The problem is the speed of decline of the new well technology. We are going to get a huge boost in production from Haynesville Shale - perhaps 1.5-2 TCF per year by 2012 which is almost 10% of our production. But the horizontal wells expected to be drilled decline 60%+ in the first year. If we keep stacking old wells and new production from unconventional gas plays we still have the same treadmill phenomenon witnessed on conventional gas plays - the shale plays only extend the start of overall decline. At the same time, these new bursts of production give the market false senses of lower long term prices, which make it likely incorrect longer term policy choices are made. Already natural gas use in electricity production is up 33% in past 4 years. I wonder how much of this is due to refinery needs....anyone with that stat please enlighten...

Sean TOD,

You should start a thread "Peak OIl in 2008 does NOT mean Peak Gas in 2008".
Many of the usual suspects on TOD don't grock this.

If we use the analog of the lag between peak U.S. oil and gas production (1971 to 2015?), we won't hit worldwide peak gas production until 2050 or so.

I knew LNG imports were down never really paid attention to exports. I assume that they go to eastern canada and maybe some into Mexico ? I don't think thats a permanent condition once prices are right we can attract LNG import again. Internal production should have more than made up for this. Which means demand for NG is up in the US. Given that the economy is slowing and has been for a while then we must have added new demand for NG thats causing problems. NG is not bad but given the strong growth one would think NG storage would have been higher like it was back in 2006-2007. Something seems to have changed this year.

Personally I'm very skeptical of the long term production from both deep water gas and shale. It takes a tremendous amount of drilling in the shale deposits to just stay even and we pretty much have all our rigs deployed drilling for NG and oil right now.

http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html

The U.S. rotary rig count was up 23 at 1,990 for the week of August 15, 2008 and is 10.9 percent higher than last year.

The number of rotary rigs drilling for oil is up 8 at 395. The number of rigs targeting oil is 86 greater than last year's level of activity. Rigs currently drilling for oil represent 19.8% percent of total drilling activity.

Rigs directed toward natural gas were up 15 at 1,586. The number of rigs currently drilling for gas is 106 greater than last year's level of 1,480.

Given the rapid declines of shale NG sources in my opinion we simply can't throw enough rigs at shale to stay even much less expand more production without older source going into steep decline.

If the recent strong pull back in NG prices continues which it may we may even see a slow down in drilling that would be problematic because in my opinion if we back off even a little bit from exploiting the shale reserves we probably won't be able to catch back up. We are going to have to stay drilling pretty much all out for NG and keep expanding the rig fleet just to stay even. In any case given we are pretty much flat out on the drilling side it will be interesting to see how NG production changes over the rest of the year and next. Given that the shale NG well lifetimes are like one-two years then the flow decreases dramatically we should in my opinion start seeing NG production again heading downwards.

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/07jul/barnett_shale.cfm

I'm not saying we won't get a lot of gas out of these fields overtime but I can't see how they can keep overall production from again declining without a major increase in the number of rigs drilling.

Yes, I have that plan. I have had one article posted so far on the Oil drum (nuclear power for the oilsands).

One other one on deaths per TWH, went back and forth a few times but unfortunately has not been posted yet.

This is where I compared the deaths from all energy sources.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

While I believe that current reactors are far safer than coal and oil and natural gas and comparable to solar and wind I believe that all of them can be improved. For solar power that means no rooftop power, but like Coolearth putting solar over rural areas or undeveloped city land for municipal solar. That way there will not be deaths from falls from roofs.

The worst case scenarios about nuclear are not credible.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/indian-point-worst-case-nuclear.html

If one were worried about it then get some less than 10 million for the equivalent of golf driving range netting or 10-15 story batting cage fencing around the reactors [only for the reactors by high value areas like New York). Planes would hit the barrier first and the containment domes would absolutely be able to withstand minor collaterol damage.

Improved radiation protection will address even those mostly unnecessary fears.

At some point in the future, there is some probability of nuclear war and there is definitely the continued threat of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. This is not because of increased nuclear power increasing the risks, it is because improving technology makes it easier and easier to make weapons in general and the knowledge of nuclear weapons have already (past tense) proliferated.

The side effect of actually deploying simple technology like better nails and improved construction to make us mostly immune to nuclear weapons (10-1000 times fewer deaths per megaton) is that society will pay less because of reduced hurricane and earthquake damage.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/re-inventing-civil-defense.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/simple-and-affordable-defences-against....

Deploying radiation protection will mean not having as many deaths in the event of nuclear war and zero deaths in the event of ANY nuclear accident.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/progress-in-radiation-protection.html

But there should still be development and deployment of the improved technology for reactors and protection of people.

Deep burn reactors should be produced and scaled up and the best current reactors should be massively scaled up.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/deep-burn-and-seriously-scaling-nuclear...

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/responding-to-al-gores-clean-energy.html

Energy Technology Plan
This site has proposed an energy plan with a greater focus on applying better energy technology. The plan is not solely focused on CO2 emissions.

Short term
Efficiency and drilling for regular and enhanced recovery, policy that discourages coal and fossil fuel and encourages nuclear and renewables. Try to reduce fuel usage 2-4% per year and try to increase oil from drilling and biofuels by 3-6% per year.

Accelerate the development and deployment of inflatable electric cars and adapting cars like the $2500 Tata nano to be plug in electric vehicles.

Accelerate the development and deployment of new building technology like Calera cement which removes one ton of CO2 for each ton of cement instead of adding one ton of CO2 to the air. If all cement worldwide were able to use this then instead of adding 2.35 billion tons of CO2/year there would be a removal of 2.35 billion tons.

Encourage the adoption of electric bikes and scooters. China has 80 million and is building 21 million per year. Electric scooters can reach highway speeds and folding e-bikes can be rolled onto public transit.

Build the factory mass producible meltdown proof high temperature nuclear reactors. Accelerate the factory mass producible Hyperion power Uranium hydride reactor. [currently targeting 2012 deployment]

Build the Fuji Molten salt reactor which can use thorium and can burn 99% of the thorium, uranium and plutonium which only leaves 30 year half life material.

Mid Term
Big nuclear buildup and thermoelectric and transmission efficiency Triple nuclear power by 2020 by using new (MIT annular nuclear fuel can increase power by 50% for existing reactors) uprate technology and advanced thermoelectrics and some new plants. (25% of all energy from nuclear instead of 8.2% and 17% less fossil fuel. First reduce coal first - 30,000 deaths from coal air pollution, 60,000 deaths from combined coal [over 13 times all US forces deaths from the current Iraq war] and fossil fuel air pollution in the USA. Plus moving 1.2 billion tons of coal is 40% of freight rail traffic and 10% of diesel fuel usage.) Can get up to six times more nuclear by 2030. Displace all coal and a lot of oil.

Mid-Long Term
Very advanced nuclear fission and nuclear fusion and better renewables (geothermal, wind [kitegen, superconducting wind turbines], solar [concentrated solar in municipal or rural power configurations. My favorite is CoolEarth's solar balloons], genetically modified organisms for biofuel)

Also part of the near term steps, but which would not likely have impact until the mid-term is to fully fund the best nuclear fusion power generation possibilities. Create policies to accelerate research and deployment.

btw: since I have covered all the points. Then this should be posted as a main article on TOD right?

Jason,

While we don't always agree on the future, even though we are only 30 miles apart, I fully concur with your view. What I don't think people realize is exactly how difficult/impossible any transition is.

Harry and I talk now and then and he has been telling about your "Ag" experiences. I really think TOD readers would get a better understanding of the difficulty if you were to relate your wheat scything experience this summer.

Todd

A powerdown is realistic, necessary and inevitable. Whether we do it intentionally and deliberately or not, it's going to happen. War. famine and ecological devastation is powerdown. Just not what I'd consider the most satisfactory.

Doesn't mean shit to a tree though, esp after all the trees have been cut down.

cfm in Gray, ME

I think we should be looking forward very carefully, and making plans accordingly. There are a lot of inter-relationships that make things work differently than we would expect.

This is so true. When working on a really tough problem, one of my colleges, and old engineer, always says "first, you need a theory, then you know what to test, but first comes the theory.".

And I think that qualitative posts are great for working up those theories. What is connected? How? Is it enough of a connection to matter? Where should more effort be put in analysis? Etc. But first you need to explore the theory of how all these bits come together.

ELM was a perfect example. Westexas describes how he thinks it will play out based on his reasoning and intuition. It starts to sound good and Khebab jumps in with a solid analysis. Next thing we know it is all over the financial pages and in academic papers. Humanities understanding of the world ticks up one notch.

The position I have taken on offshore drilling is that if it make sense to drill offshore, then now is the time to start doing it. We have the resources to do it now.

1. It makes no sense drill where there is no sizable deposits of oil due to the greater expenses involved in offshore drilling. The geology of the US offshore is well known from the 1980s.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_pres_dcu_RTXSF_a.htm

The best areas are in GOM(3.5 bboe,+70% of offshore reserves) and they are currently open to drilling. A recent fantasy is that there is oil offshore Alaska in the Arctic Ocean--Chukhchi Sea(rigs in the Arctic Ocean?)--its just Big Oil propaganda. Big Oil's fun is attacking 'environmentalists who want to hurt America'.

Gail, you're too smart for that pig-in-a-poke BS.

2. We really don't have the ability to undertake a big program of offshore drilling as many rigs have been shipped out to West Africa. If the US does decide to build a bunch of offshore rigs they'll float away to real oil fields before the suckers notice that there's no oil here.
Well played, XOM!

If you want to boost domestic oil production there's unconventional oil shale/sands and EOR.

But seriously, don't we really want to get off oil?

This is great! By the time they get their hundreds/thousands of nuclear plants built and rebuilt and rebuilt, we will have transitioned to renewables and will be set to conquer the world again!

Well, except for that last bit.

Best Hopes for Long-term Survival (...seven generations...seven generations...seven generations...),

Cheers

Hello totoneila,

Many notable fields were found at the last minute. Prudhoe Bay's discovery was preceded by a string of dry holes, and the rig was about to be packed up and shipped elsewhere, but so long as it's up there, they figured they'd give it one more shot. Yergin's book The Prize documents many such happy outcomes.

What WHT is getting at, I'm not sure. Better understanding of geologic structures can prevent companies from wasting money on places that don't hold much promise. There are places where only a fool or Thomas Gold would bother to drill, like in the middle of an ocean basin; otherwise they drill where it seems sensible and stands a good chance of paying off. Seismic findings aren't the be all and end all - a huge reservoir, Mukluk, was discovered on the Alaska North Slope, and companies spent $2 billion on land leases/an artificial island and causeway/test well in 1983. Result: salt water, the oil had migrated out at some point. This soured companies on exuberant exploration for some time thereafter, with good reason, going into more sure fire venues like merger and acquisition - "Searching for oil on Wall Street."

And then what?

Robert,

This article is very helpful. The increase is very recent.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/natural_gas_production.cfm

@ Brian:
I appreciate the economic basis for what you're saying, in the sense that oil reserves as such aren't equatable with the physical volumes of the substance.

As regards the idea that if deep oil exists, the oil companies would be recovering it, I'd point to Exxon Neftegas' wells on Sakhalin Island, East Russia. At 38,000ft deep, they're way below the 15,000ft 'oil window' of traditional biogenic theory. Petrobas' recent deep-water finds in Brazil raise similar questions.

Like I say though, I'm agnostic on the subject, perhaps the oil window is misplaced.

Hello Nephilim. I think you may have misunderstood the meaning of 'agnostic' there. It's really not a 'concession'.

As for the conspiracy theory about my being, in fact, someone else, and having appeared before you many times before... well, I'm hardly qualified to comment, but I admit I'm skeptical. I didn't realise people had to have been members of a particular forum for more than a few hours to possess a functioning brain.

I think the straw man argument might also work both ways here. And while we're quoting the conventions of debate, you might like to look up 'ad hominem'.

But thanks for your input. :-)

Clearly the Earth is finite, no one's disputing that, surely?

Your point about the age of the abiogenic theory affecting its validity makes little sense. The first biotic theory of oil's origin was suggested by Mikhailo Lomonosov in 1757, does that affect its validity?

As for your point regarding plate tectonics, well... Mendeleev, who supported the abiogenic model, hypothesised the existence of deep faults before they were empirically demonstrated to exist. And he was roundly criticised for it by geologists of the day.

I've read that website, but it loses marks for me when it suggests that proponents of abiotic theory are all selfish oil guzzlers. Although I'm not convinced by the theory, it interests me precisely because the Peak Oil theory is so useful for the giant oil companies (i.e. the impression of scarcity). Given the disparity of wealth on the planet, and the fact that the four largest oil companies had combined 2007 revenues of $1.2 trillion, I would suggest that skepticism towards Peak Oil is a useful corrective.

I fail to see how any of this affects the obvious environmental imperative to reduce the use of pollutants, or anything of the sort. Unless you're incapable of holding two seemingly contrasting thoughts in your head at the same time.