Home » Posts tagged 'peak oil' (Page 12)

Tag Archives: peak oil

In a Greater Middle East in which one country after another has been plunged into chaos and possible failed statehood, two rival nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have been bedrock exceptions to the rule. Iran, at the moment, remains so, but the Saudi royals, increasingly unnerved, have been steering their country erratically into the region’s chaos. The kingdom is now led by a decrepit 80-year-old monarch who, in commonplace meetings, has to be fed his lines by teleprompter. Meanwhile, his 30-year-old son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has gained significant control over both the kingdom’s economic and military decision-making, launched a rash anti-Iranian war in Yemen, heavily dependent on air power. It is not only Washington-backed but distinctly in the American mode of these last years: brutal yet ineffective, never-ending, a boon to the spread of terror groups, and seeded with potential blowback.

Meanwhile, in a cheap-oil, belt-tightening moment, in an increasingly edgy country, the royals are reining in budgets and undermining the good life they were previously financing for many of their citizens. The one thing they continue to do is pump oil — their only form of wealth — as if there were no tomorrow, while threatening further price-depressing rises in oil production in the near future. And that’s hardly been the end of their threats. While taking on the Iranians (and the Russians), they have also been lashing out at the local opposition, executing a prominent dissident Shiite cleric among others and even baring their teeth at Washington. They have reportedly threatened the Obama administration with the sell-off of hundreds of billions of dollars in American assets if a bill, now in Congress and aimed at opening the Saudis to American lawsuits over their supposed culpability for the 9/11 attacks, were to pass.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Where did all the oil go? The peak is back

April 25, 2016

Where did all the oil go? The peak is back

Solar power has grown exponentially and the target of 50 percent renewables by 2028 to avoid a 2C world is achievable

An extensive new scientific analysis published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy & Environment says that proved conventional oil reserves as detailed in industry sources are likely “overstated” by half.

According to standard sources like the Oil & Gas Journal, BP’s Annual Statistical Review of World Energy, and the US Energy Information Administration, the world contains 1.7 trillion barrels of proved conventional reserves.

However, according to the new study by Professor Michael Jefferson of the ESCP Europe Business School, a former chief economist at oil major Royal Dutch/Shell Group, this official figure which has helped justify massive investments in new exploration and development, is almost double the real size of world reserves.

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIRES) is a series of high-quality peer-reviewed publications which runs authoritative reviews of the literature across relevant academic disciplines.

According to Professor Michael Jefferson, who spent nearly 20 years at Shell in various senior roles from head of planning in Europe to director of oil supply and trading, “the five major Middle East oil exporters altered the basis of their definition of ‘proved’ conventional oil reserves from a 90 percent probability down to a 50 percent probability from 1984. The result has been an apparent (but not real) increase in their ‘proved’ conventional oil reserves of some 435 billion barrels.”

Global reserves have been further inflated, he wrote in his study, by adding reserve figures from Venezuelan heavy oil and Canadian tar sands – despite the fact that they are “more difficult and costly to extract” and generally of “poorer quality” than conventional oil. This has brought up global reserve estimates by a further 440 billion barrels.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil Is Back

April 25, 2016

Peak Oil Is Back

Where did all the oil go? The peak is back

An extensive new scientific analysis published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy & Environment says that proved conventional oil reserves as detailed in industry sources are likely “overstated” by half.

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIRES) is a series of high-quality peer-reviewed publications which runs authoritative reviews of the literature across relevant academic disciplines.

Jefferson’s conclusion is stark: “Put bluntly, the standard claim that the world has proved conventional oil reserves of nearly 1.7 trillion barrels is overstated by about 875 billion barrels.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 4

April 22, 2016

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 4

Loft072415H

I’ve mentioned in the prior posts of this series that there were two articles posted online a number of weeks ago * which caught my attention for reasons which at first puzzled me. No disrespect intended either author, but the contents of each were fairly routine offerings by those who clearly have not accepted the rationale of Peak Oil [and/or climate change] and have a decidedly anti-liberal/progressive perspective about … probably everything. Not exactly unusual these days, is it?

But as I suggested in the second post of this series, what struck me about the combination of the pieces [and the commentary from quite rabid believers in all things Right] was not the messages conveyed. They were what is by now standard fare from the Right. Perhaps it was nothing more than I had finally maxed out on the same vague, boilerplate, stay-with-the-message contributions to public discourse on matters of more than passing significance.

They each and both highlighted just about everything that’s not only “wrong” [disheartening and pointless, more accurately] about public policy and social issues discussions, but they also managed to encapsulate how each side in our ongoing Left-Right war talks past the “opposition.” They have no use for what we on the Left are trying to convey. From our perspective, the light-on-facts-if-they-even-bother approach seems more ludicrous by the day.

Given that our understanding of facts suggests we have some serious challenges ahead, the completely dismissive attitude of our perspective has flown past “just annoying” and landed on the “what the f*ck are they thinking?” square. Ignoring every bit of evidence offered in order to remain true to their foxhole partners carries the potential for significant consequences that will land on all of us. That makes us a bit edgy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Parliamentary group warns that global fossil fuels could peak in less than 10 years

April 20, 2016

Parliamentary group warns that global fossil fuels could peak in less than 10 years

British MPs launch landmark report on impending environmental ‘limits’ to economic growth

A report commissioned on behalf of a cross-party group of British MPs authored by a former UK government advisor, the first of its kind, says that industrial civilisation is currently on track to experience “an eventual collapse of production and living standards” in the next few decades if business-as-usual continues.

The report published by the new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Limits to Growth, which launched in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening, reviews the scientific merits of a controversial 1972 model by a team of MIT scientists, which forecasted a possible collapse of civilisation due to resource depletion.

The report launch at the House of Commons was addressed by Anders Wijkman, co-chair of the Club of Rome, which originally commissioned the MIT study.

At the time, the MIT team’s findings had been widely criticised in the media for being alarmist. To this day, it is often believed that the ‘limits to growth’ forecasts were dramatically wrong.

But the new report by the APPG on Limits to Growth, whose members consist of Conservative, Labour, Green and Scottish National Party members of parliament, reviews the scientific literature and finds that the original model remains surprisingly robust.

Authored by Professor Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey, who was Economics Commissioner on the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission, and former Carbon Brief policy analyst Robin Webster, the report concludes that:

“There is unsettling evidence that society is tracking the ‘standard run’ of the original study — which leads ultimately to collapse. Detailed and recent analyses suggest that production peaks for some key resources may only be decades away.”

The 1972 team used their system dynamics model of the consumption of key planetary resources to explore a range of different scenarios.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Time To Get Serious Pt 2

April 19, 2016

Peak Oil: Time To Get Serious Pt 2

If nothing else, we’ll need to recognize that, like climate change, Peak Oil is not some event looming on a distant horizon. Peak Oil is happening now.

We must guard against the notion that Peak Oil’s impact (like climate change) is just a one-time, cataclysmic episode “scheduled” to happen but only at some random time at an indefinite point sometime long into the future. That thinking suggest we can put off dealing with it until “later.” Conventional crude oil production peaked a decade ago. The short-term bump from tight oil production in recent years changed the totals for a brief period, but the the main issue is unchanged.

Media and industry spin may alter the perceptions of reality, but the efforts won’t change the reality. Peak Oil is already here! It’s not just about barrels of production totals. It’s what happens to a modern society powered by a finite fossil fuel resource drawn down every day to provide energy for a nearly-infinite number of needs, products, and demands.

The B team cannot match what conventional crude oil has provided all of us for more than a century. We’re now cruising along atop a somewhat steady (?) plateau of crude oil supply while feverish exploration continues, but a finite resource is still finite.

And inferior substitutes with their assorted financial and production challenges are still inferior substitutes.

The fact that peak oil’s impact won’t be obvious to all but the most rigidly delusional by next week, or next month, or next year, or for several years thereafter won’t alter the fact that what has powered modern society over these many decades will not be as available, affordable, or plentiful to power modern society in the years ahead. If we’re all waiting for a one-time collapse, then we’ve got a long wait ahead.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A Personal Appreciation of M. King Hubbert

April 18, 2016

A Personal Appreciation of M. King Hubbert

A recent vacation afforded me the opportunity to read The Oracle of Oil, Mason Inman’s excellent new biography of Marion King Hubbert. I strongly recommend it. But, rather than writing a standard book review (which might cover much of the same ground as this one by Frank Kaminski), I’m inspired instead simply to offer a few words in appreciation of Hubbert himself.

Born in Texas in 1903, Hubbert earned his Ph.D. in geology at University of Chicago, then taught at Columbia University. He later worked at Shell’s research laboratory and for the U.S. Geological Survey, and occasionally lectured at Stanford and UC Berkeley. His contributions to geophysics included a mathematical demonstration that rock in the Earth’s crust, because it is under great pressure over large areas, behaves in some ways more like a liquid than a solid. He earned every relevant scientific award short of a Nobel prize, and won lasting fame as the father of “peak oil”—the theory (by now more of an observation) that oil production in any large area will inevitably start from zero, reach one or more high points, and decline back toward zero. (Here is a brief video clipof Hubbert in 1976 explaining the very basics of peak oil).

For years I’ve had a photographic portrait of Hubbert, given to me by his nephew, hanging just above my computer in my home office. I described Hubbert’s best-known accomplishments—his mathematical modeling of oil depletion and his successful forecast of a decline in U.S. petroleum production beginning around 1970—in my 2003 book The Party’s Over, and I have spent most of the last couple of decades reading, writing, and speaking publicly about oil depletion and its consequences, so I could fairly be described as a longstanding Hubbert devotee. After devouring Inman’s meticulously researched and entertainingly written biography, I feel even more indebted to the great man than before.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Time To Get Serious Pt 1

April 12, 2016

Peak Oil: Time To Get Serious Pt 1

86480012

The truths, unpleasant though they may be, are the truths: inexpensive, readily available oil is slowly but surely becoming less readily available, more expensive, and harder to come by. Current conditions [ultra-low prices; curtailed/canceled oil production and exploration projects; over-supply; declining investments; high debt] only highlight that the problems of maintaining an adequate, affordable, accessible supply of fossil fuel needed to power modern society aren’t going away.

We can pay homage to and wish for all the magic technology in the world; ignore every single environmental consequence; disregard the fundamental differences and considerations regarding conventional crude oil production and tight oil production; ignore all the geopolitical and geological realities; pretend that oil will still be ours for the asking as often and for as much as we want; or hope that Someone Else is going to rescue us, but delusion and denial will only take us so far.

Those who know but have worked much too hard to mislead and misrepresent must now devote some of their prodigious efforts and considerable knowledge to not just truth-telling, but taking a vital leadership role in exploring how we plan for a future where fossil fuel resources will no longer serve as the primary energy supply for our society.

Recognizing the awesome complexity and widespread impact of that fact merits serious effort and honorable leadership. Are we going to find it? Soon?

The sooner we accept the evidence before us, the sooner we begin to plan intelligently for new methods of powering modern society. Anyone deluding themselves into thinking it won’t be all that difficult or will develop in anyone’s definition of a reasonably short period of time needs to step away from the conversation until the facts and realities settle in. We’ve had plenty of senseless denial as it is.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World Crude plus Condensate Decline Rate

April 7, 2016

World Crude plus Condensate Decline Rate

There is concern that World C+C may decline steeply after the peak, I believe those concerns are over blown. There is always the possibility that there could be a severe recession due to high debt levels, high oil prices or potentially due to both problems in combination. War and environmental damage due to overpopulation are also potential problems which may lead to a crisis.

If none of these problems arises in the near term (say for the next ten years), and demand for oil is high enough to keep annual average oil prices above $75/b from 2018 to 2025, then the average annual decline rate of oil (C+C) output will remain under 2%.

For simplicity in the analysis that follows, I assume the peak in C+C output is 2015 and that output will decline at a relatively steady rate from 2015 to 2025. This in unlikely to be the case in practice and the actual path of future world output is unknown, the intention is to determine a likely trend line for World C+C output. Using quarterly C+C output data from the EIA, I constructed the charts that follow.

Data is from the International Energy Statistics page at the EIA website.

The “Big 14” oil producers from 2002 to 2015 are (in order from largest to smallest): Russia, Saudi Arabia, United States, China, Iran, Mexico, Canada, UAE, Venezuela, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, Norway, and Brazil. The Rest of the World (ROW) is all other oil producers besides the “Big 14”.
All charts below (except the natural log charts) are in kb/d.

declinepost/

The Big 14 increased C+C output by about 8 Mb/d from 2010 to 2015.

declinepost/

For the ROW C+C output decreased by about 3 Mb/d from 2010 to 2015.

declinepost/

To consider decline rates we look at the linear trend of the natural log of output. For the ROW the average annual decline rate was 2.69% from 2010 to 2015.

declinepost/

The C+C output of the Big 14 increased at an average annual rate of 2.71% from 2010 to 2015.

declinepost/

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: We All Do This, But…. Pt 2

April 5, 2016

Peak Oil: We All Do This, But…. Pt 2

IMGP0361

I ended last week’s post on the topic of Confirmation Bias* with these questions:

After all, who among us wants to be wrong about important matters on which we’ve staked no small amount of credibility?

But what if being wrong about those important matters winds up being the least of our problems?

It’s human nature to seek out information, evidence, opinions, etc which support positions we’ve taken on a wide variety of topics. Contentious political and social issues provide glaring examples of this from both the left and right sides of the various debates. Climate change is certainly one of the more noteworthy subjects.

So is peak oil. I’m of the clear opinion that our future energy needs are not going to be based on an endless, forever abundant, affordable, easily accessible fossil fuel supply. I’m not alone, of course. There is an equally vocal, and more prominent contingent on the other side of this debate, claiming we peak oil proponents are nothing more than doom-and-gloom messengers who’ve been consistently wrong in predictions.

That’s the starting point.

The conflicts arise in part because of what one relies upon to support his or her position. In some instances, there are actual facts in dispute [some shaded to suit one’s inclinations, of course]. But in too many other instances—peak oil and climate change among them—one side has a clear tendency to not just restrict the facts relied upon to a select and duly-massaged few, they also completely ignore a more substantial and substantive body of evidence.

Offering statements with an assortment of qualifiers [“if”; “possible”; “could”; “potential”, etc] may offer those proponents some assurances that they are essentially correct. But to ignore an entire body of evidence contradicting—or least casting some reasonable doubt—on their staked positions calls into question motivations for disseminating partial truths.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 1

April 1, 2016

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 1

WsideSunset030916A

I’ll confess that I hesitated before starting this series. It was too easy to again just dive into mockery and sarcasm over pieces written several weeks ago by those who refuse to give credence to the concept of peak oil and/or its implications. [It’s also the gateway to yet another round of verbal grenade lobbing which generates a lot of high-five’s with fellow ideologues, but little else.]

I’ve contributed my share of mocking on numerous occasions, to be sure. It’s just part of the ongoing Left-Right hostilities….Tiresome. Pointless. Embarrassing. Damaging … always.

That exercise would have been gratifying to me, but only me. I need to have a more enlightened response to the question posed above. Doing more of the same will produce more of the same, and few of us seem to be benefitting from that strategy these days.

At first glance the subject matter of this series [Friday-only, and for a number of weeks to follow] may seem to be yet another opportunity to take down yet another [two, actually] light-on-facts, right-wing Happy Talk offerings generated for public consumption. Like so many others of similar content and intent, they played well to the far reaches of the Right, judging by most of the comments, and they were consistent with the messages offered in opposition to all things Obama and/or progressives.

Neither those comments nor the material offered by the two writers for their respective conservative publications [American Thinker and Townhall, to be discussed later in this series] were much different than countless others supporting the same essential message: but for President Obama, America would be great, yadda, yadda, yadda; and we have more than enough energy resources available to us for almost forever, yadda, yadda, yadda.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US shale oil peak in 2015

March 30, 2016

US shale oil peak in 2015

The recent EIA drilling productivity reports show a peaking of shale oil production in the main production regions. https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/drilling/

Fig 1: Bakken production change from old/new wells

The 1st panel shows that the number of drilling rigs has dropped sharply but the initial well production per rig has increased from 450 b/d to 750 b/d. The 2^nd panel depicts the monthly production decline in old wells, which has stabilized at around 60 kb/d. This is the volume needed to keep production flat but the 3^rd panel shows that new wells offset only about half of the decline. That is why in panel 4 overall production declines.

Fig 2: History of production change

We see that in 2015 production from new wells declined abruptly. The intersection point with old wells corresponds to the peak in production. The old wells decline has moderated suggesting that more and more old wells have entered their phase of final, flat production at very low levels.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: We All Do This, But…. Pt 1

March 30, 2016

Peak Oil: We All Do This, But…. Pt 1

SaltIsland100315A

Confirmation bias is the tendency of individuals to pay attention to or believe information that confirms the personal values and beliefs they already hold, rather than allowing their beliefs to be changed by new information.
It’s a powerful force that many researchers have suggested plays a key role in the persistence of phenomena such as climate doubt. With an overwhelming abundance of evidence pointing to the existence of anthropogenic climate change, for instance, many scientists have questioned why skepticism continues to be pervasive in society. Sociologists have suggested that the reason has to do with the fact that it’s difficult to change an individual’s worldview simply by presenting new information. Confirmation bias, rather, leads people to seek out evidence — however small or poorly supported — that supports their existing personal beliefs. [1]

Seems to be a simple enough explanation….We can all [present company included] insist that we’re always objective and always looking at all sides of important issues, but … not really. Human nature is what it is. This is true for conservatives and progressives—denials and finger-pointing duly noted.

For the great majority of issues, questions, and concerns that pop up on our daily radar screens, this psychological short-cut is certainly handy, and rarely a cause of any great trouble in our lives. It’s a different story for matters whose scope and impact extends beyond today in our own little worlds.

Climate change is certainly one such issue, as was explored in Chelsea Harvey’s above-referenced Washington Post article about a study which examined the spread of misinformation online. Any number of contentious political/economic/cultural topics likewise fall under that widening umbrella. The report’s lead author offered one of the main conclusions validating the impact of confirmation bias as it relates to the spread of climate change denial:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Intro

March 28, 2016

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Intro

SaltIslandRoadF100715

One-sided stories or news features serve many purposes. Unfortunately for the public, serving their interests is rarely if ever one of the objectives … or outcomes.

Who among us doesn’t want an endless parade of good news about issues great, inconsequential, and all in between? For almost all of us, we have enough issues and concerns and challenges to deal with as it is. Devoting time and effort to learn about or involve ourselves in social and political issues outside of matters directly and personally impacting us right now isn’t usually at the top of our “To-Do” lists. If we could assure ourselves that such issues wouldn’t affect us now or later, then we could indeed completely ignore them and let the chosen others deal with them.

Life tends not to work that way, however. Economic, cultural, and political issues influence and impact most aspects of our lives, even if we rarely acknowledge that fact or notice any direct bearing on our daily lives. Energy considerations—and certainly climate change—can be added to that list.So while few of us have the opportunity, means, or capabilities to immerse ourselves in those broader public conversations and policies, we should at a minimum expect that whatever our level of understanding or awareness, it is the product of an honest and complete dissemination of facts and concerns which will affect us—if not today, then soon enough. Idealistic perhaps, but it would be nice if we didn’t have to plead for truth-telling and full disclosures.

There are few if any business, social, or political endeavors which are not designed to influence others in some way.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Choosing Chaos … or Not

March 23, 2016

Peak Oil: Choosing Chaos … or Not

LB020116B

If/when a petroleum shortage impacts it will concentrate minds wonderfully. But when it comes the window of opportunity could be brief and risky. If things deteriorate too far too fast there could easily be too much chaos for sense to prevail and for us to organize cooperative local alternative systems. [1]

“Too much chaos” is certainly one problem-solving approach! Perhaps it should not be the first one, however.

Unfortunately, the more often the more prominent voices—those unwilling to share with followers the full scope of our future fossil fuel/energy supply challenges—are given forums for public consumption, the greater the odds that “too much chaos” will be the strategy available to all of us.

Of course, none of this is going to happen next month or next year, or perhaps not for several more years. But that’s not a reason to set it aside for now. The scope of adaptation to a diminished and ever-diminishing thereafter fossil fuel supply does not lend itself to anything close to a quick-fix.

The challenge now is all the greater because we’re presently in the midst of an over-supply of oil, and prices have dropped to or near historic lows. That’s obviously not a problem for consumers … today.

So why is oil so cheap? There are various contributing factors relating both to supply (production rate) and demand. The main supply factor is that production of U.S. shale oil has increased rapidly to 3.5 million barrels a day, along with the renewed oil production from Iraq and Libya. Saudi produce one third of OPEC’s output, and this time they have refused to cut production because they want to keep (grow?) their share of the market.
At the same time, demand has fallen because the global economy (especially China) has slowed down.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: peak oil

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Parliamentary group warns that global fossil fuels could peak in less than 10 years

Post navigation

Latest Posts