credit and high return on investment, fully dependent upon cheap, available and versatile fuels. The economic model in use today REQUIRES continual and never-ending growth. Without the possibility of growth, markets whither and die quickly, as money managers realise the loss of growth potential in those markets and remove their investments. This concept is key to any hope of transition to a new transport and energy infrastructure, and is especially key to the sustainability of today’s infrastructure which must continue in operation until it can be replaced. As things stand today, there exists no substitute for oil that can sustain the current world economic model, especially in the area of transport.
3. Exponential population growth made possible and fueled by the above. Today’s population level is possible only because we can afford to eat oil, drink oil and transport eating and drinking oil. Remove oil from the equation or the ability to cheaply transport it, and a large portion of the population quickly dies. Current population levels obviate the ability to sustain such levels by local food production. I say this because the distribution of world population have over the years moved dramatically from rural areas to mega-urban centres. These huge centres of population are entirely dependent upon cheap oil and gas to water, fertilise, cultivate the ground, eliminate damage from insects and disease, harvest and deliver food. They are entirely dependent upon cheap, available oil to collect, sanitise and deliver potable water to their inhabitants and to dispose of waste water. They are entirely dependent upon the energy infrastructure to construct their homes, provide heat and light. These mega-centres of population have also become important hub nodes in a vast and global economic network, and if one or more of the nodes fail, it would have damaging effects upon the entire network in today’s world. I could go on but you get the point.
Now for the bad news. Peak oil is not the prime problem we are facing. Nor is over-population. Under the present economic system lack of investment is going to be our nearest and deadliest enemy. The current transport and energy infrastructures are complex, highly sensitive, expensive and require immense investment to continue operating, even without considering the increased demand to be placed upon these infrastructures by continued urban population growth. Investment, whether it be private or public, is driven by the prospect of a reasonable return, the likelihood that the investment or the loan will be repaid in full plus reasonable returns. If the likelihood is that profit will suffer or that the investment will be lost altogether (a business going bankrupt), then investment in that business will dry up and the market collapse. The moment that the money markets realise that peak oil has happened, investment in the transport and energy infrastructure will dry up. Who is willing to invest in a losing business? And the infrastructures won’t be saved by public monies either, as the costs of maintaining the infrastructures will become too high in a failing economy where the tax base is eroding. From a Climate Change perspective we will enter a particularly sensitive period at this point. The gut reaction will be to throw every fossil fuel source at our command against the problem – dirty coal to be specific. For our survival, we will do anything, thus insuring an unacceptably dangerous global temperature rise, condemning our world to something we cannot even adequately predict.
At some point parts of the infrastructure will likely collapse – possibly forever - taking with it whole populations of urban dwellers and the growth-based economy with it.
We have a chance to change this, at least put it off and buy enough time to change the current infrastructure. But we, as a people, are not taking the necessarily hard decisions to make that change. We talk a lot about it. We really know a lot about oil, don’t we? However, do we REALLY understand the implications of this? Perhaps I’m too negative. But maybe not. Perhaps your interest in peak Oil is merely academic or purely scientific. We have the numbers and the stats are on our side. It’s only a matter of time before we can truly say to the deniers, “You were wrong. We were right.”. But to what end? If we really believed and understood the implications of what is being discussed on forums such as this, don’t you think we would be moving from out front of our PCs, organising together, and physically breaking down the doors of the rich and powerful, demanding immediate change for the sake of our children and their children, for the sake of humanity?
Shouldn’t we?
Apologies if I have offended anyone.
You have a lot of faith in the ability of the common person to make a difference.
Having seen - and experienced - how the politicians, Big Business, the rich and the authoritarian can stamp over almost any opposition to any of their plans, I have become more cynical.
The Powers That Be will react .. but too late. They will have to introduce various restrictions on energy, fuel and maybe food & water at some point in the next decade or two.
There will be many who won't agree with this ... "they have their rights" ... so social disorder will then be likely.
My wife and I have grave doubts for the future. Our response has been to move to a rural location and to buy some land for a smallholding.
I have retrained to be able to move my career from the city to the countryside ... we still need to pay the bills, and smallholding won't do that.
(We don't discuss our opinions with the locals much ... but I am beginning to suspect that there is a steady stream of families quietly migrating to the countryside because of increasing nervousness about the future)
So, yes, we do move away from our PC at times ... to make physical preparations for the future ... but not to make futile protests.
Family comes first ... "humanity" is a bigger challenge.
Victor;
I think your perspective on Investments, vs others' conclusions about 'It' being population, oil, climate, species loss, etc.. are good examples of the blind men defining an elephant by touching the part that is closest to them. The descriptions are all different, but it all adds up to an elephant, one way or another. I won't even try to put a name on the elephant itself, being just another blind man.. maybe it's 'Survival' or something. But each little part is worth noting and fitting into a full picture, if we want to make sense of things.
What would you describe 'investment' as in a really primal way? (Outside of economics.. what is the essential, Human activity being performed?) Isn't it a tool we use to create systems and structures (companies) that are far larger than people could hope to create individually, like a railway or a textile business? Is there a way to reenvision what is Accomplished by investing to start to devise a process, essentially still in an economic framework, that bypasses the current system's expected shortcomings, so that even if we are hung up to a great extent by energy availability, we are at least able to try out some contingency plans that make use of 'expected surpluses', like recently-unemployed auto workers? What can we do to revalue labor or durable goods as they will be in a world of briskly-revised assumptions, so that we can at least be making use of what we DO have access to? I'm thinking about disasters like Katrina, where there were excessive resources around and offered, but were not being accepted, used, moved or applied so that they would alleviate the human suffering that was going on.
As far as knocking down doors of the powerful is concerned, I have to suggest that what the leaders need is for the people to lead them. We need to be powerful, We need to create pathways for communication and solution-building, we need to be doing the things that will get them knocking on OUR doors, and be the examples of the changes we want to see in the world. I'd like to know that there are some visionary economists working on that end of the puzzle.
I think Clarke makes a persuasive argument that the picture is considerably more complicated than many peak-oilers imagine (or would like) for it to be. It makes sense to be concerned about finite resources--particularly environmentally hazardous ones--and to develop alternatives. We should be doing that. But the doomsday scenario predicted by the peak-oilers I've talked to and read on seems more like apocalyptic wishful thinking than rational theory. I haven't encountered a single dispassionate argument for peak oil that doesn't have some sort of political agenda or Utopian ideal driving it. It's all very reminiscent of the millennial Y2K scare to me.
I'm all for people moving to rural areas and developing self-sustaining lifestyles and practices. But doing so out of fear of a highly debatable doomsday theory just seems irrational to me.
No doubt a lot of people tie their own hopes to Peak Oil. Nonetheless, watching what happens to nations around the world experiencing fuel shortages does not reassure me that things will work out ok. There's nothing irrational about simple observation.
What is the "highly debatable" part of Peak Oil? On one side, we have people who present cogent argument backed up by large amounts of data. On the other side, are people who believe that they can shout down the first without the same level and quality of empirical evidence and argument. That is not a debate.
Here's a little dispassionate argument. If Peak Oil isn't real, then why have discoveries not come even close to keeping up with production?
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
"The book focuses rather on why the models advanced had failed in the past, why (mostly for the same reasons) they may well continue to do so.
It is worth recalling the long history of peak oil’s prediction failures, stretching at least back to the early 1990s (even before)."
Does Clarke's book document his contention of a long history of peak oil prediction failures? I keep seeing such error alleged, and I even keep seeing peak oilers defensively concede it, but I myself don't know where the contention comes from.
Way back in 1985, we had error from Jimmy Carter, about which I expressed incredulity on the energyresources list (July 13, 2006). Meaning incredulity that he would say this, not incredulity that he did say it.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/92590
Sandwiched on the other end in time, I am aware of Kenneth Deffeyes' 2000 peak that didn't happen.
In between, Colin Campbell early on, in the 1990s, was too pessimistic, but has himself said so. See my energyresources post (June 15, 2006).
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/92070
Richard Duncan has made a series of estimates. I summarized some of them on the same list (December 5, 2004). With Duncan, the issue apparently is whether he's talking about only crude and/or convention, all liquids, or something in between.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/66872
Roger Blanchard has called the North Sea correct, especially in comparison to the EIA. The peak oilers as far as I know have not been wrong on Mexico.
So I kind of want documentation, lest I conclude that what is oft alleged is mostly myth.
BTW: M. King Hubbert inventoried all the unfound pessimism he could find from before his own 1956 prediction. So far as I know, he didn't use the inventory in a publication, and he undertook it after 1956, probably in the 1956-1962 time range, but he was aware of all that old stuff, at least in terms of estimated ultimates or remaining recoverable, back to 1882 and 1909 and 1920 and so forth./1/
Chris Kuykendall
/1/ Box 112, ninth file folder, M. King Hubbert Collection, Accession Number 1238, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming.
Clarke can say what he wants. fact of the matter is that for whatever reason the price of fuel is getting to the point where it's going to be a real crippling economic factor if something doesn't give. Somehow I don't see anything giving...
Debate production when, where and how much all you want, the economics of this are hitting now...and it's going to get worse.
If markets for the product collapse, you may just as well leave the stuff in the ground.
JS Mosby